It's that time again...I somehow think you'll enjoy this chapter ;) I don't want to give too much away, though. Happy reading! Also, to those who have me on their alerts, sorry for spamming you this week with non-SPN stuff, I was transferring a story that was already up and complete on Archive of our Own. I'm still not abandoning you guys, even if I might dip my toes in other fandoms.

Chapter 4

"What made you change your mind?"

They were back at the same park at the same bench where they first had met. Aaron did not look more pleased to see Henry than he had been at their first meeting.

"You were adamant not to have anything to do with us," Henry went on. "And not that I am not glad that you changed your mind, but…"

"I did not do it for you."

Henry had not expected Aaron Sandburg's call. After the last time, he was sure he would not see the man again. And, considering Henry's rather insensitive comments, he did not feel he had any right to keep pestering Sandburg. Not everyone was cut up to have regular contact with the supernatural and, considering what Aaron Sandburg had been through in his life, he deserved a peaceful existence and no interference from the Men of Letters.

A cold stab of suspicion entered Henry's mind.

"It was not Arthur Ellison," he said. "Or was it?"

Aaron flinched.

"And if it was?"

Henry hesitated.

"Arthur is…not like us."

Aaron cast him a scathing glance.

"What makes you think you are like me?" he challenged.

This was going just about as well as the first time, Henry thought.

"You want to help the world," he blurted out. "Your profession shows this clearly. You are a healer. Even if you do not want to have anything to do with our organization, you want to help people."

Aaron was staring into the distance.

"Well, I know what it's like to have no one want to help you. Arthur Ellison is of a different, sort, yes."

Henry nodded, encouraged that he had managed to find some common ground with the other man.

"I am afraid he is unreliable," he admitted. "We need him. He provides us with certain items that would be dangerous in circulation. But he only cares about the profit he can make."

Aaron clenched his fists.

"I noticed."

"Then why work with him?" Henry asked. "What does he have on you?"

He felt Aaron hesitate.

"It's complicated. But I think…I think he and I are waiting for something to happen."

Henry did not like the sound of that.

"Something bad?"

Aaron shrugged.

"I don't know. But we're connected, in ways that I cannot explain to you. He knows that. I think he's always known that."

Henry wondered if that was not the reason Arthur Ellison mentioned the boxes to him in the first place.

"Three boxes," he said. "There are supposed to be three boxes. We only have the one."

Aaron nodded curtly.

"And Arthur has the key."

"What do you think is inside?" Henry asked. "They wouldn't tell me. My superiors. Not before my initiation."

Aaron shrugged.

"Inside is something that should not come out. I should think that's enough as far as knowledge is concerned, Mr. Winchester."

Henry looked at him shrewdly.

"And yet, here you are."

If he expected an answer from Aaron, he did not get one.

"You do not trust me," he deduced.

Aaron got up.

"I do not trust anyone, Mr. Winchester. However, since you people are so knowledgeable, maybe you can figure something out for me."

Henry raised his eyebrows. He had not expected Aaron to ask for favors, and he was about to say it was not fair for him to demand anything from the Men of Letters, when he was so uncooperative himself. He bit his tongue. His superiors trusted him. They still needed Aaron.

"Figure out what?" he asked neutrally.

Aaron fumbled in his pocket and took out a piece of paper, handing it to Henry. There was nothing on it except a drawing of a wolf and something that looked like a giant cat.

"Is that a jaguar?"

"A black jaguar, yes, technically," Aaron agreed. "People refer to them as panthers more commonly. Like in that children's book – Bagheera, you know."

Henry might have been a father to a young boy, but his interest in the Men of Letters kept him away from children's books. John did not need fantasies anyway. The real world – the actual real world with its supernatural problems – would be enough for him.

"That is Arthur Ellison's handwriting, by the way," Aaron said casually, which was even more surprising as Henry would not have pegged Arthur Ellison as one who would draw cuddly animals. "He took something a shaman gave him and he dreamed of them. So did I."

Henry stared at him.

"What do you mean?" he asked sharply.

Aaron bit his lips.

"I do not know. But I somehow think the wolf is a part of me."

xxxXXXxxx

Sam and Blair drove back to the Bunker. Blair could not help noticing that Sam was looking a bit distracted.

"Hey, you alright?" he asked. "I mean, I didn't stop to think whether it wasn't a bad time or anything to drop in on you. Of course, I had no idea that you had a place we could drop in on."

Sam shrugged as he led the way back into the Bunker.

"Yeah," he said. "This is a new development. I think you're visiting us on our one-month anniversary, actually."

Blair grinned.

"Oh, goody, a housewarming party. Although you probably had one already. Are you still in touch with the…uhhh…angel?"

He regretted the topic when Sam's face became closed off.

"Castiel. We had a few differences. Apparently he doesn't want the same thing we do."

There was a sharpness in Sam's tone that Blair could recognize easily. He had heard himself use it plenty of times when people did Jim wrong. So whatever beef Sam had with Castiel, it probably had to do more with Dean than with him. He wondered briefly if people were even allowed to have beefs with angels, then dismissed the pseudo-philosophical question, since the Winchesters were not normal people anyway.

Sam set to work digging up books and files that he placed on the table. Blair offered to help, but Sam simply muttered something about people staying out of his system. From the little Blair had seen some of Sam's penchant for organizing thing, his minor in psychology was giving the clear diagnosis of OCD. Blair decided to leave him to it and sat down, dragging one of the old books for perusal.

"So," he began, his attention half on the book, half on Sam. "How have you been doing?"

Sam shrugged.

"The usual, I guess. Killing monsters. Averting the end of the world."

"Another one, eh?" Blair asked.

Sam shook his head.

"You have no idea."

"Thinking of retiring?" Blair asked casually.

He noticed the blank look in Sam's eyes.

"Tried that, actually. Didn't work out."

There was a story somewhere in there, but Blair did not think it was his right to pry. Sam eyed him thoughtfully.

"It's hard to try for normal when you know the world isn't normal at all," Sam finally said. "And unless you can take care of everything that's out there, it's always going to gnaw at you. Because even though you have the illusion of safety, you know no one is safe unless you make them."

Jim had told Blair something similar once in the early years of their partnership, when Blair had asked him if he could imagine being something other than a cop. Then, Blair had chucked it up to Sentinel instincts. Now, he wasn't so sure.

"Some would say you've done enough, though," he commented. "Maybe you should let others make the world safe."

Sam looked tired.

"My dad used to say: if not us, then who? So it's always gonna be us."

"That's not a very healthy attitude," Blair pointed out.

"And yet, here you are," Sam said. "Hanging out with us. How's that for safe and healthy?"

Blair chuckled.

"Hey, I'm an adrenaline junkie through and through, man. I can't help myself. From what I noticed, it runs in the family. If my grandfather hadn't cut my mother off and if the Men of Letters hadn't died out, I'd have been part of this Judas Initiative, right?"

Sam shrugged.

"Maybe. But trust me, Blair, this isn't the kind of legacy you want to have. Our ancestors – hunters, men of letters, whatever – they thought about the good of the world – which is understandable. But they didn't really think about us. Me and Dean, we're doomed to repeat the circle. Unless we break it."

"How do you mean break it?" Blair asked curiously.

Sam shifted in his seat.

"I mean do something drastic. Definitive. Make sure that at least one type of nasties won't bother us again."

Blair wondered what Sam was up to. Sam did not seem inclined to be more specific, though, and Blair knew he could try prying, but he still would not be getting anywhere.

"Do you think that's what they were trying to do?" he asked. "My grandfather and yours – and Jim's too, I suppose? Were they trying to do something drastic?"

Sam cleared his throat.

"Good question. We won't know unless we look at these, though."

Blair got the hint.

"Right," he smirked. "You're still allergic to personal conversations. Got it."

Sam huffed.

"No, that's Dean," he corrected. "I just don't have anything worth confessing."

Blair very much doubted that, but he knew the Winchesters enough to realize how they worked. It was nearly impossible to get something out of them. At times, Blair thought it was easier to get Jim to talk about his feelings. The thought had him chuckling.

They worked for a while in silence. Blair almost forgot they were looking for something specific. He was so fascinated by the information presented to him. Secret societies, behind-the-lines saboteurs, rituals and spells and cursed objects. The anthropologist in him was in heaven. He would have given anything to study an organization like the Men of Letters. Of course, he would have given anything to study Sam and Dean and their way of life, but he was sure Sam and Dean would veto the idea quite vehemently.

Sam cleared his throat again and suddenly started coughing. Blair looked up in concern. It did not sound good. He was out of his chair before he realized it, cautiously approaching Sam, who was now bent over, still in the clutches of his coughing fit.

"Hey man, are you OK? What can I do?"

Sam raised a hand to wave him aside.

"I'm fine," he gasped. "Fine."

He continued coughing. Blair could not see his face, but this was serious, and he had no idea what to do.

"I'm calling Dean," he decided.

"No!"

The refusal was sharp and clear. Sam must have used all the breath he still had in his lungs to say it. Blair shook his head and went to the kitchen. He found a glass and poured some water in it, then turned back to the library.

Sam was leaning his head against the table. There was a tissue in his hand and Blair spotted the red splotches on it.

"Oh my God!"

Sam straightened up immediately and stuffed the tissue in his pocket.

"Sam," Blair went on. "This is serious. Hospital serious."

Sam shook his head.

"Nothing a hospital can do. Trust me. Can I have that water now?"

Blair realized he had been holding the glass just out of reach and quickly handed it to Sam. He watched as Sam drank with small sips. Either his throat was bothering him, or he was afraid it was all going to come back up again.

Blair felt at a loss. He needed to help, he just did not know how. Something was telling him he was in over his head, but he could not just sit with his hands in his pockets while someone was in obvious pain.

"OK," he began. "Let's take this step by step. Did you hurt yourself? Got knocked about in a case or something like that? Because if you did…"

Sam shook his head quickly.

"I'm not bleeding internally," he said, then shrugged. "Or maybe I am. Who knows?"

Blair frowned. This was getting him nowhere. If he did not get some satisfying answers soon, he would have to drag Sam to the hospital himself. Yes, Sam was way taller than he was, and several times heavier, but Blair had lugged uncooperative giants before. He could do it if he put his mind to it.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't drag you to the nearest hospital," he said, trying to keep his tone firm.

It was a tone of voice that Jim sometimes responded to. Sam, however, was a different matter altogether.

"I can't go to the hospital. They wouldn't be able to do anything."

"Why not?" Blair insisted. "Sam, what did you do to yourself?"

Sam bowed his head, clearly exhausted by the coughing and the argument. Blair decided enough was enough.

"I'm calling Dean," he said, grabbing his phone.

The hand Sam fastened around his arm had a surprisingly strong grip for someone who had spent minutes coughing up his lungs.

"Dean knows," Sam said firmly. "He knows about this. And he also knows – no, he needs to know that there is nothing he can do."

Blair sat down next to Sam, feeling his heart grow cold. If Sam had not hurt himself then…what was it? An illness? Something that could not be cured? Something terminal, maybe?

"Have you at least gone to a doctor?" he asked.

Sam hesitated.

"I've talked to…a specialist."

Given the vague answer and the nature of Sam's job a specialist could have been anything from a real doctor to some voodoo practitioner.

"And?" Blair prompted.

Sam straightened up.

"And this has to happen. Understand?"

"No," Blair replied without missing a bit. "What's this exactly? What are you doing to yourself?"

He did not know why he was insisting. Sam was an adult and not his responsibility. Yet Blair felt everyone around him was his responsibility, and much as people called that unhealthy, he could not let it go. Maybe it was the shaman in him. Maybe it was the way he had grown up with a mother who did not believe in responsibility, not even towards her son.

"Look, I'm sure you mean well," Sam said."But…drop it, OK? It's done, anyway. I don't think it can be reversed. I just have to see this through and make sure it's worth it, you know?"

Blair did not know. He understood the concept of sacrifice on an intellectual level – he was an anthropologist, after all, and more than this had been working for a long time with people who risked their lives on a daily basis. He would not have hesitated to risk his own life, either, given the right motivation. But flying headfirst into danger was one thing, allowing yourself to die slowly because of some half-understood cause was another. And Blair might have been able to get behind the former, but he had some trouble accepting the latter.

Sam must have sensed Blair's inner turmoil. He pushed another book towards him.

"How about we focus on stuff we can actually fix for a change," he said.

He himself turned his attention to his own book, making it clear that he would accept no other suggestions from Blair on the topic of his health. Blair rolled his eyes but decided to follow Sam's lead. He was not giving this up, though. And, first chance he got, he would talk to Dean. Sam might say all he wanted that Dean knew there was nothing he could do, but Blair knew Dean, and he was sure Dean would never resign himself when his brother's life was at stake.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

Dean watched as Ellison browsed through the catalogue of items that Carl Edwards had owned. The antique shop, in Dean's opinion, looked the same as any other, which meant stuffy, snobbish, and with potentially hazardous cursed material lying all over the place.

"We should really get over the need to collect stuff owned by dead people," he commented.

Jim raised his eyebrows.

"It offers them a connection to the past," he commented.

Dean shook his head.

"It also exposes them to all kinds of supernatural crap."

"Don't you think you're exaggerating?" Jim asked. "After all, people have been owning antiques for ages. Not everyone who keeps their grandmother's old rocking chair gets cursed by it."

Dean turned his attention to a cardboard box whose contents were strewn on the counter. Clearly, Carl had been busy with it when he had died.

"How do you know they're not cursed?" he challenged. "Curses don't necessarily mean you drop dead instantly, you know. They can be insidious little bastards. They can range from a stubbed toe to divorce within a year of marriage."

Jim huffed.

"I knew I should have told Carolyn to get rid of her great-aunt's wall clock."

Dean looked up.

"Who?"

Jim grimaced.

"Ex-wife. A long time ago. In another life. Anyway, that marriage was cursed way before great aunt Lucille's clock came into the picture."

Dean snorted. The more you learned about some people…

"I have no idea how the bulk of my grandfather's estate got to this guy," Jim said. "He wasn't even from Lebanon. He took frequent business trips to Kansas, true…"

"Probably to visit the Men of Letters," Dean said. "What do you know about the guy anyway?"

Jim shrugged.

"Nothing. He was found dead in his shop one morning."

Dean frowned.

"Just like this guy."

Jim put the inventory back on the counter.

"Yeah, except I'm pretty sure there was no missing brain involved or I would have found out about it."

"Who sold his business though?" Dean asked. "The contents of his shop, why are they here in Lebanon right across from the Men of Letters Warehouse?"

Jim rubbed a hand over his face.

"I don't know. I could call my dad – we've been talking a bit over the past few years, for what it's worth. But he never liked to talk about his father. Apparently, Arthur Ellison was a level of materialistic that made even my business-driven father uncomfortable."

Not Men of Letters material then, Dean thought. So what was he doing with the likes of Henry Winchester and Aaron Sandburg?

"You know, it's weird," he said. "Sandburg's father told his daughter to clear out of his house, your dad didn't like his dad…"

Jim nodded impatiently.

"What's your point?"

Dean tapped his fingers against the counter.

"Our dad thought our grandfather walked out on him when he was a child. Turns out he actually sacrificed himself and our dad never knew, but the point is, these three guys had an obvious thing between them: a connection, something that they knew and guarded. Now, Sam and I found out that we were meant to be "legacies" – you know, Men of Letters, if the organization did not become extinct."

Jim nodded, looking intrigued.

"OK…and?"

Dean looked pointedly at him.

"Well, what were you and Sandburg meant to be?"

Jim frowned, growing tense.

"I don't like this idea of someone playing God with my life, Winchester," he growled.

"Trust me, I get it," Dean assured him. "But they were obviously trying to do just that. But why? What were they prepping us for?"

He turned his attention to the small wooden box he spotted on the table. A key lay next to it.

"Hey, wasn't Sandburg's grandfather supposed to retrieve a box from Europe?" he asked, bending over it.

"Yeah," Jim confirmed. "That's what your brother said. But it can't be that box, you guys have that one, don't you?"

Dean shrugged.

"Sam would have to give you a clearer answer to that."

He picked up the box. It was empty, but there were small marks against the wooden surface. A closer investigation told him they looked suspiciously like claw marks.

"What the hell?" he muttered.

He blinked against the sudden dizzy spell that assaulted him and dropped the box as he gripped the counter to hold himself upright.

"Winchester?" Jim asked sharply. "You OK?"

Dean shook his head to clear away the dizziness. It didn't work. A pounding headache was now creeping over him. He looked down to see red dots suddenly appearing on the table. He placed his hand to his nose and felt the wetness of blood there.

"That can't be good," he said.

Jim's hands suddenly fastened around his arms keeping him upright. Dean felt himself being pushed into a chair.

"Here, sit down," Jim said. "Can you tell me what's wrong?"

Dean had absolutely no idea what was wrong. Except that his head did not feel like his own all of a sudden and he was freezing and burning at the same time, and he was convinced in some dim part of his mind that he was dying.

At least Sammy's not here this time, he thought, but he did not know if it was good or bad. A selfish part of him wanted Sam there, wanted the comfort of his brother to be the last thing he felt.

Jim shook him out of his stupor.

"Hey! I don't know what you think you're doing, but stay with me. Got it?"

Something had a hold of his throat making it difficult to breathe. Maybe he would stop breathing altogether soon. And suddenly Dean understood what was happening to him.

"Box," he gasped.

Jim looked at him like he was delirious.

"What?"

Dean took a deep breath. If something was not done soon, it would be too late for him.

"Close the box….only…careful…don't touch it with your bare hand…"

Jim glanced at the box. Dean very much hoped he was not going to start arguing logic with him right now. Thankfully, Ellison knew how to handle an emergency. He took out a scarf from his pocket and wrapped his hand around it, closing the box.

Dean gasped. The sudden reemergence of air made him lightheaded. He bowed his head trying to get a hold of himself.

Jim bent over him to check him over.

"Dean?" he asked uncertainly. "You with me?"

Right, now you know my first name, Dean thought and snickered.

"You're not getting hysterical on me, are you?" Jim asked. "Do I have to slap you?"

"Bet you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Dean commented.

He lifted his head and took a deep breath. The dizziness was gone. His nose wasn't bleeding anymore. He felt a bit shaky, but that was all.

"What the hell was that?" Jim asked.

His eyes were wide and he was looking at Dean up and down.

"Your heartbeat was going through the roof," he added. "I thought you were going to have a coronary."

Dean snorted.

"Sam would have loved that," he said. "He already says I'm eating too much bacon."

Jim snorted.

"I'm sure it wasn't the bacon that did that to you."

Dean pointed at the box.

"It was that. Something from inside. Or that used to be inside. I think I know how Carl Edwards died. And, if this has to do with the box that Sandburg's grandfather recovered from Europe, it's quite possible that's how your grandfather died as well.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

It had reached the town. It reached out with its senses and sniffed the cold air. And then, it shuddered. The town was warded. It was more than the Men of Letters wards – they were dead, they did not matter. There was something else close by. Something that frightened it. The presence of a Guardian – but there had not been Guardians in that area for such a long time.

For the first time since it had felt its time had come, it was starting to feel doubt.

I'm experimenting a bit with timelines and structure here, going back and forth to the past and to the present. I hope it's not excessively confusing. I do have a plan. See you all next weekend!