glasslogic

Sam waited in the shadows until he saw

Dean hurry out of the rundown, clapboard house. He stepped out to meet him and they walked down the sidewalk together, brushing against each other occasionally as they paced rapidly towards a better part of town.

Dean’s face looked grim, but when Sam opened his mouth to ask what he had found out, the vampire gave a sharp shake and they continued walking in silence until they reached the Impala and slid inside.

“So, what’s the news?”

“Nothing good.” Dean checked the mirrors to see if anyone was paying them attention, then pulled smoothly away from the curb. He had wrested the keys away from Sam with the argument that he knew the area, and Sam had let him have them. Dean took far more pleasure in driving than Sam ever had; he made even short trips look like grand adventure.

“One of my colleagues took care of a problem out here a few months back. Some jackass decided what he wanted most out of his undeath was a harem of busty babes to help keep him busy during the long nights. For a species that forms permanent individual bonds, it’s surprisingly not uncommon. Morons. Sometimes I think the solution would be to just kill off every one of them around that hasn’t found a mate yet, and threaten the pair bonds with their partner’s final death if they reproduce. No one asks my opinions, though.” He shook his head. “Anyways, he wasn’t too careful about who he was grabbing, and there was some unpleasantness involving a mayor’s step-daughter, and so on and so forth. We thought everything had been cleaned up neatly, but apparently in the haste of the scorch and burn, one of the involuntary inductees got overlooked. The guy who handled it is busy in the northwest now on another matter, so the whatever,” Dean made a swirly motion towards his own head, “tapped me.”

“What’s she doing? I mean, she has to be doing something bad, right? To get your attention?”

Dean looked even grimmer. “Apparently, the guy had so many new converts running around, he wasn’t able to control them properly through the haze of their awakenings. She got away from him and went home. Confused, starving...” The vampire sighed. “There’s no human equivalent to that kind of hunger.”

“What did she do, Dean?”

“She walked into her house and ripped her kids’ throats out. All three of them. Then after gorging on their blood, she must have woken up enough to realize what she had done, and went completely crazy. Ran off into the swamp. Which is, unfortunately, where the real problem started.”

“Killing her children and being crazy isn’t the real problem?” Sam asked incredulously.

“Well, the crazy part is. She’s found an abandoned church moldering out in the bayou, and she’s building it a new congregation.”

“And I don’t suppose this new congregation is comprised of voluntary recruits?”

“We should be so lucky. It’s comprised of any kid she can get her hands on when she goes wandering the fringes of the city after dark. A whole building full of half-starved, undersized little vampires. Like a powder keg just waiting for a match.”

“Jesus.”

Sam had been throwing up in the bushes for almost twenty minutes when the sun set three days later. Dean had started off patting his back and trying to offer some comfort. But he was abysmally bad at it, and finally Sam snarled at him to just keep his damn distance for awhile.

“It had to be done,” Dean offered, when Sam could stand up more than five minutes and lurched over towards the car, still with a greenish cast, but without the wild look so much to his eyes.

“I didn’t say it didn’t, I just... I could hear them screaming, Dean. And it doesn’t matter if they were vampires, they were kids. And we burned them alive.” He was grateful Dean hadn’t made any smart remarks about squeamishness. He was proof against a lot of things that would have sent the average citizen screaming into the night, but this, thank God, was not one of them.

“They were monsters, Sam. Little pint-sized plague carriers that would have been completely uncontrolled as soon as they realized they didn’t have to stay in that fire-trap with Loony Lucy. A child’s brain... well, as badly as most adult brains handle it, a kid’s brain just can’t handle the change at all. They are always insane, and they are always out of control. They don’t form the bonds that help stabilize adult vampires, and they don’t seem drawn to form nests either. They just kill and destroy until they get put down; they were doomed as soon as she touched them. We didn’t kill them, Sam, we just stopped them from walking around.”

“I know. You told me all of this.” Sam leaned his forehead against the cool metal of the Impala. “That doesn’t help much now, though. We boarded them in and set the place on fire. And they woke up, and they were still just kids.”

“You wanted to come,” Dean reminded him.

Sam stood up and glared. “Give me the damn keys and shut up.”

Later in the night, they lay twined together in the cheap cotton of the motel sheets. Sweat slicked Sam’s skin and his heart was still slowing down from their... activities. Dean’s tongue was sliding lazily over the still-oozing puncture wounds in his throat as Sam idly stroked a hand across his back.

Finally, Dean pulled back and sat up. “So, are you going to stick around?”

“With you or in Louisiana?”

“Whichever.” The vampire shrugged.

“What are you going to do?”

“I asked first.”

“Well, I’m certainly staying in the area for a little while, and I don’t mind your company, so I guess it’s your call.”

“Staying?”

Sam rolled over and snagged a local paper off the floor. He tossed on to Dean’s lap.

“Page eight.”

The vampire flipped through and scanned the paper. He gave a low whistle. “This all the work of one spook, you think?’

“Four deaths? Possibly. I did some research when you were out communing with your fellows or whatever that was earlier. The place has been a hot spot of spirit activity since the factory was built, but it’s only since the expansion has been going on that it’s been violent like this. It’s not just the deaths; there’s vandalism, accidents. The place is a disaster.”

Dean lowered the paper and gave the hunter a long look. “You sure you’re ready to jump back on the horse?”

Sam sighed and flopped back. “I can’t change anything, all I’m doing is turning in circles inside my brain until I’m so fucking frustrated I want to scream. I’m a hunter. I don’t know anything else anymore.”

“You think about what Singer said?”

“About walking away? Getting a normal job and trying to stick with the mainstream?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought about it. But... I tried that before and people got hurt. I don’t think they’re going to let me go like that. And I don’t think there is anywhere I can run that would be far enough away, you know?”

“Who was hurt?”

“My fiancée.” Sam smiled bitterly. “My beautiful, smart fiancée Jess. She didn’t want anything but to build a life together, and she didn’t know a damn thing about the supernatural. Then one evening while I was out studying late, the same monster that killed my mother tracked her down, pinned her to the ceiling of our apartment and burned her alive.”

“So you ran away from all that jazz and back into the shadows of the hunting life.”

“At least out here I expect to meet nightmares and monsters around every corner,” Sam snapped.

Dean held his hands up conciliatorily. “I wasn’t judging you. And I’m sorry about the girl.”

“Yeah, well, after the fit he had thrown when I went to college in the first place, I thought my dad would be thrilled to see me back. But instead, he couldn’t seem to get rid of me fast enough. When he found out what happened to Jess, he practically shoved the Impala’s keys in my hands and pushed me out the door. Didn’t say a thing about it, just told me how sorry he was, and promised that when he had enough information, we would kill it together.” Sam snorted. “He wouldn’t tell me a damn thing. I told him I would hunt it down on my own; he wished me luck and walked away.”

“Did you try?”

“Yes. I got absolutely nowhere. Eventually, I started taking jobs I could make a difference for, save people I could still help. But I’ve always been waiting for that phone call. Waiting for him to tell me it’s time. I guess now I know why he didn’t want me involved.”

Dean brushed the paper off the bed and lay back down on his stomach. “Which brings you right back to hunting.”

Sam watched him with dark eyes. “I can’t do a damn thing about the demons, can’t find my dad, but this is something I can do. The factory’s down the road and I’m at loose ends -- I’m going to swing by and take a look.”

“Well, I suppose I could hold off on my spa day for a little while longer.”

Sam closed his eyes and tilted his head back, feeling strangely peaceful for all the upheaval in his life lately.

“Thank you.”

“Nice of them to shut this place down for the week.”

“It will be longer than a week,” Sam grumbled, slapping at a mosquito. “A lot longer if they can’t do something about the problems they keep having. Can’t get anything done if the employees are afraid to work.”

“How many things do you think they will try before they work down to salting the ground and having the place exorcized?” Dean asked dryly, walking backwards beside Sam and keeping an eye on the surroundings.

“I think it’s a pretty long list to reach that point, not that it would help much anyways by now. The damn thing is living in the very walls.” He gave Dean an irritated look. “And what the hell are you doing? You said there’s nothing out there. We would have noticed if we were being followed, it’s not like there was a lot of traffic on the road out; this place is deserted.”

“Maybe not deserted enough,” the vampire muttered.

Sam stopped dead. “Is there something out there, or not?”

Dean squinted up at the sun, then blinked and shook his head. “It’s midday, Sam. With the sun up that high, I can’t sense squat. I just... don’t think we’re alone.” He waved one frustrated hand towards a huge open pit where the forest debris from the latest expansion effort was still burning after the crew’s early morning efforts. Before a machine operator hung a hand in a conveyor belt and the decision had been made just to shut the whole operation down for a few days and try to figure out what the hell was going on. “That mess isn’t helping.”

“I can’t believe they just left a massive bonfire like that raging without anyone watching it.”

The vampire snorted. “What’s it going to get out of control and torch? The mud? It’s been raining here for weeks and it’s in a pit. They probably couldn’t afford to pay anyone to watch it anyways, not after the shit that’s been going down around here.”

“None of which we have seen any sign of yet.”

“Maybe we have to break into a building before the locals start getting agitated.”

“Maybe.” The hunter stepped up to the edge of the fire pit and stared down into the flames and glowing embers. “I don’t think Smokey the Bear would approve,” Sam said solemnly.

Dean move up beside him and quirked a wry smile. “I don’t think I approve. How big is this thing? You could fit three or four houses in this hole, and this isn’t the first burning. You think an expansion really requires them to clear-cut this much land?”

Sam shrugged, but before he could reply, he heard an odd buzzing and a sharp yelp beside him. He spun to face Dean and was just able to take in shocked green eyes and a long, dark shaft sticking out of the vampire’s chest as he staggered, before two more shafts bloomed in his shoulder and hip and he stumbled over the edge, sliding out of sight into the burning brush below.

“DEAN!”

Sam looked frantically for a way down into the pit that wouldn’t land him directly in the flames.

“Come away from there, Sam!” a horribly familiar voice called from behind him.

“Gordon?!”

Sam heard the distinctive sound of a shotgun cocking behind him and slowly turned, hands spread out to his sides.

The other hunter was stepping out from behind a nearby shed, shotgun held at the ready. Behind him, two other men were stepping slowly out of the underbrush holding crossbows.

“Your little vampire friend is already done for. There was dead man’s blood on those arrows; he’s not coming back up from there.”

“What are you doing here, Gordon?” Sam hissed.

“Doing what needs to be done. I knew there was something wrong with you, Winchester, back when you chose vampires over your own kind. So I followed, and I watched, and I asked around. You know what I found out?”

“I know.”

“Yeah,” Gordon nodded slowly. “I suppose you do. Traitor.”

“I didn’t do any of the things you said I did, Gordon! I stopped you from killing people who weren’t hurting anyone, that was it!”

“People? You didn’t save any people from me. Those were walking corpses. Blood-sucking monsters who prey on the innocent and spread their disease to real, honest-to-God people, who can’t defend themselves. Vampires, Sam. Like the one you’re fucking. Oh,” he smiled broadly, “but I guess not anymore.”

Sam’s hands balled into fists and he dropped them to his sides. “You don’t know shit about me, Gordon.”

“I know you have demon blood running in your veins; I know murder and holocaust blows in your wake. I know you side with monsters against your own kind and have taken death into your bed. I know everything I need to know about you, Sam. Everything I need to feel completely justified in wiping your stain off the planet.”

Sam looked furious, but he was outnumbered and surrounded, and Dean...

“How did you find me?”

Gordon snorted. “You’re not that stealthy. I lost you a few times, but you were easy enough to pick back up. Haskell to Singer, to Louisiana. I figured if you still considered yourself any kind of hunter at all, you would have to check this place out eventually once you were in the area. And you don’t need to worry about the ghosts anymore. We took care of that earlier while scouting out the place. Damn poltergeists.”

“Thanks,” Sam gritted.

“No need to thank me, this has all been my pleasure.” Gordon leveled the shotgun. “Now, time to meet your maker, Winchester. Maybe he’ll take mercy on your worthle--”

“Hey!”

The hunters all spun to face the speaker. A man in a construction hat was walking towards them, waving his arms. Behind him, emerging from the dirt road through the trees, were a number of vehicles, some with official logos emblazoned on their sides.

“Hey! You guys can’t be here! What the hell are you people doing out here?!”

Sam took advantage of Gordon’s distraction to flee towards the factory’s ramshackle buildings. A blast rang out and he flinched at the sound of lead peppering the metal sheathing of the shack corner he had just turned. Footsteps squelched in the mud behind him and Sam poured on the speed, turning another corner so he was out of sight, then ducking into the forest.

He just prayed he remembered where the Impala was, and that he could find it before anyone else did.

It was sunset by the time Sam found the car. He had spent half the day creeping through the woods, getting turned around and avoiding both the officials crawling all over the place and keeping an eye out for Gordon or his men.

He patted his jeans for the keys, then slumped down in the front seat and closed his eyes with a groan. Dean had the keys. He could clearly see in his mind’s eye earlier that day as the vampire snatched them out of the air and slid them into a pocket when they had first arrived at the factory site. Dean...

Sam rubbed furiously at his eyes. He didn’t want to think about the vampire. At least not until he was safe and had the privacy to deal with the loss on his own terms. His nostrils suddenly flared. He had been so relieved to reach the Impala, and his nose so clogged from spending all day skulking through brush that reeked like a forest fire, that the stench in the car had gone completely over his head. What the...

There was a soft jangle as something slid over the bench seat and landed on the leather next to him. He stared at the Impala’s keys for a moment then turned his head to see blackened fingers sliding away again.

“Don’t.”

The raspy voice froze him in place before he could turn all the way around.

“Dean?” he asked harshly.

“You expecting... someone... else?”

“How did you get here?”

“Painfully.”

“What... what can I do to help?”

“Drive. Somewhere... safe. Need to feed... not here.”

Sam swallowed, trying to see into the backseat in the rearview mirror, but all he saw was darkness. “You need me to find you some blood? You said you can drink animal, right?”

Silence from the backseat.

“Dean?”

“Too much... damage.”

“Then what? How can I help you?”

A sound like a sigh drifted to his ears, and a horrible crackling noise as something shifted on the Impala’s upholstery. Sam didn’t want to imagine what kind of injuries Dean had to have sustained to make that kind of sound, but long years of dealing with horrors were filling in the blanks.

“Just... drive.”

He drove for what seemed like hours. Talking was obviously an incredible hardship on the vampire, so Sam shut up and didn’t ask him anything else, just concentrated on getting out of the area. Going back to the motel was obviously out of the question. He picked a highway at random and drove away from the city lights, choosing turns and off-roads that led further away from civilization, seeking darkness and privacy. Finally a hand settled on his shoulder and the vampire rasped. “Here. Pull... over.”

Sam did. Pulling the Impala off onto a stretch of grass so overhung with cypress that it was almost like a cove. He turned the engine off and waited, hands in his lap and eyes straight ahead.

“Dean--”

“Shhhh.” Sam hadn’t heard movement this time, but the voice was almost in his ear, and the stench was so close, it was nauseating. “Shhhh, Sam. Won’t... hurt you. Still, don’t... fight.”

Something brushed against him and he tilted his head without being told. Fingers tangled in his hair, crackling as they tightened, Sam could feel flakes of burned skin settling against his bared throat. Dry lips rasped against neck. His fingers clenched on his own knees as the vampire bit into him, but he held obediently still, letting his breath out in a slow hiss. Neither the acid agony nor the easy pleasure slid through him during this feeding, just a ripping sensation as the blood was drawn from his veins, continuing on and on until his consciousness drained down into blackness.

He stirred awake to lights so bright they burned through his lids and an irritating beep that wouldn’t let him stay asleep. The squeak of rubber soles on a polished floor and the low grade hum of conversation brought him closer to true awareness. He finally gave up and opened his eyes when he heard someone approach the bed.

“Good morning Mr. Stillwater. How are you feeling?”

Sam watched with detachment as the nurse checked the machines beside the bed and then leaned over and shined a penlight into his eyes.

He made a disgruntled sound and tried to pull away.

“Now, don’t be like that. You don’t want to be one of those patients we like better unconscious than awake, do you? If you’re good, you might even be able to get out of here today. After the police are done talking to you, and the doctor says you can go.”

The mention of police chased away the last of the fuzzy feeling in Sam’s head. The nurse chatted while she finished whatever she was doing, not seeming to mind his lack of answers, then took her cart and headed back into the corridor with a promise to let the doctor know he was awake. The door was closed behind her for barely a minute before it eased back open and a familiar figure slipped into the room. He wore gloves, and the hoodie under his leather jacket was tugged down over his forehead until it almost touched the tops of his oversized, dark sunglasses. But he moved easily, and what little skin Sam could see was clean and pale.

Sam smiled despite the confusion of his surroundings. “Dean.”

With Dean’s assistance, it hadn’t been hard to slip out of the hospital without answering any questions after all. The only thing he had been suffering was the effects of a severe vampire bite, and an entire day in the care of medical professionals had taken care of that. Mostly.

Sam curled up in the Impala’s passenger seat. He felt horribly cold still and the sunlight beating against his skin was wonderful. That the vampire next to him wasn’t as happy with the experience didn’t do anything to dim Sam’s own pleasure in the sensation.

“You could enjoy that a little less openly,” Dean groused.

“I’m not bitching about the twenty-four hours I spent unconscious in the hospital having who knows how much blood and fluids pumped into me after you practically drained me dry; the least you can do it shut up and let me enjoy being alive.”

“Is that a dig?’

Sam raised his head from the seat and gave Dean and pointed look. “How about we snipe later and you tell me what happened back at the factory instead? When I saw you go into the fire -- I thought you were dead!”

Dean smirked. “I’m always dead. Ish.”

“You know what I mean,” Sam growled.

“Yeah,” Dean sighed, “I do. There weren’t any other options, Sam. The number one rule of my people is to not let yours know we even exist. Getting shot and climbing back out of that pit a little singed to wreck some vengeance would have been fine, if the arrows hadn’t been soaked in dead man’s blood. Gordon and his assholes of unspecified number already knew I was a vampire, obviously. If they had seen me moving around instead of paralyzed after shooting me full of that crap, I would have had to kill them all. That’s not exactly a terrible idea anyways, but we didn’t know how many there were. Could have been two, could have been half a dozen lurking around. Even, as it turns out, if I had gambled on being able to track them all down and kill them so there weren’t any witnesses, the entire party got interrupted by the local authorities swinging by to take a look-see at the fucking haunted factory. That would have been a total disaster. I did the right thing.”

“Ex-haunted factory.”

“Yeah. Good input there, thanks.”

Sam pulled his t-shirt up to get some of the light on his stomach, letting it chase off the goose bumps. “So, instead, you just laid in the fire until they went away?”

“The brush was pretty deep. I crawled around the edge to the far side of the pit and slunk out once everyone was otherwise distracted. Then made my way through the woods and holed up in the Impala until you got around to joining me.”

“You make it sound like you just took a detour on a Sunday afternoon stroll.”

“You want a blow by blow of what it felt like to painstakingly make my way through a burning pile of trees while feeling it sear my flesh to the bone and wondering if you were getting your ass shot off up top by a psychotic hunter and his gang of thugs?”

“Not especially.”

“I didn’t think so. Now, did you have any other haunted buildings you feel a compelling need to explore, or can we just hole up somewhere nice and quiet for awhile and get our heads together?”

“Quiet sounds good.”

“So glad you agree.”

It felt better than he had thought it would to have nothing to do but lay around. Sam had thought down time would give him time to brood and be miserable, but Dean was proving to be a surprisingly diverting companion even without a task at hand to focus on. He wasn’t sure what the vampire did during the long hours while Sam slept off his recent adventures, but he was always on hand when Sam was awake.

One week turned into two. Dean had gone to run an errand he didn’t want to talk about, but he came back and resumed their cohabitation as if he had never left. At the end of the third week, he told Sam he was going to have to go away again, but he didn’t think it would take that long.

Sam spent half that night exploring the limits of his ability to feel pleasure, and the rest of the night on the couch with his head on Dean’s lap, drowsing while the vampire flipped through channel after channel. He was enjoying what he had while it lasted. When Dean left this time, Sam had his own errand to run.

“How long are you going to be gone?”

“I thought you were sleeping.”

“No, you didn’t.” Sam shifted around until he was upright.

Dean shrugged. “You seemed to want me to think you were sleeping; I thought I’d be polite.”

“Thanks.”

“But since you aren’t asleep -- you want tell me why you smell sad?”

“I smell sad?” Sam repeated incredulously.

“Maybe resigned. They can smell similar. What’s going on?”

Sam dropped his legs across Dean’s lap and leaned back against the arm of the couch. “Maybe it’s because you’re leaving tomorrow.”

Dean rolled his eyes and shoved Sam’s legs back to the floor. “I think I would have noticed if you were that delicate. But hey -- you don’t want to talk about it, I’m not going to pry. You’ve certainly got enough crap going on to make anyone a little depressed.”

Sam shrugged and turned his attention back to the screen.

“When I get back, you want to go see the Grand Canyon? You said you hadn’t ever gotten around to visiting it. I’m not easily impressed, but as far as gigantic holes in the ground go, it’s worth at least one trip.”

“That’s a long drive from here.”

“I’ve got nothing else to do.”

Sam smiled, trying to keep the misery he felt out of his expression. He wanted to talk to Dean about his plan, but if he did, he knew the vampire wouldn’t stay away. And if he came... Sam didn’t want him to come. He needed to close this door himself. The vampire had done and risked enough already, the rest was Sam’s task to finish. Dean was leaving before sunrise; Sam only had to keep it together for a few more hours.

“Thanks. I’d like that.”

“Bobby.”

“I thought you and I had an understanding, boy.”

Even over the crackle of the phone line, Sam could hear the irritation in Bobby’s voice.

“You owe me.”

“I don’t owe you squat.”

“You do,” Sam insisted. “I was doing you a favor out in Oklahoma, Bobby. I went after that book for you, and you didn’t even give me a head’s up there were hunters on my trail.”

“Wouldn’t have done you any good anyways; by the time I realized what was going on, you were probably already unconscious.”

“But you didn’t even try, and you owe me for that. You also could have mentioned when I offered in the first place that it might make people want to kill me, you know?”

Bobby sighed. “What is it that you want, Sam?”

“I want an address. I have something to settle.”

The cabin was remote. Miles from any city, far down twisty gravel roads and deep in the mountains. Sam left the Impala some distance away and hiked through the woods, creeping up the slope towards the home as he got close. The grounds were clear on all sides, but the dawn haze helped mask his ascent from anyone taking a casual look.

He was surprised at the lack of security he found around the place itself. There were the usual precautions of the paranoid, but nothing that slowed him down much. A few minutes after he reached the porch he was carefully padding through raw-beamed rooms, looking for one in particular.

When he found it, he moved silently to the bed and pressed the barrel of his gun to the temple of its sleeping occupant.

“Good morning, Gordon.”

Gordon didn’t move, but there was a difference to the tension level in the room that let Sam know his quarry was wide awake.

“I just want to talk to you. Don’t do anything stupid, and we can both walk away from here.”

“You think we have something to talk about, Winchester?”

Sam took a few steps back so he was well out of reach before letting Gordon turn over. “Get dressed.”

Gordon slid carefully from his bed and stepped towards the dresser.

“Uh, uh.” Sam motioned him back with the gun. “You can wear what’s on the floor. I don’t want any surprises.”

Gordon moved slowly, keeping an eye on Sam as he pulled his clothes on.

“You bring any of your unnatural friends around this time, Winchester?”

Sam’s eyes flashed dangerously. “You killed my only friend, Gordon. Don’t think I’m going to forget about that.”

“I see. Is that what this is about then? Revenge?”

“Something like that.”

“You mind if I pee?”

“Is that the bathroom through that door?”

“Yeah.” Gordon edged slowly around Sam until he had one hand on the doorknob.

“Push it open slowly; I’ll tell you when you can go in.”

Gordon pushed the door open with one hand, and when Sam’s eyes tracked the movement, used the other to whip a table lamp off the desk at him. Sam cringed reflexively and Gordon darted out the door.

Sam thought he would go for a gun, but when he caught up to him a moment later, Gordon was doing something at the fuse box in the hallway.

“Back up!” Sam snapped. Gordon put his hands in the air and backed up obediently.

“Too bad your boyfriend isn’t around anymore.” He jerked his chin towards the cut the lamp had opened at Sam’s hairline and the blood dripping down the side of his face.

“What were you doing?” Sam demanded, ignoring him..

“Just wanted to make sure all the power was working fine; wasn’t expecting guests, you know.”

“Yeah. Walk into the living room. Sit on the stool by the window.”

Sam felt a line of tension creeping across his shoulders. Gordon had been edgy and nervous before he had escaped into the hallway. Now he was as relaxed as if he was taking an afternoon stroll. Sam cast a quick glance at the open fuse box as he walked past it; it looked normal to him. But something had changed.

Suddenly, Gordon lunged for a magazine bin. He reeled back, pointing a sawed off shotgun. Sam fired a shot but tripped on the edge of a rug and fell headlong across the floor.

He looked up to see Gordon’s eyes dark across the barrel of his gun, one hand pressed to a spreading scarlet stain on the front of his white shirt.

“Time to end this, Winchester.”

Sam threw one hand out in a pathetic attempt to shield himself as Gordon’s finger tightened on the trigger; he clenched his eyes and heard the blast... but nothing happened except a thud and some choked laughter.

“Yeah, Sam. You’re completely human all right. Nothing wrong with you at all.”

Sam opened his eyes and sat up slowly. Somehow, between the time he had tripped and the time the gun had gone off, the massive couch had leaped from its spot across the room and landed on the wounded hunter, pinning him to the floor.

Sam struggled to his feet and kicked the shotgun away from Gordon’s outstretched fingers. Blood was flowing heavily from the wound in his chest and his breathing was labored.

“Grab a seat, Sam. Let’s talk this out like gentlemen while I still have some life to me. Of course, the way you work, we might get along better after I’m dead.”

“What happened to the couch, Gordon?” Sam asked warily.

“You waved your hand and it flew here, Winchester. What the hell do you think happened to it?”

“You’re lying.”

Gordon let his head drop back to the floor and laughed again. “There’s a lot of advantage to that in this position. Guess that demonic taint of yours is good for a few things, huh?”

Sam wiped at the blood that had run down to his chin with one hand, lips tight and grim. “You’re fucking lying, Gordon.”

“Why don’t you pull up a chair and we can talk about it?”

Sam frowned, leaving the mystery of the flying furniture for a moment. There was something wrong, something really wrong... His mind flashed back to Gordon at the fuse panel. Gordon so relaxed afterwards. Even now, bleeding out on the floor, trying to get Sam to sit down at talk to him...

“It’s going to explode. There was something in the fuse box; you’ve rigged explosives.”

“Well, you never know when uninvited guests are going to drop in. I hunt vampires, Winchester. Wanted to make sure I had a suitably warm welcome for them if they ever came at me in numbers.”

Sam spun on his foot and ran for the door.

“It’s too late, Sam!” Gordon yelled after him. “We all gotta die sometime, even Hell spawns like you!”

Sam didn’t bother answering.

Detonation.

The sun had long since set when he heard the sound of gravel crunching, footsteps coming towards him. Sam turned his head with great effort to face that direction. He knew the sound was only for his benefit -- those who stalked him in the night made no noise they didn’t choose to make.

“Hey,” he rasped in greeting, twisting his lips into as much of a smile as his injured face would allow. He couldn’t focus very well, but he knew who knelt beside him. Between the blood loss and the evening chill, his body was more numb than hurting. A deep sense of calm had settled over him; he hovered on the threshold of life and death and faced both unafraid. He could tumble to either side, the choice was his.

The blurry, dark figure traced over his lips with gentle fingers before moving to touch other places. Those places flared with renewed pain and Sam’s involuntary outcry was muffled by a cool hand pressed firmly over his mouth.

“You’ve certainly managed to make a total fuck-up of it this time.”

“Sorry. Next time, I’ll run faster,” Sam slurred, closing his eyes against the reddened edges seeping into his vision, obscuring the stars. He expected to get a sarcastic reply, but there was only silence from the vampire.

Sam struggled to open his eyes again, but gave up when fingertips brushed against his lashes.

Dean’s voice was quiet when he spoke again. “You’ve done well to hang on this long, but no hospital on the planet can fix this now. You have to make a choice.”

Images bloomed behind Sam’s eyes. Jessica, his father... Dean. Places he had been, and things he had witnessed, both wondrous and terrifying. The dreams he had had and the life he had lost, hopes he still carried inside. He felt the gentle beckoning of oblivion pulling at him, a velvety darkness like the space between stars, where all things were forgiven and understood.

It was growing closer, a warm shroud being drawn across his senses -- when sudden agony in his hand made his eyes fly open and he gasped. Powerful fingers were wrapped around his, grinding his bones in an implacable grip.

“I said decide, Sam. Not give the fuck up.” Anger filled Dean’s voice, but with the strange sense of clarity that filled Sam’s mind, he heard grief underlying it.

Grief for him.

“Why?” The question slipped out without thought.

“What do you mean, why? Why not?! You’ve still got a shitload of things to do. A fiancée to avenge, people’s asses to kick, demons to banish, and let’s not forget your dear old dad we still need to hunt down and cut some answers out of! That’s a lot of work to leave undone.”

Now the tones were almost offended, and Sam felt his lip twitch again.

“You don’t want me to go.”

The grip on his hand eased somewhat. “I don’t... I don’t want you not to go, not if that’s what you really want. If you’ve thought things over and you’re sure. But -- I think you need to decide right now, Sam. You’ve lost a lot of blood; you’re still losing it. There’s other injuries. If you don’t decide now, you’re not going to have the choice.”

Sam’s eyes fell shut against his will; what was left of his strength seemed to be running out of his body like dye from cheap cloth.

“I don’t want to be alone,” he managed.

“You won’t be, not with me. I won’t leave you, Sam. Ever.”

The voice sounded very far away now, but the bedrock certainty and resolve rang like a bell to Sam’s fading consciousness.

“‘Kay.”

“Sam?”

“Okay,” he tried again, but he couldn’t make his lips move. His chest was unbearably heavy and even the stone beneath his back was a fading dream.

Then he was hauled up and arms like iron bands supported him as liquid heavy with the flavors of salt and copper filled his mouth, it sat there, bitter and warm, for a moment before a new spark of something mingled with it and Sam swallowed greedily. The new flavor was like berries and sunshine, sweet and thick and everything wonderful that had ever passed his lips. It spilled through his body like air spilled over his skin and brought his nerves singing back to life, beating back the pain even as it registered, flooding him with a sense of wellness and pleasure.

He drank willingly from the source until it pulled away and he found himself blinking into Dean’s eyes. Eyes he could see clearly on a mountainside lit only by the moon.

“It won’t last like this, and you aren’t well. It’s going to take a few days to fix as much damage as you have. Probably more than a few days actually. This isn’t an easy road to walk.”

“I’m still human,” Sam managed after a moment, through the whirl of new sensations.

“Mostly. For a little while,” Dean agreed.

“Still human, but... other. Demon, vampire... what the hell does this make me?”

“It makes you only one thing you need to worry about now, Sam.”

The vampire’s lips curved into a feral smile and his eyes glinted with promise and possession.

“Mine.”