His hands don't shake, not even when they hold The Colt, cocked and pressed against the dead center of his younger son's forehead. They're all breathing heavily, but especially Sam as he holds Azazel at bay and keeps his fragile grip on his control of his body. His teeth are clenched and John sees the strain his body is put through as Sam proves his own strength of will.

Dean pleads, lying on the wooden floorboards nearby and on the verge of bleeding out (he's lucky Sam took control back when he did), but he pleads nonetheless. He begs John to stop. He begs him not to do it, but this isn't an opportunity he can pass up. It's what he's worked towards for years. It's what Sam has wanted since he left Stanford in the middle of the night with his brother behind the wheel of the Impala.

Revenge in the form of Azazel's death.

It's so much more difficult than he imagined with hazel eyes staring up at him instead of yellow ones. The hazel eyes of a boy he didn't raise, but is still his son. The eyes that looked at John full of hate and anger more times than he could count. Tears from those eyes stream down Sam's cheeks. For himself? For Jess? For Mary? For everyone? For no one? John doesn't know. He doesn't ask.

A man's last thoughts are his own.

"I'm sorry," John says. "I never wanted it to be like this."

Sam lets out a choked laugh. "I know. It's okay."

"I'm proud of you. I always have been."

It's the truth, and he should have said it sooner, but he's glad that he's gotten one chance to tell Sam, even if he's never shown it over the years.

In any other situation, he would've expected a snide comment from Sam. He would've expected biting words that drove in the fact that his words were far too little, far too late.

But Sam doesn't say anything at all. He nods, cracks a half-smile, and closes his eyes.

John takes that as his cue, and he pulls the trigger.

He hears only silence as first, watching as Sam's body jolts and flails like he's having a seizure while streaks of light course through him just beneath his skin. He always thought people were exaggerating when they described an event as happening in slow motion, but he understands what they meant now.

It's when Sam stops moving and lies still that sound returns to John. Dean is crying and making inhuman sounds as he tries to drag himself closer to Sam's body with a body that's been torn apart by the mere thoughts of a demon. Wind rattles the tree branches so they knock against the window.

But the most prominent sound is the silence he hears when he leans over to press his ear against Sam's chest to listen for a heartbeat.

There isn't one.

He doesn't let himself grieve right away. He hauls Dean to his feet and into the passenger side of the Impala. Dean isn't the type to be this pliable, especially with his brother's corpse on the other side of the cabin's walls, but he's lost enough blood that he's teetering on the edge of unconsciousness, and John wonders how much of this night he'll remember once he's been professionally patched up by doctors.

Not much, he hopes.

He hauls Sam's body into the Impala next, trying not to think about how quickly his skin is cooling as he settles him across the backseat. He tries not to think about how the next step is to build a pyre and set his son's body aflame upon it, as if he might sit up and declare that he's fine.

But he'll never so much as open his eyes again.

Driving down roads at illegal speeds with one son bleeding out beside him and the other one dead in the backseat, it's tough not to think about how he's lost far too much in his quest for vengeance, but there's no fixing this. It's better this way. The demons won't be able to use Sam or corrupt him. He's successfully thrown a wrench into their plans.

He just wishes that it didn't take a bullet between the eyes to do it.

It takes a lot of stitches to put Dean back together, but the doctors are pleased with his recovery so far. They call it an animal attack and refer to the tears in Dean's flesh as being from the claws of the large animal they encountered in the woods.

John doesn't correct them. He barely registers their words.

He lingers outside of Dean's room. He's been asleep most of the time, but between the blood loss and emotional trauma, he needs the rest. And John needs the time to figure out what he's going to say, if Dean will listen to any of his words.

If Sam had taken control of his body back any later, the cuts would have killed Dean. They're lucky. They could have been deeper. Longer. Worse.

But Sam saved him.

And John gave him a bullet between the eyes.

He pinches the bridge of his nose. It's been awhile since he's been able to sleep. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees Sam on the floor of the cabin staring into nothing as blood oozed from his forehead to streak his face.

He wants to give Dean the choice to be there when he burns Sam, but he has to take care of it soon. There's no good place to keep the body, and he can't let it sit too long before someone figures out that there's something wrong. The problem is Dean isn't in any condition to leave for that.

He could do it alone and buy a headstone. Is there much difference between saying goodbye to a fire or a rock? Neither option will bring him back.

Again, he tells himself it's better this way. The demon wanted Sam, and Sam was his downfall. John almost smiles. Sam's stubbornness drove him mad more times than he could count, but damn if it wasn't the very thing that saved them in the end.

He never praised him until the end. There's so much he never said.

He checks Dean's room one more time to see if he's still sleeping, and he is.

John leaves the hospital alone and drives out into an empty field. Dean will be upset about this later (he's upset with John for a lot of reasons, what's one more?), but he has to do this alone. He has to have one chance to tell Sam all the things he never said while he was alive.

He needs this last moment with his son.

He'd built pyres before, but none of the others felt like he was stabbing each piece of wood into his heart rather than stacking it carefully.

None of the others were for his child.

Doubts have begun filling his mind. Was he right to shoot Sam in order to kill the demon he'd been hunting for over two decades? Was it worth the price?

Sam had encouraged him to go through with pulling the trigger. He'd lost the love of his life to the demon as well, and it was vengeance that set him back on the hunting path he tried so hard to stray from.

John shakes his head. For as much as Sam took after Mary, he took after John more. In the worst ways.

When Sam's body is carefully wrapped in white cloth with shaking hands, John finds it easier to place him on the pyre. He can pretend it's someone else, but that doesn't take away the truth. It doesn't change a thing.

How is he supposed to face Dean? All he knows is that he has to find a way to help him move forward. Not on, just forward. He needs to keep Dean from trying to bring Sam back, or that it's even an option. The cost is always too high for the reward (if you could call it that).

He tosses his lighter into the pyre before he loses his determination, and the flames devour the gasoline coated wood with a ravenous greed. They're beautiful in their destruction, and John's vengeance ends the same way it began: a loved one bathed in fire.

He watches the fire burn until it dies down and all that's left is ashes and uncertainty.

Who knew that emptiness could be so heavy?

"What are you doing here?"

Dean isn't happy to see him.

John expected as much, but Dean is all he has left and he has to find a way to rebuild the bridge between them, no matter how tenuous it may be for the foreseeable future. He doesn't look forward to telling him that he's already burned Sam's body, that he's taken that closure away from Dean for his own selfish need.

"I came to check how you're doing."

"What does it matter how I'm doing?" Dean asks. "How can anything matter after you... You spent my whole life telling me to watch out for Sammy, to take care of him, and then you go and…"

"It's what he wanted. You heard him ask me to do it."

Dean scoffs and rolls his eyes. "When have you ever cared about what he wanted?"

John ignores the pain those words bring. He was never going to win a Father of the Year Award, but it hurts to think about how bad he was that Dean would ask him when he ever cared about what they wanted.

"We had the same goal. He is—was—damn strong to take control back from the demon. He did it for you. For me. For Mary. For his girlfriend. He had a lot to live for, but he had a lot to die for, too."

"The one time you praise him is when he's staring into the barrel of your gun," Dean says, never before sounding so cold towards John. "You have no idea how much you hurt him when we were growing up. All he ever wanted was to hear you say you were proud of him. Not fucking once did you do it. Not until it was too late to matter."

"I know," John says. "I know how many times I've failed. But I had suspicions about the future—his future. There's a lot that I never told you boys, but it's time for you to know. Once you're out of the hospital, I'll show you what I've found over the years. I'll show you why Sam's future scared me more than any monster we've faced."

Dean looks torn. Angry and confused and upset and so much else. "Why now?"

"Because the demon, and other demons, had plans for Sam. They can't get him now. They can't have him, not when he's safe with Mary and at peace. But this really isn't the place to go into depth on topics like that. Like I said, I'll show you everything once you're out of here."

It's the one way that he has a chance of getting Dean to stay with him.

"That doesn't mean I'll forgive you."

"I'm not asking you to forgive me. I'm just asking you to stay. You're all I have left now."

"Yeah, well, that's your own fault."

John folds his hands, trying to keep himself calm despite the frustration and anger that Dean is causing him. His loss is not the only one. John lost Sam, too. He can't ask Dean to forgive him, not when he can't forgive himself. But he knows that it's better this way, and soon Dean will see that, too.

Sam, if he lived, would face pain that John wouldn't wish upon anyone.

"I don't want to argue with you. I know what I've done, and I see his face staring back at me every time I close my eyes."

"What do you want me to do? What is there to do? We did what we've always wanted. We're done, so now what?"

John wonders about those answers himself, but he tells Dean the only reasons he's come up with so far. "We keep going because there are still things out there. There are still plans being made, and most people aren't prepared to deal with the things we hunt. We'll do it in Sam's memory. Make the world a better place, a place he would've liked."

Dean shakes his head. The light in his eyes that had been so familiar is gone, replaced by a steely chill. "No. We won't do it in Sam's memory. We won't pretend that this is for him or for anyone else. It's because we've always done it. Because there's nothing else worth doing. Nothing changes the fact that... "

Dean doesn't finish his thought, but he doesn't need to. John understands.

Nothing changes the fact that Sam's gone.

A/N: I think you all know by now that I have issues ignoring plot bunnies.