notes, disclaimers, etc: see first chapter.

"Go to sleep, Dean," Sam said softly, patting the front of Dean's jacket. "I'm here. It's okay."

Dean closed his eyes.

Then he tilted the gun up and pulled the trigger.

The drive to Wright should've taken four hours. Bobby made it in two and a half.

There were only two motels in the town, and he spotted the long, sleek lines of the Winchester Impala in the parking lot of the first. He threw his car into park and hit the ground running faster than his knees should've allowed.

The Impala was parked crookedly outside Room 8. The shades were drawn, and the room was dark. Bobby didn't pause to do any lock-picking, just kicked the door open and barged in.

His foot squished in something wet.

Fuck.

The room reeked of copper, bitter on his tongue. Bobby toed the door shut behind him, flipped on the light switch with his left hand.

"Fuck." He said it out loud this time, stomach flipping, bile climbing his throat.

Dean Winchester was lying in a dark pool of blood, eyes closed, gun still gripped in his bone-white hand. His chest was a mess, gaping furrows cut straight through his jacket and both shirts.

Stepping sideways, gun up, Bobby saw something glinting on the floor. Dean's amulet, ripped right off his chest.

"Aw, God," he said.

He moved farther into the room, well aware that whatever had done this to Dean could still be around. His heart just about stopped when he saw the second body lying next to the bed, recognized its still, pale features.

Sam.

A closer look showed that it wasn't Sam, but something wearing his face. It must have died in the middle of changing back to its real form—its forearms were shriveled, hands gray and tipped with bloodstained talons. There were three blackened, smoldering bullet holes in its chest, one directly over the heart. It was definitely dead.

Bobby turned back to Dean and felt sick all over again. The goddamn thing hadn't died fast enough.

Or maybe it had, because Dean still had a pulse—rapid and weak, but there. Bobby dug through Dean's duffel and found two clean t-shirts, pressed them hard against the seeping wounds. Peeled off his own outer shirt and jacket and piled them on top, trying to keep the kid warm.

He called 911 on the motel phone, then threw a blanket over the creature's corpse and shoved it under the bed. Spent the rest of the agonizing wait for the ambulance with one hand keeping pressure on Dean's chest and the other resting against the pulse point in his throat. Dean's heart faltered a couple times but never stopped.

Bobby moved back as soon as the paramedics showed up, gave them room to work and offered short non-answers to their shouted questions. They asked if he wanted to ride with Dean; he said no, he'd follow in his own vehicle. He did want to stay with the kid, but there were things had to be done first.

Soon as the ambulance was gone, Bobby stuffed all of Dean's possessions into the duffel bag and put it in the Impala's trunk. The next job was trickier, but it helped that the parking lot was dimly lit; he carried out the blanket-wrapped corpse, tossed it into the back seat of his own car, and drove out to the nearest patch of no man's land. He tossed salt and lighter fluid and a match, but didn't stick around to watch the thing burn.

He headed for the hospital in Dean's Impala. His own car was a piece of shit, but the Impala sure as hell wasn't, and Dean would kill him if he left it behind to get towed.

The woman at the front desk gave Bobby nothing but the standard they're working on him, and directions to the waiting room.

He had some calls to make. He'd brought Dean's cell phone with him; it was splattered with blood and the screen was dark, but Bobby hoped it'd work once he plugged in the charger. After fifteen minutes of swearing quietly to himself, he figured out how to do that, and the phone chirped to life.

Jefferson hadn't heard from any of the Winchesters, but Jim Murphy said, "Caleb's been calling around, asking about Dean."

Bobby couldn't remember Caleb's number off the top of his head, but it was in Dean's contact list, which he eventually managed to access. He got an answer on his second try.

"Bobby!" Caleb said, recognizing his voice. He sounded tired. "Have you heard from Dean?"

"Yeah," Bobby said. "You know where John is?"

"I'm at the hospital with him. Hunt went bad." Figured. "I tried to patch him up, but he was hurt worse than I realized. He spiked a fever and he's been out of it ever since. I finally thought to check his phone, found all these messages from Dean—is he okay?"

Bobby passed a shaky hand over his face, fingers scraping against stubble. "Dean's hurt, Caleb. Somethin' hunted him down, and it got him before I could catch up."

"Shit," Caleb said.

"They're still workin' on him. Haven't heard anything." Bobby didn't elaborate on Dean's injuries. No reason for Caleb to have nightmares too. "How's John?"

"Still hasn't woken up, but they think he'll be okay. It was close there for a while. Poltergeist threw him right out a window, and the idiot was too stubborn to admit how bad it was."

Bobby shook his head. Stupid bastard, gettin' himself hurt when his boy needed him most. "Those messages from Dean—how old's the earliest one?"

"Three days."

God. Poor kid.

"Bobby," Caleb said, "call Sam. He's called me three times, wanting to know where Dean is. He said he'd tried calling you too, but you didn't answer."

"Yeah, well, I took off as soon as I got Dean's call." One of these days he'd have to cave in and get himself a goddamn cell phone. "I'll call Sam. Just...take care of John."

Caleb snorted. "I'll try, but you know as well as I do what'll happen the second he finds out about Dean."

Tubes would go flying, doctors would be cursed at, and Winchester would limp right out of the hospital with his ass hanging out the back of his gown. He was a bastard, but he loved his boys.

"Yeah," Bobby said. "Call me if anything changes." Maybe he could talk John out of running himself to death to get back to Dean. Probably not, though. Winchesters were stubborn sons of bitches.

"Will do," Caleb said.

Bobby hung up and found Sam's number in Dean's contact list. Sam answered on the first ring, voice frantic. "Dean?"

"This is Bobby."

"Where's Dean?" Sam sounded scared shitless. "He left me a message—"

"He did?" No wonder Sam was worried.

"Yeah. I just flew into Gillette. Where is he, Bobby?"

"Sam," Bobby said. "Your brother...he's—"

"No," Sam breathed, like Bobby had just confirmed what he'd been afraid of.

"He's not dead, you dumbass!" Bobby hoped Sam couldn't hear the yet, but Sam always heard more than he should. "But he's hurt, Sam. He's hurt bad." The truth, straight up, because no Winchester ever asked for sugar coating.

"What happened?"

"Not sure yet. All I can tell is, somethin' he was huntin' started huntin' him, and he couldn't run fast enough." And it looked like you, but Bobby wasn't gonna tell Sam that. Not now.

"What was it?"

"Hell if I know. Didn't look like anything I've ever seen before."

Sam gave a ragged laugh. "Trust Dean to find something new to get attacked by."

After a minute, Bobby said, "Dean's tough." Stupid thing to say, but it was all he had.

"Yeah," Sam said, hollow. "I'll be there in a few hours. Just...call me if something happens, okay?"

"I promise," Bobby said.

Sam was taller than Bobby remembered, shoulders broader, and he'd put on some muscle. Worry and lack of sleep had left him chalk pale, with dark circles under his eyes. He still didn't look half as bad as his brother.

"Hey, Bobby," Sam said, letting a faded green backpack slide off his shoulder onto the floor. "You heard any more?"

Bobby shook his head. "They said he's stable, but they're still not lettin' anybody visit him."

Sam sank into a chair with a sigh. "What happened?"

"I don't know everything," Bobby said. "He called me and said somethin' was after him, and I took off as soon as I got the message. By the time I got there it'd already tore into him, but it couldn't have been long. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes, or he wouldn't have made it at all." Sam flinched. "It ripped up his chest pretty good. He lost a lot of blood. The doctor said they gave him two units."

"Not that I'm complaining, but why didn't it kill him?"

Bobby smiled grimly. " 'Cause he killed it first. Three shots to the chest, consecrated iron rounds. I guess the third shot finally got its heart." He looked away. "It had time to do a lot of damage before that third shot, though."

"Caleb said he'd been leaving messages on Dad's phone," Sam said.

"Yeah, for the past three days." Bobby saw the thundercloud forming, shook his head. "Sam, you can't blame your dad for this. You know he would've come if he could have." Just stating a fact, not apologizing for him, because apologizing for John Winchester was near the bottom of Bobby's list of priorities.

Sam leaned forward, threaded his fingers through his hair. "Yeah. I know. It's just...God. Why didn't Dean call somebody else?"

"I'm pretty sure he wasn't thinkin' real clear, Sam. The doctor said some of the cuts on his chest were older than the others—three days older, I'd guess. He was hurt already, and God only knows how much that thing screwed with his head. I'm just glad he had sense enough to call me at all."

"Yeah," Sam said, staring at a crack in the tile. "Yeah, me too."

The skin under Dean's eyes was dark and bruised, startling against his paper-white face. When they finally let Bobby and Sam in for a visit, and Sam saw his brother for the first time, his eyes filled with tears and he looked all of five years old. He sat down hard in the chair next to Dean's bed.

Bobby went around to the other side of the bed and put a hand on Dean's forearm. Didn't tell Sam that Dean actually looked better now than last time he'd seen him. At least his lips weren't white anymore and he was breathing slow and even, surviving on the borrowed blood running through his veins.

Dean was unconscious for another five hours. Sam sat by his bed the whole time, refused to leave, so Bobby brought food to him. Sam said thanks, but his eyes stayed on Dean's face. He put the food down by his chair and never touched it.

Dean was restless for a while, mumbling, making unguarded sounds that Bobby wished he didn't have to hear. When he finally did wake up, it was slow, no sudden return to consciousness. He surfaced out of a drugged haze, blinked a couple times, went back under. Fifteen minutes later he woke up enough to look around.

Sam was at Dean's side, talking in a low, soothing voice. Oh, shit, Bobby hadn't thought about what would happen next. Made him wish he'd told Sam more about the thing that did this to Dean.

Sure enough, Dean finally got his eyes all the way open, stared at his brother for a couple seconds, and then panicked. He was still almost too weak to move, face twisted in pain, but he did his best to drag himself away from the threat. Sam stepped back, confused, and Bobby quickly moved into Dean's line of sight.

"Calm down, Dean," he said evenly. "This is your brother. You hear me? This is Sam. Look at me, kid. He's not gonna hurt you, I swear. You stop movin' or you're gonna tear out all those stitches."

The words got through, and Dean stopped trying to get away. He was shaking hard, breathing in choppy gasps. Bobby sent Sam to get a nurse, and Dean's eyes followed him warily as he left the room. Bobby gripped Dean's arm and repeated, "That's your brother, Dean. You killed the thing that was after you. It was dead by the time I got there."

The lines in Dean's forehead relaxed a little. He coughed a couple of times, winced. "Dad?" He said weakly. Of course that would be his first question.

"Your dad got hurt on a hunt, but he's gonna be all right. Caleb's with him."

Dean nodded slowly. By the time Sam got back with the nurse, he was out again.

Sam knew there was something going on that he hadn't been told about. Dean's initial reaction to him had made that pretty clear. At least Dean wasn't freaking out anymore, but he still acted a little wary in Sam's presence. Sam was pretty sure it had little to do with the nineteen months they'd been apart.

Sooner or later, he'd corner Bobby and find out just what the hell had happened to make Dean react that way. For now, though, Sam was focused on his brother. Dean couldn't stay awake for more than twenty minutes at a time, and he was in constant pain from the torn muscles in his chest.

Sam had only left Dean's side to use the bathroom, and once to make a few calls back to Stanford and explain that he had a family emergency. Other than that he'd stayed put, determined to be there until Dean stopped cringing at the sight of him.

Mid-afternoon the second day, Bobby got a call from Caleb and left the room quickly, muttering stupid stubborn son of a bitch. Sam figured he was probably talking about Dad. No one could make Bobby mad faster than John Winchester.

Dean seemed to be fully lucid for the first time, and Sam wasn't sure what to say. Sorry? It's good to see you? How have you been? He couldn't find words to cover all the months of silence that neither of them had been willing to break.

Dean spoke first. "So," he said, his voice still weak and scratchy. "You came."

"Yeah," Sam said. "Of course I did."

Dean flinched, then groaned when the motion pulled at his stitches. He looked briefly at Sam's face and made a visible effort to relax.

"I," he said. Paused to draw a breath. "I screwed up."

Sam shook his head. "Dean—"

Dean stared straight through the ceiling, gaze fixed on the ghosts in his head. "Kathy Rylan," he said. "She made...the worst cookies...ever." His hands shifted restlessly against the sheets. Sam noticed that the nail beds were still paler than they should be.

"I promised," Dean whispered.

Sam wanted to say, It's okay, but that wasn't true. Wanted to say, I'm sorry, but it wouldn't help.

So he didn't say anything. He just took his brother's hand and held on.

(end)