AN: so, i was posting this somewhere else and decided that the ending needed just a little more. it is only about two more paragraphs, but i decided to repost the final chapter over here as well.

thank you everyone for sticking with the story, i hope you all enjoyed it. this chapter is very short, just a little epilogue.

D: not mine, dont own them.

BY THE WAYSIDE

Chapter 17

If the car ride had been unbearably silent then the hours that followed it were downright hell. Sam hadn't spoke, hadn't said a word since he had fired that fatal shot. The echoing burst of the weapons recall was still bouncing through the older Winchester's head, the deafening roar of the quiet room suffocating him. It was as if the entire world had been shattered by that single destructive noise.

Dean sat against the headboard of his bed, throbbing knee wrapped in ice as he watched his brother, studied Sam's still, sleepless form, his pale body barely visible beneath a mound of blankets. He could fix his physical pain, ease his little brother's bodily suffering, but his spirit, his soul, that was another story. Sam had always worn his heart on his sleeve, always been so caring, so loving, and that had always broken his big brother's heart.

The worst part of it all was that he, Dean, was responsible for his brother's suffering, for his silent torment. He had made the tulpa, made another Sam knowing full well that it had to be killed, that it was a monster. And he had never once thought about how that would effect his actual brother, never once considered how it would all seem to Sammy. It had been a monster, a threat to all those around it, a potential killer, a supernatural being that Dean had to destroy. It was, in essence, everything the real Sam feared he might become.

The demon had plans for him, plans that tormented the younger man everyday. Max had been a killer, who's to say that Sam wasn't going to be one too. He was dangerous, and eventually, he feared, he would become another thing his older brother was forced to hunt. And now Dean had gone a brought all those fears crashing into reality, crushing the younger Winchester like a steamroller. Would Dean really hunt him? Would Dean really kill him if their lives ever came to that?

Dean knew the answer was and always would be no. There was nothing in this world, nothing in heaven or hell that would ever make him hurt his brother, that would ever make him see Sam as something less then human. But that still didn't change what he had done. And that damn tulpa had been so much like Sam, that it was mind-boggling. It loved its brother deeply, feared for his safty, feared for it enough to kill.

It was almost like the alternate ending to a story, a glimpse into what might be, what could happen, and it terrified the seasoned hunter. It was his brother, but at the same time it wasn't, and that was something he just couldn't comprehend, couldn't accept. He told himself over and over again that there was no way Sam could turn into that, no way someone like his brother could change so drastically. And then he went and made it happen. The tulpa acted out of love, out of fear for his brother, and that simple fact shook the ground on which Dean stood.

"Sammy?" Dean asked quietly, his voice weak and shaky in the warm stillness of their motel room. The last time they had been there together the Asura had shown itself, thrown Dean across the room and stolen his brother. It seemed surreal to be back, the Hell Hounds having dropped both the brothers and Dean's beloved car off hours before.

It was almost as though they had lived another life in-between, that the past few hours were nothing more then a twisted nightmare. But Dean knew it was real, and that terrified him. His little brother had been taken from him and, even though he had gotten him back in body, he feared that he had lost him forever in soul.

"Sam. Are you ok over there?"

"I'm fine, Dean." Sam's voice was tired, his body aching and sore, but thankfully no longer freezing. Dean had turned up the heat to near sauna levels, wrapping his brother in every blanket the battered old motel owned. It had been close, too close, and Sam knew that without the help of Ed and Harry neither of them be alive right now. They said they owed them one, Dean and Sam said they were even. And, with that the wayward filmmakers had been on their way, their information reluctantly left with the Winchester boys.

But now there was no buffer, no safety net between the brothers and their tattered emotions. They were left alone, again, to face the fall out of what they were forced to be, what the hunt had turned them into. They were falling, crumbling, fading away, and neither one knew how to stop it.

"It wasn't you."

"Yes it was."

"No, Sam, it wasn't. I was a supernatural freak."

"Isn't that what you called me when we left St. Louis?"

"Sam."

"No, Dean. I know what I am, and I know there's nothing I can do to change it. I'm dealing with it."

"There's nothing you have to deal with, as long as I'm..."

"What? As long as you're around nothing bad is gonna happen to me? Last I checked you were sitting right next to me for five months, hell you were standing in the room with me when the thing took over. Bad stuff still happened, Dean, even while you were there."

"I'm sorry, Sam."

"I'm not saying that it's your fault. It's just, you're only human, Dean, and there's only so much you can do."

"I promise I will never let anything bad happen to you. I promise I'll be better. I'll kill this Demon."

"And what if that just opens the flood gates? I can't watch you die for me, I won't. I've lost enough, Dean. I can't lose you too."

"You wont."

"You can't promise me that."

"No, I can't. But that doesn't mean that I wont."

The room fell silent once more, neither brother knowing exactly what to say next. They weren't naive children, weren't wishing for some bizarrely happy ending to find them. They knew full well what the hunt could and would do to them and neither one knew how to accept that. They were playing in the big leagues now, and they were sorely outnumbered. But, then again, they were the Winchesters, and the world had yet to see just what they were capable of.

i love the idea of a war brewing between the yellow eyed demon and the hunting world, and i absolutly love the direction the second season is going. i cant help myself. i love epics. i think the Winchester brother's are fantastic characters with such great possiblities. i cant wait to see what is going to happen next.