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"What if you could live forever? Or at least, if your death wasn't permanent - if you didn't have to go to Hell?"
Doc Benton, screaming: "I can make you immortal!!"
Sam Winchester stands inside a stone-walled room, wearing a lab coat, rubber gloves, and safety goggles. His older brother lies comatose on a table. "Okay... Here we go. This is gonna work, I hope." He goes to the wall at the foot of the table and pulls a large lever before he moves over to turn a crank, winching the table up into the air as thunder booms and lightning crackles overhead. The wind rises, whipping the tall man's long hair into a frenzy as he waits. "Wish me luck, Dean," the younger Winchester whispers, checking the positions of the electrodes that are attached to his brother's body and removing the I.V. lines he had inserted earlier.
Lightning strikes and Sam presses the button to raise the table the rest of the way, leaping off of its side as the mechanism sends Dean onto the roof. Electrical power sizzles and pops as the storm rages, and when the last of the sparks dissipate and disappear Sam lowers the table back down again, his heart in his throat.
Rainwater coats Dean's body and soaks his clothes and skin, dripping from his nose and eyelashes and lips. Sam checks for a pulse and drops to his knees, collapsing with head bowed and arms outstretched across his brother's prone form. "Please," Sam begs - God, the Universe, his own intellect... he knows not what he prays to as he brings his hands in and clasps them against his own chest. "Let my brother come back again, let him LIVE!!!"
Sam raises his eyes, now full of tears and desperation. His voice is choked as he stays beside Dean, praying for a miracle. The lights blink and flicker off due to the intensity of the storm and the Winchester remains hunched in the dark beside the lividly pale body of his big brother. Which is about the time that Dean's body jerks and he groans deeply as his eyes snap open.
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SHIP JOURNAL.
It was during the eighth month of our voyage, August, when we came upon the stranded man. Someone so saturated by blood and soil, eyes and hair so wild in appearance some of the men first thought he was a vengeful spirit come to blow our brains out, and were too afeared to make any spoken overtures.
But I, wishing to return to my love onshore and knowing we could not pass by without at least an ATTEMPT to communicate, asked if he planned to butcher us in our ship on his way to wherever he was going. He glared at me, incredulity writ across his bloody face, and growled "Not unless any of you bastards wanna test me!"
"Where you headed?" I asked.
"There a portal out of this friggin wasteland?"
"There is only if you promise not to kill anyone on this ship." He stared and I added "The blood, jackass. You really think I'm dumb enough to believe that all came from you - cutting yourself shaving?"
He shook his head then, and chuckled. "You're good." He spread out his arms. "All right. I swear on my little brother's life I won't hurt any 'a you. You have my word."
Something about the sound of his voice makes me take it.
So he's onboard now. I'm the only salt who goes near him; all the others are fearful still, even after I brought him a bucket and had him scrub off all the blood. He looks regular now - like he could be a man going out to make his fortune, if it weren't for the cold dead emptiness in his eyes. I ask him where he wants to go, if there's anyplace we can take him, and he snorts.
"Doesn't matter what I want," he replies flatly, voice a low growl. "Where I know I'm goin' is Hell."