A/N: Welcome to the final installment! Warnings for gore, violence, and some of the twisted turns the story takes towards the end. I initially didn't intend to write the story in three parts and Dean was gonna be fine at the end of The Surgeon, but bringing back demon!Dean was just too good an opportunity to pass up.
A grin spreads across Dean's face as the Impala rolls to a stop at the end of a long, winding driveway. It widens further as he and Sam step out, gazing up at the towering form of the decrepit manor in front of them. "Now that, Sammy, is what you call the real deal," Dean remarks. "When was the last time we checked out a haunted house that looked like that?"
"Alright, don't jump the gun," Sam gently chides as he goes to fetch the EMF meter. "We aren't even sure there's a case here yet. Let's just scope things out first."
He takes the EMF meter from the car and lightly flicks the antenna as he turns it on, the machine giving no response. Undeterred, Dean goes to fetch a couple shotguns and salt rounds from the trunk. "Yeah. But just to be on the safe side." He tosses one to Sam before the pair of them make their way towards the gothic doorway at the top of the porch.
It's open, apparently, as Sam gives it a push. The minute they cross the threshold, the EMF meter springs to life, whirring and bleeping in Sam's hand. Dean gives him a look. "Told ya, Sammy."
Their footsteps are loud on the marble floor as they cross the lobby, leaving traces in the dust that's turned the glossy stone to white. Cobwebs hang thick from every possible surface, clinging to the banister of the grand staircase and hanging down from the crystal chandelier overhead. Dean lets out a soft whistle. "You feel like we've just stepped onto the set of a horror movie? This hardly seems real."
"Yeah, I know. It's like it ticks every cliché in the book," Sam agrees as he lingers just below the canvas portrait of a stern looking Victorian woman in a gilt frame. The EMF meter grows even more excited.
"Alright, so where are the ghosts?" Dean says, eager to cut to the chase. He loads up the first shell of rock salt into the shotgun.
As if on cue, a sudden breeze blows past them accompanied by a creaking noise, and both boys look up to the first floor landing where they see a door has just swung open.
"It's that way," Sam declares, and Dean's almost surprised by how he says it in such a tone of absolute certainty.
"You sure you don't want to check out more down here first? EMF seems to like that painting," Dean says as Sam strides past him and begins ascending the staircase, but that suggestion goes ignored. Dean blinks, surprised for a moment that his brother doesn't so much as look at him, but then shrugs it off. He steps forward to join Sam on the stairs.
The moment his foot lands on the faded red runner, a sudden jolt of pain of pain sears through Dean's chest. He gasps, frantically clutching at the handrail as his head begins to spin. White flashes all around him and he hears voices in the distance, "What if he wakes up…?"
He can't breathe. Something's lodged in his throat and he's choking on it. His chest is burning and Dean thinks he's just about ready to pass out…
Then it's gone.
He gasps, eyes darting frantically about him as he wonders what the hell that was. A glance down at his own body tells him he's fine. "Sam!"
His brother doesn't seem to have noticed his episode. In fact, Sam doesn't seem to be paying him any attention as Dean looks up to see he's already reached the landing. Without so much as a backward glance, Sam vanishes through the doorway.
Alright. That's definitely weird.
"Thanks for waiting," Dean grumbles, rubbing at his chest as he ascends the stairs. If this is a haunting, it's not the first time they've experienced something like that: echoes or visions brought on by whatever spirit is in this place. Still, it's unsettling.
Dean paces the last few steps and then turns to enter the room. "Alright, Sammy, what you…" The question fades to silence as his final turn reveals that the room is empty. And by empty, he means empty. It's entirely devoid of furniture, the floor comprising boards of plain dark wood with more than a few scratches and chips in the varnish. The faded wallpaper has been partially stripped from the walls, leaving behind peeling chunks of dull floral pattern. Cracks show up stark in the plain ceiling plaster, a cable hanging down from a hole in the center showing where a light fitting would once have gone. In one wall there sits a barren stone fireplace, with just a few grimy remnants of charcoal and soot left behind in the grate while a rusted, redundant poker lies off to one side. Another chilling breeze blows down from the chimney, and Dean gives an involuntary shiver.
There's no other apparent exit save for the windows, and Sam is most definitely not here.
Dean blinks, for a moment wondering if he's somehow entered the wrong room. No, this is definitely the one where the door had opened of its own accord, and he'd seen Sam enter through that exact same door. He takes a few paces forward, the unease in his stomach growing as he looks to see if there's perhaps another exit he'd missed. The only source of light in the room is the windows, and Dean crosses to them, pulling open the weathered shutters wider to stare out at the space beyond.
He can see nothing. Where he'd been expecting to see gardens or grounds at the back of the house, all there seems to be is mist: a thick white sheet of it that blends seamlessly into the dull grey sky. That definitely hadn't been here when they arrived.
Fear is just beginning to overtake his confusion when a dull throb of pain pangs behind Dean's sternum again. He grimaces, a hand going up to rub at his chest as he tries to make sense of this. Sam can't have just vanished…
Turning away from the windows suddenly brings it into focus: there, in the wall to the left of the fireplace, is a door. It's the most vibrant thing in the desolate room, painted a vivid red as if beckoning him to open it, but the sight makes Dean's blood run cold. No way was he so unobservant as to simply not notice it before.
So, did Sam go that way?
A door that vanishes and reappears on a whim. Not exactly run-of-the-mill, even for him, but, well, the house is haunted. Dean raises the shotgun and reaches for the handle.
It turns with a soft click, and Dean holds his breath as he takes a cautious step beyond the threshold. The room on the other side is dark. This time there are no windows, and it puzzles him for a moment as he realises the shape isn't at all consistent with how he'd assumed the layout of the manor to be. It seems more like a hallway than a room, with dim, yellow lights spaced at regular intervals along the walls, fading to darkness in the distance. Dean takes another step forward, hearing the soft click of the door closing behind him. The noise sets him on edge and he glances back nervously, only to find that the door he'd entered by has vanished. Now there's only solid wall.
"Alright, this is some Inception level shit," he mutters, turning back to stare down the corridor again. By now, he'd be expecting to hear his pulse thumping in his ears, but it's strangely quiet. Well, plus one for keeping calm, he guesses.
He begins to walk, keeping a firm grip on the handle of the shotgun until a flickering light on his left brings something into view. There's something written on the wall.
Dean turns, feeling a chill as he takes in the words, and the dark, glossy substance in which they're written.
You're dying.
His blood turns cold. Really, he's sure his heart should be pounding by now, and the fact he can't feel it only makes things worse. He reaches out a tentative hand to check whether that's really written in what he thinks it is…
As his skin makes contact, the world suddenly flashes white again. He gasps, feeling a familiar rush of pain as he collapses to his knees and fire tears through his chest. There's a roaring in his ears, a voice shouting his name…
"Dean!"
He knows that voice. Knows it's Sam. But where is he…?
A heartbeat later, and again it stops.
Dean drags an agonized breath into his lungs, panting as he waits for his head to stop spinning. He's only half lucid again by the time he realises he's not where he was before.
The floor is again wooden boards, he'd guess from the smell of old varnish before he even lifts his head to look. When he does, it seems that the new room is brighter than before. Again, there are windows in one end giving a view of plain white mist, and from the rafters in the ceiling, he'd guess he's in some kind of loft. Picking himself up, Dean finds himself staring at the grand feature of the mostly empty room: a grandfather clock standing isolated in the middle of the floor.
It isn't ticking. The silence of it is almost deafening as he stares at the static pendulum through the glass case. A voice in the back of his mind is telling him to leave, to go find Sam, figure out what this place is, yet it's nothing more than a quiet whisper. Something else is drawing him closer.
The shotgun remains abandoned on the floor as he steps forward and raises a tentative hand to touch the clock face, frozen in place at 3:27. Looking around, he can see there are wires – so many wires – seeming to run into and out of the back of the clock, and if confuses him because grandfather clocks don't run on electricity. He doesn't look to see where the wires lead. It doesn't seem important. What matters is that the clock needs fixing. And it's urgent. It needs fixing now.
Dean doesn't even ask himself why.
With the utmost care, he unlatches the door to expose the inner gears and mechanisms of the clock. He doesn't understand them. Doesn't pretend to, yet still he reaches in amongst all the cogs and gears that seem to have come askew and need putting back into place.
Why am I doing this?
The question briefly occurs to him, but it's too hard to answer. He lifts up the broken parts, tries to piece them back together, and is surprised to find that suddenly there's blood coating his hands. He pulls back, wondering if he's cut himself without realising, but then it dawns on him that he's not the one bleeding. It's the clock.
That should seem strange, but it doesn't. It just makes him more desperate as he reaches back in and tries to stop it, tries to fix everything, but everything's in pieces…
He's vaguely aware of the rushing in his ears, the whirring sound from somewhere nearby, the flickering of the lights even though the only light is coming from the windows… But none of it hits home until a loud crackling cuts through the air and he's suddenly knocked back from the clock as a surge of electricity courses through him.
Dean hits the ground, winded, and suddenly he's thinking straight again. His chest hurts, but he blinks and shakes his head, wondering what the hell is going on. A glance down at his hands, and he realises they're clean. There's no blood. None of this makes any sense…
"Dean!"
Through the confusion and fear, a voice hits his ears again. It's the same as earlier except, if anything, more urgent, and Dean remembers. He needs to find his brother.
"Sammy!" He forgets about the clock, whatever it is, and snatches up the shotgun again. Where did Sam go? If this places manages to keep screwing with him and teleporting him all over the place, he could be anywhere.
Dean glances round, looking for an exit, and another chill courses through him as he sees words written on the wall above a staircase leading down. Can you find me?
"Yeah, I'll find you," he growls as he crosses to it, all caution abandoned as he begins to hurry down the stairs.
It takes longer than it perhaps should for him to realise, Wait, this isn't even the house anymore. It's the entrance to the bunker.
He's given up trying to make sense of it. Instead he just runs, making his way through the now-familiar hallways as the lights once again flicker and he hears Sam's voice cry out his name. Breathing is painful and he thinks the front of his shirt is starting to feel damp, but he pays it no attention. His mouth goes dry as he sees the trail of blood on the floor and begins to follow it, boots pounding into the ground in a way his heart still isn't.
Panic is setting in as he sees the next message scrawled in blood on the wall – You can't hide from me – and then he turns a corner. That corner. The one where he…
He doesn't finish that thought as his eyes fall on the body crumpled at the end of the hallway. "Sam!"
Terror has overtaken him as he rushes to his brother's side, praying it isn't as bad as it looks. He can see the huge chunk that's been taken out of the side of Sam's head, the brain matter that's spattered onto the wall…
Nonono…
It's useless as he reaches his brother's body and kneels down beside it, trying to cradle Sam's head but only causing more red pulp to spill out. "No, Sammy, I'm sorry…"
Everything's suddenly becoming clear, and it feels like a million knives sinking into Dean's cold, unbeating heart. Tears mist over his eyes as all he can think to do is pull his brother's body closer to him and cradle it, rocking Sam gently as the guilt crashes over him. He knows what's happening. It's his worst fears coming true, yet it's still a sickening surprise when he hears a familiar voice behind him.
"He's not waking up."
Dean turns his head to stare into a face: his own face, but instead of green all he sees are cold black eyes. Blood drips off the hammer clutched in the demon's – his own – hand.
His demon self sees the look on Dean's face and chuckles. "And neither are you. But I think you knew that."
Dean swallows, almost overcome by the fear flooding his veins, but he manages a defiant glare as he sets Sam gently down. "None of this is real." It's sounds more uncertain than he'd hoped.
The demon gives a shrug. "It's real in every way that matters. I did try to warn you, Dean. You're dying. Well, dead now, I think. You're not opening your eyes again. Me, on the other hand…"
Shakily, Dean grasps the shotgun and rises to his feet. "No. I won't let you – I won't be you again."
He's met with a cold, threatening stare. "You think you have a choice?" The demon glances down at the bloody hammer still gripped in its hand, and steps forward.
Dean glares back. "Damn right I do." He raises the shotgun and fires.
Rocksalt sprays out, hitting his demon self in the chest, but he barely flinches. "Your heart's already in pieces. You're gonna have to do better than that."
There's another rush of pain and Dean gasps, a hand clutching at his chest once again. It comes away coated in blood.
He's unsteady on his feet, but he manages one final display of defiance as he snaps another round into the chamber and fires again. The demon laughs and raises the hammer. "Better start running, Dean."
This may only be a nightmare, but suddenly it's all too real. Dean knows he doesn't have a choice. He turns and runs.