Disclaimer: Dean and Sam and the Impala don't belong to me. I make no money in these efforts.

Notes: This story started mid-morning Monday. I wanted to challenge myself to see if I could write a complete story in 2.5 days. At this point, I haven't quite finished. (I'm a faillllurrrre!) The tale got a little longer than I thought. I do hope to get it completed either tonight or tomorrow. The second part will be much shorter. Unless it isn't. ;)

Comments loved, welcomed and fed the candy of your choice.

Carry That Weight

Sam Winchester knew his concern for Dean smothered his brother, and so of late he had tried harder to stem any outward displays of it. On nights like this, when they'd finished one hunt and hadn't tracked down another yet, it was difficult. They fell into old patterns. Dean drowned his sorrow with beer and competition against poor fools who didn't know a hustler when they saw one. He lurked in a bar's smoky corner reading newspapers, draining his beer slowly and mostly just watching that Dean didn't start a fight; violence seemed another outlet for Dean, and they couldn't afford the possible injuries. Never mind that it secretly freaked Sam out to see Dean blind with unfounded rage.

"Get you another one, honey?"

He looked up at the sole waitress the bar had in the back room. She looked harried and was rather plain, but not unattractive. Her expression was slightly wary, her eyes carefully indifferent as she waited for him to give her an answer. He wondered how many times she got hit on and groped a night. Sam gave her a soft half smile and a headshake.

"Thanks, though," he said.

She looked visibly relieved, and he sadly thought it was just because he hadn't tried to cop a feel. She flashed him a smile, which changed her from plain to pretty. Smiling looked like something she didn't do much, or couldn't, around there. Even without trying, though, she probably made decent tips. Dunk people were generous, and the place was crowded with them. She snared the near-empty basket of popcorn from the table and slid away, back into the throng of rough bar patrons. She hadn't gone five steps when he saw a guy grab her ass. He thought maybe it wasn't Dean who'd start a fight that night, his muscles tensing to help her out if she needed it. She easily skirted away from the man, scowling and calling out in an annoyed tone. Sam relaxed. He returned his attention to the newspapers and surreptitious vigil on Dean.

Nothing in the headlines jumped out at him, and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing as far as he was concerned. It was late October, and he really just wanted to submerge for the next week or two. Dad's death and Dean's despondency hadn't made him forget Jess' anniversary was right around the corner, though he tried so very hard not to think about it. It had gotten easier over the past year, that was true, but lately he started seeing her face again, whenever he closed his eyes or saw a tall woman with long blonde hair. It was like he had an internal alarm, warning bells going off. A frigging appointment reminder set to pop up every other day until he finally did something about it. But he wouldn't even dream of mentioning it to Dean. He couldn't.

He cast his eyes over to the pool table. Dean was smirking, leaning over the table to take what was clearly the winning shot. Sam flicked his attention to the pile of money stacked on one end of the table. They could use the cash, but the pile was big enough it might make the loser – a walking cliché of a man, huge, bald, with a long goatee and a beat-up biker jacket – angry. And his friends. Sam counted five of them hovering in the near vicinity, and who the hell knew how many other people in the bar were likely to side with the locals in the case of a dispute. He gathered up his things, just as a precaution. Dean lined up the easy shot, but then Sam watched him pause, and a strange expression came over his face.

Dean lifted the cue and stood up, fished around in his pocket, pulled out his cell. Sam frowned. Dean wouldn't pull from a shot just to answer the phone. The bald biker looked like he was deriding Dean, who completely ignored the taunting. Through the smoke (seriously, they were either in the only state that still allowed smoking public establishments or the people here just didn't give a damn), he saw Dean pale, his jaw clench as he read the phone's screen. There was too much noise to hear what Dean said something to bald biker guy, but Sam didn't have to because Dean walked away from the game without finishing. There was laughter and jeering that he could hear, but no one stopped his brother from leaving the table. Easy money for them.

"Dean, what is it?" he said. Up close, Dean was almost colorless and his eyes seemed, somehow, more hollow than usual. "What's wrong?"

Sam wasn't sure Dean could utter words while his jaw was clenched so tightly. Instead of speaking, his brother lifted the cell up to show him the screen. It was short, reading only: 47.52. –92.137. Sam didn't have to see whom the message had come from. There was only one person who'd ever sent Dean messages like that, and he kicked himself for not telling Dean he'd kept Dad's cell charged and on. He thought maybe someone might call it someday looking for help, but he'd never thought it would call them. He hadn't checked anything beyond voice messages.

"I was going to tell you, Dean, I swear. I just didn't…"

The hollowness of Dean's eyes gave way to sheer disbelief followed by rage, and then went back to dull and lifeless, all within the span of a second. Without a word, Dean turned around and headed for the door. Sam frantically scooped up the newspapers and journal and rushed after him. God, the look on Dean's face when he saw a message from one John Winchester staring back at him…Sam had fucked up, big time. He didn't even know how to talk to Dean most of the time now; he didn't know how he was ever going to be able to explain his logic about Dad's phone in a way that wouldn't just cause Dean more hurt. Sorry wasn't adequate enough, but he was so, so damned sorry.

He lost sight of his brother as Dean moved from the back room to the front, and for some reason that filled him with panic. He picked up his pace. His thigh smacked into on of the pool tables as he hurried by it. He winced, but kept his momentum, relieved when he caught the back of Dean's head, not yet at the external door. For some reason he couldn't give name to, Sam thought maybe if he didn't catch up with Dean, then Dean would just leave him. If this was what Dean had felt all last year, then Sam was even more sorry than he already had been because it was a shitty feeling.

He thought he was going to be okay when it all went to hell. So intent on Dean, he didn't see the back room waitress until he plowed right into her, sent her tray and drinks flying and knocked her to the sticky floor. Sam gaped down at her, horrified and yet still panicked about Dean. He crouched down to help her up.

"I'm so sorry, are you okay?" he said, glancing at her and then at the door Dean had just exited through.

"Fine. I knew you were different than the guys who usually come here, but I didn't count on a full body tackle."

"I really am sorry." He pulled her to her feet, awkwardly eyeing the wet spots on her shirt from the spilled drinks. She smelled like a distillery. "How many drinks were you carrying?"

"I…"

"Never mind." He pulled forty bucks out of his wallet and gave it to her. "I hope this will cover them."

He took off, barely aware of her confused thank you. There wasn't time. Dean was outside without him. If he got to the parking lot and the car was gone, Sam wasn't sure what he'd do. He wasn't even sure why he thought Dean would just up and leave him. Dean had never done that, except it felt like Dean was doing that. Dean's departure wasn't physical, but it was painful enough that it might as well be. And he'd just unwittingly made it worse.

The brisk, fresh night air was a shock to his lungs, a welcome one after the bar. He took a couple of deep breaths, in part to steel himself, and trotted to where they'd parked. Sam let out the last breath harshly as relief washed over him. The car was still there. Dean was, too, perched on the hood, attention riveted to the ground. He approached wordlessly, sat down next to his brother. They sat that way for a few minutes, in a familiar holding pattern Sam still hadn't figured out how to break from. He had to believe that be able to recover the bond they'd only just started getting back before the demon and Dad.

"You have Dad's phone somewhere."

"I keep it charged and turn it on sometimes. I thought maybe someone would call for help on it."

"That's creepy, and you should have told me."

"I wanted to, Dean, but I didn't know how. You've been so closed off, man. Sometimes I don't know to talk to you in a way that won't piss you off or make you feel worse."

"Yeah, because letting me get a frigging email from our dead father is a surefire way to make me happy."

Sam just stared at Dean's profile helplessly. He wanted nothing more than for Dean to talk to him, but every time he did, Sam was always at a loss for adequate words. It was some kind of cruel irony that even normal conversation didn't feel anything like normal.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I really didn't think anything like this would happen."

Dean laughed and looked over to him. "You were always too busy butting heads with the guy to realize the scope of his skills. Five years from now we'll probably still be getting surprises from him."

"Yeah." Sam smiled a little. Dean's laugh didn't meet his eyes, which Sam expected but was still disappointed about. He didn't feel better, per se, but his strange panic was mostly gone. At least Dean was talking to him. "I suppose so."

"Let's get out of here. We apparently have a job."

Sam bobbed his head once, slid off the hood of the car and headed for the passenger seat. He didn't know how he felt about blindly following coordinates their father had the forethought to set up before he died. He still found himself wanting to make it up his lifelong antagonism with Dad, latched onto hunts like a little kid playing leech on someone's leg. It was just discomfiting, and he couldn't help but think what the chances were that their father had known he wouldn't be around. He thought pretty good. He thought Dad had never expected to make it out alive, maybe hadn't even wanted to make it out alive. He loved his father, but that was just fucked up.

While Dean drove, he reached for the GPS to look up where Dad wanted them to go. Where Dad had wanted them to go. He agreed with Dean; it was disconcerting to think about their father inputting instructions so far in advance, though it likely meant whatever they were headed for was correlated to the date or time of year. It seemed he wasn't going to get his down time after all, and he found that was okay as well. If he thought about it, rationalized, it was probably better that he'd have something to focus on besides Jess, and Dad, and Dean. He'd fall easily into the escapism hunting had become for him, his own screwed up way to sublimate.

"So where are we going?" Dean said.

Sam hadn't plugged in the coordinates yet. He did so and waited a second for the GPS to guide itself.

"Looks like…Minnesota. About fifty miles from Duluth, a town called Hoyt Lakes."

"Sounds exciting."

Northern Minnesota was probably already cold at night, cool during the ay. Not what most people would choose, but Sam enjoyed some crispness in his autumn air. Plus, a tiny town in the Iron Range was about as far away from Palo Alto and Stanford as a person could get. He just wished they had some idea what they were up against. Dad's cryptic message would have no follow ups. There could be something in the journal.

"Ever been there?" he said. "No unfinished business."

"Nope, not this time."

"I was hoping there'd be an easy way to track this down."

"Check the journal."

Dean hadn't leafed through their dad's book since he died, and he usually looked like a kid whose dog had just been taken to Aunt Polly's farm up north whenever Sam used it as a reference. He nodded, but didn't move. The journal was in his bag, in the trunk. It was too late to start the drive without sleep anyway. He could check it out tomorrow.

The town of Hoyt Lakes, tiny though it was, bustled with activity. According to the tacky banner strung up at the edge of town, the annual Great Pumpkin Festival was about to kick off. Lucky them. Not only would they have to deal with the town's inhabitants possibly being put in harm's way, but also those of neighboring communities. Dean hated Hallowe'en – regular people had no idea what kind of shit usually went down that night, and as far as he was concerned it wasn't fun to dress up as the monsters he killed for a living – and he hated how they had ended up in northern Minnesota in the first place. Dad was reaching out to screw with his head even posthumously, and he kind of resented it. It weighted on his shoulders, much like Dad's parting gift did.

Dad had noted in his journal one mysterious disappearance in Hoyt Lakes seven years ago, on Hallowe'en night. Several weeks later, the body was found with its flesh torn apart, bones crunched. It wasn't much to go on. Actually, it didn't even really smack of supernatural to him, but it obviously had to their father. The guy was usually so thorough, though, which meant he'd probably intended at one point to dig into this more deeply and then ran out of time. Because of Dean. Because of Sam, too. He looked over at his brother, who had no idea and could not have any idea, ever. He knew what it would do to Sam. No pressure on him or anything. He swallowed his unhappiness. It wasn't Sam's fault and Dean didn't blame him, really, except he did at the same time.

"There's the library. I hope they have the resources we need."

"There's no library in the world that doesn't retain newspapers, from the dawn of time," Dean said.

He hoped they didn't have to sift through actual newspapers. In a town with population hovering around two thousand, resources for libraries were more toward the sparse end of the scale than flush and they tended to be far more old school than those in bigger cities. They'd thought about stopping over in Duluth first, but they had a little bit of time. Hallowe'en was still a day and a half away and no one had died yet. Besides, if they started at the source they might stumble across a person who would have insight. Small town librarians were often good sources themselves, and Sam knew how to work his nerdy charm with them. He didn't even try, really. Sam gave a soft inhalation, like he was going to say something, didn't, and then repeated the inhalation.

"You know, Dean, you don't have to do this with me if you don't want," Sam said softly. "I know you don't like the research."

Dean had never once come out and actually said that. If he'd ever shirked the responsibility, it was because Sam geeked out about it so much and actually seemed to enjoy it where to him it was a necessary evil, an integral part of the hunt nonetheless. It wasn't like he had skipped the research when he and Dad split up on their own hunts. Since Sam had joined him, he liked seeing his little brother lose himself and all his emo angst for a while, and, true, if they could cover two areas at once, he was usually all for it. Here, though, there wasn't anything else for him to do, and he wasn't about to take a tour of the town. Whoever was in charge of decorating for the festivities must have bought every pumpkin from here to friggin' Fargo, and they were all over the place – the streets were lined with them, every step on every porch had one, or clusters of them. The town was a giant pumpkin patch, all orange and cheerful and nauseating. Their hotel room at the already annoyingly decorated Country Inn had even had three of the suckers in it, until Dean chucked them out the window. There was nothing cheerful about Hallowe'en.

"I don't not like it," he said, irritated by the soft tone Sam had used with the offer. Sam walking on eggshells around him lately was getting on his nerves. "Besides, since we have to start by date only it'll take you forever if you do it alone."

Sam just nodded and adopted a pensive expression. One of his many pensive expressions, Dean corrected. Sam had about a million of them, and they all looked almost identical. This, too, irritated Dean. It was partly the not blaming Sam while blaming him thing, and partly that, if he admitted it to himself, he was still upset about Sam failing to tell him about Dad's cell. The call would have sucked out loud either way, but if he'd known it could happen in advance of it actually happening, then maybe he wouldn't have felt like someone had cut his legs out from under him when he saw Dad's name on his LED. God, he was so screwed in the head. Knowing that just made it all the worse, because he couldn't seem to change.

"Drop me off." The streets were filled with cars. It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, he thought. "I'll ask the librarian to help us get set up while you find a place to park."

"Yeah, okay."

At least Sam wasn't trying to appease him or whatever. It was always easier for Sam to work his little-boy-lost look on his own and, once that was established, it got people talking to them. This innate skill of Sam's came in handy especially on women over the age of fifty and so, not for the first time, Dean hoped the librarian wasn't some hot chick just out of school and stuck in Nowheresville.

He found a parking spot two and a half blocks away from the library. He accidentally ran over the pumpkins on the curb on purpose. He was probably transferring his anger with Sam and just everything onto the stupid, large gourds. He figured that was better than the alternative. By the time he got out of the car, Dean had drawn a crowd of kids. They all looked distraught about the smashed pumpkins – the pulp on the tires was so worth it – and a few of them looked ready to cry.

"Shouldn't you be in school?"

"It's MEA weekend," one of them, a freckly little brown-haired boy, piped up and scowled at him like he should have known that. Whatever MEA weekend meant. "Why'd you drive over the pumpkins?"

"I didn't see them." Then he actually started feeling bad about the unprovoked pumpkin war he was singly waging on Hoyt Lakes. "It was an accident."

"I think you saw them. I think you just have problems or something," Little Freckles said philosophically, tipping his head to the left a bit. "You should get therapy for that."

Dean swallowed. The kid was more right than he could know. He just looked at the boy for a minute, then tried to brush aside his unease.

"Look, I really am sorry," Dean said.

He waved and headed for the library, ignoring the feeling of the kids staring after him. The pumpkin-love that had infected the town was apparently instilled at a very young age. He really hoped this wasn't some pagan god that required some human sacrifice in trade for a bountiful pumpkin crop every year. Been there, done that. No, again, Dad would have given them more than coordinates and one random tragedy. He started running other ideas through his head, glad for something concrete to focus on. He jogged up to the library's door and entered the small building. It was busy with kids. MEA weekend, he thought, though he still had no idea what it meant. He had no idea kids these days even still read books, but apparently they did here.

Dean didn't spot Sam anywhere, unusual since Sam should have stuck out like a sore thumb among all the much, much shorter people. He did spot the librarian, who was well into her sixties and slightly on the round side. He smiled slightly and approached her. She looked up when he neared the desk.

"Ah, you must be looking for Sam. He told me you'd be along."

"Yes, ma'am," Dean said. He read the placard on the desk. "Marge."

"Follow me," she said with a soft smile. Marge navigated through the children's section to the adult and beyond, to a narrow staircase at the back of the library. "That Sam is such a polite young man. I wish I could help more."

He wondered what Sam had told her he was looking for. It didn't matter as long as the conversation stayed vague. Dean followed her onto the small landing, where she stopped and gestured.

"We're happy for any help you can give."

"Oh, you're so polite, too," Marge tutted. "Someone raised you boys right."

Dean winced and tried to make it look like a smile. Before things could get any more awkward for him, he started up the stairs. He found Sam at the back of the archival room, poring over a yellowed newspaper. That's what Marge had meant. No microfiche. He supposed they were fortunate to even get the newspapers. He sighed. Sam looked up.

"Yeah," his brother said. "This is going to be a big pain in the ass."

He took off his jacket and tossed it across the back of a chair. He rolled up his sleeves and got to work. He figured Sam was checking headlines for the weeks surrounding Hallowe'en, and did the same. It wasn't as bad as all that. Having a vague inclination of the date and what to look for based on the information Dad had gathered helped. Plus, disappearances and deaths would be big, front page news in a town this size, so all it took was a quick perusal of most papers. They sat reading in relative silence, minutes turning to hours without them really realizing it. They took breaks to stretch and to drink the coffee Marge had brought up to them.

"I've got a similar incident," Dean said at last. "On October 27th, 1959, seventeen year old Randall Gustafson vanished in the woods three miles south of Hoyt Lakes. His body was found a week later, and an animal attack was blamed for the death."

"And I've got two more," Sam said. Dean looked up. His brother's eyes were bleary. Truthfully, he looked like crap. "Lacey Janning, fifteen, from Eveleth disappeared from the hayride she was taking with her friendson October 24th, 1990, and was found torn apart two days later, animal attack cited. Bryan O'Malley, twenty-two, of Babbitt, disappeared on October 26th, 1981, same basic thing."

"Okay, so, most of the incidents have enough space between them that people might not have noticed, but there's not a concrete pattern. It really does look like animal attacks to the naked eye. And none of them happened after Hallowe'en, which means we've got a limited window."

"Wendigo?"

"We're in the right place for them this time. I don't know, though. Wendigos don't hunt one person at a time. They stockpile all at once and then go underground."

Sam nodded glumly, ran a hand down his face. His gaze hit on the newspapers spread across the top of the table. They'd read them all, or skimmed. Dean couldn't be sure they hadn't missed anything, though even what they'd found didn't really give them much more information than they started with. There was no specific number of years between events. It wasn't a gender-specific crime, so that ruled out a number of possibilities. Black Dogs wouldn't only attack the last week of October and would have been tracked a long time ago, if not by them then by one the multitude of hunters they knew nothing about but where out there fighting the same fight.

"Huh," Sam said.

"What?"

"What? Oh, uh, I dunno." That was a lie. Sam flipped through the papers, his brows knit. "Maybe."

"Maybe…?"

"All of the attacks took place in the same area. In the woods, south of town. Randall Gustafson was out hunting. Lacey Janning was on the Chamber-sponsored hayride, which happened to run just south of town that year. Bryan O'Malley worked the festival's Hallowe'en maze, just south of town, went on a break and never came back."

"So we have a place to look."

"We have a place to look."

They were as prepared as they could be. Sam wasn't sure he liked their plan, now that he'd had time for some consideration. It felt too much like they were walking into the hunt blindly, but Dean had insisted and would have done the patrol on his own if Sam hadn't caved. Since they didn't know exactly what to expect, their personal arsenals contained a little of everything. Assuming there was time to actually implement all of them in case of an attack, they would be fine.

Marge had kicked them out of the library with an offer for a home-cooked meal they declined, and so they hadn't had time to cross check the land to see if there was something about it that could cause the deaths, burial grounds being the most logical choice there. Nothing about the area, even from what they could tell in the dark, spoke of Ojibwa burial sites, but it wasn't like either of them were experts on the subject. Unlike the victims, though, they weren't alone. Sam had no intention of leaving Dean's vicinity and he was certain the same held true for his brother

"Anything?" he called softly.

"No readings over here, you?"

Sam looked over his shoulder. Dean was ten feet away, turned slightly away from him, holding himself in a way that let Sam knew he was alert for both of them. He was doing the same, so he thought their chances of staying safe were decent. They didn't know what they were looking for, but they did know to look for something, a small step in the right direction.

"No, not yet."

EMF wasn't foolproof. It might not tell them anything at all, depending on what they were dealing with. The distant sound of laughter reminded him that innocent people were carrying on with their fun not terribly far away. There were two scheduled hayrides for the evening, and the haunted walk the Jaycees had set up outside city limits ran until 10:30 PM. The risk of someone wandering from any of those events was high. All suspected deaths had been relatively young, and probably still a little stupid with a sense of infallibility, people. He hoped it wouldn't happen again tonight. No, it wouldn't as long as he and Dean were out there.

"I haven't come up with any other theories."

"Me either."

Nothing they had thought of matched the circumstances closely enough, and they really didn't have solid information to use yet. Firsthand experience with the spirit or revenant or whatever would answer the question for them, but Sam wasn't exactly looking for that outcome. He curled and uncurled his fingers around the grip of his handgun nervously. He felt no presence, no psychological effects known for beings like Grey Men or Nix. He supposed it was possible the attacks really were animal in nature, though he doubted it for a couple of reasons. First was that they were close to town. Hoyt Lakes wasn't part of an ever-expanding city. The wildlife there wasn't being squeezed out of its habitat; there was no reason for the animals to feel threatened by any of the victims except the hunter. Second was Dad. If he closed his eyes, he could see Dad taking bare notes on something he had only an inclination about. He'd set the reminder for Dean instead. And him by proxy.

"We should probably stick this out until the kids from the festival go home," he said. Dean didn't respond. Sam turned toward his brother…and found he was alone. His heart felt like it was in his throat, just like that, with the now familiar feeling that his brother had left him. He knew that wasn't right. He spun in a slow circle, searching the dark woods with his inadequate flashlight. "Dean?"

More laughter, from farther away this time, and singing. It sounded so discordant in his ears, through the rush of panicked blood that monopolized his hearing. Sam involuntarily recalled the descriptions of the victims. Flayed. Bones crushed. That might be happening to Dean at that very moment and for seconds that seemed to last forever he didn't know what the fuck to do.

"Dean!" His shout echoed. Sam forced himself to breathe more slowly, concentrate on hearing anything that could lead him in the right direction. He whispered to himself, "Come on, Dean, give me a sign here."

Rustling, to the northwest of him. Sam didn't think, he just switched off his flashlight and moved slowly and carefully through the crisp, dead leaves. He could fire the gun, splash holy water and then have his blade out in a matter of five seconds, he just needed something to focus all of that on. More movement, directly to his north this time, and closer. He was on the right trail. He had to be. Every fiber of his being wanted to call out for Dean again. He knew better, quelled his instinct like a good hunter should. He would be damned if he was going to lose Dean tonight, to some nameless foe. It just wasn't going to happen like that. Not tonight, not ever. He missed Dad, but losing Dean would kill him.

He did what he'd always been so reluctant to do. Sam hunted. He hunted with skill and prowess he didn't want to have, but did anyway. He tuned out everything, the faint teenaged laughter, the wind in the trees, the slight burble of the nearby river, and concentrated only on the rustling movements he could now discern as footfalls in front of him. He had a Glock loaded with iron rounds in his right hand, a bottle of holy water in his left. He had exorcisms and rites memorized long ago at the tip of his tongue. But most of all he had a burning need to kill whatever had taken his brother.

The footsteps ceased suddenly, and so did Sam. He held his breath, afraid his pursuit had been discovered. He squinted into the darkness, saw a dark shape not fifteen feet in front of him. A dark shape that looked human on bottom and…confusing on top. He took stealthy steps, getting closer so he could see in the dark atmosphere. It was Dean, but he was all wrong. He was halfway buried in the ground, and there was a massive protrusion on his back. No, no. No protrusion. That was the thing they were hunting.

"Take me there," it said, its utterance shrill and horrifying. "Reeeesst."

Dean groaned in response, didn't move. Couldn't, with his legs buried. The creature, whatever the hell it was, let out an ear-numbing shriek and began pounding at Dean's head, neck and shoulders. Sam rushed forward with a shout. Unable to get a clear shot with the gun, he squirted holy water at it and hoped it would have some effect. Barring that, he hoped his presence would distract it and get it off Dean. The moment water hit the thing, it vanished. Sam fell to his knees on the ground, next to Dean.

"Dean?" he said fearfully. Sam tugged at Dean's shoulders, tried to get him turned over. He couldn't, his brother's legs were buried to the thigh and he was afraid twisting at the torso would cause him pain. "Dean?"

"I'm okay, Sammy," Dean said.

That was patently untrue. Sam fumbled for his flashlight and flicked it on, turning the beam away from Dean's face. His brother was covered in dirt and detritus, bruises and blood. The injuries looked bad, and those were just the surface ones. He suspected some deeper injury could have occurred. Dean didn't get taken out by an evil thing easily.

"Liar." He said it lightly, smiling at Dean though his concern remained. "What the fuck was that thing?"

"Heavy. A really heavy weight on my shoulders. Too much to carry." Dean spoke in clipped, semi-sensible sentences, the words sounding like they could be describing something else entirely. That thing Dean was carrying around with him, the thing keeping Sam from connecting with his brother, probably. Sam frowned. "Couldn't do it."

"It was huge, Dean. Why didn't you go for your weapons?"

He didn't want to give Dean the third degree, but he didn't want him to pass out either. His brother looked about four seconds away from slumber. Sam dug at the dirt around Dean's buried legs with the butt of his gun. Dean would kill him if he were cognizant enough to realize one of their most expensive weapons was now serving as a shovel.

"It vanished at the first drop of holy water."

"I tried, Sam. I couldn't move. Was like it froze me, and once it had me, it had me." Dean sighed. "At first it wasn't so heavy, but it kept getting worse and worse."

Okay, Dean's speech was slurred, but better. Sam grunted and tried to dig faster, abandoning the Glock for his two hands. The wounds he could see wouldn't need immediate triage, so he could get them to the hotel and sanitize before going at the cuts on Dean's forehead and neck with butterfly bandages. The earth was loosely packed, as if the thing had bore a hole like a worm and somehow Dean had just been caught in it, like instant quicksand. That was better than the alternative of packed dirt, but it was strange. He couldn't think of a single thing that could make a person just sink into the ground like that. Dean was better at demonology, and later maybe he could come up with something.

"That's kind of freaky," he said inanely, just wanting to keep Dean with him. The legs were almost free.

"It wasn't exactly fun, but we've faced worse," Dean said, but didn't sound like he meant it. He sounded like he still had its weight on his back, that it was still forcing him underground. Sam frowned again. "It just caught me off guard."

Sam pursed his lips. That wasn't like Dean. Hell, though, he'd been taken off guard as well. Sam had really thought they were close enough together back there to prevent this from happening. He grunted, yanked at Dean's legs. Dean braced himself and wriggled free, rolling as he did, ending up lying flat on his back. Sam rubbed a hand across his sweaty brow.

"I suppose now we know a little more about it. What was it saying to you?"

"It wanted me to take it somewhere. Latched onto me like I was supposed to give it a piggy back ride."

"Did it say where, or anything else?"

"We weren't having fucking afternoon tea, Sam," Dean said crankily.

Sam took that as a hint to shut up, so he did, but he couldn't not stare at Dean with worry. Dean stared up at the dark canopy of night sky. After a moment, Dean sat up slowly, then stood. He wavered for a second, and favored his left side. Sam noted it and would check for bruised or broken ribs later. For now, Dean was mobile and that was a good thing.

"Let's call it a night?" Sam said.

"No arguments. Sounds like the kids are all done for today, it should be safe out here."

Sam hoped so, because his primary concern was making sure Dean was actually all right. He knew his brother, and just because he was on his feet didn't mean he was okay. He also wanted to start searching lore, with the new information they had. The next time they set foot in this part of the woods, they would be one hundred percent prepared. He didn't want the thing near Dean again. Sam pulled himself to his feet as well and re-oriented himself. The car was due south, if he remembered correctly. He'd better remember correctly. It would be just their luck they'd run into the thing twice in one night.

They made it to the car without incident, though. Sam unloaded the weapons, and Dean actually climbed in the driver's seat. Sam had to almost forcibly move his brother, but the protestations ended quickly. If that wasn't testament to how shitty Dean felt, then Sam didn't know anything at all about him. With Sam at the wheel, they quickly and safely made it to the hotel in about five minutes. There were some benefits to small towns, though he hated to think what would have happened had Dean's injuries been worse. It was always a risk, and he hated that. One day, one of them would end up too damaged to fix out in the middle of nowhere.

Sam walked in front of Dean, hiding him from the night auditor's stares. In the bright hotel lobby lights, Dean looked like he'd fought with a giant cheese grater and lost. It wasn't pretty, and they didn't need any attention on them. They were visitors and, if for some horrible reason they weren't fast enough and another local died, any suspicious behavior on their part would be noted by someone. He didn't want to give that idea much credence. It might have cost them, but they'd figure this thing out now.

At the room, Sam did a quick once over of Dean. Two ribs bruised (deep, purple) and contusions along his arms, neck and face. And massive cuts and scrapes along any part of him that hadn't been protected by clothing. Another deep scratch on his leather coat. There was nothing too terrible, though Sam could read the pain in Dean's eyes and in the way his posture kept getting stiffer and stiffer. Dean eventually cussed at him and headed for the shower.

Sam booted up the laptop and got to work, but his attention kept wandering toward the bathroom door.

TBC, hopefully soon. Happy Hallowe'en!