Warnings still apply and will continue to do so.

3.

Sam turned away and carried on to the top of the stairs. Dean watched open mouthed as Sam pushed at the door and stepped through it,

"No way! You can't just leave me here on my own….Sammy?"

He heard his brother burst into laughter again as Sam disappeared from view, letting the door swing closed again behind him,

"Wait! I'm coming with you!"

Dean stared around, making sure his route was clear of rats before racing across the basement and taking the stairs two at a time to go after his brother. He reached for the door handle, and froze,

"Sam? Sam? I can't open the door. Sam?"

Dean became aware of skittering and snuffling noises coming from the basement area behind him. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and a tingle race down his spine. Slowly Dean turned to look back at the basement room,

"Oh…..shit.."

Sam stood outside taking in deep breaths of air. He knew how much Dean hated rats and he did feel somewhat guilty for laughing at his brother, but then he remembered the image of Dean bouncing along the mattress. That memory along with that of the combined expression on his older brother's face of both determination and fear threatened to set Sam off chuckling again and a smile began to form.

Suddenly though, Sam's slow smile stopped and quickly disappeared again, to be replaced by a worried frown.

Sam concentrated, trying to visualise in his mind's eye the newspaper reports which had lead himself and Dean to this place. He remembered reading about the 18 year old boy that had drowned. He recalled the press report stating that the boy had never learnt to swim due to his longstanding fear of water. The piece about the girl who died after being repeatedly stung by bees had mentioned that the girl was known to be highly allergic to bee stings. So much so that she carried an Epipen which she, apparently, hadn't used. Sam guessed that, knowing how severe her reaction was to being stung, the girl was very likely to have been fearful of bees. Then there was the 16 year old girl who the coroner stated had died as a result of being poisoned and who's post mortem toxicology results showed an unusually large amount of spider venom in her system. Sam didn't remember the article mentioning whether the girl had a fear of spiders, however, he did know that Arachnophobia is one of the most common of all the phobias. Sam decided it wasn't too much of a stretch to imagine the girl had suffered from that particular fear. What if the boy who was attacked by dogs had a fear of dogs and the other boy, the one who had died after being bitten by at least three different species of poisonous snake, suffered from Orphidiophobia?

Sam paled and thought of Dean. His brother would rather confront a nest of vamps in the middle of the night than to knowingly walk into rat central. Panic immediately flooded throughout Sam's body, leaving his legs feeling weak,

"Dean!"

He'd left his brother in the basement…alone,

"Come on Sam. Calm down and get yourself back in there."

Fighting to control his own onslaught of fear for Dean and what might be happening to him, Sam ran back inside the building and over to the door leading to the basement. He had held onto the vague hope that he would find Dean waiting for him on this side of the door. He wasn't. Sam reached for the handle and pulled, but the door didn't budge,

"What the….?"

Sam tried again, tugging harder this time. It was very clear that the door was locked,

"Dean? Dean I can't get in. Have you locked the door?...Dean?...Dean answer me!"

When he didn't get a response, Sam put his ear to the door. He heard…..something,

"Dean! Please, I need you to open this door, right now!"

Sam felt his heart begin to beat faster and his anxiety increase further when there was still no reply from his brother,

"Damn it Dean! Ok…Dean, if you can hear me, I'm going to shoot the lock."

Dean's heart skipped a beat as he made eye contact with King Rat. Nearly three times the size of the others, the jet black rat was sat up on it's haunches, red eyes looking up to the top of the stairs, focused on Dean. The creature was surrounded by thirty or so smaller brown rats who were huddled around the king. They too all had their eyes on Dean. They seemed to be waiting for something.

"Crap. This is so not good. Where the hell are you Sammy?"

The black rat turned and looked around at the browns, a signal seemed to pass from him to them and the browns instantly surged forward on mass, making straight for the stairs and up towards Dean.

"Oh FUCK!"

As the rats swarmed up the stairs and, having nowhere else to go in order to escape, Dean jumped. Soaring over the mass of brown rats he hit the stairs halfway down, landing badly. Pain shot up Dean's leg as he felt his right ankle turn over at a sickeningly unnatural angle, sending him head first down the rest of the stairs. His head hit the concrete floor, hard. As he lay splayed out face down on the floor, Dean's last image before losing consciousness was that of King Rat stalking toward him, teeth bared.

Sam took aim and shot twice at the door lock, inwardly saying a small prayer of thanks to any god who might be listening as he was able to yank open the door. He stood on the small landing at the top of the stairs, and froze, trying to take in the horrifying scene that greeted him in the low light of the basement,

"Shit! DEAN!"

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