"Whatcha doing?"

Sam looked up, meeting Dean's eyes, happy to see their corners crinkle with his brother's smile. Dean dug two beers out of the fridge.

"This." Waving at the sprawl of books over the table Sam snorted a disgusted noise and flipped his pen in the air.

"Not going so well?" Dean patiently retrieved the pen from the floor, laying it beside Sam's hand. "And here I thought you loved this stuff, studying, school."

"No, Dean, I love learning. Actually I hate studying, more to the point I hate doing it alone. I always joined study groups. Why do you think I always tried getting you to sit with me and help me when I was a kid?"

Swinging the other kitchen chair around, straddling it, Dean pulled one of the books closer. "This is….eeuuuwww. At least what we research for hunts is…well…"

"Interesting?" Sam finished for him, smiling at Dean's smirk and nod. "I need to complete these to finish the degree I started at Stanford. And, um…..we sort of have homework."

"We? What's this we shit Sammy? I said I'd do this with you, not do your homework. I'm here for the sorority girls."

"It's a hunt."

Dean nodded, considering what Sam told him. "For sorority girls?"

Huffing a sigh, Sam stood and stretched. "I don't think so. I have a location and some details."

"Ok," Dean shrugged, cracking open one beer, then the second handing it to Sam. "I can get into that, what is it we're hunting?"

Sam handed him a slip of paper, a single road name and some directions were written on it. "I..uh…think I put together some theories, what we're dealing with." Sam just knew Dean was going to laugh at this, he really was.

Taking a swig of beer, Dean held out one hand, shrugged his question. Sam figured he may as well get it over with. Rubbing the back of his head, focusing on the mess of books all over the table, he mumbled, "Bridge troll."

Sammy…..a what??" First Dean choked, then coughed, then made some noise Sam really didn't even want to try and identify, and lastly sprayed beer all over Sam's chest.

Head dropping to look down at his showered torso, Sam heaved another sigh. "Dude, that's just gross." He pulled off his shirt, taking two steps to toss it into the laundry bin in the bathroom.

"We're hunting down faerie tales now?" Dean wheezed. "And waste of good beer."

Sam shot his brother the dirtiest look he could muster, then looked down, maybe Dean wouldn't notice he was turning the slightest shade of pink. Well, he was naked from his belt up, Dean would notice, since all of him was turning pink. Sam retrieved a clean shirt and pulled it on.

It seemed silly, but maybe, just maybe there was something to the legends. "Lots of myths are based on actual things. Look at these." He handed out a folder.

Snatching it from Sam's grasp Dean rifled through the contents. "Sam. Come on, you could do these on your computer if you wanted."

"This one is from 1956." Sam pulled one from the folder. "When the bridge was built. It's a wooden covered bridge."

Shrugging, "So? You can do that on your computer too."

Sam just looked at him, chin dipped down a fraction, head tilted slightly to one side, mouth curled up to a lopsided grin. "You know you want to."

"No. No, Sam I really don't." Dean stared him down. All it took was for Sam to drop his gaze to the floor, the picture of defeated. Rolling his eyes, Dean let the beer bottle clunk to the counter top. From deep in his chest a low growl rumbled out. Sam hid a smile by biting his lip, the growl he'd learned somewhere around age four was totally fake. "If this is part of your training, then I suppose the Brothers Winchester can hunt down the Brothers Grimm, but so help me if this is one of your half-assed attempts at a joke….."

"Dean, man, would I even think of doing that to you?"

Shaking his head, walking away, mumbling, "Bridge troll of all the….."

"Don't you want to know the details I dug up?"

Dean swung around mid-step, returned to his chair, plopping down. He gazed up at Sam with his infernally patient, big-brother expression.

"You're making fun of me." Sam snapped, suddenly infuriated and feeling like a little kid asking permission to cross the street all at once.

"No, Sammy I'm not, but come on, a bridge troll? It's a kid's story." He actually, to Sam's surprise, managed to look contrite, not quite apologetic, but almost.

"Not everything is demons and ghosts." Shrugging a bit, digging his toe against the linoleum of the kitchen floor, "Never mind, it's silly, I'll just go by myself, it's my thing anyway, the schoolwork." Sam sat down at the table, started shuffling through his books again. He nearly burst out laughing when Dean made that growling noise again. Looking up meekly, "Something wrong?"

"Go on a hunt by yourself? As if you'll ever be big enough for that."

"I'm bigger than you."

Dean snorted, then growled. Sam was starting to like the growl. "So, other than the pictures, why a bridge troll?"

"Well," Sam scooted his chair around so he was next to Dean, picking up the folder again. "Since this picture was first taken, in 1956 a few people a year vanish there."

"Bridge Sammy, they probably jumped."

"Water isn't deep enough, and the bridge is really only about ten feet off the ground. After each disappearance there is a note left nailed to the bridge entrance, saying 'They couldn't answer.'"

"College prank."

Nodding, "Maybe," Sam agreed. "I thought of that too, but people really are disappearing there, a few each year. All kinds of people, I couldn't find any correlation between the victims other than they vanished at that particular place. According to legends trolls turn into stone in the sunlight. And I found these sigils, they should trap the troll long enough for the sun to come up."

Dean groaned, not nearly as entertaining as the growl. Sam decided his brother had more noises than most people did words. "Until the sun comes up?"

"Yeah, at night."

A sigh and a rumble, "Ok, why should I expect a gig in the afternoon anyway?" Dean shoved one of the books at Sam. "In the mean time, I'm here, we have a group of two, what do I have to do to help you get this crap done?"

Somewhere around midnight Sam was beginning to regret getting Dean to come along. First Dean wandered up and down the bridge, reciting bad limericks. Then he threw stones off the bridge at some imaginary monsters in the water. Then he hung up-side-down from the railing of the covered bridge by his knees, throwing stones at imaginary monsters in the water. After that he bitched at Sam because he'd been trying to reach Concha, give her what for because she'd told Craven about Sam's visions, and was only getting her voice mail. She'd returned his calls, but gotten his voice mail.

"Dean," Sam sat on the bank, leaning back against one of the pylons supporting the old, wooden bridge. "I think we're supposed to at least pretend we believe in the troll. You're not really taking this very seriously."

"Don't you have some way of calling the thing? I'm hungry."

"Will you quit whining?"

"I'm not whining Sammy. I don't whine I speak with effect."

"Whining." Sam rolled his eyes. He let his head bump against the old, somewhat rotting wood of the bridge. "There is no pattern to when the people disappeared, and I couldn't find a way to call it." He mumbled the last few words, hoping his brother wouldn't really hear, or pay attention.

Dean homed in on Sam's words like a possessed pigeon. "Jesus Sammy, you know better, hunts have to be researched so A, we don't waste our time and B, we don't die. If this is how this guy is teaching you to research, well kiddo, I'm a helluva lot better teacher than he is. In fact I bet Professor Creepy is….."

"Is what Dean?" When Sam got no answer he straightened, looking around. "Dean?" He shone the flashlight across the bridge. Just as it landed on Dean, who looked a bit confused, and was waving at Sam, the light flicked out. "Damn piece of crap." He thwanked it hard against the palm of his other hand. He peered more closely at his brother, "I'm coming, what is it?" Lengthening his stride, Sam covered the few feet between him and where Dean stood in a few seconds. He stopped quick when he suddenly realized Dean wasn't waving him forward, but trying to wave him away.

Sam opened his mouth to ask, he gasped in surprise when Dean was sucked under the ground.

"Sammy's got a secret."

Jerking around, Sam heard the rustle of underbrush. Barely saw something moving just beyond his vision. A breeze skimming over his arms and the back of his neck made him shiver a bit, at least that's what he told himself. "Dean? DEAN!"

"Sammy's got a secret."

Spinning back toward the bridge, the voice was behind him again. "Dean, so help me if this is one of your lame-ass pranks…."

More rustling. "Dean doesn't know Sammy's secret."

Sam froze.

"Sammy's got a secret. Should tell Dean his secret."

Moving only his head, Sam looked around him. The small, crescent moon provided little light. The old, wooden, covered bridge, quaint before now appeared like some menacing creature, its gaping maw of an opening leering at him. He wondered if he stepped onto the bridge if the thing would close up and swallow him whole. Most importantly where the HELL was Dean?

"De-Dean?" Yeah, he sounded incredibly dangerous. Some hunter.

Something ran, on bare feet Sam could tell, from one side of the bridge to the other. Sam peered into the murk. It wasn't Dean. His brother wouldn't wander around here without boots and socks for any reason at all. They weren't Dean's footsteps anyway, Sam knew those, had them ingrained in him since infanthood, what his brother's footsteps sounded like. A splash got Sam moving cautiously to the stream. It was a noisy little stream. The water bubbled and cascaded over countless rocks and branches and who knew what else in the water. Sam squinted at the water, tried the useless flashlight again. Not seeing any Dean-sized lumps in the water he heaved a sigh of relief.

"Secret…secret..Sammy's got a secret."

Hedging closer to the bridge, careful not to get sucked in and eaten by its jaws, Sam took a box of chalk from his pocket, began drawing the sigils on one side of the bridge. He started on the left corner, he'd at some point have to cross the bridge to mark the other side, but he'd have to find Dean first, or risk leaving him trapped where ever he was.

"What secret is that?" Sam answered, his voice sounded surprisingly calm, at least to him. "Where's my brother?"

"Right under your nose, brother is. Sammy's got a secret."

Wonderful, it was really Yoda, not a troll. Sam instinctively looked down. Nope, Dean wasn't there. Something danced out of the shadows, splashed from the stream just beneath the bridge. Sam resisted the urge to back away, couldn't quite stop the short gasp from bursting out of his throat. It was maybe half his size, with huge clown-shoe sized feet, except there were six bony, gnarled toes attached to plump legs with what looked to be two knee caps apiece. Yet another reason to not be so terribly fond of clowns. Little pointy teeth smiled at him through lips that didn't quite close. A long snout any Great White would give to have, and on top of that eyes that blinked sideways. Skinny arms hung at its side, six fingers on the end of each to match the toes.

Sam really wished he knew where Dean was. Really wished Dean was here.

"Brother loves you and you don't tell him your secret."

"I don't need you to tell me what my brother feels. And I don't know what secret you're talking about. I've never kept anything from Dean." Well…almost…he actually didn't have any secrets Sam finally decided, at least not from Dean.

"My bridge. Must tell if you want him back."

Well, crap, that was too easy. Sam shrugged in what he hoped looked like utter defeat. "Ok, give him back and I'll tell him anything you want." He finished drawing on the left most support, moved across to the right corner. "Is this a recent secret or from when we were kids. I've known the guy my whole life, might have to narrow it down for me."

"Sammy's got a secret. Sammy's daddy died."

Eyes sliding to the troll, who was maybe uglier than the first look, "It's no secret my dad died."

"Sammy knows, daddy died."

Sam dropped the chalk. Spinning to face the troll, "It's S-….." Waving one hand in the air in disgust, "Oh, never mind. We talked about it, all of it. I told Dean everything I knew." His voice cracked one too many times. Retrieving the chalk Sam continued his drawing. "I certainly can't tell him anything right now, you took him, and I want him back!"

"He's right here, right under your nose." The troll danced away, rather annoyingly as Sam swatted at its head. When the creature stopped on the same spot Dean had vanished from Sam stopped drawing, straightened at glared at it.

"Please."

"Anything, anything at all you'd do to have him back."

It wasn't a question. Sam didn't give him a response, he had the sense he didn't need to say anything, anything more than a repeated please.

The troll raised one hand, waggled his fingers at Sam and dropped through the ground, right where Dean had gone.

"No! Nooooo……" Sam covered the distance in a few strides, dropping to his knees, digging frantically at the ground. "I need him. Please." It was hard and rocky and unforgiving and made his fingers bleed. His next tactic was to pound his hands over and over against the hard packed soil and thin grass, most of which he'd yanked out. Finally gathering himself up, he stood on shaky legs to his full height and was surprised to see the crescent moon had moved quite a distance along its path. It seemed only a few minutes had gone by during his little conversation with the troll, but in reality it was hours. A glance at his watch told him he had three hours left before dawn. If he couldn't find Dean, free him by then, Sam shuddered, maybe he never would.

The wind picked up for a few seconds, and whispering, seemingly from the trees caught his attention.

"Sammy has a secret. Sammy answered. Now Dean has to answer my question."

Sam couldn't help feeling he'd somehow been tricked into a deal, he just couldn't figure out what kind.