Chapter 3: Cracked Mask

The barn lights had stopped their spastic electrical surges by the time Dean had made it to the front door. He stood there for a second, listening to the wind as it rattled through the rotting planks of the neglected, derelict structure. The first time he had seen it, he had thought that it looked like simply leaning on the side would bring the whole thing down. That had been in the daylight. Now, in the black of night, he was questioning his sanity as he started toward the rickety pile of wood and iron.

The doors were opening slightly and slamming into each other with the sporadic air currents. He grabbed the rusty handle of one in mid swing and slid in behind it. The air was thick with recently up-heaved dust and hay. Dean's flashlight illuminated the dirt rain, searching the rafters and lofts.

"Dad?" He coughed as he breathed in the tainted oxygen. He cleared his throat and called out again, louder. He didn't care how much noise he was making. The damned thing about supernatural entities was that it was almost impossible to sneak around them. They already knew you were there. Despite this fact, he couldn't keep the tension out of his walk. The way every footfall was carefully placed. He was being hunted and he knew it. He could feel it. Dean knew that even though this thing was pulling him along, he still had to tell himself he was the one hunting and that he was the one in control.

He rounded a piece of farming equipment that had been blocking his view of the back half of the barn. The flashlight beam fell across a ragged hole punched through the worm eaten wood. The size of the opening blocked him from going any further, and the explanation for the filth filled air that Dean was choking on, was suddenly becoming clear. Something had fallen through.

Dean grabbed onto a coil of bailing wire that was anchored down to the floor, wrapped the end a few times around his arm, and leaned out over the hole. The drop was a long way down, and he could barely make out the bottom through the settling dust flurry and darkness. He could hear water running below and wondered if he should go down to investigate. There was nowhere else for him to go but down anyway.

His flashlight passed over something below and he quickly returned the beam to the object, trying to make out what he was looking at. A pant leg and shoe, floating in murky waters below, were all that were visible from where he was standing. When Dean suddenly recognized them, he felt panic hit him in violent, unrelenting stabs to the heart.

"Dad!"

Dean's foot slipped when he tried to get a better look and he dropped a few feet before his arm was ripped upward, still wrapped up in the bailing wire. He dangled from the end, his muscles screaming under the stress of holding up his body. It was when he was sure that his arm hadn't been dislocated, that he was able to pull himself back up onto the edge. The thin wire dug into his forearm and cut open his palm, but he ignored the pain as he contracted his muscles to lift himself up, and grabbed onto the edge.

Dean didn't miss a beat, his near fall an insignificant thought, as he grabbed at a rope nearby and tied off one end on the equipment. He was then back into the hole, dropping as fast as he could, disregarding the rope burning into his already opened palm.

When he hit the water, he had not anticipated that it was going to be so deep, or so cold. He had let go of the rope prematurely and dropped a few feet underneath the surface, the icy water shocking his body into full alertness. Dean found his footing and stood up, moving as fast as he could through the waist deep muck. He made it to John's side and lifted his father's face from the water, pulling him close into his chest and dragging him over to a more elevated landing. All of this happened in a matter of seconds, but to Dean it had been painfully too long. He wished he had made it down there faster. Hell, he was beating himself up for not just leaping off the ledge.

He checked for breathing and was shocked when his father started to cough all on his own and gurgle up black water. Dean helped him onto his side and let him retch, John's body starting to shake uncontrollably with the cold and heaving. When he was done, Dean gently placed him on his back, his hands guiding his father's head back onto the wet wood. He thought the moisture on his hands was from the water, but as he removed them from beneath his dad's head he found that they were covered in a more viscous liquid.

"God. Dad…" Dean started as he left John's side for a moment to grab his flashlight out of the water.

He returned quickly to asses his father's condition. It was making him apprehensive the lack of conversation passing between them now, and the desperate gasps coming from his father's lungs. His father was staring up at the ceiling blankly, his beard reddened at the corners of his mouth where a thin line of blood was trickling between his parted lips. His chest rose and fell at irregular intervals, and Dean could see now that blood was pooling from beneath his head.

"Shit! Oh, shit!" Dean cried, taking off his jacket and wadding it up behind his father's head. He looked around for something to press against the wound, and noted that the room was filling with water from broken piping above. There wasn't much that wasn't soaking wet, but he saw a sink down the hallway from them with towels hanging from a bar to dry. He grabbed one and carefully wrapped his father's head in it.

"Dad, look at me," Dean pleaded when he saw the glassed over look of John's eyes

John didn't answer at first, but then seemed to realize his son was with him and groaned out his name. "Dean…"

"Hey, can you move?" Dean asked. "Just tell me what to do, Dad."

"I can't….move…I...I got careless. Something pulled me down… from the hay loft…"

"Okay, I'm going to get help," Dean said as he checked his water logged cell phone, and knew it wasn't going to be much assistance. "You left your cell in the truck, right?"

"Sam…" John choked. He looked away from Dean and back up at the ceiling. His brow creased in agony. "I never meant… to push him away."

Dean listened to his father's lament and felt an uncontrollable despair wash over him. His father had taken the fight harder than he had let on earlier that evening. He was internalizing it, and Dean had no doubt in his mind that his father, the great John Winchester, had been taken down by this burden. He had let his guard down because he had been thinking about what he had said. He had been thinking about Sam, and not the hunt.

"You didn't push him away," Dean said, trying hard to keep his voice strong. "Dammit, Dad, Sam had to do this. We have to let him go! Now, did you leave your cell in the truck?"

"I didn't tell him the truth, Dean," John whispered. He wasn't really there with Dean. He wasn't really concerned about a cell phone. He was in pain, but it was mostly beneath the tough surface, at the very core of the man. "I never told him that…I was proud of him."

Dean looked down at the broken man before him and felt lost. His dad had never revealed this kind of openness to Dean. John had always been the strong one, the one who had a plan and iron clad resolve. He hadn't seen his father cry since that night…the night that spawned their hunting. It looked so foreign on him; the tears at the corners of his eyes.

"Tell him that, Dad," Dean said. "That's all Sam wants to hear."

He felt his father's clammy hand wrap around his, and he realized that he had to be the strong one now. Dean was going to have to be the pillar that the remnant of his family leaned on.

"Tell him for me…I wanted to drive him to school. I wanted to help him move in…and carry those damn boxes. I wanted to see him get his diploma…not in the mail like his high school one…on a platform in the whole robe get-up…"

Dean tightened his grip on his father's hand and swallowed hard the lump at the back of his throat. He had to go get help, he had to leave him. But the man he had looked to his whole life was lying there, dying, and he couldn't do a damn thing but listen to him.

"Stop talking like you aren't going to see all that," Dean found himself shouting. "Just hold on, alright. When I get back you better still be here, you understand me!"

He went to stand up, but his father tightened his grip on his wrist and kept Dean from going anywhere. "Sulfur…" he breathed.

"I know," Dean responded. "I'll be careful."

John loosened his grip on Dean's hand and went back to his absent stare. He was starting to shake badly and the water from below the landing was crawling up into the hallway and surrounding him. Dean knew he had to move him, but he had no idea the kind of damage that had been dealt to his body. For the first time in a long time, Dean felt like a child. Daddy was hurt, and daddy wasn't going to be any help.

Dean squeezed his dad's hand, hoping it would give him the assurance that everything would be okay. He didn't want to leave his side. He couldn't help the thought that this was it. His dad was going to die, and if he left him alone…he wouldn't get the chance to say goodbye.

"Sammy…"

Dean recoiled in his soul. Sam was the one at the bus stop leaving for school. Sam was the one who had told Dean that his genuine words had been bullshit. Sam was the one that wasn't there, holding the hand of their dying father. Dean was the one sitting there in the cold dark, not Sam. It hurt to hear his father calling out for the one son that wasn't there, and not him.

Dean watched his father's eyes flutter in the fight against their fatigue, and he felt a fresh anger rise in him. It wasn't going to end here. Not like this. Not before John had seen the end to his search for resolution. Not before John got to tell Sam the truth. Dean released his father's hand and forced himself to leave.

Be here when I get back

Sam's initial reaction was to duck down at the sight of the officer; however, he stopped himself, realizing that would look obnoxiously suspicious. Instead he just sat there, like it was his car and he was waiting for someone inside the bar. He hoped that the whole young look wouldn't play a huge factor in the man's curiosity.

Unfortunately for Sam, it played the only factor in the man's curiosity. He took the smoldering cigarette from his mouth, the smoke curling from his lips, and started to walk toward Sam.

Wonderful

Sam pushed the wires back out of sight and didn't make eye contact. He thought over the many ways Dean would talk his way out of this one, the many different stories he could tell. Unfortunately, he knew he couldn't pull any of them off. Lying to people had always made him nervous. He couldn't flash the confident smiles like Dean and live like he'd been someone else entirely his whole life.

He risked a glance when it seemed like an eternity had gone by before the man had spotted him. He was pleasantly surprised to see that someone else had taken up the officer's interest. A man with two beers in each hand was singing and moving without full control of his motor functions toward the road. The officer was now preoccupied and heading toward the one man circus performance that was about to walk into the middle of the street.

Sam used the distraction to fumble with the wires some more. When the engine turned over he felt relief and a sense of accomplishment. The latter made him wonder if he was alright upstairs.

The drive was a long one. He knew he had already lost a lot of time. However, he was determined to make up for that by pushing the old vehicle as fast as he could. He looked again at his cell phone a few times for messages and redialed both his father and brother. Every time he couldn't get through, and every time he had to fight back any new panic that would surface.

The panic wasn't the only thing he found himself fighting off. Sam had also been increasingly aware of a dull pressure in his head. Ever since the bus stop and the phone call, his head had felt somewhat fuzzy and full. It was a swollen heaviness and he had experienced something of a lesser degree like it before. Headaches were commonalities to him. Simple changes in the weather caused them. However, this felt different to him; this felt like it could grow into something more than what a simple Advil could handle.

The passing cars weren't helping much. The bright lights were causing the pressure to pulsate faster and more painfully. It was a great relief when he finally made it to a quiet side road, a few miles from the ranch. It meant that he was almost there, and that he was now on a road that saw very little traffic. He hoped the lack of irritating headlights would help dull down the waves of prickling weight behind his eyes.

It wasn't the case, however. It wasn't the passing car headlights that triggered the pain anymore. Now everything made it feel like his brain was being constricted by his own blood vessels. The lights from his own car, the blurred motion of the trees passing by, the hum of the engine; all were starting to cause unbearable pain.

Sam was about to pull over to close his eyes for a second, but, as if in response to that thought, the car started to die. The engine sputtered and choked, causing the car to lurch a few times before becoming sluggish and slowing. Sam cursed as he was forced to find the side of the road. The older cars were the easiest to hotwire, which was why Sam had chosen the car he had. They were also the more likely to crap out at the most inconvenient times. At that moment Sam didn't feel like it was merely an inconvenience; it was a damn cosmic joke.

Sam opened the hood and started to poke around for the problem. All he had was the dim beam of an almost battery dead flashlight he had found under the back seat, and squinting was only making his head hurt more. As he leaned in for a closer look, the headache finally took him.

His frontal lobe exploded in white hot spasms. The pain was unimaginable and piercing, like every vessel in his skull was rupturing. He braced himself against the car with one hand, tears streaming down his face as his brain was being crushed with more and more pressure.

White sparks danced in front of his eyes before fading to black. Sam was aware that he was still standing there, still agonizing against the side of the car, but he was blind. His eyes were open, but they were met with nothing. He couldn't see the outlines of the trees, or the car.

His hand that had been gripping the side of the car was suddenly grasping at nothing but the air and he fell forward. He put out both hands and waited to feel the abrasive dirt rip through his palms. Instead, he was shocked as his hands plummeted wrist deep into frigid water.

In his shock and blindness he fumbled around, feeling for something to hold onto and pull himself up with. His fingers met with air and water and nothing much else. Sam could feel the wood beneath him and wondered how he had managed to move from the street to a wooden floored room filling with water.

Sam's eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness and as his sightlessness started to melt away he could make out fuzzy images and shapes. Sam crawled along the floor, and stopped when his hands finally touched something in front of him. His hand drew back immediately as he registered what it was he had touched. Flesh. Cold and wet flesh.

Somewhere, someone turned on a light, and the room was illuminated. Sam's breath caught in his chest as his eyes connected with the eyes of his father who was lying in the water dyed red by his own blood. His sightless eyes were staring straight into Sam, like he had been waiting for him, and had expected him to come. They were unblinking, unmoving, unloving. Dead.

Sam went to pick him up, to get his head out of the water, to do something other than stare back. He lifted up his head from the bloody water and brought his face inches from his. He prayed for him to move, to say something, and brushed away the wet strands of hair from his face.

Sam started crying. His mind was numb and tired with trying to reason his surroundings. He didn't know or care how he had gotten there. The only thing he could think about was the man in his arms and all the things he had said to him before. All the things he was never going to be able to say to him now. He wept uncontrollably, holding his father and rocking back and forth in the water.

"Sammy."

The familiar voice brought hope. Sam looked down at his dad and saw that he was looking up at him. Something was wrong, however. His eyes weren't filled with love or concern. They were indifferent to his son's tears.

"I didn't raise you to cry," John said coldly. He then grabbed Sam by the throat and pushed him down under the water in one quick movement.

Sam didn't know how the water had gotten so deep, so fast, but he was fully submerged and unable to escape his father. The man was putting all his weight into holding him down, and Sam was trying hard to push him off, his fingers clawing into the hands encircling his neck.

All Sam's efforts to free himself were fruitless and he found it hard to resist the urge to open his mouth and hungrily seek oxygen. He finally just gave up and breathed in the water while his larynx was slowly crushed by his own father. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew this wasn't real, that he had to be dreaming, but he was tired of fighting with his dad. He was just going to let John win this one.

Dean pulled himself back up into the barn and sat at the edge of the gap to gather himself. Between screaming and crying, he had to find a solid middle ground to function on. He knew that he needed to get to the car and call for help. If that wasn't going to work he'd have to find a way to get his dad out of the lower levels before they filled with water. Maybe if he could find a few planks of wood, a pulley…

A shift in the shadows to his left made Dean remember his initial problem. Whatever it was that had led him to the barn, it was there with him now, and still playing games. He had never fought a demon before, but he knew that certain weapons could be used to weaken it. Dean got up slowly from the edge and looked around for where he had sat his shotgun. It was leaning up against the tractor, not two feet from him, but he didn't want to make any sudden movements.

Something whistled past his head and embedded deeply in the machinery behind him. Dean turned and looked at a nail the size of a railroad spike sticking out, centimeters from where he had been standing.

Dean followed the trajectory path back to its source and saw someone standing underneath the hayloft. It looked like the silhouette of a man and he was leaning casually against one of the support beams. Other than his outline, Dean couldn't make out any other feature about him.

The building trembled slightly, casting dust from the rafters above. Dean clenched his fists and waited for an opportunity to present itself for him to grab up the shotgun. The other presence in the room didn't seem like it was going to budge from its post.

"You did this to my father, didn't you, you son of a bitch!" Dean yelled

The figure pushed off of the pillar and stood there, mocking Dean with its silence. The building shuddered again and this time two more spikes shot past Dean. He noted that they were coming from the support beam that was next to the being. He had seen hundreds of them jutting out from the wood before, being used as hanging pegs for barn supplies.

Dean didn't flinch, when a few more headed his way, calling the things bluff. However, as the floor began to tremble, he started to reassess his stare down strategy.

The wood beams beneath his feet suddenly gave way, and Dean jumped to his side to avoid falling, rolling to a stop next to the shot gun. He quickly scraped it up, turned and fired a shot toward his assailant. The figure stumbled backward as the salt spray caught it in one shoulder, but it recovered as if nothing had happened.

Dean could hear the ping of several of the spikes being ripped from the beam and knew they were about to be heading in his direction. He fired one more shot and the quickly jumped behind some bails of hay and crates as the onslaught of wood spikes slammed into the side of the improvised barricade.

Lying on his back behind the barrier, he emptied the used shells and fished in his jacket for more rounds. Once they were loaded, he jumped to his feet and aimed back at the creature. He was confused when it was just standing there, like it was waiting for him to go ahead and fire another round.

He shot once more, watching the figure crumble backward again against the force of the impact. Then he leapt the barrier and ran towards it, firing another round while it was still doubled over. It held out a hand and the shotgun was snatched effortlessly from Dean's fingers, but Dean continued to move forward.

The thing ripped some spikes from the beam with its own hands and took a swing at Dean, but Dean ducked and pulled a knife from his boot which he thrust upward into its torso. He felt it slide through flesh and bone and felt blood run down over his hands before he tore out the knife and watched the faceless man fall to his knees.

It started to laugh. While it knelt there, still covered in shadow, Dean was surprised to hear it laughing…at him.

"My turn," it sneered.

Dean suddenly found himself flying back through the air, his body slamming violently into a wall. All that he could let out was a muted grunt as the air was forced from his lungs on impact. He tried to breathe in, but he realized it was like sucking air through a straw as pressure continued to lay into his chest.

Something was biting at his wrists. The searing pain that was running straight through them was unlike anything he had ever felt before and he tried to pull them into his chest. Something was holding them back and keeping them against the wall. He could feel his own blood now, warm and wet, running down his arms. He finally gathered the strength to move his head against the force and look at what was eating at his writs. One of the spikes was in each one, pinning his arms out to the side like he was on a cross.

He gritted his teeth and stifled any screams that tried to escape past his lips. He wouldn't give the demon the pleasure of hearing his pain. He tried to cuss the thing out, but his lungs were still burning for air. He was blacking out, and as hard as he was trying to keep conscious, the lure of not having to feel anything if he gave in was highly persuasive.

A/N: I can't help but feel this is absolute crap, and it was so hard to be this mean to the guys. Please leave a review on your way out, and thanks again to all of you who do review. It gets the updates done faster.