Please see chapter one for all notes, ratings, warnings and disclaimer.
Conjured This Temptuous Rage
A low moan filled the air of the darkened motel room. It was familiar to him somehow as he stared into the darkness of the greatly un-detailed room. Another muffled, whimper broke the dark and he recognized it: Sam. Narrowing his eyes against the dark he tried to see where the whimpered cries were coming from. There was next to no light in the room, making it more than impossible for his trained eyes to make out anything more than the faint outlines of a bed in the corner and the bathroom door.
He wanted to call out to his son, ask him where he was- get a location- but no sound would move passed his lips, though he was screaming for Sam. He was mute and practically blind. Anger surged through to his core as he heard a throaty laugh surround him. And then he knew it was that bitch again; it was a game.
Taking a deep breath he calmed his anger and stopped screaming for his youngest son. It would do him no good.
Suddenly light flooded what he knew to be a motel room blinding him. As his vision cleared and adjusted to the light from the dark, John Winchester stared at the floor. Bound, gagged and bloodied lay Sam. He was curled on his side, head resting awkwardly against the worn multi tone carpet. Ropes burned and cut into his ankles and blood splattered and coated his bare feet in red-brown dots. His once grey tee shirt hung loosely over his impossibly thin frame torn and bloody. Moving on autopilot toward his son, John studied the still form on the floor. Cuts and bruises covered his face, distorting his features. His hair'd grown longer and a beard decorated his usually clean shaven face.Blood also coated his hands in red-brown streaks that were tied harshly behind him, from the burns and cuts to his wrists.
His baby boy'd looked better.
In all the years they'd been hunting John could not ever remember Sam this beaten; this bruised. The urge to kill whatever'd done this to his son, his baby boy, fought to come to the surface as he watched Sam drag in ragged breath after ragged breath.
Reminding himself that the bloodied body before him, though a sad sight, was not his son, John moved away from the boy he knelt next beside. It was a dream…a vision put in his head.
With a loud creak and a boom the door to the room flew in and collided solidly with the wall behind it. "Sammy!" Dean beamed, brown paper grocery bag in one hand, room key dangling from the other. "Did ya miss me?"
With a small snort at the Dean the bitch'd decided to show him, John watched as the Dean April was showing him kicked the door closed and set the bag on the tiny table the motel offered.
A wide, cocky grin in place Dean strode up to the now very conscious form still curled up on his side at the foot of the bed. With careful hands he untied the young man's feet before fisting the tattered tee shirt and hauling the poor kid to his feet.
"What the hell are you up to?" John asked, watching the scene before
him play out .
Dean deposited a barely conscious Sam onto the bed he'd lain in front of. Mumbling something into the young hunter's ear that caused him to fall even more still, the elder of John's boys left his captive's side to rummage through the paper bag he'd set down a few moments before.
Tears wanted to burn at John's eyes when he saw Dean pull a small bottle of water, peroxide and a bag of clean rags from the bag. He knew what this vision of his oldest was up to- keeping the victim alive and well enough to torture again.
"Dean would never do this," he shouted at what he knew to be a dream.
"Are you so sure?" a soft childlike voice chirped through his skull. "He needs to be stopped before he goes this far, John. And he will go this far. He will kill Sam. He is not Dean. He's done something with the real Dean. See…"
The still mostly dark motel room shifted to become a large room with a game room, family room and kitchen all spilling into one another. Sam lay on the beige carpet of the game room on his back next to a pool table- his face set in a scowl of pissed. John watched, anger welling once again as Dean casually poured himself a half glass of whiskey from a bottle at the small bar on the other side of the pool table. Taking a near ginger sip of the amber colored liquid, Dean moved closer to the table telling Sam how he should appreciate him more. John watched in odd shades of anger as his oldest son abandoned the glass at the edge of the table and walked calmly around the table to a worn ruck sack.
Finding his legs, John moved closer to the table and the bag Dean was rummaging through. His breath froze in his chest as he stared over his son's shoulder at the lengths of rope, knives and other various forms of torture the bag held. Settling on a large kitchen knife, Dean's trade mark eat shit grin etched across his face as his fingers wrapped around the black handle of the knife. He turned his attention from the bag to Sam then to the table. Wicked smile still splayed on his lips, Dean drove the knife into the table between the wood edge and felt. Sam momentarily stopped eyeing his older brother to stare at the slightly swaying knife wedged into the table top. Dean's attention was back on the bag and its contents.
"This isn't Dean," John said moving around the pool table, unable to look away from the scene still being played out before him. "This never happened."
"Keep watching, John," the raspy soft voice that was somewhere between April's and Mary's said from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
Drawing his feet up to his chest, Sam lashed out at and unaware Dean with a double kick that sent the older boy tumbling to the floor in a balled heap. Not wasting a second Sam quickly climbed to his feet and slipped his bound hands over the blade of the knife. With a grunt of exertion he slid his bound hands over the blade again once, twice, three times before the thick rope binding them together frayed and broke against the sharp edge. Hands free, Sam grasped the handle of the knife and yanked it free of the table.
John almost couldn't help the twinge of pride he felt at Sam's ability to get free. Much as the boy'd hated the drills and training sessions, he had learned to keep a calm head, stock in his surroundings and plan for an escape. He'd just never thought that Sam would be using those skills against his older brother. "This isn't right," he said as Sam turned the knife in hand to face his older brother.
Holding the knife at the ready, Sam watched and anticipated Dean's next move as the older hunter rolled himself to a standing position. Sam took a step forward as Dean moved with quick angry steps toward him. Bringing the knife at his older brother in a wide arch, Sam attacked. Dean leaned back, dodging the would be fatal blow easily. As Sam swung his arm back in another wide sweeping arch, Dean brought his hands up to catch Sam in the forearm. With a grunt and a curse, Dean forced his brother's arm down and back. Sam bit back the pain in his arm as the knife fell to the floor and he was suddenly twisted around; half pushed to the floor.
"Stop this," he called out, his voice filling the room, and not drawing any attention to himself from the fighting brothers. "Dean would never do this."
"He did, John," Mary's quiet voice filled the room of his mind. "This is where it happened. Where it starts."
"No," he ground out as Dean landed a series of punches to Sam's face and chest, driving him back toward a large built in bookshelf. John slammed his eyes shut as his youngest son's body collided hard with the shelves, causing them to collapse around the young man as he sank to the floor on hands and knees.
"No, John," her voice echoed forcefully, "you need to see."
"I….no, I can't," he breathed peeling his eyes open, willing the room around him to fade to black; to take the vision of his eldest son beating his younger brother to death with it.
For a brief moment he thought that his wish had been granted, as the space around him was pitch black. He wanted to sigh in relief or at least laugh at the insanity of the scenes April had put in his head. Dean had never attacked Sam. He was more than certain that no matter what Sam said or did to Dean, Dean would never bring harm to his little brother. After the Shtriga attack when Sam was five, Dean was more committed than ever to keeping Sam safe. And the boy knew the consequences of not protecting his baby brother: John would kill him.
Unless….
A grunt of exertion broke the silence of the blackness surrounding him. A barley audible groan followed the grunt and slowly the darkness began to shift into another room. Yet another motel room in desperate need of an upgrade.
…Dean really was replaced by something else or possessed.
Curled in as a tight a ball as he could manage atop the burgundy floral print coverlet on a double bed lay Sam. Unconsciously John moved closer to the bed and the figure laying towards the window. Despite the bonds keeping his youngest from moving around freely, John was relieved that his boy's hands and feet were free of the blood they were covered in last time he had seen Sam bound like this. Sam wiggled his fingers in an attempt to get the blood flowing to them again. His shoulders hurt and his legs were threatening to cramp as he stretched them out to full length, then pulled them back up so his knees were almost in his chest.
"Where's my brother?" John strained to hear Sam's almost inaudible voice.
A low chuckle from the table behind him and Sam drew John's attention to the figure seated there; guns, oil, knives and whetstone littering the table. Setting a newly assembled Glock down, Dean pushed the chair away from the table and moved toward his captive.
"Right here." He knelt between the beds to look Sam in the eye. "I've done nothing with or to him."
Sam swallowed hard and stared back at the thing pretending to be his older brother. "My arms….I, uh…they hurt. Could you please untie them?"
"I dunno, Little Brother," he said leaning closer to Sam, "last time you tried that I was nearly shot. Do you remember that?"
Sam nodded. He remembered that and the beating that'd come minutes later. "I won't…I promise," he whispered. "Please."
"We're meeting with dad soon," he said leaning away from Sam. Sam swallowed hard again, nodding his head in understanding. "I need to treat your wrists anyway. Can you behave this time or do I need to drug you?"
"No," John gasped as Sam gave a cautious nod. Dean carefully undid the ropes binding his wrists before moving away. Dean would never do this to Sam. Sam, more importantly, would never take this from anyone; especially his brother. "What kind of twisted game is this?!" he yelled at the room as Dean cleaned and dressed the chafed skin of Sam's wrists.
"No game, John," Mary said soft and commanding, like when she had something important to say but refused to speak any louder than she had to. "Dean is not Dean. Sam is in danger. You have to get Sam away from this Dean before more damage is done. Before this happens."
The room shifted quickly from the poorly decorated motel room where his eldest son tended to his youngest to a warehouse thick with evening shadows. Dean stood before him, Sam held in front of him; knife pressed firmly to the tender flesh just under the younger hunter's neck. Terror flicked through Sam's eyes and coursed through John's body.
"He's going to die, Dad, and there's nothing you can do about it," Dean said, taunting him, and moving the knife to trace the tip lightly over the pulse point just behind Sam's jaw.
"Why?" John asked, taking a few steps closer to his boys.
Dean shrugged and shifted his grip on the hunting knife; pressing it in harder against the soft flesh. A bead of blood formed around the tip of the blade and rolled down the tender skin, paling it. "Because I feel like it. Is that a good enough reason?" He moved the blade, scraping lightly across Sam's neck in slow circles- leaving a thin tail of blood as he went. "Or maybe he just annoyed me a little too much today, Dad. Are those good enough reasons?"
Dean slipped his other hand up to tangle in Sam's longish, mass of thick locks. Keeping steady pressure on the blade at the younger man's throat, he pulled back on the hair in his hand. Sam hissed in pain as his neck was bent backward to further expose his neck to the knife being held to it.
"No. Those aren't good enough reason's, Dean," John growled, moving slowly toward his sons.
"You know, Dad, you could have prevented all this." Dean quickly drew the hunting knife across his brother's throat. Sam gasped at the sudden pain; hands automatically camingup to cover the wound and staunch the blood flow- futilely. A satisfied grin covered Dean's face as Sam slowly sank to his knees.
"How could I have stopped this?" he asked, pain lacing his voice as he spoke; his brown eyes not leaving the stilling form of his youngest son. Blood seeped out between Sam's fingers as he lay on the cement floor, staring at John with panicked hazel eyes. The boy's breath came and went in shuttering gasps that were getting further and further apart. The spark in Sam's eyes was starting to die and his hands were slackening their hold over the wound allowing more blood to flow in a dark red river over his thin fingers to the cold grey of the floor.
"You shouldn't have left us." Dean pulled a gun from the back waistband of his jeans and held it butt end out to John. "You know that you have to stop me, right?"
"Not like this," tears welled, but went unshed, in his eyes and his voice all but broke as he spoke.
The soft choking and gurgling sounds Sam'd managed to make stopped. His slackened hands fell away from his throat slightly, exposing the clean edge of the wound. Fear, anger and confusion drove John's hand forward, against his mind's objections, to wrap his fingers around the thick, cold grip of the .45 Dean held out to him.
"You know you want to," the Dean thing taunted. "Come on, dry run for the real thing."
Boom! The recoil was louder that he ever remembered it being…louder even than the first time he'd fired a weapon as a kid.
Dean staggered back a couple steps before falling to his knees; a small dribble of blood making a path down his chin. A sick grin was firm on the Dean things face as it sank, blood covered teeth and all, the rest of the way to the floor; a perfect circle of red slowly fanning across his tee shirt clad chest.
"No," John gasped as he knelt down beside the lifeless body of his youngest son. They couldn't both be gone. "No." His Dean would never do this. Would never have taken such a measurable amount of pleasure in it as the thing he'd just killed. He knew what he had to do.
Closing his eyes against the gruesome scene of his blood covered sons, John Winchester set the cooling hand he'd absently grabbed onto down and climbed to his feet. "How can I stop this?" he asked the darkness.
"Get Sam away from the thing responsible for all this," Mary said. She sounded so close- so real. Real enough that he knew she'd be standing in front of him when he opened his eyes.
"And then?" He caught her soulful green eyes as the bodies of his boys began to fade into the encroaching blackness.
"We make him see the truth about the Dean he's been traveling with."
"I can't…I can't do this alone."
"You won't," she said, earnestly taking a step toward him. " I will be with you every step, John."
SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN
John jerked awake. Letting out a tired sigh he reached for his phone. With more calculation than he thought he could manage, John entered a text message and sent it to his eldest's phone. -95, 38. Dean would know what to do with them. Hell Sam would even know what to do with them. He wasn't worried about that. He was worried about what Dean would do to Sam before they got there. 'Please just let them come and Sam be all right,' he prayed, setting the phone aside and starting the truck. He had a trap to lay before Dean and Sam got there. "I'm coming, Sammy. Together we'll find Dean…or exorcise him...or…kill the thing."
…TBC…
