Author's Note: Heya, guys! Here is CHAPTER 3 of the multichaptered Horror-Movie-esque SPN AU fic "It Runs Deep" that my wifey Tumblr's scrumptiousalterboy and I are collaborating on here and on AO3! Please enjoy, and feel free to comment! :) Another chapter should be up tomoorrroooww~

Characters in this chapter: Sam, Dean, Castiel, Benny, Bobby, Mary, Jess, John, and Meg. MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH in this one.

Genre: Supernatural!Horror!AU … Just in time for Halloween! ;D

Disclaimer: We do not own Supernatural or the characters, we just love them to pieces.

Potential Triggers (over the course of many chapters, not the prologue itself): Asthma!Sam, Cabin In The Woods, Asylum, Blood and Gore, Blood Play, Blood Drinking, Violent Sex, Breath Play, Slight non/con elements later in the story, Suicide, Knife play.

It Runs Deep

Chapter 3: The Most Dire Warnings Come too Late

"Will this rain ever stop? If only to make them shut up." The report of the lock sliding back reverberated through the dark halls to be lost amid the howling. A visible shudder ran through the security guard, but Meg remained unaffected. She wasn't the only one. On the other side of the door sat Novak with a vanilla pudding cup in his hands. He did not flinch nor even looked up when the door was pushed open. He continued to stare at the cup as if it was the most interesting thing in the world.

After a week of Novak being in a catatonic state, there he was, waiting for her to ask for more of his story. It brought a smile to Meg's lips. She hadn't even needed to bribe him first.

"Remember Masters, two taps," Audrey said, her deeper voice clipped and stern.

Two loud taps cut through a momentary respite from the screaming. Audrey jumped and reach for her taser. Novak hadn't looked up but he had two fingers pressed to the top of his table, indicating that the taps had come from him. Whether he meant to unsettle the guard or remind Meg that he was dangerous was anybody's guess.

But Meg was anything but unsettled. If anything, while a paranoid guard closed and locked her in here with the murderer who was more conscious of his surroundings than he let on, she was nothing short of pleased. Sweet progress.

"Beautiful day, isn't it?" she asked him, not that she expected an answer.

Like always her every step and movement was projected before she made it. She took a seat across from him at the table, one leg crossing over the other. She could just see inside his room and that his bathing sponge was still out. How pathetically 'brave' personnel could be when a person was strapped down.

"I enjoy the rain. There's a tranquility in its persistence. Something we don't get much of elsewhere," she continued. Not when even now the distant screams could still be heard.

"The rain was bad for Sam. Dean would never bring him here," Novak muttered.

Her gaze trailed from the window and the mist back to her patient, her curiosity returning. She folded her hands together atop the table. In grabbing distance to his, if he wanted to hurt her.

He wouldn't. She had no doubt.

"…If you're up to it, Mr. Novak, I was meaning to ask you what you meant last week. This… Sam of yours, you said he wasn't allowed to be happy. It fed something when he was, what did you mean by that? What happened when Sam was happy?"

Novak's head cocked to the side, his eyes still on the vanilla pudding cup. He twisted it, allowing her to make out the pills that were dissolving from within. There was a pink streak on the side of the cup that looked like diluted blood. He tipped the cup to make the streak disappear and then set it down and slid it away. As it bumped against her fingertips, he finally looked at her and met Meg's eyes in the glow of her single candle.

"People died," he said plainly and tapped the table twice quietly.

Then Novak grew eerily still. The only movement was his chest expanding as he breathed. There were no more offers of stories, not until Meg took a banana out of a pocket and slid it across the table. Finally he moved once more and slowly took the banana. It disappeared under the table.. Meg had yet to see him eat the bananas.

"It was the price of the gifts. I was one. A man became a splat on the wall for me. I wasn't a very good gift. But for Jessica… she was worth more than a splat. Maybe that is just how things are, for people like Sam."

"People like Sam…?" Meg prompted, studying Novak's expression. No one had gotten nearly this far in his story and Meg couldn't be sure if he trusted her with it. He had told Dr. Reynolds that he wouldn't believe him and then shut himself off entirely.

"Whatever you tell me, I'm here to listen, Mr. Novak. Nothing is too 'out there' for me, I don't scare easy."

Just in case that was his concern and he hadn't deduced yet that she had her own appreciation for morbid truths. She hadn't once tried to psychoanalyze him, hadn't once accused him of his story being a figment of his imagination. She had only ever listened, quiet and attentive.

"This thing that fed in Sam's happiness…what price did it make him pay for Jess? What kind of person was Sam, what did you mean by that..? He sounded like he was quite the goody two shoes. A sweet boy, to you and others."

Novak's head cocked to the other side as he considered Meg openly. The flame on the window sill flickered, catching in his deep eyes. Shadows seemed to flit behind them before he blinked and the haze of a week on his medication returned.

"Sam's personality had nothing to do with his… abilities."

He looked away and down at the floor. Unerringly, he dipped a finger into the pudding cup and began to trace symbols on the table, never once lifting his eyes from the floor. The lines were thin and often disappeared within the cream colored table top. The star surrounded by what looked like flames, however, Meg could make out clearly.

"Abilities?" She prompted again and Castiel looked back up at her.

"He had visions. Jessica found out the hard way."

November, 2nd, 1997

"Okay so, you can't have peanuts, or really any nut, shell fish, and dairy. Wheat is a hit or miss. Am I missing anything?" Jess asked over her rocky road ice cream cone. The door to the ice cream shop chimed as it closed behind them. Someone's perfume had been too strong for Sam so they left the shop to take their treats back to his house. Some date, but Jess assured that it was fine.

"I'm asking because I want to know for our future dates, and who knows? Maybe I'll cook for you some day so stop looking like food allergies is going to chase me away. After reading that note," she teased and Sam's heart skipped, "it's going to take something pretty major to scare this girl."

"You don't think it's lame…?" Sam asked, ducking his head with sheepish embarrassment, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. He was such a dork. She got to have an awesome waffle cone and he had to be the weirdo with the plastic cup. He had even had to specify no latex to the attendant, just in case the spoon or anything had latex. His life was so frustrating sometimes. Normally it didn't phase him, he was used to being weird and embraced it, chugging on through like a trooper, but being around Jess? He felt shy and self conscious. It was dumb.

He was being dumb, especially when she even offered to cook for him, earning a relieved, dimpled smile from her wheezy new boyfriend. Sam was still getting used to that.

"Okay, so yeah. Nuts –some worse than others–, dairy.." Wheeze, "..shellfish, wheat just really depends, all the 'cillins', plenty of other meds, latex, certain perfumes, wool, pollen, dust, cats, smoke's a killer…" He threw the last one in to be funny but even he knew it kind of wasn't, his half chuckle becoming a dumb wheeze and a slight face. The list was pretty extensive. It was sad and Sam wasn't oblivious to that.

"…I'm sorry. I know it's gotta suck dating a…"

The word 'freak' died on his lips and his spoon hovered above his lips, frozen, when it hit him.

"Dating a…" Jess hedged but his whole world went white and his body went rigid as if he had been struck by lightning. A blink and you might have missed it. The only warning Jess would have that something was about to happen while they stood alone on an empty sidewalk was Sam's sharp intake of breath (something his lungs weren't built for and should have had him coughing up a storm… but didn't).

He was distantly aware of his fingers going lax, of his frozen non-dairy yogurt falling with a splat and clatter to the ground. His hands jumped up to grab his head with a cry of anguish as pain sliced through his skull. Next to them on the street a car went zooming past at ungodly speeds.

Sam crumbled to his knees, his wheezing breaths were growing too quick, straining his lungs into dangerous choked heaves, his glossed over eyes staring unseeingly into the distance the car had zoomed off to.

Sam wasn't there with Jessica, not in mind. He was with that car, lost to the whirlwind of his vision, the world whipping about around him. Visions that forever continued to pluck him out of time and space to show him terrors and horrors, and this one? This one was the worst so far.

"No! Nonono! Dad's in there, please no! Stop the car, you're gonna hit him–!"

They could all but feel, let alone hear, the crash that took place two streets down.

The collision of the vehicle that hit his father's driver's side was so powerful, so real and absolute, that it was like the vehicle itself had rammed Sam's chest. It knocked him out of the real-time vision and lead him to double over with rattled, chopped up, dry heaves and coughs. The sound of breaking glass and his father's screams echoed in his ears,

"I…" His wheeze was terrible, voice strained and full of tears as he desperately tried to get up even though he couldn't breathe, dizzy and stumbling but desperate to make his body move. "…my dad…my dad, that car… That car hit my dad!"

"Sam went into hysterics. Jessica didn't know what to do so she rushed back to the icecream shop and called me," Novak said. He wiped his sticky fingers on his shirt, eyes once more casting upwards. Through the shadows he found the brass cross that bore a crucified Jesus, the crown of horns settled firmly on his head. His gaze turned sad as he looked it over. Meg wasn't sure that it was Jesus he was seeing nailed to the cross.

Castiel's tennis shoes pounded against the concrete as he raced for the Sally's Ice Cream Shop. His lungs burned and his legs ached, but he did not stop running. He weaved through the crowd that had gathered, more people running towards the blaring sirens, but Castiel was not running towards the wreck. He ran towards the wrecked boy kneeling in the mess of fallen ice cream.

"Sam!"

"He's not breathing," Jessica said at his side, frantic. Castiel pushed people out of his way to get to Sam. He was struggling to get up while Jess struggled to keep him down. Castiel heard the distressing wheezing over the pound of his own pulse in his ears, heard that whistle that meant real trouble. He slid to his knees, the mess sticky and tacky, staining his slacks, while Castiel dug his hand into his pocket to retrieve Sam's emergency inhaler..

"What happened?" He demanded as he took a page out of Dean's book and forced Sam to take his medicine.

"We- we were just walking when a car drove by. Suddenly Sam froze and his yogurt dropped and then he… he thinks his father was hit. We can't see the accident from here. How could he know?" She asked. Castiel looked up at her, taking in the tears in her eyes and the fear that marred her pretty face. With no answer for her, he looked down at Sam and made him take another hit.

"Move! Get out of my fucking way!"

Beyond the crowd Castiel heard Dean shove his way through. He ran past, not seeing them on the ground, surrounded by onlookers as they were. Castiel tracked the sound of his heavy boots as he raced towards the wreck. A third hit of the inhaler and Dean confirmed Sam's prediction.

"Dad, no!"

"I'll get him. Rub his neck here," he ordered, showing Jess where to massage to keep the airway open. Provided that they weren't too late.

Leaving Sam in Jessica's care, he threw himself to his feet and ran towards the crash, weaving through people and police vehicles to get to Dean. The carnage revealed itself in bits of metal and shreds of fiberglass on the street. A bumper here, what was left of a tire there. A morbid trail that lead to what remained of the white truck Mr. Winchester drove. The driver's side was completely smashed in and the vehicle was pinned between a telephone pole and the car that had hit it. If John was still alive, (doubtful, Castiel could see the top of his head listing at an odd angle, covered in blood) he wouldn't be by the time paramedics finally pried him out of the wreckage.

"Let me go! That's my dad. Oh god… that's… Dad!"

Castiel looked away from the wreck to Dean where he fought against the hold of police officers that struggled to keep him away. One sported a black eye and the other had blood running from his nose. Dean was known for his right hook…

"Dean! Sam needs you right now. He saw, Dean, and he is not doing well." It was all Castiel needed to say to have Dean follow him back to Sam. Just in time to watch him collapse against Jessica.

"Almost makes you wonder who paid for Sam's happiness more," Meg pointed out with a sympathetic half smile. She withdrew a cloth from her pocket to clean over the table top, removing the warding sigils he seemed so prone to drawing, "Sam? Or Dean? Sam at least got a happiness that stayed, but Dean? He didn't get one of those. For him his night went from losing his father, to almost losing his brother– You'd almost think this 'thing' fed off more grief than just Sam's."

Because Dean really almost did lose Sammy that night in a two for one special.

Six hits of the inhaler so far and Sam's lips were still on the blueish side by the time Dean got there to find him in Jess's lap, one of her arms around him, the other carding through his hair to offer what comfort she could. His free hand was rubbing firm circles into his spasming diaphragm, lungs rattling something horrible. No one was listening to Jess's desperate cries for help, no one was batting an eye about the boy who could very well die right there on the streets thanks to them.

Between dizzying sobs of grief (because the fourteen year old knew, he just knew in his very bones his dad was dead) that wouldn't have let in enough air even on a good day, Sam was losing his battle because of the people around him. He was surrounded by people more concerned about the wreck, people that wore clouds of perfume and cologne, not considering how it could set an asthmatic off into a tailspin, and Dean? Without his trademark emergency bag, sirens blaring all around them from police and ambulances alike, he returned from the wreck that had claimed their father to his worst nightmare.

"Dean–! Dee— H-he's—– D-dead—- Dad, Dad is—I-I saw—" Sobs and desperate, broken up little gasps that were giving him less and less air, and here he was wasting what he had to try and tell his big brother what happened.

"God damn it, stop talking. His inhaler. Now!" Sam curled his fingers around air, not having realized that it slipped from his grasp. Dean's form swam in his vision and he tried to apologize for dropping it, but he didn't have enough air to talk. He couldn't breathe and everything was going dark.

"Sam!"

"Dean did suffer," Novak agreed. No contest. He rose from the table and began pacing from the window to the wall in slow, measured steps. As he paced, his fingers continued to trace in the air. Meg knew the shapes by heart and also knew that they wouldn't do him any good.

"We all did, if you think about it, but we stayed. Jessica stayed," Novak confirmed. His bare feet went pat-pat-pat on the cold tile with each step. "Sam almost died that night, he just couldn't breathe, no one would help, and she stayed by his side with the rest of us. Her first time meeting Dean and she met his rage and his grief and yet still… she stayed. I did try to warn her."

"Shouldn't it be raining? Why the fuck didn't it rain?"

With the sun shining bright above them, Castiel watched from the front row as Bobby Singer lead the boys away from the casket, now lowered into the ground, and into the detested sun light. They didn't stay to watch dirt be shoveled on top of the of the gleaming walnut finish. They had tossed their roses down and now it was time for them to go. Everyone else remained in their seats out of respect so that they did not get in the way.

"Why are you complaining? The one time you complain about it not raining?" Bobby asked gruffly.

"Because, it's a funeral. It's supposed to rain," Dean sniffed. Bobby drew Dean close. Sam was already held as tightly as Dean dared.

"No one's going to mind if you shed a few tears, boy. I already have myself," Bobby was heard saying gently.

Castiel turned back to the front. Benny was at the grave, giving his respects, whereas Castiel remained in his seat next to Jessica. She was playing with the edge of her dress. He could tell that she had something to say so he waited, watching dirt fall.

"I was afraid to ask… at the hospital. There's no… Mrs. Winchester?" She asked cautiously.

"No. She died a long time ago. Fourteen years ago. To that day as Mr. Winchester's death. As I've said…"

"Sam has had a rough life, I know," she finished for him, soft and less blunt. Castiel nodded firmly.

"Being with him is not easy. It will never be easy."

"Is it worth it? To you? Is it worth being in his life?" She asked.

Castiel looked back at the way Dean's shoulders shook as he walked but also the way he rubbed Sam's back. Dean had almost lost everything in one night but that hadn't sent him running yet. Castiel knew why he stayed because it was the same reason why he did. Castiel addressed Jessica and nodded..

"Yes, it is."

A shadow fell over them.

"You ready to go, blue bird? Our boys need us," Benny dropped his hand to Castiel's shoulder and squeezed. As if he was the one that needed comfort. Castiel was far too used to the chaos of Sam's life to be affected by death. John Winchester's, anyways. Castiel rose.

"My advice? I'd look up mediums before you decide," he leaned down to whisper in Jessica's ear, covering it with a chaste kiss to the cheek. He walked away with Benny, leaving Jessica with the dead man lowered six feet under.

They reached what remained of the Winchester clan between a row of headstones shaded by willow trees. Bobby and Dean talked softly among themselves while Sam remained silent. He hadn't spoken since the night his dad died.

He drew in a shuddery breath when he felt Cas's side brushing against his, eyes slipping closed as a tear found its way onto his cheek where they stood together outside the funeral home. Bobby went inside to finish all dealings with the home, Benny leading Dean off to another side. Castiel was simply there, not expecting Sam to talk or making any indication that he wanted Sam to while Benny and Dean's voices drifted away.

"So you really going to get custody of him?"

"Why wouldn't I? He's my responsibility, Benny. He's my little brother and I have a better chance at getting him than Bobby does. I am not going to let Sam get eaten up by the system. I'm not losing him over this, too," Dean said. Because Castiel was listening to them, he almost missed what Sam said.

"I killed him, Cassy.." Sam whispered, his voice raspy from disuse, a soft wheeze rattling in his chest. "…I killed my dad. I can feel it.. His blood. It's like..it's on my hands."

"No, Sam," Castiel insisted. His hand brushed against Sam's before his locked their pinkies together. "His death was not your fault."

"I still don't know to this day if I lied to him or not."

Novak stopped and turned around. He stayed by the wall, cutting such a small figure in his white scrubs. He melted into the paint, only the shock of his dark hair and too bright eyes standing out. He looked feral to Meg. An animal trapped in the corner and waiting to strike because he had no other choice.

"Not that it matters, now. He is dead. Maybe even at peace. I can't say for sure," he said and his eyes once more went to the window.

"You cared about him a lot," Meg murmured, so to steer the topic away from Sam being 'dead', as that always seemed to make Novak withdraw from her again. He didn't like to think of Sam being dead, whether because of his guilt, or grief, or both, she hadn't yet figured that part out yet. What she did know was that he took no pleasure in what he had done.

"You'd think you were lovers…" The firelight flickered in her eyes, a spark of curiosity there as she studied his expression for any kind of reaction to her observation. He didn't so much as blink.

"But Jessica decided to stay, then? Even after Sam's vision, and your telling her he's a medium? She decided he was worth it, too?"

Lucky boy, you'd think, or perhaps it was 'unlucky' everyone else, for crossing the kid's path.

Novak watched her again in that eerie way of his, head tilted, eyes half closed to a suspicious squint. He then began to sway on the balls of his feet. Meg counted five rocks before he moved forward. Sometimes his steps were steady and deliberate. Sometimes careful. Right then he glide over the floor silently like a wraith. Not even the chain that connected his cuffs made a sound.

"You're very beautiful," he muttered, breaking his silence, and was followed by a series of sounds. The clink of his chain as he raised his hands, the rasp of his scruff when he scratched it, then the squeak of his foot on the floor when he spun suddenly to face the table. Those manic eyes were right above her. He seemed to see right through. Meg stared back and waited.

"I must have a "thing"," he even made air quotes and smiled absently as if remembering an old joke. "For brunettes. Sam was a brunette. And yes, I loved him. It's why I'm here."

Novak reached down and plucked up the abandoned pudding cup. Her eyes tracked it as he raised it above his head which held back to look at the bottom of it. He looked back down at her and stretched his arm out. Then, like a naughty cat that knew not to tip the glass off of the edge of a table, he dropped the pudding cup onto the floor. It spilled over, the pills yet dissolved revealing themselves in a crime scene of spilling color and crumbling lumps. Meg could lose her job as his nurse if anyone caught her letting him hide his pills and Novak knew it.

Meg didn't react at first. She had never been one to act irrationally or impulsively. Fear never won when it came to her, something that might beg the question, 'why?' The truth of the matter was that she had quite simply beat fear a long time ago and the threat of losing her job wasn't exactly on the list of things that made her quake in her heels at this point.

"Love makes you do crazy things," she agreed, pushing herself up to stand, cloth in hand with the intention of soon cleaning up the crime scene he had created. Not yet, though. Not when he was this agitated and she couldn't guess what his next move might be. "…Love can make you save people…it can make you kill people… It can make you risk things you wouldn't normally risk."

Like a job perhaps, but she didn't say that much, merely left the statement open to interpret it as he would.

Their shadows intermingled on the wall as she took a mindful step closer to him and the mess upon the floor, projecting her movements with care.

"Tell me, Mr. Novak. As flattered as I am that you think me beautiful, are you telling me that you do, as a way of telling me that you wish to kill me, too?"

"I suppose…" Novak's gaze slid down Meg's face to her throat. Her pulse was beating strongly, throbbing strong enough that he should be able to see it. She could feel his eyes seeking it out. Whether he found it or not, his eyes snapped back to hers after a few beats and there was definitely something dangerous in the curious way he tilted his head. "…That depends."

"On?"

Novak stepped back and not one to give up a game, she followed. Step after step, around the table they went. She didn't catch her mistake until his eyes flicked to the side, to where the guard door was no longer in view. Novak had crafted a trap and Meg had stepped right into it. Which she only realized after he had his hands wrapped tight around the collar of her shirt and her back was pressed up against the wall.

"If you're a threat," he growled and his eyes flashed with the streak of lightning that split the sky and swallowed all other lights in it's too bright radiance.

"Who are you really and who do you work for? Answer quickly. I don't want to kill you, but I had never wanted to kill Sam, either."

Meg's breath stuttered in her chest and at least did she feel fear. It was hard not to be afraid when you were sandwiched between a wall and a crazed killer. Even just a day off his meds, and he was so intelligent, knew to keep her out of sight of the guard, knew how to make her pulse race with a mix of excitement, thrill, and a healthy level of fear.

But that was what was so great about it. He was magnificent.

Magnificently terrifying.

She could feel it with the thunder that rumbled in her very chest and it echoed in her eyes, her hands pressed solidly to the wall and not touching him. She did, however, lean into him ever slightly from the curves of her breasts down to her hips, eyes slipping closed.

"If killing me will make you feel at peace, then do it Mr. Novak… But I think you're finding solace in sharing your story with someone who doesn't think you're crazy. Someone who knows the world isn't so black and white."

She drew in a slow breath and opened her eyes to meet his piercing blues, licking her bottom lip.

"I could tell you a lie, that I work for the ghost of Christmas past, or the truth, that I work for Saint Gabriel's, but why would I when you're already making a decision…?" She gave a breathless little chuckle.

Novak's eyes widened and in that moment he looked so young. Younger than he was. A lost boy. But he was hardly a child, was he?

The body that instinctively pressed back against Meg was all man; wiry but strong, and hot against hers they were so close. His breathing quickened, warm breaths ghosting over her lips as if to tease while an erection poked her hip. She couldn't blame him. How long had it been since he was so close to another body and with the air so charged between them? Her quickening pulse sent more than a few throbs between her legs. It was intoxicating.

A dangerous thrill.

"And…" Novak licked his chapped lips, making them all nice and shiny while his eyes slid back to her pulse. It was hammering in her veins, heart doing a good attempt to break out of its cage. All proof that she was living and breathing, though just to help him along she inhaled deeply to brush her breasts against his chest again. His eyes snapped back up to hers, pupils dilated further until the blue was swallowed up in black.

"And what have I decided?"

She was playing with fire, she knew that, he could easily snap her neck on the drop of a dime, and yet that didn't stop her hands from moving from the wall to card through his nest of hair. Nails raked over his scalp on their way to cupping the back of his head. No projection that time, no warning, just her fingers in his hair and her breasts pressing against his chest with every ragged drag of breath as desire swirled like a fire threatening to burn them alive. She tugged him in until her nose was brushing up against the side of his, lips almost trembling where they hovered over his skin, their mouths so close when she answered him with his decision.

"You like me alive. I wouldn't be half as much fun, dead."

Novak growled deep in his chest. It was Meg's only warning before he kissed her. She expected a collision of a kiss, all clacking teeth and bruised lips. Frantic need and no finesse.

What she got was a kiss that made a girl melt, slow but firm. Her lips parted easily under his to give entrance to his searching tongue, happily letting him lead. Novak was a hurricane, sweeping in and sweeping her up, making her all gooey and breathless. Only to release her just as fast. She chased after his sinful mouth but the hands against her sternum kept Meg against the wall. She opened her eyes and soaked in the dazed look and the way he couldn't quite seem to catch his breath. He wasn't the only one.

"I learned that from the pizza man," he said then stepped away from Meg entirely.

A/N: Poor Sam in this one, but these things ~do~ happen. Hope you guys are enjoying so far, feel free to drop us a line and let us know how we're doing! :)