Title: Who believes in the Tooth Fairy?

Author: Disasteriffic Kaz

Info: Set mid-season 6 post 6x14 Mannequin 3: The Reckoning. A stand-alone hunt. Some hurt!sam with a sprinkling of hurt!dean and a dash of that Winchester angst/comfort we all love so much.

Author's note: Hope I don't get too macabre for anyone. :P I'm indulging my love of darker writing here. Gothic fiction is typically my thing, so fair warning. lol

Do please Review once you've read. :D Every comment and vote of support helps keep me writing. Not to mention if I've pooched anything, someone can always tell me. :P

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He must have fallen asleep on his stomach, his face turned in to the pillow. He'd suffocated himself. His whole body trembled as a fragment of the nightmare came back to him, of a wall and chains. He lurched to his feet and into the bathroom, suddenly loathe to be anywhere near his bed.

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"Miiiiiine." She breathed along the night air, savoring the first taste of his soul on her tongue. His nightmares were nectar, exciting her and the fear so easily brought to life within his mind would make his blood taste all the sweeter. She pulled back the tendril of her magic reluctantly. He was hers now. She had marked him. When he slept again, she would taste him again, strengthen the fear, sow discord in his thoughts. He would be a meal she would not soon forget.

CHAPTER 4

Sam heaved a last time over the toilet and dropped his head to his forearm, spent. Sleep nagged at him and he shook his head. He was definitely not ready to risk another pain and fever dream like the last. He needed to check on Dean's concussion anyway. He flushed the toilet and stood on trembling legs to rinse his mouth out at the sink. He turned to see his back in the mirror again while the taste of mouthwash helped wake his groggy mind and groaned.

"Dean's gonna kill me." Sam said around the mouthwash and spit it out. The bites were still slowly seeping blood and his back resembled a dark starburst of bruises painted in patches of flaking and glistening red. How he hadn't felt that while bent over the toilet he'd never know. He shucked off his sweats, wrinkling his nose at the back of the waistband now stained dark red and turned on the shower.

Sam stepped out of the bathroom, steam curling out into the room, clutching a towel around his waist and went to his bag to find his other jeans. Dean snored softly while he pulled them on. Sam sighed, remembering that moment of fear as Dean had been pulled into the water and shook himself, hissing when his back yelled at him. Dean was safe. They were safe. Sam went to the little fridge and knelt carefully, trying to spare his back and pulled out a bottle of water.

"Holy shit, Sam!" Dean's explosive comment made him jump and groan. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Crap." Sam closed his eyes, resigned to the coming tirade and turned to find Dean kicking his blankets off.

"What's wrong with you?" Dean swayed for a second, righting himself quickly and stalked to his little brother, grabbing his arm. "Get your ass on the bed. What's wrong with you? Stubborn, pig-headed, stupid…you should have let me take care of this earlier!" Dean shoved him onto his bed and glared.

"Dean it's not that…" Sam started and Dean's face darkened, cutting him off.

"Not that bad? You could have bled to death! What if those little bastards had poison bites?" Dean threw his hands up in exasperation. "That even occur to you?" The way Sam's face paled told him it hadn't. "For someone so smart you can be damn stupid sometimes. Lay down." Dean grabbed the first aid kit from the nightstand where Sam had left it then, thinking dark thoughts, he went and pulled a flask of holy water from their bag.

Sam watched him with raised brows. "Holy water? It's a Faerie, not a vampire bite."

"And?" Dean pushed on his shoulder until Sam complied and rolled to his stomach. "We don't know what kind of creepy shit those things are carrying." He worked hard at swallowing the fear that had choked him when he'd woken to see Sam's multi-hued and bloody back staring at him. "Bites are still bleeding and they shouldn't be." He uncorked the flask and held it over Sam's shoulder blade, pouring a steady stream into the oozing wounds. Sam hissed, then cried out and tried to curl into a ball. Dean held him down with his other arm on the small of his back. "Hang on, Sammy." He'd been afraid of that and hissed in sympathy while Sam writhed, trying to escape the white hot pain drilling into his back.

The holy water bubbled and spat in the wounds as Dean poured. Finally it subsided and the water flowed clear and quiet, Sam going limp into the mattress and panting. "Shit." Sam expelled weakly.

"Peroxide this time." Dean warned him as he swapped the flask for a brown bottle. Sam nodded silently into the pillow, too spent to speak. He barely twitched as Dean cleaned the wounds again. Both men jumped at the sudden pounding on their room door. "Stay here." Dean told him. He reached under his own pillow and grabbed his gun, moving quickly to the door but keeping himself between it and Sam. "I said stay there!" Dean hissed when his brother tried to rise. He checked out the peephole and cussed. "Um, Sam, you ever remember to call Bobby back and tell him we were still alive?"

"Huh?" Sam asked and his eyes widened in horror as Dean opened the door and the grizzled old Hunter pushed into the room. "Oh god, Bobby! I'm so sorry!" Sam did struggle to push himself up now in spite of a back that had gone suddenly boneless with pain.

"Oughta turn both you boys over my damn knee and take a belt to ya!" Bobby shouted and kicked the room door shut. "You know how many laws I broke getting up here? You can't answer a damn phone?"

"Uh, mine took a swim." Dean said sheepishly, rubbing a hand through his spiky hair. "And Sam's got left behind."

"Idjits!" Bobby tossed the bag he carried onto Dean's bed and took a moment to just look at his boys. Dean sported a bandage across his forehead and Sam looked as though he'd gone two rounds with a werewolf and lost. "What the hell happened? Last thing I heard was Sam shouting for you." Bobby took Dean's jaw in his hand and turned his head, lifting up the edge of the bandage for a better look. Dean submitted to the fatherly touch with a sigh.

"We got creamed by midget Faeries." Dean said and snorted in disgust.

"You'll live." Bobby said gruffly, relief stealing his voice and clapped a hand to the older Winchester's shoulder before turning to the younger. Sam had given up trying to right himself and was laying on his stomach again, eyes closed and squinted in discomfort. "Damn boy, don't do anything by halves do you?" Bobby said to him and shook his head. Dean sat next to his brother again as Bobby bent for a closer look at the cluster of small wounds, obviously bite marks and whistled. "Little bastard was trying to get a chunk out of ya."

"Nearly did." Dean nodded and took the bandage Bobby handed him.

"You clean those with holy water?" Bobby asked and chuckled at the explosive 'yes' from Sam. "Serves you right. Leavin' me wondering if you boys were alive or dead for half the night." Bobby cuffed the back of Sam's head affectionately. "Next time you call me, boy."

"Sorry, Bobby." Sam groaned into the pillow. "Seriously. I'm sorry."

"Alright, son." Bobby patted the back of his head this time and sat on the other bed while Dean covered the bite marks and taped the bandage in place.

Dean surveyed the motley patchwork of bruises and sighed. "How sore are you, Sammy?" They were bad enough, plentiful enough, he was going to have to check for bruised or cracked ribs and Sam wasn't going to like it.

"It's manageable." Sam replied and cursed loudly when Dean pressed a single finger into his back.

"Yeah I can see that. I gotta check." Dean told him and took the long suffering groan as acceptance.

"Painkillers?" Bobby asked.

"Glove box in the car." Dean told him. "Sam took a shot in the head from an idiot local this morning. Knocked him cold."

"Did not." Sam argued.

"May as well have." Dean slapped his good shoulder. "Now shut up and let me do this." Bobby stepped outside while Dean ran careful, gentle hands up one side of Sam's back and down the other, feeling along each rib from one side to the other for any movement or breaks. Sam came near whimpering into his pillow and heaved a relieved breath when Dean finished. "Nothing broken but you definitely got dented. What'd you hit?"

"Threw me into the wall." Sam turned his head to see Bobby come back in and wiped at the sweat coating his brow. "So I splattered him onto it." He said with relish. Dean chuckled.

"That's my boy." Dean rose and grabbed the water bottle Sam had left on the table and Bobby handed him the pill bottle.

"Better get him to eat something before he takes these." Bobby warned. "Or they'll knock him out."

Sam shivered, absolutely not wanting to be forced into sleep after the nightmare's he'd had. "There's soup in the fridge." He made himself roll to his side and toss his legs to the floor, using the move to help pull him upright. He couldn't swallow the moan and latched on to the hand Bobby put on his shoulder to support himself. "Son of a bitch."

Dean was laughing. "Mrs. Olson's homemade soup. Forgot all about that." He took out the little pot and put it in the microwave to warm while Bobby helped Sam get a clean shirt on. He took a coffee spoon and one of the plastic hotel cups when the microwave dinged and spooned out some of the soup. He had to admit, it did look damn good. He took a bite and nodded happily, bringing it to Sam. "She's creepy man, but damn she can cook. This is awesome." He handed it to Sam. "Wonder if she makes pie."

Sam took an experimental spoonful and sighed in appreciation. It was heavy on the herbs and spices and the broth soothed his throat and his nerves, making him smile. "Ok, maybe she's not so creepy after all." He laughed.

"How about you boys fill me in on exactly what you've been up to." Bobby, never one to miss a chance at good food, went and filled a cup for himself while the boys took turns filling in the details.

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Sam sat awkwardly, arms resting on the back of a chair trying to relieve his increasingly aching back. The Tylenol had helped a little but he figured he was going to be miserable for a few days.

"It's eight in the morning. Think Sheriff Opie's in the office yet?" Dean wondered.

"I'll go in for the files." Sam smirked. "If you go, someone's gonna wonder about your face."

"Dude, you can't stand up straight." Dean argued. "How's that not gonna raise any eyebrows?"

"You're both stayin' here. I'll go." Bobby told them in no uncertain terms. "You boys get rested up."

"Ask for Sargent McMurray." Dean told him and stretched out on his bed. "The Chief's useless. Tell him Lattimer and Bering sent you."

Bobby raised a brow and snorted, looking at Sam. "Let me guess…you're Bering."

"I really hate you." Sam glared at Dean making him throw his head back and laugh.

Bobby left and Dean studied his brother, chuckling still and then frowned, seeing signs in his face and around his eyes that he should have seen earlier. Normally he'd have let it go but they were hunting a monster that could invade dreams.

"You had a nightmare." Dean declared, not needing more confirmation than the surprised look on Sam's face. "Spill it, little brother."

"It was just a nightmare." Sam shrugged and hissed, the movement ramping up his pain level.

"This thing can send nightmares, Sammy." Dean glared at him. "Now is not the time to go all Winchester stoic and hide stuff from me."

Sam sighed. "Fine. I had a nightmare."

Dean threw his hands out in exasperation. "Oh well that clears things right up. You wanna be a bit more specific? Anything unusual we should know about?"

"No." Sam replied automatically and then frowned. The image of the fire and ice wreathed wall came back to him. The wall had bowed outward to him. Flames had crawled toward him, ice creeping to his toes. Chains flew down from above to wrap around his chest, his neck, cutting off his air…

"Sammy!" Dean's shout roused him. Sam blinked his eyes to find himself on the floor, Dean's arms around him. "Come on, Sammy." Dean said, pleading while hopelessness danced across his face.

"Dean." Sam gasped.

"Shit." Dean dropped his head to Sam's for a moment and swallowed thickly. He didn't need Sam to tell him what the nightmare had been now. He'd seen this before. Dean took a deep breath, settling himself and helped Sam back to the chair he'd fallen out of. "Don't give me any of your crap, Sammy." He said fiercely and kept both hands on Sam's shoulders when he bent forward, burying his face in his hands. "That bitch got to you last night. She took a swing at the great wall of Sam."

Sam nodded and sat up on his own, shaken. "So used to having them I never thought…" He scrubbed his hands over his face. "Jesus, how screwed up am I?" Sam asked on a short, slightly frantic laugh.

"No comment." Dean paced back to his bed and sat, watching Sam and controlling the rage with effort. Self-control had never been his thing when his little brother was in danger, less so now he thought. The precarious nature of the wall in Sam's head was something he had trouble even thinking about. How easily it could come tumbling down and he'd lose him forever.

"I'm okay, Dean." Sam said quietly and it was enough to send Dean striding across the room to punch the wall.

"Bullshit!" Dean ground the heels of his hands into his eyes, searching for control. "That bitch is trying to break down the damn wall and you know what happens then!"

"It's not going to happen." Sam said as much for his benefit as his brothers'. "Because I'm not sleeping until this is over." He worked up a grin for Dean. "Hell if I'm letting that evil bitch take one of my teeth."

Dean snorted in spite of the fear and ran his hands through his hair. "Might do that face of yours a favor."

"Bite me." Sam tossed back and sighed in relief when Bobby returned. The older man stepped into the room and had a good look at his boys.

"What's goin' on?" Bobby demanded. It was clear something had happened. Though they were both smiling when he came in, he knew them too well.

"She got into his dreams, Bobby." Dean answered and just like that, the humor was gone and the anger back.

"Balls." Bobby dropped the files he'd brought on the table and swiped a hand under his ball cap. "You sure?"

"Of course I'm sure!" Dean said angrily and then gave an apologetic glance to him. "Sorry."

"Why me?" Sam asked, suddenly needing to know.

"Ah well." Bobby sat and tapped the file. "You got somethin' in common with her other victims."

"What?" Sam took the file and opened it, glancing at the first page.

"Death experience." Bobby sighed. "All four victims had near death experiences at one point or another and what happened to you? Well if that don't qualify I don't know what does."

"Wait, wait." Dean interrupted. "If that's her criteria then why didn't she come after me?" He'd have preferred that, welcomed it even.

"Where's the weapons bag?" Bobby asked instead.

"Weapons? Under the damn bed. Why?" Dean pointed to the bed closest to the door.

"Your bed." Bobby nodded. "You been sleeping over the wrought iron rounds."

"Son of a bitch." Dean cursed. Stupid blind luck had made his brother a target once again.

"So, we just put some under my bed and she can't get to me." Sam said and frowned when Bobby shook his head. "Why not?"

"Aint gonna do you no good now she's got her hooks into you." Bobby said angrily. "You're not sleepin' til we get this bitch, Sam."

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Jeremiah Gordon's eyes stared sightless, the dried tracks of tears lining his ghostly, white face. The steady drip-drip of blood was slowing. She ran her tongue lovingly over the long, shallow slice along his shoulder, savoring each remaining drop of fear laden blood. She hummed softly and the flutter of wings erupted around her, waking from their feasting on the quickly cooling body.

"Take him my lovelies." She breathed in the briny scent as damp wings feathered across her. "Another is coming soon. Soon." She whispered as Jeremiah was released from his bonds, caught by myriad tiny hands and watched as he gracefully floated away like a macabre puppet on invisible strings in a cloud of sea green wings.

Soon she would have her prize. Even now, though he was awake she could taste his fear. She had touched something in him; something hidden and strong and dark that locked away such feasting. She shivered with anticipation. She would break down that surprising wall. When she held him finally in her arms, tasted him finally like a sweet nectar, she would break it down and feed.

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Sam blew steam from what must be his tenth cup of coffee. It was late afternoon and they'd spent all day closeted in the local library searching maps and surveyors records long since out of date in an attempt to find the lair of their evil tooth fairy. He chuckled softly. He still couldn't get past the fact they were hunting that particular legend.

"Share with the class." Dean kicked the leg of his brothers' chair. "What's funny?"

"Other than your hair?" Sam deadpanned, face innocent and managed to duck the empty coffee cup that came flying at him.

"Chicks dig my hair." Dean grinned, running a hand through the short, dirty blonde locks. "You're just jealous, Cousin It."

Sam laughed and pushed the map he was looking at over to Dean. "Found another likely location." He tapped a spot on the far side of the lake from town. "According to this, there's an old cave system there. Doesn't go very deep but it's abandoned, out of the way and right on the shore." He looked up to Dean with a smirk. "You'd practically have to swim to get into it."

"Oh goody." Dean said, disgusted and definitely not in the mood for another swim in Devil's Lake. "That water tastes like ass."

Sam chuckled and looked around. "Where'd Bobby get to?"

"Looking up the Deed on that house you found earlier." Dean tapped Sam's coffee cup. "Drink up. I'll go find him."

Sam sipped at the coffee. Exhaustion pulled at him even as caffeine sang through his system. He wanted nothing more than to sleep for a week. It was funny how you could suddenly crave something knowing you couldn't have it. He leaned forward and rested his head on the table, trying to relieve some of the tension in his throbbing back muscles. The bruising over his ribs added pressure that made it hard to take a deep breath.

"I hate Faeries." Sam moaned.

"That's not very nice." The soft, feminine voice startled Sam. He jerked upright and stared. Standing atop the table was a young woman. She was very short, no more than five feet. Midnight black hair cascaded down around her shoulders and bare arms. She wore a filmy gray shift that hugged every curve and her eyes were pools of solid blue that seemed to glow with their own light above full, ruby red lips.

Sam opened his mouth to shout for his brother and found his voice trapped in his chest. She raised a delicate hand and slowly wagged a playful finger at him. He prayed that Dean would come back, just look back and see her. Sam's fear level rose when he realized he could no longer move. He watched, helpless as she took three graceful, barefooted steps across the table and knelt before him. She swung her legs out to dangle on either side of his own, brushing against his thighs.

She leaned forward and took his face lovingly in her hands. "Relax my sweet." She nuzzled one feather soft cheek against his own. He tried to pull away to no effect. "Relax and fear me." Her voice breathed in his ear, making him shudder. "I shall release you once more. One more night you shall have before I have you." She trailed a hand down his chest.

Sam felt the fabric of his shirt tug and then the cool breath of air across his chest. She pushed the remnants of his shirt aside. "I give you a token to think of me this night." He felt her hand on his chest again and choked on a scream as pain followed the slow path of her finger stroking down his skin from neck to just below his ribs. Terror was choking him, his breath stopped beneath the pressure that would not ease and he longed to scream once more as her head dropped to his chest and licked a long line of fire up the open wound he could feel bleeding. Her alabaster carved face rose into view, a drop of his blood trembling on her parted lips and she bent to him, caressing his face. "You taste…remarkable." and she kissed him.