11 – Four Crows

Sam felt like he was falling and rising at the same time, a disorienting sensation his mind didn't know how to interpret. He tried grabbing at the darkness, but he pulled away handfuls of something oily and bloody. Could have been blood, but he guessed it was something else entirely.

Reality coalesced and he hit a floor, and when he stood up, he saw he was in a hospital hallway. In one open doorway, he could see the doctor using defibrillator paddles on a dying Dean, with the drone of the heart monitor flat-lining in the background. Across the hall, in another open doorway, their father was lying dead on the floor. "This was really what you're most of afraid of, aren't you? Being alone, being the last one left." Phobitor said. He wasn't visible, but he didn't need to be.

"But I'm not, am I?" Sam ignored what was going on in Dean's room, as the reality changed ever so slightly. Dean never fought the reaper, and the doctor was now pronouncing a time of death for him. Even though Sam knew that wasn't what happened, he still felt a twinge in his gut. He really didn't like thinking about those days after the car accident. That was like a real life nightmare, top to bottom.

"You're forgetting the best part," Phobitor taunted him.

Sam shook his head. "There was no best part."

But the scene changed, and he was suddenly sitting in a chair off the waiting room, head in his hands, ouija board set up in his lap. He'd just "talked" with spirit form Dean – and wasn't it a shame live Dean had no memory of that – and realized Dean was doomed. No one shook a reaper who was genuinely coming for you. Dean was going to die. It was just a matter of when, not if. He had to leave the room so Dean didn't see him getting teary eyed over it, although he could have followed him, how would he know? Dean couldn't die. His mind went to many selfish places, including who was going to keep Dad and him from killing each other – Dean had always been a buffer – but the most selfish place was the thought I don't have to do this anymore. No more hunting, no more life on the road, no more dealing with his Dad. He could just leave it to him, and go back and try to pick up the pieces of his life at Stanford. He felt such a relief at this thought he forgot to be miserable for a moment.

But that was precisely how long it lasted. A moment. Because he knew he would never do it. It was a momentary pipe dream, something that could have happened but most definitely wouldn't have. Sam scoffed, looking around for the patch of shadow that could only be Phobitor. "You picked out a single second of my life. Boy, you're desperate, aren't you?"

The lights started going out, down both sides of the hallway, until only the rooms with dead Dean and dead Dad were illuminated. Sam tried to look at neither. "You're a puzzle, boy, but you're a mortal. I'm a god. You can't beat me."

"So you say. But I haven't seen any proof of that yet."

Sam kind of knew that was an unwise thing to say, but he couldn't help it. So he was only partly surprised when his Dad suddenly got up and tackled him straight through the wall.

He felt his consciousness reel at the blow before he even hit the floor, his Dad kneeling on his chest and pummeling him in the face. "You are a fool, boy. You can't hurt me, and now you're stuck in here with me."

Sam was telling himself this was in his own head, and the punches really didn't hurt … except they did, very much. It wasn't working like it did the last time. Sam got his arms up to block the punches, but they were inhumanly strong. As if to remind him what he was dealing with, his Dad's eyes were just holes in his skull, where black energy leaked out in tendrils of darkness.

And suddenly Sam wondered if he'd made a huge mistake.

Dean was not sure how going down a set of rickety stairs into a basement seemed to have become the longest couple of minutes in his life, but it had.

By the time he reached the bottom, he had sweat running down his back and down his face, like he'd been physically dragging the house with him every step. His stomach was a knotted mess, and his shoulders were so tight he could feel the bones straining against them. He became self-conscious about his breathing at some point, and found himself either unconsciously holding his breath or verging on hyperventilation. Every thirty seconds or so, he was sure he was going to vomit.

This was fear, and him doing his damnedest to suppress it. Dean had paused half a dozen times, not sure he could keep going, his heart pounding so hard he was fairly certain he was having a heart attack. But he pushed himself onward, despite it all, because he had to get to Sam, and he wasn't going to let Phobitor keep him from doing it.

But holy shit, was it a million times harder than he thought it would be. Dean was holding his flashlight so tight that his fingers had gone numb, and he thought he might have to peel them off. Had he ever been this scared in his entire life? He didn't think so. He thought he might pass out.

The flashlight, as bright as it was, could barely punch through the gloom. It seemed solid at times, but he reached out and nothing was there. So it was more of the fear, or his imagination helping the bastard out. He didn't like that idea at all. He was betraying himself somehow, and that sucked worse than almost everything else.

Finally he hit the basement, and while he was relieved to reach the floor, Dean knew the real battle was just beginning. He had to find Sam, get him out, and somehow not get them both killed, which shouldn't have been something he had no plan for, but the extent of his plan was grab and run. Was that even workable, considering how long it took him to get down the stairs? Dean tried not to dwell on how screwed they were, and pressed forward.

Once again, the light barely tunneled through the darkness, giving him the ability to maybe see one foot in front of him, and Dean considered the risks of calling out to Sam. If Phobitor was darkness, then there was the possibility he was all around him, therefore he knew Dean was here. He'd hardly be sharing news. "Sam!"

There was no reply, but he heard something like a whisper graze his ear, along with a cold feeling that raised goosebumps on all his exposed flesh. Phobitor definitely knew he was here, and he was not happy.

Good. He intended to make him even more upset, if he could only figure out a way how.

Sam managed to buck off the Phobitor version of his Dad, and quickly rolled to his feet, running out of the hospital hallway and concentrating on being anywhere else but an enclosed space. Suddenly he found himself on an anonymous stretch of road, a place that could have been anywhere. The sun was up, and there were trees on both sides of the road. He expected to see the Impala somewhere, but he didn't.

"There's nowhere to run," Phobitor said. He was still in the form of his Dad, with those dark sockets of energy that made it look like someone took his eyes out with a melon baller. "This is my domain, and you are trapped here with me."

Sam spit out a mouth full of blood, and tried to ignore the throbbing in his jaw, that almost matched the throbbing in his head. He was starting to feel light headed, but he tried to tell himself it wasn't true, it wasn't real. So far, that strategy hadn't gained any traction. "If you could actually kill me, I'd be dead by now," Sam pointed out. "I think it's more of a stalemate, don't you?"

Phobitor scowled at him. "You refuse to accept the truth. You're alone, boy. You're freak enough to fight back, for a while, but not freak enough to withstand me. I'm going to hollow you out and use you as a puppet. What do you say to that?"

Phobitor started stalking towards him, and Sam started backing up, not sure what his best play was. He imagined he had his gun, and he reached into his pocket and found it. He put a couple slugs in his chest, and Phobitor didn't even blink. Damn it.

Sam had backed up to the edge of the road, and didn't see running into the trees, with its myriad shadows, as a good idea. But what else could he do?

That's when he very faintly heard Dean call his name.

Phobitor stopped, as Sam looked around. That wasn't the god's doing, was it? He seemed as startled by it as Sam was. Dean wasn't dead. It probably meant Ellen wasn't either. Were they trying to find him in the real world? Sam idly wondered where he was. "What did you say about me being alone again?"

Phobitor lunge at him, tackling him around the waist and dragging him down to the asphalt. Sam clocked him with a right hook to the face, but he didn't react to it as he threw his own punches, catching Sam in the jaw. "By the time your brother finds you, your body will belong to me. How do you think we should kill him, Sam?"

Sam grabbed his arm as it came in for another punch, and twisted the wrist all the way around. It cracked with a noise like a shotgun blast, but Phobitor didn't react. He leered down at him, despite the fact that his right hand was now facing the wrong way. "My world, my rules," the god said, as his hand turned back to its unbroken state.

Oh shit. He hoped Dean and Ellen hurried the fuck up, because his head was starting to feel like a balloon on the verge of popping. And he had the sinking feeling that wasn't just a metaphor.

Dean walked blindly around the darkness plagued basement, until he literally walked into something. It was just under knee height, and it almost made him fall over, but he just barely managed to keep his balance. Now that he'd nearly fallen on it, his flashlight was able to pick it out of the dark, and he saw it was a skeletal metal bed frame. And the only thing on it was a person. "Sammy," Dean said, moving the flashlight up to confirm he was still alive.

He must have been, because blood was streaming out of both his nostrils like a dam had been breached. He was unconscious and laying on his back, so it was probably a minor miracle that he hadn't drowned in his own blood yet. What the hell had happened to him? Dean's first thought was broken nose, but it didn't look injured.

He was still trying to figure out how he was going to get him out of here when a force manifested itself and threw him across the room. Dean collided painfully with a concrete wall before sliding down to the floor in utter darkness. The flashlight had been left with Sam, and it seemed like that tiny beacon of light was disappearing. Coincidentally, Dean was also finding it hard to breathe, like the blackness was solid and compressing him.

Blindly he reached for the flare in his pocket, and popped the cap before igniting it. The flame flared up, chemical and white, and the darkness all around him seemed to disappear. And Dean knew why, because the light of it hurt his eyes as well. "How do you like that, asshole?" He could breathe too, which was a nice bonus.

Dean pushed himself painfully to his feet, holding the flare like a torch. It wouldn't be too bright for long, so he had to move while he could. When he returned to the bed, he dropped the flare on the floor, so he was still within the halo of its light. He managed to heft Sam over his shoulder, but it was a process, because he was so big he threatened to collapse Dean under his bulk. It wasn't that he couldn't carry the weight, it was just so awkwardly spread out. Not for the first time, he thought Sam's height was fucking ridiculous. "If you drag your head on the floor that's your fault," Dean said, finally getting Sam over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. It still felt like Sam might unbalance him at any moment.

Dean did manage to grab the flashlight, for what little good it would do, and turned towards the stairs, but not before kicking the flare into the crushed remains of a cardboard box he spied in the corner. "Let there be light," he said, as the cardboard smoldered, then burst into flame. A thing allergic to light should never have kept anything flammable in its house.

Dean managed to get half way up the stairs before he heard a noise behind him. It was a grumbling noise, like a big dog angry that it had been woken up from a nap. Smoke was starting to clog the air, as the flames found more fuel, and the flare spewed like a person smoking an entire pack of cigarettes at once. That was just one of many reasons you weren't supposed to use a flare indoors.

He tried breathing shallowly as he climbed the steps, fear no longer his number one concern. Dean also felt something warm and wet on the back of his leg, and figured it was Sam's blood. Who bled that much from their nose? What the hell was going on?

Dean was full on coughing by the time he reached the top, his eyes watering from the acrid smoke, and when he tried the knob on the door – hadn't he left it open, and oh yeah, broken – he found it wouldn't turn. The door seemed to be welded in its frame again. "Did you really think it would be that easy?" a voice whispered in his ear.

Well, fuck. Dean had hoped it would be. He should have known better.