A/N: Hey everyone - guess what? I'm not dead. In fact, I'm here with a new chapter! Shocking, isn't it? But honestly, I am so sorry that I was gone for so long. I just needed a break and now I'm going to have a fresh start. I'm glad to be back and I hope you all enjoy this chapter!
Summary: Team Free Will 2.0 goes on a hunt for a witch, and Sam gets thrown into the worst place possible.
Set: Season 13.
I had MAJOR tech issues uploading this chapter so I apologize if anyone had any difficulties with it!
"Well, this isn't cliche at all," Dean said as they approached the mansion. It was adorned with bricks and lined with hedges. The ivy-lined windows were dark, and few were intact; most were shattered. The mansion dwarfed the other homes in the suburban neighborhood and carried the reputation of "haunted house", since no child would come within twenty feet of it. As such, baseballs and frisbees were scattered across the yard - abandoned toys from children who didn't dare cross into the yard to retrieve them.
"I think this is a bit abnormal, actually," Cas said, squinting at the house. "I don't believe most houses look like this."
"Have you ever seen a movie?" Dean asked. He didn't wait for an answer. "Okay, in and out. Sam and I go in first, and you two," - he pointed at Jack and Cas - "will be behind us in case she uses mojo. And ding dong, the witch will be dead and we can get burgers at Biggerson's."
"Ding dong, the witch will be dead?" Jack repeated. "Is that some sort of song?"
Dean snorted and exchanged a look with Sam. "This weekend we're going to binge some movies. You two need to get out more."
"We're rarely home," Cas said, utmost confusion still in his voice. "In fact, I scarcely go to Heaven anymore-"
"Okay, let's get this done," Sam interrupted, cocking his gun. "One witch-killing bullet should do it."
The witch had been eating tourists that were visiting the town. It had taken some digging to figure out where exactly the vanished tourists had gone until they'd broken into the mansion at night and found human remains in the fridge and oven. Unfortunately, the witch hadn't been home at the time.
"Back door," Dean said, leading the way around the yard and to the cellar door. He dug his lock picks out of his pocket and began to work on the knob. A few tweaks of the pick and the door clicked, swinging open towards the vacant black of the basement. Sam stepped inside, flickering on his flashlight, and Dean followed him in.
"Dean." Cas's voice was short and irritated.
Dean swung around, shining his light back at Jack and Cas, who were both staring in contemplation at the house.
"There's warding. I couldn't feel it until now, but I can't enter. Nor can Jack," Cas said.
"Of course there's warding. Nothing's ever easy," Dean muttered. "Alright. Sam and I will get rid of the witch. Just wait out here."
"Maybe we should erase the warding first. You might need us," Jack said, peering into the basement with trepidation.
"We managed for a long time without angels and nephilims with us," Sam said reasonably. "Don't worry."
"Just sit in the car and put in a tape," Dean said, closing the door before Cas could object.
"I'll head upstairs," Sam said, taking off up the rickety steps.
Dean turned to the other side of the basement, opening up the closet door and brandishing his gun in case the witch decided to ambush him. Absolutely nothing was there except for a few human bones that still had blood and skin dangling off of them.
In the corner was an old wardrobe with more human bones inside. They were an avalanche of rotten flesh when he opened the door, spilling onto the cement floor with a far louder clatter than he would've liked.
"Witches," he muttered to himself, kicking at a bone. It slid across the room and against the back wall, which he hadn't looked at yet.
He turned his flashlight onto the wall, where there were three dozen sigils glimmering in black paint. Well, this would be easier than he thought. He took his knife out of his back pocket and began to scrape the paint off of the wall, slashing through just enough to disable the sigils.
A sudden thump on the floor above him made him freeze.
"Sam?" he called tentatively, waiting for a response. After a moment Sam responded. "Got it!"
Dean grimaced. "Got it" usually meant that Sam wasn't in immediate danger, but the hesitation meant something was wrong. He began to scrape at the sigils more vigorously. Better to have Cas and Jack join them than to sprint upstairs to Sam's aid.
He was onto his eighth sigil when he realized it looked familiar.
He'd seen that somewhere. And irritatingly enough, he could remember seeing it on a different wall, in a different darkened house… but where? He let out a growl, frustrated, and moved onto the next sigil, scratching it out as quickly as possible.
A bullet sounded from above. Shortly after there was another sound, like Sam had tackled something. Or possibly been thrown into something. Either way, it sounded like a dresser had been tipped over.
"Sam!" he yelled, abandoning the sigils and going up the stairs two at a time.
The sigil. Mordechai. Ghost Facers.
"Oh, hell," he muttered, turning around and going back down the stairs. Sure enough, he was sure that the familiar sigil was the Tibetan Spirit Sigil.
The thought of their last tulpa hunt was a bit overcrowded by his all-too-vivid memory of the Ghost Facers, but there was no doubt that this was the same sigil. If it was focused on long enough by enough people, the thought could materialize. Last time it had been the legend of Mordechai.
And now… whatever the tulpa was, it was upstairs, throwing Sam around. Dean sprinted back up the stairs, pulling his lighter out of his pocket.
Dammit. He didn't have his flamethrower.
"Sam!" he said into the house once he'd ascended the stairs. There was another pause before Sam's answer.
"Dean, it's not a witch!"
"Yeah, figured that out already! It's a damn tulpa!" Dean shouted back, heading towards Sam's voice. The mansion was a sprawling building with multiple floors and tens of rooms, many of which had dumbwaiters and speaking tubes. He kicked down the door to the nearest room, which he could've sworn Sam's voice had come from, but it was empty.
Another crash sounded from the room next to him.
"Sam!" Dean sprinted to the room, taking out his gun, even if it wasn't a witch.
This time, there wasn't an answer.
Sam had always taken the upstairs. At least, he usually did, ever since he'd started hunting with Dean. The basements used to scare him when he was younger, and now it was second nature to automatically go upstairs. He entered the silent mansion, carefully entering the drawing room. It was deadly quiet, and had practically no signs that anyone lived there, let alone a witch.
He moved onto the next room. It served almost the exact same purpose as the last room, with nothing but chairs and peeling wallpaper.
This room, however, had a roaring fire in the fireplace. Sam crept forward, his flashlight and gun poised in front of him.
This wasn't like a normal witch, and it unnerved him. Normal witches were in covens, and they weren't hermits. They didn't live alone in massive houses.
Fast, short footsteps behind him made him whirl around, but not before something painfully solid nailed him in his temple. He stumbled, clutching at his head, firing a bullet and missing at the spinning figure that was creeping near him.
It dawned on him that he'd heard Dean call his name, so he managed to shout "Got it!" back before lunging towards the old woman. She was saggy; her body and face were grotesque with wrinkly flaps of skin. Her clothing smelled like pungent body odor and urine and her hair was even worse - visible collections of dandruff sat atop her scalp, and even in his dazed state Sam could see the grease and tangles.
She was wringing her hands, as though washing them, and slowly there were sparks forming in her palms. Sam's head was spinning so quickly that he realized he was staring at her and not moving. He lifted his gun and fired a bullet straight into her forehead.
The moment of relief was followed by disbelief as the witch cackled and wiped the wound with interest. Blood stained her sleeve and immediately dripped down her forehead, but it didn't faze her at all. Sam took a step back in shock, and almost missed the fireball that she threw at him. He dived aside into the end table, which collapsed with a crash underneath him.
"Sam!" Dean's voice echoed from the basement. Sam didn't have time to answer; he was too busy scrambling to his feet and jumping aside as a wave of telekinetic force breezed by him, like an invisible cannonball.
The witch killing bullet didn't work. Even with his temple throbbing in pain, a lump already forming, he could put two and two together. This was no witch. It couldn't be a ghost or demon - they'd already made sure of that the previous day.
Sam snatched up the fire stoker near him and pointed it like a sword at the old hag just as Dean shouted his name again.
"Dean, it's not a witch!" he shouted to his brother. Dean responded something but Sam didn't hear it; the witch was jumping towards him and he thrust the tip of the stoker into her chest. She grinned at him, the irises of her eyes fogged with death. Sam dropped the stoker, which squelched out of her chest and fell onto the carpeted floor, and exchanged it for his gun, even though it had been useless against her.
The witch moved again, moving her hands outward, and this time Sam was too slow to avoid the force flying at him. He felt himself lift into the air, and all that he had time to think was that being thrown never ended well before a collision with the wall and his head cracked him into senselessness.
It didn't take long for Dean to evaluate the situation. Witch standing with her arms raised and unconscious little brother on the floor meant fast action, so he dove at the woman, throwing her to the floor.
He immediately felt the blood on his hands and drew back slightly at the sight of a bullet wound on her forehead.
"Hunter," the woman hissed, her hands grappling towards him.
"Bitch," Dean responded, punching her in the nose. Her head snapped back but she remained rigid and conscious. He grabbed his knife from his pocket and hacked at her neck until her head popped off, rolling across the floor.
Satisfied that she was taken out for the time being, Dean went to Sam's side, gently shaking him.
"Dude, nap-time's over. We need to burn this thing down."
Sam's eyes opened. "But it's spinning."
"What? The house is?"
"Yeah. Ow."
Dean helped Sam into a sitting position. "How bad did she nail you?"
Sam didn't answer. He was rubbing at both temples, eyes screwed shut.
"Sam, how many fingers?" Dean asked, holding up his middle finger for Sam to see. Big brother humor was necessary, even when Sam was hurt. Especially when Sam was hurt.
"What?" Sam blinked his eyes slightly open. "What'd you say?" He kept his hands firmly over his temples.
"Nevermind. It's a tulpa, so we need to get out and burn the house down. Can you stand? Did your legs get hurt?"
"It feels like…" Sam paused, wincing. "My brain was… stabbed."
"Yeah, I know, bro. That's what happens when you let an old woman get the better of you," Dean said. He tugged at Sam's hands. "Let me see."
Sam obliged obediently, and Dean was startled to see a gash on one side of his head, bleeding heavier than he would have thought. Sam's other temple was bruised, and the skin was swollen.
"That's not good," Dean said under his breath, dabbing at the blood. Sam wrenched backwards.
"How 'not good'?" Sam asked slowly, eyes sliding shut.
"Hm? It's fine, just a little patching up from Cas," Dean said quickly. "Here, let's get up and get you outside. Dude. Take my hand."
Sam didn't move.
"You just like me to do everything, don't you?" Dean grumbled, lifting Sam up, but his own head was pounding slightly at the sight of the blood - not out of revulsion, but worry.
"Is it bad?" Sam asked, sounding younger than he had in a long time. "Dean?"
"Not bad, Sammy. Cas will clean you up."
Pause. "Good. It hurts."
"I know, dude," Dean said, carefully helping Sam take a step forward. Slowly, they made their way out of the room, hobbling along together like an old couple.
There was the sudden patter of footsteps, muffled on the carpeting behind him. Dean turned around as quickly as he could with Sam leaning on him, hoping desperately that the tulpa's head hadn't reattached to her body.
And it hadn't. But the headless body was tottering forward towards them, arms outstretched like a decapitated zombie.
This was exactly what Dean hated about hunts - they never ended simply.
"Sam, sit there," Dean directed, moving his brother to the wall. Sam followed without complaint, looking at Dean with confusion in his eyes.
"But how is she still…?"
"Tulpa. We need fire to kill her," Dean reminded Sam, pulling out his knife again. He addressed the tulpa. "Want your limbs dismembered, too, bitch?"
Naturally the tulpa didn't answer, but quicker than Dean expected, she moved her arms towards him. He found himself flying down the hallway and landing in a heap at the other end, a solid thirty feet from the hag.
"Sam, move!" he yelled, but Sam's prone form was in the direct path of the tulpa, who stumbled towards him with her hands searching. Dean jumped to his feet, grabbing his fallen knife from the ground.
"Sam!" he shouted as the tulpa reached him, grabbing for his face violently. Sam was pushing himself backwards, but slowly, as though he didn't have the energy to live. Blood had coated the entire side of his face and was seeping onto his shirt so that he looked half-dead, and Dean's fear leapt into his throat as his tackled the tulpa.
Wielding his knife, he began to take off her hands. Blood spurted all over him; warm and sticky. Her hands fell limply to the floor, and he moved to the feet, rendering the tulpa a lump of a body wiggling on the ground.
"Dean…" Sam looked up at him from the floor. Blood was now pouring out of his nose as well as his temple. "Dean, we need… fire."
"I know. Let's go," Dean said, helping Sam back to his feet. He took a backward glance at the squirming body on the floor, with the hands and feet attempting to get upright and walk towards him. "This tulpa's freaking me out."
They made it out of the mansion with Dean taking backward glances at the disembodied hand attempting to crawl after them.
"Dean, what happened?" Cas demanded as they emerged from the house. "You said that you could manage-"
"Well, we didn't," Dean snapped. "I've got to burn this place down. Can you heal him?"
"Yes," Cas said immediately.
Dean continued to hold Sam upright as Cas gently placed his hands on either side of Sam's head. A blinding light rippled outwards from his palms, and Dean felt the warmth radiate as healing grace knitted Sam's wound and lowered the swell on the other temple. It felt like comfort, home, and family, and strangely he wanted to reach out and touch the grace, to feel its power, but refrained from doing so; this wasn't the time. The light faded and the cool night air replaced the emanating light. Sam, coughing slightly, pulled away from Dean and frowned.
"That was a-"
"Bad concussion. Yeah. Be more careful next time," Dean said roughly, but he slapped Sam on the back as he made his way to the car.
They stood in a line, the four of them, watching the house burn.
"What's a concussion?" Jack asked finally, breaking the silence.
"A head injury," Sam said. "It's not usually life-threatening."
Dean snorted. "With the amount you've had, I'm surprised it's not. Next time we're not splitting up."
Sam scowled. "Dean, it was one hunt. You need to relax about it."
"Yeah, tell me that next time that you're bleeding from your head and I'm the only person there to save your damn life."
"I could've killed her," Sam countered. "I just needed time to-"
"To sit on the floor and be killed? I'm sure that would've worked well," Dean said irritatedly.
"How about," Jack said, "You always make sure Cas or I am on a hunt with you? That way neither of you will die."
"How about we leave?" Dean offered. "The cops will be here any minute."
They moved to the Impala in unison, Cas hesitating before they opened the doors. "Can I drive?"
Dean raised his eyebrows. "You want to drive?"
"Well, I thought you might be tired, and-"
"Sure." The words left Dean's mouth quicker than even he expected.
"Really?" Cas's face lit up like Dean hadn't seen in a long time, and it made him break into a smile as well. "Yeah. But I get shotgun," he said, moving in front of Sam to the passenger side and smiling to himself as he opened the door.
Hunting without Sam, or Cas, or even Jack, who he hated not long ago, wouldn't be the same.
Okay, I really overuse corny endings. But ending a short story is hard!
I'm starting fresh with the stories so I might use some old prompts but feel free to send in more. I plan to write more often, so I'll update again soon after Christmas!
Until then, happy holidays!