Title: Blackbird

Author: Oldach's Dream

Summary: Someone or Something is trying to trap Sam within his own mind. Alluring him with the promise of the normal life that he's always wanted. Will Dean be able to save his baby brother before he's gone forever?

Disclaimer: Supernatural defiantly isn't my creation. I do however, claim Dr. Kabala (and any other original character that might pop out of my head and into this plot.)

Rating: M

A/N: Well, I've more or less reached the point where I haven't actually written any of this yet. So chapters may take a bit longer from now on.

You've all been very insistent on finding out what's happening with Dean. This chapter answers that, and quite a few other major questions about what's really going on.

There's also a little bit of violence...okay, maybe more than a little...in this chapter. It's really not that bad. Nothing worse than we'd see in the show, but you've been warned, either way.

Oh, and, yeah I know I'm babbling, but I want it to be known that I haven't read a single spoiler for the newest episode. I don't know anything about it, other than the brief trailer we got after last week's episode. And my goal is to have the majority of this posted before the new episode airs (that's in another week, right?) So I don't accidentally steal their plot...whatever it may be.


Chapter Ten:

Dean's body, as a whole, ached something awful, but when he lifted his head to take stock of his surroundings, he actually groaned out loud.

"Getting whacked in the back of the head hurts," he mumbled to himself stupidly. "Go fuckin' figure."

He was surrounded by darkness. He could make out only the blurry outlines of objects in his direct line of vision. And it was only when he attempted to move his aching, throbbing limbs, that he became fully aware of how trapped he was.

He was in an upright, standing position. Yet his arms were chained above his head. His wrists throbbed when he pulled at them. A quick glance down at his body told him that the biting chill he was feeling wasn't an external manifestation of his fear; it was the result of the shirt he wasn't wearing.

He felt the trickles of blood make their way down his chest, and would have examined them further, had his hunter-honed instincts not picked up on the fact that he was no longer alone.

"Dean Winchester." The eerie female voice spoke his name, but he couldn't see anyone.

"That's me." He answered, wishing desperately that his eyes would adjust to this total darkness and allow him some insight as to what was going on. "How drunk was I last night? 'Cause I sure as hell don't remember agreeing to play this kinky game."

"This isn't a game." She spoke just as calmly as she had before.

"Yeah I know," he said in a mocking tone, still pulling slightly on his restraints. "That was kinda my way of saying; who the hell are you? And what the fuck is going on?"

"Sam told me you were sarcastic."

"Sammy?" Dean's interest was instantly peaked. "What the hell are you doing to my brother?"

She ignored his angry question and took a few steps closer to where he was hanging helplessly. An action he more felt than saw, as his eyes were still not accustomed to the dark.

"He said you could be a jerk. Controlling. Too…what was it? Willing to follow orders." She laughed a little. "Always ready to do what daddy tells you."

"One more time," he spoke with clenched teeth. "What the fuck are you doing to my brother?"

"I'm not doing anything to your precious Sammy," She spoke the name harshly, and Dean gasped when he felt the dagger being pulled across his abdomen; he had not been expecting it. "He's doing it all to himself."

"You little…" Dean didn't get a chance to finish the vulgar thought; the blade she was holding continued to cut deeper. "Shit," he hissed.

Moments later she pulled away, and within seconds, dim light flooded the…basement. Or so it seemed, as Dean squinted, taking in his surroundings as he was trying to do before.

The room was about double the size of your average living room, although held nothing remotely personal. Except, he noted with a cringe, the alter, set up on some sort of cabinet, to his far left.

It was large, the size of a dresser, and held, amongst burning black candles, inverted pentagrams, bowls with Celtic designs, and other satanic looking objects; multiple photographs of the Winchester men.

All three of them.

"Well, that's a little creepy." He noted aloud.

"You know nothing." The girl, who was wearing a blacked hooded cloak, covering her face from view, spoke from the other side of the room where she had flipped a light switch. She was headed back for Dean now, dagger still in hand.

"I know you're freakin' me out a little." He said the words casually, but couldn't deny how true they were. "You got an obsession or something? 'Cause most girls, they just flirt."

"You think I'm flirting with you?" Her voice was amused, and Dean was put off by how normal she sounded. How not demonic.

"Again, that would be a joke."

"Sam was never so irritating." She said, an odd infliction, something akin to fond remembrance, taking hold of her voice. "He's a very emotional kind of guy. When he's angry, he let's you know he's angry. When he's worried, he gets fidgety. When he's scared…"

"Okay, I really don't need your insights to my little brother." Dean's temper was flaring.

"I thought you wanted to know what was happening?" She spoke innocently and Dean bit his lip to restrain the next sarcastically bitter response.

"I want to know what you're doing to him." He agreed.

"I told you, Dean." She sighed. "I'm not doing anything."

"So the altar's just for kicks then?"

Had Dean's reflexes not been so outstanding, he'd have found himself with a dagger imbedded firmly through his eye, moments later.

"I'm really sick of listening to you talk." The gothic chick spoke as if she hadn't just almost killed him.

She was now standing at the aforementioned altar, seemingly trying to concentrate intensely on one of the odd looking bowls. Dean's eyes darted hastily between her rigid form, and the knife stuck in the wall to his right.

He had been trying to come up with an escape plan since he had first regained consciousness, but still he could think of no way to get himself out of this predicament.

He didn't let his concern for his little brother hit the surface of his emotions as it was threatening to do. If he did, he'd surly start to panic. Fighting to protect and save Sammy had this way of droning everything else out for Dean, making his little brother his primary concern.

While that logic and mindset worked terrifically on hunts and in crisis situations, Dean knew that the hasty thoughts and single mindedness that it brought him would not work to his advantage here.

Keeping a level head and thinking rationally might be the only way he could figure out what was going on.

So he focused on the girl still standing before her altar. She had begun mumbling incoherently into the bowl she had been focusing on before.

Dean recognized the signs of the rituals immediately, and there was no doubt in his mind that he had indeed tracked down the person cursing his little brother. And if he hadn't gotten himself captured in the process, he might have been proud of himself.

What he did next was incredibly risky, as the crazy chick had just launched a dagger at his head for talking, but he couldn't risk letting her go through with the ceremony she had undoubtedly just started. Not if it was doing what Dean thought it was doing.

"Hey, blondie," he called. Her hood had fallen back at some point, when she'd lifted her head towards the ceiling, invoking something or another. Revealing a mess of short, spiky blonde hair. Her face, when she whirled around angrily to face him, was narrow and feminine looking. "There's not blood in that thing is there? 'Cause that's a little unsanitary."

He couldn't think of anything else to say, and he had caught a brief glance of the bowl's contents.

"You're either incredibly stupid, or really desperate." She bit out.

"Door number two." He answered easily. He refused to let some psychopath with a spell book and a little magical power scare him. "And is it blood? Blood works great in all this mumbo jumbo crap."

"It's blood," she answered, surprising Dean somewhat. He had been expecting something else to be whipped at him. "It's your blood."

"You're using my blood to curse Sam?" He asked, still managing to keep his voice level. "Logical."

She ignored his sarcasm and continued as though he hadn't spoken. "And Sam's blood. Your father's and your mother's. Jessica's too."

She stopped and Dean had to swallow his sudden apprehension. What were the chances she was telling the truth?

"I needed all of it." She continued, her finger had dipped into the bowl, and was swirling the thick liquid. She smiled a tainted smile, looking down at the contents proudly. "I can't kill him. I can't kill the chosen. The power would die with him. But I can use him against himself. Just like I did with Max."

"Max?" Dean croaked.

"My father's idea." She admitted proudly. "It was easy, really. He was weak. Pathetic. Already depressed and…suicidal." She grinned in a way that made Dean want to squirm as far away from his captor as his restraints allowed.

"It's a shame your brother isn't suicidal." She continued, still fingering the blood. "It would have made this whole thing easier. But no, Sammy had to be difficult."

"Don't call him that." Dean ordered.

She ignored him. "He blames himself for the murders, you know. Thinks their deaths were his fault." She let out a single, curt laugh. "He's right, of course. But poking around his head is fun. Guilt for your mother. Guilt for that bitch he was fucking. Even guilt for you."

"Me?" Dean couldn't help but ask ludicrously.

This was clearly the point in time where the bad guy revealed the master plan, under the impression that the hero would soon be too dead to do anything with the information.

Dean had seen enough movies, and watched enough TV shows, to know the plot. And he loved this plot, because the bad guy never won. Not when they messed with Dean's family. Dean would never let them win.

"He feels guilty for leaving you." She said, sharing her insights with a smirk. "Thinks you have abandonment issues. Is he right?"

"You tell me," Dean seethed. "You're the psychic bitch."

"I'm not psychic," she spoke in a surprisingly factual tone. "That was the gift bestowed upon your brother."

"You lost me," Dean said, trying not to groan when he accidentally shifted his body weight and tugged at his overly strained arms.

"You really haven't figured it out yet, have you?" She asked, looking honestly taken aback by that notion.

"Guess I'm just not that quick." He deadpanned.

"Each chosen one receives a gift. Two gifts, if you count the art of telekinesis."

As if to demonstrate, a knife that had been perched on the edge of the altar rose, seemingly of its own accord, and moved until it was hovering before Dean. He kept his eyes firmly fixed on the weapon as she continued to speak, ready to move as much as possible to avoid any possible sudden attacks.

"Max could do that." He spoke calmly. "He was pretty good at it too."

"His skills developed out of self defense. Mine developed out of training. Your brother's developed out of guilt. Guilt really is a driving factor with him." She said, her eyes were focused on the knife she was controlling.

She would jab it in Dean's direction, only to pull it back moments before it hit him. Concentrating on the dagger, and her psychobabble, was proving somewhat difficult.

"Do you know what killed your mother, Dean?"

Her blunt words made him focus entirely on her again.

"A demon." He did not want this witch-bitch speaking about his mom.

"Sort of." She agreed. "A higher being. Some might call him a demon. Others call him a master, a genius."

"Fucking sick people."

Dean was glaring at her as threateningly as he could muster, which proved all too soon to be a mistake. A gasp tore from his throat when part of the knife imbedded itself into his side.

He looked down instinctively, and noted that it only went a few inches deep. Enough to hurt like a bitch, but not enough to hit any vital organs. He watched, unable to turn away, as most of the dagger was pulled out, leaving only the tip mingling with his flesh. Until she pushed it back in. In and out, in and out.

"Don't you dare insult my family, Dean." She said evenly, toying with the knife for a few seconds longer, before pulling it away completely. "We're much stronger, and much smarter than you and yours."

"Oh, yeah?" He rasped, trying with all his might to keep the pain out of his voice. "How's that?"

The knife went sailing back into her hand, and Dean had to admit, it looked like she a pretty decent hold on her powers. More so than Sammy did with his visions, anyway.

It was the thought of his little brother that kept Dean's attention away from the shooting pain in his side, and his half formed murder plans for this bitch.

"It's taken your father the last twenty years to figure out what might have caused his wife's death." She smiled proudly; only it was directed at the bowl she was currently letting the blood from the dagger drip into. "It took my dad only until my fifth birthday. When you and Sammy were pretending to live normal lives, watching your daddy go off on hunts. Watching him search, watching him search so hard, so fruitlessly. My father had already taught me how to control it."

"The telekinesis?" Dean guessed, wanting her to keep talking.

When he had reached this, normal looking, house, on the outskirts of Denver, he had figured he'd be dealing with something like an angry person with a grudge and access to a local magic shop.

He'd assumed that it would take only some well-placed threats, or a couple rounds with a gun full of rock salt, to get what he wanted, and back to his brother.

What he hadn't expected was to be caught off guard and hit from behind with some blunt object, and to be taken hostage for God knows how long. Only to wake up, chained to a wall like some sort of sacrifice and be forced to engage in chitchat to keep this crazy bitch from killing him.

"Pay attention." She snapped. "The telekinesis is the easy part. The…"

"Free gift?" Dean guessed, cutting her off. "Get one random super power and the ability to move things with your mind comes free?"

Dean had realized at this point, that pissing this chick off might not be the safest method of distraction, put it was sure as hell affective.

"Something like that." She agreed, no anger present in her tone.

"You know, Max…" He started, but was affectively cut off.

"Max was pathetic. Desperate and pathetic." There was that anger Dean had grown accustomed to. "He wanted to use his powers for his own protection. The fool. If he had embraced them totally, he could have destroyed his entire family. He was an idiot."

"So what was his power?" Genuine curiosity mixed with his plans of distraction.

She smirked, and Dean instantly regretted the question. She lifted up a slender hand and waved it towards Dean.

A fire erupted in front of him.

"Holy Fuck!" He shouted, jerking away from the flames.

It wasn't some dinky little bonfire. It was a full eruption of heat and danger, an entire wall of it. Standing between Dean and this demon girl, although notably closer to Dean.

"So much power," she said softly, and pointed her hand again.

One of the flames jumped out of it's confined area and licked at Dean's arm. Only slightly, but enough to get his heart racing.

Dean didn't have many fears. Out of the ones he had to choose from, loosing his family, dying alone, airplanes and fire were the most notable. It wasn't so much fire itself, as he dealt with that a lot in his line of work.

It was the though of being killed by it. Of being taken away from his brother and father the same way his mother had been. Taken away from Sammy the same way Jessica had been. The guilt that would consume his brother at that knowledge was what really scared him.

"So that's what Max could do?" He shouted slightly over the crackling of the flames, not letting her hear the rising panic in his voice. "How come he never used it?"

"He couldn't," she called, still watching and controlling the fire. Sending it out here and there to torture her captive. "He never learned how to control it. Never even knew about it. It was fresh and unused when I stole it."

"After you killed him." Dean clarified.

"No," she denied forcefully. "Murder the chosen, and their powers die with them. Make the chosen kill themselves, and their powers go free."

"Well then your shit out of luck," Dean's anger was now full blown. Only his tone held determination and control as well. He ignored the flames. "There's no way in hell Sammy's gonna kill himself. Not today. Not ever."

"You think?" Her smirk made Dean's stomach lurch. "I've taken the one thing that Sam's always wanted, and handed it to him on a fucking silver platter. Do you think he's just going to walk away from that?"

"A normal life." Dean's voice was dull to his own ears, the fire jumped closer to him.

"That's right," she sounded evil. Her body was outlined by the glow of the flames, and Dean wanted to shudder at the sight of her. "What do you think is going to happen, when he decides that's the life he wants to live?"

The look on Dean's face must have answered for him.

"He's going to escape into his own mind completly, just like he thinks he's already doing. And when he does, he'll die. And it'll be the same thing as a sucicide, because he'll choose that it. He'll choose it over you and your mission. Your life."

"Why?" Dean was desperate, grief-stricken and desperate for answers. "Why do you want to do this?"

"I need his powers." She said simply, concentrating completly on the flames now. "I have empathetic telepathy..." Her eyes darted momentarily back to Dean. "That means I can read thoughts and emotions." Her eyes went back to the flames. "It's how I know your scared shitless right now. It's what helped me cast the spell that opened up Sam's subconscious. It's how I knew he'd want to stay there."

"But Why?" He asked again. "What's the point."

"The point, Dean," she started. "Is that once I get enough power, I'll be able to put my family back together. I'll be able to bring my parents back to life."

"Dead?" He asked ludicrously. "Your dad's dead?"

"Yes." She hissed.

"But, I thought..." Had she not said she could talk to her father?

"I can talk to him." Dean was creeped out to realize that she was answering the words he hadn't spoken out loud. "He knew the day might come where he'd die for his cause. So he made sure there was enough of his spirit still connected to earth. Enough so that I could talk to him. He knows I'll bring him back. We can be a family again."

You're a twisted motherfucker.

She simply smiled and raised her hand once again.

The fire continued to dance.

End Chapter.


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