Dean and Kat sat at the edge of her bed. Kat stared at her mug, scared out of her mind honestly. Looking at the mug, was like looking down the barrel of a gun. She literally held her fate in her hands and couldn't seem to take the plunge.
Dean touched her knee consolingly and said "It'll be ok." The certainness in his voice made her wish she could believe him. But, it did give her the push she needed. They looked at each other, Dean nodded, and they each took a sip.
Kat felt like gravity had switched positions and was pulling her forward rather than down. The lights in her room faded as it became a gray backdrop, scattered with shadows. She turned to Dean to ask if she was dreaming, but he had vanished. With the realization that he was gone, all of the warmth disappeared from the room.
"Dean?" Kat's hysteria peeked through her voice. She stood attempting to get through the door to the hall, hoping that it would break the cycle and wake her up. Before she could get there however, the shadows began to move. They curled and twisted into a dark silhouette and from it, stepped the full vision of her uncle.
"Hey, Kit-Kat." He said, letting his face break into the smile that Kat had loved best. It highlighted the wrinkles around his eyes making his appear older, but his youthful spirit radiated off him like a flare.
"Don't call me that." She whimpered. It had been his nickname for her since she was young, but this creature was just using his body, his memories. She wouldn't have them tainted for her forever.
She backed up until the back of her knees met the soft bed. She never moved her eyes from the sluagh, too terrified to test what would happen if she did.
"Please don't be like that. It's me, Mikey." He pleaded, taking a step forward. Kat recoiled as much as she could, turning her body towards the window.
"No you're not." She told him and herself at the same time.
"Why, because that drifter told you so?" he said a little more forcefully. She looked back at him, feeling deceived by the face she knew, and guilty over the realization that she was choosing a stranger over even just the memory of the man who'd raised her. He must have sensed the debate happening inside her head because the sluagh capitalized on it, he continued, "Remember when your mom died, and I came and picked you up from the police station? Do you remember what you said to me?"
Kat did remember. But she wouldn't give the monster the satisfaction of divulging that particular memory.
"You said, 'I'll never leave like Mommy did. I don't like it when you look sad'." Hearing the words repeated nearly broke Kat's heart in two. When he had died, he'd gone peacefully. There was time for goodbyes and to say whatever needed saying. She couldn't stand listening to those words because the pain of sadness on her uncle's face had been worse than watching him die.
Feeling herself losing the fight for her life, she began to panic but she was so lost in his presence alone that she couldn't think straight.
"I am sad Kat. I'm sad because even though I moved on, I left you behind." He stepped forward, again Kat was unprepared. She was forced to dodge his touch to the left, further away from the window.
"No. Stop it. My uncle was an Irish firefighter from Brooklyn. He never talked like this. He'd just as soon as shove his fist in his mouth than tell me he liked the macaroni art I tacked onto the fridge." She spat.
Impatience flickered across the sluagh's face. "Don't you wish you could talk to him about that now? The inability to show you love?" it roared. The sudden shift was jarring to Kat and she stood with her mouth slightly open staring at the now possessed grin splitting the sluagh's cheeks widely.
"Frankly, I don't." she assured the creature who was no longer tantalizingly reminiscent of her uncle but had become itself.
"That's a pity really. Because I happen to know, he's dying to talk to you." It cooed.
"We said all we need to say before he died. I know you're lying." Kat countered. She was feeling increasingly panicked. Her back was literally against the wall and the only weapon she held was her word. She silently begged for Dean to appear, save the day, as he'd done once before. She knew wishing for a savior was fruitless however and poured all of her focus on the sluagh. Kat ferociously went through scenarios in her mind of how to get to the window, but each led to her failure to get there in time. The lack of faith she had in herself was beginning to grate at her resolve.
"You've left nothing from his mortal life unsaid. But why can't he have found more things to say in his immortal one?" the creature challenged. Kat had run out of counter attacks and stared as it advanced towards her.
Dean had blinked and suddenly he was in Kat's kitchen. The color had been dragged from the room, making it black and white. The stark contrast of light and shadow reminded Dean of the way in which he and Sam lived their lives. Good and Evil. Plain and simple. The first time he had entered a dream with African dream root, the world was ultra-saturated with color. It glowed; but this…this was desolate.
"Kat?" he called tentatively. Receiving no reply, he took a step forward to the bedroom. As soon as he looked up from the floor where his foot fell his eyes opened wide at what had appeared before him.
"I went to hell for you Dean, This is not the life I thought you'd be living. I'm disappointed, son." It was his first time hearing his father's voice in ten years, and each word that fell was like a lash meeting the flesh of his back.
"I looked out for Sammy. That's what you asked of me and that's what I did." Said Dean resolutely. As soon as Dean finished the apparition disappeared. He'd mused on things he'd say to his dad if he was ever given the chance to see him again. If there was one thing Dean was proud of, it was Sam. He would defend that position to his dying breath, even if it cost one more conversation with John. Eager to escape the memory he pushed forward but as soon as his foot fell there was another terror waiting.
"What I couldn't understand, was why you let my mom stay Dean." Jo whispered accusingly. Her eyes squinted when she looked at him full of hurt. Dean understood the pattern now, his guilt spilling out from the hidden recesses of his mind taking up the bodies of the people he'd gotten killed. He was not in control and all of the things he tried to repress were flowing out to betray the careful wall he'd spent years building.
"There was no way she'd be able to live with you gone. If she had survived, I wouldn't call it living." Dean reasoned, seeing the way past the pawns of his subconscious was to beat them at their own game. Jo was gone; and as soon as he blinked she was replaced by another.
"Kevin." Dean greeted. "Gotta tell you, you're not who I expected next."
"Dean, Dean, Dean. Always with the sarcasm. I wonder if Gadreel appreciated your sense of humor." He scathed. Dean hated seeing Kevin again as this jaded, miserable creature. He'd been visited by the ones he'd lost before but never one after the other, berating him.
"You know, seeing the ghosts of Christmas past has been fun and all but, I've got a life to save." Dean attempted to step forward hoping it would signal another apparition to take up Kevin's mantle but he just ended up slipping through the translucent form and Kevin reappeared a step ahead.
"You can't ignore me like you did when I was alive Dean." Kevin's voice was fiercer, more driven and angry. His challenge forced Dean to straighten up to his full height. He stared into Kevin's eyes and tightened his own. He curled up his lips to restrain the anger that was threatening to explode from his chest like a bomb.
"And you can't act like you deserve reparations for what happened. Man up and roll with the punches; life isn't fair." Dean shouted. He thought he saw the image of Kevin smile wickedly before he vanished.
Dread rolled over Dean like a fever. He felt cold and hot at the same time his skin prickled with sweat. He shoved his trepidation aside and willed himself to take one more step.
"Did it work? Is the Mark gone?" a small voice squeaked. Charlie's appearance was less like her human self than the others. Her hair was less lustrous and her eyes didn't hold her usual excited zeal. He knew this wasn't really Charlie's soul returned for the time being. It was a monster using her face and he hated it. But, he couldn't bring himself to voice that because he was looking at the Charlie that had saved his life with her own.
"Yeah kiddo, it did." Dean smiled warmly at her and the illusion smiled back. Dean knew he wouldn't have it in him to be cruel to her, to muscle his way past, take all of the self-hate and repression and thrust it outward. But luckily Charlie—even a false mirage of her—didn't seem to be able to be callous.
"I'm sorry." Dean said, purging some of the guilt thumping around in his ribcage like a trapped bird.
"It's ok." She said simply and she beamed as she faded away into the shadows which seemed to be encroaching further into the space. Dean suddenly remembered Kat, and started off at a run, he only made it three steps—tantalizingly close to the bedroom door—before he stopped himself cold staring at the broken, bleeding figure in front of him.
Sam knelt on the floor, drenching the carpet with crimson. His head drooped on its perch like a newborn with no muscle to hold it up. His hands rested palm up on his knees reaching for help that obviously hadn't come. The bone of his shoulder protruded from his jacket and he was slouched, guarding himself from the pain. Dean stumbled back a step and whispered, "No."
Sam looked up with pleading eyes, a large gash split layers of skin from his forehead to his top lip. It was pitiful. Finding his voice Dean said, more forcefully, "This isn't real. You're not dead."
"Not yet Dean. But I will be." He rasped from the floor. He coughed and spit out a large gob of blood, letting it drip onto his shirt, too far past caring.
"Why? I wouldn't have let this happen." Dean knew he was counseling himself, to wade through the grief he felt at seeing his brother like this.
"She wants to know Dean. She wants to know who you'll choose: your brother or your family." He choked out, his lip quivering as his eyes became deader.
"What? What are you talking about? You are my family." Dean growled, kneeling down to him and grabbing his shoulders, trying to shake life back into him.
"Keep everyone you love close Dean. Rowena has something very big in store for you." He wheezed.
This time the apparition vanished before Dean could reason with it. His hands became empty and he struggled back to his feet, feeling all the weight of the message the sluagh had passed on to him.
This time no ghost barred his way. He barreled into the bedroom, he saw Kat terrified backed up against the wall on the opposite side of the room. The creature had its arm against her neck, cutting off her air supply. Before the sluagh had the time to release her Dean had made it to the window. He shoved it open, letting the purest white flood the room. He turned, to see the creature right behind him. It reached towards him fighting its demise but the white had sucked the room clean of shadow. It jerked against the tug and pull of the wind attempting to drag it out of the open window. It wailed, a sickening echo of true pain as Kat's uncle dissolved away revealing a demonic being with glowing silver eyes and shadow for skin.
It started melting from the outside in. it moved inwards until only its face was left. Its mouth curled into a distorted oval, revealing a black pit for a mouth and grey rotted teeth. With one last gust the sluagh was gone, the window slammed shut and all the light disappeared leaving the pair of them in darkness.
Kat gasped as she was thrust back into consciousness. She heard Dean do the same next to her. They both had laid backwards when the dream root had taken effect. Dean sighed emphatically and all Kat could do was huff out an emotionless laugh. She stared at the ceiling, trying to make sense of what had happened inside her head.
"Well my dreams actually aren't as empty as my conscious seems to be." She quoted sarcastically. She felt Dean reach for her then, grabbing her arm and pulling himself closer to her. She turned her head and met his lips. She saw him mentally compartmentalizing. His eyes held lust but behind them was pain, confusion and sadness. Kat didn't mind though, she was doing the same thing. And they both, turned to each other for solace.
Kat lay on Dean's chest hearing his heart slow. After the whole ordeal, she was fighting to stay awake, scared to venture once again into the dream world. Dean kissed the top of her head lightly and said quietly, "I should leave tomorrow. Get back to Sam, tell him everything that happened."
Kat nodded minutely. "I think I need some space. From all this. I'll send you guys what I find." She responded. She knew he wasn't the one to be hurt by her need for elbowroom.
Dean changed the subject, as to not linger on anything that could become emotion. "You know I can't get that song out of my head. Annoying, at least it's a good song or I'd really be mad."
"Sometimes it's better to have music in your head, than anything else. I'm sure you've got stuff you'd like to hide from up there Winchester." Kat slurred slowly.
Dean looked down at her as clearly as he could without moving. He smirked at her sleeping form, lips slightly parted and eyelashes that twitched as she fell further into sleep.
Rowena paced around the crystals she had used to spy upon the eldest Winchester and the girl named Katherine. The girl had managed to fight off the pull of oblivion by the only person she had cared about. He was all she had left to tempt Kat with. Well, except Dean and possibly Sam. Rowena knew that she was no longer a victim to them. Sam and Dean always seemed form a sickening loyalty and closeness with those they allowed into their lives. Now, they had her, which meant Rowena was further away from claiming her, and keeping her from creating the weapon that could unravel her plan.
"What should we do now?" Said a sultry voice from across the large desk. Rowena's head snapped up and she smiled diabolically at the woman to whom it belonged.
"I think it would be delicious if we took away her mind. It seems she values sanity more than anything. I wonder how she would fare without it." Purred Rowena.
The woman brushed her white hair aside and cackled, very much like a stereotypical witch. "You know, I'm starting to think you'd do my job better than I do." said the woman.
"Ooh Carman, you do tempt me. Goddess of Evil does have a nice ring to it." Joked Rowena.
Carman stood, at her full height she towered above Rowena, hair cascading down her back with piercing blue eyes. "You have the book of the damned, a powerful hex bag should do the trick. Send me into her head, she won't survive." Carman promised.