A/N: Sorry for the delay! I decided to distract myself from the divorce by taking on a third job. But it's a FUN job! It does cut into my writing time, though! That said, I promise promise PROMISE I will finish this story, and soon. I won't leave you hanging like I have on that other multi-chapter fic which shall remain nameless (and which I will still finish someday).
AND FEBRUARY WAS SO LONG
Chapter 10
Dusk waits at the shed doors, not swirling and spiraling like his sister Dawn, but sinking silently, fading his surroundings until everything goes dark. He inhales light and breathes out inky blackness. His quiet breath snuffs out candles, tangles power lines, soaks into flashlight batteries and renders them useless.
He loves his work.
Too, he loves his sister Dawn – the light to his dark, cloaked always in her shroud of mist, swirling with rainbows of color and light. Nevermind they are destined to forever be at odds, her goals and wishes the antithesis of his. He loves her like shadows love the sun, forever separate but unable to exist alone.
Dawn is subtle, soaking into children's nightmares, waking within them a fear of the dark they didn't even know they possessed. Because of Dawn, children hide from Dusk. They draw blinds, they light candles, they insist on nightlights, they beg for bedroom doors to be left cracked, for bathroom lights to be left burning. They look toward morning. Toward his Dawn.
He loves his sister. But like anyone, Dusk wants a family of his own. A son, an heir, someone to carry on his name and his work when he himself at last sees his final sunset. It won't be long now, He's aging. Getting slower, the sun casting longer shadows into the dark of his evenings. It stays light too long these days.
The friendly sibling rivalry of Dusk and Dawn goes back centuries - ever since a curse cut them loose from the bonds of mortality and assigned them their opposite goals - and they have criss-crossed the globe, but this town is special to him. It bears his name – Dusk Valley – and in some odd way, it's like coming home. If he's going to find a family, it will be here. Every time his travels bring him here, he feels as though the endless night he's wrought will finally win out over his sister's haze of morning.
And every time, she surprises him, eventually bringing the sun back up. But not before she's added another dozen or so lights to her collectionin the fog.
Of course they aren't lights at first – once, they were children. The children strong enough to escape from Dusk's dark, cold, freezing grip. Her children, light and beautiful, dancing around her always. His nieces and nephews, whom he will never know, for their light repels him like the sun repels a noontime shadow.
Dusk has tried, decade after decade, to find a family the way his sister has. He has captured children and parents alike, drawing them into the darkness, showing them the beauty of his nights. But each time, the light in them fades too quickly. Each star he tries to dim to his liking snuffs out completely before he can capture it.
The little stars hiding in this shed feel different.
Dusk sinks low, sliding into the closed shed under its crooked doors. He relishes the feeling of the building's metal siding freezing solid as he trails his fingertips across it. He frosts the window glass so hard it cracks. He is excited. There is power here, so much power and potential. So much strength.
So much light to be dimmed to perfection.
Perhaps he will finally win this game tonight.
Two boys sleep in the back of the shed, twitching restlessly as they dream the dreams Dawn sends them. Working quietly, Dusk begins to sneak into their dreams. He draws the younger boy to his feet, shows him images that comfort him. Rescuers coming for him.
He is surprised when the boy ducks these images in favor of Dawn's light.
Well, fine. The older boy, then.
The older boy is still dreaming. His eyes open just the slightest bit, and Dusk lets the imaginary rescuers fade. He knows the real thing, the boy's would-be rescuers – the only two grown-ups in Dusk Valley who still have light in their eyes – are drawing near. He can smell them, can sense them. But the younger boy will distract them.
They will not reach the older boy in time.
There are two levels of terror working in Sam at this moment: blind panic of the dark, and real fear for Dean.
Fear for Dean will always win. But only just, which is how Sam knows something is wrong inside his head. He's under, like, a spell or something. This fear he's feeling is only made-up.
The realization that this smothering, dizzying, swarming fear of the dark is only make-believe makes it easier to ignore. But again, only just. Sam is able to shut the fear down for a moment, not exactly escaping it – it still grips his heart and his stomach in twin fists of ice – but closing it into a box where it can't interfere with what he needs to do.
Which, at this moment, is to run flat-out back the way he's come. Toward Dean, who, apparently, despite his best efforts, he has left all alone.
Sam runs as fast as he can manage, on wet grass in pitch-dark. One of his socks has gotten stolen by the mud and his left foot is bare. Doesn't matter, he can't get anymore cold than he already is, his whole body is cold.
His father runs on one side of him, holding his hand as if he is not ten years old. Sam slips free of the grip repeatedly, only to find his limbs recaptured. Eventually he just lets his dad hang on. John's faster at running than Sam and Sam finds himself pulled along, only half on his feet. He increases his speed, keeps up, leg muscles tight and heart pounding, breath only a memory. His eyes keep darting from the rainbow lights in the swirling fog, growing ever brighter, to the flickering low-orange beam of Bobby's nearly-dead flashlight.
"There," Sam pants, as the shed looms out of the darkness, caught in the flashlight's weak beam. Bobby moves toward the shed's closed door. John shoves Sam behind him, steps forward.
The door swings open on an empty room.
To be continued ...