Send in the Clowns

by Mystic25

for the Prompt: After everything, Hell, Lucifer, the Apocalypse, you'd think Sam'd be over his coulrophobia. Because, seriously, what are a couple of clowns after, y'know, hallucinating Lucifer? But apparently he isn't.

"Send in the Clowns."

Mystic25

Summary: for the Prompt: After everything, Hell, Lucifer, the Apocalypse, you'd think Sam'd be over his coulrophobia. Because, seriously, what are a couple of clowns after, y'know, hallucinating Lucifer? But apparently he isn't.

Rating: T for violence and language and imagery.

A/N: I'm finally doing a "Sam is scared of clowns" fic. Enough said.

xxxxxXxxxxx

"Wait, this isn't about your clown thing, is it?"

"What? No!"

"Sammy…"

-Dean and Sam Winchester "Supernatural"

Episode: "Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie"

"Isn't it rich? Aren't we a pair?

Me here at last on the ground, and you in mid-air?

Send in the clowns."

-Frank Sinatra "Send in the Clowns"

xxxxxXxxxx

Cedar Rapids, Iowa

State Fair

The sky looked like cotton candy. Swirled under pink tinged clouds of a sun about to retire for the evening. Like the Greek God Apollo relinquishing the Sun Chariot to his counterpart Artemis, Goddess of the Moon.

But, that was a legend, the sun was actually a huge ball of gas, one sinking below the sky that smelled like corn dogs, and dirt and grass, and funnel cake. The monsters out here, however, totally real.

Underneath such a sun and in such an air milled hundreds of people. In huge clusters, around booths selling everything from ring tosses, to fortunes, to French kissing. The line at that booth wrapped around for a good 10 feet. All men, all trying to flirt with the busty brunette who was selling her tongue.

In this river of people, pushed a tall, built man, in flannel and canvas and denim that was casual, but the hand underneath the jacket – it was gripping tightly to the wooden hilt of a knife.

One with a pure silver double blade – to kill a shape shifter.

Standard equipment for a Hunter.

It's partner was on the other side of the Fair, being held by his partner, his brother – Dean –

"Dean!" Sam growled into the phone when he saw his brother forty yards away at a fried candy bar booth, taking a huge bite out of a grease caramelized Milky Way on a stick.

"Dude," Sam's voice had many tones – this one was defiantly his 'exasperation voice.' "Can you focus please?" His exasperation rose two more degrees when Dean gave him a high sign, smiling with a mouth full of deep fried chocolate.

"I'm focused," Dean said with his teeth stuck full of gooey nougat. "There's jack squat on this side for flashing eyes."

"How hard were you looking before you started eating your own heart attack?" Sam said, moving aside to let a young couple and a huge ass stuffed panda bear move along the pathway. He could hear Dean working nougat out of his teeth and it only made his huff louder and more prominent.

"This ain't my first hunt Sammy," Dean reminded, swallowing the thick wonderfulness. Seriously, the man who invented fried candy bars – genius. "So how about you untwist your panties?"

Dean could see his brother's Bitch Face from here.

A group of teenage girls walked past him, giggling, smelling like vanilla flowers and holding onto cupie dolls and other cheap trinkets won for three rings. One of the girls – a redhead with long loose curls, ran her green eyes up and down Dean's body, winking at him.

One of her friends elbowed her, but started giggling more at her friend's boldness, turning back to get an eyeful of Dean herself.

"Dude," Sam's voice cut through on the phone. "That's not legal."

"C'mon Sam, she looked at me," Dean said, trying to inject as much "genuine hurt" in his voice as he could. He hadn't reacted back when the girl looked at him. True, she was hot, but she looked like she was 17, and he wasn't stupid. He was just trying to annoy Sam – which he liked to do just to keep the kid on his toes. "What's the matter Sammy? You jealous? After I took you to the fair and everything?"

He could now see Sam flipping him off from here. "C'mon man, relax. I'll make it up to you," he listened to the sounds of the girls surveying the hanging stuffed prizes they could cash out on for filling up the clown faces. The clowns were stationed at one end of the booth, smiling with huge grins, like being shot at in the mouth with dirty water was a worthwhile career. "I've got a game you'll love." Dean's smile was goofy. Sam and clowns didn't tend to mix. And they had been on such a huge upheaval of pain and guilt, and grief, that a genuine Winchester Prank could shake off such a funk.

So what it was at Sam's expense? What kind of Big Brother would Dean be if he left him out of the fun?

Now he was just going to have to talk to the Carney running this stand to switch out all the stuffed toy prizes hanging there for clowns ones.

The cluster of girls giggled again. Were girls born learning how to giggle? Or was it something they picked up later, like how to apply nail polish and walk in heels?

The redheaded girl was leaning way over, trying to get good aim with her black plastic water gun. Her cleavage was hanging out of a low fitting top.

"Dean," Sam's voiced sounded into his ear when he raised the phone back up to it, he could see Dean still watching the girl "Jail. Bait."

"Shut up," Dean said. He lowered the phone from his ear and watched the girl raise her plastic weapon to take aim on her plastic inflatable prey. Okay so she had a good rack, but it wasn't peaking his interest.

What was, was the fact that when he raised his the LCD camera display on his phone, and swept it over the redhead. Her eyes flashed a bright white that had nothing to do with the suspended halogen lights overhead.

Yatzee.

"I got it Sam, over at the game booth." Dean kept his eye on the group of girls, at the red head that the Shape Shifter was impersonating.

"So your pedophilic tendencies actually came in handy?"

"Shut up," Dean repeated again, his voice no longer joking, switching into his 'Hunter Mode' He kept the redhead in his sights, but she had won a stuffed antelope and was walking away with the two girls down towards a Funnel Cake stand.

Dean followed her at a 10 pace distance. "Dude, I need back up."

"Right," Sam's voice switched to that tone too. He recognized when Dean was ready to go to work. "I'm on my way."

Dean hung up the call, hand going into the pocket of his jacket, and pulled out the silver knife. He gripped the handle, concealing it in his palm.

There was a line at the Funnel Cake stand, and the girls were gushing over the Shifter Red head's stuffed antelope, throwing out names for it, like "Mimi" or "Antelopa."

Antelopa? Seriously? And why the hell are stuffed ANTELOPES prizes at carnivals now? What happened to gigantic bears?

Dean approached the group slowly, casually. The redhead was defiantly a shifter but her friends were decidedly human. So jumping out and wielding a knife at their friend might induce some teenage girl screaming.

Nope, time to play this cool.

"Excuse me," Dean called out, jogging over to the girls.

They all turned as one unit at the sound of his name. The Shifter's "friends", one blonde, and one a roan colored pixie cut. There was shock in their eyes, but mocked shock, because it soon melted too pleased smiles at the sight of Dean behind them.

The pixie cut haired girl smiled flicking her eyes over Dean, tongue flicked out between teeth. "Can I help you?"

Dean gave he a sideways 'seriously?' look. "I'm looking for my kid. She was supposed to meet me at the Fried Dough stand, but she never showed. You haven't seen him have you? Short, bought this tall," Dean held his hand to waist level, "brown hair, lots of freckles?" Dean was describing Sam at 12 years old to a tee. Well except for the part about being a girl.

"No," the blonde said, her voice was genuinely concerned. Like she had younger sisters and brothers she looked after. "What's her name?"

"Samantha," Dean said. Sorry Sammy, time to anty up and take one for the team bro. "Are you sure you haven't seen her? I've been up and down this area live five times. She's never one to wander off, and I'm getting kind of worried." Dean placed his best 'concerned for his fake daughter who was really his 29 year old brother' face.

"I'm sorry," the blonde said again, she seemed the most genuine out of the group, even out of the other human girl there. Pixie cut just looked bored that they were talking and not taking it behind places. "Do you want us to help you look?"

"That'd be great actually," Dean said with his best docile smile. "Why don't we split up? You're friend can come with me, and you two can take the other side," Dean could see a 'Stranger Danger' flash in the blonde's eyes at the thought of her redheaded friend wandering off alone with some lone man from a carnival. "How about I give you my phone number, in case you two find her first?" It was a gesture meant to reassure the other two girls, to have some sort of contact with their 'friend' to know that she was safe.

Dean would just have to work out what to tell them later after he had killed the thing.

"Yeah, okay," the blonde said. She seemed to be the most responsible of the group, and in a flash she as whipped out an black Samsung Galaxy, and was poised to enter Dean's number. "What's your name?"

"Peter, Peter Wilson," the name sounded horrible to Dean's ears. But, ever since Leviathans had been targeting them, all the cool rock names were out for boring banality. He gave her an old dead number from a phone that had been thrown into a lake in Wyoming years ago.

"Peter?" The redhead said, taking a step away from him to survey him like the name was clothing that wasn't fitting on him. "That's a lame name to use Dean." She smiled, this time slow, and deep, and monster tinged, cocking her head at him."Guess laying low's gotten you a bit rusty."

Dean pulled out his silver knife, the two human girls gasped. But, the time for lying had been blown to hell.

"Katie!" The blonde screamed, her voice drowned out by the din of the crowd.

Dean raised his knife. "You're one to talk, Katie." He approached the Shifter slowly, it didn't move, just kept watching him with that crooked smile.

"Hey, lay off Katie," the Shifter responded. "She's a good girl." The thing cricked it's neck. "Won't wake up until 3 days from now tied up in her own crawlspace and feel hung-over as hell, but other than that, girl's got a great track record."

"Katie?" the blonde – Roxy – now had a question mark of a voice. Not understanding why her friend was referring to herself in the Third Person, or wasn't more freaked out at the sight of a man pulling a knife on her.

"Besides, I'm not as bad as you," The Shifter said to Dean, the teenage girl's face it was wearing smiling so much the 'smudge proof' lipstick it wore cracked. "Your daughter? Really?" the thing laughed a raspberry. "Does Sam know you're this kinky?"

"How about you shut up bitch-" Dean growled Or better yet, how about I help with that?" He swiped downward with his knife. The Shifter dodged it, and Dean soon found a knee slammed hard into his gut, and he was on the grass, admits the other girls screams, seeing the Shifter take off in a sprint.

People were beginning to notice the screaming now, a man and a woman running towards the girls with – the man, gripping one of the teen's shoulders.

"What happened?" he took one look at Dean, and advanced forward, ready to choke him, or kick him in the same spot he'd just been kicked in a second time. "What'd you do you assho-" he reared his hand back in a fist.

"No!" The blonde, Roxy, stepped forward, pulling the man's arm away. "He was trying to help-" she was stuttering so hard her words were barely coherent. "There was-oh god Katie!"

The woman had her arms around Roxy's friend. "What happened?" she looked from Dean to the girl, eyes frantic, a mom herself, terrified. "What's going on?"

Dean placed a hand on her shoulder. He didn't have time to pretend to be a cop, or FBI, or even a friggin' Boy Scout. The Shifter had gone off into the crowd, and he had to find it before it shed and took on an new form. "Stay here!"

He pushed past the small gathering and through the crowd into the direction the Shifter had been running. Where the fuck was Sam?

xxxxxXxxxx

Sam kept his eye on Dean following the Shifter down to the grassy footpath. Several Carnival patrons gave cries of 'hey' when he bumped too hard into them. But, Sam ignored them, and continued in a diagonal towards his brother. His phone was raised, the camera feature on, keeping an eye on the flashing eyes of the Girl/Shape shifter.

His other hand was gripping his knife, ready to use it, to back Dean up once he got across the Fairgrounds.

Something bumped into him and he dropped the knife to the grass.

A little girl, six-years-old with dark brown plaited hair, in a rose patterned dress and pink cardigan stared at the knife and Sam wide eyed.

Sam raised his hand placating, "It's okay," he bent down slowly to pick up the knife, seeing her eyes grow even bigger when he did so. "Everything's fine-" he had to keep the kid from screaming or she would draw a crowd and he would be screwed.

The little girl was breathing hard, her face red in terror, her mouth opened to a 'screaming stance'

"No, no, no no-" Sam raised both hands. "I'm not going to hurt you-"

The girl started breathing harder, her fists balled. "You're not?"

"No, I'm just looking for my brother," Sam said, keeping his voice as soothing as possible to combat the fact that he was 6'4" and had just dropped a knife in front of the kid. The girl dropped her head and started to cry, not full on sobs, but Sam had been around enough kids to know that it was about to happen.

"No no, shh," Sam said, his hands hovering as close to the girl as he could without touching her and freaking her out more. "I promise I'm not going to hurt you, okay?"

But, just as fast as her 'screaming stance' came on, it vanished, her face calm. A smile came to it. "I know you won't Sam."

Sam's head cocked in complete bewilderment, but then it was replaced with a fight ready adrenaline. Because, complete strangers knowing his real names, little girls or no, was never a good thing. On instinct he raised the LCD display on his phone.

The girl raised her head and this time there was a sardonic smile on it, set below her flashing white eyes in the camera display. "Because I'm going to hurt you."

Sam's brain went into over drive. Two Shifters in the same place? What the hell? But, he let that thought process run itself out in favor of killing the damn thing first, and analyzing the situation later. He lunged at her with his knife, but she grabbed his arm, and with the superhuman strength that all Supernatural beings seem to be given at birth, hurled him into a wooden telephone poll. Sam felt his head hit the utility box with a crack, and he dropped to the ground. The blow had dazed him, but hadn't knocked him out. He flipped on his stomach to grab his knife that lay just behind his left ankle. But then he gasped as a size 4 patent leather sandal stomped on his fingers.

"That's not nice Sam," the creature said in the voice of the little girl, like she was scolding a toy doll. It was creepy. She stood over him, rose dress, sweater and all before he could recover from the blow. Then that little foot pulled back and kicked him hard in the head, and the impact felt like a friggin' rock.

Sam's last thought before blacking out was Dean was so going to bust his balls for being taken out by a 6 year old girl.

xxxxxXxxxx

The Shifter led Dean down a winding maze of carnival booths that seemed to go on forever. Down one side, kids were dropping money into tills to win plastic bracelets, down the other side was every kind of fried food imaginable. Even doubled fried Fried Chicken skin on a stick.

Dean's feet his the grass with a 'rshing' noise. People kept getting in his way, carnies, patrons, one woman with a stroller who he had to duck from her swinging Gucci bag when he accidentally plowed into her kid's stroller wheels.

The redheaded Shifter rounded the line by the enormously lit Farris Wheel, and Dean followed. The sound of the ticket taker's pitch for a 'lonely ride' or 'ride with pride'. echoing in his ears as he past him.

The Shifter's path of escape led Dean out into a row of trailers that belonged to the people running the carnival. Clothes lines were strung in-between the aluminum homes and clothing hung from them like flags in a festival. Strung higher up above them were white Christmas lights, casting a shadowy light on the grass. A balding man sat outside one of the trailers on a lawn chair, smoking a cigarette, scratching the head of a gray tabby cat.

The Shifter stopped in the yard created by the line of trailers. She looked left and right, but in the end, stayed where she was and whipped back around to face Dean.

Dean approached her, knife poised ahead of him, his expression hard. "End of the line, sweetheart."

The thing didn't make a move to run, actually smiling. "I wouldn't be so happy yet Winchester."

"Yeah?" Dean approached it, idly wondering how the hell these monsters knew his name. Was there some sort of Supernatural Bridge game they all met at once a week to discuss them? "And why's that? Cause I gotta tell you, slicing up your fugly ass will defiantly make me happy." Shape shifters were evil things, but in the ranking of evil things he had killed lately, it was almost laughable how simple it would be to end this stupid creature.

The Shifter smile turned into a smirk. "Maybe so. But, ask yourself this - How come Sam hasn't come to back you up yet? I mean, he's done this like a million times before right?"

An alarm instantly went through Dean's head at the things words. Monsters were, well monsters, dangerous, blood thirsty. But, they seldom lied, not when they like to taunt with the truths that they knew.

"Where is he?" Dean raised the knife higher.

"Oh, so now you care?" The Shifter said, still sounding like the 17 year old it had mimicked. It even popped a faded pink bubble from the gum in its mouth.

Dean's eyes went hard as rocks, He moved closer to her in two large bounds, knife raised higher, right for her heart.

The thing laughed, amused, holding up its fabricated hands. "Relax, I'm just dicking with you. I know how much Sam means to you." It scoffed another laugh. "You two are the most co dependant heterosexual group of guys I've ever seen."

"I was going to make this a fast execution for you, bitch." Dean said with a voice as quiet as night. "But, if you hurt my brother, there's gonna be nothing fast about this-"

"And if you kill me cowboy, you'll never know where your boy is."

It's words stopped Dean just short of gutting it with the silver knife. His nostrils began flaring. His heart rate doubling out of pure boiling anger.

It laughed airily again, placing a hand to its chest. "I swear on this girl's honor Dean," It crossed it's chest and held up that same hand like it was saying an oath. "I haven't touched your brother."

The anger in Dean boiled over, he lunged and grabbed the thing by the throat. Something he shouldn't have been able to do, giving how fast the creature was. But, he had 28 years of being an older brother flowing through his veins – it was a power in itself.

The knife was pinned at its heart, arms pinned behind it's back. Dean breathed down its neck, teeth clenched tight like a vise. "Where. Is. Sam?"

The thing smiled, Dean couldn't see it, but he could hear it. "Taken care of."

Dean thrust the knife in her, it didn't even fight. The Shifter reared in a scream, and dropped to the ground. It turned its face back up to Dean, the skin already hissing off from where the knife penetrated its chest. Human blood and Shifter blood, which was clear, congealed like acid on its skin. It's lips were like this, half melted off, as it gave one last sickening smile. "Good luck finding Sam without my help." It choked out blood and dropped dead to the grass.

xxxxxXxxxx

Sam tried the ropes at his wrists again, trying to fray them on the nail he can feel behind the chair he his tied too. Nothing. Nothing except rope burn and frustration.

Great.

Why'd he always have to be the one to get taken? He felt like friggin Daphne from Scooby Doo.

"That won't work kid," the creature said, standing in the kitchenette of the rust colored trailer it was in. It was still in the form of the little girl, and it swept two hands back to place the ribbon tied pig tails behind it's back. "At least not fast enough. This face was all I could find for the moment, but trust me, I'm way older." It rounded the unfinished pine two seater table and approached Sam, a dirty looking serrated steak knife held in the little girl sized hands.

"Wow, admitting to your age, how very secure of you." Sam said cocking his head in a taunt. The Shifter's eyes narrowed, but coming from the face of a 6-year-old girl, it lost some of its power. So Sam, used it to his advantage. "The thing I don't get is, your kind are solitary. So why the buddy system?"

The Shifter was now right next Sam, and it crawled up on the kitchen table, sitting cross legged on its surface. "I'm not a normal shifter Sammy," It flicked the knife through Sam's long bangs like a caress. "I'm older, way older than those hybrids that are walking around now."

Sam's eyebrows knit together. He was genuinely curious, and also he wanted to stall the thing. Monsters tended to monologue before they killed, at least in his experience. "What do you mean Hybrid? Your species is already about 1,000 years old."

"Did you learn nothing from the Leviathans Sam?" the Shifter brought out the name that was plaguing Sam and Dean for the last months. "There are things older than you know." the knife switched sides, and traced the other section of Sam's bangs.

Sam jerked his head away. "We already killed Grandpa Shapeshifter," He spat back in the things face.

"First off I'm not a Shapehifter," the thing sounded offended. "That was just some stupid name given to those who bred with my race 2,000 years ago." It plunked the knife into the table top and the hilt reverberated for a second from the impact.

"I saw your eyes, they glowed," Sam returned. "What else does that?"

"You're the Hunter here, Sam," the girl circled him. "Why don't you fill in the blanks."

"So, what then? You're a freak among the Shapeshifting freaks?" Taunting evil monsters was a huge risk, especially when you couldn't escape. But, Sam was getting damn tired of being taken and tied up by monsters.

"Sam, I told you already, I'm not a Shifter." the little girl's face that the creature wore leaned closer, her dark braids tickling his neck, her smile so sweet that Sam could smell the decay underneath. "It's not nice to be so close minded."

"Well I didn't want to call a little girl a bitch," Sam twisted his neck so that he was staring up into her – its face. "But, if you're comfortable with it-"

His words were cut off when the thing grabbed his neck in a grip too powerful for a human child. He gasped.

"I would watch my mouth if I were you boy!" it's breath was warm, and it smelled putrid like chunky milk. It worked another smile around that rancid breath. "Or I could always watch it for you," her eyes went up and down Sam's tied up form, one finger tracing his lower lip.

The face was 6-years-old, but the expression was anciently hungry. It was all so wrong on every level.

"Sammy Winchester," a pink tongue darted out to lick a small bottom lip. "I gotta say, it's a pleasure .I'm so going to enjoy – what is it the kids say nowadays? – eating your heart out."

"At least tell me what you are," Sam blurted out "I mean, unless you want to keep the term, bitch, personally I think it's a little too banal for something like you." While he talked, he tried again to work the ropes away from his wrist. The bindings were tight, cutting off the circulation to his hands. But, he had yet to meet a monster who didn't like to monologue. If he could keep her talking, he would be able to break out of them.

The brown eyes grew hard, but an indulgent look crept up into those fake child eyes, like Sam had asked for candy. "Since you asked so nicely." She pulled away from Sam, leaning back against the table top, letting her legs dangle off the table. She crossed her ankles, complete with white ankle socks and black Mary Janes.

Sam couldn't help his breathy laugh. Here was this – whatever kind of malevolent being it was- trying to look sinister in a freakin' pink dress and cardigan. "You always dress like Laura Ingalls when you go hunting?"

The thing's eyes shifted colors – hot metallic blue, then red, like a strobe light, before settling back to the hazel of the girl it was impersonating. Sam wondered just where this thing had stashed that girl. "I wanted a change. The whole sexy seductress thing got old after 5,000 years. Plus guys are inclined to talk to this body as much as Jessica Rabbit." It snorted in derision. "And you call me the monster."

"You're a Kitsuni," Sam said piecing the facts together at the same time he was working out of his bonds. He had frayed half of the first looping of rope. Great, only 5 more loops to go. He remembered Amy, how he had tried to kill her. How she had ultimately been killed.

The creature glared at him; it's eyes flickering through colors again in rapid fire succession – blue, green, red, chartreuse.

"I'm sorry," Sam said, perhaps a bit too cockily. He didn't know exactly why the thing had gotten pissed at what he just said. But, he was getting tired of being the Damsel in Distress. for the monster community. "Was that insensitive?"

She was suddenly back in his face, her breath wreaking of decay, flowing up his nostrils, making him fight off gagging. The knife was removed with a thunk from the table top, and was placed back against his throat, digging into the flesh above his Adam's Apple. "All those years, all those hunts you went on with your family-" the sickening breath was now billowing in Sam's face. This time he swallowed down his vomit. "Kitsune are Japanese, you racist bastard!" It tipped Sam's chin up with the blade of the knife. "You want to know what I am, Sammy?"

She yanked on Sam's left arm, pulling it out of the bonds. That move alone laced pain like fire up Sam's arm, but then, the knife cut so fast across his flesh that Sam was only aware of a white hot pain and his grunted scream in his ears.

Sam's screaming made her smile, after ten seconds of scraping, a puddle of blood was now coating his forearm. She leaned down with this smile and licked away the pooled blood.

Her tongue on the open cuts burned like acid. Sam jerked trying to loosen himself from her grasp, but she was freakishly strong and only smirked at him, holding up his arm for him to see.

Carved there on the flesh – with blood dripping between the slash marks - were intersecting lines forming a set of Hangul words – Korean characters:

구미호

"Kumiho, Sam," She said this like a reprimanding teacher to a disobedient student. "I'm older," she traced her handiwork on his flesh with her finger, making him grunt. "Much older than that crappy knock off." While she talked she rebound Sam's hand behind his back. Sam had very little fight to resist her then; his body going through a state of shock from the pain of both the cuts and her practically ripping his arm from his socket.

"What about that thing outside?" Sam panted out, trying to regroup, to gain some control. He swallowed down the last bit of pain, and glared at the creature as much as she was glaring at him. "Is that another one of you – Kumiho?" He had never even heard of this creature. And, it made him feel like a freakin' child, because he had no idea how to kill it.

He was so fucked.

She smiled, blinking her eyes to electric blue. "That?- Pure Grade A Shifter," she said this like it was a slightly amusing biology fact. "Picked her up outside of Des Moines, looking for a new hunting ground."

"Her?" Sam said in disbelief at the pronoun. He didn't tend to assign the monsters a gender; because it was a humanizing thing. But, it also led to another, different question. "You mean, you and that Shifter-"

The Kumiho snorted in disgust. "I don't shack up outside my species, sweetheart. Especially not with hybrid garbage. This is purely a business deal-"

"So's prostitution," Sam returned, firing off snarky remarks to the Kumiho like a weapon. Dean would be so proud.

Speaking of which, where the hell was he? Escaping from trailer trash monster's hideaway would be really good right about now.

The Kumiho's eyes flicked again, this time they were a dark plum, like she had replaced her pupils with amethyst. A dark growl like sound emitted from her."We go for couples, lure them apart. She gets her telekinesis mind-off with the female-" her eyes flicked up to Sam. "And I get to eat the heart of the male."

Sam was the one to laugh this time – in total disbelief how totally jacked up this entire situation was. "Yeah well, guess that didn't work out for you this time."

"I've got you tied down here haven't I?" The Kumiho smiled, moving a slow hand to Sam's chest, tracing a heart pattern over his flannel shirt. "Warm beating heart, just ripe for the taking – a bigger one then that brother of yours. Scrawny little thing, not even worth the trouble-"

"Shut up," Sam snapped.

"He's dried up Sam," the Kumiho said. "All that pain and loss, there's barely anything left worth taking-"

"I said shut. up!" Sam growled, his heart pounding furiously in anger at this thing talking about Dean that way, like he was already a dead thing.

"Shh," she rubbed her small hand over Sam's chest, like she was soothing a petulant child. "Slow that beat down Sammy – save some for the main event." She was practically in his lap. Body overly warm for how small it was.

"What are you talking about!" Sam watched her pull back from him and hop up on the wooden table top, swinging her legs in the air, ruffling the flouncing skirt of her dress.

"Where's Dean!" Sam screamed.

"Don't know. Don't care." The Kumiho said in a sing-song voice, hands laid back lazily against the table top. "You're my concern Sam. My Grade A Prime Rib. I've been eating men's hearts for centuries – but eating the same damn thing over and over-" here, she lowered her voice to a whisper. "It gets a little boring." She grinned like it was the best kept secret. "So I decided to change it up a little, add some new flavor to my meal." Her feet stopped their swinging. "You know how good a human heart tastes full of adrenaline enhanced blood?" It's eyes closed like it was savoring a delicious confection. "There's nothing more satisfying than sinking your teeth into something so rich." And when the eyes opened, they were a pale yellow like new cheese; with black slits for pupils – like a fox. "And nothing gets the heart all juicy and adrenaline pumped more than fear."

She hopped down from off the table top. "You know what? I'm being so rude, over complicating things." She walked slowly over to Sam, her smile equal slow. "How about I just show you?"

Her face began to change, skin pulling upward like taffy being stretched on a pulley. The face became wider, bone pale, but artificially so with a red nose and painted on smile. A long mess of stringy lime green hair fell down her shoulders with tiny top hat resting askew on the top. The flowered dress gave way to a red and white checkered shirt and huge baggy pants held up by red suspenders, huge red shoes sticking out underneath.

She lunged her face right into Sam's centimeters from him. The painted on smile pulled back into a real one, full of glaring white teeth. "How's your heart feeling now Sammy?"

xxxxxxXxxxxx

"Sam!" Dean pushed passed the crowds of people walking down main strip of the fair. Parents stopped to stare at him. Children, with their arms laden with cotton candy and stuffed prizes stepped closer to these parents at the sight of a screaming man.

Dean jogged from booth to booth, around the lines of the rides looking for a huge body, a familiar mop of hair, but nothing. "Sammy!"

"Sam!" Dean almost ran right into the couple from earlier, the one who had tried to clock him for talking to the group of girls.

"Hey!" Dean snagged the arm of the man. "Have you seen a guy, huge, over 6 feet, green eyes? Too much hair?"

The man looked at Dean half fearful, half pissed off. After encountering him not 30 minutes before, wielding a knife at a teenage girl – he didn't know if he should just skip the talking and go right to calling the police on his ass. "Who the hell are you-"

"I'm looking for my brother-" Dean said.

"You're brother, " the man cut off in anger. "That girl said you were looking for your son." He eyed Dean like he was crazy, or some kind of serial killer. "Dude, you've got issues, and you need to stay the hell away from us!" He started to walk away.

Dean grabbed the man's arm, more forceful this time, his grip tight, painful. "Please, My brother, he's missing-"

"Get off me!" The man growled, trying to yank himself from Dean's grip, but it was a strong one. "Look, I don't know what kind of shit stunt you're trying to pull. You don't have a brother, but you will have a world of hurt when the cops take your psycho ass to jail!-"

Dean yanked the man's arms behind his back, his wife screamed. "David!"

A security officer, or at least a guy with a blue shirt that said 'Security' in yellow letters across it heard the commotion, and started walking briskly from where he was across the mall with a 'Hey!

"Look at my eyes," Dean growled, using the same painful line he had used over and over again when people didn't get it. "And you tell me if I'm lying about this."

Sam could be in serious shit; it was par for the course, or he could be –Dean refused to think about that last part. "He's my family – so, if you know anything, you better start talking-"

"I saw a man like that earlier," the man's wife said, a blonde thing in jeans and a red sweater, holding to a stuffed bear like it was a life preserver. As crazy as Dean looked, she could see something, painful, in his expression. "He was talking to a little girl over by the ring toss booth."

"Sara!" The man yelled to his wife in disbelief that she would be talking to this man.

Dean ignored the outcry, he turned to look behind him, at the wooden booth painted red with a sign that promised Fabulous Prizes for Three Rings! There were two teenage boys at that booth, but no one else. "Did you see anything, where they went?"

The woman shook her head. "I only saw them for a minute before we got in line for corn dogs."

By this time the skinny fair 'security officer' had almost reached them. Dean, had other things to do then beat down a pimple faced kid. He threw out a quick. "Thanks," to the woman and ran over to the ring toss booth.

He questioned the woman behind the booth, but she hadn't seen Sam, neither had the two teenagers. Dean ran an angry hand through his hair in frustration. The Shifter's words were singing like an evil lullaby in his ears. Why'd it always have to be Sam to be taken? What kind of monster gets its hard on like that?

Dean ran around to the side of the booth, sweeping around in a full 360 circle. "Sammy!" This couldn't be happening. Not again. His foot crunched on something hard in the grass.

He raised it and looked down, spying a black Samsung phone – Sam's phone, lying there. Dean picked it up and flipped on the streaming video display. He knew that Sam had been keeping watch for the Shapeshifter with his camera, and he was hoping that maybe his geek of a brother had somehow recorded something that showed where he went.

The entire front LCD display of the phone was smashed, like it had been hit with a rock, before Dean had stepped on it. A red light flashed by the power button, like it had been recording something. Dean took a minute to find the right App, cursing Sam for being such a techno geek and having a million things on his damn phone. There was even an App for 'Fantastical Creatures and Where to Find Them'.

Sammy, as soon as I know you're good; I'm so kicking your nerdy ass.

It wasn't a video like he had hoped, but it was an audio. The sound was so quiet that he had to stick a finger in his other ear to hear anything.

There was a string of cursing in some Asian language, then the phone cracked in and out like had been windy or the speaker was talking from really far away:

"Stupi..technology..off..amit! I'm getting too old for this!" There was more static, and the phone went dead for a moment.

Dean pulled it back from his ear to look at the cracked display. The reading on the recorder said that there was still 20 seconds left. He pressed it back to his face. "C'mon damnit!"

There was a huge crackle of static in his ears, so loud it made them pop, but then the voice came back. ".the hell the off 'witch?" More Asian cursing. "shouldn't have gone with 23, too 'amn far."

The half discernible conversation was confusing, made up of half words and too much static. But, a last part of the conversation came in clearer than the others.

"d' better taste good asquatch, o-" One last explosion of static and the recording ended.

Dean's heat stopped, then it exploded up into his ears.

"Hey!" He felt a skinny arm gripping his shoulder, the voice of the security guy billowing at hotly a his 18-years could. "You're coming with me pal!-" the kid's demand was cut off with a squeak when Dean had grabbed him by the neck and yanked him around to face him.

"What's 23?" Dean yelled right into the terrified kid's face.

"What?-" the kid choked in Dean's hold.

"23!" Dean shouted, more forcefully. "Is it a location, an address somewhere on the fairgrounds?"

"Dude I don't know!" the kid's eyes bugged out of his head when Dean pinned him against the wall of the Ring Toss Booth. "Please-he choked again, all sense of bravado gone. "Wait, wait! Trailers-"

"Trailers?" Dean growled, sounding very much like a pit bull. He had never seen himself when he was losing his mind over concern for his brother, but it was a terrifying thing to see.

"Trailers, there are trailers-" the kid was stuttering like a dying engine. "In the back of the fairgrounds, for the carneys, they have numbers, like addresses!"

Dean couldn't believe it. He had been at the fucking trailers almost 40 minutes ago. That shape shifting bitch had led him around with her cryptic message – made him think that it couldn't be that easy, that Sam was held up in some underground lair or something. Because things never were easy with them.

But, then he remembered his training, his father's words screaming in his head.

Not everything is complicated Dean; it's the simple stuff that's the most dangerous.

Fuck.

"Please!" the kid was squirming under Dean's grasp. "I've only been here for 2 weeks, I don't even have benefits yet!"

Dean released the kid, and he fell gasping to the ground. He yanked him up by the arm and shoved him into the Ring Toss booth. "Stay here, you understand?"

He left the wild eyed teen, and ran back down to the grouping of trailers.

xxxxxXxxxx

Sam was a grown man.

Sam was Hunter.

He had been to hell for over a century; he hallucinated freakin' Lucifer on a daily basis like they were old frat buddies.

He should be stoic, more in control.

He shouldn't, after everything, be this ass shit scared of clowns.

"Sammy," The Kumiho is caressing a hand across Sam's chin, and Sam is choking on his own breath.

All semblance of "stoicism" is gone, all Sam hears is his breathing.

"I knew this was a fear of yours."

White gloved fingers were in his hair, and Sam tries not to do something completely pathetic, like whimper.

"I was watching you earlier," the Kumiho is in the guise of a clown, but is speaking in the voice of a woman, low and deep and melodious, and completely freaky because it didn't match the face. "I saw how you avoided all those Bozos. That pure look of terror in those pretty green eyes-" she traces a finger around Sam's eye socket.

Forget whimpering, Sam was trying not to shit himself. He could feel his heartbeat in his eyeballs. His breath speeding like a train. He wasn't even trying to untie himself anymore – he was instead, jerking the entire chair he was tied too. Trying to break it apart to escape that gloved touch.

His eyes were huge, perfect circles, and he shook like a current had been shocked through him. He lowered his eyes to watch the Kumiho touch a hand to his chest, over his heart- almost reverently.

"You're almost ready Sam – I can hardly wait."

She laughed, and this time her voice was a high pitched and maniacal thing.

And, Sam finally lost it completely, and screamed in time with that sound.

xxxxxXxxxxx

Dean was back in the forest of trailers. One had was grasped to the hilt of his knife, the other on his silver handled Colt.

Loosing Sam, made him more alert, but also made him sloppy. Because he couldn't think straight, because that was his brother out there, hurt.

He swallowed this feeling down, sweeping the gun down a line of the trailers, where the clothes lines still sat. A woman jumped at the sight of the gun, Dean lowered it, not apologizing, still moving.

No Sam.

All the time he moved through the close cropped grass, he kept repeating the same mantra in his head:

Please don't let him be dead. Please don't let him be dead.

He kept his gun trained out in front of him and his eyes up to the aluminum trailers, where tacked to the side of them were black wooden numbers.

Dean ran down trailers numbers 10-20. A black Rottweiler shot out of a patch of grass at Trailer #22. Dean had just enough of a warning from the dog's thunderous bark to pull back before the animal took a bite out of his leg.

He heard the screaming before he reached Trailer #23. The blood in his veins dropped to below freezing levels.

The immediate recognition of the screaming to be Sam's came first. But, the sound of it – it wasn't Sam's normal 'in need of rescue from the supernatural' scream. This sound was something else. This was Sam's 'freaked out, completely flipping his shit' scream. Dean hadn't heard it since Sam was a kid and so terrified of something that screaming was his only weapon of defense.

"Sam!" Dean ran the rest of the way over to Trailer #23, taking the wooden steps on two strides. He kicked in the metal and particle board door, gun drawn.

He expected to see a lot of things when he entered the trailer: Sam bleeding, tortured. But, Den was not at all prepared for the sight of a huge mother of a clown practically straddling his brother who was tied up, screaming, trying to break said chair to free himself.

The clown had a knife in his hand, and it raised it up, drawing it back above Sam's chest.

"Hey!"

Dean's voice made the clown turn. It leered at the sight of the gun being aimed at it. "Too little too late Dean," it cackled a laugh that sounded both like a clown and an evil bag lady. Sam's shirt was ripped open at the chest and the clown worked the knife down tracing a carving into his brother's chest.

"Sam's come to dinner you see," the clown talked as it cut. Sam's screaming became a groan as the pattern of a heart was carved into his chest. "And it would be rude of him to leave before I ate him."

Dean watched Sam's face. There was nothing but complete and absolute terror there. He had often teased Sam mercilessly about his clown phobia. But, Sam freakin' tied up, ready to be plated for a meal for a Pennywise wannabe? Dean had two words for that: Hell. No.

"Drop the knife!" Dean growled, gun aimed. "Cause I swear, if you hurt him!-"

"I told you!" the Kumiho's eyes went red in anger. "He's not leaving!"

"Then you are!" Dean cocked his gun, loaded with silver bullets in the chamber. "Sayonara, bitch."

The Kumiho roared. "I am not Japanese you stupid-!"

Two silver bullets found the center of the clown's chest. It's body was thrown back for the force of the impact. The Kumiho was much older than a shape shifter; but apparently was still as immune to sliver as it was.

It's body flickered through rapid transformations. Going from a clown, to the little girl in her pink cardigan, to a huge red fox with nine tails, and finally back to a clown; and then it dropped into a puddle across Sam's legs, before falling dead to the floor.

Dean could only watch in stunned amazement as the thing went through all its rapid fire transformations before dropping dead at the feet of his brother. "Could this night get any weirder?"

"Dean-"

Sam calling his name raised Dean's head up from the dead thing. He clicked the safety on his gun. "You're getting to close with these calls, kid." Now that it was all over and Sam was alive, Dean felt relief rushing over him like a river of water.

"Dean-"

This next succession of Dean's name, was more high pitched, more frantic. Sam's breathing had yet to slow down, his chest was heaving on it. He started yanking furiously at the bonds on his arms, shaking the chair with the force he was using. "Dean- get me out! GET ME OUT!" He grunted a scream when his arms refused to come unbound.

"Whoa, whoa Sam!" Dean ran around to the back of the chair to undo the ropes before the kid freakin' broke his damn wrists. "You're out Sam!" Dean let the ropes fall away to the floor and pulled Sam's arms up the front. It was then that he noticed the gashes on his right arm. The cuts were still bleeding freely, so was the one on his chest.

But, Sam seemed not to notice them. He was too busy breathing erratically, making distressed wheezing noises.

"Sam!" Dean forcefully grabbed Sam's shoulders. "It's okay man; it's over!"

Sam sucked in a huge gulping mouthful of air. But, it was like it wasn't enough; he still couldn't breathe. His face was almost white as paper, and completely panicked.

"Sammy!" Dean shook Sam's shoulders. He could start to see a blue tinge forming around the edge of Sam's lips. "Come on damnit, breathe!" Dean took a huge breath to try and coax Sam into doing the same. He added his hand moving up and down, like a maestro conducting breathing.

It worked for two breaths; until Sam happened to glance down and see the form of the Kumiho's dead body sprawled out on the floor, still in full clown regalia.

Sam choked and gasped on air he didn't have, body heaving upwards to try and breathe.

"Whoa, Sam, SAM!" Dean shook Sam's shoulders again, but it wasn't working. The blue on his lips was becoming more pronounced. If this kept on Sam would pass out from lack of oxygen.

Dean drew his hand back and slapped Sam hard across the face; Sam's head jerked from the impact. Before he could recover, Dean grabbed at his neck, keeping his brother's head towards him. "Hey! Don't look at it, look at me!" He released one of his hands and began his "breathing coaching" thing again.

This time, it worked. Sam kept both eyes on Dean, following his lead, breathing in deeply through his nose and exhaling through pursed lips. "That's good buddy, keep it up." Dean coached Sam through several more breaths before grabbing a roll of paper towels he found on the kitchen table.

He used them to wrap Sam's lacerated arm and wound on his chest. His face was back in Sam's a moment later, hovering. "You back with me?"

Sam gave him a shaky nod. His head felt like it was too heavy and wobbly on his neck. He could smell blood, his blood, and the blood of the Kumiho, which smelled like copper and rancid garbage. He tried not to throw up.

"Alright," Dean shrugged out of his black wool jacket. Sam was too tall to wear it, but he draped it over his brother's shoulders. "Let's get you out of here, okay Sasquatch?" Dean crouched down and draped Sam's uninjured arm up over his shoulder, hauling him to his feet.

It took a few moments to steady Sam, and there was a tricky moment of maneuvering him over the body of the Kumiho which was lying there like a huge multicolored speed bump. The thing bled a dark silvery colored blood, and it smelled horrible.

Dean screwed up his nose at the odor. "Damn, that clown smells funny."

Sam still wasn't totally lucid, but he still managed to shot Dean a 'seriously?' look.

Dean's response to this was to bump Sam's shoulder up higher on his arm. "C'mon man, I gotcha." He led Sam carefully out of the trailer.

Sam clamored down the wooden steps like Bambi wearing roller skates on ice. The sounds of the carnival played like a song in the star filled night that has arrived since they had been in the trailer. The air smelled like it had been deep fried.

Dean hauls his brother's massive weight over the dew filled grass; Sam's part was to keep his feet under him and not send them falling on their asses. They arrive several minutes later, both out of breath, to a 1987 Buick Skylark that was both maroon and rust colored.

Dean opens the passenger side door; halfway through lowering Sam into the seat, Sam takes the initiative and does it himself.

"You got it?" Dean asks critically, hands still hovering near.

"Yeah," Sam grunts out, gripping the roof of the car to steady himself. The movement pulls at the wound on his chest, and he hisses this time.

"Easy," Dean's arm is back on Sam's gripping his elbow to guide his descent into the seat. "Watch your head."

Sam is eventually folded into the car and he lays back, pressing a hand to the wound on his chest, feeling the blood leaking onto the paper towel in the blotchy shape of a heart. Some freaking valentine.

He must've zoned out, because the next thing that he is aware of is Dean touching him with something that burns like-

"Dude!" Sam squirms. "That burns like a mother!"

"You want burning or amputation Sam?" Dean retaliates, Sam makes a weak bitch face at him. "That's what I thought." Dean's face loses its hard edge when he applies a clean square of gauze from the field kit to Sam's chest, and tapes it down with slightly yellowed first aid tape. It's old, but it still holds the gauze down. Well, that and the blood slowly making a congealed pool in the gauze's whiteness like a Rorschach ink test. Dean doesn't even want to think about how rust that damn blade was, or the date of San's last tetanus shot.

"Arm next pal," Dean moves to Sam's injured appendage. He douses another clean square of gauze in the peroxide he's got in his hand.

"Great," Sam says with closed eyes. He can feel Dean raise his arm and set it across his knee.

Even though Sam can't see him; Dean still give him an apologetic look before cleaning out the cuts on his forearm.

Sam curses.

The cuts are ugly, flared bright red around the edges, just beginning for an infection. They aren't random cuts either, they form a pattern. "That Chinese?"

"Korean," Sam says in between his hisses. "Kumiho."

Dean's eyebrows raise. "You know this, how?"

"She told me – gawd!" Sam draws this out in a southern drawl. "Fuck!" He hisses again, louder. His eyes clench shut so tightly that tears leak from them. The peroxide burns like acid, and it makes his entire arm spasm. His vision starts to gray. "She's still there! I can hear her!"

He hears the Kumiho's clown laughter, like she seared it into his brain for another form of torture. Who knows? Maybe she did. He finally just gives up and whimpers.

"Sam!" Dean slaps a gauze over the wound and wraps it quickly before Sam can jerk his hand away. He holds up both hands, "I'm done-Hey!" He snaps a finger in Sam's face. He doesn't know who she is, he presumes it was the clown. But, knowing that fact wasn't a top priority right now. Sam's got his arms drawn up to his face, palms covering his eyes, like he's hiding from something. Dean hears a high pitched whine behind those fingers. "No fading on me; I will slap you again if I have too!" Dean grabs his shoulders. "Sammy!" There is a hint of fear in his voice. He hasn't seen Sam totally wig out from clowns since he was 7. But, he recognized the lingering effects of panic when he saw it.

"C'mon Sammy, relax-" Dean roughs up Sam's shoulder the way he did when Sam had suffered a near melt down at age 7 when a clown at a kid's restaurant had tried to hug him. "Clown's dead, dude."

Sam nods again like a shaken bobble head. His arms lower from his face. He soaks in Dean's words like water. His breathing is still spastic, but Dean's hand on his shoulder is like a balm, and eventually it slows down.

"You alright?" Dean asks, his voice low, concerned.

Sam nods again, once this time. "Yeah." His eyes close. He suddenly feels shit ass exhausted. He slumps, boneless, against the back of the seat, face diaphoretic with sweat.

"No, c'mon," Dean grabs his shoulder before Sam can do something useful, like pass out. "You're lying down in the backseat bro. It's too cramped up here for a tranquilized giraffe."

Sam's too tired to even tell Dean off. He allows his brother to pull him out of the car. There's an awkward moment of shuffling, like they're at a middle school dance – then the back door opens.

Sam half crawls, is half dragged into the seat, where he sprawls himself across its length on his side. Dean stuffs his jack behind Sam's head, and something warm and calloused is pressed to the side of his neck.

"All right Stresserlla, take a nap. I got something I gotta take care of."

Sam blinks his eyes open, he can't see Dean from this angle, but he knows that rough feeling on his neck is Dean's hand. "Shoulda gone before we got to the car, man." Sam mumbles, trying to add a sense of normalcy to this wild night. Well, at least normal for them.

He can hear Dean smirk. "Not that kind of business dude," the hand on his neck cards through the hairs there once, before the door is shut carefully to avoid smacking him in the head.

Sam doesn't sleep, the car isn't the Impala, there are too many uncomfortable springs in it, the leather isn't well worm or conforming. And, they're still at a circus with too much stimulation and two dead supernatural bodies. So sleeping is out.

But, that doesn't stop Sam from floating in that space between exhaustion and consciousness, where his wounds have a muted hurt and things are comfortably fuzzy.

The squeaking of a car door jolts Sam back to reality, the entire interior of the car shifts as Dean reenters it, smelling like smoke and corn dogs. "You alright back there?" His voice sounds muffled, but still concerned.

"Fine- fucking-tastic." Sam says with a groan hearing Dean swallow the corn down Sam knew he got on the way back. "You torch them both?"

"Extra crispy," Dean says working the corn dog out of the pocket of his mouth before balling the paper wrapper it came in and throwing it into the empty seat next to him. "Here," Dean holds something out for Sam over the expanse of the front and back seats.

Sam opens his eyes to see his phone dangling in front of him. The front screen has a huge crack in it, and there is dirt and grass caked in the seams along the sides.

"You're probably gonna hafta get a new phone bro, I doubt the warranty will cover clown attacks."

Sam takes the phone from him gingerly, his abused body groaning in protest. "It wasn't a real clown Dean," The phone falls uselessly to the floor of the car. He is so exhausted, his hands don't even work properly. "It was a Kumiho; they're like Kitsuni, only Korean and older, nine tailed foxes that appear as beautiful women and attack men."

"Yeah I got that part when the thing tried to carve you up like Thanksgiving Sam," Dean says, and then there is a silence that Sam hears like its own noise. "So you like your women with full makeup huh Sammy?"

"She appeared as a little girl first-" Sam bit his lip for saying something with such 'fodder ability' to Dean.

There was a clearing of Dean's throat. "So, you and little girls, Sam-"

"She used fear to make the blood pump faster," Sam says, to end that last remark about him and little girls. "That's why the clown guise." The wound on his chest seems to pull hard at the remembrance of her torture. "Morphs into what scared the victim, then s down on their hearts."

"So a freak who liked to freak?" Dean shudders "That's disturbing."

"Tell me about it," Sam winces.

There is a silence that Sam can hear. Dean's eyes are on him, critical, checking over the bandages on his arm and chest. But then a tugging pulls at his lips.

Sam sees it: "What?"

"It's just – clowns, STILL?" Dean bites his lip to stifle a laugh. Because Sam is hurt and bleeding in the back seat. But, yeah, that doesn't work. A thin chuckle escapes him. "You sure like to bring back the classics Sammy."

"Dude – it was strong."

"So strong it was funny?"

Sam shifts himself up on his elbows, eyes flaring. All this movement earns him is another wince, audible this time.

"Hey," Dean reaches an arm out across the seat to push him back down. "Relax man-you're going to pull at those wounds" He tries to push Sam back down in the seat, but Sam resists.

"I was attacked, Dean!" Sam huffs out, being indignant, because he thinks he damn well earned that right.

Dean stops chuckling. "I'm sorry, Sam," He swallows his last bit of laughter, his face back to serious. "Seriously dude, I'm sorry. Facing that thing in there as a clown, it had to be rough." Dean's voice is sincere, and deep and concerned. "I'm the reason you're scared of clowns in the first place, so I shouldn't bag on you about it."

"Dean I was 7," Sam insists, recalling The Incident, inside that restaurant, where Dean had told that clown to give Sam a big hug, because Sam had been eyeing it so warily all day as he played the games and ate the pizza. That painted face wrapping it's arms around him, made him hyperventilate, then run screaming in terror to a clown shaped ticket feeder, where he screamed again, that time so loudly the manager had to be called, because they thought someone was killing him. He was found by, Dean, curled in a ball inside the ball pit, shaking mumbling: Clowns are evil. Clowns are evil. Sam refused to even look at a clown after that. "And you were a kid too."

"It was still a dick move," Dean returned. "I saw how those things bothered you, and I just wanted to joke around. But, instead I scared you for life."

"You didn't scar me for life Dean," Sam says.

"So says the dude laid up in the back seat after going ape shit over Krusty." Dean jokes, but there is an undercurrent of guilt in it.

"Dean," Sam says it in that way that he has since he was a kid, that said: 'shut up and listen' "Being scared of clowns – It isn't entirely your fault."

It wasn't a very reassuring thing to say, but Dean takes it, because he knows that Sam is trying to give him a way out of a Chick Flick moment.

"I'll wake you up when we're back at the motel Sam," Dean accepts Sam's offer.

The roar of the car's engine cuts on, rumbling up through the vinyl of the seats.

Sam finally lays back down on the bundled jacket. He feels Dean's hand there on his shoulder for a moment, not squeezing, just a presence. But, comforting just the same.

Dean pulls the Buick away from the Cedar Rapids, the lights of the fair fading out like extinguished candles in his rear view mirror. He occasionally glances back at Sam's sleeping form. He looks like he had been trampled and stretched out along a road. But, he was alive, and Dean would take that above the alternative.

The road he's on is a two lane, lined with tall pine and oaks. The night has become more star filled, and they peak out between the branches of the trees. There is only the occasional semi trucks and a static filled radio station are his company.

Dean turns back once to pull Sam's head back up onto the jacket when it flops forward, fingers back in the ridiculously long hair.

He then checks to make sure the thing he bought back at the Fair- the little clown doll in rainbow polka dots- is tucked securely under his brother's arm, before retracting his hand back to the steering wheel.

A smile shrugs to his lips as he continues driving. "Ah Sammy."

xxxxxxXxxxxx

End.

This was fun to write. Even though I tortured Sam mercilessly. Poor guy. I'm not a fan of clowns either. It's all to painted on and creepy for me.

The legend of the Kumiho is a real legend from Korean Folklore. The name literally means "Nine Tailed Fox." Foxes in Asian lore are considered to be tricksters, sometimes malevolent spirits. Kumiho have the ability to transform into any being, but normally took on the form of a beautiful woman to lure men to her and eat out their hearts, or in some telling of the legends, their livers. The Kumiho in this was in the form of a little girl, because, well, beautiful woman or not, Sam wouldn't just follow tail when Dean needed back up.

There is no account of Kumiho using fear to pump more blood to the hearts of their victims before they ate them. That part purely came from me and J.K. Rowling's version of the Bogart, which was a shape shifter that transformed itself into what the person feared the most. I just wanted Sam to have to face a fear of clowns, that this creature could use against him.

Also, the idea that they can be hurt by silver, came from Supernatural's version of the "Shifter" which be slain with silver knives.

Hope you enjoyed this. I loved writing a "case monster fic" the entire thing was a ride.

R/R please.

Mystic