No Trace When I Leave

I like the dark

it is my friend

There at beginnin's

be there at the end

A hand on his shoulder woke him from formless nightmares, where shadows chased him, laughing, with hands that felt like frozen stone while the dark howled and raged.

Fingers dug into the joint, tugged at him and he reacted, still stuck somewhere between dream and waking, lashed out, jabbed an elbow back into ribs as he spun up out of the chair and swung, back-fisted the half-glimpsed figure ducking away from him with a startled grunt.

"Dammit, Sam!"

"Dean?"

Blinking, Sam swayed, caught himself against the table where he'd finally fallen asleep as his brother straightened carefully, right hand pressed against his chest.

"Yeah," his brother growled, glaring at him. "Jesus, man."

"Sorry," he murmured, shivering a little, lifting a hand and trying to massage some feeling back into his numb jaw. "Time 's'it?" He leaned one hip against the table, flicked a glance down at the books scattered over it, flipped a few pages over. Hours of searching, pouring through the spidery scrawl as his brother slept so deeply, so still Sam had to resist the urge to check his pulse every hour.

"Don't know."

Something in the older man's terse reply made him pause, shake the last dregs of sleep from his head. He looked at his brother again, saw the way Dean stood with his left arm curled in against his side, shoulder dropped, turned away from the window and door that his eyes flickered back and forth between, over and over.

"Dean?"

The older man almost jumped, flinched back a little from Sam's reaching hand.

"Dean," he repeated, heart a solid, sharp-edged lump in his throat. "What's going on?"

"I don't know, Sam."

It was clipped, angry, each word bitten off, but it was barely even a whisper and he reached out again, took a long step forward, grabbing hold of his brother's arm as Dean backed away from him.

The muscles under his palm twitched and coiled, minute tremors racing through the contact and Sam felt adrenaline spike his heart rate as he recognized his brother's fear in the utter silence around them. The hounds, even the faint whisper of wind that had seemed ever-present in the isolated town were stilled.

It felt like…

waiting.

Anticipation.

"They're coming," he breathed, saw Dean flinch again and then visibly set his shoulders.

"Yeah," he rasped. "I think so."

"How long?"

Dean shot a look at him, sidelong and Sam chewed at his lip as he read the rawness, the uncertainty in it. In all the months, through all the monsters and the shapeshifters, through the basements and dead children and the revenants and the hell that the world had been turning into ever since New Harmony, maybe even ever since Lawrence, two and a half decades ago, in all that time he'd never once seen his brother so lost. Broken, sure. Battered and worn down, hurting and falling apart, but never so utterly adrift.

"Not long enough," the older man finally whispered.

"Sam? Dean?"

Both hunters spun, hands snapping up in almost identical readiness. Kate shrank back against the wall in the corner she'd colonized, one hand coming up to cover her mouth, eyes wide above it.

Sam relaxed, dropped his guard instantly, taking a quick step forward to mask the way Dean held out a moment longer, a beat of tension singing behind him before he half-heard an almost inaudible sigh.

"Sorry. Sorry, Kate. It's okay," he soothed, hands out now, palms open. She nodded shakily, stayed pressed against the wall.

"What's going on?"

"We gotta move," Dean rasped, edging past him, hands and face pale blurs in the gloom, streaked with bruises that blended with the shadows. For a moment, his eyes looked hollow, cheeks drawn and Sam heard an echo of a cold-stone laugh, recognized it from the dream that still lingered behind his eyes.

"Move? Where? Why? I thought we were safe! You said we were safe here!"

"We were," Dean growled at her and Sam wondered if she saw the way his shoulders tightened, the way his left hand fisted, trembled as it pressed into his side. He felt his own fingers curl, nails digging into his palms, skin prickling across the back of his neck in a sensation he recognized instantly.

"Dean," he murmured, warning, lifting one hand to reach for his brother's shoulder, fingers closing on empty air as the older man took a step toward Kate.

"We're not any more and you gotta trust me, trust us if you want a chance of getting the… getting out of here."

Sam winced at the slip, knew by the way Dean shook it off, by the anger coiling through his retort that his brother felt it too.

Eyes on them, watching them.

They found us.

He slid a glance at the thin line of black dust along the door, found it tattered and broken by the wind and cursed under his breath.

"Dean."

The older man looked back at him, followed his gaze.

"Crap. Kate, get them ready," he ordered over his shoulder, whirling back to the younger man, stumbling a little. Sam reached out again, caught his brother's elbow, held on for a moment as he tried to adjust to the sudden rush of hurry pounding through his pulse. Dean leaned into him, head down, shoulders up, twisted awkwardly to keep his injured left protected and Sam felt each breath as it skipped over his brother's lungs.

"Hey, easy, Dean, take it easy," he muttered, stepping closer, ducking his head a little.

"They're comin', Sam."

"I know. We're gone already."

Dean shook his head, quick and sharp, flashed him a glare that was more scared than angry.

"We can't, man. We can't out run them. It won't just…" he cut himself off, swallowed, coughed lightly and his left hand came up to rub at his throat. "It won't just be hounds," he finally croaked out, cocking his head back to check the door.

"We don't have to run for long, Dean. Just long enough," Sam said, voice low, casting his own glance at the door, even though he knew damn well that it would just be so many splinters if they were really out of time.

"What? Sam, they won't stop."

He tugged at his brother's arm, dragged Dean over to the table and the books he'd finally fallen asleep on.

"I found it," he said, simply, already crouching over the weapons bag sitting on the floor beside the table as Dean dropped into the chair, started leafing through the texts. Sam looked up, hands sliding over guns and knives on automatic, watched him frown and rub at his brow with his right hand, his left tucked into his lap, fist loose for now. He kept talking as he pulled his Taurus from the bag, checked the clip and the chamber, thumbed the safety and tucked the gun into his waistband.

"There's been a settlement of some sort here for centuries. I don't know how far back it dates, but the legend behind it says that there was a witch of some sort who bargained with the devil."

Dean shot him a look, heavy with too much resonance and he swallowed, delved into the bag again, repeated the process with his brother's Colt.

"The tribe drove her out, then when they started getting sick, they went after her and drowned her in the river. She came back, that was the…" he couldn't say deal, couldn't force the word out when his brother sat there, head down over the books again, trying to hide the way he shivered. "That was the bargain she made. She couldn't die. The tribe abandoned the river and she couldn't follow, like she was bound to it, I think. When people settled here, she started killing again. Supposedly, if she kills enough people she'll be granted a body again, set free. I think that's the seal. There's a passage in Bobby's text of Revelations, "When the bound are freed and the spirit is made flesh in the river."

Dean looked down at him, eyes hidden in the shadows.

"This ain't a river, Sam."

He shook his head, shoved back to his feet, dragged the duffel with him and slung it over one shoulder as he handed his brother the Colt, wished it was the Colt. Dean took it, split his attention between Sam and the door, sparing a quick glance to where Kate bundled a sleepy Tommy into one of Dean's shirts, rolling the sleeves halfway up just to get his hands free. The boy still clutched the hip-flask Dean had given him, what seemed like forever ago.

"They dammed it, a couple of centuries ago, I don't think they even knew by then, what this place meant."

"So what changed?"

"Lilith. All she has to do is wipe out the tribe that killed the witch. It was never about how many people died, just that it was all of them."

"So if the demons kill the whole damn town, she rises? And the seal breaks?"

"Yeah."

Both men turned their attention to the woman standing in the corner, one child half-asleep on her hip, the other leaning against her side.

"Sam, they're all that's left."

He knew it already, had seen it in the way the older man dodged her questions, the children's anxious gazes but his heart still pounded at his ribs.

"So we keep them safe. Keep them out of the way long enough to break the spell somehow. I need to get to the library, maybe I can find something in the local history. Some kind of ritual from the tribe's lore. If we can put the witch's spirit to rest before she manages to fulfill the bargain, it should cancel out the seal."

"Put her to rest?"

"Well, it's a little hard to salt and burn a lake, dude."

Dean huffed out a laugh, glanced at the door and Sam watched his shoulders tighten further. The dust line was thinner than before, even as he watched, a few more grains skittered away.

"How do we set a how-the-hell-ever many centuries old witch to rest?"

The younger man swallowed hard, nervously.

"I'm working on it?"

His brother twisted back, stared at him for a long moment and Sam saw him open his mouth, felt the air shudder against him before he heard the roar, like thunder that went on and on. He dropped, lunged for the boys, knew his brother dragged Kate down with them and the hunters huddled over their charges. A fist twisted into the back of his jacket as he ducked his head under his arms, tugged lightly, twice and he tilted his head sideways, met Dean's wide gaze.

"Work faster."

They waited until the floor stopped shaking, until the sound of the explosion died into echoes before they stood slowly.

"What was that?"

"Somethin' on the edge of town," Dean answered Kate in a low monotone. "Gas station, fast food joint maybe." He stepped up to the window, tugged the curtain back and peered out. "They're gonna destroy the whole damn burg."

Sam tried to shake the ringing out of his head, rubbed at an ear and shivered as he realized it wasn't ringing at all. It was howling.

"We need to go," he bit out, grabbed the scorched laptop from the table and looked at it, lips twisting with disgust as he tossed it onto the nearest bed and shoveled a handful of papers into the bag in its place.

"We get out of all this, I'll get you a new one," Dean murmured hoarsely at his side, one bruised hand reaching across Sam for the Colt. "Geek."

The younger man grinned weakly, slung the duffel over his shoulder and took the shotgun his brother handed him, fingers sticky with sweat and dust as he checked the shells in the chamber, blinked back a memory he hadn't thought of in years.

"Always check a gun, Sammy. I don't care who gave it to you, you always, always check it. Just in case. It might not be your life depending on it, it could be Dad's or some random strangers or anyone."

"Or yours?"

"Sam? You good?"

The image behind his eyes faded, replaced by Dean's worried, pale face. Sam rolled his shoulders, settling the strap comfortably. "Yeah."

"Think we're about out of time," the older man rasped, so low, so close Kate and the kids couldn't hear him. Sam froze for an instant, didn't even breathe as he listened, let his eyes slip out of focus.

And heard footsteps outside, lazy and unhurried, heeled shoes against concrete loud in the hush.

:: ::

He could almost feel them outside, as if his nerves were flayed, spread out across the ground like a spider's web, every single demon and Hellhound a sickly weight shifting nauseatingly. Dean sniffed, swiped the back of one hand across his nose and racked a shell into the chamber of his Colt, flicked his thumb across the safety, checking it by touch. He looked up at his brother, Sam's eyes distant, his lips curling in a faint, sad smile and Dean blinked at him, wondered how his brother could still look so young sometimes, after everything they'd been through.

"Sam? You good?" he asked, suddenly hating the innocence he could see dying, along with whatever memory Sam had been reliving.

"Yeah."

The younger man shrugged, shifted the bag on his back as Dean tried to ignore the claustrophobia edging along his nerves, finally gave in to it and licked suddenly dry lips.

"Think we're about out of time."

Sam stopped dead, tilted his head to the side, listening and Dean watched the lines bracketing his mouth and eyes deepen.

"Back door?" he asked and Dean bit his lip, glanced back over his shoulder to scowl at the bathroom, the tiny window on the far side of the grungy room.

"Swear to god, one day we're gonna stay somewhere that's up to freakin' code. The kids might get out that way, but no-one else is."

Sam swallowed, shifted his grip on the shotgun to scrub his palms against his jeans, one at a time. The older man crouched, tugged Tommy closer.

"You got that flask, kiddo?"

"Yeah." The boy's voice was thin, shaky, his fingers trembling as he held the flask up.

"Okay. You know the way to the library?" Dean waited for the child to nod before he went on, angling his head back to include Kate and Petey, clutched to her side. "We're going straight out through the front door. When I say run, you run, and you don't stop unless Sam or me tells you to. No matter what, unless one of us tells you to stop, you keep running. Tommy, if someone comes up to you, even if it's someone you know, you splash them with some of that water, got it? Trust me. It'll stop them if they're..." he trailed off, couldn't figure out how to tell the boy about demons and meat suits and Hell.

"If they're bad," Tommy stated. Dean grimaced.

"Yeah. If they're bad. You ready? Kate?"

"We can't stay? You're sure it's not safe to just, just stay here?"

"Kate, what's comin'... We can't hold out against it. Not in here."

Sam twitched beside him and Dean levered himself to his feet, curled his arm gingerly, felt the stitches tighten and pull, his brother's gaze pinned to his back.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. 'M fine."

"You said..."

Dean waited, flicked a look back over his shoulder when Sam didn't continue.

"What? I said what?"

"You said, 'what's coming.'"

"Yeah? So?"

"You said it like you know what's coming. Who."

He froze, replayed the memory in his head and something uncurled in the pit of his stomach, trailed cold fingers up his spine. Recognition. They're coming, Sam had said, still blinking sleep out of his eyes, and Dean had seen... something. A flash, thin sliver of a face maybe, nothing he could put a name to but...

Yeah. He knew. It itched under his skin, dragged the walls in around him, felt like shackles on his wrists, like leg irons and pitted hooks buried bone-deep.

"We really have to do this now, Sam?" he heard himself say. "Or can it wait until we're, you know, somewhere where we actually have a chance in Hell of holding he, it, whatever's coming, off."

A howl rose outside, drowned out his brother's answer and Kate shrank against him, a tiny hand finding his and squeezing tight. He tugged Tommy close into his leg, pulled his Colt from his waistband and thumbed the safety, raw skin on his palms stinging. Gritted out, "It's a street over, maybe two," and glared at Sam until the younger man nodded and brought the shotgun up to his shoulder. "Remember. Run, and do not stop unless Sam or I tell you to."

Kate nodded against his back, Tommy against his hip and he leaned forward, against the shackles and irons and hooks he knew weren't there but still rooted his feet to the sticky carpet, ground in glass glittering like stars when he looked down to will his legs to move. Ice rippled up his spine, stole his breath or he held it, couldn't decide which and in any case, didn't want to know if he would see it plume white and cold when he let it go. A shadow spread around his own, snuffed out the stars and he shivered before it stepped away, dragged his gaze up as Sam eased past him, reached for the door with one hand, the other holding the shotgun steady.

The street outside was dark, again, just as empty as it was, god, just eighteen hours ago.

Sam slipped through first, stock against his shoulder, head dipped down to sight along the barrel, like it was a sniper rifle. Dean ticked his head at the door, waited for Kate to scuttle through before he tugged Tommy in front of him, kept one hand laced in the boy's shirt, vaguely wondering if everyone was going to borrow his wardrobe as they stepped quick and quiet out into the air that tasted of slick copper and hot iron. Blood, baked for a day in the Texas sun and he suddenly wished fiercely that he could have spared the child trying to match his steps this, slid his gaze to Sam, remembered his brother looking past him across the roof of the car. If it means anything, sometimes I wish you could too.

"Dean?"

"Yeah."

Blinked away the past, years and miles under the bridge since then, too many. He fell in at the back of their tiny, pathetic column of survivors, waited for his brother to look back at him before he nodded. I got your six.

Sam smiled, taut and sharp, led the way down the street. Listening to Kate murmur at the boy tucked into her arms, Petey sniffling, whimpering, feeling Tommy hesitate with every other step they took down toward the crossroads where the trashed junction box still crackled and buzzed. Something, maybe the same punch of force that brought it down, had gathered up a delivery truck and slid it clean off the street, across the sidewalk and into a shop window. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as they drew near it.

We're never gettin' out of this.

It was so alien in his head that he almost didn't recognize the thought as his own, crushing weariness settling deep.

"No way," he breathed, couldn't decide if he was denying the thought or agreeing with it, dredging up a small, weak grin from somewhere when Tommy slowed again and peered up at him uncertainly.

We're too slow, too vulnerable. And there's so damn many of them out there.

It could have meant the town, it could have meant the whole damn war but something slithered across his nerves then, scraped them raw and it was his turn to hesitate, mid-step, suddenly alive and aware of everything, too bright, too loud. He dropped his hand down from Tommy's – his shirt, gave the boy a small push on the back of the shoulder, spoke low and conversational, like he was telling the child to go play in the park.

"Run. The library. Now."

Half-expected tears and fright, pleasantly surprised when Tommy just nodded and took off, rabbit-quick. Kate gaped after him for a heartbeat, just long enough for Dean to watch his brother's hand snatch at Tommy's arm as the kid shot past but Sam pulled back, let them go as Kate stumbled after, Petey whimpering into her neck.

The brothers closed ranks, shoulder to shoulder and he could feel Sam trying to watch everywhere at once.

"What is it?"

Dean shook his head, frustrated, scared and burying it deep.

"I don't know. Something's - " here, following us but he never got the chance to finish, breath punched out of him by the edge of the whammy that caught his brother full on, sent Sam flying back into the crossroads and Dean heard him hit, hard, started to turn.

"Now aren't you a sight for sore eyes."

He froze, rooted to the cracked pavement, voice like mildewed silk, like rancid honey sliding against his skin. Didn't recognize it, not really, but the way she said it, tone and inflection that carried across into borrowed vocal cords. "Dean Winchester. Never thought I'd see you again."

Footsteps, slow, unhurried, lazy marking off of time and space, that he'd heard from the motel, clicking soft and low behind him. Echoing from the walls, and he could track her if he tried, along the pavement, skirting the twisted junction box, shallow scrape as she stepped down into the street. Glass crunching under her feet, pressure against his skin the closer she got. He shuddered, couldn't turn around to look for her, couldn't even see the door hanging off its hinges in front of him, just watched the Technicolor, slow-motion live action replay inside his head; blood and iron and fire and the smog of ghosts that choked the scorching air.

Couldn't see anything else until a quiet moan snapped him back to the world, Sam stirring on the ground, there, over there by the truck, he's over there and she's...

...she pressed up against him, waist to his hip, her shoulder tucking in under his arm. His stomach flipped, rolled greasily as she trailed a hand down his cheek, cupped the back of his neck, drew him close.

"I missed you, sugar."

He tensed, tried to pull back but she leaned into the motion, rushed him back until his shoulders slammed into the van half buried in the shop front and curled her fingertips into his neck, pulled his head down until his lips brushed hers, fingers like iron on his spine as she held him there, whispered against his mouth, "Things just haven't been the same since you left."

"Screw you."

He felt her smile, squeezed his eyes shut at the raw desire in her eyes as they flickered, gray to black. Her knee nudged at his until she could slide her leg between his, push her thigh up against his crotch, rocking her hips into his side as she pressed into him, hard enough to make his breath hitch and stutter in his throat.

"Oh, if you insist, sweetheart."

Dean twisted, worked an arm up between them and pushed, dragged in air as she let him shove her away. She laughed softly, paced a slow half circle with him at its center, her eyes raking over him as he clung to the cool glass and metal at his back, told himself the ground was solid under his boots, not the void, endless and hungry and devouring, that the blood he could smell wasn't his, wasn't on his hands.

"You really don't know what you stepped in here, do you?"

"The usual," he ground out, flattening one hand against the windshield. "Seals. Demonic skanks. My boots ain't ever gonna be the same again, you know how hard it is to get Hellhound poop out of leather?"

He jumped when she shifted, from there to right up in his face again, one hand wrapping around his arm, the other sliding under his shirt, short nails scratching lightly down his chest to slide under the waistband of his jeans.

"Funny guy," she whispered, breath ghosting across the base of his throat. "You always were a funny, funny guy."

There was nowhere to go, the van too solid behind him as she crushed herself against him, fingers digging hard into his biceps, warm and urgent against his groin and her smell and taste filled his lungs until he gagged on it, choked on the smoke that burned acrid tears from his eyes, the dust that scoured raw skin until there was nothing left but bones and chains and ice under his hand, tickling his palm, stinging when he shifted and found his skin frozen to the glass. He blinked, couldn't figure out which was real, the endless void and the chains and the faces looming over him, under him, tearing him apart; or the shattered, ruined street and dark, dark eyes, hungry with the same need to consume him.

"N-n-no," he stuttered, yanked his head away from her, stared down at the frost forming around his hand where it pressed hard against the windshield and now he knew to look for it, he felt the cold hollow at the base of his spine, stretching icy fingers up his back, trailing her touch as she pulled him back to her. "Don't -"

She stiffened against him, arms suddenly rigid around him, too tight, squeezing his ribs until he couldn't breathe, threw his head back to gasp at the sky and heard her scream, felt her choke against him, retching on something dragged up out of her and the cold seared him from the inside out, burned as much as the knives and the flails had. He thought he cried out, couldn't hear anything but the crash as he slid to his knees, the ice thawing sullenly inside.

He stared at the body sprawled across his lap, bruises staining her face, coldly pretty now that it wasn't sneering, taunting him. Now that he couldn't see the lust in her eyes. Flinching away, he slid out from under her, eased her to the ground, staggered to his feet. He wobbled as he turned away from the handprint on the windshield, frost tracing flowers around the shape of his fingers, fading slowly.

His brother knelt, white faced and shaking on the far side of the street, clinging to the wall with one hand, the other still stretched out in front of him. Dean stumbled, somehow kept his feet all the way across the street, finally let himself slump against the dusty, scraped bricks.

"Sam?"

The younger man twitched, shook his head once.

"C'mon, Sammy. We gotta book."

"Was it her?"

Dean blinked, tried to scrub the fog out of his head. "What?"

"Was it her you could... feel? Sense. Whatever. At the motel." The younger man scowled, tilted sideways into the wall.

"Yeah. Think it was."

"She was... down there. With you. In... in Hell."

He shrugged, dragged an arm across his mouth, jaw tight. Didn't look down to meet his brother's glare.

"Was she one of... one of them?"

"I don't know, Sam, I don't. Maybe. She didn't exactly... none of them look like... that." He waved a useless hand at the corpse, didn't look at it. "Now come on, before somethin' else finds us."

"Yeah, 'kay."

He reached down, grabbed his brother and hauled him to his feet, noticed the blood matting Sam's hair down.

"Dammit. Sam?"

The younger man mumbled something, took a step forward and his legs buckled. Dean scrambled to catch him, breath caught in his throat as stitches pulled too tight in his skin before he could get his brother propped against the wall. He ducked down, peered into Sam's glassy stare and sighed, slung one long arm across his shoulders and staggered under the weight as they limped into the street again, turned towards the center of the dead town, howling and too many dead eyes following them.

He stopped at the crossroads, peered both ways, blinking hard at the gray that kept creeping in around the edge of his vision. Head drooping on his shoulder, Sam murmured something vaguely inquisitive, and Dean chewed at his lip.

"I, uh... Which way?"

His brother dragged his head up, stared at him and he shrugged with the shoulder that wasn't holding most of the younger man's weight.

"What?"

"Y're lost?"

"Just a little turned around!"

Sam huffed, waved at one street.

"Two blocks," he enunciated carefully. "Then turn left."

Dean squinted at him.

"You sure? 'Cause right now I'm not sure you could find your - "

"Two. Blocks. Left."

Glassy, dazed as it was, the glare Sam turned on him could have melted lead and he smirked, settled the younger man's weight on his shoulder again. "Okay, okay. Two blocks, left. Got it."

He twisted his head back once, as they shuffled down the street, stared back at the spitting junction box and the crushed truck, and the indistinct body in the shadows. And the handprint, blurred in the slowly melting frost on the windshield.

The ice at the base of his spine flexed, rolled up his back, stretched long fingers around his ribs and he shuddered, tore his gaze away. Tightened his grip on his brother in one hand and the shotgun in the other and hustled onto the empty sidewalk.