The Boogeyman

by Caladrius

casefic/Weechesters/season 1-2: There's a REASON to be afraid of the dark. When Sam was 9 his father put a gun into his hand and instructed him to shoot at the deadly thing stalking him from his closet. 14 years later Sam is obsessed with finishing what he couldn't at any cost, and Dean lives in fear of what will find his brother in the end. Protective Dean and Sam on a mission.

19. ch 19: The Battle of Evermore

Summary: The uninterrupted climax of everything. Enough said.

Author note: so many thanks, and a fruit basket, to Agelade who spent a pretty intense 28 hour editing session with me to help this chapter be all that it could be. She probably also deserves a medal for my whining and confusion and general dumbness, but the end result is a great chapter. THANKS, PARTNER.

Sylvia37, pine no more. This climax is UNINTERRUPTED. It's also about three times as long as a normal chapter, so get some snacks.

Thanks for reading and reviewing, everyone!

-Caladrius

---

Chapter 19: The Battle of Evermore

May 2, 2007

Sam - 24

Dean - 28

Sam steps into the chapel.

The air in here does feel different, likely because it's been shut in for an undetermined and lengthy period of time. So far Sam has been up and down staircases that lead to rooms with five doors, corridors that simply end, and experienced plenty of other oddities in the house, so a chapel on top of it all no longer seems odd. Still, there is definitely a unique feel in these walls, and the structures he can see don't match the rest of the architecture at all. For one thing, the peaked arch of the stained glass windows and their classical depictions, while still universal motifs of Christian construction, seem somehow older than the rest of the house. Chunky, short pews, only eight per side of a narrow center aisle, rest in a diagonal layout to the front where a modest high altar sits upon a raised dais. The floorboards creak at every step. Dust covers the wood in a fine layer, but there are no crucifixes in this place that he can see. And that's unusual.

And then Sam remembers something else.

There was no chapel in the Winchester house.

Tiny goose bumps itch under his shirts; the hunter's sense that he'd been trained to hone since he was a child tells him he isn't alone in the room.

"Frater Luciano?"

Sam's voice is a sin in this place. The uncomfortable feeling of it persists even when the silence settles again, and Sam is starting to understand why none of the children come here.

"Frater Luciano, et est nomen meum Sam Winchester."

Introducing himself in Latin is easy enough. He isn't a native of Rome or anything, but as long as at least one of Brother Luciano's languages is, in fact, Latin and not actually insane gibberish, this might work.

But the silence after his greeting stretches on.

What he wouldn't give for an EMF meter right now, although considering the concentration of spirits, it would possibly never shut off in this place. Or it might not work at all.

"Frater Luciano, um... Mihi ... opus est... opera tua. Er, wait. Mihi opus est auxilium tua. Auxillium. I think. Your help. I need your help."

Adding the English doesn't exactly make him more understandable, but it helps Sam work it out. Hopefully Frater Luciano has enough of himself left to understand his gist and laugh off any poor sentence construction and vocabulary.

But the chapel is quiet still.

Sam walks towards one of the stained glass windows. It is a scene from the New Testament: the Pentecost, an event 50 days after Christ rose from the dead when the Holy Spirit descended in tongues of flame to rest on the heads of the disciples. It was a gift from God, a gift of knowledge and courage and, coincidental to the situation at hand, it enabled them to speak different languages.

The blocky, stylized hands of three disciples with halos are raised above their heads, tilted to receive the blessing. The tongues of fire are large chips of yellow and orange-painted glass.

The longer Sam stares at it, the more he's drawn into it. The facets of the glass, the color. Is it his imagination or do the figures in their ancient lead casings seem to move, their hands reaching not for heaven, but for him...

Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum...

Sam squints his eyes. Backs up from the window.

Adveniat regnum tuum...

It is a hum, a chant, woven in fraying threads that catch Sam's clothing, wrap around his chest. He feels the words in his lungs, but he is not speaking.

Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra...

He knows this. He knows this he's read this heard this before...

Heat pools in his cheeks, in his brain, fogging the tune like some kind of rebellion, but Sam wants these words. He wants them and reaches past the strings into his chest as the dove in the glass watches, as the tongues of flame float in the air around him, as it descends on him...

Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris...

Sam's mouth opens. He knows this prayer. The Lord's Prayer. He knows it now...

And he knows the end...

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil...

"Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo."

Amen.

"Amen."

They finish together, the chant and Sam, and the spell is broken.

He's standing in an ancient chapel in front of a window of the Pentecost and he's Sam Winchester and before him is a desiccated spirit of a man in brown robes.

Sam swallows. He can see why the children would catch one glimpse of him and have stories for a lifetime.

Time and this place, and possibly the boogeyman himself, have not treated Brother Luciano's soul well. His face is gaunt, dried. Wisps of what was once white hair still cling in thin mangy patches from his scalp. Cheeks sunken to points pull what flesh is left back from a skeletal grimace. The robes hang loosely, frayed and worn.

Sam isn't sure what he was expecting. This might have been it. To still even have a soul intact after a thousand years was probably a superhuman feat.

He stands up straight.

"Frater Luciano..."

Sam... mea culpa... mea culpa...

The voice is puff of smoke between them. Sam has to strain his mind more than his ears to hear it.

Mea culpa-my fault.

Sam shakes his head. "No. No this isn't your fault. It's not your fault. None of this is. Um. Non est tua culpa." And despite the situation, Sam can still feel pity for a creature who has been clinging to his guilt for a millennium, whatever that guilt is. They were all trapped here.

The vision shakes his head. It comes closer, eye sockets so dark and hollow, and yes, Sam has to work a little to keep his ground. Old habits are hard to break.

Id est, id est. Ego te vidie. Et dedit illi scientiam.

It takes Sam a few seconds to break it down. The words try to disappear seconds after they resolve in his head. He winds up translating it from the end first, but as the words begin to rearrange in English, he feels the blood leaving his face.

"You... you told the boogeyman. About... me? You knew? Sciebas? Even... even back then?"

The image flickers. And then the head tilts down in a grave nod that is now just as literal as figurative.

"Wh...why?" Sam breathes. If what he thinks he understands is true, then...

Then the boogeyman has been waiting for me for a thousand years...

And that just seems too crazy. Too far-fetched. Like something out of a nightmare.

Et non intellexi...

The words are mournful. "You... don't understand?" It takes Sam a second to recognize the tense. "No, you didn't understand. Back then. You didn't know what he was going to do. You didn't know."

Et non intellexi...

"But... you do now." It's a statement. Sam works to keep his breathing even. And then all desire to know how to kill the boogeyman is lost in this. And he needs to know. He needs to know why and how he's involved. "Tell me."

The shade answers by slowly turning. And then it's gone only to flicker into existence again at the front of the chapel near the wall of the high altar. It lifts a hand. Points a bony finger to the wooden wall.

Sam doesn't hesitate. He joins the spectre at the wall and stares at it thinking there might be some writing, some symbols, to lead him further down this rabbit hole. But he sees nothing.

He puts his fingers against the wood, traces the grain, but nothing happens and nothing is here.

"I don't... um. Ego... enim... nihil video. I don't see anything."

The apparition continues to point for long seconds afterwards, and then it floats into the wall and is gone.

Sam's eyebrows draw together. Did Brother Luciano abandon him because he couldn't understand the cryptic directions? It was easy to believe the spirit had fallen away, given up, because Sam had failed. Again.

But then a disembodied hand emerges from the wall, causing Sam to jump back. It slowly gestures for Sam to follow. To come.

Through a solid wall.

And perhaps Brother Luciano doesn't know that Sam's got a body and he's not dead, but maybe...

Okay maybe there's another way. And then Sam remembers what Patrick said, that there were secret passages. Hell, Charlie had held him captive in the ballroom wall. And if there was a way out of there then...

Sam's fingers go to the worn wood. They sweep up and down searching for some lock, some mechanism, some pressure point. His patience begins to give out just as he finds that the crease between wall panels gives near the floor. Prying his fingers inside, the whole panel shudders. A few more seconds of his shoulders rounded and his breath coming in labored gasps and the panel opens completely to yawning darkness. He grabs a candle and a packet of matches from his pocket and makes himself a meager torch.

The first thing that grabs his attention as he steps over the threshold is something so alarmingly familiar it makes him homesick.

A broken salt line. An honest-to-God salt line.

He bends down just to make sure his eyes aren't deceiving him and mutters reverently, "Holy crap, you really were a hunter."

When he looks up to the edge of the candle's light, the scene becomes macabre and strange.

Well, now Sam knows where all the crucifixes have gone-lined up neatly around the exterior of a ring of salt like an added layer of protection, or maybe comfort. In the middle of the circle lay a pile of rags and shrunken leather skin that is clearly the last resting place of Brother Luciano's mortal body.

Sam lets out a breath. It's a sad sight, and in his mind's eye he imagines the man who had done this, who built a last stronghold and slowly starved within it, surrounded by the comforting images of his beloved suffering Christ.

But, of course, Brother Luciano's soul has not rested in peace. The salt ring that must have protected him, at least in life, begins to explain how his spirit has managed to not fade completely with time. Now it hovers just beyond its physical remains outside the salt circle, forever unable to get back inside it.

Sam nods soberly and sighs. "I get it now. I understand. Intelligo. You holed up here."

The spectre points to his body and raises dark sockets to Sam's face.

Sam gets that the ghost is trying to tell him something else. Just finding his body is not enough, it seems. He draws close to the circle and begins to hunker down to the remains when Brother Luciano continues to gesture forward.

Circulus...

"You want me... to get into the circle?"

As soon as Sam steps over the salt line he feels a shift. A difference. It's not more air or a relief from the gravity. It isn't anything that he can really define except...a feeling of security. Of silence. As if he's in this place but out of it at the same time. Sam's eyebrows draw together as he looks around. Nothing is different to his sight, but he can feel it.

Sanctuary.

"Wait... this didn't just protect you from the boogeyman," he begins as it starts to come together. "It... it actually hid you from him. He couldn't find you. But there has to be something more here than just salt." Because back in Osseo, Sam had completely ringed the inside of the closet with salt and still had a conversation with the boogeyman who could see him just fine.

The spectre points again. Just outside an edge of the circle near his body is a fragile sack of deteriorating burlap containing what was likely the last of the salt.

Beatus est... beatus

"It's... blessed salt. You blessed it? Beatus?"

The image nods.

"So... you used the blessed salt to escape the boogeyman's detection while you lived?"

Sam's heart is starting to beat harder because he's just learned something important, undeniably useful for plotting against a creature that could be virtually anywhere in this labyrinth at any time, watching

Brother Luciano nods again, but not before a hesitation.

Sam understands why. For Brother Luciano, even the blessed salt hadn't been put up fast enough to save everything. Receptores Divinas. He was in his 60's when he disappeared under unknown circumstances, but however he got here he also would have been valuable, attacked relentlessly, because he was the first chronicled person who could supposedly hear Heaven and Hell, if his book was to be believed.

"You figured out how to hide, but," Mea culpa. My fault. "It was too late for some things. Too late because he used you first for information about others. About me." Sam squeezes his eyes closed. "Sero. Circulus est sero."

Brother Luciano nods. Points down to the ground.

Vide... Sam. Vide.

Sam obeys and brings the candle down to the holy man's body for a closer look. Something in the dust. He reaches out and carefully pulls up a dried up leather satchel. Carefully he runs a palm over it, over the embossing of a cross, and opens it.

Sam sits on the ground in the circle next to the body and begins to pull things out. A glass vial with nothing in it. Probably holy water, long evaporated. Sam removes a small crucifix, hand whittled from two pieces of wood as well as a long writing quill and a squat glass container of what was probably once black ink, though it's now empty. The next item is a flat, round, dusty object of a decent heft for its size that extends from one end into something that might be a handle. Taking it by that end, Sam rubs the object across his jeans several times and suddenly the small candlelight is magnified by two. When he holds it up, he can see his reflection with decent clarity even though it's not the conventional design he's used to in the 21st century.

"A mirror?"

He turns it around and rubs again, finds the same reflective surface on the back. It's nothing that he's ever seen before, even though its use is commonplace. Grabbing the candle, he brings it closer to study its surface. Some tiny pitting on the edges and the heft of it suggests a kind of stone.

"Hematite maybe?"

What would a monk want with a mirror?

The corner of his mouth quirks up. "Well, I mean, it's convenient you brought your own. The original Winchester house was said to only have, like, three mirrors total and the staff weren't allowed to have them."

Now that he's looking into it, Sam can see the dark circles under his eyes, the pale cast to his skin even in the warm glow of candlelight. It's a sobering reminder that he has work to do and time is running out.

Carefully he lays the ancient mirror on the ground next to the other two items and empties the rest of the bag.

The last and most precious thing in the satchel: A book bound in leather. With infinite care Sam opens it, wincing at the cracking of the leather and spine at the smallest movement, but it's still remarkably preserved in this dry, permanent environment.

He brings the candle closer to read whatever page he can safely turn to.

It's difficult, at first, because the letters are so stylized, the ink faded, but he can make out a few things-he can make out enough.

"Holy crap... this is... this is your journal? You wrote... you wrote while you were in here?" Sam's jaw is slack as he hungrily devours the Latin. Latin! Thank God! Latin, and not old Italian. His fingers tremble and his vision blurs because his eyes are tearing. A living, breathing boogeyman hunter had spent his last days writing everything he knew and experienced in protected salt circle because... because.

"You knew. You knew all along I was coming and left it for me. You knew..."

He was shaking.

Potes... potes... Sam Winchester. Potes...

Sam raises his gaze. "Potes?... I can... do what?"

Potes interficies... Potes interficies...

Sam's eyes go wide.

The the chill running along his back is suddenly interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Sam? Sam!"

Patrick. But there's a desperate edge to it that has Sam on his feet in a split second.

"Patrick?" Book in hand, Sam grabs the candle and rushes from the hidden room. Patrick has ventured just inside the chapel door, further confirming that something has gone wrong. "What happened?"

"He... he came. He just came. He came and he grabbed the girls away. He grabbed Emily and Amber, just like that! I couldn't... I tried, Sam. I tried!" The boy's ghost is breaking down. "He was pissed... he was pissed. He was really pissed off at you, Sam. Oh my God, could he, could he fade both of them?" While Patrick shudders out this horrific information, Sam makes his way quickly across the chapel, drawing deep breaths just to do that much. He can't hold Patrick, comfort him, not really, and at the moment his own heart is sinking in his chest, but Patrick is descending into hysteria and his words are disintegrating into nonsense.

"Okay, okay. Patrick, you need to calm down. Do you hear me?" He goes to one knee so he can meet the boy's eyes. "Tell me what happened. Just... just take a deep breath," probably useless for a ghost but, "and tell me what happened. We'll get them back. We will."

Sam's had time to practice his game face, and right now Patrick needs to believe that everything will be okay, but Sam has to make sure he has conviction in whatever he says because Patrick will know if he's lying and that won't help anyone at this point.

Apparently at the moment his conviction is holding because Patrick's psychic senses are not calling him out for simple bravado.

Patrick closes his mouth, opens it again. "We were just... just waiting for you outside like we said. And then... and then he just... appeared. And his face was... goddamn, Sam, his face was so scary. And he said... he said that if Sam Winchester could play a game of hide and seek then so could he. And the girls screamed and then they were all just... gone."

Hide and seek.

So Sam really had dropped off the boogeyman's radar in the circle of salt in that room?

"Patrick, do you know where he might have taken them?"

The boy shakes his head. "No. We never know anything. Even the ones who come back, like Emily, they don't know exactly where they go."

Sam pushes down the panic. His time table has just been moved up, but he had never been closer to an answer than he is now.

"Okay, Patrick, I need you to listen to me because we don't have much time. And I need you to suck up your fears, here, and help me because right now we're the only two who can do this. Okay? Can you do that? For Emily and Amber?"

Something about Sam's speech appears to galvanize in the boy's face-the crushed eyebrows smooth, he is resolute.

"Yeah. Okay. For Emily and Amber. Okay I can... I can. I want to help. Tell me what to do."

Sam breathes out a fast breath. "You have to trust me and come with me. We can't talk here. I found Frater. I'm not gonna lie, he looks scary, but he's on our side, Patrick. He's on our side. Please."

Sam gets up, turns, and walks to the dark opening. He looks back at the boy who is eyeing the passage with clear trepidation.

"Please, Patrick. Trust me. You know I'm not lying."

Patrick purses his lips, squeezes his eyes shut and opens them wide and then steps into the room.

The ghost of Brother Luciano is waiting for them, and Sam gives Patrick a look of reassurance as he breaks the salt circle and then invites both spirits in with him.

"Sam... I can't. With... with him here."

"Patrick, you're trusting me, remember? This is the only place we can talk safely, but we all gotta get in. He can't do anything to you except maybe give us information that can save you. All of us. Right?"

Patrick purses his lips, nods, and steps inside. Brother Luciano settles over his body. Sam closes the circle again carefully and sits down Indian style.

He keeps his voice down. "Okay. I have a partial plan."

Patrick's eyes go wide.

"I couldn't talk about it before because I was afraid of being overheard by you-know-who, but I've been hashing it out. To win, we all need to get out of this plane and end the boogeyman. Thanks to some information left to me, I'm pretty sure we can handle the first part."

"Okay, how?"

Sam shifts and gets comfortable. "Remember when I told you that you probably never could slip through the holes between this plane and the other because there wasn't a part of your body over there?"

Patrick's face sours.

"Yeah."

"Well, that's how we're gonna get you out. I'm going to take you, I mean, part of you, out of here when I leave."

"What, like... my finger or something?" He looks disgusted.

Sam shakes his head quickly, disturbed just at the thought of breaking off a piece of poor dead kid. "What? Jesus. No it doesn't have to be a finger or a toe or anything like that. Just a little of your hair will work. And if I've still got a way out, if that thread connecting me to the exit is still there and I can jump through it, then your spirit can follow me out with no problem." He pauses. "Of course, I'd want to burn your remains here. Just in case. So there's no way you could ever get dragged back."

Sam half expects that part to be at least as disturbing as collecting a piece of him, but Patrick's reaction is just the opposite.

"So, all you have to do is cut some of my actual hair and then I can get out when you do?" He asks, and now Sam sees a light of real hope burning behind his blue eyes.

"Exactly. You and everyone else I can find in time, which is why I'm going to need your help especially. Brother Luciano used blessed salt to hide himself in this circle, and we can use what's left here to kind of hide what we're doing so the boogeyman doesn't suspect."

"Sam... Sam this is... this plan is so easy. Could it really work?"

Sam purses his lips, looks down at the book and then up to the quiet image of Brother Luciano before answering the boy.

"Yeah, theoretically, it should work, but there's still the issue of the boogeyman. I gotta try to kill it, Patrick. It has a body that can be hurt, we know that, but it's not like a human being where you can just... stab it and kill it. Best bet is to burn it completely the same time we're burning your bodies. Which means the timing has to be right on, and I've got to rig a trap and probably throw the boogeyman into it since I doubt it'll walk into it on its own."

Patrick's face falls.

"Crap. You mean..."

"Yeah, another frontal assault. And every time it gets near me it burrows into my head, so we could have the perfect plan and at the last minute I might blow it."

"Sam. Wait." Patrick gets up onto his knees in agitation. "Wait, that's just... It's too dangerous. Can't we just do part of this plan and get out while we can?"

He shakes his head. "Patrick, I'm not leaving the job half done. Not now, not ever again, okay? I'm not leaving it here to come after anymore kids. I'm finishing what I started and that's just how it's going to be. But." He holds up Brother Luciano's book. "Frater was a hunter and I think there's something in this journal of his that might help us. Give us an edge."

Patrick pointedly does not look at the deathly spirit who continues to say nothing but is clearly watching them closely.

"How do you know? Did he tell you?"

Sam smiles, nods. "Yeah, actually."

"Okay, wow. And you can read it?"

Sam takes a deep breath. "Kind of. It's in Latin. But Brother Luciano wants to stop this thing as much as I do, and he can hopefully point out the parts I need to know since we're running out of time."

Patrick nods several times. "What do I do?"

"You're the only one who can help me find the bodies, and you need to figure out the fastest way in this crazy place to get to as many as I can, because when we start this, there's no slowing down and no stopping until it's over and done and we either win or we don't. It's the best bet to save Emily and Amber and ourselves, but at any point in this whole thing the boogeyman could show up."

"In other words, we gotta both be Superman."

Sam smiles in spite of the gravity of it all.

"Dude, we have to be the entire Justice League."

A slow grin spreads across Patrick's face.

"Okay. Okay Sam. Let's do this."

---

1993

Sam - 10

Dean - 14

"Come on, you little shit. Let's do this. You wanna fight? Bring it on."

Yeah, you think I'm fucking crazy?

It was no use trying to keep calm, trying to not make noise. Dean was pretty sure the vamp had been telling the truth-it didn't matter how far away he got now, that damn thing was going to find him no matter what.

And considering how much of the wall it was tearing up in his wake like the goddamn boulder in Raider's of the Last Ark, it wasn't going to let a little thing like a whole house get in its way. Dean couldn't stay in the wall forever.

His sense of direction was getting clouded. He didn't feel the pain in his wrist because of the adrenaline, but he could feel its weakness. He was rattled to the core, but at least he still had the machete. At least he still had his life.

And then he gained a splitting headache when he hit a low beam.

Fuck.

Because he had to take a second to blink his eyes, shake his head.

And then he noticed the wall wasn't getting ripped up behind him. But there was movement. Out there. Dean stopped, swallowed, blinked his eyes, tried to listen.

It was clomping into the next room. Slowly. Yeah, because now it was looking for traps. And at this rate it was going to be ready for him, yank him right out of the wall.

Except the vamp didn't know one thing, and if Dean could get to it faster...

Shit.

Dean ducked under the low beam, the indicator that he had moved into the next room, and then bolted with everything he had for his one exit.

As soon as he took off, he heard commotion in the room and then the sound of a sharp blast. Okay, so it tripped the gun trap, but that wouldn't stop it for long and he still had to...

He fell into it. His feet hit open air, and he knew that might happen because he couldn't see shit in here, but this was what he was aiming for. At the last second, as he teetered over, he reached out and found the rope. And he kind of got a hold of it, but his hand was bloody and sweaty and his wrist was no good, so he half fell through the dumbwaiter shaft down into the kitchen wall just as the plaster above him was torn open.

Rope burn. Dean added that to his growing list of injuries. His legs were shocked by the force of his descent, but they weren't broken, thank god. Nothing was broken yet. So he kicked, forced the small door open, and shimmied out like a sweat-slicked snake onto the kitchen counter and then managed to make it to the floor with a little more grace.

Raising the machete, coughing dust, he ignored pain, tried to figure out if the thing was stupid enough to come after him directly, take the stairs or, hell, figure out how to cut a hole in the ceiling out of sheer hate.

He could make out the shouting from above as it echoed down the dumbwaiter shaft:

"Goddammit, kid. I'm gonna get so fucking creative when I get my hands on you."

"Good luck with that, asshole!" Dean answered up the opening, because god, it would be a gift if it came down the chute right now. Preferably head first.

Dean swallowed when no body followed.

This was now officially out of control. He had a few tricks left, but they were defensive. All defensive, like the gun trap, or the salt skid-they had no chance of killing the thing, just slowing it down. Unfortunately the vamp was doing as good a job of slowing Dean down as much as he was giving it out, and Dean had no illusions that he could keep up this cat and mouse game for much longer.

For one thing, he was running on adrenaline. In reality, his body was bent, beaten, bloody and exhausted, he was just too stubborn to give it a real chance to tell him so in no uncertain terms. He needed to end this, because-and he hated to admit a monster could be right about anything-he knew Dad wasn't going to get here before someone made it back to home base with the flag.

Dean took a deep breath, looked up to the bucket hanging over kitchen door, and the almost invisible fishing line tripwire at the entrance.

He had hung this particular trap up there because it made sense, but if he set this plan into motion, it was truly the act of a desperate man. And if it managed to work, he put himself and Sam in a hell of a lot of new danger.

But the alternative, whatever that would be, was unacceptable. And this thing was pissed. Yeah, just like he hoped for.

Okay, so, desperate times. Decision made.

The thought process itself took barely five seconds. Dean let go of the machete, opened the bottom drawer next to the sink and grabbed the gun he had stashed there. Last stand in a kitchen. Not exactly as awesome a movie ending as he hoped in his happiest dreams, but kitchens were practically designed for last stands, he couldn't deny that.

"Hello there."

Dean looked up. Yeah, so it had used the stairs. Really damn quietlike apparently.

Very slowly he stood, sticking his left hand into his pocket and taking a breath while pulling back the hammer on his .45.

Threat assessment: Dean had apparently managed to cut into the vamp's neck, just not at the right angle. Blood on its right side proved that, but the cut was either gone or shallow. Yeah. Because it had gotten its fangs into Dean's wrist right afterward and blood was like a superdrug to a vamp-boosted its healing. For what it was worth, the rips in the thing's black leather jacket in the shoulder and arm meant he had connected a few times with the blade there as well. Dean could at least put "ruined the fucking vamp's jacket for good" into his win column with... yeah, pretty much nothing else.

The vampire was way, way too smug. Self assured. At least one thing was going for Dean.

"It's over." The vamp put its thumbs in its pockets.

Dean clicked off the safety, aimed for its head.

"Go ahead. Shoot me." It smirked, opened its jacket, stuck a finger through a neat hole in the chest, probably from the .45 trap it had tripped in the last room upstairs. He looked up at Dean as if to say, "and this kinda tickled a little."

"You got skills kid. I mean, nice angle, accurate. But a gunshot doesn't do shit."

Dean licked his lips but held his ground. This was going to go one of three ways. One of those ways was Dean dying whether he tried to run or not, so, gamble on doors two and three.

"Probably hurt like a bitch, though."

"Yeah? How's that wrist doing?"

Fucking just come through the goddamn door.

"I gotta be honest, I never bled out a kid before. Always seemed...kinda unethical, you know? Plus, not a lot in there. Just more like a snack, and not worth the screaming. But damn, if they all taste as good as you, I might have to change my palate. Starting with your little brother."

Dean's cage was rattled. He blew air out of his mouth, took a deep breath, kept his finger on the trigger.

"This is why people eat veal, right? Because the meat is so pure, so tender. Not enough years to toughen up, get too strong. Nice with some breading and some marinara? Is that how the little guy downstairs is gonna taste?"

The corner of Dean's mouth twitched. He didn't like how much the monster was enjoying this.

"Buddy, by the time I'm done with you, you won't be thinking of anything but how you wished I had killed you clean five minutes ago."

"That a fact?"

Dean smiled, tilted his head, "Or better yet, you'll wish my Dad had found you in that nest too, so you coulda died alongside your fucked up little commune of freaks."

It was the the vamp's turn to twitch.

"Dinner bell's ringing, asshole. You wanna put up or shut up 'cause you're boring me to death."

Its eyes hardened. It raised a foot.

Dean swallowed.

And then it looked down. Looked down and toed the tripwire gently, experimentally.

Shit.

And it followed the fishing line with its eyes up the side of the door to the bucket overhead.

Nodding, it let out a breathy chuckle. "Jesus, kid. Give me a break. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."

It stepped over the tripwire entirely with the kind of shit-eating grin that Dean wanted to blow off with two rounds.

"Oh boy, I don't know what I just bypassed, but from here it looks like you're pretty fucked."

Dean raised his arm, aimed above the vamp's head, and shot.

Right through the bucket.

Immediately, a light amber liquid poured from the two holes right down into the punk vamp's punk hair, and then into its face and onto its shoulder, and Dean wanted to laugh because the vamp's expression was almost worth everything.

"What the hell?" It dipped a finger in it, put it to its nose.

"Wesson."

Dean pulled his other hand out of his pocket.

"What?"

"Fucking vegetable oil, asshole."

"Vegetable-"

It figured it out. Somewhere in between the word vegetable and the click of a zippo opening, its eyes widened.

"You talk too much," Dean reminded it and tossed the lighter. Accurately.

He only waited long enough to see its hair catch fire. He heard a scream, and then he blasted it twice with the .45 staggering it out of the doorway long enough for Dean to push past and escape.

Dean had never tried the effectiveness of a trap like this, had no idea if he could say this was a win, not yet. Especially since the place was old and the goddamn thing might flail and he had to get to Sam and escape out of the cellar door access to the side yard before they were all crispy and then hope for a miracle.

He bolted down the hallway to the basement door. His hands were shaking, sweaty, and the handle wasn't moving-he couldn't get the door open for some damn reason. And then he realized the door had been bolted. Locked by the vamp at some point probably, to make sure they were uninterrupted. Dean was almost sick at the thought of how close it had come to Sam, down there, silent in the darkness. But he didn't have time for it.

His bloody hand slipped on the bolt. Precious time wasted. He unlocked the door, had his hand on the knob, and then heat and pain blossomed down his arm, his side, and he was thrown into the wall.

Shit!

Dean grabbed for purchase, looked up.

In seconds, the vamp had undergone an unpleasant transformation courtesy of thick, flammable liquid: All the hair was gone leaving a red oozing shape of a face in ground meat and two crazed eyes. The jacket had disappeared-probably what it used to put out the fire, but its hands were burned. Parts of the arm. The black t-shirt had burn holes, gunshot holes. It was still smoking. All of it was. It looked like some horrible creature straight from hell and Dean knew he was in big trouble now.

Dean raised his gun but it was there faster and swatted the gun out of his hand with a blow so hard to his injured wrist that he let out a short yelp.

"You're right about one thing."

It's voice was weird, gravelly.

"It's gotten pretty personal."

Dean slid up the wall and turned his body to duck into the living room where he went for the fireplace implements. He managed to grab the poker and swing it once before the vamp had a burning hand around his throat. It slammed him with ease into the fireplace mantle once, pain exploding in Dean's cranium.

"Oh, kid. It's so over for you now..."

Dean couldn't breathe. It felt like all the blood in his body was being squeezed up into his brain where it would pop out his eyes, explode the top of his head.

So this was it. This was the end. And all Dean could think about was that he had just failed everything. Everyone.

Sam.

Sam. I know you can't hear me, buddy, but for what's worth, I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry. I'm gonna die, and probably you too and it's my fault. Try to forgive me. Don't hate me. Don't hate me forever, Sam.

Sammy...

And then there was darkness.

---

May 2, 2007

Sam - 24

Dean - 28

"Sam? Sammmm!"

Sam chokes. He knows why the boogeyman is doing this, projecting Amber's screams across every room, every secret corridor. He knows it's meant to ramp up his fear, to make him desperate, but it doesn't matter that he knows because it's working. The longer it takes, the more Sam is shaking because maybe it is Amber screaming or maybe it isn't but the fact still remains that she's somewhere, maybe suffering horribly, and he had to make a decision: spend what might be his last few minutes looking for her or making and enacting a plan that would save her, him, and as many other kids as he could, from the boogeyman once and for all.

Every string of his conscience is wound as tight as it can go, ready to snap, because he wants so badly to hunt her down...

"Sam. Sam hurry. This way!"

He swallows, walks as fast as he can after Patrick's luminous fleeting form in the darkness of another secret short cut to yet another bedroom where another sad bundle of mummified remains lays on a bed. He's out of breath because he has to move fast and he knows it and this place is unforgiving of his tall frame, of his miles and miles of muscle tissue that need oxygen, to keep moving in this gravity.

Sadly, pitifully, their bodies weigh almost nothing. He has three more of them, trying not to look too closely at their small sunken faces, as he carries them back to the room in which he appeared, lays them alongside the five others already there, including Patrick's and Brother Luciano's. Quickly he pulls out his knife, cuts locks of hair from each head, and puts it into Brother Luciano's satchel which he now wears securely across his body. He prays that the dried leather holds out just a little longer to get this precious cargo across the gateway.

This plan... everything in Sam's current universe is riding on this plan. If he ever wants to set things right, if he ever wants to see Dean again, it has to work. It has to.

Sam spares a few seconds to imagine his brother in the Impala, asleep. Maybe dreaming of hot, naked co-eds and cheeseburgers. Or perhaps he's woken up, figured things out. What if he's already kicked down the door, has seen the room is empty and knows his brother is never coming back...

The thin red line shimmers and then coalesces. It's still there. It's still stretching from his heart, through the door, down the passage, and as long as it's there, Sam has a way back. He has a way to win.

"Sam?"

He takes a deep breath.

"We gotta keep moving. You said so yourself."

Patrick's holding up. Except for the first several screams, which unnerved them both, he hasn't brought up Emily or Amber. Because Sam had laid it on the line and this kid, for better or for worse, is old enough to understand the stakes. He isn't necessarily perfectly calm, but he is holding it together more admirably than Sam had on that night when he'd been given a gun and a plan and couldn't follow through with it.

Maybe the reason Sam is getting so attached to this kid is because his pre-teen boy swagger reminds him so much of his brother at that age...

Sam looks up. Nods. Says nothing out loud because someone could be listening, maybe.

Patrick hesitates slightly.

"Sam, remember... just... just remember, those," he points to the bodies on the bed. "They're... they're not us anymore, okay? Remember that."

"Yeah," he agrees quietly, but it's not easy to just turn off that switch.

Because he still has to get Amber's body.

Her scream, calling for him endlessly, punctuates the torment of the moment.

The room that Amber died in, it turns out, is one of the closest to his. Patrick chose the route because they knew the longer they went around collecting kids' bodies the more they pushed their luck with some kind of nasty interference from either the boogeyman or one of the other restless spirits, so the closest bodies had to wait until last. Sam was proud of the kid, proud of them both, for being logical, careful, not just falling on their emotions to make sure they saved the people most important to them and risking everything. But Sam would have to at least grudgingly admit to himself that if Patrick hadn't backed this plan, he wasn't sure he'd have been able to stay logical-Amber was the one he had come for in the first place.

He finds her.

Pink nightgown, her small body curled around a worn teddy bear on top of a dusty coverlet in a girl's room. Some of the ancient toys had been clearly moved and played with before she died, and it is impossible to breathe easily with tears choking his throat.

Because that poor, tired, sick little girl without any friends had become this...

Some providence in her final resting position had covered her face, but her nightgown and sandy blonde hair is still evidence enough that this is the girl he met that day so long ago in a crowded cafeteria in Osseo, Wisconsin.

Her voice calls through the air, an eerie and disturbing background for the scene before him. She's pleading with Sam, screaming for help, and he feels the tears falling. He can't afford a eulogy right now-there's no time and he has no air to spare, but he'll make sure she gets one. He'll make damn sure of it when he has killed that scary bastard. When her soul is finally at rest.

When they have won.

So he swallows hard, slides his hands gently under the brittle frame, and lifts her into his arms as if there is still a fragile breath left in this body...

"Nooooooooo!"

Amber's voice.

And the air changes abruptly.

Cold.

Apparently the boogeyman, wherever it is, with whatever wounds it's still licking, has decided it's had enough. That Sam is not breaking. It might not know the plan, but it might be desperate, as desperate as Sam...

"Sam!"

Patrick obviously knows hide and seek is over too.

This is it.

Sam takes a deep breath and runs. Runs as fast as he can with his last precious bundle. He had collected nine bodies including hers and Brother Luciano's. Tragedy or not, guilty conscience or not, there's no time to get anyone else. And this will have to be enough because if Sam is trapped here, no one is ever leaving again.

"Hurry!"

Patrick is far ahead of him, but Sam can still hear his voice. Amber's screaming has stopped and the air is getting colder.

Tea time is over Sammy Sam. Recess is done. School is starting. The class misses you, Sammy Sam Sam. The class needs you...

Sam is swearing a blue streak in his head because he can't get enough air and he feels like he's on Jupiter. The pinpricks of light in his vision have returned, but the door to his room is close. It's right there. Behind him, he can hear, can feel, the corridor turning cold, crackling with ice.

He hits the door and practically falls forward into the room. There's no time to be gentle as he heaps Amber's body onto the bed with the others. Their pyre. Her ponytail holder and a some of her hair are safe on the other side already.

Sam is winded. His muscles are cramping and his vision is getting spotty. He has seconds. If he's lucky.

The bed catches quickly with the pack of matches Sam has in his pocket-it's so dry. Orange flames lick at the faded clothes, the hair, Amber's teddy bear. He can't stay to make sure it all catches because there's more to do.

He turns to the door, to the long loop of yo-yo string attached to the handle that runs up and over a nail above the lintel, and pulls the other half of his latch trap from the dresser top. The yo-yo string is soaked in the only damp Sam has in this airless, waterless wasteland of a house - his own saliva. It'll ensure it doesn't burn up when the fire gets going. The bottom of the string is tied around two bricks he had wedged out from the fireplace. The weight of the bricks turns the bedroom door into an automatic door-something that will close on its own, an essential part of the plan.

If it works.

The bodies of as many as he could physically rescue are all here, their only connection to this plane burning while the locks of hair that will give them a chance to piggyback his own escape are safely and secretly tucked away in Brother Luciano's pouch. Sam is fervently hanging onto his father's theory of ghost physics, upon which the actual success of their escape all hinges.

With a final deep breath, a clench of his fists, Sam finally scuffs the ring of blessed salt that circles the bed and which had been hiding the mountain of bodies and what he was doing to them.

Because he needs to draw the boogeyman to him now without fail, and he has to survive the next few minutes.

Sam is gasping for breath already, feeling nauseous. He has to hang onto himself, his plan. The boogeyman is going to get into his head, he knows it, but if he can't make saving children a priority over whatever the hell the boogeyman will show him, then he deserves to die in this place. He deserves it.

And that's what he tells himself as he opens the door to face the ice and the cold and the dread and his destiny.

"Sam!"

Why Patrick is trying to stick around, Sam can't fathom.

"Patrick, go! You know what to do!"

Now Patrick's only job is to find the spirits of the other kids, hide, and then follow him out.

Sam pulls his knife, the one weapon he still has, the thing that's saved him a least once now, and then he's thrown against the wall and his arm is pounded against it over and over and over and the cold comes bearing down on him, his hand goes numb, the knife slips from his grasp. He hears it skitter away before the avalanche descends over him. It's smothering but still somehow indescribably soft, almost gentle. He gasps, tries to push it away, but it's clinging and his chest is heavy and then some floodgate in his head opens.

There are voices.

Soft, feathery, sibilant, and they ride on a current of sound, a pairing of pure notes, and they sting somehow. They burrow in and Sam slowly begins to recognize this. He's heard it before maybe, a long time ago? And with the memory comes the fear.

He doesn't want to hear this. He doesn't want to know. Sammy doesn't want to know.

Sam doesn't know where his own thoughts begin and the boogeyman's voice ends, but he's trapped in this labyrinth and he can't stay here because he has something he needs to do and it's more important than whatever this is.

Get out of my head!

Once upon a time, Sammy. You know this story. You told me this story yourself. Once upon a time there were two brothers.

Stop

These two brothers were special because heaven and hell said so. Heaven and hell wanted them both to die...

No!

It was coming back to him now. Trapped in cold and darkness and the grotesque clownlike monster grin of teeth and happiness in murderous facets and fractions holding him out into a nothingness where the only things that existed were these voices and these truths.

I don't want to know!

I remember. I remember, Sammy. I remember. I remember part of the story. Little pieces your pieces. Pieces of Dean all ribbons and blood and emptiness...

Sam presses hands to his ears, but it can't drown out the sound. The sound of howling. Of anguish and pain and slick slaps of wet bloody flesh, bones breaking, tongues being pulled and ripped, slowly, from mouths where only weak, hollow animal noises crawl out.

And under all of it, a certainty. A plan. And everyone in the universe is in on it except Sam and Dean...

Sammy. Poor Sammy. You don't want to leave here. You don't want to go back. Everyone dies there. Everyone dies there Sam Sammy. You'll be happier when you stay. Everyone will be happier. We can listen together. I've been waiting...

And then the one corner of Sam's grown up rational self still trying to cling to any semblance of reality, of escape, starts to get it.

Why? Why do you want to hear Heaven and Hell so badly? Why? Why go through all of this? What do you get from it?

Laughter like broken glass shards grating together. Scraping down chalkboards. Sam reacts by trying to retreat in his mind, but the panic of it is filling up his head until it drowns out the breathy whispers and the guttural hollow whines.

Because, Sammy Sam... When I get Sam I get them all.

And Sam wants to understand, but he's suddenly bombarded by visions that travel at hyper speed-of broken cities and dying men and women and screams and black eyes and shadow wings and himself in gleaming white and Dean in gold armor and then everything everything being pulled back, sucked into a vortex, that ends in a yellow eye.

No. Not yellow. Silvery. Mercurial.

Like a mirror. Like the mirror he has right now.

Sam gasps. His eyes are open. His eyes are open and the boogeyman is here, swallowing his soul, and his legs are weak but he's up against the wall and this scary fucking clown with a face that is all negative space, stretching out to infinity except for eyes and teeth, is going to take away every choice Sam has left. And it's going to do it now because it has to know it only has one chance left.

Sam stops grappling with the bony white gloved hands that are around his neck. He stops struggling for air. He has one last thing. The only thing. His hand fumbles in Brother Luciano's pouch and he pulls it out with the greatest effort.

It doesn't hurt anymore, whatever the boogeyman is doing that's killing him. It doesn't hurt, and that somehow scares Sam more. Everything is going numb.

No more, Sammy. No more guns or knives or fighting or hating or hoping or fearing or crying or running. No more. No more...

No more-

Sam manages to grip the handle of the ancient tool, to bring it up, to slide the flat, shiny surface between his face and the boogeyman.

"Remember this?" Sam breathes as the hands suddenly release him. He staggers back against the wall, but he can't, he absolutely cannot drop this precious thing now.

The boogeyman backs up a foot but then is jolted to a standstill.

"Sarah Winchester had a house of hundreds of rooms... and only a couple of personal mirrors..."

Sam's voice is drawn tight by lack of air, but it's keeping him focused. Sensation is coming back to his body slowly. He needs it. Needs the strength, because he only has one chance at this.

"She never let the servants keep any either... and I didn't make the connection. It's because you said no mirrors, right? You told that medium... to tell her no mirrors in the house. That it would help keep the ghosts from finding her from the realm of the dead, but really, it was your self preservation. Brother Luciano found that out by accident, but didn't know why."

The creature is unmoving. Its hands have dropped, arms hanging limply from its side. The boogeyman's entire body begins to shutter in and out of existence, like a movie missing frames. And underneath the insanely horrible top-hatted clown guise, something else...

Something lithe and dark and ancient but familiar...

So much lore, mountains of lore, about mirrors were lodged into little Sammy's head from countless trips to the library: Mirrors as gateways to other worlds, other places. To the future and past. To the divine. Mirrors could cast a reflection of unseen things back to the wielder and make a soul vulnerable to all of those things...

Like the shiny, mirrored eyes of a boogeyman...

"I get it now. Planes walking... is easy for you... too easy... like it's a part of you. But turn two mirrors to face each other and the corridor of reflection is infinite, the planes it pulls you to are infinite... kinda... not fun times for you... is my guess."

Sam pushes himself up against the wall. Takes deep breaths. This is the point at which Brother Luciano had failed-he was old, weak to begin with, and he didn't have the strength to physically finish it. And the boogeyman is still every bit as strong and creepy and willing to get into Sam's head as soon as it can navigate itself out of the infinite plane loop. Sam is bruised, fighting for breath, for sensation, for footing.

But Sam has kids to save, and an old man who had inadvertently given the boogeyman almost everything it wanted. And himself. He has to save himself because if he doesn't, then Dean was right about too many things. And so was Dad.

And the heat at his side from his temporary room, so near, is blazing through the chill.

He stuffs the mirror back into the pouch and reaches out both hands. He grabs the shifting mass of his nemesis, and a second after its stunned connection with Luciano's mirror is severed, Sam throws it at the door to his room with absolutely everything he has. The air rushes from his lungs in a harsh roar he doesn't even recognize as his own.

The monster hits the door and is propelled through it into the inferno. And, thank God, the yo-yo string can still work his primitive trap. The bricks counterweight with force, the string pulls the door closed behind the boogeyman and Sam hears it latch.

And then.

The noise.

As if all of the demons of hell and every monster Sam has ever faced are behind that door, in the fire, and the howls are almost too much for Sam's sanity.

He doubles over. It hurts to move, to breathe. Getting to his feet feels impossible. His vision is cloudy, and that's the sense that's actually working the best at the moment. His fingers scrabble at the wall, trying to find purchase to get up, but it's so hard. Too hard!

---

Back in the real world

Now

A hail storm.

Rickety click-clacking against a windowsill and Dean had never seen golf ball sized hail before, but here it is. Crazy thing. It's May and a million ice chunks are bouncing off the asphalt in front of the motel like they're actually made of rubber.

"Holy crap, Sam. You gotta see this."

Dean turns around but Sam isn't there.

Sam's gone. Sam's left him.

Another harsh clack of hail hits the window and Dean jumps...

Dean jumps.

He's not in a motel, he's not 12-years-old-he's in the Impala and he is half slid in his seat and, Jesus, is that drool at the corner of his mouth? And then it all starts to come back to him.

Sam. Sam fucking drugged him. That little sonofabitch. When I get my hands on that kid I'm gonna...

Clack!

Dean startles at the concussion against the driver's side window. Light from a streetlamp somewhere gives him enough to see a woman, blond, scooping up a handful of gravel.

Oh hell no.

Dean opens the door, ready to punch some psycho bitch who throws rocks at an American classic, goddammit.

"Hey, hey lady! What the hell's your problem?"

The woman stands up straight, tilts her head at him incredulously and scoffs. "My problem? I'm not the amateur who's asleep on the goddamn job, big brother. Take a good look around, genius."

Dean's confused. Who the hell is this bitch and...

And then he does look. The Impala is the main event in a supernatural convention: it's situated in the middle of a ring of salt with weird beads and talismans hanging from the rear view mirror, the windshield wipers, laying on the hood.

"What the hell?"

"Why else do you think I'm ten feet away? It's practically ground zero."

Dean looks up at her again, this time really searching her face.

"Need a hint?" She supplies, "How about red Escort? Harrisburg? Buckets and buckets of holy water?"

The bitch's eyes go black.

"You!"

"Different meat suit, but yeah, me. Let's not shoot the messenger just yet, hot shot. You've got bigger problems. And you better do something, like, now."

She points behind Dean to the motel.

He's loathe to take his eyes off the hell bitch but...

And then he sees. And he understands.

"Oh, Jesus. Sam!"

Sam!

---

Sam's heart pounds. He opens his mouth and takes a deep breath. The tug against his chest is hard, unrelentingly taut, and he has no choice but to stand up to get some slack. But there's no slack. None.

The red thread is a scarlet red rope now. In spite of his fatigue, Sam stumbles forward because he doesn't have a choice. And thank God, because he needs this right now. This reminder that he's not done until he's out, until he's safe and everyone is safe and Dean can marathon punch him for this as long as he's out of here.

The screams behind him have become something completely unearthly, without a suitable human description, and every hair on Sam's body is standing straight up. But he's moving away from the room, from the heat, and towards the end.

A corridor to a staircase going up to a staircase going down. A corner and a corner and a corner and a closet that leads to another room and yet another set of stairs that now go up up up. And Sam's lost count of the rooms. He can barely see anything now, can scarcely breathe, but the tug in his chest is his compass and it points to Dean and the way out. It's giving his legs reason to move even if he feels like he's going to have a heart attack. Even if he's no longer able to form a rational thought. Pure instinct and this guide is all he has and all he needs.

He hits a barrier. A solid barrier. But he can't let this stop him because the red rope is pulling on him and it will pull his heart right out if he doesn't do something. So he pushes. He kicks, mindlessly, and then the barrier somehow gives way.

He falls through a pair of double doors, cheek to floor. The end is close. The wood at his nose smells like petroleum. He thinks he knows something about petroleum. That back in the day, people used to polish wood with petroleum oil...

Sam starts to giggle. To laugh. Because what the hell were those people thinking? Petroleum is so flammable. So flammable.

"Sam!"

It's not just one voice. It's a chorus. It's almost pretty because there are so many and they are small and not vicious or cold at all. They've followed him in.

He lifts his head. So hard to see, but it looks like a roomful of children now in something like an old observatory maybe? There's a big French window opening onto space, bleeding red into him, a life-giving artery.

And he gets it.

All these kids... these kids...

He gets to his feet. Arms around his legs. Amber...

He thinks he hears her say "I'm okay, he was tricking you" but it's swimming in a haze. All he knows is that before he passes out, he has to leap into that outer space.

Sam reaches out a hand, touches the coldness of eternity, and falls...

---

1993

Sam - 10

Dean - 14

Dean fell out of darkness and into a world that was comprised almost entirely of pain. Something was shaking his head by his hair and then his face was cold and wet and he gurgled on a shallow breath.

Coughing he opened his eyes.

And caught a fist to the face. Stars exploded, but he didn't black out.

Goddammit.

He was alive. Okay, he was alive, but he was in a chair and he couldn't move. His wrists were bound behind him, his ankles tight to the legs of the chair.

"Wake up, kid." The vamp tossed the empty glass of water into the cold fireplace next to him with a clash.

"Jesus... Christ... do we... have to have a conversation? Don't you ever... shut the fuck u-"

Another crack and Dean felt his lip split open.

"Damn, kid. You don't know when to quit."

Dean blinked up through one swollen lid. The vamp looked less like a reject from a low budget horror film now, but it still had no hair and its face still looked partially melted.

"Don't worry. You didn't miss anything good. Maybe five minutes. This would be pretty crappy repayment for such an adventurous night if you weren't awake for it, right?"

Dean wanted to feel bravado. Wanted to do the "laugh in the face of death" thing, but laughing in the face of death was a lot easier in theory, especially if he already didn't feel like complete shit.

"Whaddayou want?" He started, his words sounding funny with a quickly swelling lip. "I mean, you've fucking won already. Yay. You smacked down a 14-year-old kid. Throw... throw a friggin' party."

The vamp nods. "Oh, I will. I will." And now Dean could see that it was twirling the fireplace poker idly. "It's a special party."

Without any hesitation, it raised the poker like a baseball bat and swung it into Dean's right arm. The bone broke with a sickening crack, but Dean didn't hear it over the sound of his own scream.

Sonofabitch!

But he could no more successfully stop the sound of agony at that second than he could fly to the moon. And the tears were just going to come on top of everything else to add insult to injury.

Dean had to keep himself from hyperventilating through the anguish, but it wasn't easy and it didn't happen fast enough, and his body was just a fucking traitor all over.

"Sonofabitch."

Even that sounded far too small, too resigned.

"Aw. Is that all? Damn." The vamp's fake disappointment was like another slap in the face. "You know, all I can hear is the sound of your heart beating like a rabbit. All I can smell is your blood and how fucking scared you are right now. That's all. We're in a little world, just the two of us."

Dean felt his stomach turn. "Dude... you... you have serious issues."

"Yeah. My issues were with your dad. Like, once upon a time. And then I met the 'boy wonder' here, and, you know what? You have a point. He's probably not a guy I wanna tangle with if the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. At least, not on an empty stomach."

Dean's right arm was silently screaming, but he still had a stupid left arm, and he felt around the knot. If he had 60 seconds, maybe, he could get free, especially since his right wrist was a slippery bloody mess.

The vamp swung the poker right into his stomach.

Dean clenched up, but it was too late. He retched up some bile at the same time he lost all the air in his lungs.

"Hey, I'm complimenting you here. No polite little 'thank you?'"

Dean was officially over this fucking chatty-ass sadist.

"Get... bent," he gasped out, but only after several seconds.

So so so not cool to vomit on himself. And that thought was depressing. Because he had a feeling he was going to die young, but he always envisioned it would be something more dramatic, more heroic. Like the movies and TV shows that had babysat him most of his life, he hung onto the idea that he could go down in a blaze of glory.

Not broken, bloody, and covered in his own stomach juices. Or screaming like a baby. At least he could control one thing-there'd be no begging for his life. If he was going to die here-high likelihood- it wasn't going to be with him kowtowing to this B movie reject. And it didn't matter that no one was going to know the kind of end he made as long as he knew.

Of course, that was all depending on one important thing: He could not let himself be turned. Under any circumstances.

Dean looked up and tried for an expression that was defiant and badass, though with his eye and lip swollen and bloody, it probably wasn't having the best effect.

The vamp hunkered down to eye level.

"You know, at one point I thought we might be able to get along. But looks like you drank the hunter kool aid and it's all just black and white, isn't it?"

Seriously?

"I'm not... having this conversation with a blood-sucking parasite."

"See what I mean? It's exactly that attitude that's gonna be the death of you." The vamp used the unpleasant end of the poker to jab Dean in the chest, hard.

"I'd rather die than be a murderer."

Snorting, the vamp got closer. "Man, I've heard plenty about hunters. All fucking whack jobs who do some pretty shady shit. When was the last time you went to Sunday school, kid? Don't preach morality to me. You live to grow up, you'll be just the same, trust me."

"Awesome... Is this the part where you kill me then?"

Dean wanted to upchuck at the condescending pat to the face.

"You know, even after being shot and burned alive, I'd still be inclined to extend the 'eternal life' offer. After I, you know, beat and break the shit out of you, but I still do have Dear Ol' Dad to deal with and you've gone and used up the juice I pumped up on a few hours ago. So. Here's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna drain you dead, and then I'm gonna go down into the basement and drain the squirt down there, and then I'm gonna hulk out."

Dean twisted his arms harder, worked faster.

"Plenty of mojo to deal with your old man fast. It sucks that dad and I won't get to have a meaningful chat like this one, but I get that it's probably for the best. And, anyway, I'll have used his kids' blood to take him out, and that's got to count for some kind of low blow, right?"

"Go to hell," Dean gritted. Because he was fine with dying, but not Sam. Not Sammy.

"If it's any consolation, this is gonna be a new low for me. Killing kids like this. But you know who you can blame in the afterlife."

Dean's chest heaved. Now he was in full fight or flight mode. This was literally it.

"Fuck you," he spat.

"Kinda expected those would be your last words..."

And Dean watched the vamp's mouth open, a set of ridiculous teeth descend, and then it was on him.

His neck exploded with fiery pain and he cried out in spite of himself. The worst part was the fact that his heart clamored to the monster, felt like it was beating just for this fucking thing's edification. His entire being was being drawn into a tight ball at the center just so it could ebb away inside the bastard's mouth and some effect of the process was trying to force his brain to accept that he wanted this.

And then his hands were free. A second or two in, both his fists went to work. He pummeled the monster right under the ribs, completely ignoring the screaming pain in his broken arm, his messed up wrist, his neck. It helped to stop whatever disgusting effect the bleeding out was having on his brain-it reminded him that he had to keep fighting until the end. It didn't matter if he was doing damage to himself. It no longer mattered that going down with a fight was futile now, either. All the vamp had to do was say that Sam was next, and that was all. Useless or not, Dean had to beat against that fate. He had to rail against it because he couldn't punch god square in the face, and god deserved it if there was a god. For taking his mom. For turning his Dad into an obsessed alcoholic. For making an innocent kid, who watched Nova because he liked to learn about the world outside of the supernatural, die at the hands of a fucking vampire. At making him so impotent he couldn't stop it.

"Dean."

Dean thought he was hearing things as he weakened. That his brain had summoned up Sammy's voice as either a comfort or a curse in his last seconds...

But then the monster was off his neck. Gasping. Eyes wide. Looking one million kinds of surprised.

Dean instinctively pushed it off him because he wasn't going to look a gift horse...

And then there was a thunk. A sickening crunch, and the vamp's head was just gone. It spurted a brief geyser of blood all over him, and then it quietly toppled over. Just like that.

Stunned, jaw open, Dean looked up.

The impossible image of Sam was in front of him, machete in two hands, covered in blood, staring down at the monster corpse with the coldest eyes Dean had ever seen.

It was a full five seconds of silence. Stillness. The vision wouldn't go away, searing itself into Dean's brain for eternity.

He felt sick and it took him five seconds to understand why.

Because Sam was covered in blood, holding a machete, like it was the most natural thing in the world. And the expression in his green eyes was not the eyes of his kid brother.

"Sam?"

Silence.

"Sammy?"

Sam looked up at Dean.

And then he blinked.

A world of transformation happened in that one tiny action. All of the sudden Sam looked tiny and completely wrong in this whole scenario. His small hand opened and he started to actually see what his hand had done, was covered in blood. His eyes traveled so slowly to the corpse on the floor.

Dean couldn't handle it.

"Shit. Sam, gimmee the machete," Dean tried to keep his voice calm and level. He reached out and Sam handed it to him obediently as if he was dreaming.

Dean had his ankles free in two seconds and then he was stumbling, trying to find whatever reserves of energy he had, because Sam was here and had somehow just saved their lives but this wasn't a good scene. This was a bad bad scene, Jesus Christ, and Dean half picked Sam up with one arm and somehow managed to stay on his feet to the bathroom.

Sam wasn't catatonic, but he was quiet, his eyes looked around as Dean put him in the tub. Grabbed a towel. Felt like throwing up. All the while he called Sam's name softly, gently. It wasn't until Dean turned the shower on and the spray of water hit his brother that Sam seemed to come fully out of this weird trancelike state.

He gasped, shivered, and blinked several times.

"Dean?"

"Hey! Hey buddy. Hey... you in there?" Dean was crying now as he wiped blood from Sam's face.

And though he shivered, Sam was a good kid and wasn't complaining about the water, of being fussed over.

"Y-yeah. God. Dean are you okay? Holy crap!"

Dean had no idea what he looked like, but judging from Sam's worried face, probably not so good.

But he laughed. He laughed through his tears because this was Sam. This was his brother, and he was free. They were both finally free.

---

Now

It's dark. And confining. Something above him is keeping him from standing, but the world is rushing back into his lungs and Sam gasps it in like a drowning man only to cough on the dust. He tries to get up again and winces as something sharp digs into his skull.

Because he's under the bed.

He's under the bed!

A wooden frame and broken springs and... and air thank God! He reaches his hands forward, pushes with his legs, and his senses are coming back online. He hurts everywhere, his chest aches but he's clawing himself out and this old, musty carpet feels and smells so good to him.

It seems like forever before the ancient room births him anew. The bed. The candles. Everything is exactly the way it was hours ago. Minutes ago? He has lost all concept of time because in his head all he can think of is it's over... it's really... it's really over!

It's an effort because he's tired-so tired. And he aches in muscles he didn't think could ache, but he's upright and that's something.

Reverently he picks up Amber's ladybug hair holder and the pencil box. This pencil box that saved him, thank you, Dean. Sam's shaking. He can feel his face hot, wet, as he puts those precious things into the bag that has miraculously made the journey with him.

He carried a part of their physical remains over. The rest of them is gone, up in flames in that crazy house. If everything Dad said was right, then Brother Luciano's pouch now contains enough of an anchor to their spirits that it's their ticket out of the boogeyman's world back into their own. Theoretically, they'd finally get a chance to go where they were supposed to go, wherever it was. To be at peace. That was an important part of the plan and, for once, a plan actually worked.

A gentle whitish light begins to replace the dim candle.

One by one Sam sees faces. Small faces. Most he doesn't recognize, but a few he does: Emily, Patrick, Amber.

"It worked," Patrick's voice is soft. He's harder to see here now. On this plane, he's mostly a watery reflection of the boy who once called him stupid.

Amber's fingers close over Sam's hand.

"Happy birthday, Sam. This is the best birthday ever..."

Sam's going to break down. Literally, he just wants to fall over onto the bed and cry as unmanly as it is because he feels as if the lead weights around his conscience have fallen away. He's done it. Maybe broken the chains that have been shackling him for years, opened another path.

"Guys..." Sam's shaking his head, not sure what to say.

There's no warning.

Heat and chaos and sudden light and then an inferno with arms is in the room. Sam is borne to the ground feet away and it's so hot!

Mine!

Sam's not even remotely prepared. The boogeyman, if that's what this is, burning and black and shimmering, is dropping chunks of ash as it stands over him.

The First shall taste too... the First of the children shall have his day...

Sam scoots backwards out of sheer terror. Whatever the boogeyman was, it's somehow far scarier now. Even the voice in his head, once soft and taunting, has become something worse than demonic. From its flaming body tendrils have begun to catch the carpet, the bed, the room.

How do I kill this thing!

Sam reaches around blindly as it comes closer. He's on his back, on the floor in front of the closet. He gasps as its face, burning pitch, is inches from his own.

Sammy Sam... if the First cannot have you, then you will see oblivion... it is beautiful and empty and all alone. All alone...

Only the silvery shiny eyes are familiar. Not even a child's nightmare's could devise the true shape of the creature above him now. It's so horrible that Sam has to look away. It's not even a choice. This thing can't exist. And then a burning hand curls into a fist. It feels like every nerve in Sam's body is being collapsed, drawn together into a tight bright ball. He tries to breathe, to fight against the sensation of his soul being ripped from his body, but it's impossible. Despite the blazing inferno, his vision begins to go dark.

He's vaguely aware of children calling his name. Screaming for him.

"Sam! Fight him! You have to!"

That's Amber.

But how... how? How to kill it? HOW?

Sam's last gambit. His arm strikes out. If he could get to the mirror, maybe...

But then his hand closes on something different. Wood and metal and familiar: The shotgun he had dropped once upon a time when the boogeyman had dragged him under the bed. There was exactly one round left.

And now, as he starts to feel unbearably light, uncomfortably small, he hears a voice from his past.

"Face it down first. Aim for the eyes. Don't look away."

Dad. You knew...!

Sam blinks. It hurts. Any second he's going to lose all sensation.

"Look at me, you fucking monster!"

And suddenly he can see it. He can see everything in a way he shouldn't be able to see-light in darkness, sounds, voices, heaven and hell and...

And those two shiny eyes that are going to eat his soul.

He pulls the trigger.

In slow motion, the mirrored orbs shatter into a million pieces. The blackness shrouded in flames falls back onto the bed and disintegrates with the heavy smoke. Sam goes from feeling unbearably light to unbearably heavy. Despite the calls of the children to get up, he can't. He just can't and that's all he knows.

---

Dean kicks down the door. Goddammit. He throws an arm up across his mouth because 10 seconds ago Osseo was quiet and now there's so much smoke he can barely see a foot in front of him.

"Sam? Sammy!"

The bed is completely engulfed. He can see enough to know that the bright orange blaze and its heat are going to make things tricky. The carpet has caught in several place and flames are racing up the walls.

"Sam!" It's punctuated by coughs. Please, god, let Sam not be on that goddamn bed. Please god, let me not be too late!

And then he hears the most unbelievable sound: A little girl's voice.

"Over here!"

And as he pushes through the wall of smoke he see his little brother, shotgun in hand, unconscious on the floor. Just unconscious he tells himself. And when he shouts Sam's name again, grabs him by the shoulders and starts to haul him up, Sam does start to kind of move, even if it's just barely.

"Dean."

So quiet, but he can hear it.

"Cover your mouth, goddammit, and help me!" He's straining to keep his footing and half drag Sam at the same time, but then Sam starts following directions, thank you, god and they're moving. Slowly. Too slowly. But they hit the door and they're both still alive and no one is on fire.

"Jesus, Sam. What the hell is it with you and burning buildings?" He helps Sam over the hood of the Impala where he's coughing enough to bring up one and half lungs, but he's gesturing, trying to talk, making a push back motion with his hand.

"What? What! Jesus, take a breath!" He grabs Sam's shirt front and pulls him up.

Sam gasps out. "Gotta... get back. Molotov..."

"What?"

But the word "molotov" and a burning building behind him are enough. He pulls Sam again and they both haul ass just as an explosion behind them shatters the roof of the building sending fiery debris down on the car and the parking lot. Dean flips up the back of his coat and then yanks it off, beating a flaming piece of roofing off Sam's back at the same time.

The kid has the decency to start breathing normally. Dean looks into his brother's eyes, sees Sam there, really there, and grabs his shoulder, hard. Grounding them both.

As one, they both turn to watch this piece of their history go up in smoke.

"Dean."

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

Dean scoffs. This is so much beyond a sorry.

"You aren't yet, but you will be. Did you at least kill it?"

Sam smiles. It's a pained smile. Weak, but there. And now Dean can finally breathe.

"Yeah. It's dead."

"Of course it is. Yeah. Of course it's dead. How do you feel?"

"Honestly?"

"Yeah."

"I feel like I'm gonna pass out in two."

Dean opens his mouth to say something sarcastic when his eyes are drawn back to the motel front. Figures are emerging. Children?

No, ghosts of children.

"Sam?" It's Dean's warning voice.

"It's okay, Dean. It's okay."

And Dean can guess from Sam's dewy eyes that these must be the kids the boogeyman stole. And somehow they're back.

That little girl... she's definitely familiar.

"Sam. These men and ladies in suits said we can go. They said we can go with them now." She's smiling. The girl from Sam's closet, the haunter. She's actually a cute kid as kids go. Far less creepy now, maybe.

Suits? Maybe Reapers?

Sam's nodding. He's full on crying, and Dean's not going to say anything just because.

"Yeah. It's okay. It's okay to go with them. If you're ready."

She nods. They all nod.

"Hey, Sam."

This is from a blond-haired boy.

"Hey, Patrick."

"I take it back. You're not stupid. Not even for a grownup. So, thanks."

"Couldn't have done it without you, man," Sam's trying to laugh through his tears. "You're pretty much the hero here."

The kid looks sheepish. "Well, it's nice to be able to be one before I go. I get it. I get why you do this stuff."

The girl in the pink nightgown raises her hand. "Bye, Sam. We love you, okay? You're the best!"

Sam holds up a hand, and then the small faces turn into stars of light and vanish. Dean swallows a mixture of pride and jealousy. Because he missed the whole damn thing and these kids... But, yeah, you don't see something like that everyday.

Sam suddenly doubles over.

"Whoa whoa whoa," Dean grabs him, but it's just Sam bawling now. Like, full on messy-faced tears and gasps for air. "Come on, Sam. Jesus."

"Dean. S..sorry, I just..."

"Yeah, yeah. Okay. Christ. It's okay, man. I get it. Happily ever afters never come along in this job. Just... come on man, have some pride. Somebody might drive by."

Dean looks at the empty road and does realize he's standing in front of a legit burning building. The chances of the cops arriving first are pretty high, and he and Sam should be long gone by then.

"Okay, let's get out of here. And do me a favor, cry your face into your hoodie. Don't want your man-tears all over my upholstery. And pray that little explosion didn't mess up Baby's paint job."

---

From beyond the halo of the streetlamp, in the shadows, the blond demon uncrosses her arms and turns around with a smile.

She knew he'd make it back. There wasn't a doubt, at least in her mind, that Sam Winchester would be escaping this one. Just something about the kid.

The two demon bozos behind her aren't nearly as amused.

"That was too close."

She scowls. "Please, you would've run out there all fire and brimstone and then Dean Winchester would've been wasting his time trying to deal with you. Never send an asshole to do a lady's work."

The other demon scoffs and calls her a "whore" under his breath. And then louder. "I can't believe someone let you out so fast, Ruby. But, whatever. Monumental suck-ups don't live forever."

Ruby grins and slips a hand inside her leather jacket.

Seconds later she wipes the blood off her blade and steps over their useless corpses.

"Sorry boys, didn't you get the memo? You were just extras. The real show is just starting..."

She smiles and disappears into the night.

(to be concluded...)