I'm back! I hope you all had a great weekend, and what better way to end it than with a new update? Here's chapter 12, with some complications and some more character interactions that I think were necessary. Enjoy!

Chapter 12

It circled the Bunker, frustrated. It was in danger of losing the guide, as he was about to find a way to leave the spirit world. The accident of the young Man of Letters had not worked, either. And now it sensed that they were about to discover a way to put a stop to it and its two brothers for good. And that had not been part of the plan.

Still, it had many weapons. It could not enter the Bunker. It could not reach the ones inside. But that did not mean they were completely untouchable. No, it still knew how to instill terror in their hearts – make them waste time. It could still turn things to its own advantage – if it tried hard enough.

xxxXXXXxxx

Dean had gone to check on Sandburg and Ellison once more. Ellison was still deep in meditation. Blair was wearing a frown on his face, mumbling something hard to understand. Dean frowned. Ellison had told him to try to pull Blair back to the land of the living if things started to look bad. Did this qualify?

"Sam?" he called. "Maybe you should come in here."

He did not have time to hear Sam's answer when the lights in the Bunker went out, plunging him in darkness.

Dean thought he could smell something acrid – like the traces of an electric fire.

"What the hell?" he muttered. "Sam!"

He could hear nothing from Sam.

xxxXXXxxxx

This was his time, Blair thought. The moment he needed to prove he had it in him to be Jim's shaman. To show once and for all that he was useful. He was the one who needed to get the two of them out. He took a deep breath and noticed his hands were shaking.

"Sandburg, stop overthinking," Jim told him, and his tone was firm but kind. "The answers are there in your mind. You just need to look carefully."

Blair turned to stare at Jim, feeling a brief tug of surprised amusement at the words.

"That sounds like something I'd say, not you."

Jim shrugged easily.

"What can I say, Chief? I listen."

Blair snorted.

"OK, who are you and what have you done to Jim Ellison?"

He realized maybe that was not the right joke given the circumstances, as Jim might take it the wrong way. He shrugged easily, dismissing the thought.

"I'll try to clear my mind. It might help."

Even though that was the advice Blair usually gave to people, Jim especially, he knew it was not something easy to do. His own mind always felt filled with clutter, one thought after another fighting for his attention. He knew he was usually one unwanted thought away from an anxiety attack, which was why it took great effort for him to actually be calm.

Still, he could not afford mishaps now. Something was telling him time was of the essence. They had to go back.

Blair turned on the spot. Picking a direction and walking a random did not seem like a right idea. After all, he had already been doing that when he had run into Lash. And he had absolutely no desire to see him again.

Then his eyes fell on the two spirit animals. They were both there. And there had to be a reason why they had not left. He beckoned them to come closer.

"You know the way," he told them. "Come show it to me."

The wolf and the panther both approached him. Blair reached out for the wolf first. Stroking its grey fur felt like a strange, giddying experience. It was almost as if he was reconnecting with himself.

Then he turned to the panther. Apart from that time he had been dead, Blair had never seen the panther before. It looked intimidating and dangerous – a killer through and through. But that was what someone would say of Jim as well, if they only saw him through superficial eyes. Blair could see the softness in the panther's eyes and knew he could trust it as much as he trusted Jim. He reached out and stroked the dark head. The panther made no move to harm him. Blair smiled.

"Take us back," he said. "Show me the way back."

The world around him was disintegrating. It did not hurt this time. In fact, Blair felt strangely exhilarated by the process. He turned to grin at Jim.

"We're going back," he said.

He could barely see Jim's face anymore, but he was not worried. He knew that when he would be brought back to the real world, Jim would be right beside him.

Blair felt the forest dissolving before his eyes. Everything was becoming nebulous, like a dream. Suddenly, he was not standing anymore, but lying in a hard bed. He opened his eyes to total darkness.

xxxXXXxxx

Sam had been sitting at the table, his head in his hands. Now that Dean wasn't there, he could admit to himself just how crappy he was feeling. The world was fading in and out, and his chest hurt, whether from the bruised ribs (or the broken one which he had accidentally-on- purpose neglected to mention to Dean), or whatever was happening to him from the Trials, it was hard to tell anymore. A good night's sleep would probably do wonders, but until the business with the boxes was fixed, there was no way this was in the cards. And then there would probably come another crisis, keeping him awake. And another. And another.

Sam bit back a groan. He was tired. Not simply physically exhausted, but completely worn out inside and out. It was becoming increasingly harder to find a reason for all of this, even with Dean by his side. He could not tell this to Dean. His brother would take it the wrong way, take it personally or think it was the normal quiet life Sam was missing. It wasn't. Not really. The type of rest he was longing for was not going to be achieved simply by quitting hunting alone. At times, Sam wanted to quit life. And this was definitely not something he could tell Dean.

Sam bit his lips, annoyed with his train of thought, but knowing the truth of it. And it was not even as bad as it sounded. It was not as if he wanted to take matters into his own hands, or as if he was excessively reckless during Hunts, not caring if he made it out alive or not. No, that had usually been Dean's M.O. whenever he was upset. But an opportunity like the Trials was something fair, something that would have offered Sam the chance to die with honor – a sacrifice for the good of the entire world. What more could he ask for?

Dean would have argued that Sam had done that already. He had thrown himself into the Cage with the devil himself, what more could he want? He had atoned for his sins, real and imagined, times a hundred. But Sam did not see it that way, and in the two years since he had been out of the Cage, he had done many more awful things – such as abandoning Dean to Purgatory, and if Dean did not think that was worthy of making amends, Sam did.

His thoughts were interrupted by Dean calling his name. Sam flinched, a brief feeling of guilt taking hold of him, as if afraid Dean had read his mind and was now calling him to task. Then he realized Dean was calling from Blair's room, so he probably needed his help there.

"Yeah, I'm coming," he said.

He used the table to push himself to his feet, hoping he would not fall flat on his face the moment he let it go. He took several steps towards the corridor when the lights went out.

"Dean!" he shouted, feeling as if the darkness was about to swallow him completely.

xxxXXXxxx

Dean turned on the spot. The momentary darkness had disoriented him, taking him by surprise, but he was beginning to recover now. He was a Hunter, after all, he knew the importance of relying on more than one sense. And he had never felt so grateful as he did now for John Winchester's grueling but necessary exercises, such as the one where Dean had to find his way back to the motel from the forest nearby blindfolded. Well, that had been an almost failure as he recalled now. Someone – a nurse returning home from work – had caught sight of him several times and had called CPS on the strange family of three living in the rundown motel. John had not hesitated to show his son just how disappointed he was.

"This would not have happened if you had realized from the start you were being watched," John had reproved.

Dean had scoffed. Twelve-year-old him had sometimes tended to speak way before he had time to assess the situation.

"How could I? I was blind."

Dean of course had gotten a reprimand about speaking out of turn. Then John had proceeded to lecture him on how he was never supposed to let any kind of disadvantage incapacitate him. If he was hurt, he was supposed to pull through the pain. If he was scared, he was supposed to use the fear against his adversary instead of against himself. And if, through some accident or curse, he lost one of his senses, he was supposed to learn to do without it and focus on the other four to navigate his surroundings.

Maybe it was not knowledge a twelve year old should have had. But Dean had appreciated the lesson and the reprimand and had done his best to follow John's teachings. Sam had been different. When his turn had come to learn all this, he had scowled and rolled his eyes and given John – and, by extension, Dean as well – as much of a hard time as possible.

"All of this – it's barbaric," he had complained to Dean. "It's not normal."

"We're not normal," Dean had pointed out testily. "And we shouldn't be."

Sam had glared at him.

"Of course. For some reason losing our mother young means we also get to be punished by having everything else taken from us: home, safety, stability. It's just fleabag motels and monster guts."

Dean had not spoken to Sam for a week after that. It was only years later that he was able to concede that Sam had a point, and that maybe they should not have known all this at such a young age, and it was not fair that they had been chosen to fix the world time and again and sacrifice themselves and each other for people who did not even know that they were the ones who kept everything from falling apart.

Still, now that he found himself in a suddenly dark bunker, Dean was glad of John's teachings. They might have been tough, but at least they gave him and Sam enough of an advantage to actually survive the life.

Dean stood still, listening attentively. He could hear footsteps in the corridor. Sam, probably, and he was walking rather uncertainly. He probably found it harder to focus after the knock to his head.

A hand on his shoulder had him jumping, and he swung round, hands already searching for the figure's throat to incapacitate the intruder. His hands were caught in a firm hurt.

"Whoa," hissed a familiar voice. "Let's not kill each other just yet, Winchester."

Dean let his hands drop.

"Ellison."

He was unnerved by how effectively Ellison had snuck up on him. Purgatory had honed his instincts and had turned everything into a threat. For someone to take him unawares like that, they had to be scarily good. Dean frowned in Ellison's direction.

"Can you actually see?"

Ellison nodded.

"Yeah, it takes a bit of an effort, but even without it, I can, more or less, see."

From inside the room, there came a bang and a curse.

"Stay where you are a bit, Chief," Jim said tightly. "We seem to be having a small setback."

"I'd say," Blair replied. "Did you guys forget to pay the electric bill or something?"

Dean huffed.

"Actually it's about sixty years overdue."

"Oh well, that explains it," Blair said.

"Good to see you're both awake," Dean commented. "Now let me get to Sam, so we can fix whatever mess you got us into."

He ignored Blair's indignant "hey!" and headed down the corridor towards the library.

"Sam?" he asked.

He heard a sharp gasp.

"Dean?"

Dean frowned. The voice sounded shaky and uncertain. As if Sam was unsure of where he was. Dean was familiar with that tone, had heard it quite a few times when Castiel had broken Sam's Wall and Sam had been unable to distinguish memories from current reality. Not that Dean was surprised. With the hit to the head and the sudden darkness, Sam would have more difficulty than he usually did keeping himself in the present.

What Dean was sure Sam did not need was an audience to his breakdown. If Dean was to deal with whatever was bothering Sam, he would have to do it on his own.

"Hey guys," he called to Jim and Blair. "Hang where you are for a bit, yeah? And…uhh...no eavesdropping."

He thought he could hear Jim's irritated "Excuse me?" as well as Blair saying something about tact, but he ignored them. As always in such situations, he was only focused on Sam.

"Hey, Sammy," he said, "I'm coming your way a bit."

Sam did not respond, but Dean thought he could hear a sharp gasp, whether approval or denial, he could not tell. It did not matter. Even if Sam did not want him there, he would know Dean was who he said he was because Dean would always ignore Sam's requests to stay away when he was hurt or otherwise in distress.

Finally, he was in the library. None of the lights were working, but Dean located a flashlight and tried to switch it on. Nothing happened. He frowned. Just as he suspected, this was not a simple power cut. This was supernatural interference.

Sam was standing close to the table. Dean could barely make out his shape, hunched over and hesitant. He felt a stab of fury at the world that had done this to Sam, because in Dean's opinion Sam should have been standing tall and proud and confident. And Dean would have given anything to unbreak the cracks that the hard years of hunting had given his little brother.

Dean cleared his throat. He did not reach out to touch Sam yet. Even in his distressed state, Sam was a Hunter through and through. His instincts would have been going haywire, and he would most certainly lash out if he was caught unawares.

"How are we doing, Sammy?" he asked.

Dean rarely used that tone of voice, even with Sam. He had used it more often when Sam had been a child, plagued by nightmares or by doubts or by whatever trauma the most recent hunt had caused him. As Sam grew up, he had seemed to appreciate the tone less and less, and Dean had learned to temper the gentleness and used it only in extreme cases.

After Sam's stint in the Cage and, especially after his Wall had fallen, Sam had needed that kind of reassurance again and, after the initial embarrassment, he had seemed to accept the need, and Dean's comfort along with it. The tone of voice meant complete safety, it meant that no one was there but Dean, and Dean would not let anything happen to Sam.

"Sammy?" he repeated.

His voice was hoarse, out of practice as he was with such displays of emotion. An aftereffect of Purgatory was yet another layer to keep people out, even Sam, or especially Sam, since at times he still resented Sam not looking for him (although he also admitted in the back of his mind that he would have been even more angry if Sam had looked for him and had done something stupid to himself or to the world in the process).

Still, it was like riding a bike for Dean. Taking care of Sam was more instinct than anything, it was a state of being – when he had been living with Lisa and Ben, and he had let that slip, Lisa had called it messed up, and Dean had been closed off for a few days, until she had finally admitted that she could not understand and should not have judged.

He heard Sam draw in a sharp breath.

"Dean, what's happening?" he asked shakily.

Sam did not sound like himself, he sounded younger, and Dean's heart clenched. He had to find a way to reach him. He had to remind Sam that he was strong and could be in charge of anything if he wanted to.

"Look, I know it's a little dark right now," he said, keeping his tone patient. "But we're just having a bit of a setback, that's all."

He could hear the wheels turning in Sam's head as he mulled over the words.

"Setback?" Sam finally repeated.

Dean nodded firmly, even though he knew Sam couldn't see him.

"Yeah. I'll explain what I think happened in a bit, but first – how are you doing, Sam? Give me some damage control?"

He was close enough to touch now, but still gave Sam space until he could determine exactly what it was that Sam needed from him.

Sam was silent for a while. When he spoke, he sounded more confident than before.

"Yeah, I…I'm a bit confused."

Dean drew closer.

"Alright," he said, still keeping his cool, years of practice of wearing a façade of confidence when he did not feel it taking over. "Alright, that's fine. That's because you took a bump to the head. Remember that? The accident?"

He could feel Sam's tension in the silences between his questions.

"I remember," Sam finally said, sounding less breathless than before. "Some demon, right?" Then more alarmed: "Dean, I crashed your car."

Dean snorted.

"Yeah, and I'll be taking it out of your hide soon. But not yet. So, your noggin's a bit scrambled, what else? Tell me what's going through your mind?"

Sam took a deep breath. He moved closer to Dean, probably without realizing, and Dean quickly put a hand on his shoulder. He felt the tension there melt.

"It got dark all of a sudden and I was a bit…disoriented," Sam finally said. "I didn't know where I was for a while."

Dean was glad it was dark and Sam could not see the look on his face, because he had always known to read between the lines when Sam was involved. Sam had thought he was back in the Cage. After the accident, and with the constant pain he had to be in from the First Trial, his control was slipping at times. He tightened his hand around Sam's shoulder.

"What about now?" he asked gruffly. "Do you know where you are?"

"Yeah," Sam said quickly. "Yeah, I do."

Dean was not going to leave it at that, though. He needed Sam to verbalize it. Sam needed it too.

"Where are you, Sam?" he insisted.

The hesitation and confusion were less brief this time.

"The Bunker," Sam answered.

Dean clapped him on the shoulder.

"That's right," he said confidently. "The Bunker, Sam. Nowhere else."

Sam huffed a relieved breath.

"Why are the lights out, Dean?" he asked.

Dean could finally breathe himself. This was no longer Sam who had no idea where he was and feared the worst. This was Sam who had encountered a problem and wanted to solve it.

"I suspect it's the fox demon messing with us. Flashlights don't work either."

Sam hummed.

"Candles might. We'll need them anyway."

Dean frowned at the abrupt change in tone.

"Why? Planning a romantic dinner with Sandburg?"

Apparently, Sam did not need to see in the dark to whack him over the head.

"We need to summon a demon," Sam announced abruptly.

Dean's good mood evaporated.

"Excuse you? I know you've hit your head, but I didn't think it was brain damage level just yet."

Sam huffed.

"It's what Cas told me. There's a demon guarding the last box. And we need to summon him."

And Dean had been sure this day could not get any worse.

xxxXXXxxxx

Sam decided to postpone the news that Castiel had given him until they fixed the lights. According to him, a simple cleansing ritual would suffice.

"Simple cleansing ritual?" Jim asked, rolling his eyes. "Dare I ask what a complicated one entails?"

"Lots of blood and probably a few ingredients you didn't even know existed," Dean retorted bluntly. "And reciting something in a dead language ten times backwards and forwards."

"What happens if you don't have all the ingredients?" Blair wanted to know. "Or if you use the wrong words?"

"You die," Dean deadpanned. "Usually in a very unpleasant manner."

Blair shuddered.

"So," he began, clearing his throat, "You guys do know what you're doing, right? Right?"

"Well," Dean drawled. "Sam knows what he's doing. He's the expert. I never paid much attention in my purification 101 classes."

Sam huffed. Dean was obviously enjoying unsettling Blair a little too much.

"Don't worry," he said. "It's only a fairly straightforward ritual – should be over in a few minutes. The Bunker has wards of its own, so the demon can't do much damage anyway. We'll just have to strengthen them after we purify the place and get the lights back on."

Blair nodded.

"So, if it can't do much damage, why switch off the lights at all?"

Sam shrugged.

"To keep us off balance? To get us to leave the Bunker? We'd be vulnerable out in the open, and it knows that. Maybe it thinks that if it rattles us enough…"

"Of course," Blair said thoughtfully. "Psychological warfare. Smart."

Dean rolled his eyes.

"Are you seriously admiring the tactics of a demon?" he asked disbelievingly.

Blair shrugged helplessly.

"Hey, what can I say, man? I'm a scientist. I can't help it if I find how others think fascinating. And a while ago I didn't even know demons existed. To be given an insight into how they think…"

Dean snorted.

"And people say I need therapy."

"You'd be surprised at what Sandburg finds fascinating," Jim grumbled. "Personally, I find the whole situation annoying and wish it was over already. So, about those lights…"

Sam turned to Blair.

"How about you help me with the set-up for the ritual?"

Blair was bouncing on his feet.

"Oh, yes, man, sure. Hey, maybe you could teach me how to do one myself…"

Ellison would probably think he was corrupting Blair. Still, the thought was amusing, he would have to admit that. Sam nodded.

"Sure, come on."

He took a candle and led Blair to one of their supply rooms.

"Dean keeps teasing me about being hyperorganized," he confessed. "But it pays off in times like these. Everything has its place – and I know exactly where to find it."

"Do you do cleansing rituals often?" Blair wanted to know.

Sam thought back to the simpler hunts he and Dean would take in the past. Curses and misguided spirits and the accidental release of something that did not even want to be out in the open in the first place. That had been so long ago. In a time he could barely remember.

"Not anymore," he finally said.

Not since Hell and Lucifer, and all the Apocalypses. It felt as if they barely had time for small hunts these days. Sam missed the past. It had all been so much clearer cut back then, and he had not even been able to realize it.

"Let me show you what we need."

He did not want to think about the past, about then versus now, about how he and Dean had changed, both as individuals and in how they dealt with each other.

Sam gathered the ingredients needed – mostly plants, simple cleansing rituals were pretty basic and anyone could do them.

"This seems like something my mom would do," Blair said. "She uses sage a lot."

"Sage is good for purification," Sam said. "Lavender, too. A friend of ours recommended dried linden flowers for an added effect. Unfortunately, we're out."

Bobby would have given them a piece of his mind if he had known they had allowed their supplies to run out without replacing them. The thought of Bobby only increased Sam's melancholy. He had no idea why he was so down in the first place. He had never been overly-cheerful – the amount of times Dean called him a moody princess and made quips involving PMS and midol was not worth mentioning. But he had rarely felt so despondent. He shrugged. It was probably the concussion.

"We've got what we need," he said, more to take his mind off things. "Let's go."

It turned out that Ellison was allergic to sage and lavender, at least he seemed to be, judging by the amount of sneezing he was doing when Sam set fire to the herbs. Dean was sniggering. Sam ignored the both of them and concentrated on the ritual.

He said the required words three times and sprinkled burnt sage in front of the Bunker door. He also painted a protection sign, even though he knew the place was already warded. If he could, he would have strengthened it with a blood sigil, but he knew Dean would never have agreed to Sam donating blood after today's accident.

For a moment, he was afraid nothing would happen. Then the lights started flashing on and off in quick succession.

"Is it supposed to be doing that?" Jim asked.

He did not look well, the rapid interplay of light and dark probably playing havoc on his heightened senses.

"It depends," Sam said. "Sometimes nothing happens. Sometimes it gets like this. It's different every time."

He was not going to mention the cleansing ritual he had performed in his own childhood home, when he had been almost choked to death by an electric cord.

The flashing continued for a few minutes. Then the lights switched on and stayed on. All except the one above the entrance that exploded into hundreds of shards. Sam pushed Blair out of the blast zone, narrowly missing being hit himself.

"You guys good over there?" Dean asked when it was all over.

Sam noticed that Blair was positively vibrating, whether from nerves or excitement, it was hard to tell. Still, they were both fine. From outside the Bunker, a howl was heard. It sounded like the cry of a fox, only magnified several times. Sam could sense the fury directed at them in that cry.

"You could say the demon's pissed," he commented.

I plan on having the confrontation with Gwydion next chapter (whether it will be Sam retrieving the box from him or Dean remains to be seen, or what the consequences of that will be…you know me after all).

Now I suppose it would be a bad time to mention that there won't be an update next Sunday, or the one after that, as I'm taking my yearly camping trip. So Chapter 13 will be posted on the first Sunday of September (3rd September). I know, I know, I'm sorry. But at least I did not leave you with a horrible climax this time. And I always come up with new story ideas on my camping trips, so it's not all wasted ;)

Thanks for all following this story, and especially those who've reviewed it. It's always nice to hear your thoughts :)