For Your Own Good

Summary: "Don't worry, Dean. I'll be a good little soldier and do everything Dad says. Promise." Sam doesn't know how right he is.

Sam is sixteen. Dean is twenty.

A/N: You all are awesome. Dean's cast looks so pretty!

Chapter Two

The house is creepy. Really creepy. Not all haunted houses are. A lot of them are stupidly normal. Boring beige houses with cute porches and wind chimes and kids toys in the yard. The kind of houses Sam always wanted to grow up in, minus the ghosts.

Not this house.

Sitting on the outskirts of town, where the only light is the moon and the only road is dirt, the house is barely more than a shack. The roof droops with rot and the floorboards sag and shriek beneath their feet. The shadows have an oily look to them, lurking in the corners, avoiding the flashlight beams. The EMF meter in Sam's hand stays dark and silent but there is an ominous feeling crawling up his spine. Like there's something looming over him, waiting to pounce the moment he lets down his guard.

John's hand drops onto Sam's shoulder. Sam's heart jumps into his throat.

"Look," John says. His flashlight is pointed at something in the back room, against the far wall. Some leftover bit of furniture. A table, cluttered with some sort of mess. Probably beer bottles and cigarette butts. Someone's trash.

The air tastes like chemicals. Like spray-paint. Maybe some kids have been vandalizing the place.

Sam creeps forward, through the slumping doorway. Silently obedient, just like he promised Dean. He glances down at the EMF meter, frowning at the lack of reaction. Maybe this case is a dud.

Then the beam of Sam's flashlight lands on the jumble of items spread across the tabletop and he pulls up short.

Stalactites of wax stretch towards the floor, the stubs of melted candles standing sentry in each corner. There's a small pile of little white bones – probably cat or rabbit – and a bundle of herbs set beside a shallow brass bowl. The smell of spray-paint is stronger here, hanging heavy in the stagnant air. Sam moves his flashlight beam around the room, searching for the source.

He finds it at his feet.

The flashlight beam reveals a red circle painted on the floor in the middle of the room. It's decorated with a series of strange swirling symbols, undoubtedly magical, and Sam is standing right in the center of it.

"Actus," John says, before Sam can step away.

The circle and the symbols glow. A feeling like warm water rushes over Sam's feet, rising up his ankles, thighs, through his stomach and chest, over his head. Panic sweeps thought aside. He can't breathe. His lungs are frozen. He is frozen. He can't breathe. Can't breathe can't breathe can't breathe -

The wave recedes. It washes back down his body in reverse. Sam sucks in a desperate lungful of air and the flashlight and EMF meter drop from his startled hands before he can remember how to grip things. He staggers sideways, stumbling on suddenly unsteady legs. He almost falls but he reaches the curving line of glowing red paint and, rather than crossing it, hits an invisible wall.

The flashlight rolls away across the room and the EMF meter has skittered across the paint-line but Sam is trapped. His hands push against air that feels solid.

"Dad!" he gasps, alarmed, an automatic plea for help falling from his lips, even as his brain begins to process the sudden turn of events. John said something. Something that made the circle glow. And now Sam is trapped.

"It's okay," John says. "There's no ghost."

"What?" Sam's mouth is dry. They're meant to be here for a ghost. John said that this was a haunting. "What do you mean? What's happening?"

John strides across the room, over to the table – altar, Sam's brain supplies – without looking at Sam or answering his questions.

"What are you doing?" Sam demands. "Dad!"

He presses hard against the solid air, palms flattening. He's reminded, ridiculously, of mimes and their invisible boxes.

"It's okay," John says again. He isn't surprised, Sam realises. Not by the altar or the circle or the lack of a ghost. He isn't surprised by any of it. John knew that this was here.

John set this up.

John set Sam up.

At the altar, John scoops up the pile of bones and drops them into the bowl. They make a hollow clatter that reverberates ominously around the room.

"Wait." Confusion morphs into fear and it bleeds into Sam's tone. Witchcraft isn't something to mess around with. It's dangerous. "Dad, wait. You don't have to do this."

He has no idea what 'this' is. John still won't look at him. Is this a test? A lesson of some sort? John's always doing things like dropping him and Dean off in the middle of forests so they can learn to navigate, or tying their hands together so they can practice getting free. Is Sam supposed to escape the circle? He doesn't know how. Usually there's some warning before John pulls something like this, some sort of instruction on how to pull it off.

John speaks but not to Sam. His voice rings out in a deep booming timbre, speaking in a lyrical language that Sam doesn't understand.

Blood rushes in Sam's ears, a sudden roar of panic. He spins in a circle, his hands searching for a gap in the barrier, for a way out, but everywhere he touches pushes back.

The candles on the altar spring to life, flames bursting from their wicks.

"Dad!" His voice rises, high-pitched and frightened Sam's hands curl into fists and he slams them frantically against the invisible wall, as if he can beat it down. His blows make no noise. Horror rises in Sam's throat like vomit.

What if this is a punishment?

"Dad, stop! Stop! I'm sorry! Please, stop!"

He doesn't know what he's apologizing for but every strange word that drops from John's lips deepens the dread in Sam's stomach. Desperate tears spark in his eyes.

"Dad, please," he whispers.

Somehow, John must hear him because he falters. His eyes slide sideways, to Sam, and his voice loses some of it's confident volume, the words trailing into silence. The candlelight dances across his face and with it, a flicker of uncertainty. He stares at Sam, at the glowing circle that traps him.

Then John sucks in a steadying breath and he turns away, resuming his chant with fresh determination.

Sam can't stop the tears from spilling over, hot on his cheeks and blurring his eyes. The candlelight fractures. Despair hollows out his chest. His hands press helplessly against the unseeable wall.

John adds a handful of the herbs to the bowl of bones. His chanting gets louder, faster. The small shack seems to fizz with a building charge. The air is electric, raising the hair on Sam's arms and the back of his neck. He feels like an elastic band, stretching to breaking point, ready to snap.

And then, like a strike of lightning, something silvery and snake-like erupts from one of the sigils beneath his feet. Sam screams. He tries to escape, lurching away, but there's nowhere to go. The creature twists itself around his legs, swirling up up up until it reaches his chest and splits itself in two to coil down his arms. A serpent made of smoke and chains.

Sam claws at the creature but his hands pass straight through it, tearing instead at his own skin and clothes. John reaches a crescendo, shouting the final words of his spell. The candles flare up again, sending a shower of sparks into the air.

The world turns white.

Sam shatters and scatters, wisps of him swirling away into emptiness. He's an explosion. An implosion. A star gone supernova. An atom being split. When the pieces come back together Sam finds himself on the floor, lying on his side. The circle is no longer glowing and he is no longer trapped inside of it. One of his outstretched arms crosses the line of paint. The snake-like creature is gone but Sam thinks he can still feel it's slippery weight twisting around him.

Everything is quiet, except for Sam's ragged breathing. Shudders run up and down his spine. The candles have gone out and darkness has crept back into the room.

What just happened?

"Sammy." John picks up his flashlight and thumbs it on, shining a beam of light down on Sam.

Sam shies away, raising an arm to shield himself from the brightness. Shakily, he pushes himself up. He's stunned speechless. Thoughtless. Numb, dumb, and confused. He sits on the floor and understands nothing.

"It's okay," John says. "It's done now."

He steps forward. Panic has Sam scrambling backwards, hands scrabbling, heels pushing against the floorboards, in a burst of desperate uncoordinated limbs. Suddenly, he sees the man that the monsters see. Someone ruthless. Dangerous.

Suddenly, Sam is afraid of his father.

"Stop," John says.

Sam stops.

He doesn't want to stop but his limbs all seem to turn to stone. He is frozen. A living, breathing statue.

John crosses the room and stands over Sam. He stares down at him.

"It worked." He sounds relieved.

"What did you do?" Sam croaks, testing his voice and, thankfully, finding it unaffected.

John seems to realise that he's looming in a rather intimidating way because he crouches down, dropping to one knee at Sam's side. The closeness is worse. Sam's skin crawls, yearning to back away. He can't even turn his head, forced instead to stare into his father's face. John looks ghoulish. The downward tilt of the flashlight leaves his features lost in shadow, making his eyes appear sunken and empty. He licks his lips, choosing his words.

"Look, Sam-"

"What did you do?" Sam asks again, more forcefully.

John's face twists. Hardens. His chin rises and his chest puffs out defiantly. "What I had to. This is for your own good. I wish there was another way but, well..."

John's nostrils flare and he manages to convey his dissatisfaction with a single aggravated exhale. It's the sound he makes whenever Sam does something that John deems to be a screw up or says something that John decides counts as back-chat. He's been making the sound a lot lately, ever since Dean broke his leg.

"I know you don't understand," John continues. "You're too young and you aren't like Dean. But what I'm doing – what we're doing – it's important. So much more important than maths homework or reading assignments. You need to get your head in the game. It's time to knuckle down, start focusing on what really matters. Another mistake could get you killed. It could get Dean killed."

Sam swallows a sour pulse of resentment. His face is still damp and, again, angry tears threaten to wet his cheeks. This is about the hunt for the wood nymph. Because the creature didn't burn like they thought it would. Because Sam wasn't good enough to stop Dean from getting hurt. Obviously, John doesn't care that it was faulty lore that messed up the hunt, not Sam.

Biting back an argument, Sam tries instead to look contrite. This must be what John wants. To scare him into apologizing. Into taking hunting more seriously. Sam can do that. Whatever it takes to get John to reverse the spell, Sam can do it.

"I'm sorry," Sam says, tongue tripping on the words. "Dad, I'm so sorry. I'll do better. I promise."

The hard lines in John's face soften. His spine loses some of it's rigidity and he reaches out a hand. Sam wants to duck away but he's still frozen in place. All he can do is sit completely still as John's fingers card through his hair, ruffling it affectionately.

"I know you will, kiddo," John says, almost proudly. "I'm going to make sure of it."

To Be Continued...

A/N: Reviews get to run their fingers through Sam's hair.