This story has really taken on a life of its own. This is shorter than I meant it to be, but I wanted to have it up today. Besides, there's quite a lot of things happening and a big twist. So let's dive in!

Chapter 18

Ben Braeden was looking straight at Dean – he did not seem to be paying any attention to Sandburg, as if he could not see him. That was one thing to be grateful for, although Dean would have been even more grateful if Sandburg himself had been unable to see and hear Ben.

"Dean, be careful," Blair warned.

It was only then that Dean realized he had taken several steps towards the staircase where Ben was still standing. He had also tucked his gun away – but really, what was he supposed to do, point his gun at a kid? And especially a kid he had seen himself responsible for at one point? Even if he was dealing with an illusion, Dean was definitely not comfortable doing that.

"Ben?" he repeated. "Is it really you?"

Of course it wasn't, Dean told himself, Ben wasn't thirteen anymore, he had changed, and what he was seeing was Gwydion's twisted recreation. Yet, it was so lifelike, that Dean could not help himself.

"Are you really here?" Ben asked.

Dean shook his head.

"Honestly? I'm not sure. It's been a while, though, hasn't it?"

Ben frowned.

"Has it? You just left yesterday?"

Dean froze.

"What did you say? What do you mean I left yesterday? What happened yesterday?"

Ben chewed his lower lip.

"Mom says you left with Sam. She says probably for good. Is it true?"

Dean was sure he was on the verge of losing the little that was left of his mind. Whatever twisted game Gwydion was playing, he did not want to be a part of it anymore.

"Ben, where's your mom?" he asked.

Ben shrugged.

"Asleep, I guess. It's night, after all." He paused and frowned at Dean. "Are you back for good?"

Dean thought the conversation was getting more and more surreal by the minute. He almost wanted Sandburg to interfere with one of his usual well-meaning comments, but he was apparently too focused on Dean and Ben's interaction to bother.

"What do you mean, back for good?"

"Mum would have you back," Ben said quickly. "I know she's super angry at you, but she'll have you back if you promise to quit hunting."

"That's not possible," Dean said without thinking.

Ben tensed.

"Why not? Things were starting to be good, you know. I get that you were mourning your brother at first, and Mum said we should be mindful of that but…now you know he's alive. Mum says he's an adult who can take care of himself. Why does he need you?"

"You don't understand…"

Dean was beginning to understand, though. It wasn't a coincidence Gwydion showing him what he could have and what he could be if Sam had not been there. It had been done before, after all. All those supernatural entities hell-bent on showing Dean just what a burden Sam was.

"I'm exactly where I need to be, Ben," he said. "Sam needs me."

Ben's face became hard as stone. Dean could not remember ever seeing him like this.

"What about me and Mum? Don't we need you?"

"Of course we do. Or we did. But how good is Dean at being there for the people who really need him?"

Dean had stiffened at the sound of Lisa's voice. He half-turned to see her standing in the kitchen doorway. Dean heard Blair gasp behind him, but he no longer had the power to care for anything other than what he was seeing in front of him.

"I don't understand. You're not real. This is a test."

Lisa took a step towards him and Dean had to fight hard not to flinch.

"It is a test. And it's also about you facing the consequences of who you are for once. Because we're real, Dean. What's left of us."

"What do you mean what's left of you? What the hell is this about?"

Lisa laughed, and her laughter sounded unnatural.

"We're dead, Dean. Me and Ben, we've both been dead for a long time."

Dean felt as if the entire world was closing in on him, and he couldn't breathe.

xxxXXXxxxx

Back in the Bunker, Sam was too exhausted to reject Jim when he suggested checking his shoulder. He led Ellison to their infirmary and told him to use whatever he found there.

"You're well-stocked," Jim observed. "That's good."

Sam shrugged.

"We might be reckless, but we know better than to mess with wounds."

The frown on Jim's face had him on alert.

"Could have fooled me," Jim commented. "What was that back there?"

Sam took a deep breath, suppressing the cough he felt coming. That was not going to help his argument.

"I thought I had it handled," he defended himself.

Jim shook his head. He was busying himself with the supplies and not looking at Sam. It made Sam wonder if this was not easier for him – having such conversations without fully looking at the person he was talking to.

"You were ready to sign your death sentence, you know."

Sam looked at him steadily.

"So were you."

Jim finally found what he was looking for and turned to Sam.

"No, I took a risk that would ensure both our survivals if it paid off. You, on the other hand, were ready to take yourself completely off the board."

"So you've mentioned," Sam said through clenched teeth. "Several times."

Jim headed to Sam and proceeded to tend to his shoulder. Sam fought to keep still. He didn't like people hovering too close to him – especially people who weren't Dean. An after-effect of many things, the Cage most of all. Lucifer had played a parade of characters down there whenever he got tired of torturing Sam using his own face. He had probably played Jim, as well. Sam could not remember, but it left him with a heightened sense of paranoia and hypervigilance.

"I know what I'm doing, you know," Jim pointed out, probably having noticed Sam tensing. "They gave me some medic training when I was in the army. It's sort of required, you know."

Sam nodded sharply.

"Of course." He took a deep breath. "I'm fine. Don't mind me."

Jim probably knew PTSD well enough to diagnose it in Sam – but, if that was so, Sam really did not want to know about it. At any rate, Jim was competent at what he was doing, working quickly at cleaning up the wound. Still, Sam knew cleaning it was not going to be enough.

"There are several bottles of Holy Water in the fridge," he said.

He felt Jim stiffen.

"Sam…"

"It has to be done, Jim," Sam interrupted. "I was bit by a demonic fox."

Jim huffed.

"Then maybe I should take you to get a rabies shot instead of torturing you," he snapped.

Sam rolled his eyes.

"Trust me, I know torture, and I've had much worse. You need to do this. Otherwise, the wound could get much worse. Think of it as performing field surgery. You must have done that in your time with Special Ops, right?"

Jim grimaced.

"We also had the good drugs for the patient. Really, Winchester…"

Sam grabbed his hand.

"Really, Ellison, get on with it. I trust you. Well, as much as I trust anyone who isn't Dean."

Which, granted, was still not a lot, but at least it was more trust than Sam would have given to many of the people he interacted with.

Jim finally nodded and went to the fridge. When he turned back to Sam, his face was grim.

"Look, I remember very clearly this part wasn't pleasant at all," he said.

Sam smirked.

"Then we're even. Well, we will be, if I remember not to punch you in the face. Then I'll just have to owe you one."

Jim shook his head. He did not seem to appreciate the humor, although he was slightly relieved that Sam was taking it lightly.

"I'll forgive you just this once," he promised. "You ready?"

Sam really wasn't. Still, he nodded tersely. It was only too late that he wondered just what Holy Water could do to someone undergoing the Trials. Jim kept him still as he poured the water over the fox bite.

Something broke in Sam. There was no other way he could describe it. He had known pain before, had known it in many forms, but this was pain and fire and everything shifting in his body. He tried to shout, then started coughing. He could not seem to be able to stop. Dimly, he heard Jim from afar shouting at him to breathe. He would have laughed if he had any air to spare, because breathing to him seemed now as impossible as flying to the Moon on a broomstick.

The fire from his shoulder spread to the rest of his body. It reminded him of Hell, the way it bit and devoured. The memory was enough to tip him over the edge and into unconsciousness.

xxxxXXXxxxx

"Winchester? Can you hear me? Sam!"

The voice was insistent, annoyingly so, and Sam wished he possessed the strength to tell it to shut up. The summons was pulling him towards consciousness, and that was the last thing he needed. He wanted the peace of oblivion for a little while, he wanted a dark corner where he could acknowledge that he was definitely not alright, and perhaps would never be alright again for as long as he lived.

"Come on, Sam, give me something here."

Sam frowned. He knew the voice. Maybe, with enough effort, he would even recognize it. But he was beyond any kind of effort, the memories of pain and weakness standing like a wall between him and the real world. There was only one person he wanted near him in a time like this.

"Dean?" he croaked.

He heard the other sigh.

"Uhh…no, I'm sorry. Dean's not here."

If there was something to get Sam out of his lethargic state, this was it. Because he felt as if he had died several times, and in such circumstances, Dean would have definitely been there if he could. And Dean was the type to move heaven and earth to be near Sam when he was hurt.

Sam's eyes snapped open. He recognized the walls and ceiling of the infirmary in the Men of Letters' Bunker. His eyes moved to the figure standing beside his bed.

"Ellison," he muttered.

His throat felt like glass and he tasted blood whenever he swallowed. But at least he could think clearly now. He remembered most of what had happened.

"That's done, then," he muttered.

Jim looked shell-shocked.

"That did not happen with me," he said.

"What didn't?" Sam wanted to know.

Jim shook his head.

"You…you started breathing strange. Then you started seizing."

"Oh," Sam said.

He had not done that since his Hell Wall had been broken.

"Sorry about that. It was…it's complicated."

Jim peered at him with that intensity that Sam was beginning to resent.

"I'm fine now," Sam hastened to add.

Jim nodded, even though he did not look at all convinced.

"Well, you were out for two hours. There's still no sign of your brother – or of Blair."

Sam wished he could say that this did not mean anything, that passing Gwydion's tests probably took time. Still, he did not even know if Dean had passed any of Gwydion's tests. And not knowing made him nervous.

"Right," he said through gritted teeth. "I think it's time we took matters into our own hands."

"How?"

Sam did not miss the relief in Jim's voice. He made to get up and Jim reached out to help him. Sam accepted his help with only a token protest. The knowledge of his recent seizure had left him shakier than usual, and he found it hard to keep pretending he was fine. It would have been a waste of time to pretend in front of a person with heightened senses anyway.

"We're gonna summon Gwydion again," Sam said, gathering every ounce of determination he could find within himself. "And we're gonna make him give us Dean and Blair back. Whatever it takes."

xxxXXXxxx

Dean was looking from Lisa to Ben, unable to process Lisa's words. She looked the same as ever, and so did Ben, and the house looked unchanged. What he was seeing had to be an illusion. He was not going to accept anything else.

"No," he said. "No, you're wrong. You're not real. You're some sick twisted fantasy Gwydion conjured up to torture me, and I hate to say it, but this isn't working."

His voice was shaking, though. He felt as if he could hardly breathe.

"I walked away from you," he repeated. "I made sure you were safe."

Lisa scoffed.

"No, you made sure we were not your responsibility anymore."

Dean turned and took a step towards her. Immediately, Blair's hand fastened around his arm. Dean made to pull away.

"Don't get close," Blair warned.

Dean did not even glance back at him.

"Give me space, Sandburg," he ordered.

Blair, however, held firm.

"I mean it, Dean," he repeated. "Don't get close."

Something in the shakiness of his tone drew Dean's attention. He glanced back and saw Blair staring at Lisa, wide-eyed, his face completely white. The reaction baffled Dean. Lisa looked normal. He turned to double check and did not see anything out of the ordinary. Assuming Sandburg did not simply faint at the sight of a woman – and, considering his reputation, Dean very much doubted that – something here was escaping Dean's notice. There was something he was not yet meant to see.

"Sandburg, what's wrong?" he asked.

"Don't you see it?" Blair gasped.

Dean shook his head, more annoyed than alarmed now.

"See what? They're Lisa and Ben, the family I told you about."

Blair swallowed harshly.

"I bet they didn't look like this when you were living with them."

Now Blair had positively lost Dean.

"Sandburg," he growled, "Either speak words that make sense or live me alone."

He heard Blair draw in a sharp breath as his fingers tightened convulsively around Dean's arm.

"Don't go near them man," he said pleadingly. "They were right when they said they were dead. They look it."

Dean turned to face Lisa once more, but he did not see any change. Sure, she was slightly pale, but that was just her, really. As for Ben – Ben looked the same, healthy and full of life, if a little sullen. This could not have been what Sandburg was seeing.

"Describe them to me," Dean ordered. "What do you mean they look dead?"

This time, he did not resist when Blair tried to pull him back.

"Their flesh is rotting," Blair said. "Their eyes are missing. And the smell…can't you feel it, man?"

Dean shook his head, dazed. If that was what Sandburg was seeing, then he was faring remarkably well. Any other civilian would have been in hysterics by then. Firmly, he pushed Blair behind him.

"Stay where I can keep you safe," he ordered.

He felt Blair tense now for a different reason.

"I ain't hiding behind you like a kid, dude. I'm here to help."

And just like that, the fear was gone, to be replaced by annoyance. Dean could not have it.

"Listen to me, you were right," he said. "This one is mine to face, so stay out of it as much as you can."

He turned back to Lisa and Ben. They still looked the same as ever to him. Blair's words had not broken the spell. Dean wondered if it was not Blair who was having hallucinations, but then dismissed the thought. He was the one Gwydion was testing. He was the one seeing what was not there.

"Alright, let's have it," he ordered harshly. "How can you be dead? How did you die and when?"

Lisa looked at Ben and nodded. Ben sat down at the foot of the staircase.

"I see you don't ask the important question," Ben said tonelessly.

Dean shrugged, deciding to play along.

"Fair enough, what's the important question?"

Ben's face filled with hatred. Dean almost looked away. It was unnerving, seeing Ben like that. A kid like Ben was not supposed to feel hatred – not the real kind, anyway. Hating the maths teacher for giving him extra homework or the kid who sat in front of him in History class for eating too many beans was one thing. Hating someone in the real, raw sense was something children shouldn't have had to feel. Dean knew that. After all, he had hated plenty of things since early childhood, and had known how it eroded one's soul.

"Why?" Ben said. "You need to ask why we were killed?"

"At first we did not know," Lisa picked up, making Dean's eyes swivel towards her, as she stood leaning against the door to the kitchen. "Do you want to know why we didn't know, Dean? Because you made us not remember. You washed your hands clean of us."

Dean's blood was roaring in his ears. It could not be. He could not have made such a terrible miscalculation. He had tried to keep Lisa and Ben safe. He had.

"If you're trying to tell me that Lisa and Ben are dead because some demon was trying to get them to give away my location or something…"

Lisa laughed.

"Not your location. They didn't care about where you were. They did care about you ruining their plans over and over again. Revenge is a good motivator. It makes you do a lot of things. Don't you think?"

It did not make sense, though. If it had been about revenge, Dean would have found out as soon as Lisa and Ben were killed. Why keep things quiet? Then he realized with horror that he knew why. When Purgatory had been opened and the Leviathans had escaped, things had changed. There was a bigger threat on the board than the Winchesters. Even Crowley had agreed to work with them. Which meant that, if it is was true that Lisa and Ben had been killed, their deaths had been completely in vain. The two were simply…forgotten.

Dean tried to make sense of that. It could not have happened this way. He refused to believe it. He would have known. He might have tried to put as much distance between him and Lisa and Ben as he could, but he knew Sam. Even if Dean had expressly forbidden him from ever mentioning Lisa and Ben – and had even threatened to beat him up if he broke the rule – Sam was Sam. He operated under his own laws. Surely, he had kept tabs on Lisa and Ben. And, if something had indeed happened to them, Sam would have told Dean.

"I know what you're thinking," Lisa said. "Sam would have told you, right? If he knew, he would have told you."

Dean nodded, grasping at the idea with an almost embarrassing desperation. Lisa smirked.

"He didn't. Of course, he only found out late himself, while you were in Purgatory."

Dean shook his head in denial.

"No," he said firmly. "No, you're wrong."

"Then he didn't tell you," Ben went on, picking up where his mother had left off. "You wanna know why? I assume because he thought you wouldn't be able to handle it."

Dean refused to believe that. But wasn't that how Sam operated of late? Hiding things from Dean? Trying to protect him – or, just as Ben had suggested, thinking Dean could not handle the news.

"He would have told me," Dean insisted.

He did not sound convincing even to himself. It was then that he felt Blair's hand on his shoulder. He had apparently recovered from seeing two dead people and was now just indignant at how Dean was treated.

"Hey," Blair reminded him. "They're just here to rattle you, remember? The test, you remember that, right? The box?"

Test? Box? The words sounded foreign to Dean. They were only nebulous memories, not at all as relevant as the sight of a woman he had loved and a boy he had once hoped could like a son to him, now apparently dead because of him.

Sandburg's hand tightened around his shoulder.

"Listen to me," he hissed. "You remember what you said to me with the spiders? They're not real, right? Well treat this as if it wasn't real."

Dean listened, but only distractedly. It was hard to think of anything else when he was standing in front of Lisa and Ben.

"Let's say I believe you," he finally said. "What do you really want?"

Lisa smirked. For the first time, Dean thought he could see what Blair was obviously seeing – the feel of something long dead beyond the beautiful façade. It was Ben who answered, though, and his voice sounded much older than it should have been.

"Isn't it obvious, Dean?" Ben asked. "We want you to make a choice. You can get us to be alive again."

Dean felt his heart beating faster.

"In exchange for?" he asked, ignoring the way Blair was tugging at him.

"You give up the quest," Lisa said. "And never ask for the box again. And Sandburg stays with Gwydion."

I bet you didn't see that coming, did you? I plan to have the matter of the tests resolved by next chapter and hopefully to get the four reunited again. There will probably be more angst, too. I'm in an angsty mood. Thanks for reading. See you next Sunday (hopefully!)