Greetings, patient readers! Still a short chapter I'm afraid, but some more revelations coming up. Will definitely have the boys reunited in the next chapter. Thanks for reading and for your patience these past weeks when things are going a bit slower than usual.

Chapter 19

Everything was still there from the first time they had summoned Gwydion. Jim could hardly believe it had been only that very day – only a few hours ago, really. He watched Sam as he relit the candles. Sam looked fine, if a little shaky. His face was pale, but he was standing on his own two feet. Of course, that did not mean much, Jim thought. After all, he knew from personal experience willpower made one appear healthier than they really were.

"Are you sure you're up to this?" he asked carefully.

Sam shot him a sharp look.

"My brother's life is on the line," he said tartly.

Jim grimaced.

"So's Sandburg's. That's why I'm asking you if you're up to this."

Sam hesitated. He looked at the match in his hand uncertainly, then nodded curtly.

"I'm up to this," he said.

Jim still did not feel convinced.

"Really?"

Sam sighed.

"I have to be."

Jim heard the faint trace of exasperation in Sam's voice and knew the time had come for him to back off.

"Fine," he said. "Let's do this. Where do you want me?"

"I'd say as far from the table as you can," Sam admitted.

Jim snorted.

"Yeah, sport, not gonna happen."

Sam did not look too surprised. Perhaps he finally understood how Jim operated. Or maybe it was too late for him to start arguing.

"Stay where you are," Sam said. "If Gwydion comes, you let me do the talking."

Then again, Jim thought, maybe it had been too much to hope.

"We'll see about that."

Sam shrugged as if to show that it was Jim's funeral, and he had done his due diligence by informing him how things stood.

Jim watched as Sam lit the candles again and recited the summoning ritual. The Bunker shook. Jim had the sensation that something was putting great pressure on his ears. He dialed down his senses.

Gwydion appeared. He looked pale, Jim noticed, and worried too. If demons could be worried. He had forgotten to ask Sam that.

"I thought I said I did not want to see you two again," Gwydion commented.

Sam took on a threatening stance.

"You've got my brother. What are you doing to him?"

Gwydion smirked.

"Sorry, Sammy," he said, pronouncing the name deliberately and looking incredibly smug when Sam tensed. "But your brother can't come out and play until he finishes taking his SATs. And I think he might find the final question a bit hard."

Sam glanced briefly in Jim's direction. Jim nodded curtly. He had heard it, too. Gwydion probably did not mean to give them that much, but he had just revealed that Dean had passed the first two tests.

"What about Sandburg?" Jim asked.

He completely ignored Sam's warning glare. Yes, he had said he'd try to let Sam do the talking – still, he was not confident with no one but him when it came to talking about Sandburg's safety.

"Oh, him," Gwydion said. "Mr. Sandburg has proven quite something."

Jim tensed.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Gwydion shrugged.

"First, he decided to appoint himself as alternate. Meaning, if Dean dies, he gets to take on the quest."

Really, Jim was not surprised at all, and that bit upset him.

"Well, you don't have to do what he says, do you?" Sam pointed out.

"Actually, I do." Gwydion replied. "Such things are binding."

Sam huffed.

"But you're a demon. You always try to weasel yourself out of deals."

And why didn't you say that before we started this? Jim thought. He did not have the chance to say it out loud when the angry cry of the fox was heard outside the bunker.

"They've escaped the warehouse," he realized.

For once, Gwydion was looking just as unnerved as them.

"What did?"

"What do you think?" Jim snapped. "The demons from the other two boxes."

"Jim…" Sam began.

However, Jim was sure revealing this information was actually a good thing. It seemed to have more effect on Gwydion than their attempts at intimidation, anyway.

"They're loose?" Gwydion whispered. "Both of them?"

Sam looked at him with raised eyebrows.

"You mean you didn't know?" he asked skeptically. "But you're so informed, after all."

Gwydion shook his head.

"I knew one of them was loose. But a second one…are you sure?"

"Quite sure," Jim said. "It's a snake."

Gwydion's hands were shaking.

"Do you realize what this means?" he hissed. "And you want the third box? Why? So you can risk unleashing all of them?"

Sam still looked suspicious, but Jim was beginning to think Gwydion was being quite genuine in his panic.

"Actually, we want to lock away the two demons and destroy all the boxes."

Gwydion scoffed.

"You Winchesters, always biting off more than you could chew. This time, though…this takes the blasted cake it does. You cannot lock away the demons, and you cannot destroy the boxes."

Sam tilted his head.

"Why not?" he challenged.

Gwydion looked furious.

"Because you're not who's needed to do that," he snapped. "You're not what's needed."

Jim took a step forward.

"Because what's needed is a sentinel and guide, right?" he asked. "Or, as you call them, a Guardian and his shaman?"

Gwydion flinched.

"How do you know that? These words haven't been used in years. Since…since…"

Jim raised his eyebrows.

"Since Richard Burton, right. The explorer, not the actor as my partner – and guide – likes to specify. I suppose you're not very well informed about recent events, Gwydion. They have been used quite a lot recently. In connection with me."

Gwydion gaped at him.

"You're…you're…"

Jim nodded helpfully.

"A sentinel, yes. Guardian. Watchman. Whatever."

Gwydion shook his head.

"I sensed Sandburg is a shaman but…he's your guide."

"Quite," Jim stated coldly. "He's mine."

And if you touch a hair on his head, I'll hunt you to the ends of the earth and beyond. He did not say that out loud, but he was really ready to do that – and could not care at all that Gwydion was some big and powerful demon who obviously could swat all of them like flies if he wanted to.

Gwydion seemed too upset to focus on Jim's threatening tone, though.

"You have to understand," he began, "This has been my purpose. To guard the box and give tests to those who ask for it. So that only the worthy can be able to get it."

Sam snorted, unimpressed.

"I bet you were the one who decided who was or wasn't worthy."

Gwydion hesitated, then shook his head.

"They decided themselves. Or fate did. I don't know."

"Riight," Sam drawled.

"That's not the point. The point is, if things go well, I should give the box to you – well, to Dean. He is the one who asked for it in the first place."

"Because you deliberately kept me out of it," Sam pointed out.

Gwydion did not rise to the bait.

"I rigged the last test," he confessed.

Jim tensed. He noticed Sam's wide eyes.

"What?" he demanded. "What the hell did you do?"

Gwydion actually took a step back.

"I didn't know you had the other boxes. I didn't know two of the demons were loose instead of just the one that I remember being loose the last time the boxes were mentioned, and I bloody well had no idea you had a sentinel. All I knew was that the Winchesters wanted the boxes, and the Winchesters are the most unreliable of guardians. You'd have had all of them loose within two seconds of me giving you the box."

Jim glanced at Sam.

"Get that a lot?" he asked tersely.

Sam ignored him.

"So tell me, how did you rig the test?"

Gwydion sighed in defeat.

"Dean had me beat. With Sandburg's help, especially in the first task, but he was going to surely win the third task as easily as he won the other two. So I changed the task."

"To what?" Sam insisted.

Gwydion looked away.

"I brought someone he wanted very much once. Someone he might feel responsible for – and let him understand he could have them back and safe – for a price."

Sam took a step forward.

"Who did you bring?" he asked, voice dangerously low.

Gwydion did not answer right away.

"Lisa Braeden," he finally said, voice tight. "Lisa and her son Ben."

Jim watched as Sam flinched back in shock.

xxxXXXxxx

For a moment, Dean could not even make sense of Lisa's words. He could feel Sandburg behind him, trying to tell him something, but he did not have the power to turn around and look at him, let alone pay attention to whatever he wanted. He could only look at Lisa – and at Ben, who had finally moved from the place at the foot of the stairs and had come to stand next to his mother.

While Sandburg was seeing two dead people, Dean saw something else entirely. He saw Lisa – beautiful and confident, with that sarcastic smirk of hers tilting the corners of her lips upwards. Lisa had been bright and full of life, and during the days he had lived with her, Dean had barely been able to appreciate that. But the truth was, Lisa had done her best to hold him up. Someone else would have probably had little patience with him. Especially since he knew Lisa had never been able to understand his loss. She had said it plenty of times. She had thought Dean had been over attached to Sam and had even suggested a therapist to talk to Dean. One that specialized in parentification, and that had been the moment Dean had shut her down. They had had their first fight then, a huge one, and Dean had even left for a few hours. But when he had returned, Lisa had hugged him and held him tight and apologized, admitting she couldn't understand him and had no right to judge him. Very few people had given enough of a damn about him to admit something like that.

And Ben…Dean could not even bear to think of Ben. Yet in the darkness of his bedroom, he remembered him. He had often wondered if Ben still enjoyed cars, if he was still interested in becoming an astronaut (Dean had helped him craft a school project about one of the Mars Rovers and had listened to Ben talk about how he dreamed of being the first man on Mars or something like that).

And now Ben was not going to become anything. He wasn't going to grow up. He wasn't going to marry and Lisa wasn't going to be there to cry at his wedding. He wasn't going to do any of the things most people took for granted.

Ben was dead. So was Lisa. And Dean…Dean was responsible for their deaths. He had messed up. Big time. And when a person messed up, he was responsible for fixing things.

"You're thinking about it," Lisa said, and her voice this time was warm and kind. "Aren't you?"

"Dean…"

Blair's voice cut through the fog. Dean shook his head.

"Let me see if I got this right. If I give up the quest, if I say no thanks to the third box – you two will be alive again? Just like that?"

Ben shrugged.

"Isn't your brother alive again, just like that?"

He wasn't, things were much more complicated with Sam – and had been with Dean, too when he had been brought back to life. Except…well, except Dean was familiar with the situation.

"You want me to make a deal," he deduced. "With Gwydion."

Lisa took a step towards him.

"Is it really so bad? You've made deals for Sam, right?"

Dean grimaced.

"Yeah, and he made me promise to never do it again for as long as we lived."

Lisa reached out and stroked Dean's cheek.

"But you'd still do it, wouldn't you? If he were dying – or already gone – you'd still do everything you can to save him. Even make deals. Even do things you'd both consider horrible – and amoral."

Dean would have dearly loved to say no. He would have given anything to deny the words. No, he knew what deals did, he was better now, he would respect Sam's choices. But in his heart, he could not lie. He looked away and shook his head.

"Don't listen to her, Dean," Sandburg urged.

Dean was about to say something when he heard Sandburg gasp. He turned to see him standing on the spot, eyes wide with fear.

"Now what?" he asked.

Sandburg shook his head, as if dazed.

"I can't move," he said. "I can't…"

He paused abruptly, and took a deep breath. He closed his mouth and opened it again, but no sound came out. He stared at Dean in horror.

"What the hell did you do to him?" Dean asked Lisa.

Lisa huffed, offended.

"We didn't do anything to him. Gwydion set up fail-safes in case Sandburg interfered too much. And he talks way too much, don't you think? This moment needs to be about you and me, Dean."

Dean frowned.

"You just said one of the conditions for you to be brought back is for Sandburg to stay with Gwydion," he pointed out. "I'd say it concerns him quite a bit."

Lisa shrugged.

"Maybe. But he still talks too much. Now he can't move and he can't talk."

Ben took a step forward, staring blankly at Blair.

"And if he still tries to interfere with your choice," he said. "Very soon, he won't even be able to breathe."

xxxXXXxxx

"So, let me get this straight," Jim began, rubbing his forehead where a headache was starting to form. "You lied to your brother about his girlfriend and his kid…"

"Technically, Ben wasn't his," Sam said quickly. "At least, he was always adamant that Ben wasn't his."

Jim shrugged.

"I ain't talking biology, sport. I'm talking attachment. Blood doesn't always make you family, does it?"

Sam smiled wistfully.

"Yeah, that…I suppose when you put it like that…"

"So, you lied to him," Jim went on, after glancing at Gwydion.

They still had not freed him from the trap, and Gwydion seemed resigned that they would not as long as the conversation lasted.

Sam grimaced at Jim's accusation.

"I didn't exactly lie…"

Jim snorted.

"What, are you going to tell me an omission is not exactly a lie?"

Sam shrugged.

"Honestly, I was gonna tell him. But Dean wasn't well after he came back…and then the…other business started."

Sam seemed reluctant to mention the other business in front of Gwydion. Jim decided to let him off the hook.

"Anyway, I doubt Dean will choose to save Lisa and Ben if someone else's life is on the line."

Sam didn't sound sure, though, so Jim was not comforted. He turned to Gwydion.

"This is your game. Can't you stop it?"

Gwydion looked despondent.

"Only Dean can stop it now. Either he refuses Lisa and Ben and takes the box. Then both he and Sandburg are free to return. Or he accepts their offer and the box stays with me. If you could give me the other two, though…"

"Yeah, not happening," Sam said quickly.

Gwydion shrugged and turned to Jim.

"Let's say Dean surprises us all and chooses the box – are you ready for what's coming? Are you willing to accept both yours and Sandburg's part in what's next?"

What Jim was ready for, actually, was for him and Sandburg to go home and forget this place, the boxes, Gwydion, and the Winchesters ever existed. But he supposed he could not do that before he and Sandburg dealt with the boxes.

"Unfortunately, I'm a little lost on the details," he drawled. "What exactly are me and Sandburg committing to?"

What had his grandfather got them into? Jim could not help asking. At least Blair's grandfather had possessed the grace to try and get them out of whatever shady deal or prophecy had been thrust on them.

Gwydion was looking at him with something akin to pity – he was probably mocking him, and Jim wanted to knock his head against the bunker wall several times.

"Well? Don't keep me in suspense."

Gwydion took a deep breath.

"Only a guardian can put the demons back in the box and can make sure the box stays sealed forever. But nothing comes without a price."

Jim tensed.

"You never said anything about a price before," Sam said through gritted teeth.

Gwydion raised his eyebrows.

"And you should know better than anyone, Sam, that everything comes with a price."

Sam ignored the quip.

"So what is it this time?" he asked. "What will Jim have to do?"

Gwydion hesitated.

"Among other things, there will be a sacrifice."

"No," Jim said quickly, because he was pretty sure what the sacrifice would entail, and he wanted nothing to do with it.

He looked into Gwydion's eyes, and he knew he was right.

"Sandburg," Sam guessed. "It has to do with Blair, doesn't it?"

Of course it did, Jim thought. Suddenly, it made sense, why Blair's grandfather had tried to keep Blair away from it all, even cutting contact with Naomi before her son was born. He had been trying to protect Blair.

"No," Jim repeated, still clinging to denial.

Gwydion, however, shook his head.

"I'm afraid it is true. Every bit of lore on the matter of the boxes says the same thing: in order for the Guardian to win over the demons in the boxes, the shaman will have to die."

Well now, things don't look very good for Blair – or do they? Next chapter will still probably be on the short side, but I'm hoping to have things settled after this week, so I'll be less tired and have time to write more.

I tried to do a bit of foreshadowing in the conversation with Lisa and Ben, when Lisa tells Dean that he would still make deals to bring Sam back, despite Sam's refusals. I wasn't really into the season 9 Gadreel storyline, but I threw a hint here about Dean's general frame of mind to be compatible with his choice to save Sam by doing something Sam would have never ever agreed to.