A/Ns: Short chapter this time, I'm afraid. Also, we are back on cliffhanger row for a bit, and while we remain in that most unpleasant of places I will resume weekly posts so as not to torture you all unduly.

Chapter Warnings: Andy does not have a good time in Cold Oak. I have no idea where this persistent need to hurt the poor boy came from, but it's apparently a thing. Um, sorry, kid.

Actual Chapter Warnings: We get a bit violent in this one, folks. There's a decent stretch of gore and quite a bit of blood, so please proceed with caution if you are squeamish. There is also brief mention (but absolutely no description) of animal cruelty. I probably should have warned about that last chapter, too, huh? Though, to be fair, that one was a direct quote from the show…

Anyway, in short, I'm a cruel, cruel author, so go forth prepared!

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The Road So Far (This Time Around)

Season 2: Chapter 47

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Jonathon Bailey was twenty-three years old, had discovered he had powers almost a year ago, and had been dreaming of a yellow-eyed man for six of those eleven and half months. He'd killed his first animal two months into the yellow-eyed man's lessons, his first domestic pet not long after that, and any more he could get his hands on in the weeks since.

But this would be his first human kill.

"Heya there, kiddo."

Jonathon sat up with a gasp, chest heaving for air he didn't need. That's how these dreams always started. Like his body knew he shouldn't be there. Jonathon ignored his fight or flight instinct, viciously forcing it down and focusing instead on calming his raging heart and desperate lungs. Yes, the yellow-eyed man was certainly a threat worthy of his body's automatic response. Jonathon wasn't an idiot; the man definitely wanted something from him and until he found out what that was, he would remain on his guard. But for now, the yellow-eyed man was a mentor of sorts, and he'd promised to get Jonathon out of a worthless home existence that was wasting his potential and holding him back.

The yellow-eyed man crouched down beside him. Jonathon was sitting upright in the middle of a dirt road, which ran through what looked like a very old town. Nowhere he'd dreamt of before. Jonathon could see the older man from his side vision, but didn't turn towards him. Not yet. Not until he was back in control. Jonathon was all about control.

"Welcome to Cold Oak," the yellow-eyed man said with a toothy grin. Jonathon imagined that smile unsettled most people, but Jonathon wasn't most people.

"Why are we here?" the human asked once he'd gotten his breathing back to an acceptable rate and his voice came out close to a normal timber. He chanced a glance around at the old Frontier style town in the middle of a late-fall, early-winter forest. Certainly not southeastern Florida where Jonathon begrudgingly lived with his ailing grandmother and deadbeat dad who, he had hoped, would be his first human kill.

"When you wake up, you're gonna be here for real, kid."

That didn't answer his question, but the yellow-eyed man had a habit of that. He kept control of the conversation entirely in his court. It infuriated Jonathon to no end, but he did not let it show.

"And?" Jonathon ignored the questions he wanted to ask: how, why, and fucking where? They were irrelevant when talking with this figment in his mind. Or, whatever a person who showed up in your dreams but was likely real elsewhere was properly called. Jonathon didn't know or particularly care about vernacular.

"You won't be alone."

The human male straightened, finally turning to look at this mental mentor of his. So, this was it. This is what the yellow-eyed man had been training him up for. He'd said there would be challenges ahead, something he'd have to take down that was a lot bigger than his ex-girlfriend's family wiener dog.

"Will Sam Winchester be there?" he asked reflexively. It was the only name this man had given him, weeks ago, now. A battle was coming, and Sam Winchester was the one to get.

"Not yet, but don't worry, he will be soon enough."

Jonathon rolled onto his side and got his feet beneath him. He dusted the dirt from his khakis – not what he'd gone to bed wearing last night – and looked around the old ghost town. "Are there weapons here?"

"Wouldn't be much of a challenge if there was, tiger," Yellow Eyes answered with a wicked grin, and Jonathon let the implication roll off of him in waves. He was confident in his ability. He'd been working up to this. He could do it. He would do it.

"Anything else you want to tell me?"

The yellow-eyed man appraised his cold confidence for a long moment – a life time – before he started smiling again. "Only one of you gets out. But like I promised, you'll be rewarded. Anything you want, kiddo. If you're the one to survive, of course."

And then he was gone, and Jonathon was sitting up for real, lungs heaving for air they actually did need, in the middle of a road running through an abandoned mining town.

-o-o-o-

'Which one do I kill first?'

Jonathon weighed his choices carefully, observing each of this three potential victims in turn. The dark-haired male – Scott? – was clearly no threat. He looked ready to piss his own pants at the next stiff breeze. Jonathon could take care of him easy. The girl was more of a problem. Her jacket suggested an athlete's musculature and reflexes. Speed, if nothing else. Plus, she'd managed a meager form of protection in that iron skillet, clutched in a white-knuckled grip at her side as she shrieked and wailed away at the last kid. That one – Andy, was it? – didn't seem to be much of a threat either. Average size for a twenty-three year old man, with barely a muscle on him. Jonathon could take him one handed. He wouldn't be much to handle.

Of course, everything went out the window when the kid started talking about abilities.

Jonathon felt the first flickers of panic since he'd woken up. It had not occurred to him the others would also be able to do things. Careful to keep it off his face, the twenty-three year old sneered internally. How convenient for Yellow Eyes to leave out that detail. Still, it changed nothing in the long run. The outcome of this would still be the same and Jonathon was determined to come out on top.

Hearing he was among a potential mind-reader was of immediate concern, but the idiot of a girl was overly trusting. She confessed right away that she was too weak to read more than one person at a time. Which shifted her from top of his list to second, so long as she kept her focus on Andy and off of him. Which left his crosshairs open for the kid playing at leader and trying to take control of the situation. A person who could make people do anything he wanted with just his voice would have to go immediately, before he tried to use that power on Jonathon.

Especially since the kid knew about the yellow-eyed man. If he'd been getting training in his dreams as well, then he was the biggest threat, by far. And while he didn't seem to want anything to do with the violence Yellow Eyes demanded, he could easily be lying to them, keeping them off their guard so he could strike first.

Well, not Jonathon. He wasn't going to give this kid time to trick him. And if it wasn't a trick, well, then this would-be leader was a pushover. And Jonathon wasn't.

"I know he's a demon," the pushover was saying, much to the other kids' shock and disbelief, "and he's got plans for us."

Covertly, Jonathon patted down his pants, ignoring the mindless and useless chatter happening around him for the time being. He checked his front and back pockets, then more cautiously the cargo folds on his right side so as not to draw attention to himself. He might not have gone to sleep wearing them, but if they were his pants then his pocket knife should still be in there.

Yes, there it was!

Jonathon felt the reassuring weight of his SB440M tactical blade hanging in his pocket, the bulky shape of it a familiar comfort beneath his fingers. He and that knife had been through quite a lot together the last few months. Still exercising caution, Jonathon slipped his fingers into the slit of fabric and withdrew the knife, transferring it to his front pocket so it was out of sight but easier to reach quickly.

He would take the kid out before he could speak. Target the throat. Getting in close wouldn't be a problem, it was Jonathon's specialty. But the actual kill itself…

"If we work together, we can all get out of here. Alive."

Well, that was as apropos a cue as Jonathon was ever going to get. His fingers wrapping securely around his switchblade, he focused both his physical and his mental eyes on his victim. Then, with intense concentration and steeled nerves, Jonathon disappeared.

-o-o-o-

"I know he's a demon, and he's got plans for us."

Amanda Figuerro wanted to trust Andy. She did. There was something charming about his carefree demeanor, even in the middle of a nowhere ghost town, having woken up with no clue how or why they were there. The problem was, she was having a very difficult time coming to terms with all that herself, and it was hard to trust someone who took it so easily in stride.

Did he know something? Was he somehow a part of it? Was he just crazy?

That's why she'd worked so hard to hear his thoughts, something that had shocked her when she'd first woken up in the small town. Amanda assumed she was alone, because she'd heard nothing but silence. Even locked in her bedroom in the back of her house in a fairly suburban part of Berkley, she still heard everything. A passing pedestrian walking their dog, reminding themselves to replace the poop-bag roll when they got home. A car passing by, the radio loud enough she could hear it through the walls, but worse, the man singing along with it. Even in his head, he was terrible. Their backyard neighbor who was nervous for a date coming over that night, and spent more than three hours picking out an outfit. She was very concerned about the size of her boobs, or what she perceived as a lack-there-of.

She'd spent all of that time over thinking most of it. Given what Amanda had been stuck hearing from both of them for hours into the night, the date had gone just fine. Although the guy had, repeatedly, thought about how much better it would be if the chick had bigger boobs.

Amanda had wanted to take a drill to her skull that night. She'd probably have taken it to the dude's skull, if she could have managed to leave her room, let alone her house. Because that, all of that, had just been inside her home, locked away as much as she could be because she could no longer handle being out among others. It was so loud, and people were so terrible, and there was nothing that could block it out. Despite several different friends, family members, and even a shrink trying to convince her, worryingly, that she might be having some form of breakdown, Amanda knew she wasn't crazy. She just knew. But, in so many ways, it didn't matter, because she was still going crazy.

But here, waking up in an old ghost town she didn't recognize in a State she was pretty sure wasn't California, Amanda had almost stumbled straight onto the kid without hearing a thing first. And once she realized Andy was there, she could hear a kind of muffled chatter, like being underwater and hearing people talking above the surface. It wasn't until she'd really focused on him, harder than she'd ever focused on anything before, that could she hear his thoughts more clearly.

Now, almost an hour later, she was starting to get one hell of a headache from it, though. But, considering Amanda had no idea where she was and he had been the only other person around, it was a worthy sacrifice.

Amanda wanted to trust him, and there wasn't really anything in Andy's mind that told her she shouldn't, other than that he was crazy because he believed in monsters and demons and people with yellow eyes. But, then again, she could hear people's brains and they were both in a ghost town in, she was going to guess, Nebraska. So what was crazy, really, anyway?

"If we work together, we can all get out of here. Alive."

She really wanted to trust him. She did. Andy had a happy-go-lucky calmness about him that she could really, really use right now. They all could, she figured, given how terrified and uncertain Scott seemed as he stood beside her. Amanda had actually been a pretty trusting person before her twenty-third birthday, when she'd suddenly started hearing the thoughts of her friends and family and complete strangers. It had not taken long at all to learn that she was far too trusting and so very, very many people were not trustworthy.

But maybe this was a good time to try again. It wasn't like there was a great deal of other options available.

Andy turned his back on them, looking down the only road he and Amanda hadn't searched before running into Scott and Jonathon. And then something happened. If someone asked about it later, Amanda might not have even been able to explain it. It felt like she'd blinked and lost time. One second Jonathon was on the other side of Andy from her, and the next thing she knew…

Andy hit the ground hard, his body suddenly boneless as Jonathon blinked into existence right behind him, swinging his arm up and slamming a fist into Andy's temple. Amanda screamed, Scott scrambled backwards, and Jonathon was on Andy in another blink. He straddled the injured kid, opening his fist to reveal a switchblade, which he flipped open with a flick of his wrist and a metal click.

They were all going to fight each other to the death.

Amanda didn't know why she thought it, why she remembered Andy's words, so loudly in her head. The words that had rooted her, frozen, to the spot in terror she didn't understand and hadn't wanted to believe.

They were all going to have to kill each other to survive.

Amanda started shaking. Andy kicked his legs, pinned beneath the larger boy, and swung his arms but his movements were disoriented, his thoughts clouded with pain. Jonathon grabbed a fistful of Andy's hair, the kid crying out as his head was ripped back, throat exposed, and it was suddenly terribly, horribly obvious what was about to happen.

'Oh my god, oh my god, he's going to slit my throat!' Andy thought, at about the same time Amanda thought it too.

She slammed her eyes shut against the cry that was so much louder than any sound Andy made out loud. He was struggling for all that he was worth, she could hear them rolling on the ground – she could hear him in her head – and the sounds she couldn't block out with her hands over her ears or her eyelids slammed shut were so much worse.

'Stop, damnit, you don't have to do this! My powers don't work on you, you asshat!'

"Stop it!" Amanda suddenly found her voice, realizing in tandem with Andy just why Jonathon was doing this. Her eyes snapped back open in horror. "Stop, his powers don't work on us!"

But it was too late, and far too little. Jonathon didn't stop, didn't even act like her heard her, and she knew, just from Andy's earlier thoughts about them all potentially killing each other, that he probably wouldn't even if her words had made it through.

While Amanda had stood there trying to block them out and Scott was useless by her side, too scared to run, too scared to do anything, the two boys had clearly rolled in their struggle. But Jonathon still had Andy pinned, now sitting on his chest as the smaller man kicked out uselessly beneath him. His hands were wrapped around Andy's throat, open knife still in his fist. Andy was turning red, sputtering and struggling to speak through the punishing grip. He was gawping like a fish on land, and the sight was almost too much to bare.

Scott was frozen beside her, clutching at his head. Amanda didn't feel frozen. She felt way, way too aware of absolutely everything that was happening. That was about to happen. But she couldn't move.

Jonathon pulled one hand away to position the knife under Andy's chin, having to bat away the kid's hands as he tried to stop him, slicing open Andy's palms and the pads of his fingers and a good stretch of his wrist as he fought off his own death.

The skillet was heavy in Amanda's hand and her fingers tightened around it with sudden realization. She wasn't frozen. She wasn't, and someone had to do something to stop Jonathon. Amanda surged forward before she could think about it, raising the iron pan in two hands – the sure and firm grip of a batter – and swung.

-o-o-o-

'Oh my god, he's going to slit my throat!'

Andy struggled for all that he was worth as his hair was yanked back in a vicious grip, neck exposed and the intent of his attacker perfectly clear. He kicked and twisted, trying to get his legs under him, to buck this psycho the hell off him. The fight spared him precious seconds of not-bleeding-to-death-yet-again, as Jonathon lost his balance and his grip. Andy threw him off his back and scrambled onto his hands and knees. But the blow to his head hadn't been a joke, and he teetered to the side, hands shuffling in dirt and dried leaves.

Jonathon got to his knees far faster and launched himself at Andy again, taking the two of them back to the ground. The murderous lunatic managed to wrap his legs around Andy once more, pinning him to the ground and sitting, heavy and obnoxious, on Andy's chest.

"St-"

Hands curled around his throat with the kind of desperate speed that suggested a life or death struggle. Which was just plain ridiculous. Andy was the one in a life or death situation, here, not this crazy person! But even as Jonathon's fingers dug in hard enough that Andy could feel his neck bruising under the pressure and knew he'd have a crushed wind pipe if he didn't get out of this quickly, the Jedi realized what exactly was happening.

Jonathon thought his powers were a threat. He was keeping him from talking!

Andy struggled to speak through the grip, to tell him just how absurd and useless an idea that was, but nothing made it past the punishing hold. His neck hurt in a way he couldn't even describe, something hard but breakable inside his throat starting to creak beneath the pressure, soon to give, and he knew he'd be lucky if he walked away from this without permanent damage at this point. Andy scrabbled for Jonathon's hands, his fingers, his wrists, slapping and clawing at his forearms, internally reeling in pain as he caught himself on the knife still in the kid's hands, and yanked his now-bleeding arm away. But he couldn't stop trying. What would a nick to the wrist or a missing finger matter if he was dead? Andy swung his arm up to try and land a hit to the man towering above him, but Jonathon was built like a brick shithouse, and nothing was lessening the insane grip.

'It doesn't seem fair,' he remembered telling Dean, way back when in the safety of the Impala with that gun sitting in his lap and a distant future of bloodshed too unbelievable to imagine.

'No, it sure as hell doesn't, kid.'

Good god, he was going to die. Friggin' again.

'My powers don't even work on you, you asshat!' he screamed and raved and ranted internally at that unfairness, kicking his legs desperately. But the weight on his chest remained, and his vision started to dot black and white from oxygen deprivation. He heard Amanda screaming, but it was muffled and far away.

Amanda. She and Scott needed to run. This psycho would surely turn on them as soon as he was done murderizing Andy.

Then the chilling pressure of cold metal was back at his neck, just beneath his jawline. Jonathon still had the knife, and he'd released one hand from Andy's neck in order to finish him off. Andy grabbed at that hand, but a slash to his palm and another catching two of his fingers weakened his body's resolve to fight, and worse, any grip he might have had even as he forced that fight to keep going.

'Top of the neck,' Andy thought in response to that cold metal touch, really far too rational for everything else his body was screaming. 'That's where the larynx is.'

The paranoid son of a bitch really was going after his voice, and was gonna friggin' kill him to do it.

Burning pain ripped across his entire neck and Andy suddenly found himself with a whole new problem. Liquid, thick and hot, flooded his throat, clogging his airway, and he was choking on his own blood. The weight from his chest vanished in an instant and Andy scrambled to roll over, desperately thinking he had to make gravity a friend and not his death sentence. He clutched at his neck as blood spilled from beneath his hand in a terrifying tidal wave of dark, deep red. It splattered on the dusty ground beneath him and he choked and gasped and spat out gobs of it.

He could still breathe. Andy couldn't quite wrap his head around the fact that, despite the blood dropping out of him like Niagra friggin' Falls, and the thick, sticky clogging in his throat that tried to choke him, he was still breathing. Well, mostly. The panicky, shallow, hyperventilating way his lungs burned and his brain screamed in terror wasn't great, but his vision wasn't spotted anymore, and he was actually getting oxygen to his brain.

His airway must still be partially clear.

That, and the fact that he wasn't spurting blood six and a half feet away in a fountain of red the likes of which Quentin Tarantino would be creepily inspired by, meant Jonathon hadn't hit his carotid artery. Of course, that didn't mean the amount of blood spilling to the ground and running down his arm wouldn't still kill him.

God damn it, he was not dying like this again! It hadn't even been a whole twenty four hours since the last almost-bleed-to-death fiasco! He wanted to file a complaint with the manager!

"Andy!" He heard Amanda's cry and felt her over his shoulder, a hand on his back, another to the side of his face but he tried to pull away. "Oh- Oh my god…"

'Oh god, don't touch it,' he through frantically, terrified of the pain she'd inflict while trying to help. Not that it mattered; he was gonna be dead in about three minutes, if his math was correct. Which it probably wasn't. He was terrible at math. Not that that mattered, either.

"Move!"

That was Scott. Where was Jonathon? They needed to run. They should probably run. Andy was a goner, and he really didn't want them to be next.

The pressure of Amanda's hand on his back vanished, and Andy wanted to cry in both relief and absolute terror. He knew what he'd just said, what Amanda could probably hear through the panic and the pain. What they should absolutely be listening to and doing. But he also really, really didn't want to die alone.

And then a new hand was pulling his hand away from his neck and he tried to cry out – and that was a bad mother effing idea! – but nothing came out except gargles and globs and trickles of blood and pink-tinged bubbles, and oh god, he took it back, death was okay, now. Any time. Totally fine. Just let it be over.

Then a hand wrapped around his ruined throat, slick and slippery in the blood and split flesh.

"Sorry, I'm sorry, just hold on. This is going to hurt, I'm so sorry" Scott said frantically, leaning half over Andy as he clamped his hand down on the wound.

Andy tried to scream, the pain of foreign touch on a fresh and fatal injury so intense he just wished it would end. All of it, whatever that meant, whatever it took. It could just end now and that would be fine by him.

Then something so, so much worse happened. Fire erupted in his throat with a jolt through his body, traveling like an electric charge. Every muscle in his neck and shoulders seized, his whole upper body shook with a vibration so strong it was almost numbing, and the last thing Andy knew was the smell of his own flesh burning.

-o-o-o-

Amanda swung her skillet hard enough at Jonathon's head to wrench her good shoulder, but that wasn't what shocked or worried her. The guy straight up disappeared. In the span of a single blink, she'd been aiming for his head and then swinging clear through empty air. Jonathon was, just…gone.

Andy made a desperate, gargling cry beneath her, rolling over onto his hands and knees and Amanda's mind blanked at the sight of blood. So much blood. So…so much…

She stumbled away from him as a damn waterfall of red fell from his neck and hit the ground before he could begin to staunch the flow with his hand. Even that didn't do much to limit the outpouring of red.

So much blood…

Movement made her jump, and she immediately raised her makeshift bat, ready for a second swing. Jonathon was a dozen feet away, in the open alley beside the nearest building, staring at them. He had blood on his hands and shirt, and he regarded them with a look Amanda had never seen on another human's face.

And then he was gone. Another blink, another disappearance.

"Where'd he go?" Scott asked, voice trembling as he spun around, back almost flush to Amanda's. She understood why, it felt like safety in a situation that was anything but.

Andy made another pitiful, terrible, horrible noise and Amanda decided it didn't matter where Jonathon had gone. She dropped to her knees, skillet still clenched in her hand, her other settling uncertainly on Andy's back.

"Oh god…" There was so much blood. She didn't even know how to help. Their makeshift weapon hit the ground as she raised her second hand to try and…she didn't even know. Staunch the blood flow? There was no use! "Oh- oh my god…"

"Move," Scott suddenly said, the urgency in his voice making it the most steady she'd heard since meeting the nervous young man. He pushed her out of the way and she let him, shuffling a foot to the side. Scott leaned over Andy, keeping clear of any contact other than to pull the poor boy's hand away from his throat by his wrist

"I'm sorry," Scott muttered, and Amanda got a terrible feeling as he wrapped his hand around Andy's bleeding, slashed throat. She had to look away from the two hanging, jagged pieces of flesh folding beneath Scott's hand. "I'm so sorry."

Then Andy was screaming and writhing and shaking. He shook like he was having an attack – a seizure – and Amanda screamed again. She stumbled away from the horrific sight as a terrible smell filled the air. Scott was…oh god, Scott was electrocuting him.

Amanda slapped her hands to her ears to block out Andy's ruined, gurgled screams, ripped out through clenched teeth and a locked jaw, but she could hear so much more, his full anguish, straight into her skull.

"Stop, stop, you're killing him!"

Scott did stop, but not before Andy passed out, collapsing to the ground in a heap of blood, bonelessness, and seared flesh. Amanda stood to the side, shaking, hands trembling against the sides of her head. She stared in horror at the cauterized wound, no longer bleeding, but a hideous sight of mangled, blistered, melted red flesh.

"What…what did you…?"

Scott grabbed the skillet off the ground and backed away from Andy. He was shaking himself, enough so that the iron pan visibly trembled as well. He was panting, though not from exertion as much as sheer terror.

He'd never used his powers on a human before. And though he'd been trying to save Andy, his screams… and the smell of burning flesh…

Scott turned away, anxiety spiking to the point of physical pain in his chest. He might have killed him anyways. Might have let the electricity travel too far. Get too strong. Fry his insides like hamburger meat. Like Mr. Tinkers all over again.

Or maybe he'd just stopped his heart.

"I…I can't…" Scott couldn't breathe. His chest hurt and his heart pounded and he was pretty sure he was having a heart attack. "I can't be here."

"No, wait-" Amanda started to say, Scott's intention to run clear in every inch of his panicking body. But he stumbled away from her, turned and took off before she could stop him. Panicking herself, she glanced between Andy's unconscious body and Scott's retreating figure, taking the only weapon they had with him.

She never got to make that choice. A shift of air from behind brushed against her hair and clothing. A tremor of fear ran through her. Strong arms wrapped around her from behind before she could turn around. Before she could scream, in the blink of an eye, Amanda was gone.

The road was as empty as the town but for Andy Gallagher's bloody, unmoving body.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

A/Ns: …okay, but I didn't *kill* him? [insert weak smile here]

Really, this is all your guys' fault. I was gonna let Andy walk away from Cold Oak relatively unharmed, just traumatized enough to go seek out some corner of the world where he could smoke a bong till the end of the world (I swear to Chuck, that was the original plan) but nooo, you all wanted him to stay in the story! And Draconis Domini was like, just slit his throat and he can stay, problem solved! And I was like…huh. I can do that.

I am, after all, a woman of the people. [insert weak ass, slimy politician smile here]

(Draconis, I promise, another A/N is coming further down the line where I *don't* throw you under the bus for this idea :D)

On a Slightly More Serious Note: There was a lot of jumping back and forth in both POV and timing this chapter, which as you know is not quite my usual style. Again, please let me know if was confusing or didn't really work and I'll address it for future readers.

Up Next: The follow-up should be posted in a week. I may bounce back and forth between one and two week updates for a while going forward, but as long as I'm leaving you with nasty cliffhangers, I won't make you wait more than a week for the next chapter.