Season Four

Episode One: Refraction

By irismay42

Part Three

“Sammy?”

Dean took a step toward the young man at the bar, who in turn rose uncertainly to his feet.

“Dean?”

This version of his brother appeared just as hesitant and unsure as Dean himself felt, and he tried to force down the tiny spark of cautious optimism which insisted on whispering, “Maybe…?” into his ear just loud enough for him to hear it.

What business had Winchesters being optimistic anyway?

None. Zip. Zilch, Dean chided himself. If this was his Sammy, he’d know. Right?

Well at least this Sam was an improvement on the previous Sam, Dean observed. Because if nothing else, this Sam was breathing, even if he wasn’t Dean’s actual brother. And that had to count for something.

Dean took another step forward, his hands twitching as he tried to control his arms which, completely independently of his brain, were urging him to grab hold of his little brother and never let him go.

Not my Sam dead in the mud, he kept telling himself, as if the more he repeated it, the more he could believe it, the more true it became. My Sam’s okay. He’s alive. He’s safe. He’s…here?

Damn stupid optimism! Stop sneaking up on me! I’m not an idiot! And I’m not gettin’ fooled again...

“It’s—it’s good to see you, Dean,” Sam said cautiously, his voice casually restrained, as if he was holding something back. Holding himself back, maybe.

If Dean didn’t know better he’d have sworn his little brother’s eyes were kind of sparkly, as if he was on the verge of tears.

Can’t be my Sammy… Dean told himself. Can’t be…

“Yeah,” he managed to agree carefully, once again waiting for the other shoe to drop. “You too.” Vampire? Zombie? Shapeshifter? Dying of cancer? What was this Sam going to turn out to have wrong with him? “How—how’d you get here?”

Sam shrugged, sticking his hands in his jeans pockets stiffly before motioning with his head in the direction of the parking lot. “Bobby. Lent me a car.”

Dean snorted despite himself. “Please tell me my only brother hasn’t been riding around in a Dodge Caravan?”

The corner of Sam’s mouth ticked up and he seemed a little chagrined, and for a second Dean almost thought…

Stupid optimism.

“It was the only thing he had on the road,” Sam was saying.

Dean smirked. “Dude, you are now officially a soccer mom. You know I can’t be seen with you ever again, right?”

Sam’s eyes seemed to get a bit more sparkly. “Think you’ll get infected by my incurable uncoolness?”

Dean’s smirk actually broadened into a grin. “Damn straight!” he agreed.

There was an awkward silence while the two of them just looked at each other, Dean desperately trying to pick up on any tell, any clue that this might be the real deal, the real Sam. His Sam.

Don’t fall for it again, Dean. It’s just the universe screwing with you some more.

It was Ellen who broke the stalemate. “Somethin’ wrong with you two?” she asked with a frown, eliciting blank stares from both the brothers. “You seem kinda…off. You boys have a fight or somethin’ before you went your separate ways?”

Separate ways? Oh here we go. Another freakin’ lesson on how bad things happen whenever we split up. It’s like bein’ friggin’ married…

Dean sighed. Of course, he really didn’t need some acid trip to Fantasy Island to tell him he and Sam ought to stick together. Real life had demonstrated that only too well and on too many occasions for him to have not learned that particular lesson by now.

“Separate ways?” Sam echoed Ellen’s words as if he was echoing Dean’s thoughts, glancing sidelong at his brother before stammering, “Yeah, when we, when we split up, right.” He nodded firmly. “Which we did. Yeah. When we—when we went our separate ways.” He smiled awkwardly at Ellen, inclining his head slightly to give the puppy dog eyes a better angle to achieve maximum impact. “And—and we did that because we needed to…?”

Ellen was probably the only female Dean had ever encountered on whom the puppy dog eyes had absolutely zero effect. Instead, she just rolled her own eyes impatiently. “You boys both take a knock to the head while you were gone?” she demanded. “Jeez, maybe I was right to be worried about the two o’ you!”

“You were worried about us?” Dean clarified, still a little unused to people he knew worrying about him, let alone people he didn’t.

“Of course I was!” Ellen burst out, apparently pretty affronted by the question as she snagged a dishrag from on top of the bar and flicked Dean’s arm with it.

“Hey!” Dean yelped, immediately swallowing the rest of his protest at the dark look Ellen threw in his direction.

“You think sellin’ your soul to a demon is somethin’ I’m gonna forget about in a hurry, boy?” she snapped, and Dean’s jaw clamped shut abruptly.

He just blinked at her for a second. “Selling my what to a what?”

“And you—” Ellen had already turned her attention to Sam, who took a precautionary step backwards as his eyes slid to the dishrag still clutched in the woman’s hand. “Running off with your little psychic kid army? No explanation. No phone call. No word whether you were alive or dead!”

Sam raised his eyebrows. “My psychic what?”

“You could o’ called me, Sam!” Ellen continued. “Both of you could o’ called me! I mean, I know it was a stressful time for you boys, both trying to find a way out of Dean’s Deal—” she looked Dean up and down pointedly, “—and I’m guessing you found one, considering you’ve not been ripped to shreds by hellhounds and you’re not doing hard time down in the Fiery Furnace right about now—”

Dean glanced at Sam, who just looked back at him blankly.

“And believe me, I’m real happy about that, Dean,” Ellen continued. “I really am. I’m happy for the both of you. But it’s just—it’s just I worry when you boys don’t have each other’s backs is all. Neither one o’ you should be hunting alone. Not now.”

When Dean again glanced back at Sam, his little brother seemed to be considering Ellen’s words even as he studied Dean.

Ellen sighed, her posture deflating a little as she turned her attention back to Sam. “And don’t think I’m not grateful to your psychic friend Ava, Sam,” she assured him, glancing about the roadhouse wistfully. “A lot of demons bit it that night. If she hadn’t warned us about that little fire they had planned for this place? Well it could o’ been a lot of hunters instead. Not to mention Ash.”

“Ash?” both boys managed to ask in unison, trading another brief glance as they did so.

“He’s probably asleep on his computer keyboard again,” Ellen continued, apparently oblivious to the query in Dean’s voice. And if Dean wasn’t mistaken, in Sam’s voice too. “Last time he did that, he drooled so much he almost electrocuted himself stone dead.” Ellen shrugged and shook her head. “That’s geniuses for ya. Matter o’ fact, he’ll probably want to say hello to you boys. I’ll go see if he’s anywhere near conscious.” She turned to head for a small doorway behind the bar, before suddenly pausing and adding, “And I’ll make sure he’s got his pants on this time.”

Dean raised an eyebrow and Sam laughed nervously. “Okay, yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” the younger brother stammered, watching Ellen disappear through the doorway as Dean, in turn, watched him.

As Sam shifted his attention back to Dean, their gazes met once again, each brother eyeing the other warily.

“So,” Dean said at last, finally breaking the awkward silence. “Psychic kid army huh?”

Sam shrugged barely perceptibly, his hands still resolutely stuck in his pockets. “Demon Deal? Hellhounds?”

Dean matched Sam’s shrug and raised him one of his own. “Yeah, I guess,” he said carefully, his instinct to trust this version of Sam almost overcoming his reason. “It’s—it’s weird though. Almost like—” he paused thoughtfully. “Almost like something that happened to me in another life.”

He waited patiently, trying to fathom the tiny contraction of Sam’s eyebrows and the way his eyes opened a little wider, as if Dean had taken him by surprise.

“Yeah,” Sam said, very slowly. “That’s exactly how it feels.” He affected a pose of relaxed nonchalance before adding, “In fact, I suddenly realized I don’t actually know how you got out of the Hotbox.” He paused for a long second, before adding, “Do you?”

Dean swallowed. Hard. Goddamn it, optimism, leave me the hell alone!

Shaking his head cautiously, it took him a second before he could manage a reply. “Don’t remember a thing.”

Sam’s expression didn’t change, he merely nodded, his hands casually emerging from his pockets and flexing at his sides. “About Hell?”

Dean twitched his head a little, shifting his weight onto the balls of his feet. “Uh-huh,” he confirmed. “Hell. Hellhounds. Demon Deal. You dyin’…” He stopped suddenly, before a torrent of words flooded out of his mouth. “This place. Ellen. Ash. You and some psychic chick called Ava. Sammy, I don’t remember any of it.”

Sam swallowed. “Any of it?”

Dean shrugged. “Nada, nothing.” He knew he sounded desperate, and he hated that, but this could be his Sam. This could be Sammy. “Sam, I’ve never been to this place before in my life and I don’t have the first clue who these people are!” he burst out abruptly.

Sam raised an eyebrow and took a step toward him, opening his mouth as if to interrupt.

But Dean raised a hand and waved him into silence. He had to get through this. He had to. “Wait, wait, just hear me out, man!” he begged. “I know this sounds crazy, I do, but just hear me out.” He took a breath. “As far as I know you never died and I never made no Deal with no demon to save you—that was your gig, man!” He inclined his head slightly, a frown drawing his brows together as all of a sudden he seemed unable to stem the tide of words that came pouring out of his mouth. “Not that I wouldn’t have. If our situations had been reversed. You know that, right? But—but I never sold my soul, Sammy! Not for you, not for anyone! And I’ve sure as hell never been to—uh—Hell! Well, not yet anyway. And today? Well today I’ve pretty much spent getting jerked around from one whacked out version of our lives to another, and none of them was any kind of improvement on the pile of crapola we actually have to put up with, and I don’t know what the hell’s going on and I—I didn’t… I don’t know where I am or what I’m supposed to do. And—and I don’t know if you’re you or another you and if you’re another you I don’t know where my you is or—or where I am or—or who I am or—or where I’m supposed to be or why any of this is happening…”

Dean trailed off helplessly, taking a resigned breath before hesitantly raising his gaze to this facsimile of Sam, feeling naked and exposed, laying himself open to this guy who could be his brother, but could equally be a complete stranger.

Sam’s expression softened slightly, wariness and uncertainty giving way to something else. Hope, maybe?

“You never died for me, Dean,” Sam assured his brother slowly, carefully taking another step toward his brother. “You never went to Hell for me. And I never died either. Although there have been some pretty close calls.” He smiled weakly. “There’s no psychic kid army, and I don’t know anyone called Ava. Most of the psychic kids like me pretty much bit the big one when Lucifer decided we needed culling.” The hope in Sam’s voice was gradually shifting into something else: desperation. “Dean, I swear, I never met any of these people before today. Before—before—”

It was as if he couldn’t bring himself to say it, to take that final step. So Dean did it for him. “Stull church?”

Dean held his breath, carefully watching the expression on Sam’s face. Which immediately seemed to melt into utter and total relief, his shoulders slumping as the tension seeped from his muscles.

“Dean?”

“Sammy?”

Dean would maintain till his dying day that it was Sammy who virtually launched himself at his big brother and enfolded him in a hug so desperate it was as if he intended snapping him clean in half.

And further, Dean would also maintain that no hugging at all was returned on his part, and that his arms just accidentally wrapped themselves about his kid brother’s midsection completely of their own volition and insisted they stay there for a good few seconds.

Chick flick moments? Not Dean Winchester, no siree!

Dean gently patted Sam’s back before pulling away slightly, still maintaining a physical hold on his brother—for Sam’s sake, obviously—before looking up into the kid’s distinctly watery eyes.

“Wait, wait,” he said, holding up a hand. “Y’know, not that I don’t believe it’s really you or anything, Sammy…” He paused for a second, before shrugging helplessly. “I just need a little reassurance, okay?”

“Reassurance?” Sam faltered.

Dean nodded. “Just—just go with me on this, alright?”

“Ooh-kay…” Sam shrugged uncertainly.

“Okay.” Dean took a breath. “Favorite ice cream?”

Sam blinked at him for a second, then seemed to relax a little, his apprehensive expression melting into an indulgent smile. “Mine or yours?” he queried good naturedly, rubbing a hand across his face and sighing in shaky relief.

“Yours, doofus.”

“Cherry Garcia.”

“Okay.”

“My turn,” Sam returned.

Dean squinted at him. “Who said you got a turn?”

“Little brother’s prerogative,” Sam informed him flatly. “First song you played in the Impala after Dad told you she was yours?”

Dean smirked. “Dude, too easy. Zeppelin. Rock and Roll. Okay, favorite TV show.”

“Now?”

“Then.”

“Dean—”

“Sammy.”

“Thundercats. Shut up.”

“Alrighty then!” Dean grinned big. “Only my geeky kid brother would admit to liking Thundercats. Now get off o’ me.”

Pushing Sam away in a theatrical demonstration of masculinity and testosterone—though not too far away, obviously—Dean instantly launched into his version of fact-finding mode. “So what in hell’s name is goin’ on, Sammy?” he demanded, believing Sam, as usual, to be the font of all knowledge.

“You expect me to know?” Sam just frowned at him blankly.

“Geekboy research nerd, brain the size of a planet?” Dean burst out. “Hell yes, I expect you to know! What the hell have you been doing with your time since Stull, Sam?”

“Honestly?” Sam asked. “Mostly watching variations of you dying, Dean. Or—y’know—stumblin’ upon your mangled corpse. Literally.” He shuddered and Dean frowned.

“Dude,” he said with a smirk, trying to lighten Sam’s dark mood even though he knew there was nothing remotely funny about their current predicament. “You were a total werewolf.”

“I was a what?” Sam blinked at him in disbelief.

“Werewolf girlfriend, the whole nine yards!” Dean assured him.

“I—what?”

“I know, hard to believe, huh?” Dean returned. “You with a girlfriend! Who’d o’ thunk it?”

“Dean—”

“And, also you’ve been mostly dead all day too.”

Sam ran a hand through his hair. “You think someone’s trying to tell us something?”

“Like what?” Dean asked. “That we should never, ever, ever, split up, not even when we’re, like, ninety? Dude! Most murderers don’t get a life sentence that harsh!” Dean shifted from foot to foot, his tone suddenly serious. “C’mon, Sam, you don’t honestly believe there’s a message here, do you? It’s just the universe dumping more random crap on us and laughing its ass off.”

“We don’t know that,” Sam returned, scratching thoughtfully at his chin. “It just—it just doesn’t seem random to me. It’s like—it’s like maybe there’s some kind of intelligence behind what’s been happening. Maybe there is a message, maybe we just can’t see what it is from our perspective.”

“That’s ’cause maybe it doesn’t mean anything!”

“Or maybe the message wasn’t meant for us at all,” Sam continued, apparently oblivious to Dean’s protests. “Maybe it was meant for a different us altogether.”

Dean’s face lit up. “Like evil robot usses?”

“Dude,” Sam sighed. “We’re not Bill and Ted. Get over it.”

“Buzzkill.”

“Dean, this is serious! I’ve been bounced around a whole slew of different versions of our lives since Stull and I still have no idea how we’re supposed to—I dunno—wake up, or get back, or reverse whatever it is that’s happening to us!”

Dean inclined his head slightly. “Okay. So you think maybe if we learn our lesson we’ll get to go home? I dunno, Sam, seems a little Michael Landon to me. I mean, what’s the point? I’m not goin’ anywhere. And you’re not planning on ditchin’ me in the near future. Are you? Sam?”

Damn, Dean hated it when he sounded so goddamn needy.

Sam looked up at him as if he’d totally been thinking about something else. “What? No! No, of course I’m not planning on ditching you.”

The “again” went unspoken by both of them.

“Well. Y’know. Good.”

“Although maybe one of these other Sam and Dean Winchesters had a falling out.”

“Then why is this happening to us if it’s meant for someone else? That’s just stupid.”

Sam rubbed at his temples. “I hate when you make sense, Dean.”

Dean smirked. “Turns your little geeky world upside down, huh?”

“You have no idea.”

“Well okay. So what am I supposed to learn from seeing you dead over and over? So far today I’ve seen you burnt up in a fire, werewolfed out and—and stabbed in the back.”

Sam grimaced. “Ouch.”

“Yeah. You?”

“Well, you got your throat ripped out by a seriously uptight vampire who thought I was the Antichrist. Shot to death by the cops. Oh, and let’s not forget death by lethal injection.”

Dean brightened considerably. “Seriously? Dude! I am so badass!”

“Dead badass.”

“Did I have on one of those orange jumpsuits?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Bet I looked smokin’ hot!”

“You looked like a popsicle.”

“A smokin’ hot popsicle though, right? You’re just jealous.”

“That you got executed? Man, I think I’ll pass.”

A shadow passed across Sam’s face and Dean sobered slightly as he remembered the sight of that other Dean cradling a dead Sam to his chest in the middle of a muddy street. “Yeah,” he agreed, his voice suddenly subdued. “Yeah, it’s not exactly been a fun day. All things considered, I think I preferred the bugs.”

“Wow, I guess it really has been a bad day.”

“You have no idea,” Dean agreed, steeling himself before asking his next question. “Sammy? What about Dad? Sam?” He managed to keep the tremor in his voice to a minimum, but still sounded like Sam had when he was five. Where’s Daddy, Dean? “Sam, did you see him? In any of the other—whatevers? Was he with you when…?”

Sam shook his head. “No. We were separated.” A tiny frown crinkled between his eyebrows.

“Sam?” Dean knew that look. It was Sam’s “I’ve just had a nutball idea and you’re not gonna like it” look. “What?”

“What?” Sam came abruptly back to himself, blinking at his brother as if it had completely slipped his mind he was there. “Oh. No. Nothing. Just thinking.”

“And I’m just thinking you two have some damn explaining to do.”

Ellen had emerged from the hallway at the back of the bar and was now brandishing a shotgun which was pretty much aimed at Dean’s chest.

Dean glanced nervously at Sam, before turning back to the bar owner. “Hey, Ellen. What—what’s the problem?” He flashed his most dazzling smile, which didn’t seem to have the slightest effect on the woman.

“Put those pearly whites away, honey. They’re not gonna stop me blowin’ a hole in that pretty face o’ yours if you move another inch.”

Dean froze. “Ooh-kay…”

Ellen tightened her grip on the shotgun as a young guy, eyes drooping as if he were half asleep, appeared at her shoulder. He had the mullet from Hell on his head and an expression on his face as if he couldn’t decide whether to back Ellen up, get a beer or go back to sleep. Or a combination of all three.

“I heard you boys talkin’,” Ellen was saying. “About how you don’t know us? Never been here before? What the hell are you? Ghouls? Shapeshifters?”

Dean once again attempted his most disarming smile. “Lady, I sure as hell hope you’ve got somethin’ a little better ’n rock salt in that popgun, ’cause if we are shapeshifters you’re gonna need some serious silverware.”

Ellen swung the shotgun up in the direction of Dean’s face. “Not if I blow your head off with it, sweetie.”

Dean raised his hands. “Okay. You may have a point there.”

“Wait, wait!” Sam interjected, mirroring Dean’s gesture of surrender. “Ma’am, I swear, we’re not shapeshifters—”

“Don’t you ‘ma’am’ me!” Ellen snapped, the shotgun swinging in Sam’s direction. “You make me sound like my mother!”

Sam ducked his head slightly. “Uh. Sorry ma—miss?”

Ellen shook her head. “And I’m not my daughter either!” The shotgun didn’t waver from its position, and Dean started to edge slowly between the muzzle and any direct line of fire to Sam.

“Dean!” Sam warned between gritted teeth. “Quit it.”

“Yeah, quit it, Dean,” Ellen agreed. “Now, are you boys gonna tell me what the hell you are and what the hell you’ve done with the real Sam and Dean Winchester before I get really upset?”

“We are the real Sam and Dean Winchester!” Sam protested, hands still raised in surrender. He shrugged uncertainly. “Just maybe not the Sam and Dean Winchester you know.”

Sam had that whole puppy dog thing going on again so Dean bit off the “Now get that shotgun out of my face!” that was on the tip of his tongue.

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Ellen demanded, eyes narrowing as she appeared to consider what Sam had just said, the shotgun not lowering one iota. “Huh? Whaddya mean, ‘maybe not the Sam and Dean Winchester I know?’ You tellin’ me you boys are freakin’ pod people now? Clones?”

“No one could clone me, sweetheart,” Dean informed her. “I’m one of a kind.”

“Dean, shut up,” Sam snapped, none-too-kindly.

Dean frowned at him. “You shut up!”

Sam did “prissy face” and Dean shut up.

Ellen snorted. “Whatever you two clowns are, you sure as hell sound like those Winchester boys.”

“That’s because we are—” Sam took a sudden step forward, and Ellen’s shotgun lurched in his direction.

“Stay right where you are, Stretch,” Ellen instructed him shortly, and Sam froze mid-stride.

“So Stull church, huh?” Mullet Guy suddenly chimed in as if he’d finally woken up enough to enter the conversation.

Dean glanced over at Sam who shrugged. “And who are you?” he asked. “Lynyrd Skynyrd roadie?”

The guy sniffed loudly. “Yeah, that’s what you said first time we met.”

“Ash?” the question was clear in Ellen’s voice. “Ash, what the hell’s going on here?”

“Ash, huh?” Dean asked. “Like Bruce Campbell?”

“With better hair,” Ash replied. “And a freakin’ genius I.Q. to go with it.”

“What happened to ‘rock god and stud muffin?’” Ellen asked with a tiny smirk.

Ash sniffed again. “Kinda thought that went without sayin’,” he drawled.

“Oh yeah?” Dean snorted. “In which universe?”

Ash nodded sagely. “Well that’s kinda your whole problem, ain’t it?”

“What’s our problem?” Sam asked, almost taking a step forward, but then obviously thinking better of it.

“You know the legend, right?” Ash went on as if Sam hadn’t spoken. “About Stull cemetery being one of the seven gateways to Hell?”

“We’re familiar with it,” Sam replied coolly.

Dean was slightly more affronted. “We’re not idiots, Brisco!” he burst out, posture stiffening. “Or worse, amateurs! Of course we know the legend!”

“Although you did have to get Dad to remind you what is was, right Dean?” Sam put in.

Dean shot him a look. “Whose side are you on, Walter Wikipedia?” he demanded.

Sam smiled serenely at him before turning his attention back to Ash. “According to the legends, the Hellgate opens at Halloween and the spring equinox, right? Allowing Lucifer to roam the earth for just one night.”

Dean snorted derisively. “Lucifer can roam the earth whenever he freakin’ well pleases,” he pointed out.

Ellen frowned at him. “Lucifer?” she echoed. “What are you talking about?”

Dean shook his head and sighed. “Long story,” he conceded. “But on our side of the rainbow? Lucifer’s pretty much got his own season ticket Topside.”

The bar owner shuddered, for the first time allowing the shotgun to lower slightly. “Where’d you boys say you were from again?”

“Well that’s the sixty-six thousand dollar question,” Sam murmured.

“What’s the last thing you guys remember while you were in the church?” Ash asked suddenly.

“The church kept morphing,” Sam replied. “I was running around kinda blind, trying to find Dean and Dad—”

“Your dad was with you?” The shotgun dropped entirely, and Ellen moved towards them.

“Yeah,” Sam confirmed. “I lost them both. There were demons everywhere, and every time I thought I found a doorway, it’d up and disappear and reappear on the opposite side of the room, and when I finally managed to get out of one room, the room on the other side of the door was different to the room that was there before and—and—”

“It was like being inside a hall of mirrors inside a maze inside a carnival cakewalk,” Dean added. “While being chased by demons.”

“Fun times,” Ash observed, reaching beneath the bar and pulling out the weirdest looking laptop Dean had ever seen.

“That thing get hit by a semi?” he asked, only half-joking.

Ash didn’t even look at him. “Not all good things come in pretty packages,” he said, leisurely tapping a few commands into the computer as if he had all the time in the world. And then some. “Built this thing myself. From scratch. And almost sober.” He frowned as he read something off the computer screen. “So since you got pulled out of the church you’ve been where?”

“Different versions of our lives,” Sam explained.

“Different completely whacked versions of our lives,” Dean added.

“I saw Dean executed,” Sam offered.

“And I saw Sam’s funeral.” Dean’s eyes lowered. “It wasn’t fun.”

Sam swallowed. “No,” he agreed. “None of this has been fun.”

“And you just jump into one of these lives and then jump back out?” Ash asked casually, as if he was barely interested.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “Pretty much.”

“It’s more like being pulled out than jumping out,” Dean put in. “You kinda feel this tug—”

“On your shoulders,” Sam finished for him. “Yeah. Like someone’s grabbed you from behind and yanked you on to the next place.”

“And then there’s a bright flash and then Yahtzee! It’s Crazy Time all over again.”

“So you weren’t together when you found out you weren’t in Kansas anymore?” Ash looked at them over the top of the laptop, face completely serious, and Dean didn’t know whether he was making a joke or really hadn’t ever seen The Wizard of Oz.

“No,” Sam confirmed. “As far as I know we were on different sides of the building.”

“And your dad?”

Both Winchesters shrugged.

“He could have been anywhere,” Dean admitted.

“What day do you think this is?”

The question took Dean a little by surprise, and he glanced over at Sam, who inclined his head slightly to the right.

“Sunday?” Dean offered.

“The date, man,” Ash amended sharply, as close to irritated as Dean figured he ever got. “What’s the date?”

“November 1st, 2009,” the brothers managed to respond together.

“It’s September 18th, 2008,” Ellen pointed out. “Thursday.”

Dean’s eyebrows leaped up his forehead and Sam’s mouth fell open slightly.

“Huh,” the younger Winchester mumbled.

“Couldn’t o’ put it better myself,” Dean agreed.

Ash didn’t appear to be listening. “Freaky,” he muttered, apparently to himself, still squinting at his computer screen. “Time, space and reality…”

“Reality?” Sam echoed.

Ash looked up suddenly. “You boys run into yourselves yet?”

Dean blinked. “I wanna say ‘huh?’ but I can’t seem to make that into a sentence,” he commented, rubbing at a spot between his eyes.

“You mean, have we seen other versions of ourselves?” Sam tried to clarify, edging a little closer to Dean for no apparent reason.

Ash nodded. “That’s what I said.”

Sam snorted a little incredulously. “No way. It’s not possible, man,” he said. “You can’t exist more than once in any one place. It’d be a—”

“Paradox,” Dean supplied, a little affronted by the three pairs of incredulous eyes suddenly turned in his direction. “What?” he demanded. “I’ve seen Star Trek.”

Sam chuckled. “‘I only watch it for the chicks’ huh?”

Dean shrugged. “Just ’cause they’re wearing Lycra don’t mean they can’t talk technobabble as good as the next guy, Sammy.”

“You’re not wrong though,” Ash weighed in, his vision a little distant. “About the paradox. And the Lycra.”

“Counselor Troi, am I right?” Dean all but leered, and Sam, predictably, rolled his eyes.

“Dean.”

“What?”

“Uh, mortal peril here, dude. Focus for a second.”

“I am focused!” Dean protested. “And besides,” he paused for a second, suddenly finding the bar floor absolutely fascinating. “I—uh—kinda did run into another version of myself.”

“You—what?” Sam burst out.

Dean shrugged, not quite able to meet his little brother’s gaze as he again pushed away memories of that other Dean sitting in a muddy street clutching a dead Sammy to his chest. He just couldn’t seem to get the image out of his head.

“Okay then,” Ash said, finally looking up at them. “I guess I have a theory.”

“Alcohol related?”

“Alternate reality related.”

“And we’re back to Star Trek…”

“Hold on, Dean,” Sam put in. “Ash? That’s what you think’s going on?”

Ash sniffed. “In my humble opinion. Y’know. As the genius in the room.”

“You think we’re experiencing alternate realities?”

“Different paths your lives could have taken if things had been different,” Ash confirmed. “Y’know, one day you order Jack instead o’ Bud. You take the bus instead of walking. You get up five minutes late. Theory is, there are an infinite number of alternate realities co-existing out there, and not all of them rely on you making some kind of life-altering decision, like if you’d not gone to Stanford, Sam.”

Sam did a double take. “How did you know…?”

“Because the Sam who belongs here in this reality told me all about it,” Ash replied before Sam had even asked the question. “Compared our experiences of higher education. Y’know, in some reality out there you might have gone to Princeton or Yale or—” he coughed wetly, “—MIT or somewhere. You might never have met Jessica. You might never have run off with Dean to go find your dad in Jericho…”

“Dude, you our official biographer or what?” Dean demanded.

“I hear stuff,” Ash returned. “People talk when they think no one’s listening.”

“So you’re saying—” Sam interjected, “—that in this reality, you and Ellen know another Sam and Dean Winchester, a Sam and Dean Winchester who are out there right now doing whatever it is that Sam and Dean Winchester do, completely oblivious to the fact that there are now two of them—us—occupying the same reality?”

Dean blinked. “Sam, you’re making my head hurt.”

“And maybe in some other reality,” Sam continued as if Dean hadn’t spoken, “this roadhouse actually burnt down to the ground and you died? Or Ellen died?”

“Or Ellen’s our stepmom,” Dean put in, grimacing.

Ellen cuffed him around the head with the dishrag. “Don’t talk nonsense, boy!” she admonished him. “Sure, I like your daddy fine, or as much as the next loner psycho sociopath hunter; but my Bill comes home and hears you talkin’ like that, John Winchester’s gonna have himself a real problem.”

“You’re married?” Sam asked.

“Don’t sound so surprised!” Ellen said. “Sure I’m married. Goin’ on twenty-some years now. Bill’s off hunting a whole pack o’ black dogs three states over with our daughter, Jo.”

“Your daughter’s a hunter too?” Dean asked.

“Likes to think she is. Bill’s teachin’ her the tricks o’ the trade, seein’ as she wouldn’t stay at that damn fancy college we sent her off to.”

“But you’re saying in one of these realities you’ve visited,” Ash broke in, “Ellen and your dad were hitched?”

Dean glanced apologetically at Ellen. “Yeah. Pretty much ditched her the way he ditched me a couple o’ years back. Went off on a hunt and she’d not heard from him in months.”

“Yep, sounds like John Winchester in any reality,” Ellen agreed.

“So I’m thinking,” Ash continued, “Stull cemetery might not just be a gateway to Hell after all.”

“You think it’s a gateway to alternate realities too?” Sam asked.

Ash just looked at him for a second. “Steal my thunder much, man?” he asked.

“Uh—” Sam shrugged.

“Uh-oh, geekboy bitchfight,” Dean muttered.

“Shut up,” Sam growled, before turning back to Ash. “So…the rest of your theory?”

Ash paused for a second, as if considering whether or not to bestow his wisdom on the Winchesters. “Like I was saying before I was interrupted,” he began with a sniff, “urban legend says Stull church is one of the seven gateways to Hell, right? But what if it’s more than that? What if it’s also a portal between realities, and when you fell through it, instead of falling into Hell, as the legends suggest you should, you fell into one of the other realities, a reality closer to your own than Hell would have been.”

“Wait,” Sam held up a finger. “You’re saying Hell is just another alternate reality?”

Ash shrugged. “Who knows, man? Maybe. Maybe Hell’s a real physical place and the gateway works by fracturing reality to create a passageway that allows Lucifer and his minions to cross over from Hell into our world, creating corridors to all those other realities as a by-product.”

“So Lucifer can choose which reality he visits?” Sam asked.

“Would explain why he’s not scarfing down Halloween candy at the local mall every October 31st, right?” Dean added. “If he visits a different reality each year.”

“You keep talkin’ about Lucifer as if he’s an actual person,” Ellen suddenly interrupted. “Don’t you boys know there’s no such thing?”

The Winchesters exchanged a look, but neither of them answered.

“Anyway,” Ash continued, “whether Lucifer’s real or just some story invented to keep the locals in line back in the days of burning bushes and pillars of salt, I think we can safely say from current evidence—namely the two o’ you sitting here—that the portal’s very real and it definitely works. Whether it’s a gateway to Hell or not, it’s sure as hell a gateway to somewhere. Maybe when it opens, the fabric of space and time and the veil between realities is at its thinnest, making it easier to cross from one reality to another, or from Hell to Earth.”

“But why us?” Sam asked. “Why were we pulled through?”

“Proximity,” Ash hazarded. “You boys were closest when the gate opened.”

“So were a hundred demons, I don’t see them pulling up and asking for a beer,” Dean observed.

“Maybe something pulled us through because it was the only way to save us,” Sam suggested.

Dean snorted. “What, like God or something?”

“No,” Sam said, defensively. “Like—like—”

“Miley Cyrus? Justin Timberlake? Elmo?”

“Dean.”

“Sam, this was just some random thing, some random, messed up thing like all the other random, messed up things that seem to happen to us. Maybe only humans can cross between realities or something.”

“While demons can only cross from Hell to whatever version of Earth their boss is visiting,” Ash theorized.

“So the demons could all have been pulled back to Hell when we fell through the gateway?” Sam asked.

“We couldn’t get that lucky,” Dean pointed out. “And why isn’t everyone else being pulled along with us? Y’know, when we—when we ‘jump’ realities or whatever it is we do.”

“’Cause they belong in that reality, whereas you two bozos don’t,” Ash suggested. “My guess? Maybe the universe is trying to reassert itself to avoid paradox. Dean saw himself. He existed as two versions of the same person simultaneously in the same time, the same place, the same reality. And that can’t happen. It just can’t. It’d be chaos.”

“So the universe is bouncing us around until we get back where we belong?” Dean said. “Like Sliders. Or Quantum Leap.”

“Dude,” Ash huffed. “How much TV did you watch as a kid?”

Dean shrugged. “Motel rooms are boring, okay?”

“Restoring balance,” Sam murmured suddenly, and Dean’s attention snapped back to his brother, who looked up at him, slowly. “Like my psychic thing. The universe restoring balance.”

“So it’s all Kumbaya and lentil casserole around the campfire?” Dean asked. “Sorry, Sammy, I don’t buy it.”

“Whether you believe it or not, Dean,” Sam returned, “we’re still stuck here for who knows how long with no idea how to get back.”

“Wait,” Dean said. “You’re saying we could end up being bounced around every sorry excuse for our lives for—for the rest of our lives?”

“The gateway doesn’t stay open forever,” Sam said quietly. “Just one night.”

“And if it’s closed we’re stuck here? Forever?”

“Time’s a funny thing,” Ash interjected. “In this reality, it’s September 18th. If it’s still November 1st in your reality, the gateway might still be open.”

Dean seized on Ash’s words. “So there’s a chance we could get back?”

“Honestly?” Ash said, his face falling a little into a genuine apology. “You might never get home.”

Dean sucked in a breath as pinpricks of light danced in front of his eyes.

“So we could be stuck in limbo for the rest of our lives?” Sam asked. “Or is there a chance we could get back home next time the gateway opens?”

Ash shrugged. “Spring equinox. March 20th. That’s the next time Stull gateway is supposed to open.”

“And until then we have to dick around watching each other get killed in a variety of creative and exciting new ways?” Dean burst out. “Screw that! Lucifer could have raised an army back home while we’re stuck here playing pin the tail on the reality! And you’re tellin’ me there’s not a damn thing we can do about it?”

Sam shifted slightly by his side. “Maybe this was his plan all along,” he said quietly. “Get us out of the way while he does his thing in our version of reality.”

“Then we need to get out of here now!” Dean said, straightening. “If there’s a chance that damn gateway’s still open, we gotta find a way to get through it, otherwise—otherwise who knows what’s gonna be left of home when we make it back!”

“If we make it back,” Sam muttered.

“When we make it back,” Dean amended. “I’m not lettin’ no damn universe drag me around like a fish on a hook for the rest of my life while Lucifer and his pals are chowing down on our home, Sam!”

“We don’t even know that’s what’s going to happen, Dean!” Sam returned. “We might get stuck in one reality—maybe this one, maybe the next one—forever!”

“Oh and that’s so much better!” Dean snorted, shaking his head and scraping his fingers through his hair. “Sam—”

“Look, it could be worse,” Sam cut him off with a wave of his hand.

“How could it be worse?”

“We might never have found each other,” Sam replied quickly. “We could still be alone.”

Dean paused while he considered that, deliberately slowing his breathing and resisting the urge to go bolting out the door and keep running till he made it all the way back to Kansas. Lowering his gaze slightly, he managed to ask, “And why is that, exactly? Out of all the realities we could have wound up in, how did we wind up back together?”

“Blind luck?” Sam suggested.

“No offense, boys,” Ellen said, “but you two don’t strike me as the ‘lucky’ types.”

“Maybe the universe—or whatever,” Ash said, “recognized you two as being ‘foreign’ to the reality you were in, or that you both originated from the same reality. Maybe it pushed you together before it tried to get you home.”

“You think the universe is trying to get us home?” Sam asked.

Ash shrugged. “Better than it all being a random accident and you’re stuck like this forever.”

“Then we need to find Dad,” Dean insisted. “Because if the universe is trying to get us home, we’re not goin’ anywhere without him.”

Sam nodded slowly. “You’re right,” he agreed. “I just don’t know how we go about finding him.”

“Well from what Genius Boy here says, maybe he’ll find us,” Dean suggested. “Or maybe the universe or whatever will figure out we should all be in the same reality—” He stopped suddenly, as he felt that familiar tug on his shoulders and the world began to blur into white around the edges. No, no, not again… “Sammy—”

“Dean!”

Sam was starting to blur out right along with the room as it began to fade into white, his voice sounding fuzzy and far away, almost as if he was underwater.

“Sam!”

For some reason, maybe it was instinct, Sam suddenly reached out and grabbed his brother’s wrist, just as the world melted into an absence of everything and all Dean knew was his brother’s fingers digging into his flesh, holding on even as reality disappeared all around them.

And all Dean could do was pray that when he opened his eyes his little brother would still be there holding onto him.

* * * *

John Winchester couldn’t see.

Scrubbing futilely at his eyes, he blinked rapidly, hoping his eyesight would quickly readjust to the gloom and he could figure out where the hell he’d wound up this time.

This was getting ridiculous. Initially he’d thought maybe he was still stuck in Stull church, that the demons had overpowered him and were somehow causing him to hallucinate, to experience different versions of his life that had never really happened.

But now? Now, he was beginning to wonder whether maybe he really was experiencing these alternate lives, these alternate futures, rather than being some demon’s bitchboy hallucinating in the basement of a freaky old church.

Of course, that didn’t make him feel a whole lot better.

At first, after he’d discarded the hallucination theory, he’d convinced himself he was dead and had somehow made it past the Pearly Gates despite everything.

Because at first, he was with Mary.

She was whole and alive, the age she would have been had she lived to see their boys grow to manhood, and she was perfect and beautiful and…surprised to see him, seeing as he had apparently died of a stroke a year earlier.

Discovering that his boys were also with him in this life—Dean running the garage John had once owned with Mike Guenther, Sam finishing up law school—John had thought maybe all three of them had bit it back at Stull church, that the Winchester family had finally met its match and done what it had always been destined to do: gone down swinging.

Because his boys’ lives were just what he would have wished for them here. Dean was happy, he had a real home and a beautiful girlfriend—a nurse called Carmen, no less—and Sam already had an offer from one of San Francisco’s top law firms, and had just gotten engaged to his girlfriend Jessica. John had never met Jessica, never got to see how Sam’s life might have been had it not been for—well, real life, John supposed.

But this life, this first life after he thought he’d died and gone to Heaven? It had been perfect. And he’d wanted to stay.

But he hadn’t, pulled away without the chance to say goodbye to Mary or his boys.

Since then, things had gone downhill fast.

He’d seen his boys killed by that bitch Meg after she’d finished with Pastor Jim and Caleb.

He’d seen a world where Dean had died in the fire with Mary, and John and Sam barely spoke.

He’d seen his boys taken into care, separated and raised as strangers.

He’d seen Dean executed, death by lethal injection.

He’d seen Sam hunted down and killed by a guy John once knew, a vampire hunter by the name of Gordon Walker, who’d gotten it into his head that Sam was the Antichrist and had to die.

So in some respects, no longer being able to see anything at all came as something of a blessed relief.

Still, he knew he wasn’t home and he knew he had to figure out where he was or he was never getting back to his boys. If they were even still alive.

He shuddered, and it wasn’t just from the cold.

The air was damp and John felt the chill begin to seep into his bones as he reached a hand out into the inky blackness. Stumbling forward, his fingers brushed against the cold slickness of lime-covered brick, his footsteps echoing eerily, and something told him he was underground, maybe in a basement or a cellar of some kind.

He took a few more steps, the bricks beneath his feet uneven and jagged, halting abruptly as a sound other than his own breathing suddenly reached his ears.

In the distance, he could hear a soft whimpering; a keening moan that almost sounded too broken to be human.

Steeling himself for what he might find, John hesitantly headed toward the disturbing sound, each footstep echoing off the walls around him and filling him with an unaccountable dread, the likes of which he’d not felt since…since he’d heard Mary’s scream, and run upstairs to find her pinned to the ceiling.

His fingers still tracing his progress along the damp wall as he edged through the darkness, John saw a tiny suggestion of light in the distance, quickening his steps until he turned a corner.

A skylight set high in the wall threw muted light across what appeared to be a network of connecting rooms and passageways, and John realized his original supposition, that he was in some kind of cellar, had been correct.

Until he noticed the iron bars across the skylight.

Dungeon, he amended, his heart rate picking up a little as he shuddered at the thought.

The whimpering was closer now, just up ahead, and if this really was a dungeon, John wasn’t sure he wanted to know what—or who—was making such a terribly hopeless, helpless sound.

Taking a further step into a pool of dirty gray light spilling over the filthy floor, John squinted at a dark shape huddled in the corner of the room, shifting slightly as the darkness around it moved and scurried.

Rats. Lots of them.

The whimpering intensified, the shape jerking away from the creatures scrambling over the cold floor all around it.

“H-Hello?” John managed to call out, unsure whether he was looking at a wounded animal or—or something worse.

The shape startled backwards at the sound of his voice, the unmistakable rattle of chains accompanying the movement as the figure scooted back as far as it could go into the corner of the room and cowered there, body rolled into a fetal ball.

John approached carefully, intent on not spooking the creature further, one hand held out in front of him as he shuffled closer.

It was a person, long legs folded in on an emaciated body, twig-like fingers and skinny wrists held up to cover its head as it buried its face against bony knees. The wrists were manacled, huge, cruel-looking iron bracelets snapped tight around flimsy skin and bone.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you,” John murmured softly, kneeling down a few feet away from the figure as its keening grew ever more desperate, a sound of unadulterated terror.

Gingerly, John stretched out his fingers towards a bony, trembling shoulder, the gentle contact causing the head to whip up, and John found himself looking into two terrified wide green eyes.

Familiar eyes.

“Dean?”

John’s head began to buzz as his chest constricted, the room around him dissolving into a blackened haze as all he could focus on was the broken shell of a man in front of him.

Just a boy. Just a boy. His boy.

His fingers tightened around Dean’s protruding shoulder, digging into the threadbare t-shirt and bruise-smeared skin beneath as he pulled the quivering body of his eldest son against his chest and held on to him as if he meant to break him.

“It’s going to be alright, Dean. It’s going to be alright,” he murmured, rubbing what he hoped were soothing circles into the boy’s back.

His fingers came away sticky, smeared with dark red, Dean’s t-shirt torn along with the flesh underneath. It looked as if he’d been flogged, and John fought the urge to vomit as he gently ran his fingers along Dean’s jaw line, turning his face up towards him.

“It’s alright, son,” he whispered. “You’re alright now. I’m here. I’m here.”

Dean’s eyes were wide and unfocused, and didn’t seem to see John at all, or if they did, he showed no sign that he knew who John was.

“Dean? Dean, you with me kiddo?”

John ran his fingers through the boy’s too-long hair, the dark blond strands matted with dirt and blood and other things John didn’t even want to think about. Finally, his hands came to rest either side of Dean’s face.

“Son? Son, can you hear me?”

Although Dean appeared to be looking at him, John didn’t think the kid even knew where he was as his face slowly crumpled and his body became wracked with barely suppressed sobs.

There were no tears, and John didn’t know whether that was a sign Dean was dangerously dehydrated or whether it just meant he’d cried everything he had to left to cry a long time ago.

From the looks of him, he’d been here a while.

John felt something break inside of him.

This isn’t my son, he tried to tell himself. This isn’t Dean.

But no matter how many times he thought it, it didn’t change the way he felt when he looked at this Dean, the Dean currently cowering beneath his touch as if terrified he was about to be subjected to yet another beating. Or more torture.

Because John had no doubt this version of his son had been tortured.

“It’s going to be okay, son,” he murmured against Dean’s temple, finally pulling away from the trembling boy. “It’s going to be okay.”

Triage. He needed to triage the kid’s injuries.

At first he tried to be clinical and detached as he began cataloguing the bruises and the cuts, the gouges in the pale skin and the way Dean’s bones showed starkly through emaciated flesh. There were trails of dried blood stemming from his ears and his nose, which looked like it might be broken. More blood caked parched, split lips, running down over his stubble-covered chin and neck. His jaw and his cheekbones were badly bruised, as if he’d been punched or repeatedly had his face slammed into something hard, and a ring of finger-shaped bruises darkened his throat like a necklace beneath the thick manacle chaining him to the wall behind him.

His wrists and ankles were similarly shackled, bruises purple and black blossoming over broken, rubbed raw skin, and the soles of his bare feet were burnt and blistered.

John swallowed as he tried to remain focused, remain calm, remain in control of himself. But the more he saw of the ugly mess something had made of his boy’s body, the harder that became.

“Dean…” he whispered, pressing a gentle hand against his son’s stomach, only for his fingers to come away sticky with barely-dried blood. Dean whimpered slightly at the touch, but didn’t pull away, which in some small way heartened John as he gently examined his son’s abused torso.

Dean’s t-shirt was tattered and bloodstained, and John didn’t want to think about what had caused the ugly tears in the fabric and the flesh beneath. Part of him, the hunter part of him, wanted to think he was looking at claw marks left by some animal or supernatural monster. But the other part of him, the soldier part of him, recognized only too well that the monster who had done this to his boy had been all-too-human, and that fingernails had torn those ragged trails across his son’s chest and abdomen.

Dean winced and tried to draw away as John’s fingers ghosted up over his chest to his collarbone. From the odd angle of his left arm, John was fairly sure the kid’s shoulder was dislocated.

There were dark circles under the huge bloodshot green eyes, which continued to gaze at him uncomprehendingly, Dean’s cheeks sunken and hollow, and John wondered when the boy had last eaten.

“God, who did this to you, son?” he mumbled, his hands coming to rest at the nape of the young man’s neck. “Dean?”

Dean took a slow, shuddering breath, his head falling back limply into his father’s steady hands. His focus had shifted so he appeared to be looking up at the ceiling, but John wasn’t sure the boy was actually seeing anything at all.

Gently taking his son in his arms, John carefully nestled Dean’s head against his own shoulder, careful not to jostle the dislocated arm as he slowly lowered Dean into a more reclined position. He could feel the boy’s heartbeat, at first quick and erratic, but beginning to slow as his battered body gradually relaxed into John’s embrace.

Does he recognize me? Does he even know I’m here? John couldn’t answer the questions in his head, all he could do was hold on to his son and at least let him know he wasn’t alone.

Because John was under no illusions as to what was happening here. He knew how this story ended.

His son was dying.

The young man coughed wetly, fresh blood staining his lips as he continued to gaze serenely at the ceiling.

“Dean…?” John whispered, tenderly running his fingers through his boy’s hair. Not my boy. Not my Dean… “Dean? Who—who did this to you? Son? Who hurt you like this?”

The boy had clearly been beaten, starved, tortured. And over a prolonged period of time. John needed to know. He needed to know why. He needed to know who.

Dean’s breathing was becoming erratic, his chest rising and falling in painful little pants as more blood bubbled up onto his lips. He wasn’t looking at John, wasn’t seeing him at all, but something had altered in his expression as he continued to stare past John’s face and up to the darkened ceiling.

“S-S—” The sound was little more than a hiss, but John bent his ear toward the boy’s mouth to listen.

“Dean? Dean, tell me what happened, son. Tell me who did this.”

“S-Sammy.”

John’s gut clenched. Sam. Where was Sam? He’d not even considered that his youngest son might be here too. Was he in the same condition as Dean? Had he been tortured? Was he even still alive?

“Dean? Dean, where’s your brother, son?” he asked urgently, pulling Dean closer to his chest. “Dean? Where’s Sam? Is he alright? Is he hurt?”

“S-Sammy…”

Dean’s eyes widened, and he finally seemed able to focus on something, something beyond John’s shoulder. And what he saw clearly petrified him. He was shaking his head ever so slightly, eyes brimming with panic and mounting terror. “N-no. Sammy.”

John felt Dean’s body stiffen in his arms, his breath hitching in his chest, before the young man suddenly went completely lax, one last exhale rattling in his throat as he breathed his last.

“Dean?” John felt his eyes burn as he looked down into the empty green orbs of his eldest son, open and staring at nothing, his lips slightly parted as if still trying to call for his brother, even after death. “Dean, no.”

John pulled his son’s body closer, hanging his head as he pressed his mouth against the boy’s dirt-smeared forehead.

This couldn’t be happening. Not again. He couldn’t watch his son die again.

“Dean…”

“Dad?”

John’s head shot up, twisting to look over his shoulder in the direction Dean had been gazing.

“Sammy?”

Sam was right there, right there, standing behind him this whole time. His youngest son, his youngest was here, just when he needed him. Just when Dean needed him.

“Sammy. Sammy, are you okay, are you hurt?”

From the meager daylight leaking in through the barred skylight, Sam appeared whole and undamaged, not a mark on him. His clothes were pristine, his hair for once tidy, and he didn’t seem at all troubled by the sight of his brother’s battered, lifeless corpse laid out in his father’s lap.

“Sammy, thank God you’re here!” John burst out, switching his gaze briefly to his eldest’s suddenly still form. “Your brother. Sam. Your brother—” He turned his attention back to Sam, who nodded, slowly.

“Yes,” he said, his tone carefully neutral. “My brother. Always did get in my way. I enjoyed playing with him for a while. But then he stopped screaming. After that he really wasn’t much fun anymore.”

John looked up sharply, squinting at his youngest son, backlit by the skylight as dark shadows played across his face. “Sam?”

“Don’t worry, Daddy,” Sam said, his voice completely flat and emotionless. “It’s okay. You’ll get your turn.”

And as a cold smile inched its way across his lips, Sam’s eyes flashed yellow.

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The Winchester Chronicles