Archive of Our Own

Sam stared down at the bowl of dollar store cereal, pushing it around with his spoon. They'd run out of milk two days ago and could barely afford actual food, let alone luxuries. He sighed, letting go of the spoon for it to clatter onto the bowl.

It didn't though. It stood, half upright in the bowl exactly where Sam had left it. There sure as hell wasn't enough cereal in the bowl to hold it upright, it just… sat there, taunting him. He couldn't move, just kept staring, hoping that if he blinked enough, the world would turn back to normal.

"Sam! Come on, we've gotta move!" The spoon finally clattered against the ceramic as his father's voice cut through.

"Coming!" Sam called back in a panic, hoping his father hadn't seen anything.

"Dean's loading the car, we're leaving now."

"My bag's already—" Sam looked up to see his Dad, glaring down at him to hurry up, Sam's small bag already thrown over his shoulder.

"Now, Sammy." His tone left no room for argument as Sam stuffed as many mouthfuls of the stale cereal into his mouth as he could. It tasted like cardboard and he couldn't find it in himself to be disappointed with how little of it he got to eat.

"Where're we headed?" Dean asked as Sam jumped into the backseat next to him. The car was already moving before he'd closed the door.

"Utah. No stops."

"Yes, sir." Dean frowned and shuffled in closer to Sam as they pulled onto the highway. When John said no stops, he meant it.

Sam watched Dean for a while, sketching lazily on a motel notepad they'd picked up. Dean had a collection of motel pens and paper. It was like the soap, he'd told Sam, its isn't stealing, they're meant to be taken. The brothers had gotten used to finding ways to pass the time.

While Dean passed the time with his pens, Sam sat in the back of his mind while unlit streetlights raced past. Sometimes he didn't even know what he was thinking about, just let his vision blur until he couldn't see the horizon anymore.

They were a few hours in before Sam zoned back in, staring down his own reflection in the rear-view. Sam yawned, not certain if he'd actually fallen asleep or if he was just tired from sitting still for too long. He blinked, vision focusing forward again. His reflection blinked a moment too late, a moment out of time with Sam himself, a moment enough to be noticed.

Sam's eyes widened as he watched his reflection. After a moment it grinned, as if it knew it'd been caught. Sam could almost hear it's chuckles as his heart beat loudly in his ears. His reflection taunted him, grinning down at him with yellow eyes that he knew weren't his. They couldn't be.

He put a hand to over his mouth to muffle any semblance of a cry that came out. It was creepy, weird, scary; all things that he — as a Winchester— should be unbothered by. The music did what his palm couldn't, covering up any remaining sounds from reaching the front seat.

Sam breathed heavily into his hand until his brain let him rip his eyes from his own twisted reflection. He looked at Dean next to him, hoping his brother hadn't seen him startle. Dean hands were still moving, scribbling on the page; but his eyes were staring into the nothingness out the window.

A few more deep breaths had Sam pulling himself back together and his eyes slid back to the rear-view. His reflection was… normal. He was fine. There was nothing different, nothing wrong with his face. His eyes were just hazel, his face was pale and scared but nothing of the demented figure he'd seen moments earlier.

He was fine, he breathed, he was fine. He moved his into his lap, trying to look normal before Dean looked over, or Dad checked the rear-view.

"Sammy, you need to eat." Dean's eyes looked hollow as he ate through his own food. There was only so energetic one could look after sitting in an old car for almost a day.

"I'm fine. Not like we've done anything." Sam continued to push around his food, avoiding any contact with the spoon sitting next to his plate. "Dean, do you believe in magic?"

"What kind of magic?" Dean raised an eyebrow. "What isn't magic, really?" Dean filled his mouth with more food.

"Like human magic. Moving things with your mind and stuff."

"Dad said he heard about a witch once, they're kinda human, right?"

"Yeah, but they make demon deals." Sam had read about them at Bobby's. "And they're witches. What about humans?"

"What, like bending spoons with your mind? Come on, Sam, you know its all slight of hand and camera tricks. I thought you were smarter than that."

"I don't know. Just thinking I guess." Sam shrugged, trying to look disinterested. The spoon from his last breakfast sat heavily in his mind after Dean's words. Why'd it have to be a spoon…

"Maybe you should do less thinking and more eating. No wonder you're such a damn beanpole. Come on."

"I'm just not hungry, geeze."

"You're not hungry cause you haven't eaten in a day. That means you're more hungry."

Dean was right, Sam could feel the pit in his stomach screaming at him. Half telling him to eat and half telling him that he'd just throw it back up if he tried. He pushed his food around a little more.

"Look, eat that and I'll take you to the library or something. You can go find a book on card tricks and we'll do some magic, ok?" Sam hummed non-noncommittally. This wasn't about card tricks, this was about yellow eyes and magic. This was real.

Sam couldn't see beyond his own twisted reflection and it would only take one wrong word for Dean and their father do see the same.

Sam Age 14

"New school, new me, I guess." Sam murmured to himself as he stepped foot in his third new school this year. His bag was light, not yet filled with textbooks or required readings, he hadn't had a chance to find out what they were yet. He wouldn't know anyone or anything now.

He was shocked from his thoughts by a jolt of cold rushing over him. A gaggle of laughing students stood in front of him one of them tossing an empty water bottle over their shoulder. They all laughed as Sam tried to walk on past. He made unfortunate eye contact with a boy at the back, arm slung over his girlfriend.

"Welcome to the thunder-dome, new kid. Congrats on being everyone's new best friend." He had a ratty jean jacket covered in patches and she must've gone through an entire eyeliner pencil this morning.

He shoved his hands in his pockets, trying to block out their jeers and running his fingers over Dean's knife; as if his brother was going to let him go out alone and unarmed. He could see a future where he cut them all with a few quick flicks before they even felt it. Instead he put his head down and tried to find his locker, ignoring the stares of every kid in the town looking down at their fresh meat.

Lunch was the same as it always was on his first days, infinitely quiet and unbearably loud at the same time. He'd developed a game plan to give himself a reputation quickly, and if he was lucky, it would draw enough of a crowd to get him through the week without being doused in something worse than bottled water.

He had two sets of cards that he kept in his pockets now as well as a few other trinkets he could use. The thought of being 'the magic kid' was not a pleasant one, but if they were going to target him anyway, he may as well give them something to be afraid of. He just had make sure to show them he was more than card tricks and slight of hand.

The regular card deck was always his first choice, it was the easiest to do alone and he always preferred to let his marks come to him. A few flashy tricks as he shuffled was often what it took to get eyes on him and then it was only a matter of time before—

"Ooo, do you want me to 'pick a card', new kid?" an upperclassman drowning in his own varsity jacket mocked as he was walking past. Sam shrugged and fanned the deck out. The group laughed before the first guy pulled out the card and showed it to his group. He was even kind enough to replace it himself rather than throwing it in Sam's face.

"Cut it," Sam said, handing the deck to groupie number one. People loved to be involved in their friends nonsense. And now he had an audience. The first cut was normal and Sam motioned for it to be passed along to groupie number two.

Groupie number two took the singular top card and placed it on the bottom, looking smugly at Sam as if he'd hacked the trick. Sam just nodded and let his deck be passed around to the next two before it landed back in his hands. Why don't jocks ever wash their hands? He tried not to grimace.

"Do you remember your card?"

"Its been like two seconds, of course I remember it. Looser." Sam dodged the swipe as the guys tried to slap the back of his head.

He fanned the cards out, flipping them over to show the full deck then back to show the backs. The second flip showed a full deck of red cards, the blacks vanishing under his fingers. After the final show of the backs, Sam flipped the deck to show all fifty two cards showing the Jack of Diamonds.

"Is this your card?" Sam looked up at their wide eyes as most of them attempted to conceal their shock. Pulling one correct card from a deck was easy, Sam had had plenty of time to surpass easy.

"How did you—" He reached out to grab at the cards but Sam flipped them back over. and pulled them back into a single stack.

"Magic," he shrugged, "Obviously." There was a crowd now, a gang of students that could only be assembled by a strange new kid with a weird party trick.

"What else can you do?" One of the girls from this morning with now smudged eyeliner looked down at him. Looking closer, she just looked like she was trying to be goth but wasn't ready for the commitment. Sam's eyes scanned the crowd that was slowly increasing.

"Depends on the crowd," he tapped his deck on the table as it he was evening it out. Now it was time for deck number two. "I think you'll like this one better." He motioned for her to sit and she looked for the approval of the crowd before doing so. They were all too intrigued to care that she was sitting with the weird kid.

"Why do you want me to—" she trailed off as he made a flourish over the card before holding them out to her.

"Cut them. Just once, please." She did, but she didn't stop looking around at her peers, trying to look appropriately disinterested to maintain her own image. No one was looking at her though, all of hem were poking eachother and chuckling at Sam. All eyes were on him, shitty cafeteria lunch quickly forgotten.

"Don't I have to pick a card?"

"Not for this one." She was awfully confident to sit with the kid her buddies had fucked with, she thought he was just a looser new kid. He could change that.

"So now what?"

"Queen of wands," Sam announced, revealing the first tarot of her reading. "This card represents your past, who you were. That you were once ambitious, courageous. When you were younger you were always pushing the envelope and driving forwards. You had big dreams."

"What happened to the cards?" Another groupie from earlier yelled, trying to hide his surprise.

"Come on, man. Its all slight of hand. And this 'future seeing' is all just bullshiting anyway."

"You had a goal, or maybe your goal was to have a goal. Your head was always in the clouds, dreaming of the future." Sam tried to ignore his hecklers —and that his crowd was thinning— as he pushed the emo girl with his words and his stare.

"I guess? I don't know." She shrugged hugging herself and refusing to meet his eyes.

"Some kids wanted to be princesses or pop-starts, but you wanted more." Now he was pushing himself. The groupie was wrong, he could do more than bullshit his audience. "You wanted to have ideas, to make things, long before you even knew the word for it. An inventor, maybe? You wanted to live in a big tower looking over a city you built, cars flying past your penthouse window, yes?"

He could see though the girls' mother's eyes as she hung drawings on the fridge, the smile on her face as cartoons showed the retro-futuristic world her daughter dreamed of. He watched the girl picking books off her shelf about science and computers. Cards as his guide, he gazed into her past, fly on the wall to who she had been.

The girl was frozen now, breath caught in her throat as if he'd pulled the thought straight from her childhood mind. Which he supposed he had. "How did you—?"

"The cards know. They always do. Shall we see where you went next?" She looked again to her peers wanting an out. Several had left, but stories like this spread like wildfire. He'd spent four years and a dozen schools perfecting his routine.

"Don't stop now!" One of the other girls chirped. Her lip-gloss shone under the florescents as she looked down at them.

"I guess…" She pulled her arms tighter around herself as she tried to keep her face neutral. There no way she was showing weakness when all eyes were on her. Sadly for her, Sam wasn't pulling any punches either.

"The Hierophant." He continued to stare at her as he pulled the next card. "This card represents your present, who you are. The Hierophant represents conformity and tradition."

"Do I look like I conform to anything, kid?" She hissed, trying to look tough in front of the crowd.

"You wear the same drugstore eyeliner as everyone else, don't you?" Sam struck back. "You don't do anything if you don't think they won't like it. Even your outfit says that you'd rather die than actually stand out." Normally he hated this card, but he'd learnt how to push and pull on threads. "You shop in the same stores as them, you kiss the same boys as them. Hell, you're only wearing that lipstick because the other night he" Sam pointed to a jock standing next to her boyfriend, "said that colour looked pretty wrapped around his—"

"Shut up!" She was bright red now, and the guys hadn't quite figured it out yet.

"The final card represents your future, who you'll be." He pulled the final card slowly, giving people time to Ooo and Ahh or talk shit if they wanted. "The Chariot. It shows a future of direction, a demonstration of willpower that pushes a person forward."

"So I'm going to have a strong future," She smirked. Her eyes flicking around the crowd, no longer looking for approval, instead searching for their deference.

"The Chariot represents a strong and definite future." Sam slid her card forward. "Yours is reversed. Sorry." He didn't feel the need to spell it out for them, it didn't take a genius to know what he was saying, what he was predicting.

The crowd began to laugh as her face fell, panic and shame increasing and she looked to the laughing crowd. Sam was always surprised at how seriously people took his predictions. He knew they were true, of course, but these people had to way to know that.

"You!" She glared at him, face bright red with embarrassment. "You… you looser! You—!" Her glare was harsh enough to cut him, until it dropped, almost like she'd seen a ghost; or a— "You're a fucking monster!" She screamed before running straight out of the cafeteria.

Sam looked down at the stainless steel table; it was coated in dried-on food and names scratched into it decades ago. There was, however, enough shiny metal left for him to get a glimpse of his own reflection. Bright yellow eyes reflected back at him, somewhere between reptilian and… demonic.

"Too much?" He asked raised an eyebrow at his reflection. He slung his bag over his shoulder and pushed through the crowd. They were no longer looking at him, all too busy laughing at the poor girl who he'd so cruelly exposed.

He kept his eyes low as he moved through the halls, knowing that anyone who did see him would think his eyes were nothing more than a trick of the light —or that he was a freak who wore creepy contacts to school. The edges of his cards were beginning to bend and peel as he shuffled them over and over in his hands.

Sam was pushing harder, looking further into what his cards could show him. He still couldn't move a spoon with his mind without tricks like he did once, but it wasn't like he'd be killing vampires with cutlery. The only issue was that the harder he pushed, the less he slept. The future hitting him when he least wanted it.

"Hey, brat!" Right now it was the present that was hitting him, with a firm push to his shoulder stopping him in the hall.

"Sorry," he mumbled, assuming he'd bumped into someone and trying to keep moving.

"Hey! I'm talking to you." He grabbed Sam by the hair and pulled him back. Cards scattered to the floor and Sam instinctively grabbed at the pocket with Dean's knife. "You're the brat who fucked with Tessa!"

"I don't know any Tessas," Sam said honestly before the boy reacted by pulling him around and grabbing him again by the front of his collar.

"I don't give a shit who you know. Your little stunt back there made my girl cry, you freak. Now you're going to cry too." He smirked.

"Tessa's been fucking your buddies for months, get over it." His logical mind fought against his father's training, he could not stab a teenager in the throat with an illegal knife on his first day of school. Not while they still had weeks, if not months, left in this town. "I just wanna go to class."

"Should've thought of that before playing showman." This was not a part of his plan.

"The fuck happened to you?" Dean chuckled as Sam fell into the safety of the Impala.

"Fuck off."

"I'll kill 'em for you if you want." Dean shrugged, tone light with the threat. "Hell, you could kill 'em if you really want, I guess." Sam had seen worse days, though there was a cut in his mouth from his own teeth that was hurting like hell and bleeding just enough to be annoying. He was just hoping he'd come out of this without a black eye.

"I'm tired, Dean. Lets just go back to the motel." Sam sat over by the door, looking out the window.

"Whatever you say kid." The car engine roared, drawing the eyes of the other student leaving for the day. Sam ignored him, letting the car purr through the streets of the small town and allowing his eyes to droop, just a little, now that he was safe.

"Ok, that's enough snoozing!" Dean said, tapping the side of Sam's head until he woke up.

"I wasn't—" Sam looking around, they were surrounded by trees, somewhere of the side of a highway. "I thought we were going back to the motel."

"Detour."

"Dean—"

"You've been sleeping like shit and now you've let yourself get beat up by some garden variety bully, so no, we're not going back to the motel until you show me there's still fight in you, or you tell me what's going on, Magic Man." Dean punched him in the shoulder— not light, but not dangerous— before getting out of the car, clearly expecting Sam to follow.

"I'm fine, its just school. You should get that, you didn't make it through senior!" Sam said, slamming the door as he got out to follow Dean.

"Nope. You're the smart one, you're great at school. You're even good at the not studying parts." Dean stopped, letting Sam get close before lowering his tone. "And even if you weren't, no brother of mine lets some looser get the drop on him."

"I'm not going to kill a highschooler!" Sam hissed back.

"At least do something! Let them know that you're more than some kid with a deck of cards!" The tarot deck sat heavily in Sam's side pocket, his normal cards still in his bag where he couldn't fidget with them. Dean pushed Sam's chest, forcing him back. "You won't hurt some kid? Fine, then hurt me. I told you we weren't leaving until you prove that you have some balls."

"I can't fight you!" Dean was over twice his size and Sam was already bloody. Dean pushed him again.

"Why not? You did when you were a kid. I know you can throw a punch, I'm the one that taught you!"

"Because I don't want to!"

"Oh! He doesn't want to!" Dean sneered, looming over Sam. "Fine, then I guess I'll hold onto these." Dean held out the tarot deck that was meant to be in Sam's pocket. Sam's heart dropped.

"No."

"Then come and get them." Sam struck out, fighting as scrappy and dirty as he could to keep out of the way of Dean's larger and stronger figure. Gentleman's rules went out the window as soon as Dean swiped Sam's cards and Sam had been the scrawny new kid in enough public schools to know how to get around when he was at a disadvantage.

"Brat," Dean laughed as Sam moved like a rat, dodging blows and hitting just enough to annoy the hell out of Dean.

"Stop it, just give them back." Sam did everything he could not to sound like the world's most annoying kid brother, but those cards were more than just magic tricks.

"Take them from me."

"Give them back or I slice a tendon and you won't walk for four months." Sam gripped Dean's ankle and flicked out the butterfly knife, eyes sharp as steel. Dean just smiled wider.

"Finally, some bite! And a little bark to back it up. Good work, kid." Dean effortlessly slid from his fighting stance into a more relaxed posture —not that Dean Winchester was ever truly out of a fighting stance— and held the cards over Sam's head, just to be a jerk.

"Don't touch them." Sam held onto them like treasure once they were back in his hands.

"Where did you get those anyway? They're kinda… weird." He sat on the hood of the Impala, lounging back as Sam sat beside him.

"They were a gift." Dean raised an eyebrow. "We went to a creepy ass magic shop with Dad like a year ago and one of the ladies there gave them to me. They tell people's futures."

"I know what tarot are, brat. They're like Ouija boards, gimmicks that're great for making money off of gullible loosers. One of history's oldest professions."

"She gave them to me because these ones are real. They let me see things, things about the people that touch them."

"Even witches don't believe in tarot cards, Sammy. Divination takes more than a shuffle and a flourish." Dean ruffled his brother's hair, his face shifting into something more comforting. "You read up, you've got a way with people that lets you cold read like the best of them. They believe because you believe."

"It's real. Its magic and its real. I see things, who people were, what's going to happen to them. I think… I think its me that's doing it and the cards just let me, know how to say it?"

"You think the tarot deck you got from a creepy old lady is your magic wand?" Sam grit his teeth, gripping the cards tightly and letting the visions from his dreams flood over him. It was real. He opened his eyes.

"Why didn't Dad tell me that you're the one that saved me from the house fire?" Dean's eyes widened, expression completely shifting.

"How did you…?"

"I told you, its real! I've seen every second of that night from every angle. I've seen the events the night before they happen. I've watched you get injured on hunts more times than I can count even when you're states away. It's real, Dean, its all real." Sam couldn't 'stay cool' any longer.

"That's why you don't sleep."

"Its trying to pull me back asleep, to show me more. I wake up feeling like I haven't slept a wink. It wants to take me back. The cards just give me control, they let me see things I actually want to see."

"Its real."

"Its real. And I don't know why."

"O-ok, what have you found." Dean looked lost, like he was scrambling to keep up as Sam shook his world off its axis. Even in their lives there were things that were meant to be impossible. Divination was possible, but rare and shockingly limited in its potential. But Dean clearly trusted Sam to know something. Knew his brother well enough to know he'd looked.

"Nothing. Nothing real, at least. I'm done with writing dream journals and I'm not buying crystals. The cards are real, my dreams are real!"

"I know, I believe you." Right now it looked like that was the only thing he did believe. "We should go back to the motel and get you cleaned up. Do they not have school nurses anymore?"

"Didn't go." Sam shrugged.

"Let get out of here."

Dude, what did you even do?" Dean dabbed lightly at the gash above Sam's eye. "I thought you were the one that didn't like fighting."

"You wanted me to hit people. He deserved it too, not like any of the girls were going to report it. One more day in his class and I was going to do worse." Sam looked up at him with sickly yellow eyes, trying his best to look like a kicked puppy.

"Next time find a professor that doesn't carry a knife." He pulled the wound back together and taped it rather than stitching. "Or let me at him instead."

"I thought you had a were to deal with?"

"It can wait." Half of Sam's arm was covered in disinfectant by the time Dean was done with it.

"Think you've put enough of that one? I think I've still got some skin that won't still be iodine stained next week."

"Hey, bastards like that are like street rats, you never know what diseases they might have. Unless you want me to stick you with another tetanus shot?"

"Wouldn't I need a rabies shot?"

"I'm sure I can find both if it'll make you feel better." Sam was sure that he could. Stanford was different to living in cars and motels, and the more people he met meant more people to dream about. But Dean was here and his big brother was one phone call from Sam away from snapping the neck of anyone who stood too close.

"Dad called." Dean said. "Wendigo in Oregon."

"What did you say?"

"That he could drop in and say hi on his way through if he wanted. He just hung up after that, so I'm not holding my breath."

"Oregon's not that far. You do shit here in California all the time."

"Oregon's not California. And my little brother can't even fight off an old perv of a professor without getting the crap beaten out of him." Sam rolled his eyes, hissing as Dean checked his ribs. "Bobby called too."

"Oh, he have a case for you?"

"Nah, just wanted to make sure I was going to my actual job."

"And are you?" Dean glared up at him.

"Yes. How do you think that we get to live in this luxury if I'm not." Their 'luxury' was a dirt cheap and dirt filled apartment with shitty furniture they pulled from the side of the road. But it was theirs, and it was home.

"Thanks, Dean." Sam said as Dean finally left his injuries to heal without further prodding.

"Thank me by calling next time."

Sam did call next time. And this one wasn't even his fault. He'd seen it coming, yes, but it wasn't like he'd prompted it. Ok, so he'd quite literally walked into it, but he wasn't the one to throw the first punch.

There were two of them when he first arrived at the creepy ass alleyway specified into the note he'd found in three separate books he'd pulled from the university library. They were all the same, same handwriting, same signature, same address, all written out to him. So yes, he went to the creepy alley, but he did not go unprepared.

Whether he liked it or not he was given the chance to watch through the interaction several times in the night leading up to it, but his cards gave him more focus. No monster, human or magical, could win a fight where the opponent knew their every move, he'd be fine.

He wasn't fine. Sam's head swam as he was thrown to the ground again, surrounded by the original two men and now three women. Witches. If the had manipulated his dreams, they were strong. If they'd seen the same future he had, then they must be even stronger. The future was always malleable and the more you knew, the more you could change.

"He's a fighter, that's fun!" The youngest witch laughed, spurring on the two men that were quite literally kicking Sam while he was down. She was clearly the one holding their leashes.

"He's getting boring." One of the older witches sighed. Sam curled up in a ball, pulling out his phone and holding down Dean's speed dial. It didn't make it through the second ring.

"Pie, Sammy, I always want—" Dean was cut off by a groan from Sam as one of their kicks landed on the side of his neck. "Where are you." Dean's voice immediately darkened and Sam thought he could hear him loading his gun.

"Kent street. Witches. Hurry." He choked out as he one of the puppet men tried to crush his ankle. "That's enough of that. Sam brushed some of the blood from his mouth and grabbed around the neck of the puppet close enough to his head, pulling him forward and making him fight for air.

"Oh! He's going again! This is great!" Sam had never been the best fighter, but he was a lot bigger now than he was in high school and fighting for your life was one hell of a motivator. Pulling the man out of his blind spot, Sam got his hands around the mans neck and pushed inwards with his thumbs, applying more and more pressure until he felt a crack, then a little more until he was sure the witches heard their puppets windpipe give out.

"I'm not joining your coven and you can't kill me. Why don't we call it a day?" He panted, pain was radiating up from his ankle, whatever the other man had done was hurting like hell.

"Lucky shot." The young witch said. "You won't be getting another one." He could feel her power surge into her puppet and he knew this was going to be a long fight. He just had to hold out until Dean got here.

"I don't get lucky." Sam felt a little too honest as he kicked in the puppet's teeth —though his opponent was unbothered as blood began to flow from his mouth.

"Not tonight you won't." One of the older witches said, crossing her arms. "Disable him quickly, or I will."

"Shut-up!" Sam rolled his eyes at the young witch. Good to know teenagers were still brats even with eternal power. It was a simple flick of his wrist to pull out his knife and slash at the puppet, but the cuts that would slow down a normal human opponent did nothing to a mind controlled skin-suit.

"He's getting tired!" She grinned. Sam was getting tired, and he was still on the ground, but he was not going to die tonight, not from fucking witches! He pulled in a breath of cold night air and it felt like swallowing knives.

The puppet saw his chance and brought his boot down to stomp on Sam's head. The concrete was an immovable object, gravel cutting into Sam's cheek as it trapped him there. The puppet pushed more pressure down, Sam struggling under his boot. There was no way Dean would make it here that fast, no matter how badly Sam wished for it.

It was the last thought he had as a scream ripped from his throat as blood spilled onto the alleyway and a shatter bounced off the walls as his skull gave way under the force. Everything went dark after that.

Sam opened his eyes. Not going to happen. The more control he'd gained over his premonitions the more easily he could pull them forward, and he was not dying tonight.

"Nice try, bitch." He grinned, as the puppet brought its boot down and Sam rolled out of the way, grabbing hold of its ankle and slashing through it with his knife. He stood to look at them while the puppet remained where Sam had pulled him down. "I don't care what you control him with, he still can't walk. Guess that's why they call it the Achilles." He grinned as he brought his own boot down on the puppets head.

"NO!" The young witch screamed as his head splattered on the pavement as Sam's was meant to. "You lost. You died! That was meant to be you!"

"Better luck next time." A shot rang out through the alley and she fell to the ground, witch-bullet lodged between her eyes. "Or not." Sam shrugged.

"Run or die. Decide quickly." Dean said as he stalked down the alley towards them, shadows darkening him.

"You made a grave mistake tonight, Sam Winchester." The witch's eyes cut through Sam, looking less and less human in the moonlight.

"And you made a mistake by fucking with me and my brother. My brother who will shoot you in the head if you don't leave, unless you wanna join your buddies with your brains on the ground?"

"We will leave you, but do not come crying to us if you do something you cannot fix. Or if you see something you do not want to."

"We'll consider the bridge burned." The two remaining witches vanished in a cloud of dust and shadow as Dean put Sam's arm over his shoulder.

"Lets go home before I get the need to shoot something else."

"Yeah, sounds good. Thanks, Dean." Sam fought his eyes from fluttering shut.

"You finally called."

"I saw myself die." Dean clenched his teeth, giving no further reaction as he mostly carried Sam back to their apartment and began stitching him back up. Real stitches, pulling skin back together.

"Oh yeah, when's that meant to happen. I'll put it on the calender." Dean pulled Sam's smashed ankle onto his lap.

"I was meant to die tonight. The guy whose head I crushed, it was meant to be me." He tried not to think about the blood on his shoe, of the normal, human lives he'd taken tonight. He couldn't bring himself to care though, not when he saw himself die.

"Oh, nothing to worry about then."

"It felt weird. Everything just… went black after."

"What, you thought heaven would open up in your premonition? Don't think that's how that works." Dean pressed a little too hard and Sam hissed. "He fucked this properly. You're gonna be out for a good few weeks. Probably more. We still got crutches around here?"

"I slashed his tendon up and crushed his skull, so I think we're even. And I don't know, I just didn't expect to see… nothing."

"Well, if you ever figure it out, let me know. If heaven is real I've got a lot of hail Marys to do before I die."

"Dean," Sam grabbed his brothers sleeve, "Do you believe in God?"