Title: Welcome to My Nightmare

Author: Disasteriffic Kaz

Info: The Winchester boys are drawn to an abandoned Faire in the Virginia forest and, as usual, things do not go as planned. post 7x08 "s7 Time for a wedding" hurt/awesome!Sam/Dean

Author's Note: No idea how long this one will be. I thought maybe it was going to be a one shot but then the boys got distracted. Lol So we shall see.

This one is loosely inspired by a prompt from Jenjoremy who asked for Sam's hallucinations to cause him to ignore something important believing it to not be real and for Dina SPN who gave me a nudge, asked for hurt!sam and reminded me it had been a whole week since I posted anything. :D Thank you ladies!

Beta'd by the always awesome JaniceC678 :D– Friend and Muse's co-conspirator.

**Follow me on Facebook as "Disasteriffic Kaz" for frequent fic updates or just to chat!
~Reviews are Love~

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Welcome to my nightmare
I think you're gonna like it
I think you're gonna feel you belong
We sweat and laugh and scream here
'Cause life is just a dream here
You know inside you feel right at home here

~Alice Cooper

Chapter 1

The early morning wind blew through the tall grasses, shifting and waving them in the darkness before the dawn and making every shadow look like something alive and twisting. A whistling trill of a roar floated out over the trees and small field, and the woman crawling through those long grasses shuddered and whimpered.

"No," she whined and pulled herself along faster toward the overgrown footbridge. She only needed to get out; just another half a mile to her car…maybe a mile. She crawled, ignoring the feel of the wet grasses slapping her face, the squelch of mud beneath her elbows and knees, and insects that crawled up to run across her neck and face. Her own breathing was a roar in her ears, louder than everything around her, but she couldn't stop it, not even knowing she was being stalked. She cried. Tears ran down her cheeks to drip off her jaw as she reached the footbridge and reached up to hold onto the aged, rotting wood. She refused to look back at her legs and see it again…the blood. It made it hurt even more if she looked.

She tried to pull her resisting body up and stand, but her legs were no longer able to obey her commands and she tumbled down onto the bridge with a thump, listening the wood creak under her weight, and the whistling growl grew louder and nearer. Her sobs grew louder too, great breaths hitching in and out of her chest as she tugged her body along the bridge, oblivious to the splinters embedding into her flesh through her clothes. She wouldn't go back there to that…charnel house. The image of her friends' bodies flashed unbidden into her mind, hanging and bloodied, and she collapsed to the footbridge, suddenly unable to move for the great, heaving sobs breaking out of her.

The whistling grew louder. It came closer with the sound of heavy footfalls moving quickly through the grass and weeds. She forced herself to move, pulling her body along the bridge one inch at a time and then it was there. She felt it's hot, rancid breath on her back and closed her eyes.

"No," she whispered. Her scream carried out over the empty little village as long claws sank into her back and dragged her from the bridge into the darkness.

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Sam woke in a sweat with a choked gasp and looked wildly over to his left, only taking in a shuddering breath when he saw the familiar bulk of his brother under the blanket in the next bed. He laid his head back and tried to calm his own breathing to hear Dean's instead. Dean would no doubt tease him mercilessly if he knew that, sometimes, just listening to him breathe was comforting enough to let Sam sleep.

"Not co-dependent at all, huh, Sammy?" Lucifer's soft, amused voice came from the foot of his bed.

Sam jerked up to see the devil sitting there smiling and shaking his head, and his calmer breathing sped back up as he grabbed his left hand and dug his thumbnail into the scar there. In his mind, he chanted 'stone number one' over and over while he dug into his own skin, and, finally, as the pain rose and he felt the unmistakable sensation of blood, Lucifer's voice went silent. Sam opened his eyes to see that he'd gone and heaved out a breath.

"S'mmy?" Dean's voice slurred and he rolled to his back, turning his head to find his little brother sitting up and unsure what it was that had woken him up. "S'goin' on?"

"Nothing," Sam said quickly and flipped the blanket off his legs. He stood, trying to keep his now bleeding hand out of his brother's line of sight and was grateful Dean was still half-asleep or he'd never have succeeded. "Didn't mean to wake you."

Dean watched blurrily as Sam went to the bathroom and shut the door. He frowned and dropped his head back to the pillow. He sorted back through what he remembered as he'd woken up and realized it now it had been the sound of a whimper, his brother's voice, nearly silent, that had snapped him awake. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and looked at the clock; almost six in the morning. He groaned and pushed up so he was sitting. Sam was certainly not going back to sleep, Dean was sure that the devil in his head had woken him again. He reached over and turned on the light, then swung his legs over to the floor.

"What the…" Dean felt something wet and cooling on the sole of his bare foot. He brought it up, bending his knee to look and his heart climbed into his throat seeing that it was blood, Sam's blood. He jerked up off the bed and didn't bother knocking, shoving the bathroom door open instead to find Sam pale and hunched over the sink, running water over his hand as he looked up at Dean in surprise.

"Dean, what…"

"Show me," Dean said in a voice that warned he wasn't going to argue about it and took hold of Sam's left hand at the wrist when he held it out. He turned the palm up to the light and saw the half-moon shaped wound in the center of the curved scar still seeping blood. He clenched his teeth to avoid yelling and let go of his brother's hand so he could finish cleaning it. "Thought you said you had a handle on this, Sammy?" he asked instead, softly and still his brother shoulders flinched.

"I do, alright?" Sam sighed. "When I'm awake. I was sleeping. It's…I'm ok."

Dean ground his teeth together, nodded, and left him to it. He went back out and pulled his bag out from under the bed, pulling out the first aid kit with the sure knowledge that it was his time drugged and tied up by Becky that had weakened Sam's control. He had a roll of gauze and the disinfectant ready when Sam came back out. "Sit." He couldn't really yell at him for wounding himself. Dean was the one who had pointed out to him that real pain was different, that it could anchor him in reality. It worked, and he'd just have to make sure Sam didn't maim himself while he was at it.

Sam sat on the side of his bed and held his hand out; forcibly reminded of sitting in Bobby's living room while Dean had done just this, only with whiskey, not so long ago. He hissed in a breath as the disinfectant stung and then Dean was wrapping gauze around his hand. "Thanks, Dean."

Dean nodded and tucked in the edges of the gauze. He set the kit aside and pulled some clothes out of his bag, heading to the bathroom. "See if you can find us a job." He closed the bathroom door and rested his forehead against it for a minute before finally standing back and stripping off his sweats to get dressed. Sam's cracked head scared him. It terrified him because he didn't know how much longer his little brother could go on dancing with the damn devil in his head before he couldn't hold on anymore. An involuntary snarl curled his mouth as he thought of Castiel and how he'd betrayed them. Crashing down Sam's wall was something he wasn't sure he would ever find a way to forgive him for, and, frankly, at that point, he didn't care. Cas was gone and Dean was left to pick up the pieces. He pulled on his jeans and then a clean shirt and straightened his shoulders, looking at himself in the mirror. That was his job, take care of Sam, and he was damn well gonna keep doing it until they were dead.

Sam booted up the laptop and took a few breaths to settle his nerves. He glanced up when the bathroom door opened and was glad his brother looked a little calmer. Sam had almost been able to hear his teeth grinding together. "Breakfast?"

"Naw, still too early." Dean pulled his jacket off the other chair and slipped it on. "I'll go find us some coffee and donuts. You find us something to gank."

"I will." Sam pulled up a browser and his favorite news site to look for the strange and unusual, articles that typically turned up their sort of job. He needed to find something to take both their minds off…well, off of him. He shook his head and started scanning the articles for something.

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Dean shoved the last of the cleaning kit into the weapons bag along with the now pristine sawed-off shotgun and zipped it closed. "Find anything?" He was antsy to get moving. Of course, that might just be the jumbo coffee with the two shots of espresso talking and he smirked at himself.

"Actually, yeah." Sam pushed away the half-eaten donut in front of him. "I think we've got a wendigo in Virginia." He leaned back and picked up his cooling coffee instead. "Empty stretch of forest, people gone missing, some hikers who've come out with what look like wild animal injuries but stories about something big, fast, and weird looking."

"Sounds like it." Dean did a mental inventory of how many charges they had for the flare guns in the trunk. "We'll stop somewhere on the way and grab some more flares. Any idea where it might be hiding the larder?" He asked, as wendigos stored their victims for later eating.

Sam nodded. "Believe it or not, there's a whole abandoned, medieval village in that forest." He chuckled at the look on Dean's face. "It's a failed Renaissance Faire. They closed the doors in…" He leaned forward to look at the screen. "…'99, and the whole place is being taken back by nature." Sam smirked. "The pirate ship's still there on the lake, according to this."

"Pirate ship?" Dean looked up and grinned. "Dude. Bring the rum."

Sam chuckled. "Gets better. The old faire grounds are off the King's highway and smack in the middle of, get this, Sherwood Forest."

"Like Robin Hood Sherwood? Come on." Dean shook his head.

"Seriously. It's like the place was made for a Ren Faire. Too bad it failed." Sam shrugged. "Odds are the wendigo's storing its victims in one of the old buildings there."

"Sounds good. Let's roll." Dean grabbed up the weapons bag and headed for the door. He took a long look at his brother while Sam wasn't paying attention and nodded, going outside. He looked better than he had a couple hours before when Dean had woken up. He still had those dark circles under his eyes, but he didn't look haunted, at least for the moment, and he'd take it.

Several hours down the road, Dean had spotted a sporting goods store and pulled in to stock up on flares. He still remembered their first encounter with a wendigo, and it had made him determined to never have to face one again with only two flares between them. He strode down the aisles with Sam at his back and listened absently to his brother on the phone with the police in Fredericksburg, the town closest to the abandoned faire. Dean left him poking around the shoe department hopelessly and headed for the hunting section with a chuckle. His gigantor of a little brother rarely found shoes in places like this. They just didn't come in riverboat size.

"Help ya, sir?"

Dean looked up and smiled briefly at the bearded man behind the counter. "Yeah. Need some charges for an Orion 12 gauge flare."

"Gotcher right here, son," The man who was clearly older than he looked behind that bushy black beard waved Dean over to the other side of the counter. "Stockin' up yer boat?"

"Something like that," Dean smirked.

"Y'now they got a new model comin' out next year." The clerk put a box of flare charges on the counter and winked at Dean. "S'posed to be double barrel, single or double fire."

Dean only barely stopped himself from drooling and grinned. "Next year, huh?"

The clerk nodded. "Happens I know a guy. You back this way next June, you stop in. I'll 'member ya."

Dean chuckled. "I bet you would too." He dug in his pocket for cash rather than the fake credit card he'd been planning on. If he had his way, he would come back through next year and pick up a couple new toys and wanted this man to remember him without cussing. He grabbed the box and gave the man a nod and a smile in thanks. Dean headed back toward the shoe section, looking for his brother.

"Sam?" Dean called and looked over the aisles and boxes but saw no sign of his overtall brother. He stopped an employee. "Hey, you see a guy in here, tall like a freak?"

The employee, a boy who looked barely twenty smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I saw him. Saw him headin' toward the back there too." He pointed out over the store to the back wall.

"What'd he go back there for?" Dean frowned and put a hand in his pocket for his phone.

The kid shrugged. "Don't know, but he was following Larry. The shoe guy? Maybe they're tryin' to find something to fit your friend in the back."

"Right. Thanks, kid." Dean was already striding away to the back of the store and the stock room door he could just see over the shelves. He wasn't sure why, but his gut told him something was off, either with Sam or with the man he'd followed, and he put his phone back, pulling out the flask filled with borax instead. It would be just their luck to stumble on a leviathan in a damn sporting goods store. He pushed open the door into the store room quietly and slipped inside, then stood and listened. He didn't hear anything and started walking down the aisle of ten foot shelves, looking between each as he went.

"Sam?" Dean said in surprise when Sam came out from the shelves a few rows down. "What the hell are you doing back here?"

Sam looked up at him and shrugged. "The shoe guy wanted to show me something."

"Well, come on already. I got the flares." Dean rolled his eyes and turned away. "We'll pick you up some heels on the next stop." He took exactly two steps before his brain registered something…wrong. He narrowed his eyes, trying to decide what it was and then it struck him. Sam had been walking hunched ever since his wall fell, like he was being crushed under some great weight, but the Sam behind him was standing straight. It was such a small thing, but it was enough. Dean popped the top on the flask and grunted as Sam's arm wrapped around his neck and he was hauled back.

"Too slow." Sam…the thing that looked like Sam…said cheerfully in his ear.

Dean snarled and tried to free himself, groaning in discomfort as his arm was hauled up behind him as the flare box and the flask fell to the floor with a clatter. "Where's my brother? And what the hell are you?"

"That would be telling." Sam chuckled and forced Dean's head back further, beginning to cut off his air.

"Where…where is he?" Dean demanded even as he choked for air. Whatever it was, it was stronger than a human and holding him fast. He fought to get his one free hand to his back and his gun with Sam laughing in his ear and tensed as he heard another sound. It had been soft, the slight scuff of a shoe on stone, and the thing holding him had missed it or just didn't care. Worried that it was another, he fought harder to reach his gun. He was stuck with his head practically on not-Sam's shoulder, staring up at the lights above. The thing holding him screamed suddenly, and, even knowing it wasn't Sam, the sound was jarring to his nerves, hearing that sound from his brother's throat. The grip around his neck left and Dean stumbled forward. He spun, coughing, and pulled his gun to find Sam…standing over Sam.

"Shifter." Sam told his big brother and held up a small silver knife he kept in his boot. In front of him, the shifter copy of himself fell to its stomach with blood spreading from the stab wound on its back over its heart that Sam had put there. "You alright?"

Dean stared between them, eyeing the Sam still standing critically for just a moment and then he nodded in relief. "Yeah. I'm…dude, what the hell happened?" He put his gun up and rubbed his sore arm and then his throat.

Sam shook his head and swayed a little, catching himself on a shelf. "I was on the phone with the cops, looked over, and I saw him touch a silver buckle on one of the shoes and jerk his hand back."

"Burned him," Dean said and went to his brother, stepping over the body.

Sam nodded. "Followed him back here to find out what he was, and, uh…got the jump on me and cracked me over the head with something."

Sam looked truly disgusted with that fact and Dean didn't blame him. "Come here."

"Took me a couple minutes, but, when I could, you know, stand up again…he was gone and there was this pile of goo next to me." Sam hissed in a breath as Dean's fingers found the lump on the back of his head. "Knew he'd changed his appearance." He snorted. "I wasn't expecting you to come in and play hostage."

"Shut up." Dean growled but without any real heat, far too relieved to have them both in one piece. He looked down at the body, at a corpse that was his brother's likeness, and allowed himself a shudder. It was a visual he would never be alright with, no matter the circumstances; not since Cold Oak even all these years later. He resisted the urge to pull his brother into a hug and slapped the back of his shoulder instead. "Come on. Let's drag him out back before someone walks in here."

"Door's back there." Sam pointed over his shoulder and held a hand to his aching head. "You get the flares?"

Dean nodded and bent to collect the box and his flask from the small puddle of borax. "Yeah, we're good."

"Wonder what happened to the guy he was wearing before?" Sam said sadly.

"Larry. Kid out there told me." Dean didn't bother rolling the shifter over, not wanting to see his brother's dead face. He put his hands under his shoulders and started dragging him back toward the door. "Get his legs this'll go faster."

"Yeah." Sam bent, ignoring his pounding head and picked up the creature's legs, trying very hard not to be squeamish about the fact he was essentially carrying his own body. He suddenly wondered if this was how Dean had felt when he'd had to shoot himself, or rather a shifter wearing him, like the edges of reality were blurred. He shook his head, smiled at the look of concern on his brother's face and purposefully stopped thinking about it as they carried the body.

They got in the car finally, after ten minutes of carrying the shifter's body and a nerve-wracking decision to leave Sam with it while Dean went for the car and brought it around the building. Dean got behind the wheel, body safely stuffed in the trunk, and for the hundredth time missed his Impala. The Charger irritated him every time he started the engine and it just sounded…wrong. "Gotta find a place to dump this thing and burn it where we won't get busted."

"Shouldn't be too hard. It's mostly mountain and forest around here," Sam pointed out as they hit the road again. He leaned his aching head back on the seat and groaned, rolling his head into the window instead as the lump he'd taken pounded at him. "Feels like he hit me with a compact car."

Dean snorted and looked over, keeping an eye on him. A head injury, even if it didn't bleed, wasn't anything to take lightly, and they made him particularly nervous when it came to his brother for obvious reasons. The last thing Sam needed was more damage to his head. "Get some sleep. I'll wake you up when I find somewhere to take care of our buddy back there."

Sam nodded, closing his eyes against the weak sunlight filtering through the clouds and was more than happy to try and catch up on the sleep he'd lost. He smiled slightly when Dean turned the radio on but kept it low so it would play in the background, a subtle attempt to give his mind something to focus on other than the hell spilling out inside it. He sighed and let sleep take him.

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To Be Continued…