The characters and situations portrayed here are not mine, they belong to the WB. This is a fan authored work and no profit is being made. Please do not link to this story without appropriate warnings, disclaimers, and attributions. Please do not archive this story without my permission.
 
 

Looking Glass Dreams
By Maygra

I.
Dean rolls a silver bullet between his palms, feeling the metal warm. It's half as long as his pinkie finger and tapered. Slightly irregular. He made it himself.

He listens to Sam breathing in the dark, and waits for the break he knows will come. When it does, he sets the bullet aside and sits on the edge of Sam's bed, lays his hand on his chest, feeling the too fast beat of his heart.

Sam says no, then don't, then sobs.

In the morning he won't remember what it was that kills him every night.

Only that he dies.

::::
II.
They kid each other about the dark. What's in it, what hides behind it, what comes out of it. It's gallows humor and lighthearted eulogies, and Sam wonders how either of them sleeps, or why do it when the sun goes down.

Drive at night, sleep during the day, he says and Dean taps the steering wheel, grins. And risk my car? Are you nuts?

Well, yeah, probably, Sam says and Dean snorts.

Sam stares out the window.

Dean taps two fingers against the back of his hand.

"Other people run in the dark," he says. "We don't. We stand."

::::
III.
In Sam's eyes, Dean was always the favored son who could do no wrong. For Dean, Sam got away with things his father would have called him to the carpet for in a heartbeat.

John Winchester never played favorites with his sons, no matter what they think He played the odds -- long, difficult odds, but the payoff was worth it.

He knows what the demons are after, even if he doesn't know why they chose his family. Demons don't like to look in mirrors because their reflections trap them.

So he built a mirror. His sons are the frame.

::::
IV.
They are being followed. They never hear anything behind them, and if there are shadows that disappear from the corner of their eyes, both of them will say, "Trick of the light."

Neither of them believes it.

When Sam's shadow disappears in the bright light of day, Dean only smiles and says. "Look, man. You're Peter Pan."

Sam grins back. "I guess that makes you Tinkerbell."

Dean is undisturbed. "She was small but she could kick ass."

He claps three times, and the fight is on.

When they are done, it's not Sam's shadow Dean uses needle and thread on.

::::
V.
It's Dean's shadow that goes MIA next. It doesn't slip quietly away. It tears itself free with claws and teeth, and leaves Dean battered and bruised and totally pissed off.

Sam uses arnica and witchhazel and cortisone cream to repair the damage. When they walk up to the diner for food, Dean can see his shadow back again but only in his reflection.

Among other things.

Sam touches his shoulder and stares. He has no reflection at all.

"Dude. Did you become a vampire when my back was turned?"

Sam stares at Dean's face in the glass and wonders. "No."

::::
VI.
Not being able to see himself is unnerving and inconvenient, and Sam cuts himself more than once while shaving. Dean gets tired of the toilet paper bandaids and starts helping him.

In a motel in Des Moines there's a mirror over the sink and another smaller one on the door. Sam stares at it while Dean shaves his face and realizes he can seem himself as a reflection of a reflection.

Huh.

They spend the day looking for second hand mirrors all over town. The shadows in the corners increase.

Seventy more years of bad luck are on the line.

::::
VII
They make a wide circle of mirrors covered in sheets. There's salt outside the glass fort and inside they stand back to back. They are both barefooted and the carpet below them is soaked and sopping with holy water. Dean fingers his gun and a handful of protection charms.

Sam's got his curved blades in a sheath at his chest and spear of rowan smeared with the juice of holly berries. It smells like a florist shop.

The night is dark and so is the room. Dean presses his shoulder to Sam's. "Now," he says and the sheets come off.

::::
VIII
The first thing Dean sees is Sam's reflection. It glares at him with a malevolence that's both familiar and not. Beyond it other things move in the mirrors, pacing past and through them, circling like wolves. He hears Sam make a small sound of distress. He doesn't know what he sees but he can guess and presses his back more firmly against Sam's.

"Negative images, Sam."

Sam says nothing but steadies and Dean holds up the first of the charms. Sam's doppelganger hisses then smirks.

"So not a good look for you, Sam."

Sam laughs. "I'll keep it in mind."

::::
IX.
It's always the last charm, of course. Dean shows it and his brother's double flees, moves to the next mirror and Dean follows, keeping his back to Sam's.

Sam watches the mirror in front of him, waiting for it to slip, to stumble. The mirrors rattle in their frames and the carpet is drying beneath their feet. One of the mirrors cracks.

Sam finally sees it, his own back in the mirror right in front of him.

The rowan staff passes through without breaking the glass.

The sharp point misses Dean by inches.

It doesn't miss Sam. Either of them.
 

:::::
X.
The demons are trapped in a salt circle they can't cross. Holy water burns their leathery feet, and Dean puts shot after shot into the glass so they can't escape, breaking the last with his fist.

Sam's got his one good hand curved around his knife until Dean drags him out of the circle. Dean tosses the rest of the charms into the writhing mass of dying demons and presses his hand to the hole in Sam's shoulder.

The last one to succumb is Sam's double. It glares at him, at them, while the rowan turns its body to ash.

:::::
XI
They don't stay for obvious reasons. Dean packs the wound in Sam's shoulder with gauze and hustles him into the car. By the time dawn rises, they are a hundred miles away and Dean's looking for a place to crash.

For all that he's lost blood and his shoulder hurts like a son of a bitch, Sam feels less stressed than grateful. He keeps flipping the rearview over just to see himself.

Dean watches him and grins. "You are going to go blind, dude," he warns and flips the mirror back.

But he checks the mirror himself, just in case.

:::::
XII.
Dean rolls a silver bullet between his hands. Around his wrist is a charm he's made, woven into leather. Sam wears an identical one. He's sleeping now, shoulder bandaged and Dean listens for the break in his breathing.

When it comes, Dean sits beside Sam and presses a hand to his chest. Sam's heart skips a beat, and he blinks sleepy eyes up at Dean.

"No dreams?"

Sam shakes his head and Dean moves to go. Sam clasps his hand. "No. Don't."

Dean lies down, their hands still clasped. The charms at their wrists mirror each other.

As do they.

:::end:::
 

02/03/2006