A/N: Happy New Years Everyone!

Sorry so long for an update, but I am currently on day eleventeen of the worlds most vicious sinus/double ear infection, and I haven't exactly been on my a-game. Going to try and get at least one more of my other stories updated today, just not sure which one. Nothing is on hiatus, promise. Also, no prank war in this episode, mostly because Sam 2.0 isn't really that playful, though he will toy with the ghost facers a little. Someone asked in a message about my reasoning for the episodes and their order. The episodes are primarily chosen to avoid the overt demon blood story line. Obviously, the demon blood is important, but the whole heaven/hell war is not the point of this story, so I chose episodes that avoid that.

The order of the ones I am re-writing are chosen to follow both the time line of the story (calendar-wise, Harvest at harvest time, ect) but also because they help me showcase Sam 2.0 as he develops, which of course leads Dean's character arc. The whole point of this episode in canon was that we create many of our own monsters, and it was such a wonderful plot point to play with at this point in the story when looked at in tandem with Sam and Dean's evolving characters.

Reviews are love, and sick authors need a lot of love...

As Always,

EverReader

Disclaimer: Not my sandbox.

Prisoner of War – Chapter Thirty-Eight

"The Monsters We Make"

"She had, like, this long blonde hair, and her face was covered in bruises..."

"She was a brunette, definitely a brunette...her mouth was open like she had been screaming."

"It was pitch black, and she was glowing. Her dress was all bloody..."

"She was just hanging there, swinging. She was missing a sneaker, and she had pink toe nail polish..."

"She was facing away from us, and all you could see was her red hair..."

Dean swore as he slid into the booth at the diner across from his brother. "Five kids, five different stories, sounds fruit loops to me." He grumbled. "The only thing any of their accounts have in common was that it was in the cabin, and it was a girl. A blond-brunette-red haired girl, in a dress. Or sneakers. Or both. And she was hanging. In the kitchen. And the basement. Maybe both. At the same time."

Sam looked up from his laptop. "Actually, that's the most genuine thing about their stories. Whatever they thought they saw, they genuinely thought they saw it."

"Come again?" Dean shook his head as he slurped his shake. One thing that hadn't changed about Sam was his ability to formulate a sentence that Dean was fairly certain made absolutely no sense, he just had no way to prove it...

This time, Sam didn't even bother to look up from the computer. "They were scared, Dean. Pretty fucking scared. So scared they bolted within a second of seeing whatever scared them. They all remember it differently, because they were too scared to stick around. But they all saw something, and it scared the piss out of them. But the question is, what?"

Dean popped a fry into his mouth. "So, what? You're saying their stories are too mixed up to be rehearsed? Okay. That I'll buy. Though, I don't think that kid back at the record store was as scared as the others. He was pretty lit when we were talking to him, though. Maybe he was the other night, too. But then, if it was a ghost, whose? You still haven't found any murders in the location of the supposed 'haunting'. And no girls have gone missing matching the description-correction, any of the descriptions these morons gave us. So who, or what, the hell did they see out there?"

Sam sighed, leaning back and looking up over Dean's head, eyes far-away. "No way to know. Maybe those other hunters were right, and it's some cursed object out there giving people the spooks. Something that causes fear itself. That could be another reason why everyone saw it a little differently. Though, most likely, they were just scared. Most witnesses give pretty varying accounts if their in a state of panic when they see something. We probably shouldn't have waited so long to come out. They've all had too much time to think about what they thought they saw. The website I originally found this on has blown up, there's all kinds of 'true accounts' popping up now. It's almost impossible to weed out anything real from the copy-cats. But the second set of victims, that kid and his girlfriend who broke her arm, she swore she didn't fall. She said something grabbed her, and yanked her upwards, so hard it broke her arm. The boyfriend backed her up, and her arm is broken in a pretty weird place for a fall." Both boys had broken enough bones in the past to be familiar with what kinds of injuries caused what kind of damage, they hadn't needed to go steal the girl's x-rays.

"Damn attention seekers. Most of those whack jobs wouldn't know what the hell to do with a real ghost if it bit them in the ass." Dean grumbled, finishing the last bite of his burger. "Guess we're gonna have to hike our asses up there and look for ourselves. We shoulda brought our damn hiking boots..."

"I did." Sam replied simply, getting up without bothering to make sure Dean tipped, or even paid for that matter, and Dean raised a brow at his brother's back, then shrugged, tossing some bills onto the table to cover their tab.

Sam's behavior had continued true to current form once they had reached Richardson. His questioning during the interrogations of the witnesses had been a surreal experience for Dean. Sam handled them differently then he usually did. It was nothing too overt, nothing someone who had never met Sam before would notice, but Dean sure had.

Where before, Sam's genuineness, and sympathy had lulled witnesses into telling them whatever they had needed, now Sam's voice was almost...calculated.

It always held just the right amount of sympathy, the right idle curiosity. He'd even talked sports with a couple of the other teenage boys, when Dean knew Sam frankly didn't give a shit about the current basketball season. He'd worked them over good, but that had been exactly what he'd done.

He'd worked them over. Just like Dean, or any other hunter. Just like John.

But not like Dean's little brother at all.

It was almost like Sam had been playing a game with the witnesses, like Dean when he wanted to pick up a girl at the bar, or when he was trying to sweet talk the waitress into a discount on their tab.

The truth was, Dean's little brother had played the witnesses like a damn violin, and it had been impressive and scary as hell.

But effective.

"Dean?" Sam's voice held that same mild, almost disinterested tone it had held for the past few weeks, ever since Sam had kicked that freaky cold or flu or whatever the hell it had been. He'd rebounded with such startling ease...

"You coming anytime soon, or you want me to hike up by myself?" There was the faintest hint of challenge in Sam's words, and Dean had to fight back his instinctive bristling, because damned if Sam's new attitude didn't seem to like playing with Dean just a little, too.

Nothing big, nothing concrete enough to pick a fight over, even if Dean had wanted to, which, frankly, he didn't, but...

Sometimes Dean felt like he didn't know the person behind Sam's eyes anymore.

Or that he never had, and he was just now learning that fact.

Supernatural Supernatural Supernatural Supernatural Supernatural Supernatural Supernatural Supernatural Supernatural Supernatural

Sam studied that walls of the cabin with a faraway interest. The outside was exactly what was to be expected, with rugged, weathered walls made of split logs, overgrown with weeds and brush. The inside was a mess, a shambles of dust and broken furniture.

But all over the walls was a variety of symbols, an eclectic hodge-podge that didn't really seem to meld together for any real purpose. The placement seemed almost random, and at least some of the paint seemed fairly fresh.

And then there were the actual symbols.

Intellectually, it was quite the game, trying to name and reference the various symbols and their meanings, but a bigger part of Sam's mind was preoccupied with trying to feel something, anything at all, with his...other senses.

Sam had stopped fearing his new abilities weeks ago, deciding instead to embrace them.

To use them.

They may have been born out of the darkness inside of him, but hey, it wasn't like they were going away anytime soon.

Not as long as he was breathing anyway.

Might as well take them for a test drive.

Or two.

Or ten.

It was almost like stretching a little used muscle, sore and slightly painful at first, but in time, the burn came to feel almost...good.

Satisfying, the way running until your second wind kicked in could feel good.

Sam had taken to trying to use his own personal 'mental compass' to direct him whenever one of the other hunters had come in with a haunted or cursed object, while they waited for Bobby to find them the correct spell or ritual to destroy it.

Even at school, he'd practiced trying to read some of the emotions off of his classmates and teachers. It was tricky, since as a hunter, he was already well versed in reading body languages, and even lips sometimes, but once or twice, it was like he had gotten a 'flash' or 'glimpse' or something, off of his classmates, and one time, a teacher.

It was all boring stuff, mundane and rather tedious. A fight with a boyfriend, and overdue bill, test anxiety.

But Sam chalked it all up to experience. He figured it had to be no different than any other kind of training.

First the pain, then the payoff.

But so far, this cabin was a big, fat bust. No ghosts, no emf, other than that given off by the decrepit power lines running outside (which seriously discredited the whole "ancient haunted cabin in the woods" theory, for the record), no cold spots.

No freaky tingles running down Sam's spine, no voices in the dark, no creeping sense of being watched. No visions, no creepy ghost kids.

And let's face it, if anyone in a three state radius could get the attention of a creepy ghost kid, it was obviously Sam Winchester.

Bust.

"This place is a bust." Dean murmured beside Sam, echoing Sam's unspoken thoughts. The hike had been annoying enough, especially once they had gotten there and discovered they could have driven nearly up to the house if they had known about the old, unmarked road that hadn't been on the map or the internet accounts giving the location of the cabin.

On one level, Sam had to agree with his brother, because the cabin contained none of the classic, tell tale signs of hauntings they were used to seeing (or feeling, in Sam's case).

"Maybe it's a new ghost, and it's still learning the ropes..." Dean wise-cracked.

Sam didn't answer, continuing to stare instead at one of the few markings on the wall he hadn't been able to place. Tracing it with his eyes until he was sure he had it memorized, he looked over at his brother. "You seen this one before?" He asked.

Dean raised a brow. "Yeah, sure. In "Ways How Not To Get Laid 101".

Sam didn't respond, simply staring at Dean until his brother rolled his eyes and shrugged. "No, okay, Dude. I don't recognize half of these. The obvious ones, like the pentagram and the star of David, yeah, sure. But the others? Go fish. Though..." He walked over to another one that Sam hadn't been able to identify. "This one looks familiar. Can't think of why, though."

Sam turned back to the original marking that had caught his attention. Something about it nagged at him, like it wanted his attention.

Like it held...potential.

Like it wasn't finished yet.

Was it incomplete? Was that what was bugging him about it? Had the artist not finished it, and that was why Sam was unable to recognize it?

Suddenly, a sound from down the darkened hallway had both boys tensing. Shooting looks at each other, Dean nodded and drew his gun even as Sam drew his own piece. He knew that Dean still had mixed feelings about his carrying a weapon, but by now John had openly given Sam his blessing, and there wasn't much Dean could say.

Sam wasn't even sure why Dean would care, since more times than not anymore, either Dean or John would have given Sam their backup piece by now anyway, but he wasted no more thought on the question as he eased down the dark hall.

Behind him, he could almost hear Dean mentally grit his teeth in frustration as Sam took point, and he didn't bother hiding his grin, knowing the shadows hid it for him.

They'd already searched the kitchen when they had first arrived, but now something, or someone was making quite a racket. It was far from subtle, and Sam would almost be inclined to expect a wild animal or some sort, except whatever it was, it was obviously large.

And talking.

About...anime?