The Dark Ages had been fantastic. So much fear. He had feasted on it, gorged on it. He had truly lived up to his title of King. But then those pesky Guardians arrived, and all his work, all his fear, vanished. He was left to rot, left to live and lurk only in the shadows, on the fringes of the spirit world, haunting the edges of dreams, relegated to the Boogeyman living under the bed.

But not anymore.

Something had changed about humanity since the Dark Ages. Maybe it was technology, maybe it was reason, maybe it was history, or maybe it was simply the security of having a home - but they didn't fear as they used to. He couldn't consume an entire being anymore. He was forced to rely on children to feed his appetite.

Children were stupid. They didn't learn, they weren't capable of it. Adults used their logic and reason and learned to believe only that. It didn't matter how many times a child was told that the monster under the bed wasn't real, they still believed in the creature in the shadows.

But there were some adults who didn't believe in the monsters, they knew about them. They were older and angrier, their dreams weren't as pure. The fear was tainted with anger. But not all of them. Oh, no. there were new children. Older, stronger but just as scared. And their dreams were so powerful.

He barely needed to touch them for them to spread so much fear. Oh, and the things that they saw. Something big and scary.

Something was coming, and it was giving him so much power.

His Nightmare approached, shivering with anticipation and delight. He could taste the fear that it carried in the air. It was another one of those special children, who's fears gave him such pleasure.

"Yes," he agreed. "Go."

Yellow eyes bright with excitement, the Nightmare slithered away, and the Nightmare King plotted his return.

The Sandman checked on the slumbering hunters. Sandy knew what he was, and he knew what the hunters thought of him. He meant them no harm, but it was hard to explain that to some people. It was hard to make people listen when you couldn't actually talk.

He flew away on his dreamsand after making sure that there was nothing that could hurt the hunters. They might want to hurt him, but he didn't want to cause anyone any harm. Sandy liked to travel around the world, spreading his sand in person and seeing what the dreams that burst out. He wasn't above thinking that his creations were beautiful. The other Guardians might be content to let their helpers take over on the front lines, but Sandy liked to see his own work.

He liked to see the response to it. He didn't often cross paths with other spirits, he wasn't a talker by nature and the Guardians were good enough friends for him, but that didn't mean that he didn't enjoy seeing the excitement and joy on the faces' of the other spirits that bumped into him. They all had their own dreams.

Everything that lived had a dream of some sort. Even the ghosts dreamed. There was never a point in time when all the world was asleep, but Sandy could pretend that there was when he watched over an entire city that slept under his dreamsand, watching their dreams dance around, watching the waking spirits and ghosts chase their own dreams. It was a wonderful sight.

Guardians weren't supposed to have favourites - favourite countries, favourite cities, favourite children - but Sandy did. He loved all children, all dreams equally. Any that he liked more than the rest faded quickly. Dreams were powerful, but they weren't permanent. A child's belief was unbelievably strong - but children grew up. That was why their dreams were so strong, they were only fleeting. But there was one child out there who would never grow up, and he was definitely a permanent favourite of Sandy.

He had first met Jack Frost almost two and a half centuries ago. The winter spirit had been nearing fifty by that stage. That was old for a mortal, but it was nothing to a spirit. And, for a young, lost spirit who had been born so alone and in such unknown circumstances, it meant that even as every day must have surely dragged on painfully.

Sandy hadn't realised how young the spirit was when he first saw him, he hadn't realised how lonely he was. He had spotted Jack when he had still been dressed in that tattered brown cloak, the spirit had been sliding across patches of ice on rooftops that materialised only seconds before he slid across them. He hadn't looked lonely then, but he had probably learned to keep his own company by that point, and the loneliness wouldn't start to weigh on him so heavily for another few years.

If Sandy had known, he definitely would have stopped. But he hadn't, so he had simply waved at the spirit as he skidded past, and flinched when instead of waving back, Jack was startled and stared at him with wide eyes and then missed the next roof and crashed into the wall, falling into a growing snowdrift with a heavy pile of snow.

He had waved again as he flew away, leaving Jack staring up at him in wide-eyed wonder.

It took more than two centuries before that wide-eyed look left his eyes whenever he bumped into Jack again. They didn't speak - obviously - but Sandy always made sure to pause for a moment and leave some dreamsand for Jack to play with, something that the spirit seemed to appreciate.

It could get lonely not having anyone to talk to, Sandy knew that difficulty quite well.

He had kept an eye on the spirit, making note of him whenever they crossed paths. He knew that Jack wasn't as alone as he had once been. He might not like hunters very much, but he wished the younger spirit well in his friendship with the small group that he had found. Human-spirit friendships were something strange and unique, no two were the same, and no one was insignificant even over a spirit's lifetime. Sandy was one of the oldest spirits left on the Earth, and he had watched the end of more than a few of his friends. It didn't make the ones he had no any less special.

Jack's friendships with his hunter friends had to be equally as special, Sandy couldn't imagine another reason for him staying in a single part of the world, a warm part of the world, for so long.

Sandy had noticed Jack's new habits, he had no restrictions on where he could go and how long he could stay there, and he had paid attention to who exactly he was spending all of his time with. Human faces could be very similar, but no two were exactly alike, and he prided himself on remembering every face he saw. That was how he knew exactly who it was whimpering and shuddering, trapped underneath the roiling black mass of a nightmare.

Pitch Black had been quiet for years, but Sandy had known that he was still alive somewhere, watching and waiting for the perfect time to attack. Nightmares existed on their own, and they had been around long before there was a Nightmare King to rule them, long before Pitch was around to take up that mantle, but he would be lying if he claimed to have not noticed the increase in nightmares lately. Some seemed to set out on their own, clinging to sleepers from the moment that they closed their eyes, some lay in wait before they attacked, perverting the dreams that his dreamsand provided, some stretched and moved between dreamers, touching their dreams with just a hint of discomfort and fear before moving on, just enough to leave them waking uncomfortable without really knowing why. They had grown more organised, more powerful, and that meant that they were being directed by someone.

Sandy was the Guardian of Dreams, and generally, that was a peaceful position. He enjoyed peace and quiet, and violence wasn't something that he sought out. But he was still a Guardian, and that meant that it was his duty to ensure the safety and sanctity of those dreams, and no nightmare was going to get away with subverting that right under his nose.

The door to the room was locked, and there was a light force of magic pulsing around it, keeping out weaker spirits. But Sandy was ancient and powerful, and locked doors had never been something that could stop him.

Dean woke suddenly, bleary-eyed. His heart beat heavy in his chest, pounding as though it had skipped a beat. The room was dark, with light from the parking lot peeking in through a gap in the curtains, stretching across the room and leaving just too little light to see properly. A quick glance showed nothing out of the ordinary, Sammy was sleeping with his back to him, a pillow over his head, letting off those little broken-off whimpers that made Dean's heart ache.

His phone buzzed, and Dean rolled away from Sam to grab it, it having fallen in the space between the bed and the exterior wall. He lay on his back to look at the screen, angling it carefully into the light.

New message from: Dad . 03:12 am.

Dean's fingers fumbled in his haste to open the message, and he lost his grip on the device for a second. He snatched it up from his blanket and read it. Immediately, his hopes were dashed.

Coordinates.

It meant that their dad was alive, and safe enough to contact them. They had code words and phrases to tip each other off about danger, but this was just a generic message. No words, no greeting, nothing. Not even asking about them.

Dean had called him dozens of times asking him where he was. Sammy had called hundreds of times, demanding a response. Dean had begged him to pick up the phone in those terrifying hours in-between Sam being admitted to the hospital and being told that he was stable, and then several more hours in between being told that 'stable' meant more than simply still alive.

And now he was being sent coordinates.

Dean sighed. He was too tired to do more than that. He was past the point of being angry with his dad, and he never really had been at that point. Sam had stayed angry for years, and Dean didn't know how he did it.

He pulled up the mental map that had been seared into his brain and tried to map out where the coordinates were leading them. Dad had made them both memorise it when they were younger. Sammy had picked it up quickly, but Dean had struggled for longer. They hadn't had to use coordinates since before Sam left, so he was a little bit rusty. Somewhere in Colorado, but he would need a map to pinpoint exactly where. And he would need Sam to find out why Dad wanted them there. That was a long enough drive to make, and setting out in the morning would get them caught up in traffic, even if they stuck to the back roads as often as possible. If they set out now, they could get there before midnight tonight. Dean didn't relish the thought of driving all night and day, but the sooner they started the sooner they could stop.

"Sammy," Dean called. He sat up and reached for the lamp between the two beds, and froze. A cool breeze brushed against the back of his neck when he turned away from the window. The window that he had shut last night.

He dove for the shotgun lying, carefully hidden under a shirt, in his duffle bag and hit the lights.

A big black… thing hovered over his brother. Sam was lying away from him, but Dean could see where it touched his face.

"Hey!" He shouted at it. It didn't move. It didn't have a face to look up. It didn't have any features that he could make out, it was just a shapeless blob of dark. Dean didn't know what it was doing to his brother, but it seemed to amp up its game and Sam let out a pained cry.

Dean raised the shotgun and jumped back when the cloud-thing was thrown away from his brother by a blast of golden sand. It hit the wall with a bang that made Dean worry about the people next door before he remembered that they had much of the motel to themselves.

"Dean?" Sam gasped, waking up with a start.

Dean glanced back at the window to see what had attacked the cloud. There was nothing there, but he still rushed to put himself between where the golden sand had come from and his brother, dragging Sammy off the bed and shoving him between the two beds to put another barrier between him and the cloud.

Sam sat up on the ground, pressed tight between the bed, the wall, and Dean's legs, looking baffled and pale but otherwise unharmed. His eyes were red and there were obvious tear tracks on his cheeks that he hadn't wiped away yet, but he was alert and aware and tried to climb onto his knees to watch the black mass that attacked him.

"What the hell was that?"

"I was kind've hoping you'd know, Geek Boy," Dean muttered.

Sam looked back at him and spotted something behind him, behind his knees. "Oh," he said.

"What?" Dean growled, aiming at the black thing, which had begun to wiggle around again. He had a feeling that the blast had only stunned it, and it was definitely still alive. If it was even alive in the first place.

"It's the Sandman."

Dean pulled his eyes from the cloud to stare down at his brother, wondering if he had missed some sign of injury on him. But then a small, floating, golden mass floated past him, pausing to hover to the front and side of him. It paused and glanced over its shoulder at him, shooting him a wink.

It looked like a small, fat, little man, only it was made entirely out of golden sand.

"The Sandman?" He repeated.

"Jack knows him," said Sam quietly. "He's safe."

The golden man nodded and, bizarrely, a snowflake formed in a swarm of floating sand above the creature's head.

"Right," Dean muttered. He took aim again with his shotgun as the black mass shifted, rising off the ground.

It swarmed and changed into a humanoid type shape, with a gaping mouth and empty eyes, like the shadow of a person. The Sandman blasted it again, and, for a moment, the golden sand filled the creature from within, turning the eye holes yellow. Dean shuddered.

The golden sand devoured it from the inside out, until it exploded with a screech, almost too high for human ears. Wisps of darkness fell from the ceiling, and the golden sand fell gently to the floor.