Part IV

Folded over the gleaming hood of the big Chevy, the Trickster jerks his head sharply to the left. Crack. Sharply to the right. Crack. Then he laughs, a cackle loud enough to bounce around the otherwise empty road that surrounds them. "I gotta give you guys some credit. That did NOT take as long as I thought it would."

"It took long enough." Sam removes a hand from its white-knuckled grip on the fake officer's getup and throws a shaky finger to where Dean is slumped on his left. "Fix him. Now."

"Fine, okay? Fine." A dramatic show of waving hands, then they're dropped back heavily with exasperation. "Whoosh. Fixed. Happy?"

Sam doesn't release his hold on the menace as he steps back just far enough to put Dean completely in his eye line. He notes the continued presence of the stomach-wrenching shine of blood still covering Dean's arm as he digs awkwardly across his body with his left hand, dragging the half-empty bottle from the duffel bag.

Sam watches with narrowed eyes as his brother tests the Trickster's words with a tentative sip of warm water.

Time stands still for a long moment, and then Dean nods a brief confirmation. He ends up draining what's left of the water, letting his head fall back against rough bark with a tired, pained, but somewhat contented sigh. Visible in the moonlight, his throat works with the want of more refreshment as he tosses the bottle aside into the dirt and hauls his bloody, uncooperative right arm across his lap.

"So? Happy now?"

Sam allows himself one brief exhale of relief, then whirls back around. "Not even close." He grips the shirt tightly with one hand, reaching into his jacket to withdraw a squat, hastily whittled stake with the other. He hefts the light stick of wood, rests the point against the Trickster's jugular. It feels much too small to accomplish anywhere near the amount of damage his body is begging him to inflict.

His target of rage shrinks back, molding himself once more against the shape of the car. "Okay, let's take it easy with that thing, huh?" He throws his eyes to side, bringing Dean into the conversation. "How did you guys figure it out, anyway? What gave me away?"

"You've been following us for days," Sam spits. "We didn't see it before, but the cop was the last straw. You were almost too eager to point us in the direction of that thing."

The Trickster raises his eyebrows, considering.

"The douchebag with the guitar," Dean says from his spot on the ground, a hitch in his breath. He might not be cursed any longer, but he's still not in great shape, and is in need of a hell of a lot more than water at this point.

"What, you boys don't like 'Brown Sugar'? Come on, it's a classic!"

"The busboy in the diner," Sam continues, ignoring him.

The Trickster rolls his eyes. "The truck driver outside your motel room, blah blah blah."

Sam frowns. "Wait. What?"

"Oh, gross."

Sam pivots to face Dean. "What."

"The lot lizards, man," Dean breathes, making a face, channeling his pain into an unconvincing mask of disgust. When he next speaks, every word is an individual struggle. "Gotta say, buddy, they were not up to par with the last pair of ladies I saw you with."

"Oh." Sam turns back to the Trickster, lip curling. "Gross."

He squirms in Sam's grasp. "Hey, come on. I made them. They're not gross."

Sam tightens his grip on both shirtfront and stake and slams him back roughly against the Impala.

"Why are you always spoiling my fun, Sam?"

Sam flexes his fingers around the slim wooden stake. "Why does your fun always seem to involve killing my brother?"

"Oh, come on," the Trickster groans, placing a firm hand on the edge of the stake and pulling it away from its position at the base of his throat. He draws himself somewhat upright, resting on his elbows against the hood of the car. "I wasn't really gonna kill him."

"Came pretty damn close," Sam grits, eyes flitting to where Dean is slumped in his peripheral, fighting to stay conscious. Sam kind of wishes he'd give up the fight; it's not like he's going to be much back up for Sam when he can't even stand.

"Close isn't the same as dead, is it?"

"It's close enough." An angry fire rips through Sam's belly as another spasm rocks his wrenched leg. "And we both know you've killed him before."

The Trickster straightens fully from the car, bringing up both pointers to jab Sam in the sternum, pushing him away to hop on his good knee. "THAT needed to happen, for you to learn your lesson." He claps Sam on the upper arm. "Remember?"

Sam's no longer sure whether he's shaking more from pain or anger. He's no longer sure that's a distinction to be made. "And what's my lesson here, huh?" he forces through gritted teeth.

His heads cocks almost fondly as he smiles. "If I have to tell you, then you haven't really LEARNED anything, have you? For now, you just have to trust me when I say that I had the best of intentions, and that I wasn't gonna kill your big, dumb ox-like brother."

"Why should I believe you?" Sam's jaw is clenched so tightly, it's a miracle his words are understood at all.

"You shouldn't," the Trickster says brightly, then leans in to whisper conspiratorially. "But when has that ever stopped you, huh?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Oh, come on, now, Sam." He bumps Sam with his elbow, draws even closer, like they're sharing a secret. "That little fallen angel on your shoulder?"

It takes a moment.

When it hits, Sam is rocked back as though physically struck. He drops his arm, stake dangling at his side. "Ruby?" he asks incredulously, voice climbing in pitch to an unnatural register. "This was about Ruby?"

He's met with a lethal, level stare. "Exactly how much good do you think that damn dirty demon is doing, Sam?" He shakes his head, tsking quietly, almost like he's afraid Dean will hear. "And what you're doing with her…"

"It's a hell of a lot more good than you're doing." Sam's fingers flex once more around the wood, bringing the stake back up, moments away from closing out the talking portion of the evening's festivities. "The call we heard on the scanner, that thing, those dead kids…"

The Trickster groans, rolling his head along his shoulders. "Oh, would you relax? Nobody really died. I made it all up! I just couldn't have you shacked up playing doctor with that sulky, whiskey-soaked coot. Had to get you back out here in the real world." He cocks his head. "Relatively speaking, of course. And it was only, like, the EASIEST thing in the world to do. Dean Winchester might just be the most predictable creature on the planet."

Sam absorbs the words like a hit. "What's your problem with Dean, huh? If this is all about me, then why do you keep screwing with my brother?"

"Excellent question, Sammy," Dean croaks from the side of the road, drifting in and out of hearing what's transpiring above him. Leaves rustle and crunch beneath his hands and boots as he fights to move around and pull himself upright.

"Because you emotional lumps seem to learn better this way." The Trickster steps to the side, causing Sam to lift his stake and take up an offensive stance. "That is to say, if you've learned anything at all. Never forget, Sammy, pride goeth before the fall."

Sam frowns, right leg quaking and threatening to buckle for good. "What the hell does – "

The spiked end of a torn branch suddenly explodes from the Trickster's chest cavity, a neat hole ripped clean through his body. He stares down at the protrusion with wide, surprised eyes.

"Did you see that coming?" Dean grits into his ear, giving the makeshift stake a crunchy twist for good measure.

The Trickster lifts his head and makes eye contact with Sam before he shimmers out of existence, and Sam would almost swear the son of a bitch winks at him.

"Predictable, my ass," Dean says as the stake falls to the asphalt with a clatter. He raises his eyes to Sam and grins.

And promptly passes out.

Sam's having a rough go at getting any sleep, mostly because Dean usually concedes the more comfortable couch to his little brother and pulls up a slab of hardwood for himself, and somewhat due to the painful stiffness of his swollen knee and the pounding in his well-rung skull. But also because Dean is making some truly horrible sounds of nightmare and pain as he kicks and stirs and fidgets on the couch over Sam's head.

Over the past few weeks, Sam's gotten used to the noises coming from the next bed as Dean struggles for sleep and rest, but this cocktail of groans and whimpers is a brand new nightmare.

If the Trickster hadn't lifted the curse when he did, the night would have carried on in a completely different direction. The fifteen miles back to Bobby's had been some of the longest of Sam's life, even knowing that the man was ready and waiting with all manner of medical supplies and triage experience when they rumbled back onto his property, beaten and bloody.

Now a row of dark stitches and another sloshy bag of IV-administered refreshment later, Dean is tucked into and twisted up in the fleece blanket he'd rejected earlier in the day, fighting Hell and fever and infection and dehydration and any number of factors that Sam is too woozy and exhausted to find appropriate words for. Enough is enough, and he's not really looking to start labeling all of the various tortures his obviously weakened brother is going through on a daily basis.

It's never been clearer to Sam that he needs to take full control of the driver's seat while Dean struggles to regain his strength and footing in the world. He just needs to get a little bit of strength back, himself, once Dean is able to be moved out of Bobby's. Everything will be back to normal once he can hook up with Ruby.

Skin suddenly crawling with what he needs and wants and can't yet have, Sam rolls against the hard, unforgiving floorboards, inhales a nose full of dust and pulls himself upright with the force of his sneeze. Which is hell on his still-aching head.

He's scrubbing at his gritty eyes when he catches sight of a familiar face peering at him through the picture window over Dean's head, a pale hand giving him a cheery wave. "You've gotta be fucking kidding me."

"Fuckin' me," Dean sleepily echoes in a whisper, wrong in so many ways, as he sweats and thrashes against the confinement of his covers.

Sam pats his brother gingerly on his good shoulder as he passes, setting his socked feet in a steady, however limp-stuttered, course for the front door.

He has enough courtesy for his brother convalescing just inside that he pulls the door quietly but completely closed before rounding on the Trickster. "Okay, what the hell is going on?" Sam demands, finding himself nestled in a place so far past anger that he doesn't even register the chill of the breeze rustling his hair. "I am getting really tired of killing you. Who are you?"

He holds hands out in appeasement. "Okay, you're mad. That makes sense."

"Does it?" Sam takes a threatening step forward, but he wasn't actually expecting the son of a bitch to shrink away from him, especially when the only weapons he's toting are pure rage and an obvious inability to give chase.

"It wasn't REAL, Sam, okay? None of it. You really need to learn to RELAX."

When Sam speaks next, his voice is shaking. "Dean's got an infection and fourteen stitches in his arm that say that thing out there was real enough."

An infuriating cock of the Trickster's head. "Yeah, I can't fix that. Damage done is damage done. But he's alive, right? And besides, you never even THANKED me for uncursing him."

"You're the one that cursed him to begin with." A muscle in Sam's jaw jumps painfully. "You son of a bitch."

The Trickster levels that same lethal stare from the woods, and shakes his head with each word. "Not even close."

Sam runs both hands through his hair, gives a loud, exasperated sigh. "What was the point of all of this, huh?"

"Right to the good part, then." The Trickster paces the long, rotted porch out front of Bobby's, rubbing his hands together as though against the night's chill. He cocks his head at Sam. "Have you ever heard the saying, 'the truth is hard to swallow when you're choking on your pride'?"

Sam blinks. "Are you serious? This is another…what, that's the lesson you're trying to teach us? You CHOKED him for TWO DAYS for that?"

"Come on, Sam. You're so OBSESSED with convincing yourself that you know right from wrong, that you know what you're doing is right, you can't even see the truth that's laid out in front of you."

Sam doesn't want to ask. He wants nothing more than to kill the Trickster. Again. Over and over, as many times as it takes. He doesn't want to ask, but he can't seem to stop himself. "What truth?"

"That you're teamed up with a demon, Sam. How could you need to know any more than that? You wanna know how many times THAT'S worked out well?" He holds up a hand in the shape of an 'O.' "Big fat goose egg."

"You don't know what you're talking about." Sam's eyes scour the porch railings for one loose enough to use as a stake.

The Trickster follows his eye line and shrugs. "Okay. I've done my part. If you don't want to listen…" He squares up to Sam, eyes dark and penetrating. "Then everything that happens next is going to land squarely on your shoulders, Sam. Are you ready for that?"

Sam shakes his head. "I'm not listening to this. I'm not falling for any more of your tricks."

The Trickster's head bobs. "Sure, I get that. And I'll back away quietly, go slinking evilly into the night and all that jazz. So long as you remember what we talked about here. And don't you come crying to me when this house of cards comes toppling down."

He snaps his fingers and Sam is left alone, shivering on the porch, with a bum knee and a broken brother and a thirst he can't quite quench.

The End

And here is the list of story requirements that produced this beast:

1. Sam, Dean and Bobby

2. Dean can't eat or drink for at least 24 hours due to some supernatural affliction

3. an IV bag

4. a fluffy fleece flannel blanket

5. H/C genre

6. an original monster

7. a childhood memory

8. a guitar

9. at least 10,000 words in length

10. and a side order of fries

So, I did what I could! Thanks for reading!