Hey, thanks everyone for reading and especially to everyone who reviewed. I promised I would update this story quickly and so here it is, the next chapter. Enjoy!

Enter Sandman

Chapter 18

"We need to find the Sandman. Yeah, that's easy." Dean said, lying back on the motel bed. Sam sat across the room at the computer, staring intently at the screen. Although he couldn't see what his brother was looking at, he knew it was important. Although, Sam usually ignored his brother…

"Sam, look. Maybe we should call dad. Just try him again, maybe he can figure out something."

Sam didn't even glance up, just kept scrolling through the webpage he was perusing. "You can try, if it will make you feel better." Dean let his head fall back on his pillows and stared up at the ceiling. He knew his father would never answer. He didn't when Dean had phoned him in Lawrence; there was no reason to think he would now.

"No, it won't." Dean muttered. He heard Sam's fingers speeding over the laptop keys.

"Then shut up and let me concentrate." Sam answered. Despite how coolly he said it, Dean could hear the concern underneath. He clenched his teeth together and closed his eyes against the dull blue grey light flooding in through the picture window.

In his mind he could hear the child's laughter, faint but still malevolent. He thought about everything he had seen and heard the past few days. Phil, the ambulance driver, had been trying to save Travis' life in the back of the ambulance when they had been hit by a truck and flipped. Phil had gone into a coma and Travis had died from the gun shot wound to his head.

In his coma, somehow, Phil must have sucked Travis' spirit into himself. That, or Travis somehow latched on. It seemed that Travis had blamed Phil for his death, as if Phil could have helped what happened to the ambulance or who had hit them…As Sam said, spirits didn't see in shades of grey, only black and white. Travis had latched onto the first person who had been there when he had died.

And when Phil had woken from his coma, he hadn't known there was a child's ghost following him around, giving him nightmares, plaguing him with the bad dreams that haunted him in his waking and dreaming world. And then Phil had checked into the Calvin Oaks Sleep Research Center, he had condemned the other patients in his wing too.

Sam had said Phil had died from a heart attack, probably from an intense nightmare. When he had died, he had released Travis who roamed freely around the wing and eventually killed the other patients.

And then Dean had walked in, tired and weakened from nightmares of his own, allowing Travis to latch onto him. The question that Sam seemed to tiptoe around was why it had latched onto Dean and not his brother. Sam was the one who seemed to be having trouble sleeping and, although Dean had his fair share of nightmares, Sam was the one who woke up screaming…and dreamed things that hadn't happened yet.

He kind of felt sorry for Travis, at least his human side did. His hunter side, however, wanted to bring the little bastard down.

Dean didn't realize how close he was to falling asleep until Sam's hands were on his shoulders and he was shaking him violently awake. Dean's eyes flew open and his body jerked painfully awake, heart hammering in his chest.

"Jeeze, Dean, you have to stay awake." Sam's voice was taut with fear, his fingers digging painfully into Dean's shoulders. Dean rubbed at his face, fighting away the painful itch behind his eyes.

"I'm awake." Dean gasped. Sam let his shoulders go and stared at him. Dean nodded, trying to convince himself more then Sam that everything was going to be okay. "I was just sleeping, I wasn't thinking…I mean, I was just thinking, I wasn't sleeping."

"Yeah, sure." Sam reached over and pulled open the drawer in the beside table. He rummaged around, pushing their father's journal, a handgun and a knife aside before finding a prescription bottle. He pulled it out and handed it to Dean who looked down to see it was the pep-pills he'd bought a few days before. "Take those. They'll keep you awake. We can't let you fall asleep until we beat this thing."

Dean nodded, opening the bottle and dropping a few into his open palm. "You can at least get me coffee too." He muttered. Sam grinned lopsidedly and got off the bed, moving across the room to the counter to begin making coffee in the small coffee pot by the sink.

"Look at the computer." He said, filling the pot with water. "I think I found something about our mysterious Sandman."

Dean dry swallowed the pills and got slowly off the bed. His heart rate was slowing down but he still didn't feel quite like himself. He took a seat at the computer and scrolled through the webpage Sam had called up.

"It's all about the Sandman." Dean said, eyes skimming over the pages. Pictures of a tall, thin, pale man with messy black hair filled the screen. He appeared to be made of smoky, wispy lines of darkness. "This isn't what that kid looks like. He's kept his shape."

"Maybe he can't take on the form of the Sandman as he is as a character." Sam wondered out loud. Dean frowned, reading further.

"All the names he's been using, they are all from this Sandman comic-character. 'Morpheus,' 'Lord of the Sleeping Marches'…If he takes these names, why doesn't he take these forms…" Sam shrugged from the sink, leaning back against the counter.

"I don't know. There's still something missing." Sam said. "He's angry, becoming malevolent. He's strong, too. He broke that dream catcher way to easily. It's almost like he's trying to communicate something, but he's having trouble doing it." Dean nodded.

"We only have two days left." Dean said, closing his eyes. He let his face fall into his hands. He was tired still, despite the pills and the smell of coffee brewing.

"There's still something we're missing. I wish I could figure it out." Sam was frustrated; Dean could hear it clearly in his voice. "I'm going to figure it out, Dean." Dean didn't open his eyes or even look back at his brother. He didn't need to see Sam to imagine the determined look on his face. "I promise."

SUPERNATURAL

Sam opened his eyes. He was lying on the motel bed, the light from the street outside streaming in through the window. For a moment he laid still, staring at the ceiling and listening to the quiet patter of rain on the roof. Did it ever not rain in this god-forsaken town?

Sam sighed and rolled over, staring through the darkness of the room at Dean's bed. It was empty. Sam remembered trying to stay awake, but the steady combination of the sounds of explosions and screeching tires and the flashing lights from the television had lulled him to sleep.

Sam rolled onto his other side and saw the glow of the bathroom lights snaking out from under the door. He groaned and got up, pulling off the heavy motel blankets. The floor was chilly but he managed to ignore the goosebumps creeping up his bare arms as he made his way across the room and knocked lightly on the door.

There was no answer. Sam leaned in closer to the cold wood, pressing his shoulder into the door. "Dean?" He called, curiously. There was still no answer. "Are you okay?" Again, his call was met by silence.

Taking a step back, he weighed his options. Dean could be doing a few things in there, none of which Sam was really jonesing to walk in on. Other, less unpleasant options crossed his mind. When they had been younger, and Dean hadn't been able to sleep, he had sometimes locked himself in the bathroom with a walkman and sat down on the floor to listen to music without disturbing his brother or his father.

If any of these options were the case, the door would be locked. Then again, there was a possibility that Dean had drawn a bath and was now nerding out to his walkman, a beer and a classic cars magazine.

No matter what, however, the very real presence of Travis and his Sandman alter-ego were weighing heavily on both the brothers. Sam had to make sure his brother was okay.

Trying the doorknob, he found the bathroom unlocked. Turning the cool metal in his hand, he slowly opened the door and called his brother's name again. Like before, there was no answer.

The light hurt his eyes after the piercing darkness of the bedroom. Blinking, he squinted into the bathroom. The first thing he saw was the white and black tiled floor. His heart rate sped up as he caught sight of specks of yellow sand beside the tub.

"Dean?!" Sam rammed the door open in panic and felt his breath catch in his throat.

Dean was lying in the middle of the bathroom floor, on his side, sand pooling from his eyes and mouth onto the cold bathroom floor. Racing to his brother's side, Sam fell to the floor at his brother's side and turned him over onto his back.

With fumbling fingers, he found the artery in Dean's neck and pressed on it. There was no pulse, and with no room for air to pass in his throat, he knew right away that his brother was not breathing.

Ignoring the sickening chill clinging to his brother's skin or the purple shade that his lips had taken on, Sam pressed his ear desperately to Dean's chest and listened for a pulse. He couldn't hear anything but the frantic pounding of his own heart.

"Oh my god, Dean, come on." He flipped his brother onto his stomach and pressed down on his back, trying to press the sand from his brother's overflowing lungs. "Dean, come on!" He sobbed, pressing down again. He watched, horrified, as sand trickled out of his brother's mouth, growing the pile beneath his face.

A crash from the darkened bedroom made him pause. Sam stopped, staring out at the bedroom, trying to discern what had made the sound in the dark. There was silence. Getting slowly to his feet, he moved to the bathroom door, grabbing a shotgun leaning against the wall.

The room was now lit with the rectangular glow of the bathroom light. Pushing back the fear, Sam lifted the gun and pointed it into the room, searching desperately for any movement. Every second wasted was more time Dean was laying, deathly still, on the bathroom floor.

A motion from the doorway caught his eye and Sam fired blindly. The deafening bang echoed through the room. For a moment, the holes in the front door allowed street light to shine through but after a few seconds of silence, the light was swallowed up. Someone was standing in front of the door. Sam fired again. Whoever was there, they didn't move.

Dropping the gun, he turned back to his brother but the light went out and he was plunged into darkness. Sam closed his eyes tightly and when he opened them, he found himself pinned to the ceiling, held in place by invisible hands that dug into his skin and produced a fiery heat that felt like they were ripping away his skin.

Sam gasped, pulling against the bonds. They just gripped down tighter. Groaning, he stared around, trying to pierce the darkness. He could see shapes below him, sitting in rows that seemed to stretch on forever.

"I'm dreaming." He whispered, realization dawning. "I have to be dreaming." Sam closed his eyes, concentrating on his body and the room around him. He needed to get down off the roof. He needed to get down. He needed to get down. He needed to get down. Get down off the roof…

Suddenly, he was on the ground again, the invisible bonds holding him to the roof were stripped away. He stared around at the people sitting in rows around him and realized he was on an airplane. The silent rumble of engines beneath his feet, combined with the silent chatter of the faceless people in the seats…and by faceless, he saw just that. The people around him were completely blank canvases, no eyes…no noses…no mouths…no faces…

Unnerved, Sam began walking down the length of the plane. Somewhere, close by, Travis was watching him, orchestrating this dream. He didn't know how, but the kid had managed to jump ship, hoping from his brother to him without having to kill Dean. By all accounts, this was the first time he had been able to transfer himself like that. He was getting stronger.

"Sam." The voice was thin, muttered. Sam stared around at the faceless crowd, searching for his brother. "Sam."

"Dean? Where are you?" Sam called. He continued walking down the never-ending plane, pushing through the blue curtains separating one section from another…only, this section looked the same as the previous one.

The rational section of his brain told him that this was a dream but he still desperately wanted to find his brother. He knew how much Dean hated flying…

"Sam." He heard Dean's voice again. He stopped, looking around the room. It wasn't until the hushed voice called to him again that Sam realized where it was coming from. Stomach dropping, his head tilted back and he gazed up at the ceiling, his eyes meeting his brother's.

Dean was above him, pinned to the roof. Sam swallowed hard at the sight of Dean's ashen face and the blood dripping through his grey, long-sleeved shirt. The red droplets landed coldly on Sam's forehead and ran down the sides of his face to drip off his chin onto the floor.

"Sam. Get me down." Sam swallowed again and looked desperately around from something to stand on. Maybe if he could get a hold of Dean's arm, he could pull him to safety…

Suddenly, Dean's body was engulfed with flames. Around him, the faceless people titled their heads back, collectively turning their non-existent gazes up to the roof where Sam's brother's body burned. Horrified, frozen, Sam could only watch as his brother's body was incinerated, the heat kissing his face in the sweaty confines of the airplane.

It seemed like the blink of an eye and it was over, the fire was out and the roof of the airplane was gone. The rushing wind and open sky remained, threatening to suck Sam from the plane. Crouching down, he grabbed onto one of the seats behind him and looked back at the occupant. A faceless man stared back at him.

"Travis!" He screamed against the wind. "Travis!"

There was no response. Sam closed his eyes tightly as the speeding wind forced hair into his eyes. Nearby, a flight attendant calmly served tea to a man in a suit. No one around seemed to notice that the plane no longer had a roof.

"Travis! I want to see you! Face me!" Sam screamed.

"Sam." The voice came from behind him. Sam opened his eyes and squinted against the rushing air. Turning, he looked back at the occupant of the seat he was huddled against. The faceless man was gone. The little boy, Travis, was sitting there now. He looked down at Sam emotionlessly. "Find the Sandman."

The world was gone and Sam found himself staring up at the motel ceiling. Gasping, he sat up and ignored the rush that sent a sharp pounding pressure through his head and made his vision fuzz out for a second.

"Sam?" Looking over, Sam's eyes found Dean. He was sitting at the table, the laptop open in front of him. The lights from the kitchen were on, bathing the room in a creamy orange glow, illuminating the coffee maker which was brewing a fresh pot. "Are you okay? What happened? What's wrong?"

Sam glanced around the room hurriedly. The bathroom light was off; the shotgun was still lying by the door. "Am I awake?" Dean raised his eyebrows in response.

"That depends." He answered. Crinkling his eyebrows in confusion, Sam got quickly off the bed and moved across the room, grabbing a cup from the sink. He filled it with coffee and took a giant sip, ignoring the eye-watering heat that scorched his throat. He definitely felt awake, but he had in his dream too.

"Why did you let me fall asleep?" Dean rubbed at his eyes.

"Because I'm an awesome brother." He answered. It sounded familiar, but Sam ignored it.

"We have to talk." Sam said. "I think I figured something out."

TBC