The Hammer: Where It'll End

I'll Take A Life
That Others May Live
Oh That's Just The Way It Goes
Shut My Eyes
It Hammers In My Head
Where It'll End
Nobody Knows
--Hammerhead by The Offspring

The boy was small and thin, all big green eyes and dark blonde hair. Just 13 years old, he wore an elegant kimono that made him look more a china doll than a teenage boy. He walked cautiously out into the cool night air, looked around guiltily. He wasn't supposed to be here, out in the small, well-groomed park. He wasn't supposed to be out in public, where people could see his parent's secret shame. But he could only spend so long hiding in his luxurious basement prison-room. He wanted to taste freedom, if only for a moment, and night was his best chance. At night, there was less of a chance a villager would see him, less of a chance his parents would find out about his secret sojourn.

It was early spring and the breeze picked up the sweet scent of the blossoming sakura flowers. The park looked magical and somehow untamed under the moon, and for a time the boy played like wild creature—until the crickets stopped chirping and the night birds stopped singing. The world took on a thick, sickly sweet pink tone as the moon turned rose-red and suddenly the scent of sakura was cloying. He took a cautious step forward and looked around. There, under the largest sakura tree! It was a man.

The man was tall and broad-shouldered. He had pale hair and wore white, and the red moon filtered him bloody. He stood with his back to the moon, and the boy could not see his face. He stared at the man in shock—why was he here? Then the boy's eyes trailed down the long body to the huddled mass at the man's feet. A corpse. The man was burying a dismembered body. A woman whose face caught the moonlight and reflected a rictus look of horror, frozen by death; eyes so wide the full ring of the iris was visible, mouth stretched open in a never-ending silent scream.

The boy wanted to scream, wanted to run, but his breath caught in his throat and, like a wild animal, he froze in fear; in that illogical, desperate hope that if he did not move, the predator would not see him.

Night turned into nightmare as the man grabbed the boy. He stripped the small body of its kimono and pulled out a small, deadly-sharp scalpel. The man cut into the boy again and again and again, small, delicate cuts that left a sinuous, strange, oddly beautiful pattern all over the small, frail body. The boy squirmed and squealed in fright and indignant pain, the sound of a child who had never before felt true pain. The man loomed over the boy like a fair-tale monster, a deadly beast with no human compassion. The boy's shrieks shattered the night and the bloody moon watched grimly.

--Entry from Sam Winchester's dream journal

I like to think that Dean's aversion to 'normal' is a personality quirk, but the truth is that what Dean really dislikes is hypocrisy. When he sees a pretty house with a white-picket fence, he sees people who are willfully blind to the things going on in the world around them, whether it be the supernatural, or even just the purely human suffering that goes on every day. He sees people who place their own comfort and convenience above the welfare of others, especially if those others are far away and hidden. He sees people so caught up in the game of school-work-taxes that they don't even realize that it is a game; that reality exists beyond the edges of the every-day. To Dean, that life represents the ultimate lie because it promises what it cannot deliver; the promise that draws so many people to it, that drew me to it for so long—it promises safety. It promises certainty; be this, do this, and this is what will happen. No surprises, no monsters, no demons. And Dean is right, it is a lie. Even the people who live that life never have that true degree of certainty that is advertised; they experience a hundred different heartaches, a thousand different betrayals, and they do it with a smile because they are terrified to admit that they aren't the Stepford-perfect person they seem to be.

Dean's distrust of 'normal' isn't too hard to fathom. Normal betrayed him. You see, he had normal for four glorious years of happiness, back when he was young enough that normal was pretty much everything it was supposed to be—baseball games and ice cream and hugs that smelled like Mom's perfume. Then Azazel came and ripped normal away like a cheap Halloween costume made of nylon and glitter. After that, he never trusted normal again.

My four years of normal came much later, at Stanford. There's a sort of balance there, I suppose, that we both had four years of normal. Too bad they weren't at the same time. My 'normal' at Stanford probably doesn't really count though; normality is more than just going through the motions, it's a state of being. Since I was 8 years old, there never was a time when I heard of a murder or a disappearance or an animal attack and didn't immediately start going through my mental encyclopedia of monsters. I may have played the part of normal, but once you know what's out there, you can't just un-know. Willful blindness isn't true blindness at all; its play pretend. In my heart I never fit in, even with Jess.

At the time I thought that didn't matter. That as long as no one else knew what I really thought, what I really feared at night, I could live in normal. I could pretend to be stressed about exams instead of worried about the serial killer on the news that sounded all-too-much like a spring-heeled jack. Now, though, I recognized that things never would have worked out. I could have lived the life, fooled my friends and co-workers, but everything I had with Jess, every relationship, would have been built on a lie. Not lies about my past, but lies about who I was at the core of me. As long as I kept my secrets, Jess could never really know me. As much as I loved her, I didn't trust her with my deepest secrets, my darkest self, and that would have eventually destroyed us. I wonder if acknowledging the fact that my love affair with 'normal' was doomed from the start represents maturity or cynicism on my part?

I was thinking about normal because I found myself, for the first time in quite a while, passing myself off as a college student. Honestly, I was getting too old to pass as an undergrad, so a graduate student I must be. Dean said that my glasses and too-long hair helped me look the part. The messy chestnut locks just seemed to keep growing and growing and I had gotten tired of cutting them. By now they reached below my shoulders in the back, and I found it easier and cheaper to invest in hair-bands than getting a haircut every two weeks. The shorter pieces that used to be my bangs fell around my face, but the hair-band helped tame the rest into a short pony-tail. Dean, unwilling to grow his hair out, had invested in a set of clippers, but I wasn't willing to let him give me a military-short cut. I liked to think that I wasn't a particularly vain person, but my ears and short hair just didn't mix well.

I moved through the college crowd easily, but no longer with the blithe abandon and sense of belonging I once had. The kids that I once would have wanted to talk to, to fit in with, seemed shallow. Not just the frat boys and sorority girls working on their M.R.S. degrees, but the hard working kids on the fast track to grad school, too. As much as they may have focused on the intellectual, they still ignored the dark truth that hid underneath the pleasant veneer of normal. For them, thoughts of evil were academic and exstistential pursuits, not the very real-world worry they were for Dean and me. It was like suddenly realizing that I was in a foreign country. Still, I had learned to lie, and lie well, at a very young age (after I told my teacher that 'Daddy was going to teach my how to shoot a rifle' in kindergarten, the Winchester Family #1 rule was instituted (1)) and found it pretty easy to blend in. In the research triangle that wasn't very hard, as the place crawled with twenty-somethings.

Dean didn't fit in quite so well. He was the right age to pass as a grad student, but his leather jacket and bow-legged slouch were a throw-back to the romantic bad-boy anti-heroes of the fifties, rather than the abstracted rambling of a person who spent most of their time in their own mind. He stood out among the trendy digital-age kids in a way my baggy, post-grunge-intellectual look didn't. However, he walked with confidence and swagger that told the world he belonged anywhere he wanted to be, a swagger that usually worked. Any looks he got were more likely to lead to hook-ups than difficult questions.

And he did get those looks—he still hadn't learned to tone down whatever it was that people were picking up from us. Neither had I, for that matter, but ever since we were kids Dean always stood out more than me. We used different defense mechanisms, you see; Dean was the kid that everyone wanted to be or be with, the fearless bad-boy with the charm and luck of a tough tom cat, and I was the kid that faded into the background. Dean was all movement, like if he smiled fast enough, moved fast enough, no one would ever catch him. I was silence and stillness, hoping that I wouldn't be noticed in the first place. I'm not sure if I chose that mechanism in the beginning or not; if somehow Dean convinced me to be the quiet one, so that he could be distraction, the mother-bird playing broken wing so that the snake never noticed the nest. These days I didn't mind the role. If no one noticed me, then I could be Dean's backup if he needed it.

We were walking through the campus of the local medical college investigating the lead Dean had picked up. Whoever this "Dr. Death" was, he was the central problem. His minions, followers, devotees, or whatever, they probably didn't really know anything. It was usually the leader, the papa-smurf figure (2), that held to keys whatever ritual was needed to summon the demon or demigod this type of cult worshipped. After all, people who were into human sacrifice and demon worship rarely trusted others. They were ambitious and cold and manipulative; sharing knowledge was sharing power, and power was all they loved. Their followers were just that; followers, minions, extras, who could be rounded up and sent to prison (or, you know, an institute for the criminally insane), but the leader had to be stopped. His knowledge made him too dangerous for the authorities to safely handle. So said Bobby, anyway, and since he had much more experience with demonic cults than Dean and I, we trusted his advice.

The problem with that was the fact that there were about 100 visiting doctors from all over the world and any one of them could be our guy. So could any number of students who went to the local med and pre-med schools or who were visiting from miles around this semester. Dean and I may have been able to walk around the campus without arousing too much suspicious, but neither of us knew enough about medicine to pass as medical students. What we knew was more practical than anything else; we could probably put in stitches as well as any of the actual students (and probably most of the doctors), but discussing bacteria and diseases and medical conditions was beyond us. So there would be no sneaking into class, no "we're your students, don't your recognize us?" (which really only ever worked in survey classes). Luckily, we arrived just in time for an open forum symposium on ethics. We could blend in much more easily there because the forum was open to anyone who wanted to attend. The majority of people there would be med students, but students from other majors would also be attending in droves, if only for the extra credit many professors promised.

Yes, luck was on our side in that we were able to attend the forum—but that didn't stop Dean from bitching when it took us all of 2 minutes to realize that the forum would be mind-numbingly, unabashedly boring. You see, the thing many people don't realize about college professors is that they are not trained to teach. Primary and high school teachers have to get degrees that focus mainly on methods of teaching, but college professors have to have Ph.D.'s in their fields. Most have no training whatsoever in teaching. Sometimes that's a good thing, when professors focus on the subject and avoid gimmicks (not to mention that they actually know their subject very well, always a plus). Sometimes it's a bad thing, when professors don't have the first clue how to teach other than to stand at the front of the class and recite text-book dry factoids. Today it seemed to be a bad thing. Most of the speakers made absolutely no attempt to make their speeches more lively or interesting for the audience. It might not have been so bad if they had dumbed their lectures down a bit, but they were clearly speaking for a med-school level audience; anyone without at least a couple of years training in medical jargon was quickly lost, including Dean and me.

An hour into the lecture we had no leads and Dean was having an increasingly difficult time staying awake. I had it a bit easier than he did—pre-law had just as many ethics classes as pre-med, and I was familiar with some of the concepts being discussed. Honestly, legalese was as bad as medical jargon, but at least I understood it. Dean may have had a finely tuned sense of morality, but morality and ethics weren't the same thing, not from an academic perspective. Not that it mattered if Dean stayed awake or not—we really weren't learning anything pertinent to the case. It's not like Dr. Death was going to have Asmodeus's sigil tattooed across his forehead, after all. It would have been nice, though.

We slipped from the lecture hall disheartened and tired. Listening to a boring lecture is surprisingly exhausting, as I had learned in college. Dean was especially tired, as he had fidgeted like an antsy grade-schooler through the droning; it had been a long time since he'd actually gone to class and he wasn't prepared to play the good student (not that he ever really had). Real students loitered in the hallway, flirting and getting water and generally avoiding the lecture without actually leaving the extra-credit opportunity behind. Dean immediately focused on a group of young women giggling in a corner, pretty and innocent looking. I rolled my eyes and glanced out the window. There was a church across the street, and I longed to escape the crowded confines of the lecture building. I'd been around too many people that day, too many Echoes. Even with the glasses I kept catching glimpses of them out the corner of my eye, ghostly afterimages that I couldn't quite see. It was maddening, and I was nervous and jumpy.

"I'm headed across the street."

"Dude," Dean argued "we agreed to stick together on this one."

"I know, but I'm not likely to be attacked in broad day light—or by demon-worshippers in a church."

Dean gave me an irritated, worried look and sent a pulse of warning down our bond, but a few minutes later I entered the cool confines of the church and let out a sigh of relief. As I'd told Dean, I was sure I would be safe in a church. It only took moments for me to learn that those were famous last words.

I woke up some time later in a dark, cold little room. It felt like it should be damp, covered in moss and decay, but was surprisingly clean. Simple white walls, a locked metal door, and two small bunks were all that the room held—that and another man. The young FBI agent we'd seen in the morgue, Reid.

I was laying on one of the bunks, my legs dangling off the end (it was far too short for me), and he was curled up on the other in a defensive, pained little ball. Reid was still unconscious, but he moved and whimpered piteously in his sleep. I reached up and pulled down my glasses, drawn to see his Echo by the same dark instinct that made people rubber-neck when they passed wrecks. I knew it would be bad, but I had to see it. I had to know.

His Echo was different when he was asleep. He no longer flickered between the boy and the 18-year-old manling, but was stable and looked to be about his actual age. But that barbed wire was still there, winding around him and digging further into his skin. His arms were crossed over his chest and he tugged painfully at the wire, pulling it tighter as if it were a security blanket. Bruises were scattered around his face and his eyes were sunken and dark. The Echo had a starveling look to it, brittle and breakable, and the wire seemed more solid. I shuddered.

He just looked so lost. That was why I tried something I had no reason to think would work; that's why I reached across the small space separating the bunks and grasped the barbed wire that I had every reason to expect to be insubstantial as air. It wasn't; it was as solid as real wire would have been, but warm and squirming as a living thing. I grimaced and grasped the wire tightly before gently pulling it from his hand. (2)

The agent must have been drugged, because he didn't so much as twitch as I slowly and laboriously pulled the wire from his Echo. It took a long time because I was doing my best not to damage the Echo any more than it already was, but that wasn't always possible. The sharp tines of the wire dug deep into the Echo's skin in places and tore it as the wire was removed. In the end the Echo was bleeding from dozens of small wounds—but even as I watched its ashen skin began to take on the rosy bloom of health and the wounds began to clot. I threw the wire away like a poisonous snake, and it hit the cement floor with a metallic twang before crumbling into rusty powder and fading away.

A slow clap-clap-clapping caught my attention, and I realized that Reid and I were no longer alone. I had been so focused on my task I hadn't heard the metal door open, hadn't felt myself break into a cold sweat. I was exhausted; apparently touching the Echo had taken more out of me than I expected. And this was huge; I could touch people's souls. Who knew what I had just done to the young FBI agent? I had removed the barbed wire by instinct, but who knew if I'd harmed him in some indefinable way?

I turned my head toward the door and saw a figure all in white. Tall and broad-shouldered and cloaked in shadow, every detail hidden save a vague outline. It circled the boy in the tube like a moth circling a flame, fascinated by its destroyer; hunched over the girl, carefully making an incision into the delicate skin between her small breasts; cut into the boy again and again and again. I'd seen this figure before, dreamed him in nightmare visions, but never before gotten a clear glimpse.

He was tall, about 6'5", and broad-shouldered—I knew that already. But he was also pale—so pale that my first thought was that he must be an albino. His skin was the color of glazed china and his hair a pale silver that fell fashionably over his right eye; his left eye was a cold grey. His features were sharp and fine, with narrowed Asian eyes and thin sensual lips. He was handsome and distant and cold, a marble statue made to be worshipped, but there was a cruelty to his charming smile.

"I'm impressed." His voice was deep and cultured, with just a bit of a lilt that hinted at an Oxford education.

"You…you saw that?" To anyone without the sight, it should have looked like I was just waving my hands over the sleeping agent, nothing 'impressive'.

"Oh, yes. I'm not like you—no natural Sight. But I can attune my vision to see the spirit world, which leaves me with a pale imitation of what you actually see. I've never seen anything that could touch a human soul directly before, other than Hellhounds. I knew you were rare when I took you, little Nephilim, but not how rare."

"You know what I am." I stood to face the man.

"Oh, yes. I sensed it the moment you walked in that church. After all, our kind have an affinity for one another."

"Our kind?"

"Come, Samuel. You are far too smart to play dumb. Didn't you feel it when we met?"

I had felt something when I walked into the small church with the pretty stained-glass windows. I'd seen the man kneeling as if in prayer. He stood up in front of the altar and turned, silhouetted in dramatic fashion by the light shining through the altar window, and I'd felt a connection. I still felt it, faint, far fainter than the confusion and anxiety I felt from Dean.

"You know my name; what's yours?"

"My students call me Muraki Sensei, but you; well, you're practically family. You can call me Kazutaka."

"Family!? Being the same species does not make us family." I had family, real family. I wasn't interested in his half-assed brand.

"Oh, that's where you're wrong. We half-breeds are alike; born of sin and damnation, abominations that defy God's laws. No matter how good we try to be, we are stained with our parents'—or our ancestor's—sins. For at some point, whether our immediate parents or our long-dead ancestors, an angel fell and that fall resulted in our creation. For us, even living is sinful, our blood-stained souls can never be redeemed. We are the descendents of darkness (3)."

"No! You're wrong!"

"Am I?" He said coolly, amused at my response.

"You are wrong. What we do now, who we are—it matters! It matters so much, and you can't shrug off the responsibility for your actions by claiming to be born damned."

"Is that what you think I'm doing? No, Samuel, I know exactly who I am and what I do. I don't expect forgiveness or even understanding—nor do I seek them. You mistake my statement of fact for fatalism; the truth is, I do not seek redemption. The game that men play where they sin, and beg forgiveness, and try to live by an impossible standard of morality—or by standards that are possible, but take all enjoyment out of life—has never interested me. I revel in what I am because it has given me opportunities mere man will never have; long life, intelligence, beauty—and power that men can only dream of."

"What do you want from me?" I was deeply disturbed to be the prisoner of a man who openly stated that he had no use for morals.

"Everything," he replied with a cold little smile; "Everything."

When I was taken by Muraki, Dean felt it. In fact, he collapsed rather dramatically in the middle of the lobby in front of several witnesses. He woke up quickly enough to avoid being taken to the hospital, but nearly panicked when he realized that the reason he'd woken up was because our bond was being blocked. He was no longer affected by whatever it was Muraki used to subdue me, but could only faintly sense me. It was so faint that he could not tell where I was or what was happening to me, only that I was alive.

It was not the first (or second, or third) time I'd been kidnapped, but it was the first time Dean and I had been truly separated since I found him in Hell. He found it maddening, like a missing limb you can still feel. And he knew that I'd been taken by the killer, knew that I was possibly being tortured even then. Our jobs require us to know as much as we can about the monsters we chase, the things they do, but sometimes that knowledge is a burden, and never more so than when someone you love is at the monster's mercy.

Thankfully Dean has always handled pressure well. He did the smart thing—he called Bobby for help when he found the little church empty. Bobby was quick to respond to Dean's plea for help, but he didn't come alone. He brought with him former FBI agent Jason Gideon.

Gideon was a stocky man in his late forties with a kind scholar's face and a soothing voice. For most of his adult life he'd worked to get inside the minds of monsters of the human variety, and had been one of the founding members of the FBI's BAU, Behavioral Analysis Unit. He'd stuck with it through tough times and even a psychotic break he'd managed to come back from, but every man has his breaking point. Gideon quit the BAU when a serial killer he'd hunted had, in turn, hunted him and killed his girlfriend. Later that same killer had committed suicide, but not before convincing a mentally unstable woman to join him.

Unable to face anymore sociopaths, Gideon had gone on a long journey with no intended destination, crossing the country in a rambling attempt to find himself. What he'd found instead was a string of strange deaths that he was, at first, certain were the work of a serial killer. Though he had wanted to run away, he'd been unable to turn his back on the innocent people who would be put at risk, and began to research the killings. He'd found a strange coincidence—all of the murders took place on the night of the full moon. Gideon had figured out just enough to put himself in real danger, and probably would have been the werewolf's next victim if Bobby hadn't already been wise to the hunt. As it was, even the most scientifically cynical mind cannot refute the existence of werewolves when it sees one turn right in front of it—when that same werewolf tries to eat it. Gideon was very, very lucky.

Gideon's quick mind sucked up everything he could find on the supernatural like a sponge and he and Bobby quickly became friends. Gideon found a freedom in hunting the supernatural; supernatural creatures can be every bit as gruesome and cruel as a human psychopath, but there was none of the need to find humanity in the inhumane when it was truly not human. And, despite himself, Gideon could not leave the hunter inside behind.

Gideon would prove very useful on the current case, not because of his abilities as a hunter (bright or not, he was still new to the supernatural), but for his knowledge of the FBI, particularly the team working the case. The BAU's current team, save for one, had been hand picked and trained by Gideon; the other had been his colleague for years. Once he and Bobby arrived in town (in record speed), he called his old boss up.

"Hey, Hotch," Gideon said into the phone in a jovial tone.

"Yeah, I've seen it on the news. I'm actually in town, passing through. I was wondering if you need any help…" Dean gritted his teeth as the other man chatted like Dean's brother, his whole world, wasn't in the hands of a sadistic cult.

"Well, if you change your mind, call me. Good luck."

"That's it!?" Dean exploded. "Call me if you change your mind? We need to know what they know! We need to find Sam."

"Now, Dean, I know you're worried about your brother," Gideon replied in an irritatingly soothing tone of voice, "but I need you to calm down and listen to me. That was just first contact. Hotch is the head of the BAU, he can't work with an unauthorized consultant, even me. But the other members of the team…" Gideon let his voice trail off as his phone range insistently.

"Hello? Morgan—I thought you might call. Yeah, I know, I've seen the news, it's bad…What? That can't…how…uh-huh. Yeah, send me the info, I'll call you back." Gideon's peaceful, soothing expression was shattered.

"You're brother isn't the only one they took—one of the agents is missing. Dr. Reid."

"Skinny kid, talks like a walking text-book?"

Gideon looked startled "How…"

"We saw him at the morgue when we went to go check out the latest victim. He and that other guy, Hotch, came to check out the vic, too."

"How'd you wiggle out of that one?" Bobby asked.

"We hid in an empty office."

"Boy, one day your luck will run out." Bobby said shaking his head ruefully.

"That was Derrick Morgan on the phone. He's sending me an encrypted e-mail of the profile. They're being extra precautious because someone's already hacked the FBI mainframe looking for info on the case…" Gideon's voice trailed off as Dean's face took on an all-too-innocent expression. "You?"

"Sam. He's been practicing his hacking skills."

"Damn! Didn't know the boy was getting so good." Bobby said with an odd kind of pride in his voice.

"Yeah…always knew he was too smart."

"How smart is he?" Gideon asked in a strange tone.

"Um…not sure what you're asking?"

"Reid is…special. He's the youngest member of the BAU, with the most credentials. He's a genius—literally."

"Well I don't know if Sam is what you'd call a genius, but he did manage to get a full ride to Stanford, and his brain is like an encyclopedia of the weird and supernatural."

"I wonder if that's the connection between the victims. Maybe they were all brighter than average, or exceptional in some way."

"How does that help us?"

"If we know what the killer is looking for, we know more about the killer. The more we know about the killer, the faster we find him—or them."

"Gideon…"

"Look, Dean, I know that you and your brother are two of the best hunters out there. But right now we're hunting my specialty—humans."

(1) "We do what we do and we shut up about it." That always seemed like an oh-shit rule to me—as in "Oh, shit! What did Sammy tell his teacher?!" I really would like to hear the story behind it 

(2) Totally stole that from Scooby Doo.

(3) Stole the barbed wire thing from The Dresden Files, but didn't realize it until after I wrote it! Still, it's not used exactly the same way, and it kind of fits since I'm taking my second sight from TDF.

(4) For those of you not familiar with Yami no Matsuei (aka Descendents of Darkness), it revolves around a Shinigami (basically a reaper) named Tsuzuki. Muraki is not the only villain in the piece, but he is the main villain and Tsuzuki's personal stalker (I made Sam his victim because he reminds me of Tsuzuki and seemed likely to whet Muraki's interest). Yami no Matsuei was never completed, and so there are many questions that are left unanswered, but it was hinted that Tsuzuki was born an abomination of some kind. In the manga, Shinigami are the souls of dead humans who are allowed to have the chance to continue existing very similarly to who they were (as opposed to being born again) on the condition that they work for the Ministry of Death. The books indicate that even before he died, however, Tsuzuki was unusual—he spent 8 years in a vegetative state wherein he refused to eat or drink and only came out of the state every now and then to slit his own wrist. Yet he survived without aging all that time. Many fans have theorized that Tsuzuki's powers come from his father, who may have been a demon. Muraki's past is equally mysterious. He clearly remembers his parents, but his father was not the most faithful creature. Muraki's young life fell apart following the introduction of his bastard half brother Saki, who eventually killed his parents and tried to kill Muraki. More than once during the manga Muraki managed to survive situations that no human, no matter how powerful, should be able to survive, hinting that he was getting supernatural help from someone. He was a powerful wizard himself and even managed to break into the Ministry of Death to kidnap Tsuzuki at one point. Some fans have theorized that he had some kind of pact with a demon. At one point in the manga Muraki gives Tsuzuki a little speech talking about how they both come from evil, how they are descendents of darkness. And hence the connection to the dialogue here. Ta da!

And that's the end of this chapter. Sorry it took so long, but it was a hard one to write. Got bogged down in the middle there. Next chapter—LimpSam! and Protective!Dean. Mmm. My favorite flavor of Winchester.

I did want to warn you, though, I'm starting another fanfic and I'll be rotating chapters (a chapter of Watchers, a chapter of Maleficence, a chapter of Watchers…). It'll be a Covenant fanfic, slash (caleb/pogue) with a strong focus on Pogue. If you're not familiar with The Covenant, it's a pretty cool movie that came out in 2006 about a group of teenage boys who happen to be witches—the born with power kind, not the chanting and sacrificing things kind. And they're super-hot. On the swim team. In tiny little swim-suits. And in the shower. If you like Supernatural (duh!), then I recommend the movie—you can see it on YouTube if you don't mind watching it in parts, or buy it from Amazon direct-download for about $10. Done plugging my next fanfic. I'll try to keep things moving along, but I just haven't seen that many good Pogue fics in the fandom, so I feel compelled to write one!

Hindsight 2020: Not sure about Sam overcoming the sight. The going blind thing is years down the road, so I won't really address it in this fic. I was thinking, after I get through the bulk of Watchers (maybe 1 more story after The Hammer), I might write an epilogue set in the far-future (Firefly xover!), so I might address it there. But I was thinking Sam might be cool as one of those blind guys you think will be helpless, but he's so used to being blind that he can pretty much kick ass anyway. Still haven't decided… "although Dean comes across as the aggressive brother, Iv always found that when pushed into a corner, it's Sam that is the most violent, esp. when Dean is threatened". I totally agree. That's why I gave Sam mostly passive powers—he can't handle it when he gets aggressive, it really messes him up. But can he fight with his newfound ability? I am actually going somewhere with that whole thing. "mayhap Sam can do with a power that doesn't send him to his knees?" As Sam learns to use the powers he has, he will be less affected by them and become more versatile in their uses.

Spooker: Sorry for the wait! Unfortunately, this probably doesn't help with the suspense! Will try to make up for it with a cool next chapter.

101mizzpoet101: I'm glad you like! That bond will become more important in the next chapter and the following story, too. I really love the relationship between the brothers, so I wanted to play that up.

Carocali: You've asked some very good questions! "What would actually happen if this doctor got a hold of one of them? Would they die? Can they die? Would that excite him even further that he'd have an unending supply of organs and blood?" Unfortunately, you'll have to wait until the next chapter to find out the answers! Still, I'm glad you're thinking along the lines I'm thinking. I honestly haven't done that much research—mostly just looked on Wikipedia. Love Wikipedia, you can just find the neatest stuff there. "the whole thing sounds VERY Sam like in the logic and plan" I'm so glad! I really identify with Sam—we're the same age, younger siblings, kind of intellectuals, a little bit whiny at times. Its one reason I decided to write from his POV; but I've been worried that it sounds more like me than him at times. Glad it still sounds like him! As for the crossovers, it might be hard to find Descendents of Darkness, but Criminal Minds comes on Wed at 9 on ABC, if you're interested.

Nyx Wings: I wish I could take credit for the dreams in The Hammer, but I'm actually just describing scenes from Descendents of Darkness. But they were pretty freaky. I'm glad you like the part about them resting up, and the introspection. I'm a little worried I spend too much time on exposition, but it really helps me get into Sam's head and the story—and I just enjoy describing things!. As I told Hindsight 2020, the blindness thing is years down the road, so I won't address it unless I write an epilogue (Firefly crossover!). But never worry, if he does go blind, he'll still kick ass!

kirallie: "Hope they can avoid the FBI." Guess not! The real question is, how will they get out of it? Will they get out of it? You'll have to wait and find out! "Did someone/something really follow Dean back to the room? You'd think with no longer being human they'd have a higher tolerance/immunity to drugs. Nit good that you can drug both by drugging one." Yeah, that whole roofie thing was a total impulse. But then I liked it so well, I left it in. I think it's important that every strength—like their bond—can also be a weakness, and visa versa. As for whether they were followed or not—addressed in the next chapter!