#the only tomb youre excavating is hers shut the fuck up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[slightly-gay-pogohammer]

just heard about the leaked plot of the next tomb raider and

[hurt-care]

I've had an idea rolling around in my head about an archaeologist, typically one who works in the desert in Egypt, who has a crazy terrible allergies that make going in and out of dusty/moldy tombs a nightmare. I don't know if that's anything you might want to write about, but I don't have the talent and I love your work, so I thought I'd put it forward in case it did something for you!

Okay, so this one immediately sparked my imagination! It isn’t exactly what you described but hopefully close enough!  Enjoy

-

The jingle of a cell phone ring broke through the cloud of white noise coming from the air purifier and the AC unit. Thom rolled over and reached for the phone, almost knocking it off the bedside table as he fumbled sleepily.

He squinted at the display and toggled the slider to answer.

“Mhm? Hello?”

“I'm out front. It's ten past.”

Thom sat up with a start and blinked at the clock across the room.

“Oh fuck. I'm sorry Asha, I overslept. Give me a few and I'll be right down.”

He kicked off the sheets and tore through his closet in the small flat for a fresh pair of khakis and a thin linen shirt. He splashed some water on his face and ate a banana quickly while he refilled his water bottle and searched for his baseball cap. Thankfully, his backpack was still stocked from the previous day of work, so he slung it over his shoulder, grabbed his keys, and raced down the two flights of stairs out into the busy Luxor street.

Though it was barely seven, the sun was already blazingly hot. Asha sat, idling her motorcycle and chatting with a street vendor.

“Sorry, sorry,” Thom said as he approached.

“Doctor Rutledge is gonna kill us,” she said, pushing her helmet back down and handing the spare one to Thom. “Let's go.”

Thom sided onto the bike, put on the heavy face-shielded helmet, and took hold of Asha's waist. The bike roared to life and they sped off towards the dig site.

He'd first met Asha two months ago when he'd come to Egypt for his practical experience under the tutelage of renowned Egyptologist, Doctor Emila Rutledge. Asha was a daughter of Luxor, born and raised in the city and her knowledge of its winding streets and the surrounding archeological sights had proved very useful. She was a local assistant on the dig, helping with some of the more tedious sorting and packing of artifacts. And her motorbike was a much faster way to reach the desert than taking a bus and then walking.

They turned down a street leading out of the city and towards the Theban Necropolisdig site. The bike slowed as they turned down the side road and came to a halt where the road turned to sand.

They tugged off their helmets, the sweat dripping down their faces drying instantly in the arid climate. With Asha pushing the bike, they walked the last bit down the sandy path to the tents that marked the research areas.

Thom blinked in the dry air and rubbed at his left eye, turning it a little pink. As they ducked under the canopy of the first tent, he cleared his throat and took a deep swig of his water bottle.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, capping the bottle and putting it back in his pack. “It's my fault. I didn't set a proper alarm.”

Doctor Rutledge looked up from her table of equipment and glared at him.

“There's limited time out here during the storm season,” she warned him. “Don't waste it being late.”

March and April in the desert meant sandstorms and sometimes they struck unexpectedly, plunging the camp into a fog of dust and undoing weeks of excavation work. Thankfully, none had hit the site thus far in the season.

Thom set down his things and turned to his work, Asha at his side, cataloguing a tray of rocks that had eroded off a nearby statue.

“You alright?” she asked, looking at him critically. “Your eyes are kinda pink.”

He blinked and rubbed at his left one again. They did feel a bit gritty.

“Still half asleep,” he said. “Didn't have time for coffee.”

She laughed.

“You'll have to suffer until break then.”

Thom nodded and made a mark in his notebook about one of the artifacts. He rubbed the back of his hand to his nose distractedly, pawing away an itch.

In the distance, the air was growing murky and dim as a far-off storm kicked up sand into the air, turning the sky an unworldly red.

His throat felt drier than usual out in the heat of the open desert. Putting his notebook down, he reached again for his water bottle.

“You sure you're fine?” Asha asked suspiciously. “Your eyes look awful.”

Thom pushed his water bottle cap shut and opened his mouth to answer her, but he was distracted by a sudden, very urgent itch. He wrinkled his nose and turned away, cupping his hands to his face.

Hurh-TSGHT!

“Blessings to you,” she offered.

Thom sniffled and wiped at his nose. He could feel the familiar burning of an allergic reaction growing in his respiratory system and suddenly his stomach sank. In the haste of his departure that morning, he'd neglected to take his allergy medication.

He'd always been someone who struggled with allergies, to everything from cats to pollen to mold and dust. His youth had been full of inhalers on the sidelines of the soccer pitch, extra allergy pills packed for sleepovers, and his own air purifier for his college dorm room. Adulthood had not improved things as much as he'd hoped. He'd expected that the dry air of Egypt would be a relief to his hayfever, but he'd been warned about dust-storm season and the large amounts of pollen and mold and dust kicked up by the strong winds. The local pharmacy had put out a display of face masks only a week prior.

“Oh shit,” he groaned, digging through his backpack. Maybe he had some spare pills stowed away.

“What?” Asha asked.

“Ugh, my allergies,” he said, sniffling again. “I forgot my medicine this morning.”

“Wow, you really did fuck up the start of your day,” she teased. “You have allergies? Bad ones?”

“Yes, bad ones,” he said, reaching to the bottom of an outside pocket and feeling his rescue inhaler. At least that was some relief. “Bad enough to need a prescription daily.”

“And it's storm season,” she said. “The worst for that.”

“I've been told,” he said miserably. He could feel his eyes beginning to water and he ran his tongue along the top of his mouth and back towards his throat, trying to settle an itch.

Hhrr-TSGHHT!

He sneezed roughly into his shoulder.

“Well,” he said, pulling a bandanna out of his pack. “This might help a little.”

He tied the triangle of cloth over his nose and mouth, tucking the excess into the top of his shirt.

“Very mysterious,” Asha teased. “My work partner, Zorro.”

Thom went back to his notes, but concentrating was extremely difficult. He wrinkled his nose under the bandanna and tried to focus on his work, but the itching was too strong.

Hehh-ehh-GSHTT!

A damp spot blossomed on the bandanna under his nose.

He clamped a hand over the fabric and pinched his nose, turning away from Asha.

NghT! Hehh...eh-TSGHT! Tsh'GXHT!

Three rapid stifles tumbled forward, held in by his fingers.

Tsgh! Ehh-TSGH!

“Wow,” Asha said, watching. “You were not kidding.”

“No,” he said miserably, letting go of his nose. “This is pretty mild, actually. Usually I...I..hehhh...heh-TSGHT!”

He sneezed once again into the bandanna and tugged it free from his face, using it as a proper handkerchief.

“I'll ask around to see if anyone else has some medicine,” Asha offered. “Sit down a minute.”

He sunk into a camp chair with the bandanna over his nose.

Hehh-ehhhh-GSHTT!

By the time she returned, his breath was growing wheezy and his eyes were swollen. He coughed hoarsely into his fist and swallowed hard.

“No luck,” she said.

“What going on over here?”

Doctor Rutledge was standing behind them, looking expectantly at them both.

“Thom is having an allergic reaction, Doctor,” Asha explained. “I was looking around to see if anyone had any medication.”

“And?”

“No one does,” she said. “I'm sorry, Thom.”

“That's okay,” he croaked. “I just need a minute. I—heh-SGHHT!”

He sneezed thickly into the bandana and pinched his nose before giving it a sharp blow.

“It's storm season, Thom,” Doctor Rutledge said. “The longer you're out here, the worse it'll get.”

Ehhh-GSXHTT!

He was starting to feel the strain in his lungs and he fished in his bag, curling his fingers around his rescue inhaler just in case.

“I think you should go back home, Thom,” Doctor Rutledge said. “It looks like the winds are headed this way.”

He could barely see her through his watering eyes.

“Are you sure, doctor? I could go work in one of those more covered tents across the way.”

“No, that isn't necessary. Asha, will you get him home?”

“Yes, I'll do that.”

Doctor Rutledge turned to head back to her work as Thom launched into another fit.

Ehh-tsxSHTT! Ngh'GSHT!

Thom curled in on himself, sneezing rapidly.

Tsgh-GSHT Tsh'GHT! TXGHT!

He blew his nose hard into bandana and surfaced from the fit with a wheezy gasp.

“Hold on,” he croaked, raising the inhaler. “I need this first.”

He took a puff and breathed in the medication, holding it in as long as he could before he started to cough and exhaled nosily.

Asha sighed sympathetically and held out her water bottle. He took a deep swig from it and thanked her.

“Let's go before you get worse,” she said.

They returned to the motorcycle, going slowly along the path because of Thom's swollen eyes. He shoved the helmet over his leaky face and climbed on the bike behind Asha.

The ride back into Luxor was a blur of exhausted sniffling and two very unpleasant sneezes inside the helmet before they pulled up in front of Thom's apartment.

“C'mon,” Asha said gently, taking his arm and leading him inside. He started to climb the two flights of stairs but on the first landing he was forced to pause as another fit took over, wrenching him forward with several forceful sneezes that tore out of him rapid-fire.

Hurhhh-TSGHHH! Ngh-TSGHHT! Hehh....ehh-TSCHHH!

They staggered up the next flight and into Thom's flat. He swallowed two of his prescription pills from the medicine cabinet before slouching down into his sofa and taking another puff of his inhaler.

“I thought leaving England would be the end of all this mess,” he said miserably.

“Oh no, we've got all our own special allergens here too. Storm season is infamous. I'm sure you've been told.”

“I have,” he said. “I probably would still be a bit of mess with my prescription, but I can't believe I managed to forgot taking it at all!”

“I guess we'll see,” Asha said. “There's two months of this dust. Maybe invest in a mask. Lots of people wear them this time of year.”

Eh-TSCHH!

Asha shoved a box of tissues across the coffee table towards Thom.

“And maybe invest in a few more of those too. Sounds like you might need them.”

[dickbaggins]

please friends enjoy this lil teaser of what will be this year’s long fic, my novel from nanowrimo16. this is a wincest(iel? I haven’t decided but as I was writing, it took a distinct turn towards the threesome, I’m as shocked as you are) au with the Winchesters as archaeologist-hunters in 1910/20s Egypt. I’ve only vaguely researched this so if there’s any historical issues, that’s all on me. Within the week, I should start posting this for realsies, so it won’t be quite as rough.

The sky looked different, depending on where you were. If you didn't travel, you never noticed it. You saw one sky your whole life and maybe it was a pretty good sky anyway, so you didn't want for anything. But if you travelled, you knew the pang of homesickness a strange sky sometimes induced.

Dean Winchester felt like he'd been homesick since he was twenty years old. The sky in Newport never looked the same after he sped home from the docks. In a way, nothing felt real since then.

Of course, all the alcohol helped to keep the world at large to more of an unpleasant buzzing in his ears, around the periphery of his mind. Between that and work, ten years flew by with alarming speed. If he didn't stop to consider things, they fell away. If he didn't keep moving, he'd die. So move he did.

This appointment was in Egypt. That meant crossing the Atlantic, which he'd done at least once a year for the past decade. At least. The ships were better now than they used to be, catering to a different class of people. The Winchesters could no longer afford the opulence, the gold-laden dining rooms and the full serving staff but there was a burgeoning tourist class that made the ships all the more comfortable now.

Dean liked that better, anyway. They knew to leave him alone. They kept to themselves.

After that, train after train after train. He took in the sky out the windows, watched it change from big to narrow, to big again. Watched countless sunsets wink in and out of existence. He didn't keep a journal. For all Dean knew, it could have been months in those sleeper cars with his father and Bobby.

Their destination neared and Dean felt like he always did: a detached excitement at what new things they might discover, coupled with a vague, tense fear. People died on these expeditions. People got trapped under the Earth, people suffocated in centuries-old tombs. Sometimes Dean thought that wouldn't be so bad.

You'd be lauded as a hero.

You'd also be dead.

These were both pretty great.

At midnight, at the crossing of a border, the dining car lights dimmed and Dean made his slow shuffle back to the sleeper car. John snored quietly on the top while Bobby was still sat on the other bunk, books and papers spread out in front of him, dimly lit under the buzzing electricity.

“We're carrying on to Turkey tomorrow,” he told Dean. “So you alone are representing us in this excavation.”

Dean nodded blearily, undoing his tie, shrugging off his jacket.

“Your father has a few requests.”

Dean glanced up at the bunk and nodded again; this was how they communicated, these days, through a friendly intermediary, simply because it was easier. They wouldn't fight, that way. John Winchester got to hand down his decrees and Dean could only nod mutely and take them under advisement. Further to the verbalized rules, there'd be a letter set out for him tomorrow morning before he departed reinforcing all of these things.

Don't fuck up, was the general tone. Sometimes eased into don't fuck up too hard. It depended.

“This is an important post we've secured for you. Working closely with state officials is difficult to pull off. You'll be answering to Daniel and his lot. And working for them, you understand? They say jump - “

“I ask how high, yes, I've been farmed out before.”

“True, but not to these folks. They can be demanding. Not strictly treasure hunters, you know?”

Dean frowned, unbuttoning his shirt, laying it out carefully at the end of his own too-small bed. “Our kind of hunters?”

“In a way,” Bobby answered, his eyes sweeping over his papers for a nervous second before returning to Dean. “They have goals They have things they're specifically looking to find and if you're less than thorough and less than completely forthcoming in your findings? You'll find yourself at odds with them.”

“Which would then besmirch the family name even further. Understood.”

“Detailed notes, detailed drawings. At the end of every week, you'll meet with the head parties and discuss what you've found. Nothing is to be removed unless they tell you. Nothing is to be sold overseas.”

“So we're barely getting paid.”

“Experience is it's own reward,” Bobby sighed, and he didn't mean it anymore than John had earlier, Dean knew. They were all of them in a tricky situation and making the best of their skill set. “Send us copies of your notes, though. I'm curious as to what's actually going on.”

“Oh?”

That barely piqued Dean's interest; mild intrigue was something, at least, something more than dusting off old vases with a delicate brush.

“Last I heard, there was some set of magical demonic jewelry, though why a Pharoh would have that is beyond me. Rumor has it Daniel is after those things specifically. But being buried so long? It's either negated all that power or else charged it up something fierce. If you find it...”

“I won't, Bobby,” Dean sighed, slinging his legs up onto the too-small cot, folding his hands under his head and watching the lights flicker against the top of the empty bunk above him. So easy to imagine the four of them crammed into this private space, but there was only three.

And anyway, if it were the four of them? They wouldn't be nearly destitute and taking on jobs like this, whoring themselves out to lesser men for meager pay. If they were four...

No. They weren't.

“I won't find anything of value, I'm sure,” Dean sighed, “Not with how many other people working alongside me? The chances are slim I find anything at all besides dog bones and ancient wine vessels. The usual detritus.”

“That's the other thing, Dean,” Bobby said, voice low and serious, which made Dean look over at him; he scratched at his beard, shuffled his papers. “There's no drinking. It's forbidden by religion, so...if you don't want to raise the ire of your charitable hosts, you'll have to lay off.”

Dean's gut squirmed nasty, nervous already about the proposition.

“Is that why you're not joining me here? Is that why you and my father are moving on? I notice he's sleeping fairly content, got his fill before they turned the lights off, did he? Stowed something away in his baggage?”

“Now, son-”

“Don't call me that, please,” Dean sighed, squeezing his eyes shut. Had he known this was his last chance? He'd have tanked up in the dining car, beyond what he'd already had to drink. Which was a lot, by anyone's standards, but just enough to get himself to sleep. Hopefully. “I'm sure I'll manage.”

“There's coffee that'll make you see through time, if that helps.”

“That's sort of the opposite of what I'm striving for.”

“Well...there is opium, if you're really hard pressed to relax. I know how it is, Dean, believe me, I do. After everything you've been through, no one faults you and your father for your predilections. Least of all me.”

“Thank you,” Dean muttered, hoping this was the end, hoping everything else was covered in the letter he'd get later in his father's tiny, precise handwriting.

“Get some rest,” Bobby said, and that was it. All Dean heard of him until he dozed off were papers shuffling, notes being scrawled, the usual noises. He found them comforting, at least, if nothing else in the world was. And even that small kernel of home, he'd leave at the train station come morning.

It was hot. Dean knew it would be hot and he'd been through hotter but it seemed unreasonably sunny. Maybe it was just the day or the hangover he wouldn't be able to rid himself of. Although he'd found, when he unpacked, a concealed bottle of whiskey, likely from Bobby, stashed among his clothes. Here for three months, there was no clear way to ration it to last that long, unless he sipped a thimble-ful every night. And to what end would that help him?

It wouldn't.

Nothing would.

Although, riding carriage from the train station to the American hotel, he'd seen an opium den on every corner, not unlike saloons. Every place had a favourite vice. He was sure it'd be days before he started partaking. If not hours.

Dean didn't unpack.

He only had an hour to himself and he spent it washing and dressing again. He combed his hair in the gold-framed mirror on his dark-blue wall and stared at the spectre of himself there. He looked far from a legendary explorer. Far from carrying on his family tradition. He looked like a ghost and he knew that he was, that he had to be, or else why would he feel so empty?

There was a convoy out of town, set up for the first day of the expedition. The entirely of the thing took only another hour, so close that they had no need for tents or sleeping in the rough, which suited Dean just fine. No one could see him shaking, sweating and vomiting. The nightmares too; those were his and his alone, once again.

He shared an open-topped carriage with two other men and a small woman decked out in absurd clothing, heavy tweeds and whites that would get soiled within the minute. But she had a sly look to her face, like there were secrets there. She talked in low tones to the man beside her, dark haired and dark tanned but with blue eyes that glowed in the sun. He reminded Dean of a particularly unruly cat they'd had back in Newport.

Not even eight hours without a drink, and this was what his mind was doing.

It all fell away as they approached the site.

Dean had seen things before, great wondrous things and things that made his head spin strange but all of them, every single one, was eclipsed in an instant. Great hulking stone structures jutted out of golden sand, toned the same so only the shadows and the scaffolds really distinguished them. The road clogged with traffic, with yelling in a tongue he didn't yet understand and carts full of artifacts, bumping along recklessly.

And men crawled everywhere, men in great white clothes and men dressed in the western fashion too. A few women slipped among them with parasols, dressed in drab travelling clothes but occasionally, he caught a flash of bright silk, violet or peach or baby blue, in keeping with the summer season. A melting pot bigger and broader than New York City or San Francisco. Noisier and dustier than both as well; vendors prowled the crowded street, yelling their wares. They stayed out of the way of their convoy, though, owing to the armed bodyguards flanking them front and back.

Handy.

The Sphinx rose up suddenly out of the mess of the crowd, half beautiful and half grotesque, chipping and dying and glorious all at once. Pictures and other depictions, even the stereo-scope Dean had spent so much time looking at in his youth, none of that did this vision any justice. Beholding it himself was breathtaking.

Even among all the shit and the dirt, the caterwauling and the dust, there was soaring beauty.

The world was like that.

At least, the world was like that for other people.

Dean saw, after further consideration, just a crumbling facade that, centuries later, vultures like him were picking apart, in the interest of science and history. Or else just for money, if they were being honest. Most of them were not honest.

He looked back into the carriage, considered the new stain of mud on his canvas and brown leather boots. Well, things would only get dirtier from here on in.

“You're Dean Winchester,” the woman opposite him said, her voice clear and loud, accent American and untraceable, rather like his.

So they were doing this; talking. It had taken long long minutes and he'd rather have done without but it was the polite thing to do.

He nodded, felt that placid, social smile tug automatically at the corners of his mouth.

“You're well-informed.”

“I'm Meg Masters, I'm sort of the right hand man on this expedition. So, yes, it's kind of my business. Your reputation precedes you.”

“It generally does, for good or for ill.”

“A little of both, I think.”

Dean felt the corner of his mouth lift despite detesting small talk; there was more to her than appeared, and he generally liked that about women, if nothing else.

“You'll like it here,” she assured him, tilting her hat against the sun and the sand as they rounded a corner. They passed the great amalgam of stone, head of a woman, body of a lion, and other assorted things, her vague expression betraying nothing. Rather like Meg's. “You haven't been briefed yet.”

“I am due for that once we're on site.”

“Mm, not really. That's the standard fare for everyone else. But you? You're a Winchester. We don't have you sorting through the same muck as everyone else.”

Were those devil's jewels real, Dean wondered? His father's letter expounded on it; a set of necklaces, bracelets and rings that would catapult the wearer to the throne of all Hell. It seemed far-fetched but everything did about this strange, undiscovered world under the sand.

“So what am I after?” Dean asked, tilting his head, eyes swerving towards the other two gentleman in the car.

“They're privy to all my information, don't worry. This is Castiel,” Meg introduced the man with the bright blue eyes beside her, clutching at his tawny jacket with her doe-skin gloves. “And this is Brady. Both in the employ of our leader and benefactor. So you're among friends, Dean.”

Dean nodded, considered both men a little longer and without reason to distrust them or the woman yet, he eased down. Listened attentively.

It was the same general malarkey he usually heard when hunting preternatural artifacts; ancient secrets, do not disturb, on and on and on. It wasn't just jewels, though Bobby had been half right; they did exist, supposedly, they did factor into Daniel's plan quite heavily.

Which itself was suspect, but Dean wasn't in the business of questioning his employer's motives. Dean was here to get paid.

Along with the set of jewelry, there were untold bottles with things trapped inside; djinn, ghul, demi-gods, demons. Any stoppered bottle was to be suspect, was to be catalogued carefully and announced immediately to the right people, Meg and her cronies, in fact, could assess the situation.

Beings trapped in bottles was entirely too rooted in fiction for Dean's tastes. He'd never come across one in reality, and he'd come across a great many strange things. Spirits, sometimes, clung onto possessions from their lives, attached themselves to trinkets or snuff boxes or dolls. But nothing, so far as Dean knew, could be trapped in a vessel.

And he did have hundreds of years of research behind him on this.

But, he smiled, nodded, listened and considered what he might find beyond the huge structures they passed. They came out of the crowded street and carried on behind some structures, further and further out until the yelling of the vendors faded away completely. It was just their ten carts and the quiet, the wind whipping past and the sand crackling faintly.

The briefing was more or less the same. Less ghosts and monsters, more keeping things intact and being extraordinarily careful.

Dean hid his shaking hands behind his back, mopped at his sweaty brow in turns and, generally, didn't look too out of sorts for the heat of the day and how it affected everyone else.

But his stomach felt knotted hard, his mind foggy.

They had rations of water, and water would not do the trick, not for this dry mouth.

Dean fell in with the troops, so to speak. They all marched through dug-out trails, flanked by men with torches along narrow walls. There were rooms open along each side, some dim and dark and empty, others bustling with activity. They walked for sweaty ages, or at least it seemed that way. Dean was finding time falling apart rapidly as his system flushed all the precious alcohol out.

His head pounded, he sweat everywhere. Still. Two, three months of this now. He had better get used to it.

The paper in his hand said 'cavern #13' and of course it would, of course they'd stuff a Winchester in the cursed number. He found it after half an hour of drudging alongside his compatriots and found himself immediately alone as they all continued forth.

That was well enough.

Dean sighed, sagged against the inside wall out of view and took a moment to himself. Peace and quiet. It was nice, at long last, after so much jostling and shouting and close quarters sweating. Alone.

Dean prized that moment.

He opened his eyes eventually, shrugged his jacket off, laid his hat on top of it on the dusty ground and shouldered his bag of tools. It wasn't heavy but he grunted, rapidly out of shape and missing the extra boost of physical confidence from the drink. Terrible, how it changed you.

Terrible how he wasn't sure he could live without it.

“Alright, cavern number thirteen,” Dean muttered to himself, glancing around the cramped space. Here and there, things poked out of the sandy dirt. He wasn't sure what this was, whether burial or something else. He was no expert in any case.

He started in the corner, far right, and noted the proceedings, which were: dust, dirt. More dust and dirt. Broken pottery. Dirt.

This room was utterly uninteresting, uninspiring and vaguely claustrophobic. Although the walls closing in could easily be any number of horrible reactions. Dean stood with his back to everything, his arm on the wall and his head on that, wiping his sweat off for the millionth time on his rolled up shirt-sleeves.

Was the cavern spinning? Or was that him?

Did it even matter, anymore? All he had were notes on dirt and debris.

A cool wind sailed through the place and Dean spun around, frowning deep enough that it nearly hurt his face.

And now, in the center of the cavern, resting on a sealed up sarcophagus half-covered with dirt, there was a vase. Green and gold, glinting, appearing to move in the torchlight and then it did move, side to side, threatening to topple and Dean sucked in a hard breath, raced to grab the strange new artifact.

He misjudged distance, time, everything going weird as he stretched his hand out of it and brushed it too hard with trebling fingers. The vase fell, cracked loud against the slab of stone and split into two, three pieces, big and wide but pieces nonetheless.

Dean swore, reaching out to grab them when the room darkened, the torch shivered nearly out and smoke rose from the cracked vessel.

Black smoke.

You couldn't rightly call yourself a purveyor of all things mystical without knowing exactly what that meant.

Dean swore out loud, scrambled back to his starting corner, the rough stone of the cavern walls biting into his skin. He had nothing, he'd brought nothing, not so much as a grain of salt or a can of paint.

The smoke swirled around the room, filled it up huge and billowing and stopped a moment. It seemed to peer into the dimness, seemed to be looking for something and Dean prayed quietly to himself, to anything and everything that it wouldn't jam itself down his throat.

It didn't.

The smoke approached him and two hands jutted out from it, alongside Dean's clean-shaven face. He felt a chill, shook with more tremors than before when it caressed his skin and reached inside of his head. He felt that too, a cold prickle up the back of his neck, goosebumps raising on his arms, over the whole of his body.

Oh, it could see everything of him. It felt him inside and out and took him apart and put him back together, it moved with no regard for his sanity and contentment, it only sought and found and Dean squeezed his eyes shut, praying again it wouldn't take him for a host.

It didn't.

It spun around the room again, filled up every corner and dove down fast, circling the vase over and over; Dean felt it rather than saw, felt the breeze and the horrible waiting and then it whispered his name, low and sweet.

Dean opened his eyes, blinked to adjust to the brightness in the room again, the torch settled and steady.

Standing barefoot on the wide sarcophagus, the smoke had taken a form, crammed itself into a shape.

And it happened to look exactly like Dean's long-lost baby brother.