Chapter 1: Missing

Dying did not feel like this.

He knew that much, because this was not the first time he had died; yet the darkness that took him then did not take hold of him now, did not swallow him up in its suffocating embrace, peeling his soul from his muscles and bones layer by layer until he, Dean Winchester, was nothing but an empty vessel. Instead of darkness, he saw red.

Hellfire red.

He felt it, too, burning away at the body he knew he shouldn't have. Blazing through his veins and his – beating? – heart. Yes, he was right. He was not dying. Death was cold, numbing; this was too precise, too measured. Too real.

Then, he opened his eyes.

Sam had never liked alcohol; he'd seen what it could do to a man, what it had done to his father. As the years passed by, however, he grew to understand John in ways that terrified him as often as they comforted him. Just as the journal was a part of John, and the Impala a part of him, so was Sam.

He took another swig of whisky, relishing the burn in his throat.

Losing himself in the bottom of a bottle had become one of his favourite pastimes. With that and the blood binging, Sam had come to realise he was as much of an addict as his father was; but caring about his iniquities was beyond him.

Watching those you love get killed kind of does that to a person.

Dazedly, he traced the table with his hands, fingers sweeping over the continents. The table would light up in the event of a crisis, pinpointing wherever in the world something terrible was happening. He found his location on the map, brushing it with his fingertips, and wondered why it wasn't lit. Of course there was a crisis. His brother was dead.

Sam rose, steadying himself as his head spun. He didn't know whether it had been minutes or hours since he'd fled his brother's bedroom, but either way, it had been too long. If he didn't deal with the body now he didn't think he ever would.

Would it be a burial again? When the hellhounds had finished with him, there hadn't been much of Dean to bury – it had been easier to think that it wasn't bits of his brother he was burying, that way. It was different this time, and Bobby wasn't around to share the weight of his grief.

No – it would be fire, Sam decided. There was a bizarre finality about the flames, something absolute. Dean would have preferred it that way.

He climbed the stairs one by one, as if each step was a mountain, until he reached the landing. Slowly, his head cleared. There was something noticeably wrong in the air, something that made the hairs on the back of Sam's neck rise. He drew the demon-blade from inside his coat, out of habit. Instinct was something he'd learned not to ignore.

For someone so large, he moved with surprising noiselessness along the passage until he reached the door to his brother's room. Sam paused, sweat tickling his palms. Nothing good lay beyond that door.

With a quick jerk of his wrist, he twisted the doorknob and pushed into the room. His eyes fell upon his brother's body for only an instant before they flickered to the armchair against the adjacent wall.

"Hello, Moose," greeted Crowley, signature smirk in place. His arms were draped casually over the armrests, and there was a feverish light in his eyes that Sam instantly recognised as some sick sort of excitement.

"Get out," said Sam, his voice low and threatening. "I don't know what you're doing here, but if you don't –"

"Actually, I was just on my way." Crowley rose, brushed himself off, and looked at Sam. "I got what I wanted."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

The corner of Crowley's mouth twisted, sinister and menacing. "You'll find out soon enough."

And with a click of his fingers, he vanished – just as Ruby's knife sank into the wall behind him. Sam lowered his hand, annoyed that he hadn't thrown the blade sooner. He hated that demon.

Wrinkling his nose at the pungent, all-too-familiar reek of sulphur, Sam glanced at the bed where his brother lay.

Except, Dean wasn't there.

A cold wall slammed into Sam's chest. He hardly dared to breathe; iron fists clenched his lungs. Then Sam whirled into action, seizing the knife from the wall with the deft sort of efficiency that belonged to a hunter.

Before he knew it he was in the library, fingers sweeping through yellowing pages as shelves of books towered over him, silent and watchful, like old wooden sentinels. He barely read the words, and tossed the books to the side when he declared them useless; it was when this pile became a mountain that Sam finally found what he needed.

The tattered leather cover was hanging off, and the script was barely legible, but the book had come in handy before.

Sam's hands tightened on the manuscript. "Crowley," he said, and though it was barely a whisper, the word promised vengeance.

He tucked the book under his arm and extracted his phone, punching in the right digits. Garth answered on the second ring.

"I need some ingredients for a summoning ritual," he ordered. There was a mumbled reply down the phone. "Yeah, I know, I'll send you a list. Uh huh. Got it."

Sam hung up before his friend could reply, and tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear. He sat down and poured himself a glass of scotch.

It was going to be a long night.

Thanks for reading! Bit of a short chapter, but the rest should be longer . . . review if you liked it :)