The world cuts off into
Nothing. Or- not nothing. He breathes heavily, his back to the. The space. The part where-
He doesn't know how to say it. Dean is yelling across the line, angry, maybe, or worried, but that doesn't matter, because the street- the street is. Sam doesn't know. Now that he's looked away, he has trouble imagining, trouble even comprehending
He's staring forward again. He had just been turning around and
There's something horribly wrong with the street behind him, the buildings, the ground, the sky, the world. He has to calm down before he starts to hyperventilate, and just keep staring forward, don't look back, don't look back into the
It hurts to see, and when he looks away, he can't remember what he saw, he just knows the idea, the concept, and it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense, what he's thinking, so he has to turn around again to make sure that
He focuses on the car. The real, solid car, the street it's sitting on, the air around it, the space. The existence. Because there isn't nothing behind him, because that implies that there is something for there to be nothing in, empty air, empty space, whiteness, blackness, a fucking black hole. Anything.
"Well maybe if we knew what we were looking for –"
"Dean," Sam cuts him off with an exasperated, disbelieving look. How many times does he have to say it? "I know what we're looking for. I know what it is, just, saying it. This isn't something I can just type into a search engine." Sam fights the urge to sigh. "Has Bobby called back yet?"
Dean shakes his head and frowns and stares over at his cell phone on the side table. Neither of them want to admit it, but they're worried- Bobby's never been one to be out of touch for more than a day.
When they go to the diner to get lunch it's hard to ignore the murmurs of the townsfolk around them; they usually aren't quiet in the small towns like this, especially not in the middle of the day. The ones that are talking look upset and confused; the ones that aren't, making up the majority of the patrons, are mostly sat up at the bar drinking.
Dean is looking around the room and out the windows into the streets, staring around frantically, and Sam catches his eye and tilts his head in question.
"Weren't there more people here yesterday?"
"In the restaurant?"
"In general."
Dean can't look at it for long, either. They're in a field on the other side of town, and this time it's going on all the way in either direction, and if Sam's hypothesis is right, it wraps around and meets right up with the street he had been on that morning. He really, really hopes he's wrong.
"We should walk the perimeter- see if there's a way around," Dean says, turning to him, careful to keep his gaze from wandering too far to the side and over to
Sam nods. He figures they both know there isn't going to be, but he prays to whoever is still listening that there is. They walk for hours, around the continually shrinking edges of the town, mostly looking at the ground and trying to only see the edge in the corner of their periphery. Sam tries to call Bobby again, only this time his phone won't work- neither he or Dean have service anymore, even when they make it back to the hotel where they had had it that morning. Dean tries the landline in the main office, and all he gets is a broken dial tone. The man at the desk says that all of the phones in town are down, and that the group they sent out hours before hadn't yet come back.
Sam frowns when Dean gets back to the room and tells him. "With all of this weirdness going on, doesn't everyone here seem- I dunno. Oddly subdued?"
Dean looks down at the floor, looking as if he's in thought. He looks back up, like he's made a decision, and walks over the side table of his bed and pulls a bottle of cheap booze out from under it. Sam goes back to his laptop, and accepts a glass when Dean hands him one.
It's in the corner.
Sam and Dean are both sat side by side on one of the beds now, silently, because what can they really say? Dean had been the one to check the door- it was open for two seconds before he slammed it closed and leaned his head against it, his eyes wide with something Sam didn't often see in his brother: honest to God terror.
Sam was afraid to look up from where he was staring at the floor, but he risks it, to look up and over at Dean's face. Dean sees him, and tries to smile, frown, something, but it doesn't work out, so instead he reaches over and grabs Sam's hand.
They had been searching for hours, Dean looking through the scant few books they had pilfered from the library earlier, Sam keeping up on his laptop until the Wi-Fi cut out.
There was nothing. Sam wanted to laugh. After all they had been through, this, this was how things were going to end.
Dean doesn't let go of Sam's hand, but he looks at him strangely, and Sam realizes that he had started laughing. Sam just shakes his head. "I'm sorry there isn't any anime porn this time around. I'd have saved some to my laptop, if I'd known this would happen."
This gets a smile out of Dean, finally, and he holds Sam's gaze and says "Don't worry about it. Who knows what's behind there anyways. Maybe- maybe nothing will happen. Maybe it's just some kind of weirdo barrier."
It isn't. Sam is pretty sure it isn't, at least, he feels it, deep inside, that whatever there is, whatever that thing, that lack is that's making its way inward, there isn't anything good behind it, if there's anything at all. He glances back down at the floor for a second, about to look back up and agree with Dean when he suddenly realizes that his hand is holding empty air.
His heart stops.
"Dean?"
He looks up and