Worth a Thousand Words
AN:I don't own them. Credit where credit's due.
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The last few times Sam had been missing, Dean hadn't been too desperate because there was always one more place to look, one more person to call, but this time, this time he's all out. He thinks maybe it's time to paste every damn town in the whole country with flyers until someone tells him something, anyone tells him anything (Have you seen this man?), even if it means finding a corpse (Dead or Alive). More than the fact that Dean has no reward and no idea how you go about getting someone on a milk carton he has no pictures.
There's a few grainy shots from when Sam was a baby, one from when he's about seven, but the moment you step past the point of no return, the point when Sammy discovered the truth and there was no use the pretence of a happy, normal family any more; John had stopped taking photos. Dean had never been handed a camera at a barbecue when he was nine and told to snap away, he's not even sure he'd know how to load a film if he was pushed to it, and Sam was always the technical geek-boy with the digital camcorder that Dean wouldn't even try and touch. No, there are no photos, except a couple of fake I.D.s that Sam hadn't taken with him (and if Dean knew about the picture from that diner in Buffalo he'd have discovered it had been taken off the site weeks ago). The only real photo he can think of is on a criminal database, and the last thing he needs right now is to be taken in, or for Sammy to be taken in... or is it?
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Castiel sticks around while Dean starts to go mad with worry. One day Dean sits them both at a bar and knocks back one too many while Cas sits fiddling with his first glass still full on the table before him. That's when Dean tells him about the pictures, or rather the absence of them. The angel nods and then says the worse thing possible.
"You know it's possible he won't look the same anymore," At first Dean wonders if he's losing sense of time... it can't have been that long, can it? "Evil changes people; even you, his own brother, might not recognise him."
At first Dean wants to tell him to shut up and go back to wherever the Hell (Heaven) he came from. Instead it just comes out pleadingly and when he's calmed down Dean is thankful that the calm presence is still there.
"It's stupid, we - I don't even have photos from his graduation. I can't even remember how we looked as kids."
Dean wonders if he could convince the soldier to take him back in time and take a few, or just the one so he can put up posters, but he knows it's never going to happen. It's then that he realises he's spent the last three weeks obsessing about non-existent snapshots.
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He gets a call from Bobby, someone in Indiana may have found something that may have been something to do with Sam. Dean can't think of a single reason why his brother would have been in Knightstown but it's a small town and maybe someone will have seen a tall white guy, in serious need of a haircut, that may or may not have brought the forces of Hell through with him. Cas goes with him.
When they get there they find nothing but electrical disturbances and the signs that a demon might have been here. Dean's sticking with the idea that Sam's been through a exorcised the sucker, because he's still not jumping up and down about the spoon-bending crap but it's better than the alternative lying at the back of his mind... Sam's gone dark-side.
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Dean gives up in Huntsville, Alabama, and the angel puts a hand on his shoulder as he sits on a bench and fails in his attempts not to cry. He's been up and down the country so many times he feels like he could cross it without a map, without thinking. Castiel doesn't say anything about the work they have for Dean, he just stands beside him and waits.
It's a few weeks later, when Dean's picked himself up and started doing his job (not that one) that he wakes in the night and turns over to see the angel lying on top of the covers of the other bed. His eyes are closed but Dean has a feeling he's awake. When the nightmares catch up with him the next few nights, he's still there. Sometimes he gets up to, and puts a cool hand on Dean's head to send him back to sleep. It's starting to be a two-way street; Dean gives the orders and saves the world, the angel does as he's told and saves Dean.
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It takes a few months, but Dean eventually discovers that he can live without his brother. Having a warrior of God calling shotgun helps of course, but Dean thinks he's going to be okay.
One day they're packing up shop in Tennesse, and they didn't win the Seal but Dean didn't lose anyone this time so he's thankful. They're about the hit the road when Dean sees the tall figure, standing in a doorway. He's about to run over when the angel appears behind him and utters the words that bring with them such conflicted emotion. "It's not him."
It's here, in a parking lot, that Dean realises something: if they ever find Sammy, and Dean doesn't recognise him... Dean doesn't want to know it's him.