A/N: Ohhh snap. Well I got a pretty good response considering the one day turnaround, so I will go ahead and get this out. Rated for torture, murder, drinking, and Bobby Singer cussing like a fool.
Love that man.
So, in short-Dark Sam. Dark, angsty depressed Dean. Dark story.
Thanks for reading. Reviews are love.
As always,
EverReader
Disclaimer: Sooo not mine. Nope. Not even a little.
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Prologue:
The girl sat proudly, despite the fact that she was both tied and chained down. The chair was situated in the center of a large red devils trap, circled by another ring of salt.
Her voice echoed of the iron walls of Bobby's panic room as she chuckled lowly.
"Well, Dean-o, I have to say, I'm impressed you went to all this trouble. You don't seem the type to try so hard to get a girl's attention. The chains are a nice touch. Ancient Greek warding, right? That's of specialty of Bobby's, isn't it. That mean's were at Singer Salvage."
She shook her head slowly in sultry amusement. "So predictable. You know my siblings are already coming for me, right? Or is that the plan. Capture my family, and lock them up down here? Capture my king?" Her eyes flashed and she lunged forward, as far as the chains would allow, a sleek black panther on a too-tight leash.
"It won't work. You can't stop us. You can't stop him. Seven years in hell, Dean. That's 840 years topside. What in the fuck do you think you could possibly do to us? To me?" She leaned back, looking for all the world like she was a queen giving an audience.
Dean scowled. "I can gank you?" He offered idly.
She smiled. "No, you can't. You don't have the mojo to truly destroy me. I'm a living Arch Demon, Dean. Exorcisms won't work. You could kill my body, but my soul would just go back to hell. I'll just crawl right back out and grab a ride with the first pretty girl who catches my fancy. I've never been blond before. What's your little hunter friends name? Jo? Is that short for Josephine or-"
Dean cut her off, snarling "Azazel won't let you out of the pit again, sweetheart. You're no-fly with the king of hell."
She snarled right back again. "Sam is the only king I care about. And he'd come for me there, just as he's coming for me now." She smiled serenely this time. "Sam always comes for me."
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Dean jerked awake violently, visions of broken library desks and bloody sneakers following him out of his nightmare. Slowly, too slowly for his liking, his heart rate calmed as he took in the monotonous walls of his hotel room.
'Christ', he thought laying back on the bed and closing his eyes. Another freaking nightmare. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised.
Those memories, the sights and sounds and the feel of those first few horrible moments on that long ago day would creep in at any inopportune time. Taking advantage of any weakness, and crack in his psyche, the memories would run rampart across his minds eye, or, in this case, his dreams.
With the stress of his father going awol, it was really no surprise they had crawled in tonight to keep him company.
He stood up and staggered over to the cheap dinette table in his even cheaper motel room, taking a swig of the bottle of Jack Daniels sitting there, still open from a few hours previous.
Deciding he wouldn't get any more sleep anytime soon, he sat down heavily, methodically opening up the half-dozen cell phones on the table and closing them again after he determined they did not hold the information he sought.
He wasn't interested in any calls or leads, be from Bobby or Caleb or Pastor Jim.
There was really only two people in the world he was interested in hearing from. One he hadn't seen in nearly a month.
The other he hadn't seen in nearly seven years.
He took another long pull from the bottle and settled in.
He had work to do.
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Sam watched with eagle sharp eyes as his siblings spray painted the wards around the abandoned warehouse. Double checking every curve, every line, he was pleased to see that they were all correct, exactly as they had practiced.
Of course, they'd had several hundred years to practice.
The warehouse was only temporary, of course. He would make sure very soon that he and his siblings had appropriate, comfortable surroundings. They had spent lifetimes in filth and blood, and cold, dirty cells. He would see that they had what they needed, as he always had. They were his afterall. Hell had taken everything from Sam. Everything but them. He would tear the world apart and rebuild it into a safe place for his family, if that's what it took.
A part of him hoped it did, looked forward to the fighting, the blood and the violence and an outlet for the never ending anger that burned inside of him. He might very well tear the world apart, laughing all the while.
The derelict warehouse was discrete, however, on a dead end road in a dead end town, and what they needed to do would be noisy.
Very noisy.
Sam smiled. Soon the warehouse would feel just like home, but this time, he and his siblings held the power. This time, they would be the ones smiling, not screaming.
They would never be victims again.
He motioned with his head to Jake, who nodded and walked over to the first unconscious prisoner and dragged him into one of the newly finished devils traps.
The other two prisoners quickly found themselves at the receiving end of similar hospitality.
The first demon blearily blinked open his eyes, glaring unsteadily at Sam, who grinned. The ability to render a demon unconscious required a careful, delicate hand.
Sam had such a hand.
He punched the demon hard, once, in the jaw, rocking his vessels head back.
His other hand was...not so gentle.
"Azazel will hunt you down and -" The demon hissed.
"Yes, yes. Pain, torture, torment. I took the extended tour. Threats, my friend, are not what I need from you. You might notice the devil's trap you're sitting in, and the ring of salt. Or you might be entirely focused on the screaming pain in your arm. We branded you with a little mark I looked up once in Azazel's library. You're locked in, kiddo. Best to just...enjoy the ride."
"What do you want?" The demon asked, becoming alarmed as it realized the severity of it's situation. The other two demons, a woman and a man, were stirring now, eyes trained on Sam and the first demon.
"From you?" Sam asked, smiling wickedly, "Not a thing." Viper-quick, he swiped his blade across his throat. The exodus of sulfur and light left no doubt in the other prisoners minds that the rumors were true. Not only had the Seven escaped Azazel, but they had brought with them one of the ancient demon killing blades.
Sam walked smoothly up to the next prisoner as a grinning Anselm dragged away the first's body.
"I need information. Can you be so kind as to assist us?" Sam asked, in the same pleasant monotone he might use to order coffee. The woman shook her head affirmatively, eyes blackening to pitch.
Sam smiled. "I always had a thing for pretty blonde-haired girls." He walked away then, leaving Andy and Ava to question the demon. Once they had worked her over thoroughly, Sam would follow up, but he'd leave the leg work to them. Between Andy's voice and Ava's knives, they were a viciously effective team.
He went next to a mattress set up in the corner of the room. Her smiled softly down at Lily as she lay dreaming, Max sitting beside the mattress on the floor, leaning against the wall methodically going through a stack of newspapers.
"Anything of interest?" Sam asked, voice low as to not wake the dreaming girl between them. Max tilted his head to one side, a laconic one shouldered shrug and Sam nodded. He knew if Max came across anything of interest, he would make it known. He had long taken up the position of sentinel whenever Lily used her unique ability to astral project. Most humans were susceptible to her in that form, and she could read minds and influence actions quite easily, though only for short distances.
Soon enough she would return, having established identities and lines of credit for all seven of them with her unique gift. Sam and his siblings wouldn't think twice about simply taking whatever they needed, butt crime of that sort created waves, brought notice.
Sam had no intention of risking all their planning for something that could so easily be rectified using other means.
They hadn't been topside in nearly seven years, after all.
He would be a poor general indeed if he didn't scout out the lay of the land and gather supplies.
Jake came up beside him. "I've bled the first one out. Should be enough for the next few days, if we're frugal."
Sam frowned. "We'll be smart, Jake, not frugal. Smart. I won't see any of you hurting because you're withdrawing. We're using powers all the time. Make sure everyone understands to take as much as they need. If we run out, we'll simply find another one. They will no longer use this to hurt us, to control us. Also, make sure everyone remembers to eat human food and to drink water. Our bodies probably haven't adjusted enough from Hell to give us the proper signals. We have to watch out for each other until we're at one hundred percent." Sam made eye contact, made sure his lieutenant knew what was expected of him.
Jake nodded. "When Lily comes back, Anselm and I will go and fetch what she made for us. We'll bring back human food, also." He said, a slight look of distaste crossing his face.
Sam laughed, clapping him on the back. "I know, brother, it disgusts me also. But we have never shied from what needed to be done, have we?"
Jake nodded. "The fact that we are standing here is a testament to that."
"Yes." Sam looked off into the distance. "The testament of the Seven."
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Dean stared at the various newspaper clipping splayed out across the table. No matter how many times he looked, he couldn't seem to see whatever it was that had made his father take flight. Lightning storms. Cattle deaths. Different cities, different newspapers. It all seemed so random, considering some of the clippings were nearly twenty years old.
Dean frowned. In fact some of the clippings were older than that. That one, an innocuous report on dry lightning in the Seattle area, was twenty-two years old.
The same age as Sam.
'Son of a bitch', Dean breathed out. His dad had done it. These clippings were pieces to a puzzle, and if Dean could just figure out what they said, he would see what John had seen.
A lead into the murder of their mother. And god willing, a link to finding Sammy.
Dean leaned back in his chair. He realized he was trembling, though from lack or food and rest or simply shock, he couldn't say.
He'd been down in New Orleans, working a voodoo gig when John went AWOL. Dean didn't normally take those kinds of jobs, despised witches and anything to do with them. Give him a wendigo or a werewolf any day of the week.
But the hoodoo priestess who'd asked for help had offered to read for him after he solved her little zombie problem. Rumor had it, she was one of the best in the business, a genuine article. No matter how many times John had urged him to give up the search for Sammy, Dean never could. He would quite searching the earth for his brother the day he stopped breathing. And then Dean would search wherever came after that.
The priestess had done as she promised, holding Dean's hands tightly as she rocked, pulling whatever information she could from the spirits.
The memory of the haunted look in her eyes when she had finally looked back at Dean still gave him shivers.
"I do not sense your brother among the dead, Dean Winchester. When I question the spirits, they only say that he is lost and found. And they say seven, over and over again, the number seven. I can tell you no more."
Dean had left then, both frightened and angry, proclaiming it a waste of his time.
But then his father had gone missing, and now the the Houdoun's words circled back through his mind.
"Lost and Found and Seven, over and over again. Always Seven."
'Where are you, kiddo?' He whispered brokenly. He fought the urge to open his wallet and take out the faded photo he kept there. They were seldom in one school long enough to get photos, so it was a fluke that he even had the one, too small photo of his baby brother. Dean didn't need to get it out to see it, though. Every nuance, every angle of Sam's face was seared into his minds eye. Every time he walked down the street, every time he met a young man the right age, the right height, the right hair, his heart stuttered half a beat.
One of the phones rang then, and Dean wearily answered it. "Winchester." He said, not even caring that it was his real name he was giving out.
"Took you long enough to answer, ya idjit!" The angry voice of Bobby Singer echoed across the room and Dean winced in response, massaging his temples with one hand.
Bobby continued without stopping. "Nice of you to call, or answer when I called, or stop by, or send a bleeding telegraph reading 'Still Not Dead'! Damn it, Dean, I've been worried sick. I know that your Daddy going missing is screwing around with you, but this ain't gonna get you nowhere." Bobby finally paused for breath.
"What do you want, Bobby." Dean said flatly.
"I'm gonna do you the worlds biggest favor. Get your ass to Fulton, Missouri. Three bodies have been found so far." Bobby said gruffly.
"Don't care." Dean replied immediately.
"You will. Your Daddy specifically asked me watch the strange activity around Jefferson City, Missouri, and Fulton's less than thirty miles from there." Bobby fell silent.
A long moment passed.
"Thanks, Bobby." Dean said, before snapping the phone closed.
Come hell or high water, he was getting his family back.