It had been almost two years since Sam had disappeared from that parking lot, and Dean and John Winchester were still searching for him.
There had been other jobs, sure, but the main thing to do was find Sam. They had spoken to families of other children who were kidnapped that day, kidnapped and never found. They had uncovered similarities between some of them, like the birthdays and the time they disappeared. Some even reported seeing a man disappearing with their child.
But they had never found Sam.
And Dean knew it was all his fault. If he hadn't taken Sam outside, hadn't let him get so far across the parking lot from him, then maybe he could have protected him. Maybe…
And his dad knew it was all his fault too. Sometimes, when he got really frustrated, he'd yell at Dean and tell him so. It happened less than it used to. At the beginning, when they had first started searching for Sam, Dean had been the subject of a tongue-lashing several times daily. But even when he wasn't yelling, Dean knew his father hated him. He could see it in his eyes when he looked at him. Sam had been his father's favorite. The thing that reminded him most of Mary. And now he was gone, lost, maybe even dead.
But they would find him.
They had to find him.
And when they did, they would murder the demon that stole him away from them. John had acquired the Colt through a stroke of luck and blackmail, and they had tested it.
It worked.
Sam had been having strange dreams recently. He knew they weren't visions, because visions were real. And these weren't, because they were about his fami—
Not his family. The visions were about the people that had used to protect him looking for him. But they weren't true, because Azazel, the man who was like his father, had shown him that they didn't care. That they were happier without him.
Sam shook his head, then rolled out of the cot he slept in. He had grown both skills with his demonic abilities and muscles in the two years he had been with his new family. He was learning, and one day, he was going to be a general in an army, one that was going to take over the world that had kicked him and thrown him on the ground. He didn't owe it anything.
Outside, it was quiet. Far too quiet. Sam put a hand on the gun that he kept holstered to his side at all times, then pulled it out. But he was too late. With a yell, Jake launched at him from above, knocking the gun out of his hands. Jake punched and kicked him for a bit. Sam didn't stand a chance, and finally, he yelled, "I'm dead!"
Jake grinned and rolled off him onto the dirt-covered ground. His army jacket, the one that had been his father's until he had been killed in a skirmish, was still far too big for him, but he was growing into it. It was also covered in dust.
"Getting sloppy, Winchester," he smirked. "Better be careful, or when it's time to fight to be the general, I'm gonna kick your ass."
"Dream on, Talley," Sam retorted. "It won't happen again."
Then the boys heard a click. They looked up, and on the roof of the building where Jake had been stood Ava, aiming a gun at their heads.
"Bang," she said. "You're both dead."
This was what they did all day, training. The children were all growing tougher and more skilled. One day, they would truly be a force to be reckoned with. None of them could be any happier.
But still, sometimes Sam found himself missing his old life, when he had had a brother to catch fireflies with. No one here could be trusted long enough to even ask, not that there were any fireflies in this ghost town. He knew his old life was in the past. Even if he had a chance to take it back, he wouldn't.
He didn't want to lose out on being general because Jake practiced more than him, after all.
"I've got a lead," John Winchester said with considerable excitement as he burst into the motel room. Dean looked up, quickly switching off the Casa Erotica movie that had been playing on the TV.
"About Sam?"
"Of course about Sam," his father told him, sounding exasperated that he even had to confirm that. "There's been a few sightings of a man fitting the description of the demon that took Sam in a town, buying enough food every few weeks to feed an army. No one knows who he is. Now, he might just be an empty vessel, but we're still gonna check it out."
"But no one's seen Sam in the town?" Dean asked, trying to hide his disappointment.
John shook his head. "There's a ghost town just a little ways away from it. The demon could be hiding him there."
Dean stood up. "When do we leave?"
Sam's dreams, visions, were getting stronger. He could see his biological father and brother trying to come into the town. He could see them being blocked by the invisible wall that surrounded it, then finding a way in. And he could see John shooting Azazel, the man Sam considered his father.
And it disturbed him. He could not allow that to happen.
So one night, after he woke up sweaty from the same dream he'd been having for three nights, he slipped off his cot and out of the building he slept in. Outside, it was cool, a far cry from the nasty humidity during the day and inside the buildings.
"Hello?" he whispered into the night, watching the shadows illuminated by the moon and the stars. "Azazel?"
"Sam," he replied immediately from behind him. Sam turned to look at him, used to his sudden appearances and disappearances by now. Azazel studied his face. "You're all sweaty. What's wrong?"
"It…it's my…family," Sam said in a rushed whisper, stumbling over the last word. "They…they're coming to find me."
Azazel's face turned into a disapproving frown. "Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. You know that's not going to happen."
"But it is!" Sam protested. "I've been having visions…"
"Visions?" Azazel asked sharply.
Sam nodded his head up and down as fast as he could. "Where they come, and they get in somehow, I don't know how, and they have this gun and then…and then they kill you."
Sam was scared. He didn't want anything to happen to Azazel, and he didn't want to leave. Azazel looked concerned, but he just nodded. "Thank you, Sam. You've been very helpful."
And then they heard someone calling Sam's name. A young voice.
"Dean," Sam whispered. "Dean…"
"Go back to your cot," Azazel ordered. "I'll take care of this."
"Don't hurt Dean!" Sam pleaded.
Azazel was about to tell him that he would in fact be hurting Dean, but instead he said, "Just remember that he didn't even think twice about you until now. He's happier without you." A fresh tear ran down Sam's cheek, and he wiped it away with his hand. He didn't cry, not anymore. So he nodded. Azazel pointed to Sam's building. "Go."
So Sam went.
Dean was still calling for Sam when he and John found themselves shoved up against separate trees. The Colt clattered out of John's hand.
"Damn it!" he swore as Azazel entered the clearing, smiling. He reached down, picked up the Colt, and inspected it, then stuck it in the holster on his belt.
"Hello, Winchesters," he said. "That dear boy you've been trying so hard to rescue informed me that you'd be here."
"He wouldn't!" Dean said. "You're a liar."
Azazel chuckled. "No, Dean, I'm not. I'm telling the truth." And as Dean shook his head violently back and forth, John looked at Azazel with pleading eyes.
"Please," he said. "Please. Just give me my son back. You've already taken so much…"
And Azazel's chuckle grew into a full-fledged laugh. "Sam doesn't want to come back! And even if he did, I wouldn't let him. You Winchesters are getting to be quite a bother, you know that?" He glanced at John, moved his hand sharply to the right, and Dean heard a sickening crack. He gave his father a desperate look, and saw his head dangling at an angle, eyes dead.
"No!" Dean screamed, thrashing as much as he could to get free. "No!"
"Yes," Azazel chuckled. "And you'll be next, boy."
He lifted his hand, but as he was about to turn it, a small but forceful voice from behind him said, "No."
Dean stared at his little brother like he'd seen an alien. Sam was taller, more muscular, now.
"Sammy," he said with relief, and his voice cracked. "Sam…"
But Sam didn't pay Dean any attention. He stared at Azazel, who was giving him an exasperated look. "Just send him back to where he was. Don't kill him. Please."
"I can't do that, Sam," Azazel said, still giving him a look. "He knows where we are now. He'll be back."
"We can go somewhere else!" Sam said. "Just please, don't…"
"So you did tell him," Dean said, his voice sounding foreign even to his own ears. "You told him we were coming. It…it's your fault Dad's dead."
"He was going to kill Azazel," Sam said, looking at the deceased body of John Winchester without expression. "I couldn't let him."
"You…you're not…what's happened to you, Sammy?" Dean asked, horrified. He'd lost his father and his little brother, all in one day.
"I got stronger," Sam answered, looking him in the eyes for the first time. "I don't need you anymore. I don't need anyone."
"Except your little demon buddy," Dean snapped. "Can't you see that isn't right? Family comes first, Sam!"
"This is where my family is now," Sam said. "They're teaching me to be a general. For an army." Dean opened his mouth to argue further, but Sam cut him off with a look at Azazel. "I'm done now."
Over Dean's protests, thrashes, and screams, Azazel stepped forward and placed a hand on his forehead.
"Don't even try coming back here," he said with a smirk. "We won't be here."
The last thing Dean saw before he woke up in the motel room was the cold stare on his little brother's face. It was a stare that would haunt him for a long, long time, and sure enough, when he went back, they were gone.
"I'm not going to try again, Bobby," Dean told his new caretaker. "I can't. You don't know what he did, what he looked like…"
"Ain't sayin' you should, boy," Bobby said. "Always said your father's revenge journey for your mother was stupid. And that's all it'd be for you if you go after Sam again: revenge."
"I can't go after him again because I can't find him," Dean said, fixing Bobby with a stare that almost rivaled Sam's. "But if I ever see him again…I will kill him."
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