Here's the next update for you! The drama continues…
Skovko, You know, it didn't even occur to me to use The List of Jericho. Ugh! *Smacks own hand for the wasted opportunity and resolves to do better next time*
Ohana1337, Yep, a Jericho cameo had to be done! But I promise I won't hurt Dean too, too badly. I'll just kind of rough him up a little bit (or, I won't, Kevin will so don't blame me for anything that happens, okay?!)
Mandy, Ha! See? Expensive coffee strikes again! Glad I'm over here with my hot chocolate all smug on that front. Wow, you re-read it three times already? Yay! I must have done something right. I love their protective, worrisome brotherhood too. I swear it's a writer's dream!
SkittlezLvr79, I like to think that you and Seth are on the same jittery wavelength when it comes to Dean being kidnapped, trying to keep him all nice and calm! And as for things getting worse...um...turns out you might be right…
Ninjoy, Well, you might want to brace yourself because there's a whole lot more stress to come! Sooo glad you like the microphone idea. I really wanted Seth and Roman to be in on things but I thought it would be too chaotic to have them all kidnapped at once so this was my around it and I think (I hope) it's worked out well. P.S. Yay to screw you Kevin!
Guest, Dean is trouble is kind of my thing (thinking I might need to join/start some sort of self help group) as you can probably tell by now. But there's just something about the other two being all worried that I can't stop writing about! Glad you agree though!
Guest, Under the circumstances I think it's perfectly acceptable to yell at Bo because he messed everything up (bless him, I know he tries!)
Irishfan62, Can't beat a bit of Willy Wonka/Roald Dahl so I will take as many of those quotes as you've got! Bring 'em on and yes, in response, I will ramp up the suspense...just for you!
Here we go then...
Miles Away
Dean woke up to the most incredible whistling noise – a continuous shrill note that was sounding in his head. Not only that but it seemed to bleed right through him, filling up both ears, his eyes and his mouth.
It was a horrible noise, like a drill-bit or an opera chick but at least it drew him back from the land of the dead, pulling him through the dark waves and back into the daylight until he opened his eyes and blinked down into his lap.
"Ugh – ,"
"Dean?" Seth's worried voice flew at him, slightly lost behind the god damn whistling but sounding pretty anxious nevertheless.
Dean blinked.
Seth?
Why the hell was he there?
Where the hell was there?
What had gone on?
Lifting his head to scan his surroundings and to try and pick his teammate out of the gloom, only managed to bring Dean's body further suffering as his neck reacted angrily to the unannounced shift. Evidently his harried shoulder muscles had been supporting his skull weight for however the fuck long and so changing positions – even very slightly – brought a hot stab fire that made his neck burn.
"Ah – f'ck."
"Dean? You okay man? Hey, can you say something?"
"S'th?" he grumbled groggily, "Wa's goin' on?"
"Jesus."
It wasn't exactly an answer in conventional terms, more of a bodily exhalation of relief and as Dean blinked heavily and tried to find coherence, he turned his head and his bullet wound tweaked.
"Cr'p."
Bullet wound?
Flashes came chugging straight back like a freight train.
Bo Dallas.
Jack Gallagher.
Kevin Owens.
Getting shot.
The burst of adrenaline they triggered brought him round a bit, which clued him straight into another problem he had.
He was sitting on a chair in a murky and half-lit basement, with his ankles secured to the legs with miles of duct tape and his arms wrenched and pinned in place behind his back.
The fuck?
Pulling them – which once again set fire to his shoulder – resulted in a familiar metallic jangling noise and he groaned as he realized his wrists were in tight handcuffs and looped through the chair struts.
In short, he was trapped.
The whistling was still continuing unabated and mixed with the screaming of the rest of his body, it almost drowned his worried sounding teammates right out, but slowly their voices drifted down through the ether and he fought back the cacophony to focus in on them,
"Wha'?"
"I said, you okay babe?" Roman's deep tone answered him, soft and soothing like honey or cream. Their resident Big Dog had always had that effect on him.
If Roman was calm, then so could he be.
"H'rts."
"What does?"
"Shoulder, fuckin' ev'rythin'."
"I know babe, I know."
"Do you know where you are?"
It was Seth's voice this time, not quite so soothing – simply put, that wasn't his thing – but the hyped sense of urgency was still kind of comforting in its total familiarity.
Dean grunted back.
"No."
"Can you describe where you are? Is there anything around you?"
Shaking his head a little, Dean squinted up.
His vision was still on the gloomy side of foggy but the woolly-looking clouds around the corners of his universe were starting to lighten and gradually lift off.
The room he was in was definitely a basement as the tiny little windows near the ceiling could attest, outside there was the vaguest hint still left of daylight but the world seemed dusky grey.
Soon it would be night.
Apart from the chair that he was fucking shackled to, the subterranean space was practically bare. There was another chair set up opposite his one and a table to one side plus a whole lot of dust. Other than that though, it was pretty sparsely furnished with concrete flooring and thick vertical supporting beams.
Fringes of grass clamoured up against the casements and the world outside seemed silent and still. Wherever he was, he had left Suplex City and Dean got the sense it was the wilderness somewhere.
"Basement," he mumbled, trying to make his tongue work and generally stop feeling so heavy and thick, it was like the thing was stuck to his jawbone, even talking took energy he didn't really have, "Can see grass, s' quiet, can' hear any noises, feels like 'm in the woods someplace, y' know?"
"Good man, good," Seth jabbered back at him, "Can you see Kevin? Can you hear him at all?"
"Kevin?"
"Yeah. Dean, he's the one that took you."
Wait a minute, what?
Dean blinked,
"He – he did?"
"Uh huh," Seth responded, softening slightly, "He forced you into his car at gunpoint, remember? Then before we could follow you, he knocked you clean out."
Further bright flashes began to light up Dean's memory and he groaned as they both blinded him and filled up his pounding skull.
Fuck.
Sure enough, within them, there was Kevin Owens, pointing the gun directly at his forehead, cuffing him to the door handle, clubbing him in the head –
"Ugh."
"Babe?" Roman's voice was there in an instant, deep and concerned, "Hey, you alright?"
"Where are you guys?"
"The surveillance van."
"I know that, I meant geographically – where on the map?"
There was a pause in which Dean knew they were thinking and the hesitance clearly meant the answer wasn't good. He could practically see the pair of them exchanging glances and was just about to snap at them when Seth finally spoke,
"Suplex."
"What?"
"Look man, I'm sorry, we tried to follow you as far as we could but we never even made it out of the city. When Kevin knocked you out we had no way of knowing where you were headed or which way you were going to go."
"So," Dean blinked, the nausea fast rising, "You don't know where I am either?"
Seth sighed in response,
"No. But we're working on it, okay man? Trust us. We're going to find out where that asshole's taken you and then we're going to come out there and bring you back home."
It was typical Seth in terms of assuredness and ebullience and the conviction sent a bolt of responding confidence through Dean.
His teammates always came through for him.
Always.
No way this time were they going to let him down.
"Look man, we're going to look through Kevin's apartment, see if there's anything there that might point to where you are."
"Both of you?"
"No babe," Roman rumbled back at him, sensing the mild panic and moving rapidly to shut it down, "I'm staying right here. We're not gonna leave you. We're sticking this thing out with you, for better or for worse."
"Can't see a lot of better right now man – and I hope to god that wasn't you proposing because if it was, I'm so not on board. I'm expecting the whole down on one knee shit, ring in the dessert deal with fireworks, y' know?"
"I'll bear that in mind."
He could hear Roman grinning, then somewhere in the background Seth shifted slightly and heaved a long-suffering sigh,
"Do you guys want me to give you a minute to keep on discussing – well – whatever this is?"
"Don't be jealous man," Dean mumbled wearily, "We can always make this love-in a party of three."
"I'll let that go because you're heavily concussed right now, but for the record this entire conversation is fucking wrong."
The familiar back and forth made Dean smile lazily, letting the words keep him safe from the storm. With Seth and Roman there – well not there as such, but sort of – his horrible situation didn't seem quite so bad and he was able to keep his growing sense of panic at bay just enough to not freak out. Somewhere above his eyebrows, Dean's head was still pounding and when he stopped and thought about it, he could feel it in his eyes. A weird pulsating that throbbed right through his corneas and ramped up the pressure.
"Dean?"
"Wha – huh?"
Once again the deep tones belonged to Roman.
"How's your shoulder? Is it still bleeding hard?"
Glancing across at the wound in bewilderment, Dean squinted down in the lengthening half-light. Even in the gloom the laceration seemed nasty, with a thick red hue having soaked through the rag. The site of the injury itself felt roasting and even with a concussion, Dean knew that wasn't good.
"Yeah, still bleedin', can't see how bad though."
"How does it feel?"
"Kinda like I've been shot."
He said the words with a wry smile of amusement and judging from the dual snorts that fed back to him, the dark humour had garnered a grudging response.
If Roman was soothing and Seth was champing, then he was ribald.
It was the way of the world.
But the grin slid off his face in less than a second at the sound of feet stamping heavily above. Dust motes drifted down from the ceiling and somewhere nearby a door was opened and then shut.
"Fuck, that's him, I think he's comin'."
"Easy babe, we're still here, we're with you."
"Try and see if you can get something out of him – a name, a location – but be careful, alright?"
With his teammates' instructions buzzing in his eardrums, Dean inhaled deeply and tried to calm down. It wasn't the first time he'd ever been captured – in their line of work it had happened more than once – but it was the first time he had ever been taken by someone other than a criminal gang.
Kevin Owens was not a villainous mastermind, he didn't belong to a local cartel. Instead he was a lonely and unhinged individual who seemed to have poured his hopes and emotions into a friendship that wasn't a thing.
When he was undercover, Dean could roll with the punches, but this was real-life and he had no clue how to proceed. Which was why – as the door to the basement creaked open – his heart escaped his ribcage and launched up into his throat.
Shit.
Here goes nothing.
"Dean?"
It was a pretty bad start that just the sound of Kevin sent a shiver of discomfort deep through Dean's bones. Seeing him however, was infinitely worse than that because a second later his whiskery face popped round the door.
On seeing his captive newly conscious and staring, the chubby features widened and he bustled into the room, a jumble of items held in his fingers which clinked as he moved.
He hastily set them down.
"Dean, oh wow. I'm glad you're awake again, I thought – I thought maybe. I mean, I didn't know – ,"
Fantastic.
Dean let himself sigh internally.
Just what he needed.
Kid Kevin again.
"M' fine," he murmured, not really meaning it but figuring it was probably the best choice he had. Kevin responded by scuttling in closer and Dean bit his lip and tried not to lean back. A pudgy hand reached out and palmed Dean's temple which alerted him to a painful welt on his head.
"Does it hurt?"
"It didn't," Dean deadpanned, wincing a little, "But bein' pistol whipped will kinda do that to a guy."
"Easy," Seth warned in one single syllable but it was grounding and reminded him to try to stay calm. Fortunately however – when it came to mood swings – Kevin Owens was still working on remorse.
"I know buddy, I – I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hit you that hard. It's just that you got me so mad when you were talking and I needed a way to just make you stop."
"So you hit me?"
Kevin stared down at his shoes awkwardly.
Jesus Christ.
He really was a kid.
"Yes."
"You gonna do it again if you don't like me sayin' somethin'?"
"No, oh no, I wouldn't hurt you again."
That was bullshit and Dean well knew it, even if Kevin seemed to believe what he said. The truth was that the guy was just too screw loose to maintain any sense of stability for long. The problem he had was trying to work around it.
How did he use that?
Where did he start?
"So if you don't wanna hurt me, you think you could uncuff me? This position you got me in is twistin' my shoulder and I'm not gonna lie, it's hurtin' pretty bad,"
Kevin pulled a face which Dean had to assume was supposed to look sympathetic or upset, instead it looked more like a gurning sort of grimace, like he'd stepped on a landmine or possibly had gas. Glancing across Kevin looked at the car rag that he had taped into place several hours before, sure enough it was soaked dark red with constant seepage and stuttering a little, he turned back to what he'd brought,
"Oh, uh – don't worry, I can fix that. See? Look, I've got things that can help."
Dean glanced across at the offerings on the table which consisted of a handful of thin paper towels, the same roll of duct tape and a bottle of hooch.
It wasn't exactly a functioning first aid kit and Dean took a deep breath,
"Kevin, that won't work. Look man, this thing is gonna need stitches, you can't just keep puttin' shit over the top. If you don't get me to someone who can close this, then there's a pretty good chance I'm gonna bleed out."
Crossing towards him again made Dean stiffen and his tension only worsened as Kevin dropped his hands down. The second they landed over Dean's shoulder, the captive flinched and then hissed in alarm. Big fumbling digits peeled the bloodied tape off and then the chamois fell away and landed sodden on the floor.
"Dean? What's happening?"
"Talk to us babe."
But the sudden rush of air to the wound site was incredible and Kevin's probing fingers didn't much help, ambling across Dean's enflamed skin clumsily like he'd learnt his bedside manner from a giant fucking ape.
Crap, crap, crap.
Dean dropped his head down, squeezing his eyes shut to ward off the pain.
He doubted that shouting obscenities at Kevin was exactly the way to steady the guy's mood but in the process of biting almost clean through his own tongue he missed the grating noise as the bottle cap was twisted off.
If the pain of mere oxygen had been like agony then neat alcohol was like he'd been set on fire and the second the liquid sloshed onto the injury, his entire body jolted and he threw his head back,
"Fuck."
Tears of torture sprang into his blue orbs and Kevin's hand clamped down to hold him in place, continuing to pour on yet more brandy like he was physically trying to drown the wound away.
"Nearly there, I know – I know, it's stingy."
Stingy?
Dean wanted to bark at him sarcastically.
Stingy?
"Kevin," he panted instead, "Please – ,"
"Just a little more."
"Dean? Listen to me. Focus on my voice babe, focus on my voice."
As Roman's soothing tones filtered through the earpiece, Dean once more let his eyes slide shut, zeroing in on the familiar reassurance and trying not to let the sheer agony win out.
"There," Kevin chirped out, suddenly sounding brighter, "Now we just need to clean you up."
Dean sat in silence – too wearied to fight it – as Kevin set about gently wiping up the blood. There was brandy practically coating his clothing and smell of it was making his hangover worse. Not that the concussion was particularly helping.
Exactly when had his day become so truly shit?
Dragging shaky breaths in and dropping his head forward, Dean grit his teeth as Kevin dabbed the wound dry, laying a stack of the paper towels across it before – yep, there it was – taping it back up.
It was official.
He was going to bleed to death there.
He was going to bleed out through a half dozen paper towels.
"Kevin," Dean tried again, sounding pretty broken, "I'm serious okay, that's not gonna work."
Mercifully considering the surgery completed, Kevin was screwing back on the brandy cap, looking impressed with his terrible handiwork and wearing an eerie smile which he swung Dean's way.
"Don't worry, I know it won't hold things together, it's just until I fix you."
Huh?
"What d'ya mean by that?"
"Fix you," Kevin replied again simply, lifting up a finger and tapping it on the side of Dean's head, "Up here. I'm going to force out the demon, save you from the darkness so you can be free again."
"I don't fuckin' have – ,"
Seth swiftly interrupted him,
"Hey, be careful man, alright? Go with this horseshit. It's your best option here."
Dean sighed heavily.
Seth was right.
Biting down a bubble of anger and the flurry of quick retorts that were swirling round his head, Dean decided to pick his next words carefully, attempting to deliver them in what he hoped was a tone of borderline acceptance.
"How you gonna do that then? Remove it? You got some demon pliers somewhere?"
Kevin's hairy face stared back for a second, then it creased into a weird and breathy little laugh,
"No, we ask the light to protect you and we take you away from the bad influences in your life. That's what Mama and Papa did for me growing up and now I'm going to do it for you."
"That why you didn't go to school with the other kids?"
Kevin tensed slightly and Dean held his breath.
"Papa said – Papa said that because I was born evil, I had to be – had to be kept away from folk. They worked real hard to make me be good again because I am good now, aren't I? I am good."
At some point during his sad little story, Kevin had started to ever so slightly rock, thumping a single foot anxiously against the concrete and creating a rhythmic background beat.
"Sure," Dean nodded, keeping his voice even, "Sure you are."
Except for the fact he was not.
"That's how I knew I had to try and help you. I can see it in you. The two of us Dean, we're the same. We're just good people who've been touched by the darkness and then let others lead us astray."
"Like my friends?"
Kevin glowered,
"Those two aren't your friends Dean."
Somewhere Seth grumbled,
"The hell we're not."
"So what are they then?"
"They're liars and false prophets, they make you bad, you're different around them."
In response to Kevin's heated assessment, Dean blinked back in genuine surprise. Did he really come across as someone else when he was with them? Maybe, yes. But that was a good thing in his eyes. Thinking back to the year he'd spent lonely – when they'd not been with him and when she had been gone – he had drifted around like a bitter little shadow or an angry, solitary, miserable ghost. Since they had come back, he'd been immeasurably happier, they had given him purpose and a family again. So sure he acted different when he was with them.
He relaxed.
He smiled.
Why was that a bad thing?
"Easy," Seth murmured, hearing the silence and figuring his brother might snap back, "Easy man."
That was the other thing good about their reunion and yet more proof of their tightly-knit bond. Dean's best friends understood him in an instant.
They didn't even need to use any words.
"Different how?"
Kevin shrugged mildly,
"You're harder, they don't let you truly be yourself."
It was debateable how and why Kevin knew what his self was given that he'd known Dean for a matter of days. Or how he thought he could ever reveal it by holding his best friend hostage and tying him to a chair. Instead of actually say that however – or yell it, which was what his frayed patience was begging him to do – Dean drew in a deep breath of frustration and blew it out hoping he could hold the ire back.
He couldn't – he couldn't even begin to.
But luckily his teammates knew that too.
"Listen babe, tell him whatever you think he wants from you. Say we're no good. Tell him he's right."
"No," Dean ground out, the word sounding abstract but then again given that Kevin was a maniac how would he know who it was really intended for?
"Dean, it's okay," Seth put in shortly, "Do it man, try and get yourself out of there."
"No what?"
Dean shut his eyes.
God fucking damn it.
He took a deep breath.
"No – I mean, you're right. They are bad friends, always have been. Never there for me when I needed 'em most. Seth? Smaller one? Fractured my skull once. Hit me in the back of the head with a chair. Roman? The bulky guy? Up and left without tellin' me. Who needs friends like that right? I'm better off with 'em gone."
The silence that followed the sentence was sheer agony and Dean felt sick for having said it out loud. He guessed he could have come up with some story – lied about them – but his addled brain was too fried. What he needed was for one of his teammates to say something, any fucking thing to let him know they were fine.
What if they thought he actually meant it?
What if they thought he was no longer on their side?
He was just in process of beginning to hyperventilate when Roman's deep tones rang out clear across the line, steady and soothing as they almost always had been and flooding his system with warm measures of relief,
"That's good babe, that's it, keep going."
Kevin too seemed pleased with the reveal,
"See? I told you – I told you we were best friends. I knew I could be better for you than they were."
"So, I guess that means my demon doohickey's gone now? No of more of this exorcism crap, right?"
Kevin shook his head,
"Oh no, he's still in there, you and me have a whole lot of work to get him out."
Dean shut his eyes.
He was fast losing patience, not to mention a fucking litre of blood.
"Kevin, listen man – ,"
But his protests fell on deaf ears as suddenly and without warning, the chubby kidnapper stood up, checking his watch and then making a little clucking noise, like he was late for an appointment or had left the stove on.
Outside the world had fallen into darkness as the encroaching night had chased off the dusk and the only source of light brightening Dean's prison cell, was a single dusty bulb hanging lonely up above.
"Now I need to go out and get some supplies, alright buddy?" Kevin chirped merrily, childlike again, "But while I'm gone, I'll need you to keep quiet – we don't want you yelling and waking up old Mrs. Brown. So that means I'm going to need to do something and you're not going to like it but I don't have a choice."
Dean swallowed nervously.
That didn't sound good.
Kevin stepped in towards him and pulled free a knotted scarf.
Shit.
"Kevin, no – ,"
"Dean?" Seth barked at him, "Hey, you all good man? Talk to us. What's going on?"
But Dean wasn't exactly in any state to respond to him and so the questions went unanswered as he shook his head from side to side, trying to keep it a moveable target and deny his weird abductor any kind of hold.
"Come on, look, I promise I'll be quiet, we're buddies, right? Don't do this. Kevin for fuck sakes, no."
"Dean – ,"
Seth's shout blended in horribly with the material as Kevin moved behind him and shoved the scarf into his mouth. With his arms cuffed behind him and his ankles taped firmly Dean had always known that he was probably going to lose but the stale tasting fabric made his stomach roll inside him and amplified the failure until the whole thing felt worse.
He was still trying to work the gag loose with his tongue as Kevin unmercifully knotted it behind – despite the fact that he trusted Dean better now – seeming to tie the fucking thing extra tight. In response to it, Dean let out a growl of discomfort and Kevin tapped his arm and let out a sigh,
"I know, I know, but it isn't for long pal – you just be patient and I'll be right back."
Dean responded with another little grumble but in the scheme of things it was meaningless and so it pretty much passed Kevin by. Instead the bulky captor simply scuttled towards the door again but the relief of his leaving was suddenly tempered as his pudgy fingers hovered briefly over the switch. Dean struggled desperately in his chair and tried to fight it but the word no got lost in the fabric jammed in his mouth.
Before Kevin left, he smiled back broadly,
"Won't be long."
Then he turned off the light.
For a second after the door slammed shut behind him, Dean sat in what was basically a void.
There was no light and no sound.
It was totally empty.
Then thankfully, Seth decided to speak up.
"Dean? Can you talk?"
He made a noise back at him, not quite an answer but an audible nuh uh and judging from the way his teammates responded, they had essentially already gathered as much.
"That's okay," Roman rumbled deeply, trying to keep a hold on the waning patience he had left, "Doesn't change a thing, I'm staying right here babe."
"I'm gonna scope Kevin's place out, alright man? Find where you are so we can haul your ass back. Trust me, we'll get you outta this, you hear me? Me and the Big Guy. We won't let you down."
It was a comforting assessment but in pain and in the darkness, Dean couldn't help but begin to wonder how.
He could already feel the paper towels getting sticky.
He doubted he would be able to hold out for very long.
I know, I know, I'm so evil! You love it when I am though, right, right?!