Disclaimer: Standard disclaimer applies, see previous chapters for all I don't own the SPN rights. Also, you should know there is profanity a bit in this chap. It's Dean, what else could possibly be new.

A/N: The draft I had written kept ticking me off. I was never happy with it and the revisions made me want to throw the computer against a wall. I let my Hubby know how I was feeling, he gave me some insights and I re-read what I had. I figured it out. I was moving away from the main characters and moving way too far into my own characters, too much expository and not enough blowing stuff up.(it doesn't happen in this chapter but will in subsequent chaps—just you wait!) So, I went back and trashed the entire draft to begin again. Just from here though. All the preceding chapters are where they are supposed to be (I think). So, without further ado…

Chapter 13

Dean was done with non-human assholes in his life. He was done with demons, werewolves, shifters, vamps, gods, tricksters, and fucking angels. He was completely finished with the whole mess of them.

He walked back to the cabin and found Lisa sitting in the main room talking with Dr. Matt.

Dean sucked in a calming breath as he tried to prepare for what was coming. This was another thing Dean could stand to be little more "without"—walking in on Lisa with her new boyfriend.

Lisa rose from the sofa where the tall physician was holding her as she cried in despair. Dean prepared himself for the blame, the guilt, the anger… he deserved it. He would accept it all; it never came.

Lisa stood before the hunter with hope and faith in her tear-streaked face.

"Tell me you found something." She whispered, her voice nearly gone from the screamed denial and protestation of earlier when she found he son missing.

Dean's gaze went to the boyfriend, who was now standing behind Lisa. The barely perceptible clench of Dean's jaw, the softening then hardening of his eyes, and the slouch of his shoulders told Lisa more than his words could have. She could read him even as he read the tension and despair replace the hope she had just moments ago. She fell again onto the sofa, Dr. Matt wrapping his massive hands on her shoulders.

Dean had to leave the room. He considered going for air. Instead he retreated behind the closest door, closing it behind him. He couldn't bear the tears. The yelling recriminations he could take.

His eyes drifted around the room to the shattered glass of the room's only window. He vaguely recalled hearing it break during the battle. He looked at his feet as he stood leaning against the bedroom door. He could hear Lisa's soft voice on the other side of the door responding to the query posed by the baritone voice of the physician.

He couldn't begrudge Lisa an opportunity to be happy with someone without connections to Heaven or Hell…

Dean's eyes drifted back to his feet. Grains of rock salt scattered from the solid white line now broken at the door. Ben must have salted it once his family was safely in the room. Dean automatically scrutinized the perimeter of the room- His routine inspection formed from decades of habit rather than conscious thought. He regarded several items in the room, hand cream Lisa used for the health of her cuticles (whatever that means), jewelry, alarm clock, telephone charger, a glass of water. The bed was unmade; glass still littered the bedsheets and the floor at the foot of the bed. Dena began to pace around the bed. He slowed his stride to look at the window. The sill was still sprinkled with blue granules of broken tempered glass among large white crystals of salt. His booted foot fell heavy in the debris over the wooden floor. He looked down at the line of red paint covered by the remnants of the double-paned window.

From where he stood, he looked further in the room to see a closet lined with several outfits Lisa had hung there. The large black suitcase lay sideways in the closet floor, spilling its contents in haphazard chaos. The bathroom door stood ajar and Dean was able to see several containers that Lisa would use during her nightly ritual ablutions.

Dean hadn't moved from the window and as his eyes finished the circuit around the room, he gazed out the now-empty frame. He watched the giant, Seth, approach the Impala and Lisa's CRV. He met green eyes to silver through the hole. Seth froze and waited for the hunter.

Dean was about to turn and retreat from the room when he stopped and looked down once more. Red paint on the wooden floor held his gaze. He knelt down and grabbed a corner of the sheet from the bed, pulling it down to him; Dean brushed the sheet to weep the detritus from the painted pentagram on the floor. His eyes scanned the lines critically until he found the break—a score in the wood breaking the protection for which it was meant.

Dean rose from his inspection to look at the Re'em once again. Something in his body language alerted the giant and Seth began a steady approach to the cabin's entrance. Dean collected himself, calming his countenance as he turned to the door.

The two doors opened to the main room at the same time. Hunter and Re'em both looked in the living room. Lisa looked up from her tearful introspection at the two. She took in the storm within the green eyes of the hunter and the question within the silver eyes of the unicorn. Matt looked up and concern shifted to a knowing smirk. Matt moved with such speed that Seth and Dean were caught flat-footed and were behind him too slowly to catch him. He was out the back door and gone.

When they returned to the cabin fifteen minutes later, Dean inspected the damaged Devil's traps. Sam, Seth, and Lisa remained in the living room listening to Dean fume with choice obscenities and recriminations.

Seth decided it was time. They would need true magic to find the boy. They would need true magic to subvert the celestial and infernal magicks that were likely to thwart the Hunters retrieving the boy. Yes, Seth decided, it is time to submit to the Fae.

***SPNSPNSPN***SPNSPNSPN***SPNSPNSPN***

Ben had to hold out.. hold on… Dean would come. Ben had faith… Dean would come. He closed his eyes. He pictured a hundred scenarios that could happen where Dean would arrive just in time. The dark fabric hood over his head remained in place and his hands remained tied behind him. He rubbed the tip of his tongue over the front of his teeth. His mouth was dry and sticky. He tried to suppress the stuttering quake of his flesh. He could hear and sense movement nearby, but was unable to determine which of his captors was in the room. He knew it wasn't the one in charge. That one smelled of alcohol and expensive cologne. He wasn't exactly silent as he moved, but Ben would be able to identify the brush of fabric against fabric, of the ice against glass, of the demon breathing close to his ear…

Ben was unable to with-hold the full-bodied shake the memory produced as his pulse quickened.

Dean would come, he reminded himself. Dean will come.

Once Ben was able to contain his physical reactions to the memory, he took a deep breath. He imagined instead the memory of himself and Dean sitting in the garage a couple of weeks after the man came to stay with them. Ben had a project due for his physical science class and he was unsure how to begin. He remembered Dean's red-rimmed green eyes and drawn haggard face even the hoarse whisper of Dean's voice.

"In any new situation or problem," Dean began, "You have to have a plan. But, in order to do that, you have to assess your situation. What is the problem? What kinds of things are you up against? What kinds of resources, tools, assets do you have available? What will you need? You have to do some research, Ben." Dean's voice seemed tired but sure.

"Okay, Ben," he thought to himself, "What are we up against?"

Ben took stock of the echoes in the next room. The acoustics suggested a tall ceiling. Could be a warehouse, then? The room he was in had hard floors… possibly cement? He tapped his sneaker against the floor. It sounded like cement anyway. He could hear rough voices in the other room, though they didn't seem nearby, nor were they speaking loudly.

The voices in the room where Ben was tied were close, muted, and intimate. He was in a small room based on the sounds when there was someone here. Maybe he was in a storage room? That sent shivers down his spine again. Maybe he was in an office.

He thought about the chair he was in... wood, straight back. It could be an ordinary dining table chair or an office chair. His buttocks were numb from sitting on the hard surface. It was probably not a chair for someone who spends a lot of time at a desk.

He remembers someone leaning against a piece of furniture or something in the room that thumped like metal. The rattle of leg or foot aginst thin metal side reminded him of his teacher's desk when someone would bump against it when turning in papers or asking for help during class.

Okay, so I'm likely in a warehouse with an office; probably in an industrial park?

He listened. He could hear a clanging metal on metal rhythmically outside. It reminded him of a chain against a metal drum. It didn't sound like it clanging purposefully but as if it was at the whim of the wind. He also heard a boat whistle. It had to be a boat. It didn't sound like a car or big truck. The engine sounds were far away and gurgled instead of roared or purred.

A tear slid down Ben's face. How he longed to hear the roar of the Impala's engine… even the sound of the work truck. Where was Dean?

The shock of cold fear coursed through his veins chilling him from the base of his neck down, tightening in his throat and hardening into a thick heavy ball in his stomach. He wanted to vomit and the metallic sick taste in his mouth didn't help dispel the feeling.

Dean wasn't coming. Dean doesn't know where he is. Ben doesn't even know where he is, so how could Dean? He was in an industrial park near water with big boats. That didn't sound like anywhere near Colorado. He wasn't in Colorado. He could be anywhere. A demon has him. He's nearly positive the creature holding him is a demon. That thought stopped him cold again.

He salted the windows. There were devil's traps painted at the doorways and windows. He watched Sam paint them. He helped lay the salt.

How did a demon get inside?

Ben had been watching the bedroom door and listening to the voices in the living room. He heard Dean and Seth. He knew the demons were coming. He heard Seth declare the on-coming storm.

He remembers turning to see black smoke obscure the window. He remembers his heart hammering inside of his chest. He turned to the door again when he heard Seth leave and Dean yell followed by Dean leaving and Sam yelling. Did they let the demons in? No! They couldn't have! Ben had laid a salt line at the bedroom door. If Dean, Sam or Seth had broken the line in the front room, they would also have had to deliberately broken the devil's trap. He couldn't see any of the three doing that.

He squeezed his eyes in concentration. He could see the dark room behind his eyelids. He could imagine the sounds and smells. He concentrated, seeing the sequence unravel itself as if he were viewing it from outside of himself… as though he were watching a movie in slow motion.

He gasped as it occurred to him. His eyes widened under the black hood. He smelled the scent of Polo cologne from behind him. It was as if that scent triggered the missing memory. The way engine grease, sawdust, alcohol and the musky warm scent reminded him of Dean, the cloying perfume smell that Dean didn't bother wearing was in his nose now as it had been in that darkened bedroom. He could hear the footfalls accompanied by the squeak of rubber soles of shoes on cement floors.

Ben's heart rate raced and he turned his head slightly in the direction of the footfalls that circled him. He smelled the cologne more powerfully now.

"Where's Dean?" Ben croaked, his voice harsh even to his own ears.

A low chuckle sounded to his left, very close, but words did not form in the ominous silence that drew longer. Ben began to struggle against his bonds.

"You know he'll find me! And he'll kick your ass!" Ben declared. He was proud of the fierce defiance in his voice as he spat the words.

Another low chuckle. Ben knew who it was circling him like a shark drawn to blood. He quelled the whimper he felt bubbling in his throat. He swallowed it down and took a breath to still the adrenaline coursing through him.

"Were you ever Matt?" He asked. "Or were you always a demon?"

The figure stopped circling. Ben ceased his struggling and listened.

"I wondered if you knew." Matt's voice pondered. "It doesn't matter though."

Ben could almost detect the nonchalant shrug in the demon's voice.

"What doesn't matter?" Ben asked. He began to twist his wrists in the ropes trying to stretch them. He wanted Matt to continue talking. He remembered a line in a cartoon. Get him monologuing, he thought to himself. Get him to tell you where you are and give you more information. Dean's voice in his head echoed, "You have to do some research."

Matt obliged.

Ben could feel the air pressure change and "Matt" leaned in close. Ben could hear the breath escape the demon's borrowed mouth near his ear.

"He's not coming." Matt whispered. "He doesn't know where you are. You are so far away from where you started, he wouldn't make it if he knew where you were. His angel is camped out at a dummy warehouse, feeding your Winchester friends the wrong information. And…"

Ben could hear the smile.

"And…" the demon continued. "He's gonna die before he figures it out."

The demon spoke to the very nightmare scenario Ben tried to keep out of his thoughts. He twisted his wrists. The rope burned against his skin, but he bore the pain. He blinked back tears that stung his eyes. He lifted his chin and faked a confidence he wasn't sure he felt.

"He's coming." Ben spoke in a forced growl. "And he's gonna end you."