OK! POWER WRITE COMPLETE!

Say Something I'm Giving Up On You

I need someone to show me the things in life that I can't find
I can't see the things that make true happiness, I must be blind

Make a joke and I will sigh and you will laugh and I will cry
Happiness I cannot feel and love to me is so unreal

And so as you hear these words telling you now of my state
I tell you to enjoy life I wish I could but it's too late

~Paranoid: Black Sabbath

Day 3 Part II: Gone in the Wind

Dean tore down the highway, music blasting at a deafening volume. The steering wheel was hard under his hands, his knuckles turning white and tendons popping with the strenuous grip he enforced. He single mindedly headed for the Kentucky Bus Station, knowing it to be the best place to start when looking for Cas. Either he had made it off the bus or he hadn't (He did) - but this was the only place he was guaranteed a start.

7 hours later, Dean pulled into the lot. Bleary eyed and stiff, Dean all but ran into the station, cursing and turning back to get his suit, tie, and badge to pass as whatever official he needed to. Within moments he was in front of the information desk, impatiently waiting for the woman on duty to slowly look up at him and flash a fake-ass smile while calmly chewing her wad of gum.

"Hello Sir. What can I help you with today? The green train left ten minutes ago, so if you were hoping for a ticket I'm afraid I won't be able to help you. However, we do have a red train coming in 20 minutes that you can use to then schedule a connection at the Fort Vienx Station. It would add about one hour to your travel time, but as another green shouldn't be in for another three hours, your options are fairly lim-"

"Actually miss", Dean interrupted, flashing his badge, "I'm Officer Shawnings with the Department of Justice. I'm here on account of a missing person. Has a man passed through, about yea high/ He's got um.. he's, he's got dark hair, blue eyes… sorta quite but the I-Might-Just-Burrow-Into-Your-Soul type of demeanor? He would have passed through about three days ago?"

For a minute the girl just stared at him silently for a few moments, looking hard to his left in a picture of concentration, before her mouth popped open into a silent 'oh'.

"Oh! A Flustered Mr. Blue Eyes passed through here around that time! My friend Sheryl told me about the unnerving… er…. Interesting man she saw that day! Wearing a hoodie and jeans? Looking second hand? Here- Sheryl! Ya! Come over here! It's important!"

Trying not to get his hopes up, Dean watched as a perky attendant bounded over. When she stopped in front of him, she gave him a once over, glancing at his suit and badge none to subtly before standing slightly in front of her friend, as if on guard.

"Hey, whatever you think Syd did- it's not true. She's innocent. I swear. She goes to church every Sunday and everything. Between the two of us I don't think she's ever been within 10 feet of anything over .5% alcohol. So whatever you think she did- you got the wrong person."

Trying to breathe calmly, Dean looked at the girl and forced a deliberate smile- trying to get her to slow down.

"Actually no, your friend, ah, Syd, is fine. I'm looking for a missing person. Your friend said you saw a man that fits our description the other day. Does he happen to look anything like this?"

Dean pulled out a folded up photo of Cas, the one he had taken to make him his first set of fake ID's. He had found it crumpled up in the trunk of the Impala, forgotten in the corner. He pretended not to think too much of it when he slid it in to his wallet. It just meant that it was…easily accessible.

Sheryl, with wide dewy eyes, looked at the photo. Quickly, recognition dawned on her feature and she looked up, excited.

"Oh! I remember that guy! Came up to me and demanded to ask where one of the trains was headed. I told him and he just marched right on over to the ticket booth! So weird… but ya. That was definitely him. I think Rob was on duty at the ticket booth then. I remember because he asked me on a date again. Uh. Here- lemme get him."

Within minutes Dean was told that Cas, for whatever reason, had exchanged his ticket and headed off to Dallas. Worried that something really bad must have happened for Cas to bail without warning, Dean found himself behind the wheel again heading down south. Not one hour into his journey, Dean's phone flashed, alerting him to a call.

"Charlie."

"Heyo Dean! Ok- I found his phone. The last signal made came from-"

"Let me guess. Dallas?" Dean deadpanned.

"Uh, ya! How'd you know?"

"Lucky guess."

Suddenly worried for her friend, Charlie spoke again with caution. "Say Dee. Before you do something stupid, like- I don't know, head down to Tehas without any plan, I think you need to think about how likely it is that he's even still there. I mean, if he's in trouble like you said-"

"Thanks Charlie. I can take it from here."

Dean felt a bit bad about hanging up on Charlie, but the overwhelming need for no distractions had built and built until he just couldn't handle it any more. It was why he had ignored the last 5 calls and 15 messages from Sam (Each call spaced out by an hour, and each text by 15. Sam was very punctual). He just couldn't handle any nay-sayers right now. He could always go back and apologize later.

After being on the road for 7 more hours, Dean was forced to pull into a dive motel. He had almost fallen asleep at the wheel 3 times, only being saved by luck, an angry driver, and the road bumps that separate the lanes. Grudgingly deciding that he would have a higher chance of making it to Texas if he didn't in fact die again, Dean collapsed onto a thin collapsed mattress and fell asleep immediately, too tired to dream.

Dean looked all over the city, with no sign of Cas. Upon arriving, he had questioned every worker at the station, perhaps getting a little to physical with one of the guards .who was a bit resistant to questioning and had responded just a bit too slowly. Two of the workers had seen a man matching their description leave the place two or so days ago, but that was about all they had to offer. Not even a direction to go on.

After searching aimlessly for hours, Dean stopped at a motel, drained, hapless, and hopeless. He called Sam.

Sam had given up on trying to figure out where in the hell Dean had gone hours ago. If he wanted to be a grumpy ass then he was going to let him. Maybe he would come back fresh from visiting the Grand Canyon and be back to his usual abrasive self. If a week passed by and the princess still wasn't back, then well- Sam would just have to send out an alert on the underground until someone somewhere found him and would make him haul his ass back north.

When his phone rang, Sam almost didn't answer it- for all he knew it could be Becky. It was just from utter boredom that he reached over and answered it, not even bothering to look at the name.

"Sam. I-"

Recognizing it to be Dean, Sam threw all caution to the wind and let the twinge of annoyance bleed out.

"WTF DUDE! I walk out for two hours and you just disappear? Where are you man! One would think you'd at least leave a sticky note. A little 'Goin out. Don't wait up' would have been nice. Or a you know, 'Hey Sam I'm just going to take off for a bit who knows when I'll be back lmfao have fun getting places xxoo'. It would have been appreciated!"

Sam paused in his rant, giving Dean the curtesy to respond. Instead of firing back insult and showing up at the from door, Sam heard an exaggerated silence, the only marker that he was even still connected was the sound of irregular breathing on the other end of the line.

"It's Cas. He's uh. He's gone."

Dean followed half assed leads all around the south and west coast for two months. Sam kept offering, at one point demanding, to come with- but Dean refused. This was his problem, not something that anyone but himself had to fix. Following trails that were all but non-existed, Dean slowly became more and more panicked. Whatever was happening, it was obvious that something was after Castiel, something bad.

Every night Dean would wake up abruptly to the sight of Cas lying dead in an alleyway somewhere, bleeding out from an angel blade wound. He knew that there was no way the big guns were going to leave him alone just because he was human, and images of his lifeless form haunted him.

There was nothing worse than the ones where he wasn't dead, however. The ones where he wished he was.

Eventually, after driving passed state lines for the hundredth time, the leads finally stopped. Whatever trail had been left was gone. Cas was all but wiped clean from the earth- no evidence to say otherwise.

Even Charlie, with all her advanced equipment, couldn't find him. Said he would have had to have been one hell of an expert to have been able to stay hidden for so long. And Dean wanted, needed to believe that Cas was just that good. That he was holed up in some fancy-pants apartment safe from everything. He just couldn't do it.

He was never so lucky.

SO THERE WE GO! FINALLY WE ARE BACK ON TRACK. HALLELUYAH. PRAISE JESUS.

See you guys soon!

~Magnolia