PART 2

CHAPTER 1

The clock was ticking down the minutes until noon, and Dean was doing his damndest not to show how scared he was, for both Sam and Cas' sakes. Neither of them deserved to see him freaked, especially over something that he had brought onto himself like this stupid demon deal. Especially Sam. Cas already knew what was going to happen when the clock hit noon, but Sam didn't need to find out and deal with the guilt of that. Which meant that Dean had to act like he wasn't going to die in the next three minutes.

That was harder than he'd thought it would be. Especially since the hallucinations had started.

He'd had ten years to find out about exactly what happened when hellhounds were on your tail. He'd been expecting this to happen.

Still, though, it hadn't made it any easier when he'd been lying in bed earlier this morning, and he'd opened his eyes to see Cas' face twist into something definitely not human. He'd freaked and jumped out of the bed, then calmed down enough to realize it wasn't real, this was still Cas, it had all been a hallucination. Lucky that Cas had slept through all that, so Dean didn't have to worry him more than he already did. But still, even after he'd figured out that his mind was just screwing him over, he still hadn't been able to make himself head back to bed.

It was even weirder when Sam had first walked into the motel room that morning, laptop in hand and his face looking like it had been fucking burned to a crisp, and Dean had had to blink twice before he got that hallucination to disappear, and the whole time he was trying to act like he wasn't worried, no sir, absolutely no reason to panic over here.

One minute left. Dean glanced over at Cas, who was staring at the door, a look of intense concentration on his face and the holy water and knife tight in his hands. He didn't even glance over at Dean, like he was so intent on preparing for the demon attack that he wouldn't even think of anything else. That was fine. Trying to say a silent goodbye – or, you know, gazing into each other's eyes and wordlessly saying that they loved each other? Way too girly for his taste, anyway.

Then the clock struck noon.

Dean and Cas both jumped up, tense and ready to go, even though there wasn't any sign of demons anywhere around. Sam was staring at them like they were crazy, which meant that Dean was definitely going to have to talk to him after this was all done, explain why he and Cas had both expected the demons to come for them right at this time.

You know what, though? Dean was pretty sure he'd be completely cool with that, so long as some demon didn't come along and rip his heart out before he got the chance.

Seconds ticked by – Dean swore he could feel every one of them, like the passage of time was almost a physical sensation, some weight gradually being lifted from his shoulders.

Then the salt and devil's traps vanished.

At first, he didn't realize what was going on. It was like there was this split second where he just blinked down at the bare floors and thought, Huh, that's a weird hallucination to hit me now.

Then his mind caught up to what was actually happening, and he barely had time to think Fuck! before the windows were exploding open and Hellhounds came rushing at them.

Dean stumbled back, side-by-side with Sammy, instinctively lifting his gun and shooting the hounds. He'd heard that they were invisible, but these ones weren't – not to him, at least. Must be a side effect of selling his soul, but it was useful, at least. The hounds were nasty – all bleeding wounds and rotting flesh, gaunt enough that it looked like their skeletons were going to burst through their skin at any second – but if he could see them, then he could shoot them, and that was all he needed. Wasn't like he was going to be taking one of these creepy things to the prom – who cared if they looked pretty?

Okay, Dean was fucking positive that these things were going to haunt his nightmares even more than they already had been, but that was a problem for another time.

He got the first couple hounds that came for him – perfect headshots, and they dropped like rocks. Even Sam was doing good – his gun was loaded with rock salt, which would have been awesome against a super powerful demon like Azazel who couldn't be harmed with regular bullets, but up against the Hellhounds, it was less than useful. But Sam was a good shot, considering he couldn't even see what he was shooting at, and the last hound threw back its head and howled in pain as the salt struck it against the side. And Dean shuddered as the noise seemed to run straight through his body in the most horrifying way possible, but he didn't hesitate, and then the last hound was tasting iron, too.

Dean spun around, checking to make sure Sam and Cas were okay. Sam was – he was out of breath and wide eyed, which was pretty normal, actually, but at least he wasn't hurt, so they could worry about being terrified later. Dean nodded, and turned to look at Cas-

Cas was gone.

"Cas!" Dean shouted, just as another wave of hellhounds broke down the frickin' front door. Okay, so apparently the demons had expected that the first three hounds wouldn't be enough to take him, and had backup on hand. He didn't know if he should be scared of proud.

Except "terrified" immediately won out, and he jumped back, raising his gun to shoot into the mob of hounds again, but there were more of them this time, and he wasn't sure how he was going to take them all out this time. And all the while. he was still scanning the motel room, trying to find Cas, to see any sign of blood or a fight or anything that could tell him what the hell had happened.

Sam grabbed Dean by the arm and yanked him backward, practically throwing Dean into the bathroom ahead of him then throwing himself against the door to try to keep it closed, even as the hellhounds all piled against the opposite side, shoving back just as hard. "Dean," Sam grunted, and Dean snapped himself out of whatever it had been that had held him frozen, and ran to join Sammy, bracing his shoulder against the door until they finally managed to shove it all the way closed and turn the lock.

"Did you see where the hell Cas went?" Dean demanded, reaching into his jacket pocket and yanking out a container of salt to lay down another line in front of the door. Hopefully this one would last, and not disappear like whatever the hell had happened to all their sigils. Not that Dean actually had any hope left.

Sam shook his head. "He was just gone," he said. "One second there, the next- Shit, Dean, I don't have a clue." He took a deep breath and shook his head again. "We need to find a way out of here."

"No shit," Dean snapped. The hounds were pounding hard against the door, and already the wood was beginning to splinter. Dean gave it a minute before they got the door broken down completely, and when the door went, odds were that the salt line would scatter across the tile. Probably wouldn't even slow them down for more than a second.

Sam ran to the window and yanked it open, then motioned Dean over. "You first," he said. "If we can make it to the Impala-"

"And what?" Dean snapped. "Get followed by demons for the next thousand miles? See how long we can run away before they catch us again?" He could still feel the little hex bag that Bobby had given him in his jean pocket, for all the good that it had done. Fucking thing had given him hope that he might actually be able to survive, and then it had turned out to be completely worthless, and Dean honestly wanted nothing more than to just throw the stupid thing to the ground and stomp on it right then and there, but that would be a stupid waste of time that they didn't have. No point in throwing a fit about it now.

Now, he had to figure out what the hell had happened to Cas.

But more immediately, he needed a way to get Sam to safety.

"Yes, I know that they're still going to be after us," Sam snapped, "but do you have a better idea?"

He did, actually.

"Here," Dean said, pulling out the keys to his baby and shoving them roughly into Sam's hands. "Take them and run. See if you can get to Bobby's before Azazel finds you, then figure out what the hell happened to Cas and find a way to help him, wherever he is, you got that?"

"Dean what the hell?" Sam demanded, trying to shove the keys back at him, but Dean shook his head and wouldn't take them. Sam's eyes narrowed. "You're not doing something stupid like planning on staying behind, right? Dean?" No response, and his eyes narrowed further. "No way, Dean, just no way. You don't get to do the martyr thing, especially when I'm the one they're after."

Dean took a deep breath.

"No, you're not," he said.

He hadn't wanted to say that. Fuck, he hadn't wanted to say that, he'd never meant for Sam to know, the secret was supposed to die with him – except for Cas, but Cas was never supposed to tell it, Sam wasn't supposed to get hurt over this. But there wasn't any other choice. It was the only way to get Sam to run off and leave him behind.

Sam froze, and even though he didn't understand yet, Dean could still see the panic and fear in his eyes, enough to make Dean wince. "What?"

The hounds nearly had the door broken down now. Maybe Dean had been too optimistic when he'd thought that they had an entire minute. "It doesn't matter, just go," he snapped, and gave Sam a rough shove toward the window.

And for a split second, he thought that Sam would actually be smart and listen. Then Sam shook his head. "Not without you," he said. "You go first, and I'll follow after."

The hounds were pounding harder against the door, scratching against the wood, loud enough to make Dean shudder.

"I'm not kidding," he snapped.

"And neither am I," Sam said.

The door was nearly in pieces. One or two more good pounds, and it'd give away completely.

Fuck.

"Okay, fine," he snapped, and threw himself out the window. The motel was only one story, meaning that it was easy to hit the ground running. Not that he did. Instead, he hit the ground and spun around, waiting the extra two seconds it took Sam to jump out after him.

The hounds burst through the door just as Sam hit the ground, and together, Dean and Sam both turned and bolted hard for the Impala.

Three hundred feet. That's how far they had to run, at Dean's best guess, but it still felt like way too fucking far. Dean could hear the hounds, their paws slapping the concrete, giving low barks and growls that came closer and closer, and Dean didn't dare to look back and see how close they actually were, but he still knew that there was no chance that he was going to get away.

He knew it, but he still couldn't help but hope. He was so close – only fifteen feet, he just had to close that last bit of distance and then he'd be safe inside his baby, and maybe they actually could get away.

Then the hellhound caught him.

Its jaw closed around his leg, and Dean couldn't' help it – he screamed and he hit the ground, fumbling with his gun for a second before he managed to lift it and shoot at the hound who was digging its teeth deeper into his flesh, shooting once, twice, three times before he finally got a good shot and managed to kill the thing. It was gone, it couldn't hurt him more, and he managed to rip his leg out of its jaw, but there were more where that came from, and no way was he going to be running any time soon.

He was dead meat, and he knew it.

Then Sam grabbed him.

"Sammy," Dean screamed, trying to rip himself free and shoot at the hounds at the same time, without succeeding at either one. "Just get out of here, alright?"

Sam didn't listen, and didn't even take the time to pick Dean up, just grabbed him under the arms and dragged him back to the Impala, and Dean's leg was on fucking fire, but he gritted his teeth and didn't say a word, and tried to focus through the pain and shoot at the hounds that still ran after them.

He got the closest one though the chest. Lucky shot. The others, not so much.

They were at the Impala, and Sam didn't slow down, just yanked open the back door and practically tossed Dean inside, and that time, it was really fucking hard to keep himself from screaming. But Sam slammed the door after him, and Dean shoved himself up on one elbow. The pain was barely bothering him now, because there was something much more important, he had to make sure that Sam wasn't in danger, he had to-

Then the driver's door opened and Sam threw himself inside, yanking the door closed behind him, and suddenly, Dean could breath again.

Sam didn't waste time, just shoved the key into the ignition and took off. Dean could feel the back end of the Impala slam against the hounds, the back wheels bumping over the bodies of the dead hounds, or else murdering the ones that were still sort of alive, Dean didn't know which. And he winced at the thought of what this was going to do with his baby, but honestly, he wasn't going to complain.

"You okay?" Sam demanded, voice tight, his eyes not leaving the front windshield as he practically flew out of the parking lot and onto the road.

Dean took a deep breath and forced himself to sit up and nod. "Yeah, I'm fine," he said, and they both knew that that was a lie – but then, that was the whole point. He might be fucked up and hurt, but at least he was okay enough to keep lying about how he was. Sam just nodded, still not looking away from the road. Probably a good thing, since he was inching his way up to a hundred already. Good thing this was a small-as-fuck town with nobody else on the road.

Then Dean saw it.

One hound, standing in the road in front of them, not moving.

Shit. Dean didn't doubt that running down the hound would be enough to turn it into a pancake, but then, he didn't want to see what would be left of him and Sam if the Impala struck something that big while going a hundred miles an hour.

"Swerve," he shouted.

"What?" Sam demanded. He didn't swerve. They were only seconds away from hitting the thing.

Dean threw himself forward and grabbed the wheel, then yanked it to the side, making the whole car swerve into the other lane.

"Dean, what the fuck?" Sam demanded, shoving Dean's hands away and taking control again, moving the car back into the correct lane. But it had been enough. By the time that Sam had moved back over, the hound was at least ten feet behind them, and didn't look like it would be catching up with them any time soon. Dean felt his whole body sag with relief, and leaned forward, his forehead pressed against the back of the passenger side seat.

"Seriously, Dean, what were you doing?" Sam demanded.

"Saving your ass," Dean snapped, because he was way too tired and freaked and in way too much pain to deal with this right then. "And you can slow down before you wrap us around a tree, I think we got away."

Sam scowled, but he did slow the car down to about sixty, which was still way faster than a hellhound could run, so they should be safe. Only then did he turn his head, just long enough to glance over at Dean for a second before returning his eyes to the road. "Dean," he said, in a much lower voice. "Really, man, what did you just do?"

Dean groaned and let out a long breath. "It doesn't matter," he said. "We've got much more important things to worry about, like figuring out where Cas could've gone and what we're going to do next."

Dean hadn't seen any blood in the motel room. He hadn't exactly had a lot of time to look, but still, he knew for a fact that he hadn't heard a scream, meaning that the hounds couldn't have gotten to him. If they had, Dean would've heard it – and just thinking about that made him shudder, and he pushed the thoughts away right then and there to focus on the other most important fact that he could think of: the fact that there was no way in hell that Cas would've run off and abandoned them when there was hellhounds breaking down the doors. Hell, Dean couldn't even think of a way that Cas could've gotten away, even if he wanted to. But more than that, Dean was absolutely sure that Cas wouldn't have bailed and left them behind.

Which meant that wherever Cas was now, he had been taken there against his will.

Taken by the demons.

Dean's hands clenched into fists, and he gritted his teeth and tried not to imagine what kinds of things demons did when they had you in their grasp. But no, that wasn't going to help anything. He had to stop thinking about what the demons could be doing to Cas, and start figuring out how to get him back.

Sam, though, was obviously still hung up on what Dean had done. "You can see them, can't you," Sam suddenly said, his eyes widening, then narrowing into a glare as he turned toward Dean again. "You saw them. And you said that the hellhounds were here for you, not me."

Fuck. "Can we not talk about this now?"

Evidentially not, because Sam just said, "Dean," in a low voice. And shit, Dean knew that Sam could do the whole puppy dog eyes thing, make anyone give in and do what he wanted, that was why Dean had made a point of not looking over at his brother, but it definitely wasn't fair that he could do it with just his voice, too.

"Dean," Sam repeated, and now Dean could hear the fear creeping into his voice, too. "Please tell me that you didn't do what I think you did."

Dean took a deep breath. "If you're thinking that I sold my soul to a demon, then congrats, you're right. You want a fucking prize?"

"You sold your soul to a demon?" Sam demanded, his voice rising on the last word.

"I didn't have a choice," Dean said shortly, then shook his head. "It's not important. I'm more concerned with what the fuck we're going to do now, and figuring out what happened to Cas."

"Doesn't matter?' Sam repeated. "Dean, you sold your soul, how could that not matter? What did you even do?"

"Later," Dean snapped. Sam opened his mouth to protest, but Dean shook his head. "No, I mean it, Sammy. I'll tell you what happened if that'll make you happy, but right now, we need a plan, and we need to find Cas."

Dean kept playing the split second where Cas had vanished over and over again in his head, and still didn't have a clue where he could've gone, or what could've happened to him. And it was driving him crazy, eating him up inside, trying to figure out what the explanation could possibly be and having no clue.

He reached into his jacket pocket and yanked out his phone, then hit the speed dial button for Cas' phone. He held it up to his ear and waited for it to ring – practically praying for Cas to pick up and tell them what the fuck was going on – but nothing happened. Instead, all he got was a robotic voice telling him that the number wasn't available.

"Shit," he snapped, and tossed his phone down onto the seat, then leaned forward, his forehead pressed against the back of the driver's seat.

Sam took a deep breath, then said, "And we need to fix your leg up before we do anything else."

"I'm fine," Dean repeated, even though they both knew that that was bullshit. He took a deep breath, then looked down at his leg. It was hard to tell how deep the bites ran, so pulled a knife out of his jacket pocket. "Hold the car steady, would ya?" he said, because the last thing he needed was for Sam to swerve the knife to stab into his leg or something, then he carefully began cutting away what was left of his pant leg, wincing as he peeled the fabric away from the wounds.

"How is it?" Sam asked, glancing over his shoulder, and he still had the worried tone in his voice, the one that made Dean feel like absolute shit for scaring him like this, even if it hadn't exactly been his fault that a hellhound had tried to rip his leg off.

Dean grimaced, but said, "I've had worse." He meant it, too. There were four puncture wounds to the bottom of his leg, but only a couple of them looked deep enough that he had to worry about them. He pulled off his tee shirt, carefully wrapping it around his leg, then lifting his leg up and stretching it out across the backseat, to keep it elevated like you were supposed to with stuff like this. "Let's just hope that Hellhounds don't have rabies, or I'm screwed."

"Not funny," Sam said shortly.

"Didn't mean it as a joke," Dean said, then leaned back against the car door, his head tilted back so it was pressed against the mirror. "But okay, it looks like I'm going to live," he said. For now, at least, though he didn't say that last part out loud – no way would Sam appreciate that. Instead, he just said, "Now what?"

"Bobby's house," Sam said immediately, like he'd thought this through already. "There's probably no place in the world that's secured better against demons. If you're going to have demons on your ass from now on, then we need someplace where they won't be able to reach you."

Sam had a point – and actually, that's exactly where Dean had told Sam to go, back when he was planning on sacrificing himself to let his brother get away. Now, though, Dean frowned. "It'll take all day to get there," he argued, and shook his head. "No way. We still need to stick around here, close enough that we can investigate."

For a moment, Sam didn't say anything. Well, that was a terrible sign. When Sam went quiet like that, you knew he was preparing to say something bad.

"What?" Dean demanded, figuring that Sam should just hurry up and get it over with, instead of leaving him in suspense like this.

"Dean, we both saw Cas vanish," Sam said slowly. "Wherever he is, I don't think that he's going to be anywhere near the motel." Which Dean already knew, he wasn't an idiot, but Sam was still talking. "Most times, I'd say yeah, we go back and look for clues. But this time, with you wounded and the hellhounds probably still running around… I don't think we can risk going back. We need to hurry up and get to somewhere safe."

Dean stiffened. "So, what, we're just supposed to abandon Cas?"

"Of course not-" Sam began.

"We're not even going to try to look for him?" Dean snapped. "There could be some clue back in that motel, and if we go back-"

"If we go back, then you'll just be giving the hounds another chance to rip you to shreds and drag your soul to hell," Sam snapped, his voice even harsher than Dean's had been. That was enough to make Dean freeze, because Sam never sounded like that. Not toward him, at least. That voice was usually reserved for Dad, and only used when Sam was really, truly pissed.

"I want to save Cas, too, okay?" Sam continued. "But I'm not going to go back and let you get killed by some demon deal that you never even told me that you made. So we are going to drive to Bobby's, and then we're going to find out what happened to Cas and figure out where to go from there. But there is no way that I'm letting you go anywhere near that motel."

For a minute, Dean didn't say anything. Then he nodded. "Okay," he said. "Bobby's it is."

"Good," Sam said shortly. His hands were clenched tight around the wheel, and he was staring straight in front of him, still looking like he was just barely keeping himself calm.

"Honestly, considering that all of our stuff is back there, I figured that you'd be the first to want to turn around and go back," Dean said. "At least to get Dad's research and your laptop. I kinda thought that you had some sort of spiritual connection with that thing." Weak joke. Hell, it was barely a joke at all. His leg was still bleeding and he was way to tired to think of anything better, so sue him.

"Bobby had copies of all of our research," Sam said shortly, and didn't say anything more.

Okay, not in the mood for jokes, then. Dean hadn't expected him to be. Honestly, there was probably only one thing that Dean could say that would calm Sam down at all. Or, well, "calm him down" was definitely the wrong words to describe it, but it was something that Sam would want to hear, at least. And it was the absolute last thing that he actually wanted to say.

Still, though, he took a deep breath and forced the words out. "You had died."

"What?" Sam demanded.

"Ten years ago," Dean said tightly. "You died. Demon attack, I think. They tried to make it look like an accident, but it… I'm pretty sure it was demons. That's why I sold my soul."

"I died?" Sam demanded, his voice rising. "What the hell, Dean? When? How? Why didn't I know about this?"

Dean and Sam had always preferred the rip-the-bandage-off approach. The anticipation was the worst part. Don't warn someone before you pop their arm back into its socket or pour whisky to disinfect their wounds. Saying it faster made it hurt less – in theory, at least, but Dean thought that it was at least worth a shot. "That time you fell out of the tree. You didn't actually walk away without a scratch, it's just that the demon fixed you up again, and you never knew the difference."

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

The idea that it would hurt less if you did it fast enough? Dean could confirm that it was complete, utter bullshit.

"Dean," Sam said, and for a moment, he didn't add anything more. He did sound slightly less pissed, though, so that was a plus. Except instead of being pissy, he sounded more like he was in pain, which was about a million times worse. "You can't do stuff like that."

"I didn't have a choice," Dean said shortly. "It was either that or let you stay dead, and believe me when I say that there wasn't any choice, Sammy." And fuck if his voice didn't break while he was saying it.

"Dean," Sam repeated.

"No," Dean said, cutting him off. "I know you wanted to know what was happening, so I'm telling you, but that's it. You can take your lecture and shove it up your ass, okay? We're not talking about this now, and you're not changing my mind on this one." He paused and took a deep breath, then added in a lower voice, "Seriously, just do me a favor and drop it, okay?"

For a minute, Sam didn't respond. Then he slowly nodded.

"I'll call Bobby to let him know that we're on our way," he said, reaching into his pocket to pull out his phone. "And I'll have him get started researching possible ways to track Cas down."

"Good idea," Dean said, then tilted his head back, his head resting against the smooth glass of the window, and closed his eyes. He did his absolute best not to listen to Sam's hushed conversation with Bobby, or to imagine the hellhounds ripping into him again, or picture the way that Sam had looked when he'd struck the ground a decade ago and the blood had-

And most of all, he was doing his damndest to keep himself from picturing what the demons could be doing to Cas right that moment.

He didn't do a real good job of it, though. His mind could barely think about anything else.

But it would be okay. They were going to find Cas.

They had to.

The hellhounds were coming for him again.

Dean was running as fast as he could, but that only made it worse, making him trip over his own feet in his hurry to get away from those things. He couldn't even remember how long he'd been running for – it was like his whole life before this had just been wiped away, until he couldn't actually remember a time before these things had been coming for him.

And they were getting closer. Dean could feel them nipping at his heels – literally – and he pushed himself to run faster, harder, but it wasn't doing him any good. No matter how hard he ran, the hounds would just speed up. They were gaining on him. He couldn't have more than a minute before they would catch him and-

He fell.

Then he screamed, curling himself up into a ball and trying to protect his head and chest, for all the good that that would do, but there were a dozen of them, all on top of him, their claws digging into his flesh as he-

"Dean!"

Someone grabbed his shoulder, and Dean jerked away, hands automatically rising to fight them off – whoever this mystery person was.

"It's okay, man, it's me," the person said, and Dean recognized it as Sam's voice. Except that didn't exactly help much, not when Sam's face was twisting into another hallucination, this one making him look as dead and skeletal as the hounds that had been hunting him in his dream.

Dean took a deep breath and closed his eyes tight, counting to three in his head before opening them again. That seemed to take care of it. At least, Sam's face was looking normal again, and now, Dean could see the concern written all over it as Sam asked, "You okay?"

"Fine," Dean said, and pushed himself up. He must've fallen asleep sometime during the drive, because he realized now that it was dark out, and the Impala was stopped in Bobby's front yard. Sam had opened the back door and was leaning forward into the car, watching Dean with worried eyes. Of course, there was no way in hell that Dean was going to acknowledge that Sam might actually have a good reason for being worried – not about Dean, at least – so he just said, "Come on, let's head inside."

Sam nodded and reached forward to offer Dean and hand, which Dean ignored – he wasn't that much of an invalid, he could get out of the freakin' car by himself.

His tee shirt was still wrapped around his leg. Dean made a face and carefully peeled away the fabric, but it looked like all the punctures had stopped bleeding by now. That was good news, at least. It still hurt like a bitch, but Sam didn't need to know that.

The shirt was destroyed to the point that there was no way that they could salvage it, so Dean just tossed it aside. No way was he going to be walking around shirtless, though, so he grabbed his blue jacket from where it had gotten thrown to the floor of the Impala at some point, god only knew when, and pulled it on before scooting his way to the open door and carefully climbing out.

And fuck, that hurt his leg. Dean sucked in a sharp breath, and this time when Sam tried to help him walk, Dean didn't say a word about it, just leaned on his brother gratefully as they made their way toward the house. It was slow. Luckily, Sam had been smart enough to park right by the door, so they didn't have far to go.

Bobby must've been waiting for them, because the moment that they approached the door, it flew open, and Bobby stepped aside to let them into the house. They didn't make it more than a couple of steps before Bobby strode forward and wacked Dean on the back of the head.

"Ow, Bobby," he complained, making a face and rubbing his head. "Come on, aren't I hurt enough?"

"What the hell were you thinking, boy?" Bobby demanded, not even acknowledging Dean's words. "Selling your soul to a demon? I've met a lot of idiots in my day, but you pretty much take the cake."

Dean frowned. "I had to, okay?" he snapped. "I didn't have a choice."

And he didn't. There had quite literally been one thing that he could've done in that moment, and that was exactly what he had done. And he was getting frickin' tired of people trying to tell him that he shouldn't have done it.

"There's always a choice," Bobby said.

Dean narrowed his eyes. "Okay, fine, there was a choice," he said. "Would you rather that I chose to let Sam fucking die, because that was the only other option. So unless you're going to tell me that you'd rather have Sammy dead, I don't want to hear any shit about my choices, okay? It's over. I did it, and you're not going to change that by bitching about it."

For a second, Bobby didn't say anything, and Dean honestly expected him to keep arguing about it. He looked like he couldn't, though – not unless he wanted to make the argument that it would be better for Sam to be dead, and Dean knew that there was no way that Bobby could say that.

Finally, Bobby grunted and slammed the door shut, turning the lock closed tight. "Did you at least do something to clean out those wounds of yours, or were you being an idjit about those, too?"

"We didn't have time," Sam said with a frown. "We thought that it'd be better to get here as soon as possible."

Bobby nodded. "Well, you know where the first aid stuff is," he said, and turned away, heading back toward his living room.

Dean, though, shook his head. "Never mind about that," he said. "Do you have any idea what we can do to find Cas?"

Bobby turned back around. "I got some things. Go get yourself cleaned up, and then we can talk about it."

"I-" Dean started to say.

Bobby didn't even let him get through the first word. "You're not going to do anyone any good if your leg gets infected, boy," he said. "Go take ten minutes to care for yourself, and then I'll tell you what I've figured out."

Dean gritted his teeth, and wanted to push for Bobby to just hurry up and tell him now, but then Sam said, "I'll make sure that he does, Bobby."

"Fine," Dean snapped, and turned and limped toward the bathroom, while trying his best to make it look like he wasn't freakin' limping, since showing signs that he was hurt was just going to make them fuss over him more, and that was the last thing he needed.

He could rest up once Cas was safe and back here with them. Until then, there was no freakin' way that Dean was going to waste any more time than he had to.

Ten minutes later, Dean's wounds had been cleaned with some anti-infection crap that had stung like an absolute motherfucking bitch, but at least it was supposed to keep his leg from turning green or falling off, so he figured he should suck it up and stop complaining. Not that that stopped him, until he had noticed that Sam was watching him with that guilty expression he sometimes got, like he thought that all this was somehow his fault. After that, Dean had figured that he'd better quit with the bitching.

The bleeding had already stopped, so they'd opted to skip the stitches. Instead, Sam had spent about ten minutes carefully bandaging up Dean's leg, with this look of intense concentration on his face, like he was doing rocket science or something. And that had made Dean come really close to breaking his "no bitching" decision, but he'd held his tongue and let Sam take his frickin' time.

Now, though, Dean figured he was patched up well enough, and there was no way that anyone was going to keep him from getting to work.

"You said that you knew some way to track Cas down?" Dean demanded as he and Sam joined Bobby in the living room. Dean carefully lowered himself into the nearest arm chair, but leaned forward, looking at Bobby intently.

Bobby nodded. "Yeah, I've been looking all afternoon," he said, then frowned and added, "You know that it's always something like this with you two? For once I'd like you two to call me with some halfway-normal case, instead of some story about how Jimmy's name is actually Castiel, and he's been kidnapped by the demons that had come to drag Dean to Hell after he'd sold his freakin' soul."

Dean scowled. "Can you just show me what you've got?"

"Well, someone's touchy," Bobby said, but stood and picked up a piece of paper from his desk, and handed it over to Dean. "There. It's a Latin spell. Should give you the location of pretty much anyone you want, as long as you can picture them clear enough in your mind."

Dean snatched the paper up and scanned through it quickly. Most of the type was the Latin itself, which he skipped over – he knew enough Latin that he could recite what he needed to, but that didn't mean that he understood any of it. Instead, he just focused on the English stuff, which wasn't a lot, just some basic instructions. All you needed was some matches and a map. Seemed simple enough.

And familiar. This was the same spell that Ash had used to track down Dad for him, and probably the same one that Cas had used to find them.

Dean cleared his throat, then said, "Okay, this looks good. You got the stuff set up?"

Bobby nodded. "Tried it myself earlier, but it didn't do any good," he said. "Don't think I could picture him well enough. You two will have a better shot at it."

Dean frowned. The spell not working sounded like a frickin' bad sign, but then, maybe Bobby had been right about not being able to picture Cas well enough, since they'd only met the one time. Yeah, that definitely had to be the reason. "You got the stuff set up?"

Bobby nodded. "Got a map over here," he said, gesturing toward his desk.

Dean nodded, and started to stand. Before he could, though, Sam ripped the paper out of his hand. "I got this," he said. And Dean would've protested, but Sam shook his head. "I know Cas just as well as you do, Dean," he said in a low voice. "I can do the spell. Besides, my Latin is ten times better than yours, anyway."

Dean frowned, but he couldn't exactly argue with that one, even if it did piss him off that Sam was only offering because he thought that Dean was too hurt to do it. Except, well, Dean actually didn't want to have to stand up on his leg, not if he didn't have to. Don't get him wrong – he could totally do it, and he wasn't going to let a stupid injury slow him down.

But in this case, he just nodded and settled back into the chair, eyes locked on Sam as he crossed over to the map and picked up the matchbook that Bobby had set out for him.

Sam set the paper down beside the map, smoothing it out with one hand, then took a deep breath and started the chant. He read through the chant smoothly, without tripping over his words the way that Dean would've, and it only took him abut thirty seconds before he was striking the match and holding it above the map. Dean held his breath – which was stupid, and he knew it, but that didn't stop him from doing it, or from repeating please, please, please, in his head as Sam dropped the match.

The fire flared up at least two feet, forcing Sam to step back. That was a good sign, right? It meant that the spell had definitely worked this time. So now they'd know where Cas was. Or, they'd have a basic idea, at least. Dean was pretty sure that they were using a world map – figureed they'd start big and work their way down. But it wouldn't take long to do that at all. And as soon as they had a location, they could set off and go track Cas down, and-

"Nothing," Sam said.

Dean frowned, and pushed himself to his feet so he could limp over to the desk, despite his leg screaming at him in protest. "What do you mean?" he demanded. "How could there be nothing?"

Sam just shrugged, staring down at the desk like he didn't know how to explain it, either. "The map burned away completely," he said slowly, gesturing to the desktop, which was completely bare, just as Sam had said.

"Same thing happened when I tried it," Bobby said.

For a moment, Dean just stared. Then he nodded. "Okay," he said. "That spell doesn't work. We're going to have to try something else."

"Dean," Sam said, and shook his head. "You saw the fire. The map wouldn't have burned away like that unless the spell had worked."

"We don't know that," Dean snapped, because obviously there had to be some other explanation. The spell was a dud, or they'd messed it up somehow, or... Well, Dean didn't actually know what other explanation there could be, but there had to be one. And they'd figure out what it was, and then they'd manage to track Cas down. Because there was absolutely no way that it could be-

Sam took a deep breath, and nodded. "Okay," he said. "We can keep looking. But, Dean-"

"No," Dean said shortly.

Sam nodded again, and didn't say anything more.

"Got a couple more books on witchcraft," Bobby grunted. "Usually don't mess with the stuff too much, but you should be able to dig up some more tracking spells if you look hard enough. Maybe one of them will work."

"Thanks, Bobby," Dean said, and held out his hand to take the book that Sam offered him, then turning and limping his way back to the nearest chair. He dropped into it and opened the book to a random page, and started skimming through it. Not exactly the most effective way to do research, but then, he could barely make himself focus on the words, anyway.

But he was going to find something, find a way to find Cas and bring him home if it was the last thing that he did.

Because he didn't care what the spell said. Cas couldn't be gone.

Dean was going to find him.