Author's Note:

Warnings: Some blood.

10.

Dean's feet hit the ground, and he crumples. First to his knees, then tumbles onto his side at the release of pressure around his chest. He heaves in gasping breaths until he's coughing, throat torn and hoarse.

His fingers claw against hard, wet cement. It smells like blood. And wet hair.

"Shh. Shh. Be quiet," a voice demands in a tone barely above a whisper. A hand touches his shoulder and Dean flinches away, vision blurring. Which makes him realize that there is something to blur in the first place. Because there's a blinding light above him, like a phone flashlight. "Sorry, sorry. Just take in some breaths, alright? It will get easier."

Dean breathes in deeply. Coughing. Gasping.

I'm going to suffocate.

His muscles feel weak. He can't fight when the faceless voice reaches out and grabs his wrists. There's a slight noise, metal scraping against something sharp, maybe a dagger, then the chains wrapped around his wrists in make-shift manacles fall loose. "There we go, it's fine, okay?" The voice seems to be less for himself, and more for the speaker.

He doesn't have the breath for words. So he doesn't say anything, just stares. He has to squint into the dark and see past the blinding light pointed in his face before he can spot the faint glow of yellow eyes. Werewolf eyes.

Garth.

His body slumps with relief despite how his mind resists this. He left you here. He's going to hit him. When he gets the strength.

"What...what the…?" Dean pants, then swears loudly. He shoves Garth's hands away and hates how he immediately feels spent from the action. His wrists are burning and the pain racing through his shoulders causes tears to sting the edges of his vision. His entire upper body feels like he's been put through a meat grinder. He hasn't ached like this in a long time.

Didn't used to hurt at all with the Mark.

Could have fought for hours and hours and not feel a thing.

"Sorry." Garth repeats, and the haze of yellow fades slightly from Dean's peripheral. Did he just...transform? Within the proximity of hunters? What kind of idiot—! "I'd've been down here sooner, but it took an age to get them gone. Had to convince them to go out for drinks. Said I'd kick out any death throes from you."

Which means that the hunters must think him dead.

He doesn't know if he's relieved or disappointed.

Garth grabs his arm, starting to pull him up. Dean bites down hard on his tongue to withhold a scream. Pain is just weakness leaving the body, he tells himself. It was something John used to say to them when they were younger. Dean always thought it was crap, especially after the Pit.

"Alright, up with you. We need to go." There's real worry in Garth's voice. "We're on a time limit."

Dean smacks his boney fingers away. "No," he chokes. He hardly recognizes his voice.

"Dean."

He feels like a wounded animal. Scared, and hurting, afraid to accept comfort. Biting the hand that feeds him.

"You left...me here," Dean pulls his arms close to his chest and starts to struggle to his feet. He sways, and the word spins around him merrily. Garth's fingers wrap around his bicep to support, iron in their strength. "You…"

"I can explain." Of course he can. Everyone can. Explanation after pointless explanation. "But not now, okay? I don't expect 'em to be back soon, but getting a few hundred miles between us seems like the best idea."

What?

"You're…" maybe it's the lack of oxygen, maybe it's something else, but Dean's brain seems to be having trouble catching up with Garth's intention. He feels dizzy and sick, like he's almost drowned. But there isn't any water to cough up. Nothing but empty. His head hurts. He can't breathe in the space allotted to him by his still too-tight lungs.

Garth starts to pull him towards something, and Dean nearly kisses the floor harshly when his legs won't support his weight. Garth almost drops his phone in an effort to catch him. His voice has lost some of it's patience. "This is a rescue, nincompoop. Come on."

Oh.

"Needs some work." Dean mutters in protest, but locks his knees and forces himself to hobble along beside the scrawny man. Garth wraps one of Dean's arms around his shoulders—freakin' ow—and hauls him towards an old wooden staircase Dean hadn't noticed beforehand. Garth shoves him towards them.

They creak beneath his weight, and Dean's teeth grits. He hates wooden stairs. Termites and rot have a nasty habit of making them snap unexpectedly.

"Can't you just say thank you?"

"I...nearly died, Garth."

"I was a little later than I'd hoped, I'll admit that."

Dean suppresses a scoff, his body instead choosing that moment to cough harshly, which doesn't help his growing migraine in the slightest. A low moan is pulled from him.

They reach the top of the staircase, and Garth shoves open a door to reveal a kitchen that wouldn't look out of place in the late nineteenth century. It doesn't seem like it's been lived in much for years, but it's not dusty or moldy enough that he can say it's been completely abandoned. If this house is from that time period, then the room they just crawled from was probably the cellar, albeit a tall one. Maybe they hung meat from the ceiling. As disgusting that that thought is, it would explain what he was hanging from.

To Dean's private relief, the house is barren of all life save himself and the werewolf trying to drag him through it. He doesn't have the willpower to fight it. Or even a reason. Garth may have put him here, but he's trying to fix it. The werewolf leads him through the kitchen to a large dining room then through a backdoor.

There's thick forest surrounding them and a heavy downpour that immediately soaks through his clothing and smears down his face. Garth still doesn't let him go, hauling him towards the front. The house—more of an ancient cabin, honestly—can't be more than three or four rooms. Tiny, all things considered. He spots the outhouse about a hundred feet out back before Garth pulls him around a corner.

And there, sitting on the dirt driveway, is the Impala.

Dean feels incredulous for a long moment, his feet stumbling over themselves. "They stole my car?" he asks before he can stop himself. They touched his car? He's going to kill them. No quarter, no regret. Just blood and rage then nothing.

"Actually that was me," Garth says, somewhat sheepishly, "I figured you'd rather it was here than unintended at the library."

"I…" Dean feels torn.

Garth pats his shoulder in encouragement and pulls a set of keys from his jacket pocket. Baby's. Dean makes a move to grab them, but Garth yanks them back before he can even get his finger to graze them. He opens his mouth to protest, but Garth shakes his head. "You can't lift your arms above your head. Sorry, but you're not driving."

"Garth." No one drives the Impala except him and Sam. And, on occasion, Cas.

Garth shoves the keys into the lock and opens the passenger door, gesturing for Dean to get in. Dean's fingers bounce against his leg in agitation. But common sense wins over any pride or disagreement he can conjure, and Dean clambers inside of the Chevy. His shoulders scream with protest as he maneuvers into place, and Dean is paralyzed for a moment as he tries to breathe.

The overwhelming pain passes to a throbbing ache, and Dean pulls the passenger door closed, biting back pants.

No one ever talks about how much it hurts to be suspended by your arms. Dean's seen dozens of movies where the character is only mildly discomforted, maybe rolls their shoulders, then carries on like nothing happened. Real life is rarely so picturesque.

Garth makes his way around the car, and slips into the driver's side. Dean rubs his wrists idly, then stops when he feels something wet. Grimacing, he pulls up the edge of his jacket's sleeves and sees deep gouges in the shape of chain links around the skin. They're bleeding, skin peeled back and raw.

"Oh, knew I smelled blood," Garth makes a noise, shoving the keys into the ignition. "You got a first-aid kit in the back?"

"Just drive."

"Don't want those to get infected."

"Drive."

Garth twists the keys and the Impala roars to life. He only fumbles with the gearshift once before backing out of the dirt driveway and turning them so they're facing the road. Dean leans forward until his forehead is pressed against the dashboard, letting the hum of the car reverberate inside his skull.

He doesn't know what this feeling is.

(Tell me...how does it feel?)

Shock? Relief? Disappointment?

He passes out before he can muddle through it.

000o000

About twenty minutes out from South Bend, Indiana, four hours after swinging by the motel to gather Dean's equipment together, Garth pulls over into the shoulder of the road. Dean is in some sort of in-between state of consciousness and the ever present black of sleep, and it takes until Garth is pulling open the passenger door that Dean realizes he stopped at all.

Dad would kill him for being so unaware of his surroundings.

Garth kneels down and sets the first aid kit he must have dragged out from the back and sets it down on the ground. He nudges Dean's knee with a bottle of open bear. Dean's head rolls towards him along the bench seat and he stares at the man for a moment.

"Is now really the time?" His voice slurs.

Garth doesn't answer, only nudging him again, and Dean sighs, reaching out an unsteady hand to take it from him. It's shaking and his fingers feel swollen; bending them makes him grimace. He only manages a few mouthfuls before he pulling back. His stomach twists in discomfort, and Dean realizes he has no idea when the last time he ate was.

Garth takes the bottle from him and takes a swig himself, rolling his shoulders. "Alright. Alright. Give me your hands."

Protest lost some hundred miles ago, Dean shifts slightly in the seat so he's facing the hunter, and lifts his heavy hands up for inspection. Garth rolls up his jacket's sleeves to his elbows and stares at the bloody incisions, lips pressed together. Huh. Those are a little worse than he thought.

"The blood loss is making you lethargic. Talk to me instead of going back to sleep, it'll help." Garth encourages, taking Dean's left hand and turning it. The imprint of the chains go from his wrists to nearly halfway down his forearm. Bloodstained. Only a few areas are still actively bleeding, which is better than nothing. He should have addressed this two hundred miles ago.

But putting distance between himself and the psycho hunters seemed more pressing.

Dean struggles for something to say. His brain is muddy, "How...did you know to come?"

Garth nods, pulling out a bottle of water. "You know the little old lady?" Dean makes a noise of acknowledgement. "She was a friend of my father's. 'Course, he didn't know she was a hunter, but word got around to her that I was. Her grandson is practically my cousin at this point. Two of 'em are tough. I was in the area, and they called me to know they were gonna kill you. I figured that it was time for an intervention."

Dean's teeth press together tightly as Garth pours the water over the gashes. "Yeah. Thanks."

Garth hums. "Though I do have to ask. Where's Sam? We didn't leave him back there, did we?"

Dean shakes his head, swearing softly under his breath as Garth gently pats the wounds with a rag. "No. He's not in Detroit."

"Back in Kansas?"

"No."

Garth pauses for a moment, contemplating that. "Then where is he?"

Dean snorts softly, closing his eyes and shaking his head softly. "I don't know."

Two weeks, some days and hours, and Dean still has exactly squat. What is it going to take before he gets some sort of vague idea of where to start pouring his resources? Somewhere that's actually useful. Random people at an airport and vague locations of cells isn't giving him any more information than he started with.

"Huh." Garth intones. That's all he's got. Huh? "That what you were doing in Detroit? Trying to find 'im?"

"Well I wasn't there for the people. Son of a—" Dean yanks his hand back sharply when Garth unexpectedly dumps some of the alcohol onto the wounds. The abrupt movement makes him vaguely dizzy, and he bites on the inside of his cheek in an effort to steady himself. "Ow."

Garth waits patiently until Dean lets him take the hand again. He dries it off with one of the make-shift rags he and Sam keep buried beneath the holy water. At some point, Sam decided that using old T-shirts wasn't the most sanitary thing. To appease his sibling, Dean stole and cut up several motel towels.

When it's dry, Garth pulls up antiseptic and smears it across the wounds. Dean flinches, releasing air harshly through his teeth.

"What leads do you have so far?"

Dean huffs darkly, closing his eyes and wishing that his headache would let up. "None? I don't know. I have a somewhat blurry picture of a British woman from an airport who had Cas's phone, but that's about it." Garth's hands still. The lack of movement drags his attention back, and Dean opens his eyes to squint at him. "What?"

Garth releases his lower lip, "I don't know...I still keep in contact with a few hunting buddies. Bess thinks it's good to be a part of the community, even if I'm not hunting anymore. It also keeps us apprised of anyone looking for a second chance. Though I've only told two other hunters about being bitten, besides you and Sam, that is. But the point is that I've heard a few of them mention being approached by a British organization, Men of Betters or something, about employment in the last few weeks."

Ha. Really? Dean's eyebrows raise. "The Men of Letters. They're all dead."

Abbadon made sure of that. With a smile on her face.

"Guess not." Garth secures a wad of gauze around Dean's wrist and begins to wrap it up the length of his forearm, covering the wounds. "You think the two are related?"

He...doesn't know. Two's a coincidence, three is proof. This is just...weird, but maybe…maybe.

"Oh, I have no doubts about it." Dean jerks, hands trying to go for a weapon in movement that leaves him breathless and his vision slightly gray. Garth twists around, a .45 clutched in his grip and pointed towards the suited figure standing a few feet away from the Impala. Dean didn't even realize he was armed.

Crowley smiles. "Hello boys."

"Christo." Garth answers.

Crowley doesn't twitch, instead, he sighs. "Honestly, did no one ever explain to you that that only works on low-level demons? Why do you think the higher up the tree you get, the worse your basic tricks work?" Crowley looks up at Dean, then, as if sharing annoyance, "Who's this?"

"Garth." Garth says. "You know this guy, Dean?"

Unfortunately.

"His name is Crowley. A pain in the butt I've wanted to stab him in the face for years."

More than half a decade. And yet, he keeps walking. Dean wonders about that sometimes.

"Love you, too." Crowley smirks faintly, but there's something in his gaze that seems slightly dead. "Put the gun down. It's not going to do anything against me. Frankly, you're embarrassing yourself."

Garth doesn't lower the weapon. Dean doesn't blame him.

Crowley rolls his eyes in exasperation, and lifts up his phone. "Got your message."

"So you decided to answer it in person?" Dean asks, biting on a laugh of incredulity. Crowley's head tips slightly, in a way that suggests he thinks Dean's an idiot. Dean's eyes flick up in annoyance. "What?"

"You sent it more than a day ago, Squirrel. I already answered. I decided to make an appearance when my demons saw you leave Detroit."

He...what?

It's been more than a day since the library? He'd only assumed it was a handful of hours. How on earth has it been a day? He wasn't in the cellar that long. A couple of hours at most. Garth only knocked him unconscious, but unless they kept him drugged...and why would they wait before executing him?

Garth shifts slightly in front of him, rocking on his heels. Then he answers the unspoken question, "I stalled them. We went over a lot of different ways to kill you."

"That's sweet." Crowley says, voice dry. "Very thoughtful. Do you know anyone who hasn't tried to kill you, Dean?"

He bites on a wince. Of course he does. Jody and her girls, Donna. Other hunters. Victims. Police. But Sam has. And Cas. Crowley. What does that say about him, that everyone who knows him is trying to make him drop dead, but he won't?

Crowley's sneered cockroach comes to mind.

"Do you?" Dean retorts.

"Touché. The woman's name is Toni Bevell. She works for the London Chapterhouse, the British division of the Men of Letters. Officially, she was in the States on business."

How is it, he wonders, that a demon that hates them has had more success in locating his brother and the angel than Dean has? He just wants to keep his family together. But how is he supposed to do that if a literal spawn of the Devil is better at it than he is?

"'Was'?" Garth questions.

Dean's stomach sinks. He hadn't caught that.

Crowley pockets his phone, looking somehow smug and frustrated. "Yes was. A few of my subjects say she landed in London two weeks ago and hasn't left since." Wait. London. London, England? As in Europe? Across the Pacific, by plane, Europe?

Crap.

"Sam and Cas are in England?" Is torn from him, almost raggedly.

Crowley eyes him for a moment. "Appears so. But that's not even the best part."

Best part. How is that even a good part? Because you know where they are now, idiot. Sure. It's not like London is an entire island. That won't take weeks to search. And if this is the Men of Letters, part of their skillset is being incognito. None one noticed the Bunker for half a century. How is he supposed to find Sam and Cas in a place he's never even been? Especially one that's meant to be hidden? Dean's left the US a total of once, and that was for Scotland. With Sam. Five years ago.

"What would that be, then?" Dean asks.

Crowley's lips twitch up on a self-satisfied smile. "I have her number."

Author's Note:

Prompt: Blood loss.