Chapter 2 ~ Lost & Found
Dean tries to call Sam a couple of days later – once.
Sam doesn't pick up. The call goes straight to his voice-mail, so Dean abandons his phone on the bed and wouldn't even look at it for the rest of the day. If Sam's not picking up, he won't either, when Sam eventually decides to call him back.
When Dean goes to sleep in an empty cold bed, he has a look at the phone, but there's nothing. –No call, no message.
It kind of hurts. – But then again, it serves him right.
Sam'll call him back when he's ready. It's just going to take time. And what are a couple of days more of Sam's absence, if it means it would buy Dean some more time to get his mind set.
SPN
Sam's still trying to figure out what it is, that's killing people. He's sure it are werewolves, but his gut tells him otherwise. He has bad vibes about this.
So, he keeps researching.
And he keeps thinking about Dean (another thing he's not able to figure out just yet), allowing himself to get distracted from the task at hand.
He knows it's dangerous to work a case when you are not attentive enough. So, he tries his best to not let himself getting distracted and turns off his phone.
He's going to let Dean stew.
SPN
Bobby calls Sam the next day.
He can't help but worry about the kid, so he's calling him to ask how the hunt's going and if he's figured out what's been mutilating cows and chewing on people.
Sam fills him in on that he thinks that it's a pack of werewolves gone rogue or something, but it still doesn't quite fit, so he's doing some more research before heading out.
Bobby feels becalmed, that despite Sam took off because of an argument between him and Dean, he still picks up when Bobby calls (and talks to him, even if it's only about the case).
When he says "Take care, Sam." And ends the call, it's right at the very moment, when Dean comes in through the front-door, his hands and arms greasy with motor-oil.
"'s that Sam?", Dean asks, a hopeful expression on his face, a spark of relief in his eyes.
Bobby snaps his phone shut and gives his surrogate son a gruff look. "Yep."
"How's he doin'`?", Dean asks after Bobby doesn't seem to attempt to tell him anything more.
"What 'bout you call him yourself?" Bobby rises his bushy eyebrows.
Dean gives him an annoyed look, telling him, as if he really thinks Sam's going to pick up if HE calls.
"Guess, he's fine then." Dean heads towards the bathroom to get cleaned up.
SPN
It takes Dean Winchester another couple of days, until he gets his shit together, and decides that it doesn't matter that they're brothers – at least to him. He'll see how Sam'd take the news, and whatever the outcome is, he might as well have to accept it.
It is, what it is, and he can't make - doesn't want - those feelings he has towards him go away, because fate decided to make them brothers. He won't allow anyone to take this away from him – from them.
So, he calls Sam again.
SPN
Sam can't figure out what could possibly kill those people in the woods, that would fit the cow-mutilations and all the other things going down in this town right now.
Not even his visit to the morgue had brought him any further.
He guesses, he needs to see for himself then. Head out and check out the woods for a wolf's pack or any other signs for what is snatching people from back-alleys.
SPN
It's ringing a couple of times at the first four tries. On the fifth try, it goes straight to voicemail.
So, Dean texts him. [Hey, Sam. We need to talk. It's important. Call me. Dean]
Three hours later, and without a call-back or a message, he texts him again. [C'mon, man. Let me explain.]
It's late afternoon. Dean's pacing the living-room, phone in hand, writing and deleting the next message he's intending to send, over and over again.
[Pick up. Please.] Is all that he comes up with – finally.
He waits five minutes, then he calls Sam's number. It rings three times, and then goes to voice-mail.
"He's workin' a case.", Bobby stands in the doorway, leaning against the threshold, watching Dean intently. "Maybe he's in the woods already."
SPN
And how Sam's in the woods.
Knee-deep in mud, pathing his way through the undergrowth, his Baretta in one hand and a machete in the other one.
He has an ugly gash across his cheek, bleeding furiously, and he's freezing due the cold rain pelting down on him.
It is not a werewolf – as he's figured. It's a wendigo neither. Way too late he came to the conclusion that he's not fighting some run-of-the-mill-monster.
It's actually a freaking god – maybe. probably. he's not entirely sure. - which had decided to collect her sacrifices personally since there's no cult left to offer her gifts.
Sam has no clue what exactly he's up against, so he figures the best thing to do is to run. And he does. – At least he tries.
But the mud is sucking on his boots, making it hard to move at all.
The car's about two miles ahead, so he speeds up again (at least he tries), making his aching muscles move.
Sam feels the phone in his pocket buzz, and he ignores it. – Again.
Then it buzzes again – short – so a message.
Sam doesn't need to look at it to know that it's probably Dean calling and writing him. He can check on it later, when he's back at the motel, and not about getting ripped to shreds or freeze to death.
He can't think about Dean right now. He needs to focus on the job, or else he'll end up as god-chow too.
Then it buzzes again and Sam gets to a halt. He needs to tell him, that he's busy right now, and that he's still not in the fucking mood to talk. Sam tugs the gun away and fumbles for the phone in his jeans-pocket.
It's slippery as hell, as his hands are wet, and the phone's cover is sleek. The phone dares to slip from his hand, but he catches it in time before it can hit the muddy ground.
Sam curses, under his breath, eying the display when he flips the phone open. He's too late to pick up.
Seven missed calls – all from Dean.
A few messages too, but he's got no time to read them right now. He needs to get moving again.
Dean's name flashes up on the display and it buzzes a second later. Sam thinks for a moment, before he attempts to pick up, but as it is, when he fumbles for the call-button, the phone slips away and lands with a muffled thud in a pool of mud.
Sam doesn't get to throw another curse at the phone, when he bows down to pick it up. Something's shoving into his back, and knocks all air from his lungs. He face-plants onto (or rater dives into) the muddy ground beneath him.
SPN
Dean curses. "Stubborn moron. "
Dean puts the phone in his back-pocket, while he rushes past Bobby, bumping his shoulder.
"Where are you headin?", Bobby calls after him as if he doesn't already know, when Dean snatches the keys from the small table and heads for the front-door.
"I'm gonna kick his ass for not picking up!", Dean hollers back and with that he's out of the door and gone. Which translates to: I'm worried, and I need to check on him, or else I'll go stir crazy.
"Finally …", Bobby grumbles and rolls his eyes, "Took you long enough, Idjit."
SPN
Of course, Dean knows where to find Sam.
It's not like he hadn't thought about Sam those past days, and he sure as hell did not not care where he went and what case he is working – despite the inner turmoil boiling in his guts lately.
He's done his own research, and there's that eerie feel deep inside his mind, since the case doesn't add up as it's supposed to.
Everything points at werewolves. – But they'd take the victims hearts, and not all their organs.
So yeah. – Sam not picking up, nor answering his messages, while he is working a case which may or may not includes werewolves, and on top of that, the miserable state in which Sam had left the Salvage, sets off shrill alarm-bells in his head.
It's not that he thinks, that Sam can't deal with it on his own.
It's more because Sam's maybe not in his right mind due Dean being an ass.
They should be on that hunt together.
Neither of them is supposed to work a case on his own. Specially not Sam, who's still a greenhorn, even though he knows how to do proper research and can stand a fight, coming out of it without as much as a scratch on him.
But they are partners. They are supposed to do – whatever comes their way – together. Dean realizes that just now. He should've told Sam right away.
Dean shouldn't have let him drive off in this condition in the first place.
He shouldn't have acted like a dickbag either.
If something happens to Sam out there – while on a damn hunt all alone – it's his fault. He had practically pushed Sam away. He had made him leave.
And where else – or what else – would he do, then working a case.
Dean floors the gas-pedal, and hopes he's there before something bad happens. Again.
SPN
When Dean arrives at the one and only no-tell-motel, in a no-name-town in rural Montana, he heads straight for the cashier's counter. He slips the guy twenty bucks to let him have a look at the registry.
Jim Rockford it is. Dean figures as much, since they came to terms a while after they started hunting together, that – if they get separated (for what reasons ever) – they need to be able to find each other.
"Go to the first motel listed in the yellow pages. Look for Jim Rockford - it's how we find each other when we're separated."
For another fifty bucks, the guy behind the counter gives him the spare keys for Jim Rockford's room.
SPN
Dean goes straight for his partner's – no, actually his little brother's – room, unlocks it and steps inside.
Dean still feels wary about the fact that they're from the same blood. He still has his doubts that this may could work – with them being siblings and lovers.
It gives their relationship a sour taste. Somehow at least.
He stops his own mind from spiraling down again and switches the lights on. His look roams through the room and he assess everything.
Sam's duffel on the bed, clothes on the floor. A map and Sam's journal on the desk close to the door.
Dean closes the door behind him and moves over to the table, where he takes in the map, memorizes the red circle Sam's drawn around the town and a second one close by.
On the notepad, next to the journal, Sam had made notes.
He crossed out werewolves. Then wrote it down again. Crossed it out again.
So Sam did with wendigos. Around pagan god is a circle drawn. Beside it a giant red interrogation mark.
He hums at that. Smart.
Dean walks over to the duffel, and goes through it, checks on Sam's weapons, assessing what's actually missing – if something is missing.
Because if something's missing, Sam probably headed out into the woods. If not, he's on a food-run or something. Dean hopes it's the latter.
There are quite a few weapons missing, and Dean's not quite sure what Sam has taken with him from the Salvage.
But, when he goes through the equipment, he notices some of the basics missing.
Like the machete, the brass-dagger.
Dean takes a step back, a deep line in between his eyebrows, as he thinks about his next actions.
Which is actually not necessary at all, since the door into the motel-room bursts open and there's Sam, standing in the doorway, weapon drawn and aiming dead-center in between Dean's eyes.
"Woah, Sammy." Dean shows his palms and rises his eyebrows.
Dean's heart makes a jump, when he lays eyes on his man, obviously not missing and besides that he looks like a mud-monster, he seems to be okay.
Sam lowers his gun slowly. "What the hell are you doing here?", he asks annoyed.
"Checking in on you? – You wouldn't answer your damn phone. And I told you we need to fuckin' talk." Dean explains, nothing of his relief that Sam's there with him in the same room, shows.
"I didn't read any of your messages, Dean." Sam enters the room, nudges the door shut with his heel and dumps a plastic-bag on the floor. "And I was kinda busy, you know?"
"Yeah … about that …", Dean trails off, looks aside for a moment, before he watches Sam head towards the bathroom. "What're you doing?"
Sam shrugs out of his jacket and dumps it on the floor.
"What does it look like?", he asks coldly. Then he opens his jeans' belt, loosens it, and let them fall to the ground, pooling around his ancles.
"I'm kinda dirty, if you haven't noticed." Sam doesn't even look at him, he simply steps out of his jeans, vanishes in the bathroom and closes the door.
The door's lock clicks shut.
While Sam is in the bathroom, Dean listens to the running water, he checks the bag Sam has dropped beside the door.
There's a head inside – an actual head. Of some weird-shit-creature Dean's never seen so far.
"Nice job, Sammy.", he murmurs to himself, as he pokes at the hairy area of the scull.
SPN
Sam's under the hot spray of water. Let it wash the filth from his hair, and down his back.
He stays there like that, until the water – around his feet – turns clear, as it runs down the drain.
Sam flexes his shoulders, the muscles in his neck.
They're aching.
He still feels cold.
His skin burns and stings, so do his toes and fingers, as his nerves get used to the warmth.
Sam tilts his head back, holding his face into the spray of water, then looks down on himself, observing the bite-mark on his right side.
It's not deep, and it doesn't bleed anymore, but it hurts like a bitch. Sam dearly hopes, that the thing he's killed isn't poisonous – then again, if it is, he might would already feel something.
He'll look it up though. – Maybe – when he's back at the Salvage with its head – Bobby knows what this thing is.
When he's done under the shower, and is dried up mostly, he goes to brush his teeth. Sam stares at himself in the mirror, probes at the gash on his cheek. – Nothing a few butterfly-stitches couldn't fix.
He then examines the bite-wound closer. It looks a lot like human teeth do (yeah, Sam knows. He's been bitten more than once), but a tad larger. Sam decides – except for putting antiseptic-antibiotic salve on it, it wouldn't need any care.
Stupidly his first aid kit is in his duffel – on his bed. In the very room where Dean is waiting for him.
Sam finishes brushing his teeth, and he takes his time to get them clean, because – right now – there are a lot of things he'd rather do, than to face Dean.
He's still mad at him. And he's hurting. The way Dean acted – and will probably keep acting – towards him is nothing he wants to live through for any longer as he already has.
He'd rather go back to work on the streets than to live with someone who doesn't love him back anymore. Even though, nothing of it does actually make sense to him. Everything had changed a day after he's been back from the dark place.
Sam had a lot of time to think about it, and he eventually came to the conclusion, that – maybe – he should move on. He still loves Dean, and it is going to hurt like a bitch, but it's always better to rip off the band-aid in one go, than slowly and painfully.
Sam tugs the towel high up on his waist, so Dean won't see the bite-mark, since he missed to take clothes with him from the duffel.
"Let's do this.", he tells himself, and walks up to the door, lays his hand on the lock and flips it open. Sam takes a deep breath, and then opens the door to face Dean.
SPN
... to be continued