So sorry for the update taking forever-I am in the midst of midterm weeks and the workload is insane. I will update when I can.
As I came to, so did the pounding in my head. Rubbing the large bump on the back of my head, my eyes fell on Sam locked in the next cage. "Sam!" I called out, sliding up to the front of my cage.
"Dad?" Sam became clearer in my view, his face moving into the dim filtered light. "How you did get here?"
"Dean figured it out. He recognized the noise from the truck and followed it here."
"Where is he?" Sam now had his face pressed up against the bars of his cage, and I could see the worry in his eyes.
"I don't know," I had to admit.
"Dad, Dean could be in trouble! He could be hurt, he could be-" Sam broke off, but I knew where his thoughts were racing.
"Dean will be fine, Sam. It would seem nothing's going to stop him from getting to you." I resumed tugging on the bars, looking for a weakness somewhere in the metal, some shoddy craftsmanship from whatever was holding us.
"What do you mean?" I noticed Sam had stopped searching around the cage, and was about to order him to keep looking, but as I flashed back to the "conversation" Dean and I had had, I thought better of it.
"Well, let's just say he refused an order from me and told me to fuck off." Even I had to laugh at how strange the sentence sounded, and as I turned to look at Sam I could see utter astonishment mirrored in his eyes.
"Are you sure we're talking about the same Dean?" Sam laughed, leaning his head against the bars. "Cause my Dean…He never refuses an order from you."
"Well this time he did, Samm-Sam." I quickly corrected myself, remembering Dean's words. "I told him we needed to go back to the hotel and spend a few hours coming up with a plan. He said that you might not have a few hours, and that he was going to find you. He actually got in the car and would have driven off without me if I hadn't jumped in."
"Oh. Wow." Even in the darkness, I could see Sam fighting a losing battle with a huge grin. Suddenly we heard footsteps from the doorway, slowly moving towards us. I watched Sam tense up, crouching in the front corner of the cage.
And then we heard it. "Sam?" Dean's hope-filled voice rang out in the dimness and Sam pressed his face up against the bars again. As a grin lit up his face, for a moment a memory hit me so hard I almost staggered. Sam was six, and he was trapped in a cabin somewhere in Missouri by a demon. Another demon had me pinned against a tree in the woods, and I could see Sam's terrified face pressed up against the glass window.
But then, seemingly out of nowhere, Dean had come charging up to the cabin, kicking in the door. This little boy, my little boy, had jumped onto the demon's back, effectively distracting him from Sam. The demon and Dean had exchanged blow for blow, but by the time I was able to get into the cabin Dean actually had the situation pretty well under control.
The minute the demon was dead, Dean was at Sam's side, and the look Sam gave him right before Dean pulled his little brother into his shaking arms matched the look Sam now gave Dean today.
"Are you hurt?" Dean asked, crouching down by Sam's cage, his back to me.
"No," Sam said with a laugh, raising his hands in a shrug. Dean slammed his hand into the side of the cage, a smile completely overtaking his features.
"Damn it, it's good to see you," Dean answered, his voice growing soft at the last words. He put his hand up against the cage, Sam matching his hand on the other side. "I'm gonna get you the hell out of here. Do you have any idea what opens these cages?"
"There's some sort of key, I think they took it upstairs," Sam answered, moving up as far as he could in the cage. "But Dean…they're humans. Just a creepy family of humans."
"Well I can still kick their asses," Dean replied with a smirk. "I'm going to go upstairs and search for the key. I'll be right back, Sammy, I promise." Dean suddenly turned to me. "Keep an eye on him for me, Dad, ok?"
"Of course Dean," I answered, nodding. Dean moved back towards the door.
"Hey Dean?" Sam's voice piped up.
"Yeah Sammy?" Dean turned back around.
"Be careful." Sam offered up a small smile.
"Always." Dean answered, smiling back, then turning and heading up the stairs. Sighing, Sam ran his fingers through his hair, settling back against the cage. We waited in silence for what felt like hours, until Sam suddenly clutched his head, letting out a gasp of pain.
"Sam? Are you having a vision?" I pressed myself up against the bars of the cage, unable to do anything as Sam's face contorted in pain.
"DEAN!" Sam suddenly screamed, and the locks on the cages flew open. Without looking back, Sam took off running for the stairs, me right behind him.
