Author's Notes: So, this story was originally intended to be a different take on the episode, "The Benders," as some of you guessed. But today, I replotted the whole story, and though there are still some similarities, it's not going to be like how I originally planned at all. But hopefully you'll like the changes. :)
Chapter Two
"Son of a bitch," Sam snapped, trying to ignore the realization that he was starting to pick up some of Dean's vocabulary. Though it always sounded better coming from Dean's mouth, with his voice. When Sam tried it, he always sounded like a kindergartner saying a swear word for the first time. Like he should be peeking around to see if anyone heard him or not. He didn't even want to think about the fact that the only reason he was sounding like Dean at the moment was because Dean wasn't there to do it.
Sam paced back and force across the room. He glared at the EMF meter laying useless on the table. They should really start keeping it on at all times. Sort of like a ghost alarm. It could have saved Dean. Not that Sam wanted to admit that Dean needed saving, but there weren't a lot of other options out there. Coincidences didn't happen to Winchesters, it was simple as that. And for them to be investigating a phantom attacker who steals people from their beds only to have Dean disappear from his bed? That was too big of a coincidence. One that Sam wasn't willing to ignore. He wasn't going to try and convince himself that Dean just went for a stroll randomly in the middle of the night. Sam could only lie to himself about so many things.
He hadn't found anything. Nothing. The EMF meter didn't pick up a thing, there wasn't any ghost residue, and absolutely no evidence that anything other then Sam and Dean had even been in the room. Sam didn't have a clue what he was dealing with, which meant he hadn't a clue where to start. It also meant Dean could be anywhere. And anywhere really did mean anywhere. Sam closed his eyes. God, how was he supposed to do this? Dean always knew what to do. But Dean wasn't fucking here!
Gritting his teeth, Sam sat down on the edge of his bed. What was he even supposed to be doing? It was the middle of the night, he couldn't go talk to the families or go to the library. But he sure as hell wasn't going to wait until morning to start looking for his brother. Sam could only guess what was happening to Dean right now, at this very moment. He almost couldn't handle the thought. But he needed to focus. Panicking wouldn't help Dean. Even starting some online research seemed to be a stupid option. What Sam really needed, and couldn't believe he was hoping for, was one of those visions. He hadn't had anymore since that whole deal in Saginaw. Since Max. He didn't know why he'd had them them and not now, or not in Chicago. Not when a vision could have saved them a lot of scars and bloodshed if he just would have seen Meg's intentions before they'd gone in their totally unprepared. He wished there was a switch he could turn on somewhere so he could see where his brother was. All he needed was a hint, he could do the rest. Just one goddamn hint.
But there wouldn't be any visions. And Sam knew it would be too much to ask for a hint. That would be too lucky of him. He clenched his hands into fists before falling into a chair near the table and pulling out his laptop. It was time to sit down and think. Sam didn't get a 4.0 in college for nothing. He was a researcher. He was smart. Just follow the dots. Six people were taken from their beds. None of them had been found yet. Two months had gone by. But why had they started and why was this thing picking up the pace? That kid had gone missing just a few days ago, why take Dean so soon? Maybe he was working this all the wrong way. Don't start with Dean. Don't start at the end. Look at the beginning. Who was the first person taken? And what was happening to them at the time?
And Sam began his research. Pulling up as many articles he could about the missing people. The first one had been a guy named Piotr Locklyn. Good, that would help. He brought up every article he could find on Locklyn and tried to ignore how rapidly his knee was nervously bouncing, or that voice in the back of his mind that told him he needed to hurry up, Dean didn't have much time, if any. How many people had they saved from phantom attackers after they were taken?
He had to blink away tears as he couldn't think of a single person.
Dean swallowed a penny once when he was five.
John had found him crying in his room and when he'd asked him what was wrong, Dean had proclaimed with loud sobs that he'd lost his lucky penny and now he would have bad luck for the rest of his life. John hadn't known that his son even had a lucky penny, let alone where to begin looking for it, or how to explain to his oldest that he could just as easily find a new penny and put a blessing on that one if Dean would like. So he'd pulled Dean into his lap and had gently asked him where he last had his penny. Dean had answered, in his sweetly innocent tearful voice, that it had been in his mouth.
That had been the first and only time John Winchester had laughed at his son's despair.
And Dean couldn't for the life of him figure out why he was dreaming of this now, or why he was even aware that he was dreaming in the first place. As he forced himself further into the world of the waking, he considered that it may have something to do with the coppery taste in his mouth. With that thought, Dean forced himself fully awake. There was only one thing, besides pennies, that left a coppery taste like this. Blood.
Prying his eyes open, Dean was surprised to find himself laying on the floor. No, not the floor, a floor. This wasn't their floor. The motel room had carpet. This one was hard, and cold, and dirty, and God was that blood beneath him?
With a moan, Dean tested his body one part at a time. Everything seemed to still be attached. Nothing broken. His jaw felt a little tender, but other than that, and the hurts he'd sustained in the bar fight, he felt fine. All right, he was alive and kicking, so on to phase two. Where the hell was he and how the hell had he gotten there?
Somehow finding a way to a sitting position, he brought a hand to his jaw and massaged it for a moment as he looked around. He couldn't see much. It was nearly pitch black inside with only minimal light coming in from the black painted windows on the ceiling. He could tell that the room he was in was fairly large and was filled with machinery that Dean didn't recognize, and probably didn't want to recognize from the way the place smelled. Rotten meat. Rotten meat that had been around for a while. Dean had to breathe in through his mouth for a moment to get the nausea to go away.
A thought suddenly occured to him. Where was Sam? The last thing he remembered was coming home from the bar and watching Sam head into the bathroom. Then he'd laid down and had completely zonked out. Damn, maybe he did have a concussion. What had happened while he was asleep?
"Sam?" he called quietly, unsure if making noise was the smartest thing to do. Nothing but silence answered him. All right, time to get out of here.
Pushing himself to his feet, he brushed himself off, catching a few whiffs of the musty dust in the air in between the stench of rot. He went to feel in his pockets for a lighter and realized that he was in his briefs and t-shirt still. Great. Lost with no pants, that was a plus. And damn, it was fucking cold already, the least they could have given him was some socks.
"Sammy?" Dean hissed again, just to be sure. He couldn't see any silhouettes of bodies laying near him, so Sam wasn't in the immediate area, if he was here at all. "The hell?" he spat to himself. He tried to think, to concentrate about the last thing he remembered. But honestly, he couldn't remember anything beyond falling asleep in his bed. He didn't feel any new lumps on his head that would warrant amnesia and he was still in the clothes he'd gone to sleep in, so not too much time could have passed. But that didn't make any sense. He was a light sleeper.
A noise from behind him startled Dean so badly that he jumped and spun at the same time, nearly losing his feet beneath him. But he regained his balance and crouched a bit, his eyes scanning the dark, looking for movement, listening for noise. There was something there, he could tell, he just couldn't see what it was. Well this bitch was gonna pay, that's for sure. No one puts Dean Winchester in a creepy dark room with no pants without getting their heads busted in.
There was a small clang of metal and then a repressed gasp that sounded strangled and frightened. Dean frowned at that. It had almost been human. He clenched and unclenched his fists a couple of times, wondering if he was about to make the right move. He didn't think he really had another choice. So he sucked in a breath and held it for just a second before calling out quietly, "Nice clubhouse you got here." There was no answer. "I didn't know they were giving away free memberships."
A moment passed where Dean just remained tense. He could feel something watching him and he couldn't shake the feeling that he was staring right at it. But when something finally answered him, he wasn't expecting the soft voice or the terrified words. "Who are you?" Sounded almost like a kid. Great.
"I think that's supposed to be my question," Dean countered, his eyes catching some slight movement. He stared at the spot but held himself back.
The voice spoke again. "You're not with them?"
"Dude, I was just dreaming about Paris Hilton in a cabin somewhere and I woke up in this shit hole." He waited for a response. There wasn't one. "Do you know where we are?"
The spot he'd been watching moved again and he straightened a little but then relaxed when instead of a monster jumping out at him, a lanky teenager stepped out from behind his hiding spot. He took a few hesitant steps forward and Dean held up his hands to show him he didn't want to hurt him. In the darkness, he could tell that the kid was dressed in pajama bottoms and a Metallica t-shirt. A kid after his own heart. He still couldn't see his face.
"No," the kid responded. "I just woke up a couple days ago."
A light clicked on inside Dean's head. "You're Alex Scott."
The kid was quiet for a moment before he took another step forward and Dean could get a good look at his face. He was surprised to find that he resembled a younger Sam. A lot. The messy hair, lanky form, dark eyes. Dean was instantly attached to him, more so than he had been seeing the Metallica shirt. "How'd you know that?"
"My brother and I were investigating the disappearances," Dean said absentmindedly as he realized what exactly this implied. He was a victim of the phantom attacker. There were vague images of waking up to a pair of eyes. Grabbing his knife. Hands on his face. Pain. Perfect, just plain perfect. He could just picture Sam flipping out back in the motel room. If he was still in the motel room... "Have you seen anyone else here? Any of the others?"
Alex shook his head and Dean barely caught it in the dark. "No, I've been alone until they brought you."
"They?" Dean asked. "There's more than one?"
"Yeah, there's two of them," Alex said, hugging his arms in close to his body. "Two guys. I think they're from around here."
Dean held up a hand. "Wait, wait," he said and Alex stared at him with wide eyes. "They're human?" God, what was it with people and wanting to kidnap them lately? Dean shivered as he remembered his friend the fire poker.
"Yeah, what else would they be?" Alex asked, confused.
Dean ignored the question. "Are they the only ones?"
"Well they mentioned someone else, but I've only see the two of them." Alex shivered and Dean couldn't help but mirror the movement. God it was fucking cold.
"So they talk to you? How often do they come in?" Dean asked, a million scenarios running through his mind. Something wasn't adding up. This kid had been here for a couple of days? This was a big ass room, had he just not found the door? And how could the phantom attacker be just humans? Alex had disappeared from his bedroom in a matter of miliseconds. Humans don't work that fast. So this third person, it must be something else.
"They bring in food," Alex said and his eyes glazed over a bit. Dean leans down so he can still semi-see Alex's face. He needs to read the emotions there. He needs to know what's going on. "They bring it in a lot. They sit and they watch me eat it." His voice dropped so low that Dean took a step forward, his head tilted so he could hear. "They said I was too skinny."
"Too skinny?" Dean asked, eyes trailing over Alex. The kid wasn't all that skinny. He looked healthy enough. He was pretty lanky though, the same way Sam had been when he'd grown up instead of out. "Too skinny for what?"
Alex looked up and Dean could see the miniscule light in the room shinning off of tears in his eyes. "I don't know."
Sam had found out everything he'd ever possibly wanted to know about Piotr Locklyn. He'd found out where he was born, the places he'd lived, where he went to college, hell he even managed to find out what Locklyn's favorite type of food was. He found out everything, except why the hell a phantom attacker would take him, why it would start with him. He thought he could find the answer in this man. Thought that there would be some reason he was chosen over everyone else, some reason that he would be able to use to figure all of this out, to find the missing people, to find Dean.
Scrolling through a search engine's photo search for Piotr Locklyn, he was actually surprised to find so many pictures of the man. Apparently he had an album up somewhere online. Sam was looking for recent pictures, hoping one of them would hold something, anything, that would give him a clue here.
"Give me something," Sam whispered to himself. He sighed as he reached the end of the image search results. This wasn't helping. Three hours of searching for information on this man, and Sam had wasted them. Three hours he could have been out looking for his brother, out trying to find Dean before it was too late. He didn't know what would happen to him, but he could feel it in his bones that something bad would happen. Inevitably, in Sam's mind, Dean wasn't walking away from this one unscathed. His brother had been through a lot in his lifetime, but this? Being taken from his bed? It was a whole new level on intrusion for Sam. Something had come into their room and taken his brother while Sam sleep just two feet away? How could Dean just walk away from something that was capable of that?
Sam glanced at his phone laying on the table next to the laptop. He didn't know who to call, save for one person. And that one person probably wouldn't bother picking up the phone. Not because he didn't care, but because he did. Because neither side wanted to give away the other's position to the demon that was hunting them, the same way they were hunting it.
Was four weeks enough time to have between contact with his father? Would John even get the message? Even hear his son's quavering voice as he broke down and told him that his brother was missing, that John's oldest son had been taken, been stolen? He doubted his father would call back. He doubted his father would do anything. Had John done anything when Dean had been dying? Had he called to see how it had turned out? If his son was still alive? No, so why should he call if Dean was simply missing? Maybe he'd call if Dean was dead. Maybe he'd call Sam to tell him that he failed his brother, that he failed them all, that he let his favorite son die.
Sam shook his head. It wasn't going to be like that. He was going to find Dean and then the two of them would get the hell out of here and take a vacation. He'd make Dean talk about emotions and all that funny stuff that Dean never liked getting into. He'd make Dean tell him about how scary it was go to sleep in a warm, safe bed, and wake up alone and scared. He'd make Dean tell him, he'd listen to him yell and scream and cry and get all of those emotions out. Because Sam had just about enough of those near tears of Dean's. The kind of tears that linger inside the eyes and never fall, no matter how utterly lost he's feeling. The kind of tears Sam just wants to smack out of his brother while screaming for him to just let go, for once. Just let go of all that hurt and let someone take care of him.
Turning back to the computer screen, Sam paused as he glanced over a web address. He frowned and straightened a little. That was odd. It was some sort of hate site. Sam hadn't found anything but good stuff on Piotr Locklyn. Someone hated him? Sam's heart leapt as he clicked on it and a devilish looking website popped up. It was a journal of some type. He read a few entries and then found the one with Locklyn's picture. Nothing much was said about him, other than the author had gotten mad at the man for shutting down his family's business. He talked about how he'd like to get revenege and how he thought he'd found a way. Sam perked up at that. The entry never said what that way was, but at the end, the author wished Locklyn a good night's sleep.
"Gotcha," Sam hissed and clicked on the author's profile page. His eyes widened as a picture came up. He knew that guy. Only the last time he'd seen him, Dean had been pummeling his face with his fist in the middle of a bar. He was half of the two locals Dean had hustled at the bar. Sam growled and grabbed his jacket. He paused before slipping a gun into his jeans. "Dammit, Dean," he cursed as he ran outside to the Impala. "You sure know how to pick them."