A light touch on Dean's shoulder had him reaching for his Bowie knife hidden under his pillow. He turned from his stomach and lashed out with his knife, but a strong hand caught his wrist before he could do any damage.
"Easy, it's just me," Alec whispered in the darkness.
"Oh shit! I didn't hurt you did I?" Dean asked in concern, but he kept his voice down so they didn't wake Sam up. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with the hand that wasn't trapped in Alec's grip, but Alec released his hand once Dean was able to focus on him and reassure him that he was completely awake.
Dean could just barely see Alec's smile in the darkness as he answered, "Nope, I'm good. You've gotta be faster than that to get past me." Alec paused for a moment before he quickly explained, "I wouldn't have woken you up, but you threaten I'd sleep on the floor if I didn't switch with you and you know how much I hate the floor…"
Dean waved Alec off and slowly got to his feet, "I know, and don't think I didn't notice you waited a few extra hours to switch with me."
Alec groaned, "Aww, c'mon Dean, you know I don't need as much sleep as you do."
Dean smiled slightly, he knew Alec was trying to hide how tired he was but he couldn't hide the dark circles under his eyes, but he said, "Alec, I can tell you're tired."
Alec just shrugged, "I'm not that tired…but completely unrelated, how long are we going to keep this up?"
"Just until I'm sure Sam's not going to take off just to keep us safe or the Yellow-Eyed Demon doesn't come in here and take him," Dean tried to reassure. Sam had told them everything that had happened in the ghost town, but Dean got the felling Sam was still hiding something from them. They were just going to keep an eye on him until he was completely sure everything was fine.
They were at Bobby's house now trying to figure out what the Yellow-Eyed Demon's plans were. Alec had definitely taken Dean's idea seriously to watch out for Sam and hadn't slept at all the first few nights there. It wasn't until Dean had issued his threat that Alec had taken him seriously and slept for a few hours. He still wasn't doing exactly what Dean wanted him to, but he was working on it.
Usually when they were at Bobby's, he and Sam would just stay in the living room and sleep on the sofa and floor. Since they were staying longer this time Bobby had them stay in the extra rooms upstairs. Bobby didn't have any kids, but his wife had insisted on having extra rooms for when they did. She died before they had any and Dean and Sam were the closest Bobby had for sons. Dean had considered him a father figure even before John had died and even more so after.
The three of them were sharing one of the bigger rooms that had two beds in it. Dean refused to leave Sam alone since he'd been taken and Alec had just naturally fallen into the same groove. Sam and Dean slept in the separate beds, but both of them now were used to Alec sleeping wherever he wanted, so it wasn't a surprise to either of them if they woke up next to him. Dean thought it was the freedom of choosing that appealed to Alec since he didn't have a choice for the majority of his life. Or he might be afraid of Sam and Dean disappearing, Dean didn't really know. As open as Alec was about some things, he was a complete mystery with others.
Sam and Dean didn't mind; they'd been forced to share beds many times when they were younger. It was a surprise the first time it had happened and the memory brought a smile to Dean's face. He'd woken up with Alec sound asleep next to him; he hadn't even heard Alec moving around or felt the bed shift. He'd almost fallen out of bed at the shock of it. Alec had done it to Sam the next night and Sam's reaction was almost funnier than his own had been. Dean considered not getting an extra bed for him anymore, but then he'd gone back to his own bed. Neither of them had asked him about it yet and so far Alec hadn't offered up a reason why.
"You sure you don't want to get some more sleep?" Alec asked when Dean still hadn't made any indication of moving.
"Nope, I'm good," Dean replied and he clapped Alec on the back once as he headed for the door. When he looked back, Alec was on his bed already fast asleep.
Dean made his way downstairs to the room where Bobby was sitting doing research.
"You know, the kid can stay in one of the other rooms if he wants his own bed, he doesn't have to share with one of you two," Bobby said without looking up as Dean entered the room.
Dean sat in one of the chairs opposite of Bobby's and propped his feet up on the cluttered desk between them. He chuckled, "He's probably already slept in one of those rooms, but I don't think he minds sharing."
"It really doesn't look like he's slept much at all," Bobby muttered and he glanced up over the book he was reading to fix Dean with a reprimanding gaze.
"Sounds like you're starting to get a soft spot for Alec," Dean returned, choosing to ignore Bobby's thinly veiled reprimand.
Bobby grumbled something that sounded like, "Freakin' Winchesters…" and Dean smiled a little as he picked up one of the books off of the pile.
Dean hated doing research, but that's all they'd been doing the past few days. They were looking for anything that would tell them what Yellow-Eyes was planning. He shouldn't complain though, he was just happy that Sam was alive and with them.
"Do you think somethin's different with Sam?" Bobby asked hesitantly after a moment.
Dean had been thinking about that a lot lately and answered truthfully, "I think he might be hiding something…"
"What do you think he's hiding?" Bobby asked.
Dean sat up and put the book on the desk, "I don't know…"
Bobby just nodded and picked up something else that Dean couldn't see. They sat in silence for a while but Dean couldn't focus on doing research at the moment. He couldn't stop thinking about what could have happened in that ghost town. Sam could have died and there would have been nothing he could do about it. His whole life he'd looked after Sam and if he was gone, Dean didn't know what he would do.
"I think I found something," Bobby said suddenly.
"What?" Dean asked with curiosity. After days of research there hadn't been any leads and Dean was ready for anything that could help them.
Bobby hesitated and looked to the door and then back at Dean, "You better get those two up, they're going to want to hear it too."
Dean's eyebrows rose in surprise, but he got up and headed back up the stairs. Sam and Alec were both sound asleep when he walked in and part of him didn't want to wake them. But Bobby was right, they would want to know if there were any leads and they would be pissed if he let them sleep through it.
"Rise and shine, Bobby's found something," Dean said.
Sam woke up faster than Alec did at the sound of Dean's voice, but neither of them knew what he'd said.
"What?" Alec asked in a sleepy voice.
"Bobby found something," Dean repeated and that news had both of them moving a little faster to see what it was. Sam was actually faster than Alec was for once, which had Dean wishing he could've let him sleep a little longer.
"You alright?" Dean asked quietly as Alec walked by him.
Alec stopped and looked at him in surprise. "I'm always alright," Alec replied with a small smile, but the reply wasn't all that convincing.
Once they were all in the room Bobby laid out a map of the state of Wyoming. "There's all kinds of Demonic signs in Southern Wyoming, but there's a large area where nothin's going on, like the demons are surrounding it."
"What do you think it means?" Sam asked.
"Don't know," Bobby shrugged, "but there somethin' going on there. It's the only thing- what'd you hear?" Bobby suddenly asked, looking right at Alec.
Dean and Sam swung their attention to Alec who was looking out of the window.
"I think there's something in the salvage yard," Alec said as his eyes scanned for any movements outside.
Dean didn't question what Alec heard, but he was surprised at how much faith Bobby was showing in him. "Sam, you and Alec take the back, me and Bobby will search the front," Dean stated and all four of them moved into action.
Dean and Bobby moved quickly and quietly through the maze of wrecked and destroyed cars. Now that they were outside, Dean could hear what Alec must've heard earlier; it was like something was moving around and it sounded like it was getting closer.
Together they crouched down beside an old beat up four-door and waited for a moment. There was another sound and Dean and Bobby jumped up at the same time and grabbed the woman that appeared.
It took Dean a second to realize that it was Ellen. "Ellen?" He asked in surprised relief as wrapped his arms around her in a desperate hug.
Ellen nodded against Dean and held him back. They hadn't been able to tell if Ellen was killed in the fire or not, and now the relief of seeing her alive was almost too much.
They only stood there for a few minutes before they made their way back into the house. Dean yelled out back for Sam and Alec to come back and they came running in a moment later.
Bobby was sitting across from Ellen pouring holy water in a shot glass when the three of them walked in. Bobby slid the shot across the table where Ellen caught it and asked, "Bobby is this really necessary?"
"It's just a belt of holy water, shouldn't hurt," Bobby replied easily.
Ellen tossed it back and then set the glass down, "Whiskey now, if you don't mind."
"Ellen what happened? How'd you get out?" Dean asked as Bobby was filling up the glass with some whiskey.
Ellen's eyes landed on Dean, but then she spotted the extra person in the room. "Wait just a minute, who's this?!"
Dean looked to see that she was looking at Alec. "This is Alec," Dean tried to keep his voice casual; he just hoped Ellen wouldn't ask too many questions.
"Am I just supposed to ignore that he looks just like you?" Ellen asked in her no-nonsense voice.
"It's kind of a long story…" Sam said.
"Anyway, how'd you get out?" Bobby asked again, trying to change the subject.
Ellen shot another look at Alec, but then answered, "I wasn't supposed to. I was supposed to be in there with everybody else. But we ran out of pretzels, of all things. Ash called while I was out…he was panicking about something. He told me to look in the safe and then the call cut out. By the time I got back the flames were sky-high and everybody was dead. I couldn't have been gone more than 15 minutes…"
"I'm sorry Ellen," Sam gently said.
"Lot of good people died in there…and I got to live…lucky me."
There was silence for a moment until Bobby said, "Ellen, you mentioned a safe…"
"There's a hidden safe that we keep in the basement," Ellen quickly explained.
"Demons get what was in it?" Bobby asked.
"No," Ellen said as she pulled out a map with x's on it and passed it to Dean.
Dean looked at the map and it only took him a second to recognize that it was a map of Wyoming. "Wyoming?"
It didn't take Bobby long to figure out that there was a giant Devil's Trap in southern Wyoming. He laid out the map that Ellen had so everyone could see it. Each of the x's on the map represented an old frontier's church that had been built by Samuel Colt and each of the churches were connected by private railway lines. When Bobby connected the x's he made a star, which is how they knew there was a Devil's Trap.
"Do you think it still works?" Dean asked.
"Definitely," Sam answered.
"How do you know?" Dean asked again.
"All those omens Bobby found, the demons must be circling it and they can't get in," Sam explained.
"Well, they're tryin'," Bobby said.
"What's inside?" Ellen asked.
"There's an old cowboy cemetery right in the middle," Dean answered as he pulled the book he'd been looking at closer.
"What's so important about a cemetery? What was Colt trying to protect?" Sam asked.
"What if instead of keeping something out, they were trying to keep something in?" Alec suddenly asked.
"Well that's a comforting thought…" Ellen replied and Alec just shrugged back.
Dean knew what their next step was going to be, but he asked anyway, "So, we headed to Wyoming?"
More soon...