Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural (boo)
Misplaced Revenge
Dean smiled to himself as he left the bathroom, towel tied round his waist, and he hopped onto the bed. He had missed this. The two of them just being brothers, engaged in constant warfare to get one up on the other, and he had won this round, leaving Sam stuck all dirty, grimy and gelled, and he knew it must be driving his little brother crazy.
Flicking on 'Dr Sexy MD', he settled back to relax, allowing his hair to dry in the hot desert air that was permeating the room. Truthfully, he hadn't been this good in a long time. Yeah, he still drank a little, sure he did, but he did it with Sam there, to celebrate a hunt well done, and despite finding that filthy traitor Cas, events hadn't been bad enough to warrant a return to full blown drinking. For the first time in, well years, he felt like Sam's big brother again.
Den frowned as he thought of how close he had come to losing Sam, not just as a brother, but for good. He couldn't allow anything like that to happen ever again. He needed his brother, as much as he needed him, even though Sam wasn't hosting the devil in his head anymore.
Dean watched his show, supposing that meant he was now going to have to let Sam watch his soap opera when he came back, and noticing that the sky was a bright ruby red, it occurred to Dean that Sam should have been back ages ago.
Dean sat up on the bed, worry filling him. He knew he shouldn't overreact, but Sam hadn't returned, and when he saw that he had left his gun on his bed, Dean felt a tiny sliver of panic work its way into his gut. Getting up and throwing some trousers and a top on, Dean reached for his phone, ready to leap into action if he detected any sign that something had befallen Sam. Dean waited, his breath held, and when Sam's phone clicked immediately to answer phone, he did get worried. He wasn't answering, his gun was on the bed and he had been gone far too long.
He had only gone to the store to get some food. But then, unbidden, a horrible memory surfaced in Dean's mind: when he had sent Sam in for some food once before, and in a flurry of blood, his little brother had been taken to Cold Oak, where he had lost his life. Feeling jumpy and on the verge of panic, Dean dashed out into the courtyard and into the car they had been using, driving down towards the garage store. Something was wrong. He knew it. The 'Sammy is in trouble' alarm, which had been intermittent for the last god knew how long, was now once again finely tuned, and it was currently going haywire. Something had happened to Sam, he was sure of it. Baring his teeth, Dean entered the parking lot, desperate for any sign of his brother. There was none to be had as he scanned the area, looking for any sign of his brother.
"Not again Sammy..." Dean moaned, getting out of the car.
Why had he let Sam go out to the store? Nearly every time he sent Sam out to get something, something bad inevitably happened, whether it be kidnapping, demons, death, or all of the above mixed together. Dean cursed himself. What could have happened to Sam in the intervening time? Why had Dean leapt into the shower first? He knew it did no good to blame himself, but once more Sam seemed to have vanished, and once again, it was down to him. Just like when he had nearly been killed in Dillimore had been down to him.
Dean forced himself to take a deep breath. Maybe he was just overreacting. Maybe Sam had been caught short by the call of nature and was in the loo. Maybe he'd met a girl. Dean would be pissed at that, but he could accept it. But then again, it was Dean who was the brother most likely to pick up a random girl and go home with her, not Sam. Dean entered the garage store, and quickly scanned the shop, seeing nothing, which only served to strengthen his rising force of panic. He walked up to the matronly like woman behind the counter, and she smiled at him.
"What can I get you love?" she asked, her hand ready above the coffee machine.
"My brother hopefully. Have you seen him? Six foot tall, dark hair, currently gelled, would have been buying pie hopefully?" he asked, hope burning in his eyes.
The woman nodded in realisation, and Dean wondered if god really had abandoned the world, or if someone up there just liked him and Sam.
"Yes, I saw a boy like that. But, I have to say he went extremely odd after a while." She said, and Dean frowned.
No. Sam couldn't have gone odd. Sam didn't go odd anymore, Cas had fixed him. Sam was only as odd as he ever was, which compared to some of the things Dean had done, wasn't that much.
"Odd how?" Dean asked, wondering if that turncoat Cas had sent Sam's hellish mind back to him, he wouldn't put it past the dirty rat.
"Well, it was when two more guys came in. They were dangerous looking types, and they just froze. They kept talking about these things called Leviathans, and angels, and Winchesters. It was all very weird actually. They kept talking like they'd killed these Winchesters and they had come back, but I don't see how that could have happened. Mind you they didn't seem like dope heads, we don't get a lot of them around here. They definitely sounded dangerous, and right in front of me, they decided they were going to go after these Winchesters because of these Leviathan things they had let their pet angel set loose. See, you get all sorts here? Anyway, your brother went really still, and followed them out, a few minutes later, the ones who wanted to hunt the Winchesters had driven away, that was the last I saw of him." She explained chattily, pouring herself a cup of coffee while doing do.
Dean however had stopped paying attention. They could only be hunters that had been in here, and if they had killed him and Sam, that meant they could only be one pair: Walt and Roy.
The sons of bitches had snuck into their room three years before, and had murdered them both in cold blood, Sam first, shooting him point blank and then following through with Dean, as Walt had reasoned (rightly) that Dean would hunt them down and murder them for what they had just done to his little brother. However, after everything that had gone on in heaven and afterwards, and Dean himself giving up the fight and basically consigning himself to say yes to Michael, he hadn't bothered. How he was regretting that now.
The sons of bitches must have taken Sam. Sam wouldn't have tried to tackle them on his own, not without his gun, even if he had overheard them. No, if Sam had run out, he must have been bound back for the motel, to warn Dean that those two were out for their blood again. The problem was that he had never made it, which meant those shits had taken him in the car park.
So, that left Dean with a god awful question...had they kidnapped Sam, or killed him?
Dean darted out of the shop, leaving the woman talking to herself about her stranger customers, and his eyes scoured the car park. He couldn't believe Sam was dead. No, surely not. If they had wanted Sam dead, they would have killed him, there and then, and waited for Dean to come to them, driven by grief and anger and much more likely to make a mistake .That would have been the smart thing to do, but no one had ever said Roy and Walt were particularly smart. So, by all means, that had to mean that Sam was alive, and that those bastards had taken him, to lure Dean to them, so they could kill them both.
Dean stomped through the car park, looking for anything that might be a clue, and finally found something that made his search worthwhile. Blood. Bending down and testing it with his fingers, he found that it was still warm, so Sam couldn't have been gone that long, which was good. And somehow, Dean also knew within his heart that this blood wasn't Sam's. Dean smiled. That's my boy, he thought proudly. He might have been overpowered (he doubted those two idiots could outwit his brother, they couldn't outwit Cas and he was in cloud cuckoo land), but at least he had made them work for it.
But, as that proud thought came to mind, something else sent a chill through Dean. Walt was known for having a very nasty temper. He had once nearly beat a hunter to death in Ellen's roadhouse, the story went, because said hunter had disagreed with him about his choice of weapon, and only a warning shot and a lifetime bar from Ellen had prevented things from getting worse. And, considering what he had done to both Sam and Dean, his temper was still very vicious (nothing said anger issues like a rifle blast to the chest). Dean frowned in panic. If Sam had hurt Walt and had been overpowered, Walt might take a very vicious and brutal revenge on his little brother. Feeling slightly sick, and the memory of their last Christmas before his deal had come due coming to mind as to just some of the things that could happen to Sam, he continued his search.
He didn't find any more blood, which suited him. That meant, he hoped, that Sam was still in a reasonably healthy state. Dean growled savagely. Walt and Roy had crossed the line. Back then, he supposed they had had some reason to kill them, even if it was ill advised, ill informed, brutal and stupid. They hadn't known the two of them had been trying to fix the Apocalypse mess they had started. In their situation, he and Sam might have considered the same thing. They never would have done it, but they certainly would have considered it. But this was too far. Sam had nothing to do with the Leviathans being set loose. He had even less to do with it than Dean or Bobby had had, because Dean had delayed and wasted precious time, hoping his baby brother would come out of the coma his dear 'friend' Castiel had brought him into when he had destroyed his wall. But Walt and Roy were gunning for them again, because of the Leviathans. As if they didn't have enough problems, like invincible enemies who just kept replicating, pissed off demons and kings of hell and repairing their relationship, now Walt and Roy had set out to deliberately kill other hunters, and with the very base of justification to boot. Dean was going to kill them. If one hair had been moved on Sam's head, the two of them would regret ever coming after them again. The two hunters were trying to kill someone who was virtually innocent in the entire affair. What was the old adage? 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me'. Because of all that had happened, they had escaped scot free after killing the two of them before, despite Dean's vow of vengeance.
If he had had his head on straight, if he hadn't been so focused on giving up and just getting it over with, if he hadn't been so keen to let his baby brother down, and hurt him terribly (he quickly skated past that thought), he would have made good on that promise and killed the two bastards who had murdered his little brother right in front of him. His own death, he could get over. But killing his little brother, so ruthlessly and callously, right in front of him, he would never get over that. Especially when he recalled Sam pleading with them, begging them to listen before they snuffed out his life force.
Dean knew Walt had been the driving force. Roy always had been a coward. Walt had killed the two of them. Walt had happily shot Sam. The man wasn't a hunter, he was a monster. And he was a monster who now had Sam's brother, along with a pathetic excuse for hunter, monster and human being.
Dean continued to comb the car park, anger pulsing through his veins. He remembered the hunt through Dillimore to find the one who had nearly killed Sam (not realising all he had to do to find him was look in a mirror, he thought guiltily), the anger that had been driving him. And now, it was worse. He was back in full, overprotective, overbearing, overcompensating and overenthusiastic big brother mode, and someone had his little brother. They would soon learn just how stupid a move that could be.
Truthfully, it felt good to feel so much again. He had blocked out so much of the good in his life, so much of Sam, that he had forgotten what it was like to be himself, the big brother. And with a slight smile, he realised how much he really enjoyed being Sam's big brother. He would find his brother. He would free him. Then together, the Winchesters would make those lousy excuses for human beings pay.
Dean's light source was rapidly fading, and all he had to show was a bit of blood and a few scuff marks, until he felt something beneath his shoe. Frowning, he bent down and picked it up, holding the rope up to the nearly distant light of the garage. Dean looked at it curiously, and then rolled his eyes as the truth dawned on him. After all, it was Sam. What else could it mean?
"Aww not again Sammy. How many times can you get strangled huh? It's a wonder your head still worked even before hell, the amount of oxygen it's lost over the years." He said chidingly, speaking to himself, but he could just imagine Sam's irate protest. After all, Dean was always getting thrown into, or worse, through walls.
Making a mental note to train Sam to escape a stranglehold once he got him back, something he supposed he really should have done years ago, Dean surveyed the surrounding area. If memory served, Walt drove a pick up truck, and as he was famed throughout the trade as being a real skinflint, Dean suspected he would still have the truck. Which, by law of averages, meant they had to have stuffed his unconscious baby brother in the back of the truck. Which ruled out them having gone back to town, as people probably would notice if a roughed up, unconscious six footer had been hauled out of the truck. The town was small, and Dean would have heard their truck pull up at the motel, so where had they gone? There was another couple of towns nearby, but they too were quite small, and the further away they went, the more they risked Sam waking up. So, where did that mean they had gone?
Dean pondered. He was losing daylight, fast, and he wanted Sam back as soon as possible. Walt wasn't exactly known for his patience. If he got bored of waiting for Dean, he might just kill Sam and go looking for him later. Dean growled, wishing he had someone to bounce ideas off of. It had been so long since he'd been in full on big brother mode like this, he'd gotten rusty. Time to fix that.
Time was running out. Walt, and to a certain extent Roy, wanted both him and Sam dead. The woman had said so, and that would have made Sam rush back to the motel to warn his brother. So he could accept that as kosher. They wanted them both together, so they wanted Dean to come looking for them. That had to mean they were nearby, somewhere they could get by unseen, and be able to hurt Sam in any way they wanted. Which Dean was determined to avoid. He was going to skin them alive when he got his hands on them. Dean thought about it. Where in the local area...got it! Sam had mentioned an abandoned ghost town near El Quebrados, called Aldea Malvada, that he thought might have been the reason there was a ghost in the area. Once they had dismissed that, Dean had insisted that they go visit it, and indeed, they had planned to visit both there and Las Brujas the next day. After all, they were hunters, it was the right and professional thing to do. The fact that it gave them a little time to relax and that Dean had intended to pull pranks on Sam in both places was totally irrelevant. Dean looked up to the cliff that the station sat in the shadow of. There was a dirt track leading up to it, he knew that. It made sense. There was nowhere else they could have gone in such a short space of time and not been heard, spotted or discovered by someone or other. It made perfect sense. Dean growled. Those bastards soon wouldn't know what had hit them.
I'm coming Sammy.
Dean clambered back into the Perennial and gunned the engine. He would have to take it slowly, and drive up without the lights on, but he could manage that. Those bastards had his brother, and intended to hurt him. They had just started being brothers again, and he was damned if he was letting them hurt him, not if he had anything to do about it.
The drive up was slow. In the dark, using only his flashlight inside the car, it was very difficult to make out the dirt track that led up the mountain. It made for very slow progress, and Dean was getting incredibly frustrated. He knew he had to be careful, if he went in all guns blazing he could get both of them killed. But, it was very difficult to retain a level head. His progress was maddeningly slow, and every minute he took gave Walt and Roy more time to hurt Sam, and he knew full well that they would be hurting him.
He continued to drive up slowly, until the car reached a steep incline. After a few grunting attempts, that Dean feared would alert his prey to his impending arrival, he gave it up as a bad job and climbed out of the car, pocketing his gun, Sam's spare gun, his pocket knife, his flashlight and some matches. Those suckers were going to pay, then he was going to make sure they could never come back while he was at it. They wouldn't threaten Sam again. Readying his gun, Dean's hand unconsciously touched his chest before he ventured up the steep incline, creeping along silently, gun at the ready. His progress was actually quicker now that he wasn't in the old car, and he was like a shadow, prowling up the slope towards the ghost town that he knew as at the top of the incline.
He was nearing the top, and he was sure he could see a small light casting over the incline. Dean smiled savagely. Soon, he would have them. And then, he heard something that made his heart stop cold. A pain filled scream cut across the night, and Dean knew instantly what it meant: the sick bastards were torturing his little brother. Fury boiled inside him, as he crept forward with greater purpose, as another of his brother's pain filled yells cut through the air. What were they doing to him? Fear and worry spread through Dean as he got closer to the top of the rock face, wondering how much time he had left. He readied his gun and crept forward.
To be met by the evil yellow eyes of a black rattlesnake, hissing at him menacingly. Dean whimpered. He whimpered like a girl. He had always been against snakes, hated them. He had always teased Sam relentlessly for being afraid of spiders when they were younger, but snakes terrified the shit out of him. And this evil looking creature had seen Dean and was rattling bloody murder.
It was loud standing right next to the foul thing. Dean looked behind it, not taking his eyes off the potentially lethal animal, and looked at the small abandoned town behind it. They were small, ramshackle buildings, bleached white by the sun. Some were caved in, some were wide open to the elements due to collapse. But there was one that was quite intact, and there was a light coming from it, and a pickup truck beside it.
Sam was there. And this freakin snake was in the way.
The snake was hissing at him, coiling itself, ready to strike, its tail rattling sinisterly. He couldn't shoot the damn thing, or else his prey would hear. He also couldn't make any sudden movements, or else the damn thing would bite him, and he didn't fancy going up against Walt and Roy with venom blazing through his veins. So, where did that leave him?
Dean went for his pocket knife, moving slowly. The snake was watching him intently, and he knew that one wrong move would make the blasted thing pounce, and he wouldn't be able to stop it. His insides filled with fear, his hand shaking, he grasped the handle of his knife in his pocket, and with the snake watching intently, he distracted it with his torch, moving it a little. The snake switched target, his eyes fixed on the light, and Dean pulled the knife from his pocket, and darted forward before the snake could react, plunging the knife into the neck of the foul creature.
The snake gave a broken hiss as it twitched and writhed, pinned to the ground by the blade, and Dean shuddered in disgust. Foul creature. He stole up onto the outcropping, lifting the knife from the snake and kicked its body away, before silently creeping forwards once more, approaching the single lit building, as Sam cried in pain, and Dean could hear the distress and the pleading and the tears in his voice.
"Please, just kill me! Leave Dean alone! He had nothing to do with this!" he protested, and Dean's insides knotted in fury hearing his brother pleading like that. Suppressing his fury, Dean crept ever closer to the building, the light illuminating his way, and thankfully, he saw no more snakes on the way over, before he came to a stop at a narrow slit and peered through.
"Funny thing eh Walt? He said he had nothing to do with the Leviathans too. But now, he's willing to let us kill him if we spare his dear older brother." Roy laughed mockingly, and Dean could hear the booze in his voice. He smiled grimly. He had sounded like that himself enough recently. He would pay for drinking on the job with his life.
Sam looked bad, but he had looked worse. His left eye was slightly swollen, and there was blood in his mouth, but aside from that his face looked fine. His hair wasn't congealed with blood, but was still mostly tidy and slick from the gel. But as Dean ran a critical eye down his brother's body, his rage boiled. Two of his fingers were bleeding, the nails having been wrenched off. Two fingers also looked broken as well. There were deep cuts in Sam's shirt, and he could see blood spilling from each of them, making him all the more furious. There was also blood on his torn jeans, and his shoes and socks had been pulled off, and he could tell they had pulled nails off his toes as well. Sickened, he glowered at the two hunters.
This was it. No arguments, no second chances. He would free Sam, check he was alright, then murder these bastards who thought they could turn vigilante and scrub him and his brother. No more. He wouldn't let them threaten him or Sam again.
"Leave Dean out of this." Sam spat angrily, and Dean smiled grimly, hearing the inflection in his brother's voice. His spirit definitely wasn't broken.
"Oh, what big bwother not part of the deal? Sorry Sam. You guys start the Apocalypse, we kill you like the demons you are, and you still have the gall to come back. You got off for doing that scot free. That wasn't right Sam. You can't just start the end of the world and not pay for it." Walt said conversationally, taking in a baby voice at first but turning harder as he progressed, hard, angry, and also smug.
Dean's knuckles went white as he gripped his gun. That asshole thought Sam had gotten off scot free? Neither of them had. They had fixed the mess, saved the world, and it had still bit them both in the ass, Sam in particular. He was in for a world of hurt when he got his hands on him. Sam had been through hell, more than anyone else in the world, and this bastard was lecturing him?
"I did pay, I was trapped in Lucifer's cage for a year." Sam spat furiously, and Walt and Roy both laughed mockingly.
"After what you did, a year wasn't nearly long enough. But you didn't stop there did you Sam? No. You and your asshole brother, with your brother's pansy angel boyfriend, you set these Leviathans loose on the world. Yet another mess you Winchesters are responsible for." Walt said, and Sam screamed in pain as Walt slammed a hammer down onto his pinky, and Dean had to hold himself back from running in and slugging him.
"It wasn't us! It was Cas, he did it!" Sam protested, and Roy scoffed, spitting booze into Sam's face, making Sam grunt in disgust.
"Please. We all know how close you guys were. You set those things loose, you've screwed us all over again. And now, you're going to pay." He wheezed, and Dean had had enough.
He tiptoed around to the large, open doorway, readying his gun.
"Looks like your brother's not coming. Shame." Roy taunted, and Walt nodded at him.
Sam looked at him worriedly, and then Roy smacked the empty whisky bottle off the back of his head, and Sam's head fell to his chest, going limp as he was knocked out.
Dean saw red, and moved, entering the building. He raised his gun to put a bullet between Roy's eyeballs, but as he did so, he realised, in his anger and desperation to get to Sam, he had misjudged where Walt was. Before he could kill even one of his brother's captors, Walt swung a baseball bat, smacking it into Dean's head.
Dean gave a grunt, his gun flew out of his hand, his eyes rolled into his head and he sagged to the sandy ground, his face crashing just before Sam's feet and a plume of dust settling in his spiky hair, while Walt and Roy laughed triumphantly behind them.
Uh oh. Now the evil bastards have both of them. How will they get out of this mess?
Safe to say, the boys, Sam in particular, are in for a rough time next chapter. And then, old issues will come up, connected to Dean's strange gesture before he went for Sam.
And i hate snakes, felt right Dean should kill one. But it is significant, about snakes. After all, Walt and Roy are psychos.
Well thats another chapter up, so as always, please read and review!