Episode Seven
"Sanguis Sanctus"
Chapter Three
Ten Days Earlier
Dean stared at Sam's bed. Stared at nothing and Sam's empty motel bed. Phone on mechanical movement up to his ear, buttons pressed, already ringing. Who was he calling? Sammy was gone.
"Dean?"
Oh. Kevin. Yeah, smart. Good goin' Dean. Call home for help. "Kevin. Sam's-"
"We know. He's on a case in Kentucky and won't be back for another week at least."
Kentucky? Well now he knew one place Sam wouldn't be. His hands itched for a steering wheel, for the soft fabric of Sam's shirt in his fingers, dragging the kid back home where Dean could take care of him. Sam Sam Sam-
"Dean, you okay? It's just a week, man. He said you were coming back to supervise the spell thing?"
"Yeah. Yeah. I am. I'll be home in a day."
He hung up on Kevin's goodbye. Sam had already called them, hadn't ratted Dean out. He was planning to be home in a week, he was gonna be okay. He'd even said they could talk it out. Dean was always ragging on Sam for walking away, so part of him had its hands on its hips like be glad he's acting like himself, you idiot.
His phone booped.
Your car's in front of Mrs. Hopkins' house, btw. See you in a week.
Dean closed his eyes. See you in a week. A promise, Sammy? Because we're so good at promises. But somehow he felt a bit better getting a text from him. It was like fifteen years ago all over again. Sam could say he needed to be out of hunting or away from Dean all he wanted, but he texted Dean and that little connection flared back to life, or maybe it never died, lying in wait for a spark.
Fine. Fine. He'd give it... four days. Maybe five. Probably three. But some days. For Sam to cool down.
He didn't notice the driving time. Seriously, thirteen hours of worrying and regretting and reconvincing himself that Sam was okay. The road must have passed under his wheels, the car must have needed gas, he might have stopped for road food and had to have stopped to piss, but he didn't remember it.
Instead he banged open the bunker door and thumped down the stairs. It was 3:00 am, and he didn't care. If they weren't all awake worrying about Sam, they should have been.
As it turned out, they were all awake. Not worrying about Sam.
Kevin sat at the map table in the war room, bent over the tablet and eating cornflakes, headphones on. There wasn't anyone else in the room, but he had headphones on anyway, and Dean frowned at him for a good solid minute waiting for him to feel the weight of Dean's glare and turn around. That, uh, didn't happen.
Dean found Cas and Crowley bickering in the kitchen. Neither of them had any taste, but they appeared to be fighting over whether or not cayenne pepper went into making cakes - Crowley maintained that it was the sort of ingredient gourmet chefs used to give the cake a spicy sweet kick, while Cas complained that it was too hot and no human would ever ingest cayenne pepper in any case, not voluntarily, and-
"Knock it off, will ya, you're both pretty."
"Dean!" Cas said. "Dean. Please inform Crowley-"
"Don't be ridiculous. Squirrel's palate is probably light years beyond yours, you baby-tongued human puppet-"
"What did I just say?" Dean growled.
Cas and Crowley looked at each other, turned back to Dean.
"Did you drive all night?" Cas said, as Crowley was saying, "Goodness, a few hours without the sidekick and you're already testy. This'll be a loooovely week."
"Can it, both of you."
"You're not worried?" Cas said.
Yes. Yes god. "No. Sam can handle himself, okay? We're gonna leave him alone while he's gone. I mean it. No texting, no bothering him. That's final."
"If you say so," Crowley said.
"What are you all doing up, anyway? It's 3:00 am."
"We're waiting for a breakthrough."
"Kevin, slow the fuck down. Pause, rewind, now what?"
"I think I know how to get Cas' grace back. I mean. It's gonna be like almost impossible, I mean like actually impossible, considering who has it and why and I'm not sure we'll survive it, but if we can get like, close to it, I think I can make a thing that will sync with the modulation of Cas' grace, specifically, I mean it's like a cosmic waveform of energy, right, and make it kind of like, swoosh to him like automatically, if I can get the right materials and if I can get the math right which I think I can, and I'm not actually sure a thing with the right crystalline structure exists and if the modulation is off the grace of some random angel might get sucked into him or maybe he'll just break apart because it isn't meant to go into his actual body, but either way, I think I can do it."
Dean blinked. "Swoosh?"
Kevin took a deep breath, grinned. "Swoosh."
"So what are you waiting for then?"
Kevin laughed. "Ha. Ha hah. What am I waiting for? Okay, well I need like some kind of way to measure the modulation of a grace we don't currently have, using only the previous host for that grace, and I need to find out if I can just mail order a crystal from like an internet hippy store or if I have to like make it from scratch, and by the way I'm not an engineer okay? And it would really help if I had like five computers working on the math, but sure okay, I'm just dragging my heels."
Dean turned to Cas. "You let him drink coffee, didn't you?"
"No one allows Kevin Tran to do anything. Kevin Tran just is."
Crowley stifled a giggle. Dean rolled his eyes.
"Ooookay. It's time for all good prophets to go to bed."
Kevin kept talking even as Dean pulled him from his chair and pointed him at his bedroom. "I mean I think it's doable. Why would it be in the tablet if it wasn't doable? I mean it's an angel tablet so maybe it's not doable for humans, but then didn't Cas say the tablet was meant for humans, to close off earth in case - well I'm not sure he's right about that, since we can't even read it without super special prophet powers, but even so, we have other angels on our side now. And Cas gets his powers back and maybe that breaks the spell and the angels can go home and that's like half our problem taken care of, right?"
Dean nodded along. The more the kid talked, the more pissed he got that Kevin wasn't working on how to pause the Trials for Sam, how to stop them altogether. He didn't care that apparently there was a thing out there that Sam loved more than life itself that he could sacrifice and it'd be over with. He didn't care that Sam didn't have to lose his life to close the gates to hell. He would settle for Sam being able to stand under his own power, and just now, when Sam was insisting on going it alone because Dean had made a really terrible decision with Abaddon, Dean didn't want to listen to some kid not solving Sam's little problem.
"Okay, okay," he said, until he got Kevin into his room and had closed the door. He was pretty sure Kevin wasn't sleeping behind it, still jabbering away, but maybe distance from the tablet would give him some space to say to himself, self, you are going crazy, stop it.
"I'm going to bed," Dean said to the other two. "You're human, go to bed. You're... go to bed anyway," he said to Crowley. "I've been home five minutes and you're already driving me nuts."
It was two days before Dean picked up the phone to give Sam a call. Shit went down between them now and then, and in the past, his mistakes had always revolved around being too stubborn to call, and he wasn't going to ride that road again. There was a Sam in another timeline who made it clear that sometimes he was supposed to pester Sam because Sam wanted to talk no matter what he actually said, but sometimes he was just supposed to let Sam burn it off. He called in the morning over coffee. Just to talk, to chat about how Sam's "case" was going, to thank him for not outing him to the rest. He didn't regret making that deal with Abaddon, especially since they had no real proof that Lucifer couldn't rise again, and of course she'd lifted the whole Fed craziness somehow - not that he was gonna tell Sam any of that. Anyway, he didn't regret it, but he wasn't proud of it either. Better that no one else knew.
But it didn't matter what he was and wasn't going to tell Sam; Sam didn't pick up.
He called again around noon, and again at six or so, and left him a message saying Sammy, pick up. I know you're pissed. I'm sorry. Come on, just let me explain. Or don't, just pick up and talk to me before I start to get worried. I mean you can do that, can't you?
And then he hung up before he could start to yell about how Sam wasn't thinking about how hard this would be for Dean, how difficult it was to let Sam go off when Abaddon was out there, when Sam sometimes couldn't get out of bed without help, how sometimes Sam heard voices, how fucking dangerous it was for Sam to be off on his own right now - because all that would do, true or not, was drive Sam further away. He'd learned this lesson outside a convent where Sam stood with Ruby, where Lilith lay dead on the ground.
When he didn't answer again at 2:00 am when Dean was drowning in whiskey in the war room alone, having scattered the other bunker dwellers to the four corners with drunken ranting, Dean started to track him. Cell phone GPS, all of his aliases. No hits. He banged on the door to Sam's old room where Crowley could often be found being a creepmaster.
"Find him. Now."
Crowley looked up from where he was seated on the floor, writing in a notebook. "Moose? Why."
"Like you care about having a reason. I'm surprised you haven't been keeping tabs on him from the moment we left four days ago."
Crowley stood, straightened his jacket sleeves. Watched Dean from the side for a moment, two, three, then -
"I have been."
"What?"
"I have been keeping tabs on him from the moment you left four days ago."
Dean frowned, stepped toward Crowley, felt his voice pitch into gravel: "You wanna say that again?"
"I don't trust you with him, Squirrel. Can you blame me? Oh, anyone can see you're trying, but then you chain him up in a dungeon and well, I only want me to chain him up in a dungeon-"
"Excuse me?"
"You know, in a friendly way. A friendly dungeon fun-fest. Pity. He'll probably never walk voluntarily into a dungeon again-"
Dean was to Crowley and had him an inch off the ground in moments. He shook the demon by the throat.
"Down boy," Crowley said, unperturbed. "I assure you, the key word is voluntary. You're the one who doesn't take 'please don't lock me up' for an answer."
"I'm going to end you, I don't care if you're Sam's pet. Now where is he."
Crowley raised a brow. Gestured with his chin at his current position above the floor, and straightened his jacket once Dean had put him back down. "I don't know."
"What?"
"I said, I don't know. He went off the grid just before he called here. He doesn't want to be found, Dean-o."
"And that doesn't worry you?"
"Help a demon out here, hero. Am I supposed to worry about Sam or not? Which answer does the Great Vague Avenger want this time?"
Dean squeezed his hands into fists. He left Crowley in Sam's old room, stalked through the dim-lit bunker aimlessly. Kevin wouldn't know anything. Crowley was useless.
Cas. Cas, though. He could pray to Sam - the little Sam voice in his head corrected him, It's not praying Dean - Cas could pray to Sam. And Sam couldn't reply, but maybe-
He found Cas holed away in a storage room on a lower level. There were plenty of bedroom-type rooms that'd have been more comfortable, but Cas had made the cold, metal-walled room into something of a haven for the obsessed, complete with murder wall including every sighting of supposed "Federal BI men" Cas had taken note of over the last month. Dean whistled at the wall. "Wow, someone's been watching way too much TV."
Cas whirled around from where he was bent over a metal desk. "Dean." He looked back at the photos and articles and hand written snippets. "I just-"
"Okay. This?" Dean gestured at the crazy murder wall. "-is a conversation, but just now I have a favor to ask."
Cas swiveled his antique desk chair all the way around to face Dean. He was dressed in pajama bottoms with duck faces on them, a tee shirt, his trench coat over all of it, and okay, it counted as trying. Little steps for the baby human.
"What do you need?"
"I need you to pray to Sam."
Cas frowned. "But I thought-"
"I know. And under normal circumstances, yes, I want you to stay the fuck out of his head. But he's not answering my calls and I'm worried about his uh, case. And he's not where he said he'd be, so I'm worried something's wrong."
"You can track him-"
"Can't get a cell phone trace, he's not using any of his usual aliases, he's hex bagged himself so Crowley can't track him-"
"You don't think he's really on a case, do you."
Dean watched Cas. Perceptive little asshole. "I don't know. All I do know is that Crowley's not wrong, Abaddon's got Sam at the top of her hit list, and we just don't know what she's capable of right now." And thank god Cas wasn't an angel, because he'd have seen through Dean in a heartbeat. Abaddon would be a fool to mess with Sam if she was gonna stoop to using him as leverage to get Dean to help her. In fact, Sam probably had some demon protection right now whether he wanted it or not. Which meant Sam was just really pissed at Dean rather than in trouble, and Dean tamped down his anger. "So?"
Cas sighed. "Okay. If you think it's wise."
Dean grumbled. "Every five minutes I gotta beg you to stop accidentally prayin' to him and now I gotta convince you to do it on purpose?"
"What shall I communicate to him?"
Dean frowned. "Just that I'm - we're worried, and to pick up the phone and let us know he's okay."
Cas nodded. Closed his eyes, bowed his head, crossed his legs campfire style in the seat of his chair, hands clasped. He breathed out, in, slow, even. Dean watched, impatience turning to concern as Cas' hands started to shake. His mouth opened, lower lip trembling. A tear slipped from his closed eyes, traced down his face. When he opened his eyes again, they were dark with grief, filmed over wet, unseeing until Dean put his hand on Cas' knee. Cas blinked the wet away, breathed out in a settling gust, smiled a little shaky.
"Done. But you know I can't receive an answer, Dean."
"That's okay. I'm counting on your message to get him to pick up the phone."
"Give him a moment," Cas said, serious.
Dean paused with his phone out, blew out a breath and pulled over the other chair in the room to wait. "Yeah. Okay."
A minute passed, a minute in which Dean wanted to ask what was so important and special about prayer that it moved Cas to tears, that it broke Sam in half, that so many people raised their hands in religious fervor during it. Dean had prayed to Cas, and he must have done it right because Cas had answered, but it'd never felt like that. It'd never affected him like that. But Cas had his eyes closed like he was figuring himself out and the guy was just fragments of angel and human trying to co-exist anyway, so Dean just fidgeted until a minute was up. He hit speeddial #2 and waited for the phone to ring.
Once, twice, Sam picked up.
"Dean."
To his credit, he didn't sound nearly as messed up by Cas' prayer as he had before. Maybe he really was feeling better.
"Sammy-"
"It's Sam. Listen. I'm just gonna rip the bandaid off. I'm not coming back, Dean. This thing with you and Abaddon - she killed our grandfather. She's the reason Dad grew up without a father of his own and probably the reason Dad was shit to us. How can you betray him like this? How can you disrespect Henry's memory? I thought family was everything to you. And it just got me thinking, how many times you've screwed me over, and I just forgave you. But I shouldn't have, because you just do the same thing over and over, you never fucking learn and I can't live like that. I can't. So just don't even look for me, man. I'm done."
"Sam - no. You're not fucking done, what else do I have to do. I'm trying, and fuck, I'm sorry if life hasn't been fucking peachy for you, but we got it hard. Both of us. And you're just gonna turn your back on hunting-?"
Sam sighed. "Why do you think that if I'm not with you, it means I'm not hunting? I can do this without you. But you never did believe in me. I shouldn't be surprised."
Fuck. "Sam - hold on. Wait a minute. Just tell me where you are. Is it that kinda funky town we were in a couple months ago?"
There was a moment. Dean held his breath - "No. No Dean. No 'funky town.' Just me, saying goodbye." Sam sounded sad. Obviously he was struggling with the decision, but it didn't make Dean feel any better.
Sam hung up. Dean listened to the tone of the disconnected phone call for a long moment.
"Dean?"
"I'm goin' to bed. G'night Cas."
"This can't be right," Kevin said. He'd been saying it all day; it was starting to grate.
"Look," Dean said, pouring himself another whiskey. "We got code words, him and me. He didn't give one. He's done. He's left me and you and Cas and Crowley here in this dump and he's just gone."
"But you aren't going to leave it there, are you? I mean. He has projects. He was cataloguing the bottom level archives. His stuff is here."
Dean turned to Kevin, Kevin shut his mouth. "Name one thing in that temporary box we turned into a bedroom that Sam put there himself, that he cares about. Do it." Silence. "That's what I thought. He hasn't made this place a home."
"But why leave?"
Dean downed the couple of shots he'd poured for himself. "Who the fuck knows."
Kevin frowned, took his phone out.
"He's not gonna pick up," Dean warned. Kevin knew better. He'd called like fifty times just that Dean had seen.
Kevin tried anyway, left a brief message, clicked off. Dean could feel him staring, but he didn't say anything else, just stormed off to his room.
Dean poured himself another whiskey. Cas was with Lethaniel, scouting another group of angels to see if they would join up with Lethaniel's group of non-asshole angels. Crowley had been shut away in Sam's room, who knew what he was doing in there. So Dean was alone when his phone booped. Sam, thank god-
Heard little brother flew the coop.
Fuck. Abaddon. He ignored her.
You must be so worried.
A little birdie told me he's hunting.
Come on, Dean. Aren't you interested in what little brother's been up to?
Dean growled and tapped out a reply: If you know what's good for you, you'll do your best to keep him alive. No Sam, no me. Got it?
Now now, I'm not all-powerful. Anyway, I can't even get close to him. Not right now.
Dean frowned. Meaning?
You might be interested in what he's doing, that's all. Gotta go.
He texted her back a million times, asking for more information. She didn't respond. But Sam had said he could hunt alone, and if Abaddon or her minions couldn't get near him - Fuck.
Kevin kept calling the rest of the day, but Sam never did pick up. He left messages: Sam, it's me. I know Dean's a dick, but what could be so bad that you can't come home? Sam, it's me, look whatever Dean did, I'm not defending him, but you have family here who need you. You can't leave me alone with Crowley and Dean, man, that's just cruel. Sam, seriously, you can't just abandon me again. I'm gonna develop a complex, dude.
Sam never called back, but Kevin did get one text that said Sorry Kevin. I'll drop you a line sometime, when I've got stuff figured out.
Abandoned, again. By someone Kevin thought understood him best out of everyone in their fracked up family.
So Kevin did what he did best; there was an answer in that tablet to put the Trials on hold, and he was gonna find it, and then he was gonna find Sam, and Sam would come home and everything would be okay.
Yeah, everything would be okay. So what if his bourbon intake was higher than usual. So what if he and Dean were kinda like in a competition to see who'd be the first to set their breath on fire by alcohol content alone. Sam would come home and Kevin would be why.
By the third day of his mission, he'd only discovered yet another list of angel names. He wandered into the kitchen for a bowl of cornflakes at like 4:00 am and found Dean sitting in front of a beer and a cup of strong black coffee, marking spaces on a map.
Kevin tried to look over his shoulder, and ended up on his ass on the floor, Dean pushing his hand through his hair and looking really damned jumpy, mumbling that he was sorry, Kevin had startled him - he rolled up his map and stomped off with it.
Sam really needed to come home. Nothing was right when he was gone.
"I told you, Dean, I can't sense anything from Sam when I pray. Just as you couldn't sense anything from me when you prayed."
Dean paced. He'd found Cas in his little obsession-cave and closed the door. He wasn't ready for Kevin to know this little tid-bit of Sam's history, and he really wasn't interested in Crowley's opinion.
"Fine. Fine then. Get Lethaniel to track him then."
"She has tried. When you first expressed interest in finding Sam, I asked her to assist."
"When were you gonna tell me?"
"I wasn't. Not until I knew more about why Sam left."
"What the hell does that mean?"
Cas looked Dean straight in the eye. "It means that while you have always been motivated by love, you have not always acted in Sam's best interests. I have felt humbled by your dedication to Sam's life, many times over. But I have come to understand that the best motivations do not excuse the actions one has taken."
"Okay, listen. You've screwed him over so many times, and you're telling me-"
"I've since learned. But it doesn't matter - Lethaniel could not find him. His ribcage sigils are still intact. Other magical means of finding him are also being blocked."
Dean took a breath, steadied himself. It was galling to be told by someone who had harmed Sam so many times over that he didn't act in Sam's best interests. There was gonna be a reckoning, a real conversation about this. He wasn't gonna keep ignoring the whole "your good friend Cas let Sam out of the panic room" thing.
"Fine. It doesn't matter. I think I have a way to find him. Look."
Dean shoved everything off the little desk in Cas' hidey-hole and spread out the map. Little red circles dotted it. Dean shuffled through photos and set one by each red circle - he saw the moment Cas understood.
"Those are demon exorcisms. I mean, they're Sam Winchester demon exorcisms."
"I know. Look at the burn pattern on the ground, there. He's not killing, just exorcising. I think he's hunting."
Cas frowned at the photos, looked up at Dean with his brows together. "You mean you think he's drinking demon blood?"
"To feel better, at first," Dean said. "And I let it go on because he was so close to the edge all the time, you know, he was barely breathing there at the end. And the Trials thing just keeps going and he's - I couldn't stand to watch him turn into a skeleton, and this stuff keeps him moving. But I ain't letting him get this far off the reservation, not this time. We're gonna find him. He thinks we can't track him because he's being careful, but he doesn't know we know what he's doing."
Cas picked up a photo, spread his hands in question. "So then if we can track him, why aren't we on our way to him right now? This is a very dangerous substance, no matter what good it allows him to do."
Dean rolled his eyes, but the conversation about whether or not Sammy's intentions made something a good thing would have to wait. "Because the pattern's... incomplete. I mean I can't track it. It's erratic, it's nonsense. I was hoping you had some insight."
Cas studied the map a bit longer, shaking his head. "We should get Kevin and Crowley involved. We can remove the photos, if you like."
An hour later, Dean had called another family meeting.
"What makes these spots special?" Kevin asked.
"You've got evidence of a Moose sighting, have you?" said Crowley.
Dean waved them off. "Nevermind. Just look at this map and the times I've written in. This is where Sam has been. I can't figure a pattern."
Crowley frowned. "Where did you get this information?"
"Sources," Dean growled. "Why, you know something?" Dean stared Crowley down, Crowley flicked a glance at Kevin and shrugged.
"Well, there's one thing. There's been demon activity in each place." He looked around. "What, I keep up with Demons Weekly."
Kevin started jotting down notes in his notebook. "The overall shape of the pattern isn't like, a symbol or anything. And there's like nothing in these places. They're just tiny little towns, farming communities. Hang on." He pulled out his phone and took a snapshot of the map. "I'm texting this to Charlie. More brains are better than three." He looked at Crowley. "Three and a half."
"You're too kind."
Cas squinted. "There doesn't seem to be an identifiable center of activity, a home base from which Sam might be working."
"Hunting demons," Crowley said, nodding. "Alone."
"Probably feels guilty for not closing the gates. Now he's on a mission to send as many of them back to hell as he can," Kevin suggested.
"If you're all done psychoanalyzing my brother?" Dean growled. "Come on. Ideas, people."
"Sam doesn't need a home base," Cas pointed out. "Until this bunker, you've never had a stable location from which to work."
Dean sighed. "Theoretically that's true. Sam could be setting up shop for just a few hours before moving on. But Sam knows I know that, he knows I'll be looking for him to keep moving. I'm betting he's actually staying put in a space that's heavily warded."
A buzz. "Oh, Charlie texted back." Kevin frowned at his phone. "She says she's got nothing, but she'll start doing some research."
Cas' eyebrows lifted. He touched Dean's elbow, turned away from the table, and Dean followed him. "Dean. We aren't going to find a pattern in this data. Sam's not travelling like a human. He isn't constrained to a certain radius in a certain amount of time."
Dean closed his eyes. Obviously. "He's got some demon bitch with him, a chauffeur-slash-mini-bar all in one. Goddammit." He thought a moment. Looked at the others. "Okay," he said, turning back. "I have an idea to flush him out, get more data. There's some recording equipment in the server room, get it." Kevin scurried off. Dean turned to Cas. "When I tell you, you're gonna pray, just like before. Crowley, I need you to go get Charlie for me, and then be on deck ready to teleport my ass right to him-"
"I can't find him, I told you."
"I know. And this is a long shot. But we gotta try, right?"
"What's your plan?"
Dean sighed, met Cas' gaze. He was concerned, they were all concerned. Half of them didn't even know what to really be concerned about, and yet there it was. "We're gonna make him mad. Get him to pick up the phone again. And we're gonna record every second of that phone call. There's gotta be some clue to his whereabouts." And of course maybe Sam blurted out something about Abaddon, but it was a risk he had to take.
Dean was on the phone with Charlie, had to tell her to burn her hex bag so Crowley could find her, but she did it while asking a million questions a mile a minute, and she didn't stop even as Dean let them both in the front door and walked them back to the war room, where Kevin was just setting out the last of the ancient recording equipment.
Charlie whistled. "Wowie. This is old. Jurassic. What are you gonna do with it? Auction? I bet you could get a bunch-"
"You're gonna hook it up for me."
Charlie turned to stare. "Um."
"We're lookin' for someone-"
"Where's Sam?"
"We're lookin' for Sam," Dean amended. "He's pissed at me, he went off doing some hunt."
"So... like a completely normal person, you need to stalk him and bring him back?"
"Pretty much. Listen, you don't understand me and Sam, okay? I don't care what you read in those books. Sam does this sometimes, but just now Abaddon is on the loose, Crowley says Sam's probably at the top of the world-wide Demon hitlist. He's too sick to be dealing with the kind of target he's got on his back right now. So yeah, you're gonna help me find him, or so help me-"
"I'm gonna help you find him. But not because of your awesome speech. Because that? Was terrible. Not a good motivational speech at all. Like really, it was the opposite of motivational. But I'll do it for Sassafrass. What's the plan?"
"I'm gonna call him, and we're gonna record it, and then we're gonna listen for clues about where he might be holed up."
Charlie twisted her mouth up in doubt. "You saw this in a tv show, didn't you."
"Shut up and do it already."
Charlie worked some magic while Dean figured out how to best piss Sam off enough to pick up the phone. Before, it'd been a kind of combination of apology and Cas praying, but he got the idea that wouldn't happen again. He drank his whiskey and hovered over the buttons on his phone until she came up to him with a mini-USB she said she needed to plug into his phone. He startled awake, looked over. Kevin had an ancient deteriorating set of big stereo headphones on his head, was holding another set for Charlie. There was some kind of interface device between his phone and the big reel to reel - he could have set this up himself if the whole phone thing hadn't been involved. Charlie pressed through some menus on his smart phone, handed it back with a "Magic words, please," and didn't let it go until he'd muttered "thank you."
"Okay, Cas. I want you to pray again, and try to make it feel like we're closing in, like we're close. Not like angry, but like, 'we're close Sam just tell us where you are and we'll come help whatever you're doin.' Got it?"
Cas nodded, closed his eyes. Dean started composing a text.
Sammy, I got ur trail man. whatever ur up to, its fine but i'm not gonna just let you call us quits. I'm never gonna stop looking for u.
There. Not angry, not pissed, but also guaranteed to piss Sam off enough to pick up the phone when Dean called, just to tell him to shove it. That with the prayer might be enough pressure on him to at least pick up, and hopefully give Dean a clue about where he was.
He pressed send on the text after Cas had opened his eyes. They gave Sam a moment to digest everything, and then he signalled to Kevin and Charlie, sitting at the reel to reel with headphones on, and pressed Call.
It rang twice before Sam picked up.
"You think you're on my trail, huh?" he said without preamble.
"I know I am."
"I sincerely doubt it. Look I know you're worried, but I'm not having this conversation with you again. I can take care of myself. I'm a better hunter when you're not around - and that's not an insult man, it's just... true. You just keep your distance from me and we'll both be better off."
Dean gritted his teeth, made a face at the phone, but strangled himself into politeness. "That's not true, Sammy. Now I know you can be a stubborn son of a bitch, but you gotta know I can outlast you in that arena when it comes to making sure you're where I can keep an eye on ya-"
"Keep an eye on me? Right. Cuz that's always worked out so well for me. Jesus Dean do you even listen to yourself?"
"Sam-"
"No man. I'm not gonna say it again. I'm done. You stay the fuck away from me. The only thing you've ever done for me is drag me back into a life I never wanted and now can't escape, because you're too weak to be alone. You don't know me anymore, you definitely can't track me-"
"Oh can't I? You think I don't know about your little demon blood problem?" Dean growled, pacing. "You think I can't see a fucking burned patch of ground and recognize that my idiot little brother's gone completely off the rails, again? I'm comin' for your ass, man, and you and me are gonna have a nice long fucking heart to heart-"
"Man you don't know what you're talking about-"
"Yeah I fucking do. You must think I'm real dumb, not even bothering to cover your tracks. Your bullshit demon exorcism trail's leadin' me straight to you, Sammy boy-"
There was a fumbling rustle on the other end of the line - Sam, caught off-guard by Dean's accusation. Dean wasn't so far in denial that he could say he'd hoped he was wrong. No, he was right and he knew it, and what really stung was that Sam thought he was too bad a hunter to pick up the trail. Or maybe Sam thought Dean didn't care enough to look. He tried not to take it to heart; kid was high, not thinking straight.
Sam got the phone back, breathed hard a bit, kind of laughing - "Demon exorcisms," he said. "Yeah, you got me--" The phone rustled again, in the distance Dean could hear a woman's voice saying "What a sneaky little-" and then the phone clicked off.
Fuck.
The room was silent.
"Did you hear anything?"
And then, from Charlie: "Dean-"
"Did you hear anything?"
Charlie and Kevin looked at each other. Shook their heads. "But we'll listen again, okay? We'll find something," Kevin said.
Dean heaved breaths, anger, despair. The red was clouding him, a vicious acid, and he knew Sam was high, he knew Sam didn't mean the shit he was saying, he knew he knew he knew, but it didn't help.
While Charlie and Kevin and Cas and Crowley listened to the recorded phone call, Dean Winchester beat the shit out of every practice dummy they had in the gym and he drank and drank and drank.
NOW
Sam's phone clattered to the floor, stomped into pieces.
He'll never find me now, he thought. He wouldn't be taking any more of Dean's calls.