Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Supernatural. Woe is me.
Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Sam stared at the calendar hanging on the wall across the room from where he sat. He had marked through each day that Dean had been missing. They were on day nine. Sunset was less than an hour away and the darkening of the room only hastened Sam's escalating anxiety.
Not a single phone call had panned out. No one had seen or heard from Dean.
Each time Sam had prayed to Castiel, or anyone else who might be listening, he felt himself become a little more desperate, a little more hopeless.
Bobby stood in the doorway of the room, watching Sam. The silence that had settled over the house was starting to rattle his nerves. They had looked through nearly every book Bobby owned and he knew Sam was starting to feel the weight of the empty space Dean had left behind.
He watched as another minute passed, Sam continued to stare at the damn calendar without even so much as blinking. If it hadn't been for Sam's rapid breathing, Bobby would have been worried.
"You need some sleep," Bobby said, breaking into Sam's silent stare down.
"I'm not tired," Sam mumbled as he tore his eyes off of the calendar and tried to turn his attention back to the forgotten book in his hand. "You might as well go ahead up."
Bobby frowned and glanced at the clock. "Sam, by my count, you've been awake for 31 hours. You need to get some sleep."
"I wasn't tired then either. I've got to keep looking for anything will help us find Dean. We had to have missed something," Sam murmured as he reached for a book on the floor. He tipped forward awkwardly in the chair and had to catch himself on the edge of the desk.
"Sam," Bobby said gently. "Just go to bed, son. You're exhausted."
He refused to look up at Bobby, ignoring his near tumble to the floor. "I'll sleep later."
"Later when? After you fall down in an exhausted heap? You had a concussion just over a week ago. You need to get some rest," Bobby insisted.
Sam ran a hand over his stubbly face and groaned in frustration. "Can we just not do this right now, Bobby?"
"Do what? Talk about your refusal to eat? To sleep? To do anything that a normal human might need to do in order to survive? Dammit Sam, you've got to take a break from all this," Bobby snapped. Sam hadn't responded to his more polite insistences to get some rest, maybe now it was time to start being a little more demanding. He cleared his throat and spoke. "Sam, sleep. Now. I'll keep looking for something."
Sam stiffened when he heard the command in Bobby's voice. He locked eyes with Bobby but didn't get out of the chair.
Bobby didn't blink; his stance firm.
He could see the tremble in Sam's hand as he tried to keep a firm hold on his book; even more noticeable were the unshed tears in his eyes. His pale, stubbly face made the lines under his eyes look even more pronounced; the stitches still in his brow looked dark against his sickly pallor. Bobby knew that under his flannel shirt he was still sporting bruises from his concussion induced car accident. Sam was teetering on the brink of a full on collapse, emotional and physical.
If Sam wouldn't stop, Bobby would have to make him.
"Sam," he barked loudly, making Sam jump in his chair. "You get your ass in bed."
Sam slumped in his chair, his expression caught between defiance and defeat. "Bobby…"
"Don't 'Bobby' me! That puppy dog face might work on your brother, but I'm immune," Bobby stated with a shake of his head. "You've got to get some rest. When we get a lead on your brother, you're going to need to be able to help."
"I've got to find him, Bobby," Sam said, his voice cracking in desperation.
"We will," Bobby said confidently. "But right now, you need some sleep."
"I can't," Sam mumbled, his eyes suddenly glued to his hands.
"Can't or won't," Bobby asked firmly.
"Is there a difference," Sam asked with a tired shrug.
"Bet your ass there is," Bobby said as he pulled a bottle from his pocket. He hefted it in his hand, the contents rattling inside.
"If you won't sleep, it's just a matter of me slipping one of these into your coffee. Now, if you can't sleep, it's just a matter of you choosing to open this bottle and taking one," Bobby said as he set it on the desk in front of Sam. "I'll get the coffee while you decide how we're going to do this. Either way, you're going to get some sleep."
Sam stared at the bottle in front of him, his tired eyes blurring the label. Not that it mattered, he trusted Bobby. He knew he needed sleep, but every time he closed his eyes he was rattled awake by some terrifying image of Dean laying on the side of the road, or stumbling through the desert, or worse…
He rubbed a hand over his burning eyes and tried to think of how to handle Bobby's constant nagging about him needing sleep and to eat. He had to find Dean. If he was the one missing, Dean wouldn't stop looking, even for a minute. Hell, when he had died, Dean hadn't thought twice about selling his soul to get him back. And yet here he was, sitting in a comfy chair, in a warm house, while Dean was God knows were…he had to find him.
Maybe if Sam had gone to the bar with him back in New Mexico… if only Sam had managed to grab hold of him the first time he had started levitating off of Bobby's couch…if Sam had stopped Dean from being pulled right out of the house, right in front of him…if Sam could have kept Bobby from letting Dean go…
The guilt was more than he could take.
Bobby walked back into the room and immediately stopped in his tracks. Sam had silent tears running down his face. Bobby hurried to him and set the coffee on the desk before wrapping his arms around Sam. The sheer touch was enough to break down Sam's last reserve of dignity; the sound that escaped his mouth was almost inhuman. As Bobby steered Sam towards the couch, he could tell Sam had been skipping more meals than he had realized.
After getting Sam's boots unlaced, Bobby tossed them aside. Sam's paleness made him look almost ethereal against the dark pillowcase. Bobby reached for the book in his hands but Sam pulled it away from him, his knuckles white from his grip on the faded cover.
"I have to keep looking," Sam murmured tiredly as he tried to keep his grip on the book.
"You want something to help you sleep," Bobby asked quietly.
Sam shook his head and tightened his grip on the book in his hand when Bobby tried to ease it from his fingers. "Don't."
Bobby let the book slip from his fingers and watched as Sam cradled it to his chest. Bobby sighed and stared at the younger man before tossing a blanket over him. "Get some sleep. I'll get back to the books."
After hours of watching Sam toss and turn, only to bolt awake as whimpers of one nightmare after another fought their way through his lips, Bobby didn't even hesitate as he spun the cap off the bottle and shook two of the perfectly white tablets into his hand. He silently walked across the room and touched Sam's shoulder. Sam opened his blood shot eyes and looked miserably up at Bobby.
Bobby opened his hand, palm up, in front of Sam. "Even Dean has to sleep sometimes."
Sam took the pills with shaking hands and dry swallowed them before turning over, his back towards Bobby. It took less than twenty minutes before Bobby could see the difference in the young man. His tossing slowed to nothing and the sound of his relaxed breathing filled the room.
Once Bobby tucked the blanket back around Sam, he headed for the front door, keys tight in his grip. He paused for a second to look back at him, hoping Sam wouldn't wake up before he returned.
"Sorry, kid. But we're running out of options. It's time to step up our game."
54°16'53.93"S 36°30'30.38"W
"Quite the accommodations you've managed to pick out for yourself, Castiel," Crowley said as he turned and surveyed the bleak landscape. In the near distance, he could see the remains of an abandoned village. The wind whipped his jacket around him, his cheeks red from the cold air.
"We needed to talk and no one comes here," Castiel said by way of explanation.
"I can see why," Crowley said with a frown. "I would have preferred somewhere a bit more refined. This kind of inhospitable terrain makes Hell look downright warm and comfortable."
"Crowley, it is most imperative that our dealings are kept out of sight," Castiel said firmly. "It would be most unfortunate for either one of us if our arrangements were discovered."
"I know that, you twit," Crowley snapped. "Now, I'm a busy demon and you're a busy angel, so what did you zap me out here for now?"
"Have you heard anything concerning the whereabouts of Dean Winchester," Castiel asked as he closely studied Crowley's face. He knew that partners or not, the demon would lie to him.
Crowley frowned. "Not a bloody peep."
"Are you sure?"
"That really hurts my feelings," Crowley crooned sarcastically. "Just because I have the most to gain from him going missing, you think I'd hide his carcass somewhere? You know me. I like the theatrics and drama. If I had him, I'd let everyone know and then gut him while they watched."
Castiel considered his statement and nodded. "I believe that you would."
"Dean isn't even part of our plans for Purgatory, why are we spending valuable time talking about this," Crowley asked with an irritated shrug.
"Sam and Bobby are constantly praying to me and it is most distracting. I will not able to avoid them forever," Castiel explained. "It would be better to expend resources into finding Dean and to return him to them. They have been most diligent in their search for him; I would not want them to inadvertently stumble upon our plans. He needs to be found and I am far too busy with the war raging in Heaven."
"Are you insinuating that you want me to send my people to find and retrieve Dean bloody Winchester," Crowley asked with an annoyed frown. "Don't get me wrong, I always have my people on the lookout for him and Sam, but if he's found by my people and then I just give him back to Sam and Bobby… without having some sort of obvious vantage point it's going to undermine my authority in Hell. Besides, we have far more important things to be working on right now."
Castiel leaned over the smaller man, his face stern and authoritative. "I will be the one to determine who and what are worth our time. Find him, I have work to do."
Else Where Unknown
He woke with a violent shiver that wracked his entire body.
A bitter breeze swept past him as he tried to take stock of where he was. The last thing he remembered was being chased through the dark woods, shrill screams echoing from the shadows. When he had stumbled into a small clearing, he had realized his mistake. He ended up right where they had wanted him; they had used his fear and confusion to herd him right into their camp.
Dean tried to roll to his side as a wave of nausea assailed him but he found he was unable to move more than a few inches in either direction. His eyes flew open in panic.
He was in a small shack; the thatch roof was barely more than twelve inches from his face making him fight back a wave of claustrophobia. The wooden pallet he was lying on dug painfully into his back; he was tied in place with a roots and vines. He could hear talking nearby and weakly lifted his head to try and see anything helpful.
As he saw the rest of the dimly lit room, another shiver raced through him, this time from fear.
He was one of dozens of men, all tied in place. The pallets were stacked, much like bunk beds, and filled the entire shack. He twisted his head around and looked below his own pallet, a man lay beneath him. He tried to calculate the number of pallets in the filthy shack; he guessed there were nearly a hundred men in all.
He dropped his head back in the pallet and stared up at the thatch roof. He could hear rain dripping on the roof and cringed as it started to slowly drip on him through the thatch. He shivered again from the cold and tried to hold back a cough that was trying to rip its way out of his lungs.
Around him, the noise came in waves. Some men laughed and smiled deliriously while they held conversations with people unseen. Other men were silent and still, apparently unaware of their surroundings.
"Hey," Dean called out lightly to the silent man lying on the pallet next to his. They were barely twelve inches apart but Dean knew there was no way he could reach out to him.
"Hey! Can you hear me?"
The man drunkenly rolled his head toward Dean and mumbled something unintelligent. Dean pulled back at the sight of the man's eyes. They were milky white.
"Blind," Dean mumbled. "What the hell?"
A nearby squeal combined with the sound of something being gutted made Dean freeze and fall silent.
The room was filled with murky light as the shack's door opened. A tall lanky figure walked through the low door and started a slow walk down the pathway that ran between the rows of pallets. The dirt floor made its footsteps silent. Dean watched as it stopped at each man and placed a small item in their mouth. Dean stared at the men, confused that not a single one of them turned away from the creature. As it held out its hand, each man in turn opened his mouth and accepted the small offering.
As the creature grew ever closer to him, the familiar sweet smell wafted past him, making his stomach growl with want. He had no clue how long he had been here, much less how long it had been since he had eaten. He swallowed dryly as he remembered the creature that had worn his mother's likeness and pressured him to eat while at the banquet table. As hungry as he was, he had a bad feeling about whatever it was these creatures were handing out.
Dean could feel his heart drumming in his chest and he drew a shaky breathe to try and calm the pounding in his ears. He closed his eyes as the creature made its way down the path and stopped next to him. He fought back bile as its blistering hot and foul breath filled his lungs. He jumped when something grabbed his jaw and forced him to turn his face. He opened his eyes, more from curiosity than from bravery.
He tried not to panic as he looked into dark eyes; they were nearly black and bigger than a human's. The size of its eyes made the creature's face seem even more gaunt and angular.
"What are you," Dean choked out around his uncontrollable shivering. He was freezing.
The creature said nothing it turned and shoved a small papery wafer into his mouth. Dean choked and spit it out. The creature shook its head, an uncanny humanistic trait, and said in a gravelly voice, "You would be wise to accept our offering. Better to believe the lie than to know the truth, tribute."
It walked silently away and disappeared out of the shack.
Dean shook from fear and the cold and returned to watching the rain trickle in through the thatch roof.
"Cas, if you can hear me, I need some help…"
Okay…hope you love it so far! I've got special plans for the next chapter—Bobby's got a plan.
And where do you think Castiel and Crowley were? Gotta love a map shower curtain. Bwahahahaa!