A/N: Thanks so much for the support everyone! I'm glad people like it. :-)
There's no Supernatural this week and that's really depressing.
Disclaimer: If this were mine, the show would consist of nothing but chick-flick moments and brotherly schmoop. Also, Big Brother!Dean would be out in full force. He's not; therefore, Supernatural does not belong to me.
AU after episode 7x04.
Now on with the story. There be a rocky road ahead of us...
Sam gulped down the liquor, hands shaking. The bartender looked equal parts sympathetic and terrified as she left shot after shot in front of him, running away after each one as quickly as she could. He didn't really blame her. Actually, he felt kind of sorry for her. He knew he looked terrible. There was a deep gash on his left hand, a scratch on his arm, and he was missing a fingernail. A frickin' fingernail.
On top of that, he hadn't slept for days and probably looked like a zombie. And he knew zombies. He was a little surprised, and honestly, impressed by his own stamina. Sure, he had gone a night or two without sleep before but never this long without even dozing off. It didn't even really help him to stay awake. They came regardless of whether he was asleep or not. But he liked to trick himself into thinking that he could be on his guard, that he could do something to make it stop, even though he knew he couldn't.
He was also a little surprised by the fact that Dean hadn't hunted him down yet. It wasn't like he was all that great at hiding, particularly from Dean. Hell, he even told Dean what state he was going to be in, told him he was going to deal with a hunt there. There was only one explanation for Dean not having found him yet: Dean wasn't looking. Not that Sam could blame him. Hell, he told him not to look. That had never stopped Dean before though. Not unless Dean secretly agreed with everything Sam had said. Or rather, not so secretly agreed.
That was part of why he was aiming to get plastered tonight. The other reason was the same reason he was jumping at every little sound, jumping at anyone who stepped within a five foot radius of him. So, he was going to take a leaf out of his big brother's book and drown his problems in alcohol. Now, Sam had never been as big a drinker as a lot of the other people in his family. When he had problems, they were problems that generally demanded he stay lucid. Besides, hangovers were a bitch. But none of that mattered at this point because he was sure that things would be better if he was too drunk to worry about it.
Smiling disarmingly at the bartender, he took the shot she offered, gulping it down and feeling it buzz through him. It wasn't enough yet. He wasn't even halfway to where he wanted to be. Someone brushed past him and he flinched, hand instantly going to the hilt of the knife he had hidden in his jacket. It was just a guy asking for another drink. It was just a guy... and he had almost skewered him with his knife. How's that for jumpy? The bartender was looking increasingly uncomfortable so he decided to take pity on her. And himself. Preferably somewhere with less people. A lot less people.
Standing, he paid for the alcohol and left, intending to pick up some he could consume in the safety of his motel room.
It was cold out. Sam had had enough of the cold. He had spent all the previous night in the cold and he didn't like it. At all. Because it was freezing. He supposed it got that way in Maine during the winter. It made sense. He just wished he had some warmer clothes with him. His brown coat just wasn't cutting it. Or rather, his brown jacket might as well have not even existed for all the good it was doing him.
"Sam!" He heard the voice before he saw its owner but still, he knew exactly who it belonged to. When you had heard that voice practically every day of your life that you spent actually alive - and even some that you didn't - it was pretty hard to mistake.Speak of the devil… Or don't. Don't speak of the devil because in he may walk and you don't want that. At all. His response was to quicken his pace, forgoing the liquor store he had just walked past. He didn't need his brother to know that he had been planning to get drunk. That would only open up the field for questions that he didn't want to answer. Or it would open up the field and Dean would ignore said-field completely and not ask him what was wrong. He wasn't sure that was a good outcome either.
"Dean," he sighed, "what're you doing here?" Dean sounded annoyed, Sam realized as Dean came running up beside him. He also realized that it was probably sad that he could predict his brother's mood just from the sound of his footsteps. Whatever. They spent a lot of time around each other. Besides, being able to gauge Dean's mood had always been a useful skill in the past. That was it though, wasn't it? The past.
"What the hell do you think I'm doing here?" Dean snapped and Sam glanced over at him. Great, he had guessed right. Dean was definitely annoyed and a little pissed. This was going to be a fun conversation. "I'm here to find your sorry, useless, gigantor ass." Dean paused, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and his next sentence came out far whinier than he had probably intended, "Let's get out of here before I freeze. Next time, run away to Florida."
Sam didn't answer, watching his breath condense and disappear. It wasn't that he didn't want to answer. It was that he didn't know how to do so and not receive an unfavorable outcome. He wasn't sure there was such thing as a positive outcome in his life anymore. It certainly didn't seem like it. Everything he did came out completely wrong, no matter how hard he tried. Through his silence, he could feel Dean's annoyance deepen.
"Stop being a bitch and c'mon, Sam," Dean sighed, exhausted and exasperated, the same way he sounded whenever thoughts of 'Why the hell am I even here?' crossed his mind. It was the voice he used when he was dealing with particularly unhelpful, unobservant witnesses. Sam wasn't sure he liked the comparison. Actually, Sam knew he didn't like the comparison and gave up searching for the words that would keep this argument from spiraling out of control.
"You can leave," Sam stated simply. "I didn't ask you to follow me and I sure as hell didn't want you to." It was true to some extent. He didn't ask Dean to follow him. Did he want him to? He wasn't going to analyze that question too closely because he wasn't sure he was going to be happy with the answer. At this point though, with Dean looking at him like he was, Sam realized that he'd rather have had Dean not follow him than come after him with this attitude.
Sam heard Dean grumble under his breath and was more than positive he didn't want to know what his brother said. But unfortunately, the masochistic part of him had more control over his mouth than the part that valued self-preservation. "Go ahead, Dean. No need to mutter on my account." He stopped and turned towards his brother, facing the impending fight head on. He could feel the tension between them mounting and Dean suddenly seemed so much more dangerous than he ever had before. Sam was only twenty feet from his motel room door he realized, and it would be a shame if his big brother killed him when he was so close to safety. Ironic. Sad. Very sad because wasn't Dean supposed to be safe? Hadn't Dean always been safe?
Dean glared at him for several moments before huffing out a breath. "You know what I said? I said that I'm here because Dad made me promise to be, made me promise to look after you so many times that for most of my life, I was so confused I actually thought it was my idea. If it were up to me," he smirked, "you know I'd leave your ass out here until you sobered up and realized what a bitch you're being. But it's not. It never was."
Sam didn't recoil. He didn't let the hurt that was threatening to make his knees buckle do so. Because Dean was pissed. He was pissed but two could play that game. Sam was always better with anger anyway. Letting yourself feel hurt did nothing but open you up for more. And Sam couldn't afford that. Not anymore. No matter how much he probably deserved it. So he let his wounds, the ones that had festered and spread throughout the course of his entire life, fuel his anger. Because feeling disappointment, feeling emotional pain didn't help. It only made things worse. It only let them know they had a hold over you and that was the one thing that you should never, under any circumstances, let them know. "You killed her, Dean!" he shouted. "You killed her when I asked you not to! Hell, I practically begged you not to! You have no right to be pissed at me—"
"The bitch needed to die, Sam!" Dean growled back. "She was a monster—"
"She was killing to protect her only family! Hell, I sucked demon blood! If that's your cut off then I'm a monster too!"
"Damn right and if you ever show signs that you're headed back in that direction, I'll put a clip in you as well!"
Sam froze, stock-still and he was pretty sure he wasn't even breathing. What was the point of doing so anymore? He watched Dean's face, noting the exact moment he processed what he said. He didn't look guilty or sorry or anything that Sam felt he should. He just looked slightly embarrassed. Sam's anger faded and he no longer had the energy to fight back the hurt. He welcomed it, actually. He let it fill him because he deserved this weakness. He deserved to know that there was someone that could tear his heart out, murder him without even having to touch him. He deserved the pain because really, nothing could hurt worse. And if Dean felt that way, then he really should still be in Hell. Because he was Dean and Dean was the one person that always believed in him. And if that one person couldn't believe anymore, even after everything he had done to try and make up for it, then... didn't he deserve that hurt? He swallowed thickly, trying to stave off the tears he could feel threatening to break through.
"I was being good here," he said quietly, as calmly as he could. That apparently wasn't very calmly because he heard his voice crack. "I left. It was you're decision to come after me—" Dean scoffed and Sam felt the ache in his chest grow impossibly deeper. He bit his lip, nodding his head and staring at the concrete. "Just go, Dean," he whispered. "Get the hell out of here."
With that, he turned away from his brother - the person who used to be his best friend - and all but ran to his motel room. Dean didn't follow him and Sam wasn't sure if he felt relieved or if it just made him hurt all the worse.
Dean sat up sharply in bed, glancing frantically around the room. His eyes didn't land on anything because the one thing he was looking for wasn't there. He almost called Sam's name but then everything that had happened came crashing down around him. He hadn't seen Sam in days. Sam was lost. Kidnapped or worse... Angel banishing sigil… There was a damn angel banishing sigil in Sam's (stolen) car! An angel banishing sigil that apparently didn't work because Sam was gone. And Sam wasn't supposed to be gone. Dean was supposed to be there to make sure Sam didn't go anywhere. But Dean hadn't been there. And Sam's blood was all over a car abandoned on the side of the highway. But Sam was okay. He was alive. This is what Dean kept telling himself. There was no body and until there was, in his mind, Sam was alive and would be fine. He was just waiting for Dean to find him.
Groaning, he started pounding on his forehead with his fists, wondering if he could drive a hole through his head and pull out whatever part of his brain it was that enabled the existence of nightmares. Because really? It wasn't like he'd miss that part anyway.
Unfortunately, his drill was nowhere near him and the last scene of his dream kept playing itself in his head over and over and over again. And then over again a few more times just for the fun of it. Who's fun, he had no idea because it certainly wasn't his. The vision was making his stomach twist in uncomfortable knots. It also made his throat close up to the point that it hurt.
Dean's dream was laid out just like all the one's he'd had while Sam was in Hell. He saw them through Sam's eyes, like he was Sam. He hadn't had any since Sam had gotten out or more specifically, since Sam's soul had gotten out and honestly, he had liked it that way. They were always intense, way more so than he felt a dream should be. They were so intense that he had woken up multiple times in Lisa's house to find himself sobbing. And then he couldn't stop because the dream would replay over and over and over again.
The dream he had just had was different only in the sense that it wasn't Hell. Though in reality, it might as well have been. He saw himself which was more than a little disturbing. Sure, he was kind of used to it by now. He had seen shape-shifters and demons and everything else turn into him. It didn't make it any easier to deal with when he watched himself say things to his brother crafted specifically to tear said-brother's heart out. And the worst part of it was that he could feel everything that Sam did. For all intents and purposes, he was Sam. He even shared his thoughts. Which meant he knew exactly what Sam had been thinking, knew exactly how hurt he was.
It was a dream. Dean kept telling himself this over and over again. It was a dream. A very lucid dream but nonetheless, still a dream. Thank god. He thought that, knew it was true, but none of his reassurances made the twisting feeling in his gut go away, didn't make the need to see his little brother right now recede in the least. But he couldn't see his little brother because said-little brother had been potentially hijacked by angels and could be—
No. No no no no no no no.
No.
Sam was fine. Dammit. He had almost broken one of his own rules. He did not even think the D word in connection with Sam. He just didn't. Because yes, denying something really did make it so, at least in your mind. And that existed until something came and denied your denial at which point your web of lies would come crashing to the ground. At this point though, Dean was fine with that because no matter how much evidence was stacked to the contrary, he wouldn't accept that Sam was... dead because he couldn't be. He just couldn't.
He rolled his shoulders back, feeling anxious and jittery, like he was high on caffeine and was incapable of sitting still for longer than three seconds. The only reason he had fallen asleep at all was that Bobby had drugged him. Something he'd have to remember to be pissed about in the morning. Bobby was snoring - loudly - asleep in the next bed over so being pissed at him now wasn't really going to do anyone any good. He needed to wait to be pissed until he could let out said-pissiness on someone.
Clearing his throat and beating down his thoughts, he stumbled out of bed, crashing into a chair and opening the laptop. He wasn't going to fall back asleep now because - duh - Bobby wasn't awake to drug him. He figured he might as well get some work done. What work that was going to be, he had no idea. He and Bobby had been searching for further leads for the last several days but the trail had either run cold or had never been there at all. Dean was betting on the latter. So really, they hadn't gotten anywhere with finding Sam and to Dean, after this many days, that was completely and totally unacceptable. So, he decided to try and see if he could figure out the answer to any of the many questions they had.
For example, what angel would attack and kidnap Sam? And why? What purpose did it serve except to make Dean want to eat his gun?
None from what he could find. They obviously had some reason. Angels didn't tend to beam down from Heaven and grab random people. If they did, they were generally much quieter about it. The reason? Dean had no idea. He and Sam hadn't had any interaction with any heavenly being in months. They really hadn't had any significant reaction with many since Sam had averted the apocalypse. At least none that would warrant Sam's disappearance.
He scrolled through news articles from areas near where Sam was taken. There wasn't much around there, just a lot of towns that might as well have not been built. Sam had disappeared days ago. The chances that he was still in the vicinity of said-disappearance were slim to none. And there was no news of the weird anywhere around there. Well, other than the mysterious car by the side of the highway but Dean already knew everything he needed to about that. So he did a nationwide search, looking for any other strange, angel-banishing-like sigils carved into anything, other blood-spattered cars, signs of an angel at all, something tied to Sam's disappearance.
It was a wide search and he knew that the chances of finding anything relevant were pretty nonexistent. He couldn't really type 'Little brothers snatched by angels' into the search bar and come up with anything. If Sam were here, he would have known exactly what to type in, would have found something in less than an hour, would have given them a direction to head. But if Sam were here, they wouldn't need to be looking for this at all.
When he did find Sam, they were going to take a nice long break from hunting, leviathans be damned. They were going to go to the Grand Canyon. They were going to actually take that cross-country trip that had served as their cover story for the majority of their lives. Sure, they had been a lot of places but they had never really seen them. And once Sam came back, they were going to travel from one coast to the other and see everything. Hell, he'd even find the country's biggest library and make sure Sam got there.
Scrolling through the searches, a blog that was updated just a few minutes previously caught his eye. Apparently, the blog's writer went around this town in Maine and recorded particularly interesting cases of vandalism. The last thing posted focused on some graffiti that had appeared the night before all over the back of a motel. There was a picture of it too and when he looked at it, confusion attempted to short out his brain. It hadn't been functioning all that well in the first place and he felt like he needed it to be to figure out what it was that this picture was trying to tell him. Because it was definitely trying to tell him something, something important, but he couldn't figure out exactly what it was.
The picture was of a brick wall, the light from a Night Owl motel sign just visible over the top of the building. Drawn all over the bricks were angel banishing sigils, tons of them, all in a row. Based on where they were located, the person drew one and just moved down the wall, copying one after another all the way across it. As he looked, he realized the drawings got shakier and shakier from left to right, circles becoming lopsided and uneven, lines smearing and running.
"What the hell…" Dean muttered to himself, scrolling through the multitude of pictures the guy had posted. It didn't make sense. It didn't make sense at all.
But it was a lead.
Yay! Another chapter up!
By the way, I'm going to start responding to reviews next chapter. Sorry that I haven't been doing so to this point. I'm still trying to get a handle on this whole thing. :-)