A/N I'm sorry updates have been a bit irregular. I was traveling for work a lot and I was waiting to see how some of the plotlines in S11 played out. So in celebration of the finale - here's another chapter!
Oh no, Dean thought. Not again! The gray, muddy feel of Purgatory seeped into his bones and made his teeth ache. He looked around for Benny or Cas, but he was alone. A dark shape flickered off to his left and he turned his head but there was nothing there. Being alone in Purgatory wasn't ideal, but it was better than unfriendly company. He wondered if Cas was aware that he was dreaming again, and gave a start. This was a dream, not reality. He looked around.
"Finally," a voice said and Dean gulped. Whatever that voice was, it was not and had never been human. He turned slowly, poised for an attack but could see nothing. "You're wasting your time. You won't be able to see me, not unless I want you too." The voice was like a cheese grater on a chalkboard, like the tortured metal sounds of a garbage truck and underneath it all, a hollow echo that made Dean feel nauseous and dizzy, like he was stood too close to the edge of a tall building.
"Who are you?" He demanded. "What do you want?"
"Call me Tenebrae," the voice scratched. "I want to talk to you."
"OK," Dean said. "Come out of hiding and we can talk all you want." Where the Hell are you Cas?
"I think not. You are a hunter after all, and they can be so… tiresome."
"Fine," Dean gritted out. "What do you want to talk to me about?"
"You are perfect. Really, quite delightful. I can see the attraction." Dean's jaw twitched in irritation.
"If you're going to talk in riddles, we're done here," Dean declared. There was a gust of wind, or was it a sigh?
"I want you to come to me. I have a proposition for you." Dean rolled his shoulders.
"What kind of proposition?" Tenebrae made a strange whistling sound and Dean's dizziness increased.
"Let's just say that we have a common goal. A common enemy, if you will."
"Amara?" Dean stuttered. His head was swimming now, fuzzy and gray.
"Is that what she's calling herself? Yes. Amara."
"OK, so what do you want with me?"
"So many things…" Tenebrae purred. "So many, wicked, delicious things." Dean shivered, cold running down his spine. He doubted Tenebrae's idea of a good time corresponded to his. Oh God, Cas. Where are you? I need you.
"Your pet angel can't help you now. But don't worry, nothing bad is going to happen to you." Tenebrae's voice came from right by his left ear and he turned suddenly, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever monstrous creature was invading his dream. "Just come to me, and I will give you what you need to defeat Amara."
"What the price?" Dean demanded. "Nothing comes for free."
"Indeed," Tenebrae drawled. "There's a price, but nothing you can't pay. I want you." Dean's breathing stuttered.
"What for?" He choked out.
"I need a… representative. On earth. Someone working to further my aims." Tenebrae told him.
"And what would those aims be?" Dean growled. When he felt Tenebrae hesitate, he added, "I'm not going to swap one threat to all of creation for another."
"No, I suppose you wouldn't. I have a score to settle. With Metatron." Dean gasped in surprise. "Yes, I thought that would surprise you. You've got your own quarrel with him, don't you."
"It's a waste of time," Dean told him. Was Tenebrae a him? He wasn't sure. "Metatron's mortal now. You'd waste the little fucker in seconds."
"Perhaps. It's not your concern. So, will you help me?"
"I'll think about it," Dean agreed. "I'm not promising anything."
"Very well," Tenebrae said irritably. "But I need an answer soon." Dean awoke with a start.
It was a little after 3am and Sam gave a sigh. He'd been trying to sleep for hours, but had achieved little other than a headache. He got up and pulled on some sweats, wandering around looking for Cas, but the angel was nowhere to be found. Scratching his head in puzzlement, Sam made his way into the kitchen. Maybe some hot chocolate would send him off to sleep. As he searched the cabinet for the packets of hot chocolate he came across a bag of miniature marshmallows. The sweet scent made him think of Sully which brought a wistful smile to his face. It had been good to see his imaginary friend again. There was a shuffling sound behind him and he spun around, expecting to see Cas but instead it was Dean, tugging on the belt of his robe and looking disturbingly like Dad.
"Sammy?" Dean said, his voice gravelly with sleep. "It's the middle of the night, dude."
"I know. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." Sam apologized, watching Dean wipe a hand over his face.
"Nah, it's OK. You didn't really wake me, I was just wondering where Cas was," Dean said sleepily and Sam peered at him.
"How did you know he was missing?" Sam asked curiously. Dean flushed.
"Well, I uh…" Sam's eyes widened, it was a rare thing to see Dean without an easy explanation. "He uh… This is hard to explain without it seeming weird," he complained. Sam adjusted his expression to one of cool disinterest.
"OK," he shrugged, although his curiosity was nearly killing him. Dean sighed.
"He checks on me, OK? At night. Makes sure I'm sleeping, chases away nightmares," he admitted.
"I see," Sam said, although he really didn't.
"I have nightmares, Sam. Bad ones. About Hell, or Purgatory, or you in the Cage or fuck, a whole lot of shit that's gone down. Cas… takes care of it. Don't ask me how, some angel mojo." Dean waved a hand.
"How long has he been doing that?" Sam asked carefully. His brother pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Since we moved into the Bunker. I guess it got worse because I started sleeping in a room on my own. Cas realized what was going on and just started checking on me. Now he does it every night." Dean grimaced, looking pained. "But not tonight. I had a nightmare, it woke me up. When I went looking for Cas, there was no sign of him. I saw the light in here and found you instead."
"Sorry," Sam said, trying not to smile at the adorable image in his mind of Cas checking up on Dean each night.
"Whatever. Are you making hot chocolate?" Dean said, his eyes suddenly bright. Sam nodded.
"Yeah. Want some?" he asked. Dean grinned like a little kid.
"Oh, yeah."
Sam sat at the kitchen table, chatting idly with Dean and sipping at his hot chocolate. He looked at his watch and Dean grinned.
"Boring you, am I?" he asked. Sam gave a weak smile.
"No. I'm just thinking about going back to bed and trying to sleep again."
"Why were you up anyway?" Dean asked suddenly and Sam jerked guiltily.
"I couldn't sleep, that's all," he offered, hoping Dean would drop it. His brother looked closely at him.
"You having nightmares too?" he asked and Sam shook his head.
"No, no. Just restless I guess. The end of our last case was kinda unsatisfactory."
"You mean, we didn't get to gank anything," Dean said sagely.
"No!" Sam exclaimed. "Well, OK. Maybe. I'm not desperate to kill something or anything."
"Speak for yourself," Dean complained. "If I don't get to put a bullet in something soon, I might put one in myself."
"Don't joke about stuff like that," Sam said sharply. Dean made a quelling gesture.
"All right, I was only joking." He eyed Sam up and down. "You know, even before Sully showed up you were in a weird mood. You sure you're OK?" His brother was avoiding the elephant in the room again, Sam noticed. Sooner or later, they were going to have to talk about the Cage. But not tonight.
"Yeah," Sam lied. "I'm fine. I'm gonna try and get some more sleep." He got up and ambled out of the room. Dean watched him leave and chewed his lip in thought. If only Cas was here…
Back in his room, Sam's sense of uneasiness only increased and he frowned at himself. He lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. He just needed sleep. But as soon as he felt himself drift, he jerked awake again, the sound of thunder echoing in his head and the eerie blackness of the Cage, suspended in the smoky depths of Hell seared his retinas. He sighed and leaned over to scrabble in the drawer of the nightstand for some sleeping tablets. Dean didn't know he had them and frankly Sam hated taking them because the dreams were so vivid and fucked-up. But they were just dreams not visions of the Cage and right now he'd do anything for some rest.
Dean pondered his empty mug for a while after Sam headed back to bed. The angel's unexplained absences were becoming a regular thing now and whenever Dean questioned him about it, he was evasive. In fact, the last time Dean had pushed the matter, Cas had straight-up told him it was none of his business. That had hurt. Which was stupid, why should he care what Cas was up to? But memories of Cas lying and evading him from when he was working with Crowley to try and find the entrance to Purgatory washed over him. It wasn't that he hadn't forgiven Cas for what he'd done, he had. He'd always forgiven anything Cas had done to him, just as the angel always forgave him for everything as well. But neither of them forgot.
Dean tugged at his hair in frustration. Sitting here chewing over it was futile, but the next time Cas showed up he was going to get some answers, he decided.
He eyed Sam's laptop, lying abandoned on the kitchen table, and pulled it towards him. He checked his email, which seemed to be entirely spam these days and then began browsing Reddit, which was always a good source of odd rumors and reports of strange happenings. And a lot of nonsense too, but that was the internet for you. Several clicks later, he was down the rabbit hole of a potential case.
When Sam came shuffling back into the kitchen, Dean realized with a start that several hours had gone by. He squinted at his brother, noticing he was loose-limbed and relaxed. He smiled to himself, apparently Sammy had managed to get some more sleep.
"Hey," Sam said, yawning. "Have you been in here the whole time?" Dean grunted at him.
"Yeah, I got dragged into an interesting story about a missing person on Reddit."
"Oh? Wanna tell me about it while I make coffee?" Sam responded vaguely. Dean watched him for a moment as he puttered about the kitchen.
"OK. So, there's this guy in Boston, uh, Mario Santelli. Italian immigrant, moved to the US about twenty years ago. Computer programmer, married with two kids and a dog. Super normal guy. Anyway, he's a marathon runner, goes all over the country running marathons and raising money for kids with cancer. He goes out running on Boston Common, as he did most days before work, never comes home." Dean scrolled down the page he was reading and took a grateful slurp of coffee from the mug Sam set in front of him. "His office calls his wife, asking where he is. She calls the police. Boston PD blow her off, he's an adult, he's not really missing until it's been twenty-four hours, blah, blah, blah. So she calls a couple friends of his that he runs with. And they all swear that they saw Mario out running, but for one reason or another, none of them were running with him that day."
"OK," Sam said slowly. "So what makes this our thing?"
"Let me tell you the whole story," Dean griped. "I'm not done." Sam shrugged in apology.
"So, it turns out that the same day Mario goes missing, a woman makes a crazy police report about a man she saw running on the common who just vanished into thin air." Sam frowned.
"What did she mean, vanished into thin air?" Dean turned the computer towards Sam.
"She posted this on Reddit. Check it out." He watched as Sam read the thread and then looked up at him with a disturbed look on his face.
"So, he was just running along and he trips over something. He gives a scream and as he falls, poof he's gone?" Sam asked and Dean nodded. "Why does that sound familiar?"
"Familiar?" Dean said, his eyebrows raised. "You read about this case already?" Sam shook his head.
"No, not exactly but… I dunno. I just feel like I've heard something similar. A long time ago." Sam scratched at his head thoughtfully.
"Well, Boston's finest thought she was nuts. Sent her away with a threat that if she didn't shut up, she'd be prosecuted, would you believe?" Dean told him.
"Prosecuted for what?" Sam exclaimed in outrage.
"Wasting police time, I guess. Look, that's not the point. The point is, when she posted this story on Reddit, two more people came forward and said that although they didn't see Mario Santelli, they did hear a scream at about the same time as our witness saw him disappear. Neither thought it was important at the time."
"What, people go around screaming on Boston Common all the time?" Sam snarked and Dean grinned.
"Well, you know it was early morning. They both assumed it was just kids messing around."
"OK. Let's check it out. Any sign of Cas?" Sam said tentatively and sighed at Dean's expression.
"No. He's still AWOL," Dean snarled. Sam chewed his lip contemplatively.
"Are you worried about him?" he asked.
"No," Dean denied. "I just… wish I knew where he was, that's all."
"Ha!" Sam cried in triumph and Dean flicked him an irritated look before returning his eyes to the road. "I knew I'd heard the story before."
"What story?" Dean said, frowning.
"The disappearing runner. It's classic old Forteana. And it's not true." Sam told him. "The story is about this shoemaker in England, back in the 1800's. He was out drinking with friends one night and boasting about his prowess as a runner and so his friends made a bet with him that he couldn't run all the way to Coventry and back, which was about a forty mile round trip. He set off running, his friends following on a horse and cart. They reported that he was doing well, but then gave an unearthly scream, fell and disappeared. He was never seen again."
"How do we know it's not true?" Dean challenged.
"Because it was a short story written by Ambrose Bierce. Although Bierce himself did vanish mysteriously, so there's that."
"So, are you saying that this case in Boston is a hoax?" Dean growled, his hands tightening on the steering wheel.
"No, not necessarily. It's just strange, that's all. It's a famous mystery and lots of people don't know that it's not true. It shows up from time to time on those lists on the internet. You know, top ten mysterious disappearances, that kind of thing." Sam stared out of the window for a moment, watching the world flash by. "This Mario Santelli is certainly missing. That much is true."
"But the witness could be a crank? Awesome." Dean commented. Sam's phone buzzed and he prodded at it.
"Well, crank or not, we have another disappearance. Also from Boston Common." Sam said, a note of discomfort threaded through his voice. "Almost identical circumstances. Jayne Grant, a legal secretary who works downtown and likes to run on the Common during her lunch break. She never returned to work this afternoon and when she didn't come home tonight, her spouse called the police."
"Her office never called to ask where she was when she didn't come back from lunch?" Dean asked. Sam paged through the email he'd received from his contact in BPD.
"Yeah, actually they did call and leave a message. But nobody was home." Sam shrugged.
"I guess the husband was also out at work," Dean mused.
"Wife," Sam corrected. "She's a photo-journalist for the Herald." Dean blinked.
"Wife?" he muttered. Sam gave him a quelling glance.
"Do we have a witness this time?" Dean said quickly. Sam frowned at him and returned his attention to his phone.
"No. Not yet. But she's only been missing a few hours." Sam checked his watch.
"You want to head straight to the Common?" he asked. Dean nodded.
"Yeah. Maybe whatever is causing these disappearances left us a clue."
Dean looked around the mostly deserted Common. It was a little after 2am and most sensible people were home in bed. But then he and Sam had never claimed to be sensible. He nudged his brother and gestured to the Common.
"Where did the crazy lady say she saw Mario Santelli disappear?" Dean asked. Sam looked at the map on his phone.
"The report said it was in a cluster of trees near the Tadpole Playground." He looked up and scanned the area and then pointed. "That set of trees is the thickest, we should start there." He strode off in the direction he'd indicated and Dean hurried after him. They spent several minutes surveying the footpath and the area around but found nothing of interest. Sam sighed in frustration.
"We don't even know if we're looking in the right place," he complained. There was no reply and Sam's head came up. Where was his brother?
"Dean?" he called out. "Dean!" He was rewarded with silence. "Shit! Dean!" He scanned around him, desperate for any clue to where his brother had gone. There was nothing. Dean had vanished into thin air. A scrape of a boot behind him had him whirling around and he sagged in despair when he saw a Boston police officer walking towards him, a flashlight in one hand.
"Sir? Are you OK? I heard shouting," the officer said, his voice tense.
"Yeah, uh. My brother, he uh, he was right here. And now he's gone." Sam said.
"I see. And what are you doing here, at this time of night?" The officer was still alert and ready for something. Sam sighed theatrically.
"We're bloggers. We run a UFO website. We heard about these strange disappearances and wanted to check it out. Thought maybe it was abductions," he lied. The sneer on the officer's face told him he'd been convincing.
"You're talking about Mario Santelli. Mysterious, my ass. Santelli's in the Charles River if you ask me. He owed a lot of money to a lot of bad people." He looked Sam up and down. "I'm Officer Bradley. You want some help to look for your brother?" Sam gulped. He didn't really want this guy hanging around but to refuse would look suspicious so he pasted on a grateful expression and nodded.
"Yeah, that would be great. I last saw him right there, by that bush," he explained. Bradley nodded and walked over to the bush, his flashlight trembling slightly in his hand. Sam frowned to himself. If he didn't believe there was anything to this mystery, why was Bradley so obviously afraid? And if he was afraid, why did he offer to help? He didn't have any more time to ponder the mystery, as he felt a sudden sharp pain at the back of his head and then everything went black.
Dean shifted uncomfortably against his bonds but he was tied quite securely. He could make out some hulking shapes in the darkness but no matter how much he squinted at them, he couldn't resolve them into anything recognizable.
"Sam?" He croaked out. There was no reply. Hopefully that meant Sam had escaped whoever had snatched him. His head ached abominably. "Cas?" No, the angel wasn't here. He needed to reach out the other way. He tried to stretch out his shoulders but the bindings on his wrists were too tight.
Cas? Cas! Buddy, I need help! Sam and I are in Boston, and some asshole knocked me out. I'm trapped, but I don't know where. There was no reply and Dean cursed.
"So, good of you to join us. I was wondering if I'd hit you too hard," a voice said. Dean squinted but he could only make out a vague outline of a man. The figure moved closer and knelt down beside him, extending one hand and brushing his fingers across Dean's cheek.
"My, you are a pretty one," the man said. Dean tried to flinch away from his cold fingers but he was so securely hogtied, any movement was virtually impossible. Those fingers continued, questing under the collar of his shirt and then with one vicious tug, the cotton tore and exposed Dean's chest. Panic began to claw up his throat, he was utterly helpless here and this man could do anything to him.
Cas! Dammit, Cas! Help me!
"Beautiful," the man whispered. "Perfection." He slid his fingers over Dean's skin, humming happily to himself. Dean tried not to react to this unwelcome assault, but nausea roiled in his stomach and he had to breathe hard through his nose to combat the sensation. The man's hands had reached his jeans and they easily flicked open the button and dragged the zipper down. Dean bucked in terror, the ropes binding him tightening as he fought uselessly to get away from his assailant.
"My, we are squeamish, aren't we? Relax, this is going to be good, I promise."
"Fuck you!" Dean spat. He felt rather than saw the man's smile.
"Well, if you insist," he purred. Dean's vision went white with fright. Monsters he could handle, but this?
Cas! He screamed with every ounce of his being. Cas! Please! He projected everything he could through the mental link with the angel, holding nothing back.
Hold on, Dean. I'm coming...
There was a screech behind him and a flashlight briefly lit up the scene. Dean gasped in recognition of the man leaning over him, who turned as the light fell on his face.
"Dammit, Bradley. What now? Can't you see I'm busy?"
"No time for that now," the one called Bradley said. "I've got the other one and Schatten's just called. Says the tribute needs to be intact."
"Fuck him," Dean's assailant, that he'd now identified as Mario Santelli, snarled. "After all the trouble they've caused?"
"Dean Winchester will only make a perfect tribute if he is untouched." Bradley insisted. "If you have your fun with him, not only will Schatten be pissed, but that fucking angel Castiel will rip out your spine and use it for a jump rope."
"I'm not afraid of Castiel," Santelli laughed.
"You should be. He's in love and you know how singular angels are in their focus. He'd pursue you to the ends of the earth if you so much as look at Dean Winchester wrong. In fact, he probably will now anyway. Our only hope is to give both Winchesters to Schatten and turn the angel's wrath on him." He turned and dragged a sack into the light and Dean blinked. Sam! Santelli bared his teeth at him and he shoved Dean hard against something wooden that creaked in protest. Shaking, he grit his teeth against the pain and tried to stay still. Cas was coming, he just had to make sure they survived until he arrived.