Disclaimer: I do not own any right to Supernatural, or any of the characters appearing in this story. The original concept is due to Eric Kripke and the rights to it are owned by The CW Network. This is written just for fun and I do not make any profit out of it.

Spoilers warning: It contains a big spoiler for the ending of season 3, but nothing more than that.

Possible triggers: There is going to be some violence at the upper edge of what they show in the canon, but not extremely graphic. Some swearing (it's SPN after all).

A COUPLE OF DAYS LATER

"Are you sure this is the place where Matt disappeared?" Dean asked looking at the woods getting thicker and thicker in front of them.

"That's what his mother said. He was playing at the edge of the garden. When she called him for dinner, he didn't answer, and she got worried." Sam recited the information he collected earlier that day, while he scrutinized the ground and the three looking for any sort of trace.

"What kind of half-decent parent would let a kid play in the woods at dusk?" Dean kneeled down to look at a patch of leaves that looked recently turned and lost interest shortly after as he couldn't read much more in that.

"Are you seriously asking that? Like we never did." Sam said crouching slightly to get under a branch as he moved forward.

"We were never normal children, how old is this Matt? Eleven? By that age, if I wasn't babysitting you I was hunting." Dean fan out to the left, widening their search area by a few feet. The ground was full of prints. There was a moment of silence, where Dean could feel his brother's hesitation. Damn, he did it again, would he ever learn how sensitive Sammy was on the topic?

"That's not what I meant, I didn't mind looking after you." he said apologetically.

"I know, it's just…Dad. You shouldn't have... you know. I'm sorry Dean."

"You have nothing to be sorry for." He retorted sharply. They had had that conversation a thousand times. Sam felt like he had been a weight on Dean's childhood. No matter how many times Dean tried to convince him of the contrary, Dean couldn't seem to erase that thought from his brother's mind. There were no chances to win that argument, so he let the topic drop.

"Did they search the woods already?" He asked as he eyed yet another broken twig on the ground.

"Yeah, the father called his baseball team for help, they involved their family and they fan out. The local police stepped in as well. They checked the woods and the surrounding area over the last couple of days. There were traces of Matt at the edge of the woods and then nothing else for at least a 15-mile radius. Just like the other two kids." Sam explained what he learned from Matt's mother early that afternoon.

"It doesn't sound much to go on. Anything else?" Dean took the EMF meter out of his pocket and started to switch on the instrument. There was a faint signal, that was quite likely given by the nearby power lines.

"Don't know. According to the mother, Matt was sad just before he disappeared."

"I meant 'anything relevant'? Or you want to check with Azkaban if they are missing a Dementor?"

"Why don't you try it, and since you are at it, tell me also what the kids have in common except for being, you know, kids. They didn't know each other, their families conducted such different lives they probably would never met, different sports, different schools, come on Dean, Fran hasn't even gone to school since she broke her arm a couple of months ago …"

"Yeah calm down, I got it. Let's just have a look around, and then we trace back our steps and start from the beginning." Dean said following the signal on the EMF. As expected, the instrument went crazy as soon as he faced the high-lying power cable. "We might have overlooked something. Sam are you still with me?" Dean asked not hearing his brother's steps anymore. His question was met with silence. He turned around. He searched the small space in the woods they just crossed. The woods were getting darker quickly now that the sun set. His brother was nowhere to be seen. How long since he last heard Sam's steps?

"Sam! Sam!" He shouted as his heartbeat sped up. He turned around frantically trying to embrace as much as possible of the surrounding space with his eyes.

He didn't even have the time to register that now the EMF was going crazy independently of the direction he was aiming it.

He felt something collide with his nape, then nothing more.