Contradictions

Summary Full:

Evil. What is it? Can it be human? Can it just be a creature? Can it just be the supernatural? That's what Sam must discover after Dean disappears from the most innocent of places.

When Dean is injured on a case, the boys wind up at a small clinic in a rural town in Iowa that also has secrets. After Sam is drugged, Dean vanishes without a trace. Then it's up to Sam to locate his brother while getting past the town's web of secrets, including a haunting memory of another time they'd passed through the area as boys.

Sam's desperation to find Dean grows as he realizes the danger might not just all be from the typical monster or supernatural creature this time.

Warnings:

Contains acts of violence including blood and gore, non-consensual acts by the creature, drugging, kidnapping, forced prostate massage, and forced orgasm. There are triggers for mentions of child loss, and for descriptions of scientific experiments. Minor death (NOT major character) with a morally grey character death, language

Chapter One

Present, Water Lake, Iowa, the forest somewhere:

"Dean! Dean!"

"Goddamn it, Sam! Hold up a second, slow down, and wait for me, ya damn idjit!"

Sam Winchester ignored the gruff orders as he quickly moved through dense woods outside of the small, rural town of Water Lake, Iowa in his haste to find something, anything that would lead him to his missing brother.

He felt a firm hand suddenly latch onto his shoulder and whirled to face the bearded, older man with him. "Damn it, Bobby! It's been almost 12 hours since he vanished from that goddamn clinic!" Sam snapped, feeling a mix of guilt, anger, and fear all swirling inside him as he stared at Bobby Singer. "I'm still not fully sure what the hell happened to him or who to blame other than myself for being so damn distracted by trying to find him help that I might have put him in more danger than he was in from the damn Djinn back in Illinois!"

"Okay! But if you go at this half-cocked considering we don't know where in these woods whatever the hell this thing holes itself up then you're just going to not only put our lives on the line but your brother's as well!" Bobby told him sternly, watching as Sam's chest heaved and his eyes moved as if looking into the trees and underbrush for whatever it was that had somehow managed to grab his brother out of what should have been a secure clinic.

"Sam! Look at me!" He waited until wary hazel eyes slowly made their way back to him as he put both hands on the younger man's shoulders. "I know you're upset. I know you're worried but you ain't got nothing to feel guilty over. You had no idea when you left Dean that anything was wrong or that something might happen." Bobby narrowed his eyes to stop the arguments he knew were about to come his way. "We're going to get your brother back from whatever the hell this thing is that took him but you have got to settle your ass down to do it!"

Sam knew that. He'd been hunting long enough to know not to go into a possible monster fight or looking for one without a clear head. Hell, he'd been hearing that speech for longer than he cared to think about but he took it better from Bobby or his brother than he ever had from his father.

It was just harder this time because this wasn't just a straight out monster hunt. This was Dean. Dean was missing… again.

Sam had just barely gotten his older brother back from that damn Djinn they'd been hunting in Joliet, Illinois. That hunt, those injuries, the shock, the blood loss he'd suffered from that had been the reason that finally after Dean had passed out twice, thrown up once, and almost scared Sam to death when he thought his brother had stopped breathing, that they'd finally stopped in the small town of Water Lake in Iowa at a small clinic after his brother had vetoed Sam's idea to stop at an actual hospital either in Cedar Rapids or outside of it.

"I should have looked at that journal before ever agreeing to stop in this town," Sam muttered, blowing out a breath but did finally relax enough that the older hunter released his grip on him. "Dean was in shock, Bobby. He was barely with it when he finally agreed to let me find a clinic and then all he remembered was that he thought we'd come through this area with Dad once as kids and there was a clinic." He ran his fingers back through thick, wavy, unruly dark brown hair while making a slow circle as if he was once again surveying the area. "He didn't remember everything. I didn't remember it at all and if I'd have looked at Dad's entry for this place, we would have driven right on through."

"Sam, you were worried about Dean. You wouldn't have taken the time to look at John's journal about some random town," Bobby assured the younger Winchester calmly, shifting the backpack he'd brought with them onto his other shoulder while clapping Sam on the arm. "I'd say we'd split up but since we don't really know exactly what we're facing or if it's just one or multiple, it's best we stick it out together," he said, glancing around the area now that he was fairly certain that Sam would take things a little slower.

"Let's try to look for burrows underground or more than likely an entry to a cave or something," he went on, watching Sam closely as he nodded. "Sam. Wait. Before we go any further, just to be on the safe side, swap out your bullets with these ones," Bobby held out a box of 9mm rounds.

Sam eyed the box of rounds curiously, starting to say his weapon was loaded and he had spare ammo but took the way Bobby shook the box at him to mean the older hunter wasn't actually making a suggestion for him to swap out his rounds with the new ones.

It took Sam no time at all to empty the 9mm rounds out of the magazine for his Taurus Model 92 and replace them with the ones Bobby gave him. He noticed a small notch in the end of the round, but decided to ask what it was about, or what the importance of changing rounds was for a later time; like after he'd found and rescued his brother.

Once he'd reloaded his weapon and dropped the box of ammo in his backpack, Sam took another look at their location and nodded to what sort of looked like a covered path through the trees. "Let's go this way first," he decided while refusing to accept the fear of what they'd find once they did locate Dean.

With Bobby following closely, Sam set out at a slower pace; his eyes carefully looking for not only signs of a cave or a hole large enough for a monster or a man but also anything else that might be a threat.

"Hang on, Dean," he whispered. "I'm going to find you."

Sam still wasn't sure what the hell had happened or what had gone wrong that had caused this, but he was still positive the old doctor back at that clinic had some kind of hand in it since it seemed like all the dots he'd found connected back there.

6 Hours Earlier, Water Lake Clinic:

"Where the hell is my brother?" Sam demanded as he shoved past a stuttering, stammering nurse that was trying to block his path into the head doctor's office of the small, rural clinic about 40 miles outside of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Doctor Clay Ames glanced up from the charts he was working on to frown at the sudden interruption. "Excuse me?" he asked, waving a hand to indicate to the nurse to step back and allow the tall young man into his office. "Your brother? Was he a patient here?"

Sam offered a glare at the nurse after she'd stepped away and he stormed up to the doctor's desk, wondering if he really was hearing his heart beating in his ears in his haste to get from the small room where he'd left his older brother eight hours earlier to go find the head doctor of the clinic to find out what the hell was happening.

"Yeah, he was when I brought him in eight hours ago to be treated for shock and blood loss after he'd had an… accident," Sam replied, still hedging on explaining how his brother had been injured to begin with. "Dean. His name is Dean Winchester," he went on, frowning when the older, balding doctor merely stared at him as if he had two heads. "About 6'1", brown hair, green eyes, cranky as shit because he didn't feel he needed a clinic much less to stay in one while you gave him some blood. Ring a damn bell?" he demanded.

Dr. Ames frowned as he glanced through all his charts from that morning before looking back up at a clearly upset and confused Sam. "I'm sorry, young man, but you either had one too many drinks at the local bar or you're very confused but we have no patient here by that name," he told him seriously, standing up to come around the desk as if to reach out to lay a hand on Sam's shoulder only to have him step back.

"You're the one that treated him!" Sam argued, head still throbbing while his stomach still felt nauseous from whatever the hell happened earlier that stopped him from getting back to the clinic as quickly as he'd planned. "You stood in the room down the hall giving the usual doctor look when Dean argued about hanging around long enough to take a liter or two of blood and fluids and then…" he suddenly stopped to frown more as something sick began to sink into his stomach. "You… You're the one that suggested I go to the diner since it would take a couple of hours for the transfusion. You said there was no sense in me hanging around even though I wanted to stay with my brother. You said… you recommended I even get a room at the local motel, take a shower since Dean would need to rest and then I seem to have lost six hours of time and now my brother is MIA!"

"Young man, I can assure you that I would remember a patient that came into my clinic needing a blood transfusion," Dr. Ames remarked grimly. "Now, if you continue to carry on like this or cause a disturbance I'll be forced to have security remove you or have the proper authorities called," he went on just as his door opened again and a broad-shouldered security guard appeared as if already summoned.

Sam glanced over his shoulder at the scowling rent-a-cop and despite wanting to tear the clinic apart to look for his missing brother he also knew that if he landed in a cell in this small town he wouldn't be able to find or help Dean.

Taking a deep breath to settle his temper, he shot the doctor a glare but slowly stepped back to turn towards the door. "I don't know what happened after I left or where Dean disappeared to, or what you did with him but just so we're clear, Doc, I'm not leaving this town until I find him," he warned, shoving past the guard and stalking out of the clinic.

But missing the dark look the doctor had as he left, or what he told the security guard once Sam was out of the building. "Follow him. He can't be allowed to interfere."

Storming out of the clinic, Sam got back behind the wheel of the 1967 Chevy Impala that had once been their dad's and now was his brother's pride and joy. He gave the clinic another look before putting the key in the ignition to start the car, and tore out of the gravel parking lot to head back to the motel he'd thought it would be a good idea to get just in case Dean needed to rest after leaving the clinic.

Sam still wasn't sure what the hell had happened or where his brother could have disappeared to or even why the doctor was denying that he'd ever been a patient there. He was suddenly regretting his choice of even stopping in the small town and not pushing on either closer to Sioux Falls or finding a clinic in a slightly larger but still out of the way town that might not ask too many questions about why his brother had looked so pale or why he'd lost so much blood since Sam knew they couldn't very well tell the staff the truth.

He'd known they couldn't admit that his brother had been drained of blood by a damn Djinn and had been closer than Sam liked to being another of the creature's victims by the time Sam had found the warehouse in Joliet, Illinois that the Djinn used to keep his victims.

Sam had been worried he was too late after seeing his brother's injuries and realizing how deep the damn Djinn had put Dean into a dreamscape while draining him of blood. He'd felt relief when Dean's eyes had opened but had known the danger was far from over and had been struggling to free him when the Djinn attacked him but Dean had been able to find the silver blade coated in lamb's blood that Sam had dropped and killed the monster.

Then the plan had been to get as far from that warehouse and out of Joliet as they could, so Sam's first suggestion of a clinic or a hospital had been vetoed because, of course, his brother stubbornly refused by saying all he needed was some rest.

They chose to head to Sioux Falls and Bobby's place, but the longer Sam drove, the easier it was to see that Dean was not snapping out of his sluggish state. Sam wasn't sure if he was suffering from the Djinn's poison or from the loss of blood or even something else the Djinn might have done.

By this point, they'd crossed the border to Iowa, stopping for gas just outside of Cedar Rapids and Sam would admit to a mild panic attack when he returned from paying for the gas and found his brother almost passed out on the ground on the other side of the car. That had been when Dean reluctantly agreed to find a clinic if only to stop Sam from freaking the hell out on him he said.

It had been Dean, once Sam had helped him back into the Impala and gotten him to drink the bottle of orange juice he'd bought, who recalled something in their dad's journal about a little town 40 miles outside of Cedar Rapids that they'd gone through when they'd been boys and maybe it had a clinic that wouldn't ask too many questions about how he'd lost blood or if they tested his blood and it came back with any weird properties from the Djinn's poison.

Now as Sam headed from the clinic back to another small motel he'd found outside of the town of Water Lake since he no longer trusted the one the doctor recommended, he guessed he should have paid more attention to little things that now seemed off to him; including just how little questions had been asked when he'd helped his brother through the front doors and almost immediately a nurse was grabbing a wheelchair to help him.

He'd had a couple of mostly plausible stories made up about either his brother being badly anemic or if the staff noticed the needle track mark on Dean's neck from where the Djinn had been draining him then he'd have to go with the slightly less plausible but more believable story of Dean getting jumped at a club by someone who thought she was a real-life vampire and she drained his blood before Sam got there to help him.

Instead, neither the nurses nor the doctor asked very many questions and now Sam realized that should have been a huge red flag for him. That and how much it now seemed like the doctor was eager for him to leave.

Sam hadn't paid too much attention to that though since he knew if the transfusion took a couple of hours Dean might stand a better chance of sleeping if he wasn't there and even his brother had told him to go find food.

Food and a place to crash had been Dean's last orders to him while Sam had still been hesitant to do that, to leave his brother in a place they didn't know or with people they didn't know. Dean's pale, sickly complexion reminded Sam too much of when his brother had been in the hospital last year and they thought he would die after a fight with a monster had damaged his heart.

"Damn it!" Sam cursed, slamming his hand against the steering wheel in frustration, fighting the need to turn around, go back to that damn clinic, and demand answers. He hated not knowing what had happened or even where his brother was or what might be happening to him given Dean was still suffering from the damn Djinn attack.

A glance in the backseat at his brother's leather jacket reminded Sam to calm down, to take things slow, and not rush into anything since he didn't know the dangers or even what the threat was. So as much as he wanted quick answers and to charge in, Sam understood that he needed to slow down.

He needed to try to subtly ask around town about any weird things happening or other disappearances like this. Then finally, he knew he might actually have to call for help, and with that idea in his head, he reached into his jacket for his phone to hit a button while keeping his eyes on the road.

"Bobby? It's Sam. I… I need some help."

TBC