Chapter Text
Sam wakes up and doesn't immediately remember where he is, which is common enough, really. But there's blood clotted on his shirt, enough that he'd be worried about it if he wasn't relatively sure it wasn't his. Which isn't actually much of a comfort, really. And after a full ten minutes of staring at his hands and poking and prodding at his head to check for lumps he still can't remember how the fuck he got here.
Blood and bruises and knocks to the head are all things he's used to, but this, this not remembering anything at all definitely isn't. There are two sets of keys in his pockets, one with a cracked plastic key chain that tells him it's for the motel room and another he doesn't recognize at all.
The clerk at the front desk is an older woman with bone-dry looking skin and thinning hair, and she gives him the hairy eyeball the entire time he fumbles through his awkward questions. She isn't any help; only thing he gets out of her is that he came in stinking drunk early yesterday evening demanding directions to the nearest storage unit.
When he asks for those directions again she just gives him a blank look.
"What, making me write 'em down once wasn't enough? I ain't wasting my time. And I'm charging you extra for smoking in the room. There's a sign about it and everything." She rolls her eyes up towards the faded printout tacked on the wall behind her. He can taste the ashes in his mouth now that he thinks about it, had assumed the awful taste was the hangover and whatever the fuck knocked him over the head hard enough to cause memory loss.
He thinks about Max. About Scott Carey, and Beverly Tanner. One moment they were my husband and my son. And the next, they had the devil inside them.
Jesus fuck, he's screwed.
Sam shoves a twenty across the table and the clerk finally relents - gives him the name of the storage facility and points out back behind the motel. She won't give him any more help than that, but it's a start.
"Hey John." It's not a voice he expects to hear, not after near on two decades of radio silence, but he recognizes it instantly.
"Ellen."
"I'm just calling to give you a heads up. There's something out there that's going after hunters. Pete was found dead on his ranch four days ago and now Steve Wandell isn't answering his phone. Just be on the look out, okay? Something about this 's got everyone's teeth on edge."
No shit. Hunters bite the dirt all the time; it's a dangerous gig, everyone else spills some whiskey in their memory and moves on. What isn't common is a retired hunter like Pete getting offed in his own home. Run of the mill criminals wouldn't stand a chance - paranoia is practically a job requirement, or it is if you hunt and expect to continue breathing for much longer. Whatever did this was bad mojo, John's pretty damn certain.
"Listen, I got other calls to make. You take care." Ellen's a damn good woman, but it's painfully obvious she wants off the line as soon as possible.
"You too," John mutters and the line goes dead.
Dean eyes him from the passenger seat. "What's up?"
"Don't know." But something is bugging him about this one - Ellen's call, Pete Vesnik, Steve Wandell. Pete's place is almost 700 miles in the rearview mirror and that's when it hits him. Pete's is behind him and Wandell's is straight ahead. The intel is four days old but the timing fits too damn well for John to ignore it. "Fuck."
"Seriously, what?"
"It's Sam."
It's not even close to an explanation, but Dean apparently takes it at face value and stows the questions for the rest of the trip. John is white-knuckled on the steering wheel, same way he has been for the last three months, glaring at the horizon like if he just concentrates hard enough Sam will appear, safe and sound and in no way involved with the two dead hunters.
There's a car in the driveway, modified with a front-seat sliding weapons cache if John's not mistaken. He already knew the guy was a player; met him at the Roadhouse a few times way back when Sammy was still small enough to sleep stretched out in the backseat. Still, a car like that is a pretty damn clear sign that retired or not Wandell was still in the game enough to defend himself against a random burglar. The security feed is cut and the lock is intact; if something not-human got to Wandell (and John is betting something did) then it was a pro job.
Dean is jittery, brows knit together and eyes scanning around like he's expecting to find anything more exciting than a dead body. But Dean's instincts are usually spot-on, so his obvious nerves are setting John's teeth on edge. There's no reason that whatever took out Pete and Wandell isn't still here, waiting.
They step to either side of the door, reaching for their sidearms almost simultaneously .
The door clicks open softly, still too loud for John's tastes but if anything is lying in wait for them the gig is already up anyway. They're parked right across the street and already spent a few minutes poking around the car, not exactly the most stealthy B&E John's ever done. He eases the door open and they step inside, fanning out immediately and trying to cover every corner at once. The house is deathly silent, still and creepy in a way that grates at the back of John's mind. Whatever it was that Dean was picking up on, John's got it now too - a creeping feeling that something bad went down here and it never really left.
There's a soft creak from the other room, they both cock their heads to pick up on the sound. John waves Dean towards the kitchen and heads down the hall on the other side. Trap the bastard, whatever the fuck it is. Dean moves silently, gun cocked and body turned sideways to present a smaller target. Good boy.
They bust in both doors to the back room within seconds of each other, guns trained ahead and John sees ...Gordon?
Gordon is sitting in the desk chair, calm and easy with a sidearm in one hand trained on John and what looks like a remote control in the other. To John's surprise, Gordon flicks the safety back on and points the gun up at the ceiling, fingers splayed in surrender.
"John. Everyone told me I should keep my distance from this one, but I knew you'd be man enough to do the right thing. It's good to see you."
"What 'right thing'?"
Gordon raises an eyebrow. "You're chasing Sam, aren't you? Gotta say I admire you, it can't be easy."
John's still got the gun trained on Gordon and Dean is taking his cues from John. He's got no idea what the hell Gordon is talking about, but something about his tone is making John's trigger finger itch.
"What've you found?"
"I had my doubts until I got here. Thought maybe he was just young and naive when he let a bunch of fangs go just because they said they would play nice. Thought I must be an idiot putting stock in anything one of those evil sonuvabitches spewed out." He shakes his head and hits a button on the remote, the screen out of John's line of sight but not out of Dean's. Dean's eyes flick back and forth between Gordon and the computer screen. "But then I asked around a bit. Talked to a few people, learned a few things. And then about two weeks ago your boy started getting careless."
He clicks the remote again and Dean's eyes lock on the screen.
"I like you, John. Only ever heard good things about you. But I gotta be honest, must be a hard thing chasing down your son like this, but all the same. Think I'd rather work alone." He gets up and balances the remote on the arm of the chair. "I'll leave you to it."
John is stuck in place, Gordon's words clanking around in his head and not making any sense. Dean glances at John for direction but gets nothing and steps aside to let Gordon pass. A minute later they hear an engine turn over and Gordon is gone.
"Sir?" Dean steps towards the screen, examining it. He only calls John that when he's freaked.
I had my doubts, until I got here. John steps around the desk and looks down at the screen. The blurry security camera footage is paused on Sam, holding down Wandell and dragging a knife across his throat. Sam isn't facing the camera, his head is tilted down but John would know that mop of hair anywhere; just as easily as he knows that it can't possibly be Sam.
Dean reaches down and hits play and they both watch as Wandell dies and Sam looks up at the camera and there's nothing. No camera flare, no black eyes. Nothing.
Gordon isn't chasing after Sam, he's hunting him. Sam is possessed, or drugged, or cursed because goddammit six years gone by or not he knows his own damn son. And there's no way Sam did this on his own.
Sure enough, the key in his pocket matches up to the rusted old padlock on number seventeen, a double-wide unit with a fresh set of tire tracks imprinted in the gravel outside.
There's an old car parked inside, and the panel under the dash is hanging open with the ignition wires pulled out. Stolen and hot wired, and yeah Sam's done that every once in a while but only when he absolutely needed to. He thinks maybe he got into some bad shit and took a hard knock to the head; it would certainly explain the jackhammer that seems to start up every time he moves too quickly or turns his head too fast. Doesn't explain why he didn't just park the car at the motel though.
It starts up okay, three-quarters of a tank of gas and rumbling along just fine. He makes a slow circuit of the town, right turn after right turn in an ever expanding circle, just hoping something will look familiar. An hour later and about two miles outside of the town proper the sight of a gas station jars him like a stiff hit straight to the chest and he cuts across two lanes of traffic to pull in.
The guy manning the counter won't tell him shit, just holds up the phone like a talisman and won't listen to a damn thing Sam says. Sam books it out of there when the guy actually starts dialing the cops, drives straight out of town until he reaches a deserted stretch of road where he finally stops and leans his head against the steering wheel. When the pounding in his head has finally dimmed back down to manageable levels he sits up and starts going over the car more carefully.
There's blood smeared over the front seat, not a surprise given the state of his shirt when he'd woken up. The glovebox has all the usual crap in it, insurance cards and manuals and a piss poor excuse for a first aid kit. All kinds of crap is piled on the backseat and in the footwells - junk food wrappers and empty bottles, and more tell tale smears of blood that lead under the threadbare mat.
When he finds the bloody knife in the backseat he knows he's in way the fuck over his head.
He's been on his own too long to think of calling John, the hurt still fresh nearly a year and a half later - waking up alone with his hands still healing and familiar looking protective sigils carved into the back of the headboard of his hospital bed. Knowing for a fact that John had been there, knew exactly what Sam had been through and hadn't fucking bothered to stop long enough to wait for him to wake up.
John has been a mental blank for four years, a black hole that his thoughts tiptoed around lest he fall in. Finding those symbols had opened the floodgates, made Sam feel like he was seven years old again - waking up in the morning to find crumpled bills on the nightstand and a bag of groceries the only evidence that John had been there at all.
His options are few and far between. Whatever this is he's stepped in, it's too damn heavy to lay it on friends and acquaintances. Can't reel in anyone else if all it's gonna do it get them hurt. He needs someone tough as nails and probably old enough to know better than to get involved with this shit.
He calls Bobby.
"So do we tail Gordon or do we stick with tailing Sam?"
They're fucked either way. John knows how hunters work; how they talk. If Gordon is after Sam for whatever reason, chances are other hunters are already on it too. They've spent the past four hours turning over Wandell's place, looking for any hint of Sam or what the fuck might be pulling his strings. Dean wipes down the house, covers every surface they think Sam might've touched and then trashes the hard drive with brute force because no way either of them trust the delete button to be anywhere near thorough enough.
"We stick with Sammy." He's hedging his bets. Gordon'll be covering his tracks, and for whatever reason Sam isn't. It's just further proof that Sam can't be himself right now - John knows damn well he taught his boy better than that. "Call the local paper, see if they've had any ads placed in the last day or so."
It's an old trick, one they used to use when John had to leave for days at a time and CPS started sniffing around too close for comfort. Back in the days before cell phones and text messages and email, other parents found their kids via intercom messages and agreements about meeting in the back left corner; John and Sammy had the personals section of the Lawrence newspaper.
He knows Sam remembers, if only because too many of the cases John's left coordinates for over the past year and a half have been resolved when he checked up on them weeks later. John still has the beat up old cell phone he'd been using the year Sammy left, he keeps it charged in the glovebox just in case. But it's never rung. Sam's cellphone burned up at the same time his girlfriend did, and if he ever replaced the phone he apparently didn't bother to keep the same number.
The paper is clunky and slow, and occasionally hideously unreliable and riddled with typos, but it's the only thing he's got.
Dean digs out his cellphone just as John's starts buzzing in his pocket. Blind hope overrules common sense for single moment and he flips open the phone without stopping looking at the display.
"Sammy?"
"Not quite."
"Gordon? Where the fuck are you?"
"Right outside this little church in Blue Earth, Minnesota. You know your boy's stealing cars now, John? Followed this busted up little Toyota straight here."
Fucking liar. "Why're you calling?"
"Courtesy. I'm not a monster, I know this must be hard for you. I'm not doing this out of spite - he's after Jim Murphy, and I gotta stop him."
"You touch him and I'll fucking- "
The line cuts off and John smacks the phone against steering wheel. Has to give himself a minute before the white hot rage clears from his eyes enough to dial Jim. Five rings, ten. Jim isn't picking up.
The machine eventually clicks over to voicemail after far too fucking long and John lets out a string of curses long and loud enough to make his old drill sarg from the marines blush. He slams on the brakes and pulls the car off the road, kicking up enough dirt and dust to cloud the air and make his eyes water even through the rolled up windows.
Dean's got his own phone up to his ear and there's a faint rumble of a voice coming over the small speaker but he's staring straight at John.
"Gordon says Sam's in Blue Earth. Jim isn't picking up his phone."
"That's interesting, 'cause Bobby says he's got Sam."
John's mind is racing too fast to process that right away. "Bobby's got Sam?"
"Yeah." Dean frowns. "What the hell is after Pastor Jim?"
"I don't know."
"Shit."
"Pretty much."
John believes Bobby over Gordon in a heartbeat, but that doesn't mean he can just leave Jim out to hang. Something is going after hunters, and something about the edge of excitement in Gordon's voice makes John's skin crawl. He's never known Gordon to be so damn calm.
"There was a mall with a nice full parking lot about five miles back, wasn't there?" Dean asks.
"You want to grab a car?"
"That's the general idea."
John pulls a U-ie that ends up being more on the grass than on the road, spends the three minute trip back trying to tell Dean every last damn thing he can remember about Gordon Walker and where Jim keeps his personal stashes of weaponry. Dean knows all of this already; John knows he knows it, but can't seem to stop his damn mouth from moving. He knows the kid capable, and smart, and a damned good hunter. Still. It's the first time he's ever sent Dean off on his own and the stress and worry for Sam, for Dean, for Jim...it's piling up.
Dean grabs his duffel out of the trunk and tucks weapons and supplies into every available pocket and holster he's got, as subtly as he can at midday in the middle of a nice big shopping mall parking lot.
John rolls the passenger side window down and levels a stern a look as he can manage as Dean leans down to wave him off.
"You be more fucking careful than you've ever been in your life, you hear?"
"Yessir."
"Call me as soon as you find Jim."
Dean nods and gives the roof a parting slap as he heads off to find a ride. John's got near three hundred miles to cover and too fucking little time to do it in.
Sam wakes up tied to a chair and his head feels like it's splitting open, again. His throat feels scrubbed raw and his wrists are aching and sticky with blood from the restraints. He looks around slowly, something about the room pinging his memory and he can't figure out what.
"You in there, kid?"
Sam whips his head around and instantly regrets it, vertigo blurring his vision and making his stomach turn over. "Bobby?"
He hasn't seen Bobby in near on seven years, but it's pretty damn easy to recognize the baseball cap and gruffness of his voice.
"Yeah, lucky me. How're you feeling?" Bobby's got his arms crossed in front of him, a flask clutched in each hand and a strange look on his face. And he isn't moving to untie Sam.
"Like I got hit by a fourteen wheeler," Sam groans, too miserable and confused to be above a little self pity. "And then tied to a chair."
"Life's a bitch that way, ain't it? Sit tight, you're not getting up for a while yet."
"Did I- " Sam swallows, hating the rasp of his own voice. "Bobby, did I go bad?"
Bobby finally walks around to Sam's front, kicks out a chair and sits down heavily. "No. You went and got yourself possessed though, is what it looks like to me."
Sam frowns, shrugs his shoulders and flexes his hands like there should be some kind of physical clue if he'd really been possessed. Doesn't feel like anyone else is pulling the strings, but it sounds like a nice and tidy explanation for the missing time.
"So what happens now?"
"Now I wait 'til your Daddy gets here so he can make the hard choices, 'cause I sure as hell ain't gonna."
"Hard choices. You can't just exorcise me?"
Bobby shakes his head. "Far as I can tell, that demon's been riding you for well over two weeks now. All that time and I don't know what all it's been doing up in there, and it looks like it's locked itself in there nice 'n tight too." Bobby nods down at Sam's forearm and Sam has to strain and twist to look down and see the raised edge of a marked burned into his skin.
"Oh shit."
"Sounds about right. I'm not much good at breaking these kinds of things easy, but I gotta let you know - demon mojo might be the only thing keeping you breathing right now."
Sam has never felt so close to the breaking point. Everything hurts, and all his best efforts have blown up in his face. "Dad's coming?"
"On his way right now. I hate to do this to you, I really do, but you're just gonna have to sit tight a while longer. If I know John at all, he's busting down the damn sound barrier to get here."
At some point, and John is certain that as long as he lives he'll never be sure when exactly it happened, he blinked for just a second and Sammy grew up. Standing here and staring at his son, closer than he's been in years; he can't see any hint of the little baby boy he'd taken for drives around the neighborhood at three in the morning just to get him to sleep. Didn't seem to matter whether it was back in their perfect little house in Lawrence, or some run of the mill motel room in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere - Sammy'd always slept better in the car.
Sam isn't sleeping now. He's unconscious, or the son of a bitch possessing him is in control, or he just doesn't have the energy to raise his head. He's tied to a chair in the middle of a devil's trap, wrists bloody from the struggle and hair hanging down over his eyes in just the way that John always hated. Every fiber in his body wants to walk forward and shake him awake and then hug him tight until he can't breathe. And then probably smack him upside the head, but only after he's made sure the kid's skull is still in one piece.
He's too well versed in this crap to do anything of the sort. Stands back and waits for Sam to come around on his own, hoping that when his head finally tips up it'll be Sam in control and not the demon.
"Waiting isn't going to make it any easier," Bobby interrupts from just outside the room.
John's had his issues with Bobby over the years, but there aren't many men that'd be kind enough to give him a chance at a goodbye, if kindness is really what you can call this. Either way, he's right, and every second he waits is another second this evil bastard gets to spend topside. He plucks the rosary out of a paint pail and hits Sam square in the chest with a splash of holy water.
It hisses and steams as soon as the water hits, just more confirmation as if John actually needed any. The things head snaps up, eyes black and mouth pulled back in a grimace.
"John Winchester. So nice to finally meet you."
It's strange hearing the words come out of Sam's mouth. The cadence is all wrong, and even on his very worst teenage mood swings Sam never managed to sneer quite like that.
"Fuck you. What've you done to him?"
It smiles.
John takes his time. Twenty years on the run makes some people think you're just easily distracted, but that's
never been the case with John. He has focus, and skill, and enough self discipline to see things through even when the going gets rough.
It screams, and it lies; weaves ugly stories to distract him and piss him off. Some of it works, but not enough for him to slip up. It laughs when it talks about killing Vesnik and Wandell, mocks Sam's horrified face when he'd woken up covered in blood and found the knife stuck in the backseat. John seethes, punches a hole through the wall and reads halfway through an exorcism just to watch it squirm.
Bobby stands back and watches the whole thing, eyes the new hole in the wall with a resigned look and silently points down at the brands on Sam's arms when the first full read through doesn't work. John doesn't think he'll ever get the smell of his son's burning flesh out of his head; like the sight of Mary on the ceiling and the scar tissue still visible on Sam's hands and arms wasn't enough.
But it has to be done, and John reminds himself over and over again that he is a practical man.
At the end of it, Sam is tipped over in his chair, chest heaving and eyes clenched shut.
"Sammy?" John calls from two steps away, just barely inside the devil's trap - now broken and all but useless. Sam's breath hitches and he curls in on himself a little tighter.
John is there before he even thinks about it, pulling Sam up against him and pressing one hand to his chest, checking his breathing, his racing heartbeat, burying his face in the mess of Sam's hair.
"Jesus, Sammy. It's okay, son, I got you."
Sam is groggy and pale, looks like he hasn't slept in about a week and hasn't bothered to shave for even longer. He looks like John feels. He's sitting on the couch, hunched over and all folded up in a mess of too long limbs that don't fit quite right on the low seat.
"It's gone. You're sure it's gone?" He asks for the third time.
"Yeah Sammy, we're good."
"Did I- Dad, I think I hurt someone. There was blood all over, it wasn't mine -"
He goes on trying to explain, disjointed phrases tumbling out mismatched and and only half-formed. John lets him have at it, knows Sam's got a guilt complex a mile wide and probably wouldn't listen to reason if he brought it up anyway. John's not always the most observant man, but he's not a complete idiot either - he knows he doesn't have a leg to stand on telling Sam not to worry about the things he (it dammit, it) might've done.
So he sits and he waits, and he lets Sam talk himself out until the words start making sense again. And then his heart stops cold.
"I get these visions, these - I dunno, these nightmares. Sometimes they come true."
And Christ, there's some stuff you expect to be in the parenting manuals and there's some stuff you know won't be even if you really wish it was, and then there's crap like this that hits like a bucket of ice water even if maybe you've been expecting it for a while now. What he wants to do is rage and yell, demand an explanation why the hell Sam didn't call him up or drop an ad in the Lawrence paper or something. Anything. But so far this has been the most civil conversation they've had since Sam was probably about fifteen and that's (just barely) enough to keep the anger and the fear in check.
"How often does it happen?"
Sam shakes his head. "It's random. They're always related to the demon though, it's always one of his kids that I see, or something that they're doing." He pauses a second, eyes John with an expression he recognizes all too easily. "You knew about this, didn't you? Or some of it, at least. You knew about the other nursery fires and the kids with special abilities, and don't tell me you didn't 'cause you sure as hell don't look surprised right now.
"Did you-" he swallows. "Did you know about Jess? Dad, did you know it was coming after her?"
John closes his eyes and hopes to God Sam doesn't take it as an admission of guilt. He hates the look in Sam's eyes; not just the old easily dismissible teenage anger but hurt and betrayal and a horrible creeping suspicion.
"No, Sammy. God no. You think I would've stood by if I knew it was coming for you?"
"Right. Because when I saw you right afterwards you looked so concerned. Oh, wait -"
"Sam -"
"I didn't see you, did I? My entire life burns down and I had people I barely remembered from second year Chem class visiting me, but my own father is MIA. As usual."
"I was scared for you, and I thought we were getting close to it."
Sam's head snaps up, eyes narrowing. "We?"
John can already tell this is going to go over like roses. "Dean and I." He'd kind of been hoping he could leave it at that, but Sam isn't exactly in the most forgiving of moods. "My hunting partner."
As if that really explains anything.
"You have a hunting partner?" And as irritating as it sometimes is in the middle of an argument, sometimes Sam's whip-fast mind changes tack and it's actually a blessing. Better to talk about this than more godawful arguing about the demon. Sam sounds incredulous, to say the least.
"Kid tried to swipe my wallet at a fill up joint," no reason to bring up the drinking if he doesn't have to, "I dragged him off to scare some sense into him and turned out he had this dream walker attached to him."
Sam rolls his eyes and gives up a crooked half smile. "So you gave him a shotgun and took him out on the hunt."
"Pretty much, yeah." John shifts forward in his chair, just enough to wrap a hand around one of Sam's shoulders and give a good hard squeeze. "Don't get me wrong, I hate that you got dragged back into this shit, but it's good to have you back."
Sam stares down at the floor. "Yeah."
There's a million things neither one of them is talking about, bringing any of it up is a whole can of worms John knows neither one of them have the energy or the self control to deal with right now. That's never stopped either of them in the past, and John knows himself well enough to know it won't last long but Sam is here and he's safe and they're not screaming at each other yet which is enough for now.
Sam is out ditching the stolen car. 'You think I don't get enough police suspicion 'cause of the salvage yard, heck no you can't leave that here,' had been Bobby's first words to Sam after the exorcism. Bobby's an all around good guy, but his patience and hospitality have limits.
Sam's got Missouri's hex bag tucked in one pocket and a prepaid cellphone with John set to speed dial in the other and that's the only damn reason John is letting him leave the frigging house on his own. He knows he's being ridiculous and paranoid, but the old adage is true - it ain't paranoia if they really are all out to get you.
The problem is, and John's blood pressure ticks up a notch just thinking about it instead of being about to do something, is that Dean isn't answering his phone. Three calls, fifteen minutes apart and John actually knows from experience at this point that even hypothermic or knocked unconscious Dean should've been able to pick up by now.
Bobby is off trying to get Jim or anyone else he knows in the area, at it for nearly twenty minutes now and has no intel to show for it. John hears a phone click back in the cradle from somewhere in the other room and a minute later Bobby is standing in the doorway shaking his head.
"Far as I can tell, no one knows shit and Jim ain't answering his phone. I got a contact with a Ranger 'bout two towns over that could swing by, but I'm guessing from the look on your face you're damn well going to see for yourself anyway, am I right?"
"Not much point in waiting, is there?" He nods at Bobby, thanks and take care and nevermind about that shotgun threat all wrapped up in one quick gesture that Bobby returns in kind. They get each other, even with as much time as they spend butting heads, Bobby is the kind of guy that makes it real easy to say everything you need to get across without opening your mouth.
John heads out, has an idea of the area where Sammy was headed to ditch the car and plans on calling when he gets a bit closer. After that it's a straight shot, barely a hundred and fifty miles to Jim's place and when he gets there he's seriously considering just handcuffing the damn kids together and locking them in the backseat for the rest of their natural lives. Dealing with the inevitable bitching would probably be less stressful than this shit.
He finds the car before he finds Sam, almost doesn't even bother stopping - thinks maybe Sam took a shortcut back or they missed each other along the road between here and Bobby's. But there's a lump at the side of the road that looks suspiciously like Sam's pack. John slams on the breaks and bolts out of the car without bothering to turn the engine off.
The smell hits him before the sight of the powder does. Powder could just be dust, or pollen, or one of a million other completely harmless things, except it's not. It's the stench of rotten eggs, volcanoes; evil. There's sulfur all over the driver's seat and Sam's pack is abandoned in the middle of the road.
Neither one of them is answering their phones.
Dean's sidearm is gone. So is the silver knife that's usually strapped to his right ankle, and even the dinky switchblade in his left jean pocket is gone. The last thing he remembers is facing off against Gordon in the back hallway of Jim's house.
The room he's in now looks nothing like Pastor Jim's. It doesn't look like a house that's been inhabited by anybody at all in at least a couple of decades. Dean pushes himself up, hands digging into hard packed dirt floor. Maybe more than just a few decades. Where the hell is he?
The room is completely empty; no sign of Gordon and no sign of Jim anywhere, either. He's alone, unarmed, and his cell phone is out of range.
Dean closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Focus on what you've got, he thinks, and it sounds suspiciously like John's voice.
Getting out of the room is easy enough, he jimmies a window and slips out into what looks like the set of an old school horror movie. A bad one. He's about ninety percent sure he's seen this one, actually - watched it about three months back on a crap motel set with the color balance all shot to hell so that everyone either looked bright orange or neon green. It makes him feel a little bit better, because the people in that flick had all been fucking idiots but some of them had managed to survive.
Gordon's got to be around here somewhere. Fucking with him, pulling kind of crazy cat and mouse shit. He must've had a friend with him at Jim's, someone else to sneak around behind and clock Dean over the head while he was distracted. It's the only thing he can think of that makes a damn bit of sense why he's here.
He sticks close to the outside wall of the building, edges forward to peek around out on what he thinks must be town center. An old windmill creaks along smack in the middle, and the ground is pitted and muddy - uneven enough to look like something else has been through the area but nowhere near clear enough tell what or who, or how many.
Dean backtracks, not willing to risk crossing all that open ground in case Gordon's out there with a sniper rifle and a bad attitude.
The building right next to the one he came out of is some kind of school room; there's an old blackboard along one wall and a sad collection of those uncomfortable dual desk chairs. A warped yard stick is sitting in the chalk holder under the blackboard, it's not a rock salt loaded shotgun but it's better than nothing.
Just then he catches something out of the corner of his eye; the only movement he's seen here other than the old windmill. He drops low, eyes locked on the window. Every innocuous creak of wood and rustle of leaves sounds like a threat when he's keyed up like this, no way to tell them apart stuck inside like this.
A full minute later the door busts in and this huge guy comes into the room with a freaking crowbar clutched in one hand. Dean has a horrifying moment of holy shit when he realizes he's going up against a fucking Sasquatch with nothing but a crappy yardstick before he gets a better look. He's never actually seen the guy from less than twenty paces but it's pretty impossible to miss the shaggy hair and and a very familiar looking jawline.
"Sammy?"
The guy stops mid-step and gapes at him. "Who the fuck are you?"