sams1ra

Title: Picking Up Where We Left Off
Disclaimer: I own nothing supernatural related. Yet…
Rating: R, for language and violence.
Category: Gen.
Pairings: None.
Characters: Dean, Sam, John, Bobby, OCs, other canon characters.
Spoilers: For all episodes aired in the US. This story is mostly AU for season 3, but some characters and events will be mentioned.

Comments: Are what feeds my muse ;)

A/N: Much love to the awesomeness that is my beta tru_faith_lost . All remaining mistakes are mine.

Summary: Twenty five years ago, a demon killed Mary Winchester and tainted her son. Six years ago, someone drugged and abducted Dean Winchester. Nine months ago, one of a yellow eyed demon's tainted kids killed Sam Winchester. A few days later, the gates to hell opened, and all hell broke loose. And now, everything's picking up where it left off....

Chapter Six

"…Should've made sure."

"Are you kidding me? You try remembering all of their stats while taking a six year long vacation in Hell!"

"I would've remembered if it nearly killed the guy!"

"Two people had allergic reactions last time! Two! And both of them were female. This guy was okay the last time… I think."

"You think? You think? Aren’t you supposed to know this stuff? You almost killed him!"

"Hey! He was okay with these drugs last time. It's not my fault those idiots burnt the place down along with all my notes!"

"So why the hell did he react like that now?"

"I don’t know, let me check my notes. Oh, wait, I can't. Those damn hunters burnt everything down!"

There was a long sigh before the first person went on; "Well, he gonna be okay?"

"Should be."

"Are you sure?" There was a long pause, and then; "Don’t you give me that look. We still need him to finish what we started."

"Ain't no hunters coming to save them. Not this time."

"Wait, is he awake?"

Sam ran both hands through his long hair, his eyes sweeping across the parking lot. He must have looked like a kicked puppy, because despite her earlier attitude, Laney didn’t walk away.

"Hey," she said, "You could still come in, if you like," she suggested. "Can always wait for Fred at the bar, have something to eat while you're at it."

Sam stared at her with unseeing eyes, then looked at the bar and back at the waitress. He couldn’t. He couldn’t just sit and wait and do nothing. He had to do… something.

So he called Bobby, and of course, Bobby could do nothing to help other than promise he'd call if he heard anything. Sam sort of ran out of ideas then.

He went back to the motel room, rifling through his stuff until he found the Impala's spare key, figuring Dean wouldn’t really appreciate him hotwiring his baby. Sam drove around town aimlessly for a while, hoping against hope he'd see Dean walking carelessly along the street, so he could run him over with the Impala for being a jerk and not calling. But Dean was nowhere to be found, and Sam was starting to feel sick to his stomach.

It was nearly four when Sam's stomach reminded him it was about time to feed it. He didn’t have an appetite, though, so he stopped at a Seven Eleven for some coffee and a stale sandwich from the machine. He nearly dropped them both.

"Hey Sam."

Swallowing hard, Sam turned around. He really wished he remembered Brunette's name right about then. He really, really did.

"Uh, hi… Hi." Yes, it was totally lame. And Dean's voice in his head telling him so was completely redundant.

"How you doin'?" Brunette asked.

"Good. Uh… good," Sam stuttered. He would have kicked himself if he could. He tried leaning against the wall, only to find it about an inch too far, and stumbled. Smooth. She must have been way too drunk last night, Sam thought, and actually, so was he. "So, um, how you… uh, I mean, what have you been up to?" He tried for a smile, hoping it didn’t come out too creepy.

She laughed.

"Hey, uh… How's your friend? Uh… What's her name again?" Damn it, it was right on the tip of his tongue. Tracy? Teresa? Terry? Something with a 'T'…

"You mean Rosemary?" Or not…

"Yeah, yeah. How are you two doing?" Sam asked, smiling again. Brunette raised a brow.

"We're fine. Actually, Rosemary is leaving town tomorrow. Gonna get one last wild night in town, then back to school, ya know?"

Sam did his best to keep a smile on his face, even though his heart was pounding and his hands were clammy. "Yeah, sounds good," he tried. "Hey, you think you could, like, call her or something? I really need to talk to her."

Brunette raised a brow, looking suspicious and insulted. "Oh, yeah? What, I'm not good enough for you?" She snapped. Sam stuttered again.

"What? Uh, no! I mean, yes! I mean…" He took a deep breath, "Look, my brother's missing, and as far as I know, she's the last one who saw him, so could you please…?"

Brunette sized him up, trying to decide whether to believe him or not. Sam did his best to look sincere, his heart pounding in his ears. Brunette hesitated a moment longer before pulling a pink cell phone out of her purse. She turned her back to him, taking a few steps away as she called her friend. Sam took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. Dean was probably still shacked up somewhere with Rosemary. His brother was a dog after all; he probably didn’t even notice he'd dropped his phone. Or at least, that's what Sam hoped had happened.

He watched as Brunette talked to her friend, slipping glances his way. He heard her giggle as she checked out the cereal aisle and hoped she'd get to the point already. Unfortunately, getting to the point took nearly five minutes.

"She says she has no idea where he is, and doesn’t want to know," Brunette informed him, still on the phone.

It took Sam a couple of seconds to get over the shock of being dismissed so easily, before he snatched the phone from Brunette's hands, ignoring her cry of protest.

"Rosemary? Hi, listen, my name's Sam. We met last night at the bar…"

"Oh, yeah," Sam could practically hear the smirk spreading on her lips, "Tall, drunk, and handsome?"

"Listen, I saw you leave the bar with my brother last night. He didn’t come home. I really need to know…"

"Your brother can go to Hell as far as I'm concerned!" Sam raised a brow at the tone of Rosemary's voice. It wasn’t the first time Dean's companions felt that way, but still, with three months left before Dean's bill came due, it sorta hit close to home.

"Listen, I know he can be a real jerk sometimes, but if you could just…"

"Jerk doesn’t even begin to cover it!" Rosemary seethed. "He thinks it's a joke or something? He thinks I'm stupid? That I'm that easy? You can tell him to go screw himself!" Sam had to move the phone away from his ear. He had to dodge as Brunette made a grab for it.

"Look, Rosemary, I don’t know what he did, but I really…"

"Jerk stood me up, is what he did! I waited almost twenty minutes for him and he never showed up! Probably lied to me about that car, too. And I bet he has a tiny dick!" She snapped, "You can tell your brother I hope he gets an STD!"

It took Sam a moment to digest what he'd just heard. "Wait, so you didn’t spend the night with him?" he asked, making sure.

"Hello? Are you deaf? Bastard ditched me! And let me tell you…" But Sam hung up.

He swallowed hard, heart racing, mind whirling. Sam didn’t even notice Brunette snatching her phone back, ignored her curses and evil glare. Sam was sure he'd seen Dean leave the bar. And then there was his trashed cell phone…

Sam left the Seven Eleven minus the food he was supposed to get. He'd lost his appetite anyway.

This? Was so not fun. Dean's chest felt like it was on fire. For all he knew, it was. Consciousness wasn’t really his friend at the moment.

Slowly, carefully, Dean took stock of all his hurts and pains. Surprisingly enough, the list began and ended with his chest. It felt as though an elephant was having a party on top of it. It was getting better, though, which made him come to the conclusion really good drugs were involved. Which meant hospital, and damn, but he'd been there, done that.

Didn’t feel like a hospital, though. Didn’t smell like it. In fact, the room smelt kind of dank, musty and rather cold. Oh, and someone was arguing. There weren’t usually arguments in the hospital. Well, not before he woke up, anyway.

He couldn’t really follow the conversation, though. He tried opening his eyes, but that took energy, and he decided it could wait. A tug on his arm confirmed he was attached to an IV. He just had no idea why. Last thing he remembered… Brunette. Cute. And with a friend, equally cute. Couldn’t take her hands off of his brother. But obviously, that wasn’t what had led him here, so…

The back alley.

Two guys.

A needle.

Oh, shit.

"Wait, is he awake?" One of the voices asked the other one. "Hey, you awake?" Dean pretended he wasn’t. "You feeling any better now?" Obviously, playing dead wasn’t really working for him, so Dean gave up, fought to get his eyes open.

He blinked a couple of times, just to make sure his eyes really were open. The room was mostly dark. A bare light bulb waged a losing battle against the darkness. A few seconds later, his vision cleared and he could make out two figures. Well, okay, two blurry hazy thingies he assumed were two figures.

"Where'm I?" He slurred.

"Just were you need to be," someone said, "Don’t worry; you'll be good as new in a couple of hours. Go back to sleep."

Dean didn’t want to go back to sleep. He wanted answers, he wanted to get up and leave. That IV in his arm though? It had other plans. See, Dean always knew needles were secretly evil. Guns were way better.

The next time Dean woke up, he was in a different room. He took a tentative breath and was relieved to realize his chest felt much better. A glance down his arm proved the evil needle was gone, too. His throat was dry as a desert, his mouth even drier. He groaned and tried to muster up the energy to push himself up on his elbows.

Now he was more than pretty sure he was not in a hospital; since they didn’t usually look like abandoned factories. The room was huge, and most of it was obscured by darkness. It took a couple of seconds for him to notice the others around. He grimaced as he tried to push himself higher and look around.

The walls were made of bare concrete with tiny windows way up and out of reach. Wooden crates and ropes were littered around, and about a dozen lumpy mattresses were scattered about nearby, some occupied. Dean flopped back onto his back, a sluggish mind working hard on trying to fit in the pieces.

"Hey,"

Dean peered toward the source of the voice, stifling another groan. He blinked a couple of times and the large, hazy lump getting near started to take the shape of a person. Dean closed his eyes again, let out a breath. God, he was thirsty.

"Dan? You okay, man?"

Dean blinked at the man talking to him, trying to bring him to focus. The man crouched next to him and Dean swatted his hands away as the man tried to reach for him. Dean grunted and turned over on his side, tried to push himself up. The man caught his arm, helping him to sit up. He kept a steadying hand onto Dean's back until the world stopped spinning so fast.

"How you doin' man?" Dean shook his head in an attempt to clear it and studied the man in front of him. Dark hair, bright blue eyes and a thick Brooklyn accent. The man's hair was disheveled, his eyes bloodshot. He looked as exhausted as Dean felt.

"Where's Sam?" Was the first thing out of Dean's mouth. And by the sound of his voice, he really needed some water.

"Uh," the man stuttered, looking around, "Um, I… I don't think there's a Sam here," he said. Dean scrubbed his face, looking around the dim room, and noticed a large water container on top of a rickety table on the other side of the room. With the man's help, Dean made it to his feet. The man kept his hold on Dean's arm, stopping Dean before he got anywhere near the water.

"You really don’t want to do that," the man said.

"Why the hell not?" Dean demanded gruffly, still making his way to the table.

"Look, man, I know you're thirsty, we all are, but you can't drink." The guy insisted. Dean ignored him. As he got closer to the table, he noticed a few water bottles; a couple of them had his name on it. Frowning, Dean took one of the bottles in his hand, examining it.

"Seriously, Dan, don’t." The man insisted, "You can't drink, remember?" He sounded a little apologetic, but kept the bottle away from Dean, who tried to make a grab for it. "Hey, it's for your own good, alright? Just… don’t think about it or something."

"Give me the damn bottle!" Dean demanded. It was meant to sound menacing. Unfortunately, at the moment, a kitten would have sounded more menacing. The man shrugged apologetically but kept the water away. He grabbed Dean's shoulder as Dean tried for one of the other bottles.

"Ge'away," Dean tried to push his way to the other bottle, but the guy stopped him again.

"Dan, you can't," the guy repeated slowly. "There's drugs in the water, remember?" Dean frowned.

"Who the hell're you?" He demanded.

"Mike. Mike Zuckerman, remember?" Dean blinked at him. "There's drugs in the water they give us," Mike repeated. "I know you're thirsty, but trust me, you'll feel much worse if you drink this water."

Dean stared at him for a long moment, frowning. He turned back to look at the water, trying to clear the cobwebs from his still sleepy mind. He took another look around and scrubbed his face.

"Where's m'brother?" Dean demanded. The guy smiled, shook his head and shrugged. "Where are we? Who're you?" Dean nearly didn’t recognize his own voice, it was so rough.

"I'm Mike, remember? And you're… Dan, right?" Mike said, "I remember you, from before." Dean frowned at that.

"What's that suppose to mean?" Dean snapped. Mike frowned.

"What?"

"From before, what's that suppose to mean?" Dean pushed. Mike scratched his brow.

"Six years ago? You don’t remember?" He tried. Dean stared at him a moment longer and Mike sighed. "I take that as a no. But your name is Dan, right? Dan… something, like a gun, but I'm not that good with details." Dean considered Mike for a moment longer before he conceded.

"Dean," he corrected, "Dean Winchester." Mike's face brightened up.

"That's right, Dean," he said, and held his hand up to shake Dean's hand. Dean just kept staring at him until Mike cleared his throat and ran his fingers through his dark, wavy hair.

"So where exactly are we?" Dean asked.

"Damn if I know," Mike shrugged. "One minute, I was doing my grocery shopping, and there's this hot chick flirting with me, and I'm like, it's not really cheating unless you're gonna follow through, right? So I was helping that chick carry her stuff to her car, when all of a sudden there's that damn needle in my neck and Kansas goes bye bye."

Dean raised a brow. "You were in Kansas when… you know, that happened?" he asked.

"No, man, I'm from New York. Born and raised. Never really left, you know, except for what happened…" Mike said. Dean frowned at that.

"I was in north Utah," Dean muttered. Mike looked sympathetically at him. "So… Where are we?" Dean asked again, and Mike shrugged.

"Dunno. But there's people from all over the place here. I mean, Suzan is from Alaska, for crying out loud. And Omar said he woke up for a while on the plane before they sedated him again, so…" Dean swallowed. He guessed it was a good thing he was sedated if they put him up on a damn plane.

"And how long have you been here?"

Mike looked at his designer watch. "About a day and a half now. Man, my girlfriend's gonna be seriously pissed." Dean smirked at that a little and then took another look around.

There were more than half a dozen other people around. Neither one of them seemed any worse for wear. They looked shaken, but not stirred. Dean smirked at the thought. And then frowned. He really was thirsty.

"So, Mike, what's going on? Why are we here?" Dean asked, and Mike shrugged.

"I dunno," he said. "These guys, they're up to something, though. I mean, just look at what they've done to Omar and Diana…"

Dean's eyes scanned the dark room, taking a better look this time. A couple of women were huddled on the mattresses, crying. Another was huddled by a crate, holding prayer beads and praying her heart out. A guy lay on another mattress, unconscious from the look of it. Dean frowned.

"I take it that's Omar?" he asked, jutting his chin towards the unconscious man. Mike nodded. "What happened to him?" Mike paled a little

"I dunno," he said. "They took him… They take someone every night, bringing them back in the morning. But they… I dunno, man, it looks like he lost a lot of blood. They're doing it much faster than the last time." He finished in a whisper. Dean looked from Omar to Mike, frowning.

"What the hell happened the last time?"

"Yhello?"

"Bobby? It's me."

"Sam? What's goin' on? You found your brother? Is Dean okay?"

"I don’t know, Bobby, I… I don’t know what to do, there was this girl, and his phone's broken, and he stood the girl up, and I don’t know… I have no idea what to do…"

"Now hold on there a minute, Sam. Take a breath, will ya?" Sam took a shuddering breath, ran his hand over his face. "You still there?"

"Yeah, I'm here, Bobby," Sam said, letting out a long breath.

"Want to clue me in on what's going on?"

"I found Dean's cell phone," Sam said. "It's busted up, like someone stomped on it. And his car was still at the bar this morning. He didn’t take it."

"Uh, yeah, you told me that much when you called me earlier. Thought you were tryin' to find that girl your brother hooked up with last night."

"He didn’t. I mean, I did, I found her, only she said he never showed up," Sam said, "I saw him leave that bar, Bobby, and she was waiting for him outside, but she never saw him. I went back to that place, searched it top to bottom. I can't…" Sam let out another shaky breath, "Something could have snatched him. Something could have gotten to him, but I can't… There are too many tracks. I can't tell which ones are his." Sam said, eyes welling up, "Something's happened to him, Bobby, and I don’t know what to do next!"

"Okay. Okay. You listen to me, boy. You go back there, keep lookin'. Try talkin' to more people or something; try to figure out if he'd left you any clues or whatever. I'm on my way. I should be there in about a coupla' days, okay? So don’t you go all crazy on me, boy. We'll find him. We'll find that brother of yours, and get him back. And then he's gonna pay me back for gas, ya hear me?"

Sam let out a little laugh, mixed with panic and relief. "Thanks, Bobby," he said.

"Don’t mention it," Bobby said, "Just make sure there's lotsa coffee when I get there."

TBC