Chapter Text
Dean woke up to a sharp pain in his side. He groaned and rolled over, head in his hands as he tried to gather his bearings, check his surroundings, remember what happened.
They’d been hunting a witch and familiar in Nebraska. That much was certain. They’d taken every precaution, triple checked their weapons as they always did, and planned their attack. Everything was going according to plan. At least it was, until they showed up in time to see the witch meeting with some kind of deity.
They weren’t sure which kind it was, but it was powerful. Too powerful. It was stronger than angels, strong enough to rip them all apart and fling them to different areas of the warehouse.
That kind of situation was reserved for amped up demons and manic angels. Not witches. By the time Dean was climbing to his feet, the warehouse was in chaos. Shingles of the roof were flying off; pieces of rotten wood and broken plaster fell to the ground in chunks large enough to break limbs.
Dean covered his head, shouted for Sam, for Cas, for either of them. The last thing he saw was a flash of blue light, the sky ripping open right in front of him, and the sound of screaming before everything went silent and still.
He’d been too stunned to sense the falling beam before it slammed against his shoulders, breaking into pieces.
He’d lost consciousness. But now he was awake, and there was a massive plank of something stuck in his side.
Dean grunted and slowly pushed himself upright, clenching his teeth against the pain until he was half vertical. He grasped the edges of the plank with both hands, tugging until it slowly slid out, only guided by blood and fingers until it hit the floor at Dean’s side.
He gasped and pressed his hands to his side, glaring around the wreckage.
“Sam?!” He shouted, grunting as he rolled onto his knees. There was no reply as he got to his feet. Nothing stirred around him. Only silence remained.
“Cas!” Dean called next. Still, nothing. He shivered and pressed harder against his wound. He could feel heat escaping through the blood, leaking down his gut and staining his jeans.
There was no way he’d be able to find Sam and Cas in this damage. But Cas was an angel, he should have been just fine. If anything, he could have grabbed Sam and ditched back to the motel. But leaving Dean behind? That didn’t make sense.
He clenched his teeth and stumbled forward. He had to get out of here, at least treat his wound before he tried looking for anyone.
He only tripped twice getting out of the half destroyed warehouse. His baby was parked a block away. Close, but too far with the pain he was in. His hands shook as he opened the trunk, pulling out bandages and the sewing kit. There wasn’t time to go back to the motel to stitch himself up, and like hell he was leaving this place without Sam or Cas.
Dean closed his eyes and got to work.
It was too long before he felt strong enough to get up again. Cas hadn’t answered his prayers during his brief reprieve, he was only lucky no one was passing by as he sat against his wheels, catching his breath and keeping the pressure tight against his side. But he forced himself up again and wandered back inside.
He stayed all night and didn’t even make it through half the debri. But it was enough to know that Sam and Cas were gone. If they weren’t buried beneath the rubble, they had to have gotten out.
But they hadn’t called him to let him know where they were. Cas would have come back by now, at the very least.
It only left one option. The deity took them. He didn’t even know where to start looking.
Luckily for him, he had the original case to begin his search.
It took him little over a week to track down the witch and familiar again. They’d ran three states before Dean caught up to them. It took less than a few hours to get the name of the monster that took his brother and angel.
It was called Abbus, supposedly the god of dusk. Dean didn’t care much for the details. At that point, Sam and Cas had been gone for a week, and it was Abbus’s fault. All Dean cared about was finding out how to kill him. Bottom line.
There wasn’t nearly enough lore on it. It was idealized that Abbus had power over the dusk, long believed to be the transit time of the dead. Some people believed light was its weakness, others believed it was purified blood of the saints, those who didn’t deserve to cross over.
The best thing Dean could do was get a flashlight, blood prayed over by a dubious priest, and the last angel blade he had.
All that was left was tracking the bastard. That part wasn’t nearly as easy.
He caught a lead on Abbus after two months of driving across the country both ways. It was chance, luck at best, but an old contact messaged him about odd disappearances and deaths, all occurring at dusk in Missouri.
Dean came with the pedal to the floor, arriving in the wee hours of the following morning. It gave him an entire day to prepare, learn as much as he could from his contact, and get Sam and Cas back. As far as he knew, this would be his only chance for months. He had to make it count.
Together they carried blades dipped in blood and enough matches and gasoline to set a building on fire. They staked out the next victim, the latest to be targeted in a string of family deaths and disappearances that all claimed to be ‘natural,’ or ‘runaways,’ but were all too sudden to be anything but.
“He’ll strike at dusk,” Tom, his partner, stated as he handed over the binoculars. “It’ll probably be in the house, like the others. Thought it was a haunting at first.”
“We thought it was a witch last time this sucker hit,” Dean replied. “This thing has a habit of using other monsters to its advantage.”
“Smart.”
Dusk fell. Dean’s skin was crawling, jittery with unused energy. He needed to kill something. Immediately.
“Remember,” Dean warned as they got out of the car. “Don’t kill it too fast. I need my family back.”
Tom nodded and accepted the blade Dean handed out. It was time.
They went in to the sound of screaming, a young woman curled at the base of the sofa as a glowing blue man spread out his hand over her head.
“Get away from her!” Dean shouted. It was enough of a distraction. The monster pulled back and glared at them, eyes burning white in the face of their high powered flashlights. It hissed, steam rising, and ducked over the side of the couch. The young woman took the opportunity to run for the door.
“Get it!” Dean shouted. Tom ran around the edge of the couch, flashlight and dagger ready, but a flash of blue light erupted through the room. Dean barely had a moment to collect himself before he heard Tom’s scream. He shuddered, memories of Sam and Cas flashing through his mind. He didn’t get a chance to move before the blue hand shot out from behind the sofa, wrapping around Tom’s throat and squeezing.
Tom’s dagger and flashlight were missing. His feet dangled over the ground.
Dean was ashamed to hesitate. But the grip on his blade tightened, his feet were planted in the ground. He couldn’t kill Abbus. He couldn’t. He needed Sam. He needed Cas. He couldn’t get them back if Abbus was dead.
But he could still wound him.
Dean pulled out his secondary knife and tossed it, smiling when it lodged itself deep in the monster’s shoulder.
Tom fell to the ground. Abbus screamed at them.
The monster reached out and waved its hand. A fissure erupted in the air right in front of him.
“No!” Dean screamed, but it was too late.
“Dean?!”
Tom’s feet lifted off the ground once more, his eyes wide and terrified. He heard Tom’s scream just before he was sucked inside the hole.
Dean roared and lunged forward, but the monster raised its hand and sent Dean back into the ground, chin hitting the ground hard. Stars erupted behind his eyelids. His head spun.
Footsteps echoed in his ears as the monster stepped forward, feet finally clearing in his vision. The knife clattered to the floor in front of Dean’s nose.
“You caught me by surprise,” Abbus growled, kicking the blade away. “But if you thought you’d win so simply, you were mistaken.”
It reached down and wrapped its fingers around Dean’s throat, tugging him up until he was on his knees, pulled up just enough that he felt the air in his lungs constrict.
He reached back for his blade, but the monster grabbed his wrist, crushing it in one motion. Dean cried out, but the grip on his throat tightened, cutting it off short.
“Foolish.”
A slow smile spread across its face. The grip on Dean’s throat loosened a fraction as it tilted its head, considering him quietly. “You’re the one I spared in Nebraska,” it muttered after a moment. “I took your brother and the angel.”
“Give them back,” Dean growled.
“Or what?” The smile was unwavering. It was cold, freezing Dean in place with terror he knew wasn’t his. “You’re in no position to make demands.”
“Then you better kill me now,” Dean snapped. “Or you’re gonna’ spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder. Give. Them. Back.”
“They’re gone.” The monster pulled Dean up higher, effectively cutting off his air as it looked down at him. “Have you not spent all this time trying to get them back? Getting to me? You should know. I don’t give dead things back to the living.”
Dean swore his heart stopped beating.
“Y-You’re lying,” he gasped, clawing at the hand around his throat. “Bastard.”
“I’ll show you.”
It raised its free hand and pressed it against Dean’s forehead, ignoring his struggling until its nails latched into his skin and snapped his head back.
Dean felt the world move into slow motion. A foreign, alien feeling swept through his body. It spread from his head to his feet, branching out until not one part of his body was spared from the numbness. It touched his mind, opening it, connecting it to something else. Probably to the monster’s mind. Dean wasn’t sure.
But he watched through its eyes, saw the warehouse, saw the fissure in the sky as the warehouse was destroyed. He saw his brother’s eyes, heard Cas scream. He watched them disappear through the hole. Then he saw… nothing. Nothing at all.
Cold dread seeped into his bones as Abbus pulled his body forward, chests touching as the monster whispered, “I’m very fond of dimensional travel. But there are even some dimensions that are nothing but void. I’m sure your brother and angel are quite happy in oblivion. There’s no way back from the other side.”
It shoved Dean’s body backward, his body slamming against the floor. Abbus stepped over his still form, smile still lingering, still visible in the darkness of the room.
“Maybe someday I’ll collect you too. Enjoy your taste of oblivion.”
Dean lay still on the floor, barely breathing as the monster disappeared in a flash of blue light.
His body was numb. His mind roared and screamed, pain touching each of his limbs as though a thousand needles were dancing on his skin. His heart thundered painfully in his chest. All he could see was darkness. All he could hear were Sam and Cas’s screams.
He never recalled getting up again. He couldn’t remember doing anything at all. Not for six months.
It was sunny when he blinked and came back to himself again. He was no longer in a living room. It was no longer night. He was wearing white scrubs and there were scars covering his arms that weren’t there before Abbus.
He was in a building he didn’t recognize. Men and women, young and old alike, filled out the room in different areas. Some of them were playing card games, others were doing crafts or socializing, some watching an old movie.
Someone was talking to him. A man in a white doctor’s coat. Dean stared at the way his lips moved, watched the concern reflected in his eyes as he tried to get Dean’s attention to stay fixed on his.
Dean didn’t care. He didn’t care. Sam was gone. Cas was gone. He could never get them back.
He was done.
He spotted a window to his left. Judging by the view, they were on the ground floor. But the glass would do.
He stood up and started walking. His fist connected with the glass just as a dozen hands wrapped around his torso and pulled him back.
It still didn’t matter, he thought, as they dragged him out of the room. He was done. He didn’t care anymore.
He was done.