Number Fifty - chapter 3
Rating: T
Genre: Casefic/Hurt-Comfort/Gen
Characters: Dean, Sam, Bobby
Spoilers/Warnings: Not canon; warnings for scenes of torture
Word Count: 27,500 over 15 chapters
Disclaimer: I don't own them
Someone - or something - is scaring people to death in New York; Bobby's on the case, but opinion is divided on whether or not he needs the Winchesters' help.
But those boys; they just won't take no for an answer …
xxxxx
Sam was so absorbed in his research that it was a good ten minutes before he realised that there was still a notable absence of any big brother bearing beers. Looking up, he scratched his head; "Where the hell has he got to?" he thought absently. It wasn't like Dean to get sidetracked, talking to any passing stranger - unless that stranger had long blonde hair and a 34D cup - and the beers were only in the trunk, it wasn't like he had to wander far to get them
Pushing away his laptop Sam rose with a yawn, and padded barefoot across the room. He yanked the door open and leaning out, squinted through the darkness across the dimly lit parking lot at the Impala. There she stood, parked exactly where they had left her; sleek, black, glimmering like wet silk under the flickering amber glow of a streetlight.
And alone.
Knuckling his tired eyes, Sam slipped his feet into his trainers, treading the backs down. He flip-flopped clumsily over to the Impala, his heart sinking further into his stomach with every step as he saw that she was unattended; keys discarded on the ground beside her, trunk wide open for the world to see.
At that moment Sam knew, with an immediate sense of dread, that something was horribly wrong.
xxxxx
Consciousness drifted back to Dean slowly, painfully, like a rising tide. He was horribly, nauseously disorientated; hell, he couldn't even work out which way up he was, and his head spun, throbbing like a bitch. He tried to blink, but couldn't, feeling something pressing down, holding his eyelids closed, and it was only with the gradually increasing awareness that he realised he was blindfolded.
Instantly, his breath hitched in his chest and the creeping disorientation exploded into full hunters’ instinct, slamming into him like a freight train.
The blindfold was a bad sign. Whoever had blindfolded him wanted him confused, rudderless; helpless. They wanted him torturing himself to the verge of insanity with horrific thoughts of what could be about to happen to him; of what they could be plotting or preparing out there, beyond the blindfold.
He bit his lip as he realised with deep shame, he was giving them exactly what they wanted.
A cold draught skittered across his back; and he shuddered, guessing that he had been stripped of his T shirt. He could still feel the pinch of elastic around his hips so he figured they'd left him in his sweats; that at least was something he could take a small crumb of comfort in.
His arms were hoisted with cruel force above his head, the bite of the metal cuffs sharp and relentless as they cut into the flesh of his hands. He had been pulled up so tightly that his heels were lifted slightly off the stone floor.
Wincing, he shuffled from foot to foot trying to wriggle into a position where his shoulders and biceps weren't aching intolerably and to lessen the chafing of the cuffs. After several exhausting minutes, he gave up with a groan.
xxxxx
Sam had already called Dean's phone three times, but had just been diverted to voicemail; another sure sign that all was far from well. In desperation, and against his better judgement, he tried Bobby's phone; this time the whiny electronic voice informed him that 'this cellphone is switched off'. In panic-stricken frustration, he let out a furious roar and hurled the phone across the room.
A frantic dash into a dimly lit reception to ask if anyone had seen anything; two men walking away together perhaps; a scuffle maybe; had gleaned nothing more than a fleeting glance up from a well-progressed game of Tetris and a sullen shake of the head.
Sam paced around the middle of the room, scraping trembling fingers through his hair, his mind racing, in turmoil. Bobby was away, out of contact and up to heaven knows what. There was no way he could go to the police; the brothers left a blossoming criminal record in just about every town they visited, any kind of official investigation into their lives would blow the Winchesters' world apart. No, there was no-one to help Sam, he would have to deal with this by himself.
A million and one possibilities from the mundane to the unimaginable flashed through his distraught mind and he sunk
miserably to the bed.
As he sat slumped on the edge of the mattress, head in hands, he felt utterly, utterly alone.
xxxxx
Dean shivered against the damp chill of his prison, shoulders burning fiercely against the strain of the unnatural position they were forced into.
Desperate to have a purpose, something besides the pain to focus on, he had spent the last ten minutes rubbing his head against his bicep, trying to dislodge the blindfold, but to no avail. Whoever had tied the damn thing had meant business and, his heart sank at the thought that they knew exactly what they were doing. This was a blindfold that Dean Winchester would have tied.
The pull of his bodyweight caused an uncomfortable strain on his stretched and elongated rib cage, making breathing more and more difficult as time went on. He could feel himself beginning to pant; breathing in rapid, shallow breaths borne out of his pain and driven by his fear.
Gulping the deepest breath he was able, he pulled down on his arms, gritting his teeth against the bite of the cuffs, but there was no movement; not the slightest amount of flexibility to give him any hope. He tried once again, this time shuffling round, twisting and squirming, jerking at the cuffs, probing and examining them for any weaknesses. Sweat beaded on his face as he bit his lip, stifling a cry against the pain, but the thing that hurt the most was the rattling, clanking noise that the movement caused. He now knew these cuffs were attached to the ceiling with chains; not any kind of rope or strapping that could be worn away or snapped by the right application of pressure.
The knowledge crushed him.
He hated himself for it, but he could feel himself starting to panic; wheezing breaths coming faster and faster, shorter and shorter. He pulled down again, straining and tugging at the cuffs until the burning pain in his hands became unendurable.
He froze as he heard the sound of a key turning in a lock, and a creak as a door opened.
Straining to breathe, he listened intently as the door clicked closed and slow footsteps echoed across the stone floor toward him.
"Who's there?" he gasped shakily, trying hard to keep the icy fear out of his voice; "who's there?" louder this time, more breathless; "take this damned blindfold off me, you freakin' spineless sonofabitch …"
The footsteps stilled.
Dean was sure he could hear breathing somewhere close to him to his left … or maybe to his right; the blindfold had disconnected him, left him unsettled and adrift. His heart pounded as the unfamiliar fear of being unable to defend himself, or even to see any potential threat, slowly unravelled him.
Finally after what seemed like an age the silence was broken by an unfamiliar voice.
"Hello Dean; we need to talk …"
xxxxx
tbc
Chapter 4 here