Another Day at the Office

[dragonflybeach]

word count: 2800
rating: PG
warnings: a kidnapping
characters/pairing: gen, Sam, Dean
summary: It's a testament to how far their lives have veered from normal when Sam's reaction to his brother being kidnapped is "Again?".

This was my spn_j2_xmas gift for cenotaphy. Sorry it's late and I hope you like it!

Also available on AO3.


Somewhere along the line, through years of hunting, Sam Winchester had accepted that his life would never be “normal.”

Really he had.

But he realized just how far from “normal” things were when his reaction to his brother being kidnapped was “Again?”.

They had finished a case, a ghoul takedown so routine it had almost been boring. Unfortunately, it was in Pennsylvania, so they had a two day drive back to the bunker.

They stopped for the night in Rockville, Indiana, because there was some hole in the wall diner that made the best roast beef and Dean insisted on at least one meal there any time they were close.

Sam wanted to look for any omens or other leads toward finding Jack, and the motel had surprisingly good wifi, so Dean left to pick up takeout.

He had been gone nearly an hour, and Sam was starting to wonder if he should call and see if Dean was bringing his food or not when the phone rang.

“Where the hell are you with my dinner?” Sam asked.

“I got a little sidetracked.” Dean said. “Who knew that this little hole in the wall was such a funky town.”

Someone is holding a gun on me.

“Huh.” Sam answered. “So you checking out the local wildlife, or just sightseeing, or what?”

“Well, I headed toward the diner, like we talked about, but I noticed something was stuck to my shoe, so I stopped to take care of it.” Dean replied. “And then one thing led to another, I met up with some guys and I kinda went off on a tangent.”

Someone was following me. I tried to confront them, but I was outnumbered.

“So are you going to be a while?” Sam asked.

Can you escape?

“You’d better make other arrangements for dinner.” Dean said.

Come get me.

Son of a bitch.

“By the way,” Dean continued before Sam could answer. “Have you heard anything from Crowley lately?”

That question got Sam’s attention, because apparently whoever was holding Dean didn’t know Crowley was dead.

“Not since that trip to Jimmy’s cabin in Washington.” Sam told him. “Did you try to call him?”

“Yeah, straight to voice mail.” Dean said. “I ran into someone who wants to talk about cancelling a demon deal.”

Human, then. Not demons.

“I’ll try to call him.” Sam offered. “See if maybe he’s just ducking your calls.”

“That may be true.” Dean said. “I haven’t heard from him in three days.”

Three kidnappers.

“You gonna be able to find your way back after while?” Sam asked.

“I think so.” Dean told him. “I have my phone.”

The GPS is turned on.

“I’ll try to reach him, and I’ll let you know if I get through.” Sam said.

“Ok, you do that, and I’ll talk you later.” Dean said, and hung up.

Son of a bitch.

Sam opened a new window on the laptop and pulled up the GPS for Dean’s phone. It looked like he was just a few miles away. A quick Google search didn’t turn up any major buildings in the area. He would have to try to scout it out later.

They had brought the weapons bag in, so he had that, but he didn’t have a car.

Actually, if Dean had headed toward the diner but didn’t make it, there was a chance the car was on the side of the road somewhere.

Sam slipped off his flannel, putting on a sweatshirt and track pants, taking his phone and the spare car key.

He jogged less than a mile toward the diner when he saw the Impala on the side of the road.

It was pulled over neatly, switch turned off, and keys in the floorboard, where Dean sometimes left them when getting out for what he thought would only be a moment.

Sam drove the car out toward the area where Dean’s GPS pinged. There were only a few houses in the area, with a fair distance between them.

One of them had a big red and white foreclosure sign.

Bingo.

Sam headed back to the motel to change back into his regular clothes and pack some weapons.

He grabbed a couple non-lethal items, in case it was just someone misguided and desperate to get out of a deal. There were two flash grenades They had a tear gas gun as well as one that could shoot rubber pellets which stung like hell, but wouldn’t kill anyone.  Finally, he set out his Taurus and a Beretta for Dean in case his Colt had been taken.

He would have preferred to have some sort of back up, knowing there were three kidnappers, but the last time they heard from Cas he was on Jack’s trail somewhere in Montana, and there wasn’t time to wait. Someone with law enforcement training would have been helpful, but Donna was eight hours away, and Jody was about eleven hours out.

Thankfully it was November, and the time change last weekend meant it would be dark before 6pm.

He loaded the guns with standard ammo. He checked the charge on the stun gun, and headed for the door.

As an afterthought, he came back in the room to get their clothes and the rest of their belongings in case they had to leave town in a hurry.

He drove within a half a mile of the foreclosed house, leaving the keys in floor as he had found them. Once he was ready, he walked into the woods near the car.

He skirted around the backyards of two other homes before he came up behind the one where Dean was being held.

Fortunately with the property being foreclosed, no one had kept up the exterior maintenance. The outdoor lights either didn’t work or were turned off. The bushes were overgrown, allowing Sam to sneak up to the house without being seen.

Unfortunately all of the downstairs blinds were closed, so he wasn’t able to see into most of the windows.  However, with it being a newer home, there was an arched decorative window over the front windows. Sam was able to stand on the porch railing and see in above the blinds.

He was looking into a mostly empty room, but through the doorway into the next room, he could just see Dean’s back. Dean was apparently tied to a chair.
Sam couldn’t see any kidnappers from this angle, which hopefully meant they couldn’t see him either.

He climbed back down, and took the screen off the window.

Double hung, energy efficient windows with horizontal sliding locks rather than a turn latch.

Son of a bitch.

He walked over to the front door and cursed again.

The knob had a cheap lock that could easily be opened with a credit card, but the deadbolt was locked. He probably could pick the lock pretty quickly, but it would take two hands, leaving him without one to hold his gun if someone came along while he was working.

He stepped back to look at the house again, and realized that he had been going about this wrong anyway.

He went back to the porch, climbed onto the railing, and tugged on the gutter.

The house was new enough that they were secure.

He drove a knife into the corner post as hard as he could to create a foothold that he used, along with the gutters, to pull himself up onto the porch roof.

The blinds weren’t completely closed on the nearest upstairs window. He wasn’t able to see very much inside, but enough to see that the room appeared to be empty and the door to the hallway was closed.

He used the demon killing knife to wedge in between the top and bottom halves of the window and twisted, breaking the springs that held the horizontal latches in place.

Listening closely to make sure no one had heard, he slid the window open and climbed in.

He was in an empty bedroom, the closet door hanging by one hinge.

Sam tip toed over to the hall door and opened it cautiously, just a crack, with his pistol in his other hand.

The hallway was dark, other than the light coming up the stairs from below.

He crept over to the landing at the top of the stairs and peered over.

From what he could see, the stairs led down to the entryway at the front door, next to the living room. The front part of the house was dark, with light coming from the back half of the first floor.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t see anyone, and couldn’t tell if there was another doorway from the room where Dean was being held besides the one that lead to the living room.

He silently cursed again, because the optimal way to stage this raid would be for Dean to break a window and throw in a flash grenade while Sam charged down the stairs or vice versa. It would be nearly impossible for him to toss the grenade into the room where Dean was from upstairs. Having a partner for this mission would work so much better.

But, that was the purpose of this mission, to get his partner back.

Sam returned his pistol to the back of his waist, and took the rubber pellet gun from his jacket instead.

He crouched low and carefully, slowly, made his way down the stairs.

About halfway down, he raised up slightly and looked over the side rail.

Dean was being held in the kitchen, and there was another doorway leading from the dining room.

Sam could see two sets of legs in the room, apparently standing by the sink. He couldn’t see a third kidnapper, but he had a very limited range of view.

He crouched down in the stairs again, took a flash grenade from his pocket, and silently made his way down to the first floor.

He sneaked into the living room, careful to stay in the shadows close to the wall, and away from the doorway.

When he was just beside the doorway, he knelt down and put cotton in his ears. He then pulled the pin, and rolled the grenade into the kitchen.

By virtue of his long legs, he was able to round the corner of the living room and make it into the hall before the grenade exploded three seconds later.

The grenade detonated with a sound loud enough to rattle all the windows, and a flash of light rivalling angel powers.

Sam ran through the dining room and into the kitchen, hitting both kidnappers in the chest with rubber bullets while they were still disoriented from the bright light and loud noise.

Rubber bullets wouldn’t seriously hurt them, well, not where Sam shot them anyway, but they were enough to knock the breath out of a person if they hit squarely in the chest.

Sam looked around quickly and couldn’t see the third kidnapper, so he ran to Dean and used the demon knife to cut the zip tie binding Dean’s hands.

“Sammy!” Dean shouted.

“Yeah, it’s me.” Sam said, realizing Dean was probably flash blind with ringing in his ears from the grenade as well.

“Sam!” Dean repeated.

“Dean!” Sam shouted, inches from Dean’s ear.

Dean reached up and curled his hand around the back of Sam’s neck, then visibly relaxed, obviously recognizing his brother.

Sam quickly cut the zip ties holding Dean’s ankles to the chair legs, stowed the knife, and helped his brother to stand. He grabbed Dean’s belt at the back of his waist to help guide, and Dean’s right hand clutched Sam’s left sleeve.

“I can’t see a frigging thing!” Dean told Sam loudly.

“Yeah, I kinda figured that out.” Sam shouted back. “Where’s the other guy?”

“Woods!” Dean answered. “Water is shut off. No bathroom.”

“Come on, we gotta go!” Sam told him, tugging Dean toward the door.

They were halfway to the back door when it opened, and a man Sam didn’t know stood in the doorway.

Sam still held the back of Dean’s belt with his left hand, but had drawn his gun with his right and pointed it at the newcomer before the third man could react.

The other man held up his hands. “Sam Winchester, I presume. Don’t shoot.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Oh, why not? You kidnapped my brother.”

“We didn’t hurt him!” The stranger said. “I just need his help, to get in touch with Crowley. Look.” The man slowly retrieved a gun from his pocket and flicked the latch to release the clip. “The guns weren’t even loaded.”

“Crowley’s dead.” Sam said bluntly.

The stranger’s eyes widened, and then his expression crashed into disappointment. “No! I need his help!”

“Crowley’s help would cost your soul.” Sam told the man.

“That’s the problem!” the man cried. “My son, he’s only eight. He sold his soul to some old woman demon for a new video game system. He’s just a little boy! He didn’t understand! But she won’t cancel the deal! I need Crowley, to talk to him and see if he can make her undo it!”

Sam put his pistol back in his belt and sighed. “Okay. That is a pretty unfair deal. But unfortunately, Crowley really is dead. Some of his more loyal followers may help you. I can’t swear to it, and I don’t know what their help will cost you.”

“How do I find one?” the man asked.

Sam heard the first sirens in the distance.

“We gotta get out of here before the cops get here.” Sam said. “Meet me at Uncle Mooney’s diner in an hour.”

“Okay.” The man nodded quickly before taking off into the woods.

Sam pulled Dean along out the door, barely making it to the edge of the woods as the first police car pulled up in front of the house. They stayed out of sight in the tree cover, but hurried parallel to the road, back to the car.

The first officer inside came to the front door shouting about men down, so the other officers all ran into the house. Sam took that opportunity to drive past the house and turn left at the stop sign as quickly as possible.

Within a few minutes, Dean’s sight started to return, and the ringing in his ears began to subside.

Sam drove directly to the diner and called in their takeout order from the parking lot. He found a blank paper and hurriedly wrote down a few things while waiting for the food to be ready.

They had their meals in the center of the front seat when the third kidnapper arrived at the diner. Sam got out of the car, but stepped to the side, enough that Dean with his pistol pointed at the man was visible from outside the car.

Sam handed the man the paper. “I’ve written down the steps and the incantation to summon a crossroads demon. And I’ve written the name of one of the demons on there, because you’re always better off summoning one that you know, rather one you don’t and taking your chances.”

“Nicole Polizzi,” The man said. “That sounds familiar, actually.”

“It’s Snooki, from Jersey Shore.” Sam told him.

“Oh. Uh, wow.” The man shook his head. “Will this work?”

“Ask her.” Sam shrugged. “She may have the power to help you, or she may not. But she will know who is taking Crowley’s place, and should be able to at least find someone to talk to about the situation.”

“Thank you so much.” The man said. He leaned down and looked into the car window. “Dean, I’m really sorry about earlier. It was nothing personal. I just heard that you had Crowley’s number and could get in touch with him.”

Dean half-heartedly waved. “Yeah, I understand. I probably would have done something similar if this idiot,” he gestured at Sam. “Had done something like that. But next time, just talk to me, instead of the whole kidnapping thing.”

“There’s not going to be a next time.” Sam said firmly. “Is there?”

“No. No next time.” The man shook his head. “Thank you again.”

Sam got back in the car, and the two of them watched the man drive away.

“I love it when a plan comes together.” Dean said, still speaking louder than normal as his senses still weren’t completely recovered.

“Seriously?” Sam asked. “You’re going to go A-Team? I’d be more like Hannibal. You’d be Face. Or maybe B. A., since you don’t like to fly.”

“Shut up, bitch.” Dean rolled his eyes. “Good rescue, by the way.”

“You’re welcome, jerk.” Sam snorted. “You know I’m going to give you hell about being kidnapped by guys whose guns weren’t even loaded.”

Dean didn’t answer, just grabbed his takeout box and dug into his roast beef.