Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm just playing. I'll put'em back when I'm done.

Rating: PG-13

Synopsis: After the successful end of another ghost-hunt, the brothers want to relax a bit. But someone has other plans for Sam.

Spoilers: Seasons 1 & 2, just to be safe.

Lewistown, Montana

After a successful hunt, where a nasty spirit had taken over an old factory hall and had made it impossible for the owner to do anything with it until Dean and Sam had shown up and buried the former owner properly, Dean had decided it was time to kick back and relax a bit. So he had dragged Sam to the nearest bar, where he hit on anything with a skirt until he got lucky around ten p.m.

Sam had so far spent the better part of the evening just sitting on his chair while he stared idly ahead of himself. He was bone-tired after having chased that damned spirit around the old factory hall for most of the previous night while Dean located the bones, and it had taken ages to calm the present owner down and make him understand that he was free to do whatever the hell he wanted with that damned factory from now on. Dean had drawn on all of Sam's resources in both cases, sending him on the chase and leaving it up to him to talk to the owner.

With a weary sigh Sam glanced at his watch, then sent a brief look over at Dean, who was at the bar chatting up his latest catch. She looked fall-down drunk at this time, her unruly hair, which Dean kept messing with, sticking out in all directions. She laughed too loudly and staggered against his brother, then whispered something in his ear that Dean responded to in kind by laughing back at her.

Sam sneered. His brother would do just about anything to get a girl in the sack and most of the time that meant lying through his teeth. "No respect," he muttered and shook his head. He'd had two beers and they had both gone straight to his head like a sledge hammer. The smoke wafting through the air from countless cigarettes being smoked at just about every table Sam could see was starting to irritate his throat and he could smell it on his clothes as well.

"Enough's enough," he muttered, pushed his chair back and got up. All he wanted to do right now was sleep, but Dean had the keys to the motel room further down the street and Sam knew he would have to listen to another tirade to get them. Dean was still bitching about how little fun he had in life.

Running the fingers of one hand through his hair, he plucked up his courage and made his way through the busy bar to where his brother was currently engaged in a round of tonsil-hockey with unruly-hair girl. "Hey, Dean," he said.

Dean ignored him and continued kissing the girl.

Sam rolled his eyes, then jabbed the heel of one hand hard against Dean's shoulder, pushing him off balance a bit. Dean stumbled into the bar, proving that he was just as drunk as the girl, but that didn't change Sam's mind one bit. "Give me the key. I wanna go to bed," he said.

Dean gave him a glare for his trouble, then grinned and returned his attention to the girl. "That's my brother. He's Mr. Boredom," he slurred.

Sam sighed and held out one hand. "Give me the damned key, Dean," he persisted. This place was giving him a headache, he felt vaguely nauseous with fatigue and wanted nothing more than some fresh air, a shower and then a bed. Hell, he'd skip the shower and do that in the morning. "I'm tired, okay?"

Dean made a face, every move exaggerated by the amount of alcohol he'd had, then dug a hand into one pocket and pulled the room key out of it. Holding it out to Sam, he eyed him for a moment and Sam wondered if he was seeing two of him. The unsteady way he eyed him spoke in favor of that. "You have too little fun, little brother," he slurred. "Hell, you have no fun at all. You should stick around, find a girl, relax a little."

Sam snatched the key away from him. "No thanks. You're doing enough of that for both of us," he countered, turned around and left the bar. He stifled a yawn and made his way across the parking lot toward the street, not paying much attention to his surroundings.

The air was fairly fresh and a bit chilly and it helped clear his head. He cleared his throat and grimaced at the sour taste. "Damn, I hate smoke," he muttered, glanced either way before he crossed the street and walked on towards the enticing neon sign of Grandview Motel. It was funny how the streets were almost dead on the outskirts of this town tonight. Maybe all the action took place in the center somewhere, he mussed, turned into the parking lot of the motel and headed straight for cabin twenty-five, both hands buried in the pockets of his jacket. It was a bit nippy and he was freezing because he was tired.

Out of habit as much as anything, he sent a quick look out over the parking lot, noting the few cars parked there, then opened the door and stepped into the motel room while yawning again. Not for the first time since this second part of his life as a hunter had started did he miss home. Home in this instance was the apartment he had shared with Jess and every thought of it brought him back to how much he missed her and how much he still felt it was his fault that she was gone.

He closed and locked the door behind him, shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it on a chair. The next town they came to, he would have to find a laundromat somewhere. He was running out of clean clothes and he knew Dean was too. He toed his shoes off, then headed straight for the bathroom to brush his teeth and hopefully get rid of the sour taste of stale cigarette smoke and cheap imported beer.

For a brief moment he considered the shower stall, then shook his head. "Too tired," he muttered, smoothed both hands over his hair and yawned again. "I need a vacation," he added to himself, shrugged out of his shirt and tossed that onto the same chair as his jacket when he walked back into the room. He dropped down on the foot end of his bed and pulled his socks off. They went the same way as the shirt and the jacket, and then the pulled his t-shirt over his head and smelled it. "Yuck," he muttered and tossed it onto the chair as well. "I miss having my own washing machine, man," he added and ruffled his hair, then yawned heartily and dropped back on the bed, draping one arm over his face. He hadn't realized how tired he really was until now. With that on his mind, he drifted off.

***

At the bar

Dean was beyond rational thought at the moment. The only thing that mattered tonight was the little hottie with the unruly hair leaning drunkenly against him, giggling at something he had said. He couldn't for the life of him remember what he had said, but it really didn't matter anyway.

"Why don't we get out of here, huh?" he whispered into her ear and grinned expectantly when she pressed against him.

"Good idea," she slurred. "Your place or mine?"

"Yours. I'm sharing mine with my brother," he countered and gave her a toothy grin.

Her eyes probably couldn't focus right now, but she still zeroed in on his charm necklace and grabbed it after a couple of failed tries. "Ooh, nice. What's it called?"

He wrapped an arm around her waist and spun her around. "Benny," he countered. "Let's go. I'm itching to get you alone," he added and ushered her toward the door.

"Benny?" Within seconds she was braying with laughter, almost unable to stay on her feet, and Dean had all the trouble he could handle to keep her moving.

The cooler air outside knocked back his drunkenness a few steps and he managed to control his movements a little better. It had no effect on the girl, though, who clung to him and kept trying to kiss him while they walked. "Which way?" he asked as they reached the street.

"That way," she said, waving an jerky hand in the opposite direction of where the motel was. Then she turned unsteadily and stumbled a step forward onto the road.

Dean grabbed out for her, caught her arm and hauled her back onto the pavement just in time to prevent her from being run over by a speeding mini van, that came racing down the street at eighty miles per hour. "Hey, watch it," he yelled after the van and shook his head. "Stupid drunk drivers," he added and pulled the somewhat stunned girl closer to him. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she slurred, a little less spirited now. The near miss had obviously slammed some sense into her. She turned around, still pretty unsteady, and gave him a smile he knew only too well. "Listen, Dean, no offence but I'm feeling kinda sick. I think I'm just gonna go home, okay?" She cupped a hand against his cheek, the apology big in her eyes.

For a moment he considered protesting, but then figured it might be for the best. There was no way in hell that he would sit around and hold her hand while she puked her guts out for the rest of the night. "Yeah, okay, you do that. Been nice knowing you," he said with a smile of his own, then kissed her on the brow to let her know there were no hard feelings.

She smiled, turned unsteadily and staggered over the road. Dean stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket and watched her go for a moment, then sighed and headed in the opposite direction, back toward the motel.

Losing out on a chance to have a little fun tonight, he still couldn't bring up the strength to really care. She had been cute, sure, but he was tired and too drunk and knew it would have ended badly anyway if he'd gone home with her. With his luck at the moment she was probably married or something. He chuckled under his breath. "That could have been awkward," he muttered and turned into the parking lot.

He got halfway to cabin twenty-five before he realized something was off. Still drunk enough to slow down his reactions to a crawl, he came to a somewhat unsteady halt and sent a look around the parking lot without seeing anything unusual. Then he realized that the three lamps closest to their cabin were out, plunging the cabin itself into almost complete darkness.

Dean squinted, trying to force the front of the cabin into focus, and cursed his lousy night-vision. What struck him as off was that three lamps right next to each other would have gone out, but none of the rest. Smokey fingers of unrest started creeping up his spine, sending a shiver of discomfort through him. He started walking again and the closer he got to the cabin, the more details he could make out until he realized that the door was open.

The fact that the door was open, albeit not by much, that the lights inside were off and the outdoor lights too slammed into him like a ton of bricks, driving the drunkenness right out of him. He was stone-cold sober in a flash and broke into a run, covering the remaining distance in two seconds flat. He pushed the door open, cursing silently that he wasn't packing.

"Sam?" he asked quietly, searched for the light switch on the wall right inside the door and flipped it.

The overhead lights came on, bathing the cabin in its harsh light, and that was all it took for Dean to realize that something bad had happened to his brother. First and foremost, Sam was nowhere around. Secondly, all his stuff, including most of his clothes and his shoes, were still there, which immediately ruled out the even vaguely possible idea that Sam might have taken a walk. The thing that tipped him off to the bad part was the blood on the cover of the bed, the tipped over chair, the off-kilter painting on the wall and the fact that Sam's bed stood at a crooked angle from the wall. Whoever had grabbed Sam, they'd had to fight for it.

"Shit," Dean whispered, completely clearheaded now. But his reasoning-skills were still a little sluggish, making it hard for him to come to a decision of what needed to be done. "Dammit, think," he snapped at himself and thumbed the heel of his hand against his brow. "Come on, come on, come on," he muttered, scanning the room for clues. Then the memory of that black mini van speeding past hit home. "Son of a bitch," he growled, grabbed Sam's bag and pulled the laptop out of it.

His first, initial thought had been to call Sam's cell, but if the kid had been abducted and had his phone on him, Dean calling him would give that away and remove the only viable chance Dean had for tracking him.

He set the laptop up on the table and started it up, then went through Sam's clothes to make sure the phone wasn't in his jacket pocket. It wasn't, and he couldn't spot it anywhere else, which made him fairly certain that Sam had it with him and it was on. "I hope," he growled and gave the laptop an irritated glare. "Come on, man," he pressed out through clenched teeth.

Hoping against hope that the GPS tracking system was still active after the last time they had needed it, Dean called up the website and started the search. "Come on," he urged the machine. It took a moment, but he finally got a location, but it was on the road, which could mean one of two things. Whoever had Sam had found the phone and thrown it out of the car or they hadn't reached their destination yet.

Dean considered what to do for a moment. He could either stay put and wait for these bastards to reach their destination or he could take the laptop along and follow them. "Latter sounds good to me," he growled, grabbed a few guns to make sure he had what he needed, then slammed the door of the motel room and threw the whole thing onto the Impala's front seat. "Son of a bitch," he hissed again and slid behind the wheel. "Nobody grabs my brother and gets away with it."

He revved the engine, then backed the Impala out of her spot, her tires screeching in protest, his mind set on finding whoever had done this and put a few bullets in them just for good measure. The worst-case scenario was that their 'good friend' Gordon Walker had made it out of jail and had gone after Sam again.

***

Location unknown
Time unknown

The first thing Sam registered was a dull throb in his left shoulder that he couldn't place. His head felt fuzzy and he felt like he was floating. With an intense effort, he managed to pry his lids apart and regretted it immediately because it made his stomach roll. His vision was completely off, giving him a fisheye perspective of the ceiling above him that made him dizzy and very uncomfortable. His mind was fairly clear at this point, but at a complete standstill as to what might be causing this.

Instead of trying to figure it out right now, he closed his eyes again and tried not to throw up. Fortunately, his stomach calmed down again almost at once, giving him the opportunity to assess his present condition more clearly.

The first thing he needed to figure out was why his left shoulder hurt. Not sure what to expect, he struggled to raise his right arm, realizing that the fisheye perspective of his vision right now was obviously caused by some type of drug because his arm responded sluggishly to the extent of not really moving at all the first few times he tried. Somehow, he managed to swing it across himself and settled his right hand on his aching shoulder. And it hurt like a bitch. All he could muster at this point was a vague whimper as he struggled to pull his fingers away from the spot and as he did, he felt crude twine, stitches in his skin that indicated a wound there.

And then it hit him, the memory of what had brought him to this point...

***

Grandview Motel
Lewistown, Montana
Earlier

He woke up because someone was moving around in the motel room. Since he expected it to be Dean, he wasn't alarmed, merely annoyed that his brother couldn't just have stayed gone until the morning where he would be sober, hung over and less likely to disturb Sam's much-needed rest.

The first thing he registered was that the room was dark, very dark, and it made him wonder why Dean would have turned off the lights. Sam refused to believe that Dean could have come in, gotten undressed and had switched off the lights without waking him up before. Dean wasn't that considerate, especially not when he was drunk.

Very little light entered the room from outside, but it was enough for him to see a little by, so he propped himself up on his elbows and squinted at the shape he could just make out across the room. And that wasn't Dean. The shape was too tall.

He reared up just as the shape moved toward him and something slammed into his left shoulder. The pain this caused was breathtaking and he realized at once that he'd been stabbed. But that by no means meant he was down for the count. He lashed out, barely missing the dark shape, and then tried to get up, but whoever the hell this was, the guy had the upper hand because he could obviously see better in the dark than Sam could. The heavy, well-toned body of an older man slammed into him, knocking him back down on the bed as one hand covered his mouth and the other jammed fingers into his injured shoulder, briefly startling him with the intensity of the pain this caused.

The hand covering his mouth smelled really bad and it took his pain-riddled mind a second to realize that the smell was chloroform. By then, it had already started to take effect and the last thing he felt before darkness overtook him was the sting of a needle in the side of his neck.

***

Location unknown
Time unknown

The realization that he had been abducted wasn't a pleasant one. His mind started rationalizing what was going on, trying to make sense of where he might be or why his attacker had bothered to stitch up his wound.

He focused on himself, on how he felt, and it was very clear to him that the needle in his neck back at the motel had delivered the drug that now made it near impossible for him to move. But it didn't affect his mind, so it had to be some kind of muscle relaxant, and it most certainly didn't subdue his pain or his general ability to feel. It did affect his vision, of course, but he had the feeling that it might be wearing off, which was the good news.

At that point he realized that there were sounds around him he hadn't registered before. Realizing the danger of asphyxiation if he couldn't move his head and threw up when he opened his eyes, he did it anyway and focused stubbornly on the ceiling, willing his vision to clear or at least to become more steady. His stomach cramped, but not badly, so he finally focused all his energy on rolling his head to the side.

The sounds reaching him came from the right and it sounded suspiciously like metal on metal. With the roll of his head, he rolled his eyes too and managed nothing more than a helpless sigh when that upset his stomach a whole lot more. So he closed his eyes again, forcing the nausea back until he felt steady enough to try again, then pried his lids apart once more.

At first he couldn't make out anything. It was all blurry, all messy, but then slowly his eyes focused and the shape of a man with his back to him came into sight. A man dressed in hospital fatigues and a white t-shirt. The guy was dressed like a surgeon, but this was no hospital. Between where Sam was lying and where this guy was standing was a dirty, rubble-strewn floor and a couple of dirty pillars rising up toward the ceiling. Somewhere, he could hear water dripping and this place had the smell of a musty old cellar. It was cold here, too, and moist.

The moisture clung to him like a cold, suffocating blanket and it was at this point that Sam realized that he was naked. The implications of this made him feel even colder. Why the hell would a guy in hospital fatigues want to stab him, drug him and then strip him? And where the hell were they?

The effort of moving his head alone was almost too much, but he had to figure out where he was and how the hell he could get out of here. If he had pecked the girl Dean had hooked up with right, then Dean wouldn't get back to the motel before morning, which could mean a truckload of trouble for Sam in-between; trouble he'd rather not think too much about right now.

All of a sudden, he realized that one of the sounds he'd heard hadn't been made by this place, but rather someone else in it. He rolled his head to the right again, fighting to keep his rebellious stomach at bay, and focused on the guy in the hospital fatigues. Then he focused beyond him and realized the guy was standing at what looked like an examination table. A kid his age was on it, strapped down from what Sam could see, and the paleness of his skin spoke volumes. The kid had duct tape over his mouth and his eyes, locked on the man, were frantic. There was no doubt in Sam's mind that the kid, had he been able to, would be screaming his head off right now. The muffled sounds of agony were all too clear.

And then the guy in the hospital fatigues shifted, stepped away from the table, and Sam felt himself pale at what he saw. Despite his presently somewhat unreliable vision, he didn't have to have twenty-twenty vision to see what this psycho was doing to this kid and it clenched Sam's heart with fear, because he knew he was next in line for that treatment.

***