Chapter Text
It's been nearly four weeks since Sam started following Crowley, and Sam is going crazy. He has no leads on Dean. Or Cas. Sam tries everything to find them. He prays to the angels but gets nothing. Heaven must be as locked up as it was before the apocalypse. Sam even summons Crowley but barely escapes with his life after a hoard of Crowley's cronies find him. Sam knows they somehow followed him, but he isn't sure how. He didn't even get any answers out of Crowley. And now Sam has bruises all over his body—he's pretty sure he also broke his pinky toe on his right foot—and he's back at square one.
But Crowley is his best lead. Summoning him directly is clearly out of the picture. Sam has to be more subtle. So, Sam has resorted to tracking him down the old-fashioned way. But the demon somehow always manages to escape before Sam can catch up. It's infuriating. Crowley's constant paranoia is probably how he became the King of Hell, Sam realizes. And, really, that'd be great if Sam wasn't trying to catch the bastard.
Sam hardly sleeps these days. All he can think about is Dean. He can find no consistent lore on Leviathan or the tablets, so he has no idea where Dean could possibly be. Cas is gone too, so are they together? Sam hopes so. He has to. The thought reassures him the smallest bit. Dean will be okay if Cas is there. He's not completely alone. Unlike Sam. Sam doesn't remember the last time he's been this alone. Even when he went to Stanford, he knew he could always call Dean if things really got bad. But now Dean's gone. And most likely in danger. The longer Sam goes without hearing from Dean—or Cas for that matter—the worse he feels. Something is wrong if he hasn't heard from his brother by now. And Sam can't do anything about it. He hates it. He hates it so much. So he buries himself in research, but it does nothing. Without any new information to help him, he keeps going in circles. He continues chasing Crowley because he doesn't have a clue what else to do, and he's afraid if he stops, he won't be able to start again. And he can't do that. Not to Dean. Dean would never rest until Sam would be found. So that's exactly what Sam is going to do.
Crowley and his goons just ransacked a university. And Sam got there too late. Again. Thankfully, the demons decided to only destroy one room in the university instead of nuking the whole school. It's the small things.
The room Sam's in now—the one Crowley decided to pillage—is a professor's office by the looks of it. That's the other thing with Crowley. He's been randomly popping up places, all but destroying them, and suddenly leaving. It's as if he's searching for something, but Sam doesn't know what he's looking for. Maybe it will lead Sam to Dean. Maybe not.
The room is a complete mess. The single window is smashed, sending a cool spring breeze drifting through the room. The chair and the desk are toppled on their sides. The computer monitor is smashed and the PC looks as if someone kicked it in with a steel-toed boot. There's a bookshelf, but every single book that had occupied it is now on the floor. Pages have been torn out and flutter softly in the breeze. It smells faintly of sulfur, but the demons are long gone.
Sam toes one of the many broken books cluttered on the floor. The cover says it's a book about the ancient Mesopotamian language and its development. What is Crowley after? Sam runs through a mental list of the lore he knows about that era but comes up with nothing. What was—or wasn't—in this room that Crowley went after? Sam sighs. He's only becoming more and more confused and frustrated the longer he chases the King of Hell.
The door to the office squeaks open, and Sam spins around, drawing out the demon blade. An owlish woman about ten years older than Sam gasps and steps backwards in fear. She jumps back too quickly and falls into the hallway, landing flat on her back. Sam quickly pockets the blade.
"I'm so sorry," he says, stepping into the hall as if an apology will make her forget that a lone man is in her ruined office with a knife.
The woman stares up at him in paralyzing fear. She's still lying on the ground.
Sam raises his hands in a sign of peace and slowly kneels beside her. "I thought you were someone else," he explains softly.
She blinks rapidly and swallows. "You thought I was the men from earlier."
Sam blinks in surprise. Had she seen the demons? He offers her a hand, and she takes it. Her hand is shaking as Sam pulls her up into a sitting position. Sam asks, "The men from earlier?"
"Yes. The ones that ransacked my office!"
So she had seen them. But Sam should double-check. Just in case. "The leader was a British guy, about this high?" Sam raises his hand to Crowley's height.
The woman perks up. "Yes!"
Sam sighs and stands up, brushing his jeans. "Yeah. I know those guys. They should be gone by now." He pauses and eyes the woman. "They didn't hurt you, did they?"
She shakes her head. "After they realized I couldn't translate their cuneiform, they left."
Sam frowns. "Cuneiform?"
"Yes, it's an ancient form of writing that looks—"
Sam raises a hand. "I know what cuneiform is. But what do you mean? They had cuneiform?"
She nods. "Yes. It was on this…stone tablet. I've never seen a variation like it before."
The Demon Tablet. It's all so obvious now. Crowley's looking for a translator. Sam sighs.
"You know what I'm talking about," the woman—the professor of the office—says. She finally stands. "That tablet looked like it was the original piece of stone the cuneiform was etched onto."
Sam nods. "Yeah, it is." Then he stares at her earnestly, using what Dean calls his "puppy-dog eyes." But thinking about that only makes him miss Dean. "Look, you don't want to know more about it. Trust me. Those men will be back if you start poking around at it, understand?"
The woman nods her head rapidly. "Y-yes. I understand."
"Good." He pulls a card from his pocket. "If they bother you again, or anything else weird like that happens—and I mean anything—you can call me."
She takes his card and nods as she reads it. Her eyebrows raise in surprise. "You're an FBI agent?"
"I am."
She blinks up at him with wide eyes. "Well, I will call you, Agent…" She pauses to read the card again. "…Deacon if anything arises."
"Please do," Sam says. He gives her a tight smile before leaving. At least he knows what Crowley is after now. Sam can't help but grin. The demon still hasn't figured out how they read the Leviathan Tablet.
Cas was still half delusional when he explained to Sam and Dean that the only person who could read the Leviathan Tablet is a prophet of the Lord. So of course they went looking for Chuck. But they couldn't find him. The last person to see him was the owner of the house he was renting. And the owner hadn't been very helpful. Just said Chuck seemed jumpy before he moved out…almost three years ago. And Sam feels guilty. He should've known something like this was going to happen. He should've checked up on Chuck once in a while. Sam knows better. This life is cruel, even though Chuck isn't a Hunter. Especially since Chuck isn't a Hunter.
So, after they had spoken to the landlord, he and Dean had come to the reasonable conclusion that Chuck is dead. It had been nearly three years since anyone had seen him, after all. But Cas said he isn't dead. The prophets' names are burned into each angel's mind or something, and they apparently know when a prophet dies. Sam isn't exactly sure how it all works, and Cas was more focused on playing Scrabble at the moment than answering his questions.
But that had left them with one problem: How do they read the Leviathan Tablet?
Sam had done hours of research. Dean even did a bunch himself. But there was nothing substantial on the mysterious language on the tablet or any solid lore on the Leviathan. They were stumped. Sam isn't quite sure how he got down the rabbit hole of reading Alan Turing's Wikipedia page one night, but it all clicked as he scrolled through the page. Sure, it was almost 4am, and they were desperate for anything that could help with the Leviathan, so Sam only felt a little guilty calling Charlie.
She had been a bit confused when he asked her if it was possible to create a decryption program for a dead language that not a single soul could read. She said yes, and Sam had asked her to teach him how, so she wouldn't have to be involved. She had just sighed and said to send pictures over of what they needed translated. It took her three days.
And now the Leviathan and their evil schemes are gone, but Dean and Cas—Sam's family—are gone, too. And now Crowley is looking for a way to decode the tablet. Sam will be damned before he gets Charlie caught. And he knows what being damned feels like.
Sam brings his phone to his ear, and smiles when the line is picked up. "Hey, Charlie."
"Heya, Sam!" She pauses for half a moment. "Is this a good kind of call, or a bad kind of call?"
Sam chuckles. And, god, it's so good to hear her voice. To hear from someone who at least knows him a little. But he knows he can't drag her into this. He just can't. He's lost too many people to this fight. So he says, "Not really either. I, uh, I just need to warn you about someone. I don't think he's on your trail, but I know a few tricks to keep him away."
"I can't turn that down. What's up?"
So he tells her how to hide from demons. He sends her a picture of an anti-possession tattoo. He's thrilled when she says she salts the doors and windows already anyway. And then he feels immediately guilty, because she shouldn't have to. She wouldn't be in danger if it wasn't for him. But at least she's protected now.
Sam isn't quite sure why he isn't expecting it, but when she says, "Where's Dean? I wanna talk to him." His stomach drops and his blood runs cold. He doesn't give her the details—because he will not drag her into this—and basically just says Dean's gone, but he'll be back soon.
And he better be, because Sam can't do this for much longer.
He eventually hangs up, and when he does, he somehow feels even lonelier than before.
All of Sam's leads on Crowley have run cold. To celebrate his failure, Sam's decided to get drunk in the dark on a shitty motel bed. He props the world's lumpiest pillow against the headboard and leans back as he takes sip after sip after sip of Jack Daniels.
Sam doesn't remember the last time he's felt this lost. Maybe after Dean was dragged to Hell for selling his soul to save Sam. But even then, Sam's always had someone. Dean. Bobby. And more recently, Cas. Hell, even his dad when he was alive. Sure, Charlie exists, but she's fine. Living her own life away from all of his shit. He takes another long swig of Jack and relishes the way it burns down his throat. He rests his head back on his pillow.
"Where are you, Dean?" he asks weakly.
Of course there's no reply. The only sounds he hears are the distant traffic from the highway outside and the voices of the argument from the couple above him. He finishes the bottle and sets it on his nightstand. He presses the palms of his hands into his eyes.
"You can't be dead. You just can't." His voice breaks, and he feels so weak. But he can't be weak. Not when Dean needs him. Sam swallows and hates the sting of tears filling his eyes. He isn't sure if it's worse not knowing if his brother is dead. If he knew for sure, he would at least have some closure. Guilt slams into him the second the thought enters his mind, and he forces himself to swallow down a sob. He can't cry. Not now. He isn't finished. He's not done looking. Dean can't be dead. All of this can't just be a road to death.
Death.
Sam sits up, dizzy and a little drunk, but he's grinning.
"That's it!" Sam exclaims.
He can summon Death. Surely Death will have an answer for him.