It's crazy to think that I finished this story and completely forgot about it. I have never written an abduction fic, so I decided to remedy that. I'm feeling all the good feels from the 200th episode, and I wanted to post something. I'm glad I remembered I had this story on ice. It's a bit on the violent side. Consider yourself warned. Please let me know what you think!

Chapter One

His body jolted him out of the nightmare before his mind did. The vestige of ivory brimstone lingered before his eyes. The twinkling echo of chains stirred in his ears.

Dean's hand splayed across his chest grounded him. He gripped it hard, gasping a little as he braced the other hand against the window and grit his teeth against the screams and bile in his throat.

"Easy," Dean said in a low, lionish purr. "You're all right."

Now that Lucifer's ghost was gone, the true impact his torture was brighter than ever, like the Morning Star himself. The despairing irony was not lost on Sam.

The hand left his chest to still chains and trinkets that hung from the Impala's keyring, knowing that sound triggered memories from the cage.

"We'll be in the Twin Cities before dinner," he said conversationally, "then it's all about trackin' down some werewolf ass. Or tail, whichever is politically correct."

Sam offered a non-verbal response, grateful that they weren't acknowledging his nightmare. Or the fact that he had them every time he dropped off to sleep without the Winchester-prescibed belt of whiskey.

He stared aimlessly out of the windshield, and tried to settle the canter of his heart. He'd fallen asleep to ridiculously blue skies and fields of green but now he saw mottled gray and brittle beige as they pushed north. Twenty miles or so passed in a precarious quiet before Dean cleared his throat, green eyes flickering to Sam and then back to the road. "You can talk about it, you know, if you want. The cage, I mean," Dean offered.

It seemed like several lifetimes ago when Sam stood on a peer and begged his brother for a similar unburdening. Dean had brushed him off then, more callously than his normal gruffness, and Sam felt rejected and shut out of pain that was mostly his fault. He understood now. It's not like he didn't want to talk about it, it's that weren't words, and if there were, they wouldn't make it past the lump in his throat and the screams in his head.

Sam rubbed his sweaty hands on his jeans, bunching the soft denim. "I'm okay," he lied, needing it to be true for a little while longer. He couldn't always be the one that was broken.

Dean's head rocked forward, demeanor calm with one hand loosely on the steering wheel. "I know you are. You're stronger than most people on the planet for surviving this. I'm just offerin' an ear, man. Whenever you're ready."

Dean was openly offering to haul him through yet another crisis. For now, it was enough. He forced a smile that felt shaky and jagged. "Pencil me in for 2018."

"Four o'clock good for you?" his brother shot back.

"Sounds good." He learned over and cranked up the music, settling back in the seat to enjoy the ride.

-SPN-

Sam had spent all but three years criss-crossing the country in the Impala. He knew the feel of the interior, the throaty whir of the engine and the placid sway of the frame. Before he knew anything else, Sam knew that the vehicle he was in, with its crappy suspension, bumpy ride and whining engine, wasn't the Impala. The Impala smelled like gunpowder and artificial pine, not stale cigarettes and body odor.

More concerning, however, was that he felt like hardboiled crap: queasy and heavy-limbed, more out of it than in. He wondered if Dean, sick of his nightmares, had drugged him but he as he found the edges of his body there was a stinging pain high in his torso and his muscles also felt like overused silly putty, some of them tremored involuntarily. Sam grunted, knowing the sensation. He'd been tasered.

There were hands on him now, and there were too many and too rough to be Dean's. They dug into the tender skin of his upper arms; something sharp gouged his right leg as was dragged up and out. Cold replaced warm. The world bobbled nauseatingly. Consciousness was a slippery thing, only allowing him power over one sense at a time. Sight revealed that he could only blearily blink into something dark and musty—a head bag—that covered his face. Feeling discerned that his head, face and ribs throbbed hotly. Sound was the lively chirping of birds, the grunts of effort and the scrape of his own feet nudging groves into the half-frozen soil as he was dragged.

Confusion blossomed into full-fledged when it finally sank in that he'd been abducted. Again.

He had no memory of being taken or if Dean was okay.

There was a creaking slide and then he was flung forward, landing with a merciless thud, like garbage at a landfill. He'd cracked his face on the cold, damp stone. Globs of light wormed through his vision and he groaned at the resulting pain, trying to curl around it.

Any attempts to move were thwarted when a booted food ground him into the floor. Gloved hands wrenched his arms behind his back and cuffed them so tightly, his wrists popped and stung as the cuffs dug in. Fear erupted into full-blown panic when he heard the insidious twinkle of chains. He may have screamed, and he was sure he fought, scrabbling against the floor, sandpapering off a few layers of skin in the process. The chain was secured to the cuffs, uncoiled and then locked to a hook on bolted to the floor. Leashing him like an animal.

And Sam fought like one. Adrenaline overrode the limpness of his fry muscles and he kicked out with his lethally long legs, and was thrilled by the bone-crunching impact.

The head bag was snatched off, a chunk of his hair going with it, and the light was bewilderingly blinding. Sam saw two figures, one lean and limping, looming over him before the butt of a rifle careened into view, snapping his head back. He slumped the side, blood rushing in his ears and down into his eyes. Two more blows followed to the shoulder and chest but the pain was an unimportant nuisance compared to the fear. The laughter in his head and the weakness of his spirit.

Passing out was the biggest of mercies.

-SPN-

Even though Sam was battered, swollen and terrified, he was still a Winchester. After fighting an epic battle not to vomit all over himself and tamping down the terror to a righteous level of trepidation, Sam began to survey his surroundings. They were keeping him in a shed of some kind—a simple cinderblock dwelling with a sliding door and no insolation. It was cleaner and bigger than the rat-infested hovels Sam's kidnappers normally picked. This one even had a small, dust-coated window that allowed a few meager bands of halogen light to filter inside.

He tried again to roll to his knees. It took too much effort, his abs and chest muscles straining, but he was able to hoist himself up with the grace of a drunken seal and balance on his knees, hunched forward. He glared distastefully at the coil of thick linked metal but vowed not to let it be a trigger for him anymore. Even if Lucifer liked to coiled him up in them and yank off limbs with giddy snarl. He would have plenty of time to be traumatized once he escaped.

He shimmied forward to examine how the chain was secured to the hook in the floor. It was a simple anchor commonly used for hammocks or porch swings-a thick metal ring attached to a plate with a bolt in each end. Sam nudged it with his foot, swearing when it didn't budge. It was obliviously made to withstand considerable abuse.

Sam's biggest weapon was the one he consistently tried to conceal: his size. While his recent skirmish with a car and Lucifer-bourne insanity hadn't left much time to pump iron, Sam was still pretty freakin' strong. With his back to the chain, he closed his eyes in concentration as he shimmied up with the chain inch by inch, link by link. He coiled it in his hands and chuckled mirthlessly when it finally snapped taut. With his hands behind him, he couldn't get effective leverage, but he bent his knees, sucked in a breath and yanked, straightening his legs as he did so. He tugged with all his might, until his muscles trembled and he grayed out from the effort. He glanced down, swaying terribly without his arms to balance. The anchor hadn't budged.

It was time to get creative.

Sam fed himself some line and repeated the arduous process, snatching the chain to the right, gripping it and heaving. It was a vicious tug o' war. Muscle and sinew was the clear underdog when up against metal and concrete.

He wasn't sure how long he fought and pulled and yanked and even kicked it with the blade of his socked feet. He nearly passed out during one horrendous tug, but finally it gave, one end rocked upward half-an-inch in a spray of concrete shrapnel and dust. He wasn't much but it was something. Sam sank to his knees, silvered and soaked with sweat, muscles quivering and useless from overwork.

Sam tried not to think about Dean being chained up like a rabid dog. Rather, he focused on his splitting headache, relentless thirst and ebbing fear. He'd faced far worse than this and survived. Sam could do this.

With a hiss and a whimper, he pushed himself up, ready to continue his work on the anchor. As he got to his feet, he heard the approaching crunch of gravel and the rattling click of keys in a lock. He threw the coils of chains and stomped the bolt back into the floor just as the door slid open.

Frigid air and tendrils of snow-studded wind wafted into the space. Instead of backing up, Sam moved forward, standing in front of his handiwork. Three people walked inside: one was a young man who was incongruously bookish, wearing a plaid sweater and glasses. He carried two cheap metal chairs and no weapon. The second was a woman, all hard edges and stony face. She stood at ease with a rifle slung over one shoulder in such a manner that Sam suspected she was ex-military. If she was, then last man who entered had to be the general. He strutted in after the two of them with his arms behind his back. He was tall and barrel-chested with a smattering of white mixed into a thick shock of brown hair and weathered, reddish skin like he'd spent a lifetime outdoors.

He nodded to the kid, and he sprung forward setting down the chair. He fumbled for the keys in his pockets, hands shaking a bit as he tried to find the right one. The chain and handcuffs fell away, and Sam smothered a groan of relief. He shook out his tingling hands and eyed his abductors without fear. "Where's my brother?"

The general lifted his scraggly eyebrows. "He's safe. My quarrel ain't with him." He gestured to the chair. "Have a seat, son. The name's Kit, Kit McGraw."

Sam bristled at the hospitality in his incredibly southern drawl but acquiesced.

He canted his head at the woman and the other two left, sliding the door closed behind them. He sat too. "Look, you don't want to be here anymore than I want you here. We both have better demons to fry, right?" He offered him a smile that was meant to disarm but only set Sam on edge even more. This jackass was a hunter. He thought he'd be used to this particular brand of betrayal or maybe that his heart was incapable of breaking anymore, but he wasn't and it was.

"I take pride in what I do. It's hard work, but it's the best work so the last thing I want is to call a compadre down to the carpet, but if huntin' is about anything, it's about gettin' your hands dirty to do the right thing."

Sam couldn't help himself. "So that's what you call kidnapping and assault. Bang up job you're doin' then."

Kit's face shut down so fast it was as if someone had flipped a switch. The amicable demeanor flipped to one of unsettling ire. He moved before Sam could register it and backhanded him so hard, Sam's teeth sank into cheek, Kit's ring tore his bottom lip.

Kit paced the around the shed, breathing hard. He loomed over Sam when he had got himself under control. "We are doing the work no one wants to do, weeding out the dirty and the diseased so it doesn't spread to the whole crop. This is how this is gonna go: I'm going to ask you some questions and you're gonna answer. Then you can be on your way back to your brother. It's simple. Don't go makin' it complicated!" Kit was so close, Sam felt the spray of his siliva. "I've done my research on you and your track record. Don't think you can squirrel your way out of this one. We warded against everything with black eyes or wings."

Sam glared and spit blood dangerously close to Kit's feet.

Kit's eyes narrowed and he growled, "This ain't good cop-bad cop, boy. This is Worst Hunter. Do yourself a favor and don't push me."

"Ask away. I've got nothing to hide."

Kit leaned in close, lips to Sam's ear he asked, "What do you know about the apocalypse?"