Wonderwall

I felt a pair of hands shake me awake, begging for me to get up.

‘What is it?’ I said. I sat up slowly, my head pounding, rubbing my eyes as they adjusted to the brightness of the room, although they never quite seemed to stop aching and I figured it was just one of the many side affects of being hung over.

‘It’s Sammy, Iris. He’s gone missing,’ Dean said, urgency flowing through his words. His face was torn and his eyes were heavy, Dean’s mouth curled into a subtle frown.

‘What do you mean missing?’ I asked, practically springing up from the bed. I wasn’t groggy anymore; in fact, I was more awake than I had been in a long time.

‘He’s gone, Iris,’ Cas answered, leaning against a table in the far corner of the room. He looked as he always did, serious and distant. Balthazar was beside him, his face much more concerned than his brother’s.

‘What the hell are we doing just sitting here then? We need to get out there and bring him back!’ I started yelling, tears welling up in my eyes. I rushed around the room frantically like a maniac, throwing on the nearest jacket and my shoes.

Dean pressed his hand gently on my shoulder as I reached for the door handle, causing me stop and turn to face him, ‘Iris, please. I’m just as urgent as you are to look for Sammy, but we can’t look for him if we have no idea where to start. We need to devise some sort of plan.’

Plan? PLAN? What the hell was he even talking about? Dean, in all the years that I have come to know him, has never sat down and actually thought about his future; he always shot first. And in this case, with Sammy mysteriously disappearing from our motel room, I thought that we would’ve already been on the road, but instead, here we were, wasting crucial time.

‘We believe this might have something to do with Azazel,’ Balthazar finally spoke, leading me to a chair, as I stood blankly in the middle room, unable to form coherent thoughts about the situation.

‘Azaz-who?’ I asked, rubbing the temples of my head in an effort to soothe the pain that throbbed inside of my skull.

‘Azazel, you know, the yellow eyed bastard that killed your boyfriend’s mum,’ Balthazar corrected. He handed me a cup of warm water, patting me gently on the back, noting the symptoms of my hangover.

I pictured the sight of yellow eyes in mind, trying to come up with a personal sketch on how I believed Azazel would look like when I finally would get the chance to meet him. But, I wasn’t able to draw my focus away from the face I had pictured. Why did the thought of yellow eyes seem so familiar to me, almost as if I had seen them before?

‘Iris? Iris, are you even listening?’ Cas scolded, waking me from my trance.

I cleared my throat, ‘Hmm? Oh, yes. I’m sorry…continue as you were, Cas.’

Castiel sighed, his annoyance with me quite prevalent,’ We think he might be hosting some sort of decathlon for young demon apprentices…perhaps to someday take his place.’

‘So, basically it’s Survivor demon style?’ Dean asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

‘I do not understand your reference,’ Cas furrowed his eyebrows, titling his head; the motion he always did whenever one of us would make any reference to the media culture in the outside world. For an angel of the lord, Castiel always seemed to be as ignorant as a small child.

Dean shook his head, beginning to pace back and forth within the small confinements of the motel room. He was nervous, as expected, but I knew that this time there would be nothing I could do to ease his discomfort. Sammy was Dean’s everything, and without him, he was lost; even with me there, but I was still shocked at how well he was handing the entire situation, maybe I was even angry about Dean’s calmness.

‘Where’s John?’ I asked interrupting Castiel and Balthazar’s banter about Azazel’s master plan.

‘Oh, you mean distant daddy of the year? Him and alcoholic anonymous decided to disobey our orders and take off,’ Balthazar scoffed.

I had wondered why Dean hadn’t done the same yet. I wondered how he was just letting himself sit in here while Sam was out there, in god knows what kind of danger. I knew now that I was angry with him for being so calm, for taking this situation so lightly, since I was just seconds away from becoming completely unglued. His own father, who has never related to Sam in any way, was out there trying, even if he wasn’t getting anywhere close while Dean, Sammy’s everything, sat here with no motivation.

‘Do you have any idea, even the smallest hint, as to where Sam could be?’ I asked, glancing up at the two all-knowing beings in front of me. I could feel the frustration building up inside of me.

Balthazar began, ‘Unfortunately, no. We’ve come up with no credible leads and we’ve-‘

‘Bullshit! I thought you asshats were supposed to have infinite knowledge! Why cant you just zap your selves around the world and find him?’ I asked, my anger getting the best of me.

‘It’s not that simple, Iris. We believe Azazel has his descendants in a guarded location, one in which angels are not attuned to find,’ Castiel explained. He took a step towards me, his hands placed out in front of him, as if he was surrendering to me.

‘So, what exactly are we supposed to do then, huh? Sit around and wait for a sign that may never come?’ I looked around at everyone, hoping for some sort of logical answer, but it didn’t come; only silence followed. I sat down, defeated, on the nearest mattress, sighing and resting my heavy head upon my hands.

I felt the space beside me give in beneath someone’s weight, ‘Don’t worry, love. We’ll find your big foot and bring him home before you know it!’ Balthazar spoke softly, placing a hand awkwardly on my shoulder. I was surprised he had even made the gesture at all, since Angels were not known for being sturdy shoulders to cry on, but I knew that, like Cas and Dean, our bond was much different than others.

‘I would watch your hands there, Pal,’ Dean cleared his throat and I could hear his heavy boots making their way over to the bed I was seated on, my head still slumped in my hands.

Balthazar stood up from beside me, ‘And you better watch they way you speak to me, you ignorant little runt. I could smite you at any moment, and don’t think I wont just because your boyfriend is watching.’

At this point I had lifted up my head to see how Dean would respond, knowing that I would, at some point, have to intervene with the pair’s bickering.

Dean stood tensely for a while, glaring as Balthazar waited patiently for his response, smiling teasingly at him.

‘You son of a bitch,’ Dean finally began, taking steps towards him.

‘Okay, okay! That’s enough!’ I jumped up between the two of them, stopping whatever mayhem was about to occur. ‘We have enough to worry about right now without you boys making the situation worse.’

‘She is right,’ Cas said. He came and stood beside me, looking back and forth at his brother and Dean.

They both eventually sighed in defeat, sitting at opposite places in the room to glare at each other with safe distances between them. Cas and I spoke for a while about some of the leads that may or may not lead to Sammy and he explained more about his theory on Azazel’s demon academy. I wondered if it was accurate, if Sam really could’ve been sucked into something so awful and while it sounded like a solid explanation, there was one point that stumped us all; why. Why Sam? Why did Azazel handpick him to participate in this? There was so many why’s that we just couldn’t answer, so we decided, for the best interest of all of us, to meet up with Bobby, John, and Dahlia to mesh our brains together for some sort of master plan.
* * * *
It seemed that we had been driving for days, while in reality I could count the hours of our journey with one hand. We were all incredibly anxious, though, and with Dean refusing to be ‘zapped’ by Cas, we were left to take the much slower way to our destination. Balthazar, on the other hand, opted out on the car ride and decided to just meet us in Sioux Falls once we had gotten there, while Castiel and Dahlia remained with Dean and I. It was practically silent in the car, the only sound to fill the gaps of taciturnity being the tires against the wet pavement, which had only made my anxiety worse.

‘Are you…okay?’ Dahlia half whispered, as if not to alert Dean.

I nodded, turning my gaze from the window to give her a small smile.

She grinned back and we then both returned our heads to glance out the window, marveling at the scenery around us, although it wasn’t much at all. A few trees here and there, but the majority of our landscape consisted of baron fields. The sky was cloudy and gray, suiting the mood of our situation perfectly and I could tell that the condition of the weather was weighing down on everyone, even Castiel.

‘You guys should quiet down back there,’ Dean finally spoke, giving out a small laugh.

I forced a smile as best as I could, keeping my gaze out the window. I could feel Dean’s eyes on me, waiting for me to look back at him, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was upset with him for not reacting the way he should’ve, for being so reserved about his brother’s disappearance, and maybe it wasn’t his fault, maybe he acted so calm to make me feel better, but either way, I was angry; angry at him, angry at Azazel, angry at life. So, I continued ignoring his glances through the rear view mirror and kept my attention to the window beside me, hoping the journey to Bobby’s house would end soon.