Need You More Than You Know

Reminder: Sam and Cas POV is "current," or in the last fourth or so of season 10. Dean still has the MoC.

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The ghost Dean had been after is gone. There's no sign of anything supernatural in the bright maroon house on the top of a T-intersection, aside from the damage the thing has inflicted both before and while Dean was taking it down.

Aside from the house itself, they don't know where to begin looking.

"Can you tell where he is?" Sam asks Castiel, glancing over with a frown as they drive.

"No," Castiel is forced to admit. "I... I have some of my power back, but I don't have everything. Some things are diminished. Like flying. Normally I can sense him, but... I can't right now. I seem to be blocked." He knows of one reason why that would be, but there are countless others (he hopes).

Sam lapses into silence. Castiel hopes the younger Winchester isn't thinking the same thing he is.

The small town connects to a slightly bigger city farther out, and they have decided on the way here to retrace Dean's steps outward. Judging from the condition of the house, Dean made it out here okay without anything happening to him, so whatever did happen, it occurred on the way back.

There are a number of small convenience stores, but just two non-fast food diner type of restaurants. They stop in each store with a photo of Dean, but nobody has seen him.

"Now, he probably would have waited to get the food till he was closer to Lebannon," Sam suggests. "Less time for it to cool down."

"We should stop anyway," Castiel says quietly, feeling something small twist inside his chest the longer they search without finding anything. "He could have decided to eat here and get something for you in town."

Sam nods. "Right, good one."

But nothing comes from either restaurant, aside from a waitress at the second one blatantly hitting on Castiel, who doesn't pay her any attention and keeps interrogating the manager. Nobody has seen any sign of Dean, however, and Sam's getting so insistent and pleading that people are starting to look.

On the way out, Castiel spins his keys on one finger nervously. "What if he's not the only one?" he begins softly.

"What do you mean?"

They get in the car. Castiel waits before starting the ignition. "What if... Do you think there could be two cases in the same place?"

Sam frowns over at him. "Like, two different supernatural things here? One ghost, one something else?"

Castiel nods. "It is possible, isn't it?"

"I guess," Sam shrugs. "I mean, it's worth a try. We'll... I don't know, we should see if anybody else has gone missing around here."

They stop at the nearest restaurant with free wi-fi, and Sam brings his computer in to search online for disappearances.