Hey new reader! I'm ZoeyRedbird and this is really, my first story I've ever had the courage to start publishing! A background from where the idea came from. My best friend and I freaking love SPN and casually one night through out the idea how awesome it would be if we lived in their universe. An alternate universe. So, after some deliberation and long long LONG nights of writing, this is what came out. It's really for a personal pleasure of mine, but said best friend thought I should share it with y'all! At the end of the chapter, I'll have another AN. Enjoy!
Prologue
Carter Williams was happy. He was getting ready to finish his senior year at the University of Nebraska where he was going to graduate with a degree in chemistry while specializing in forensic science. Just this past weekend, his parents and younger brother had come up to finalize their graduation celebration plans. While they had been here, Carter showed them the ring he had bought to propose to his two-year girlfriend, Brandi. Jared, his younger brother gave him shit for taking so long to ask, while his parents both thought it was perfect.
On most nights, Carter would spend the evening with Brandi in their apartment that was just off campus, but tonight he was at a bar with some friends. They would not shut up about the fact that he was going to propose.
"Dude, are ya sure you want to do this now? What's the rush?" Carter's best friend, Will, asked him.
"Will, man, give him some slack! He's happy. Besides, soon enough he'll have a wife to nag him every day!" Mark dodged the hit that came at him from Carter.
"Y'all are dicks," Carter mumbled under his breath.
After a few more drinks, Carter decided he was going to head home. Ignoring the complaints coming from his buddies, he walked outside and grabbed a cab. When the driver pulled up to the apartment complex, Carter noticed that there were no lights on in their apartment. Brandi must have ended up going out with her friends tonight, he thought to himself as he paid the driver and got out of the car.
When he got up to the apartment, he went straight to the bed and collapsed onto it with his eyes closed. He was exhausted. He had had an early class that morning and it was already getting pretty late. Normally, he would stay up until Brandi got home, but not tonight. He knew she would wake him up when she got in. He settled into the bed, thinking he would undress when Brandi came home.
He was just getting comfortable, when he felt something drip onto his cheek. Flinching slightly from surprise, he wiped at it before he felt a few more fall to his face. He quickly opened his eyes, hoping that the apartment above theirs' hadn't burst a water pipe. What he wasn't expecting to see was his soon to be fiancée against the ceiling in nothing other than her bra and underwear. Her stomach had been sliced open and blood was dripping from the wound. Her eyes were wide open with fear, but there was no life in them.
Carter quickly sat up. "Brandi?" He was slowly starting to lose his shit. "Brandi!" He stood up and reached a hand toward her. As he did so, she burst into flames and the entire ceiling caught fire. He took a few steps back. "No! Brandi! No! No. No. No." He couldn't believe what was happening right in front of him. He refused to believe it. "No dammit!"
He was so out of it, paying so much attention to his love on the ceiling that he didn't notice the firefighters that had burst in. All he could feel was the men grabbing him to pull him out. That was when he snapped out of his stupor. "NO! NO! She's in there! I won't leave her! Brandi, baby! Please! NO! Don't!" He struggled against the other men. He didn't, couldn't leave her behind. They continued to drag him out of the blazing apartment and across the street to the ambulance.
The next hours were a blur for the hurting man. Questions were thrown at Carter from every angle. The police officers wanted to know what had caused the fire. The news anchors wanting to know the 'real story'. And finally, all of the people he didn't even really know, telling him everything was going to be okay.
Carter didn't understand that. How could everything be okay after losing the only person that made him feel whole? How would it be okay after the love of his life burned on his ceiling? It didn't seem like it was going to be okay for a very long time.
For another man, though, it seemed like everything was finally going right. Grant Miller had just graduated from UN the year prior with a sports medicine degree and was interning on the football team staff. He had heard about the student dying in an apartment fire, but he hadn't heard the name so thought nothing more on the subject. That is, until that night when he switched on the news and heard a name of someone he hadn't thought about in almost five years.
Brandi McCormick had been his friend since, well what seemed to be forever. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to be feeling. He had hoped he would be able to talk to her again, hoping that he would have that opportunity. He ran a hand through his hair before he decided to find out when the funeral was.
When Saturday afternoon rolled around, Grant almost felt nervous, but he couldn't pinpoint why. Carter, on the other hand, felt like he was losing control.
Today was the day they were going to put his beloved into the ground. How was he supposed to handle that? As he stood before her casket before anyone else arrived, he couldn't help the few tears that slipped down his cheeks. He missed her something terrible and he didn't know where to go from here.
He heard the door behind him open and he quickly ran a hand down his face, effectively wiping the tears away. He wasn't used to feeling weak, and that was all he had felt for the last week. Deciding that crying wasn't what Brandi would have wanted him to do, he tried pulling himself together.
Carter turned to see a man he had never met before. He was taller than himself, just slightly though. The man's hair was a shaggy, dirty blonde and he had blue eyes. There was something oddly familiar about him.
"Uh, I'm sorry. I was just, uh, I just wanted to say goodbye and get out before everyone shows up." Grant was feeling slightly fidgety under the other guy's gaze. He had light brown hair with blue green eyes that pinned Grant with their stare.
"Oh, that's okay. I'm, uh, was the boyfriend. I was just taking a moment." Carter offered his hand, his mask of indifference firmly set in place. "Carter Williams."
Grant took the offered hand and shook it briefly before letting it go. "Grant Miller. I was, uh… Brandi and I were friends when we were kids." He couldn't help the small smile that came across his lips from the memories that came to his mind. "We hadn't talked in almost five years. We had a small falling out in our senior year of high school."
Carter nodded and looked back to the closed casket. "I'll let you have a few minutes then." Grant nodded slightly while the other man let his hand briefly touch the top of the casket. Carter then nodded to himself before looking at Grant for a moment. Then he left, leaving the other man alone.
Grant walked up to and laid his hand on the coffin. He felt like shit. Who'd have guessed that the last time he would have talked to her would be in an argument in high school; an argument- about who even knows anymore- that drove them apart. Grant wasn't going to lie to himself, he didn't know the Brandi that her boyfriend knew; he didn't even really know what had happened to her after high school but she had still been a big part of his life.
He wandered around the room looking at the picture boards from Brandi's past. Unsurprisingly, there were a lot of pictures of him and Brandi and that was what broke the dam. Tears filled his eyes, but he refused to have them spill over. Through his watery view, he found an old, faded picture tucked behind the rest – he would have recognized it anywhere because it was the same picture he had on his desk at home. Grant's mom had snapped a picture of the two of them at one of his birthday parties and she had then proceeded to give them both a copy. By the looks of Brandi's, it had spent the last five years crushed under old papers and other junk.
Grant turned quickly when the doors opened and a few people he didn't recognize walked in. He pinned the photo back on the board, wiped his tears and walked out with one last glance back at the closed casket.
~UnNatural~
After the coffin had been lowered, Grant had started to move away when he saw Carter out of the corner of his eye. Carter was staring at the six-foot deep hole with emptiness in his eyes. His family had patted his back and then left him alone. Grant, though, didn't think it was a good idea for anyone to be alone after burying someone so important.
He slowly made his way over to Carter. "Hey man." Carter looked up at the blonde man. "Uhm, I was just heading to a bar. I just thought that, uh, maybe you'd want to join?"
Carter looked back down at the grave. He didn't answer right away. He was thinking about what Brandi would want him to do. Would it be wrong to go out for a few drinks when he just buried her? He sighed quietly and looked back up at Grant. His offer was better than sitting at home by himself and wallowing in his own grief. "Yeah. I think I will join ya."
Grant nodded with a small smile playing on his lips. "I'll meet you at the bar down the road. It's called the Roadhouse I think. I'll see you in a few." He turned away from Carter and started towards his car.
After the other man drove away, Carter stayed for just a few more minutes. There was so much he wanted to say; yet nothing would come out. It was like nothing was good enough. He ran his hand through his hair and tugged at the ends. He could feel the tears begin to form so he tugged harder, trying to make it so they wouldn't fall. He knew crying wasn't going to bring her back. He grunted and ran his hand over his face roughly, wiping away the tears as he did. He laid his hand on the headstone. "I love you baby. I'll find and kill whoever or whatever did this to you. I swear I will." He paused, glancing back towards his car. Then, when he spoke again, only the wind heard him. "If it's the last thing I do."
~UnNatural~
Grant was sitting on one side of a booth. He was sipping at the cold beer in his hand while watching the door. When he left the graveyard, he had assumed it would be awhile before Carter showed up. He himself was still reeling from the photos that showed him the Brandi he had known before. He was just finishing his first beer when Carter walked in. The other man's eyes swept the place before he spotted Grant. The brunette made his way to the booth and slid into the seat across from the slightly taller man, who smiled briefly. Grant then waved over a waitress and ordered a beer for each of them.
After a few moments of awkward silence, Carter cleared his throat causing Grant to look up at him. "I, uhm, wanted, to uh, thank you for inviting me here. I know if you hadn't, I'd probably be drinking myself way past the point of drunk alone at home." Carter looked down at the beer bottle in his hand halfway through his little speech and started picking at the label.
Grant looked up at Carter with sympathy as he picked apart the napkin that just so happened to be in his hands. He couldn't imagine how it would feel losing someone as close to him, as Brandi was to Carter. Carter glanced up at Grant's face and softly grunted. "Dude, I'm sorry. I seriously hate chick flick moments. Let's just, uh. Why don't you tell me about the Brandi you knew." Even though it was supposed to come out like a question, it sounded more like a demand to Grant. Like he wanted to completely get the focus off himself. Grant had no qualms in doing just that.
Grant scoffed through a laugh; his eyes focused on the bottle between his hands. "Well, alright. Uh, Brandi and I grew up as next-door neighbors and we were like partners in crime. I mean, we did everything together. And throughout my life, she was always that one constant I had, you know?" He looked back up at the other man before taking sip of the refreshing liquid courage. "Uhm, I moved to the neighborhood when I was five and she was my first real friend. You know, when you grow up you have those people that you're friends with just because of proximity, like the house next door?" Carter nodded and Grant waved his hand and continued. "Anyway, we were tight all the way up to our senior year in high school. And man, she was a competitive kid! I don't know how much she changed after high school, but every game we played she had to win!" He chuckled quietly while thinking back.
"I promise that that aspect of her hadn't changed. Everything was a competition between the two of us. I happened to have lost almost every single time." He laughed softly and then took a drink, allowing Grant to continue.
"Brandi was super easy to rile up, too. I hate to say it, but looking back now we were probably bullies. She and I were very, uh, not really mean, but we liked to pull pranks on people. More specifically, she loved ding-dong ditch. We went all over the neighborhood for months until her parents found out it was us." He laughed and shook his head. "Needless to say that didn't end well for either of us, but yeah."
Grant smiled and before it slowly slipped from his face and he continued to pick apart the already destroyed napkin. "But in all seriousness," Grant continued, "she helped me through a lot of difficult times. I was fifteen when my parents told me I was adopted." His eyes were trained on the napkin, so he missed the way Carter's eyes widened slightly. "And honestly, it wasn't like that was a difficult time for me, but it was more of, like a shock, you know? Brandi was super supportive because I kinda went through a 'discover who you are' period and I wanted to know all about my real parents and stuff." He shrugged one of his shoulders. "All that shit.
"Anyway, in our senior year of high school, Brandi and I had a stupid falling out over some ridiculous argument over – I don't even know what it was about anymore. But now." Grant paused and shook his head slightly, then looked back up to Carter. "Now, I wish we could've made up. We drifted after that – a lot – even though we both went to UN, so much so that, no offense, I didn't even know she had a boyfriend." He grimaced and then cleared his throat awkwardly. "But, yeah, I mean, I have a lot of stories about her, but I doubt you want to hear my entire childhood. Brandi was a good person, but you already knew that I guess." Grant concluded with a tone of finality and took a sip of beer, keeping his eyes trained on Carter.
Carter looked down at his own beer, picking at the label before he started right into his own story. "Brandi and I, we met in class my sophomore year. She was the TA, and I'm not going to lie. I thought she was smoking hot." He chuckled softly. "But, uh, she didn't even notice me. Not at first anyway. So, I decided to just ask her for help in the class. She was crazy smart and she never let me forget it either. And after going to a few of her study sessions, I finally got the balls to ask her out on a date. And she completely shot me down." Grant smiled at the other man's woes of being denied, while Carter shook his head with one side of his mouth up in a smirk.
"I backed off after that. Stopped going to the study sessions because I hadn't really needed them in the first place. After missing a couple of them, she caught me after class one day and asked if my offer still stood. We just progressed slowly from there." He shrugged while continually picking at the label. "She became my rock. I tend to be, uh, hot headed. But she, she was always able to bring me down from my anger, even if it was irrationally directed at her. She was just an overall good person, you know?" Grant nods at Carter, agreeing because it sounded like Brandi hadn't changed all the much from when he knew him.
"Anyway, she also helped me though my anger when I found out I was adopted."
"Oh fuck, seriously?" Grant's eyes bugged as he paused pulling apart his second napkin.
"Yeah, I know." Carter paused before continuing. "I guess now I can say it's because she had helped someone through it before. Although, it sounds like you took it better than me. I won't lie; I blew up on my parents for keeping it from me. Brandi was the one to talk me down. I ended up not talking to my parents for a couple months before I realized that they were the only parents who actually wanted me.
"I was curious, though, you know? About their names and where they were from. What my actual name was. So, I did some digging and I found them. Lawrence. Lawrence, Kansas." Grant chocked on the sip of beer he had just taken, coughing hard. "Dude, you okay?!" Grant just nodded and waved his hand for Carter to continue. "Well, then my parents' names? Kinda freaked me out that my real father and my adopted one have the same first name. Dave. And the last name! Fuck man. What kind of name is Germanhoff? I know I've never heard of it before then."
Grant couldn't hold in his surprise. His eyes were wide, looking like they were going to pop out of his head. He literally spit the sip of beer he just took all over the table, just missing Carter's arms, which were resting on it. "Are you fucking with me right now!?"
Carter quickly pulled back his arms when Grant spewed his alcohol all over, then looked at him quizzically when he asked that question. "What the hell dude? How could I possibly be fucking with you? I was just telling you about my real parents! I thought it would help us connect or some other girlie shit! Jesus Christ!"
Grant was taken back slightly by the other man's words. His breathing was heavy and his eyes were still blown wide. How the hell was this possible? It had to have been some sort of mistake. Right? He looked at Carter and took a deep breath before responding. "Sorry. Sorry. It's just, uh; my birth parents are from Lawrence as well. And uh," Grant ran a hand through his hair before continuing. "My dad's name is also Dave. And I'm going to take a shot in the dark here and assume your mother's name is Sydney?"
Carter's surprise was written all over his face. He couldn't believe it. No. It just wasn't possible. "How – how the fuck would you know the name of my parents!?"
The other man rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. "I know because those are the names of my birth parents."
Everything was silent.
As Carter was processing what exactly those words meant, Grant couldn't believe he had a blood relative in front of him. A fucking brother! He had a brother! Neither of the boys knew where exactly they went from here, but they did know that now, at least, they had a brother to go through everything with.
~UnNatural~
A few hours, a lot of beers, and a couple of bacon cheeseburgers later, Carter was telling Grant about the night Brandi died; how she had been on the ceiling. No one believed the poor man. Besides, he had to have been in shock and been hallucinating to have seen his girlfriend on the ceiling, bleeding and burning.
Apparently, though, their conversation was just slightly too loud. Two men, dressed in suits overheard their conversation and decided it definitely needed looking into. As these two well-dressed strangers approached the brother's table, Grant and Carter both turned their attention to them.
"Can we help you?" Carter may have been ruder than he intended, but Jesus, one of these guys was fucking huge, 6'4" easy. And the other one just had a look that screamed DANGER! He didn't want to fight anybody, not today at least.
"We're FBI, agents Young and Johnson." The shorter, blonde haired one said. They both flashed their badges, and then quickly put them away. Both Grant and Carter narrowed their eyes at the other men. "We overheard your conversation about the unfortunate fire accident involving the young woman that happened last week. We were just wondering if you could tell us anything more about it."
"I've told the police everything I saw. Not that they believed me, why would you guys be any different?" Carter took a sip from his beer, raising an eyebrow at the pair. As took a longer look at them, he realized they looked similar, almost like they could have been brothers. The taller of the two agents was the one to respond.
"I think you'll find that we are much more open minded than the local officials."
Grant, who was unable to take the uneasy tension in the air, spoke up. "Well, you might as well order yourselves a beer and get comfortable." With that said, he moved to the side of the booth with his brother (Damn, that sounded weird even thinking) and waved to the bartender to grab a couple more beers before the agents could refuse.
With everyone settled with full beers in their hands, the unease returned.
The shorter of the federal agents, Agent Johnson, cleared his throat. "Well, you want to tell us what happened that night?"
Carter looked at Grant out of the corner of his eye. His brother was playing with the label on his beer. He then shrugged his one shoulder, leaving the decision to tell the agents up to his younger brother. Running a hand through his hair, Carter started the story.
He explained how he had been out with his friends ending with the firefighters dragging him out of the apartment complex. When he finished his tale, the two agents looked at each other. Agent Young was the one to respond first.
"So, she was on the ceiling, with her eyes open, stomach slashed, and then burst into flames. Am I correct?" Carter nodded, looking the two agents in the eye, trying to see if they believed his story. Though the other men looked suspicious, they did look like they believed him. The agents looked at each other, nodded slightly, before they relaxed their stances. They were no longer sitting up straight, but were slouched down in their seats. Carter and Grant looked at each other for a moment before Agent Johnson started talking.
"Okay, here's the deal. We really need to talk to you guys, but not here. Not out here in the open. Here is an address of the motel with our room number. Meet us there tonight, and we will give you some of the answers you have been looking for." Without another word, the two agents (were they really agents?) left, leaving the two newly discovered brothers to themselves.
Grant moved back to the other side of the booth before he spoke up. "Couple of freaky guys come up to us in a bar, tell us they're agents, which they are so obviously not, invite us to some sleazy motel room and say they have answers for you?" He chuckled and shook his head as he took a drink of his beer. "They're fucking nuts is what they are."
Carter was quiet. He looked down at the address on the table, running his finger over the address. These agents, if that's what they were, had answers. Could he really risk the chance of losing those answers he so badly wanted? The ones he so desperately needed? He glanced up at Grant, who was now picking apart his third napkin and adding the pieces to his growing pile. "I think I'm going to go."
The other man paused in his musings, glancing up at his younger brother. "Seriously? You believe that they have the answers you're looking for? Dude, I mean, I know you want to know what happened to Brandi, I do too, but are you really going to trust two guys you met a bar?"
"Look, it's not like I'm asking you to come with me. All I'm saying is that I am going to this motel tonight," Carter held up the address, "What do I have to lose, huh? So what if they turn out to be mass murders? It's not like I've got much to really look forward to any time soon." A scoff from his older brother made him look up.
"Nothing to look forward to? Really Carter?" Grant shook his head and finished off his beer before he continued. "Not only do you have parents who love you and would be devastated if they found out you were dead, but you also have a younger brother who would be torn apart. And just because we literally found out about being brothers today, does not make you any less important to me." The man paused, a smirk playing upon his lips. "Besides, who else is going to look after your stupid ass if you go by yourself?"
Carter's head snapped up, as he had been looking at the table in shame for even thinking he wouldn't be upsetting anyone if he were to die. "Y-you'd go with me? Dude, you seriously don't need to. Like you said, we just met and-"
"And nothing. We're brothers, and I've got your back. I don't have anyone else to look after. Might as well be the 'responsible older brother', right?" The two men smiled slightly at each other, before realizing what they were going to be doing later that night.
~UnNatural~
As the night progressed on, the two men became increasingly nervous. Carter couldn't help second-guessing his decision to meet these two mystery men. What if they actually were mass murderers? Grant, on the other hand, was worrying about his brother. If these guys were just messing with him because he's vulnerable, Grant was prepared to do anything to get them to back off.
Walking up to room 107, the room number on the napkin the two 'agents' had given them; Carter felt a sense of calm wash over him. It was like someone or something was telling him that this, what him and his brother were about to be told, or figure out, was right. Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door. After a second or two without hearing anything, Grant swore he heard the click of a gun being cocked before he heard Agent Johnson say, "Who is it?"
With a quick glance to his older brother, Carter cleared his throat. "It's a, uh, Carter and Grant. From the bar earlier." Looking back at Grant again, Carter shrugged, wondering whom else the two agents could possibly be expecting this late at night.
The brothers heard the locks turn and the door swing open. There stood Agent Johnson. He had changed since earlier, losing the suit and exchanging it for a pair of jeans and flannel shirt. He was tucking a gun into the back of his pants as he nodded for the other two men to come inside.
The first thing Grant noticed was that the place was a mess. Beer bottles, take out boxes, and books written in weird ass languages covered every surface of the room. His first thought was that these guys were insane. Obviously they were not federal agents (although he had figured that one out earlier), but it seemed that whatever they were didn't seem to look too good either. Not to him at least.
Carter, on the other hand, seemed fascinated by the different books lying around. Glancing at one of the books, he noticed the title, "Demons: The Lore and History". He had always been the one to believe that what he had known as normal couldn't be all there was in the world. It was an argument that he and Brandi used to get into a lot. He believed that humans and animals couldn't be the only thing here; it didn't make any sense. Brandi constantly told him he was crazy to think that way. With Brandi being more important to him than the 'supernatural', he let his little theories move into the depths of his mind to be forgotten. But now, standing in a room full of books on lore of what seemed to be many different mythological things, those theories came rushing back front and center into his head.
Clearing his throat to get the two brothers attention, the taller of the agents began to talk. "First off, as I'm sure you both have figured out, we aren't Federal agents, and our names aren't Johnson and Young. I'm Sam Winchester and this is my brother Dean."
"Yeah well we put that together pretty quickly," Carter shot a look at his brother that said 'shut the hell up'. He wanted answers, but they didn't have to be rude about it.
"I'm sorry about Grant. Really, I can understand. Obviously y'all have something to hide, or you're hiding from something. I just want answers, then you'll never hear from me – us – again." He looked between the other two men as he talked, trying to make them see that they meant no harm.
Dean sent a quick glance to Sam, before motioning to the small table and four chairs. "You better sit."
After all the men were sitting down, Sam began with their story. How their mother died in a house fire, or what they were told was a house fire just like Brandi's death was. How it wasn't a house fire at all, but a demon. How they grew up as hunters with their dad. How they were constantly moving around, hustling for money, killing monsters. Turns out not just demons were real, but pretty much everything the brothers previously thought to be make believe, was real. The blow came when Sam continued to say that his fiancée had died in the same fashion of Brandi. By the end, Grant was staring at the wall blankly, clearly deep in thought while Carter was pacing the length of the motel room.
"You mean to tell me that, that some demon killed Brandi?" Carter glanced at the hunters who both nodded slightly. "But why? What does this monster gain by killing her? I didn't even know about all this shit!" He was running his hands through his hair constantly, tugging on the ends every so often. "It makes no sense!"
Carter's outburst seemed to bring Grant out of his thoughts. "Hey, let's just take a deep breath and figure this out, okay? Obviously these guys invited us over here for more than just to tell you what killed Brandi. Let's just hear them out." After a moment's hesitation, Carter nodded and slumped back into his chair, his eyes never leaving the hunters in front of him.
"We think," Sam began, "that the demon wanted you to learn about the supernatural for a reason. What that reason is, however, I'm not sure, but-"
"But," Dean cut his younger brother off, standing up and looking down at the two men across from him, "we do know that we aren't leaving here until we've taught you at least enough to protect yourselves. We won't have you dying if something comes after you now that you know about this other life, and know us. Trust me, you'll want to know how to defend yourselves. Got it?"
Carter and Grant knew that this was a pivotal moment. If Carter said yes, he would have the chance to bring down the demon that killed Brandi. Grant knew he couldn't allow his brother to go through this alone. They had to have each other's back, especially now that they had just found one another. Grant wasn't going to let anything happen to his younger brother.
Looking at each other, the two brothers knew what they had to do. Standing up, Carter had his signature smirk upon his lips as he said, "When do we start?"
AN: Soooo *rocking back and forth on toes* Whatcha think? Leave me some love in the review box below if you liked it (or even if you hated it, cause honestly? I'll still probably write...) I don't know when the next chapter will be up. I'm finishing up the last few weeks of my Spring Semester so things are a little hectic, BUT! This summer I'll have plenty of time on my hands and hope to write a ton to get a story!
Thanks for taking the time to read this! It means the world to me!
XOXO
ZoeyRedbird