A/N: Hah! Hello, new obsession! I got into Supernatural (and the pretty, pretty boys, lets be honest here) back in September, when I needed something to occupy me after major surgery. It burrowed under my skin and will not let go, so I thought I'd break out of my self-inflicted hiatus and do some damn writing. This is set in early Season 2, just after 'Simon Says', and blatantly disregards the beginning of 'No Exit'. Don't worry, its not a major deviation from the storyline. I just wanted to explore how the boys got from "LIEK OMG OUR LIVES SUCK" to being fairly normal again. Total self-indulgent casefic here, ladies and gents. I have a fairly indecent love of beating the crap out of my favourite characters, so expect some gore in later chapters. Also, I am painfully English, so please bear with me if my knowledge of Americanisms seems a little bit wonky. Maybe give me a gentle nudge in the right direction!
Oh God, how I wish I owned them. Here we go!
Oh, and also? Foreigner are awesome, and totally my official SPN-writing band. Just FYI. What? Use one of their songs as the title? Well, if you insist.
Juke Box Hero.
1861
Accokeek Creek; Virginia.
She wasn't going to make it. She'd die in a foetid marsh, miles from the plantation, and be left to rot amongst the plants that caught at her clothes and skin. She'd freeze, or fall, or be shot by Confederate soldiers, or...
Another low groan rolled unbidden from her throat as her swollen belly contracted in a star burst of fiery pain, and she stumbled, collapsing to her knees in stinking water. If this was Death, let him come, let it end, let me rest, please, God, let it end...
"Rosie!"
Hands gripped her face, dearly familiar as they threaded gently through her matted hair. Her husband, her beautiful, courageous man, was trembling as he lifted her sweating face to his. His lips touched her forehead, three-day stubble scratching the fevered skin, as he whispered a seemingly never-ending string of pleading words.
"Come on, come on, baby, please...please, don't give up now. Come on, Rosie, we're so close...gonna be free, new life, baby, please..."
She was paralysed, struck dumb by the pain in her body and the desperation on her husband's face. His eyes were huge, rolling in their sockets with the whites showing, just like the Mandeville's big bay gelding, dumb creature.She longed to comfort him, but her thoughts were like wraiths, aimless, always just out of reach. Instead, she let his name spill out of her slack mouth as another wave of pain hit.
"J...Joe..."
Seemingly encouraged, he smiled, white teeth bright in his dark face, and gripped harder.
"That's it baby, c'mon. We're gonna get outta here, you 'n me. Think of the baby, couple more weeks..."
His face was beginning to blur as dark spots flashed at the corners of her vision. The frigid water swirling around her thighs felt curiously warm, and she dipped her head to see that it had turned a dirty burgundy in the light from the moon. Her heart breaking, she let out a keening moan, and prayed to God that Joe wouldn't notice. Grabbing at his frayed collar, she pulled him roughly to her failing body, and pressed her lips to his. She gasped what she hoped would be her final words against his mouth, and watched his face screw up in horror with a detached wonder.
"Love...go now!"
He moaned, an awful, inhuman sound muffled by the crook of her neck as he nestled closer. Her wandering attention latched onto distant voices slicing through the freezing air, the shouts of faraway soldiers encroaching upon their huddled misery, and she pushed weakly at her husband's shuddering form.
"G...go!"
His only answer was to pull her closer and rest his head on top of hers. Through the haze that clouded her thoughts, she dimly realised he had given up, and groaned into his sodden collar. She had no more energy for tears or goodbyes, so she mouthed the words into the salty flesh of his throat, and prayed he would get the message. Breathing was suddenly an effort; each inhale being drawn into reluctant lungs felt like a full day's toil. She realised that this was it, there were only moments left if that, and the thought brought a strange sense of peace. Rosie drifted away with the desperate words of her husband lulling her down to the inky blackness of a mercifully quiet sleep.
"Stay awake, baby, stay awake. Stay awake, stay awake, stay..."
2006.
Route 59, Outside St. Joseph; Nebraska.
"...awake, and I wonder, where my life is goin',
Am I on a road leadin' nowhere, there's no way of knowin'..."
It was surprising, Dean Winchester mused, just how loud his little brother's silent brooding could seem. Even as the music pounded from the Impala's speakers at ear-perforating decibels, Sam's down-turned mouth and slumped posture gained all of his big brother's wandering attention. Which, Dean reflected as he narrowly avoided shunting into the back of a ugly-ass station wagon driving far too slow up ahead, probably wasn't the ideal situation to find himself in on a jammed highway. Casually flipping off the incensed owner of the wagon, he ignored the Buick's horn blaring over the music and attempted to focus. The threat of another messy incident involving his baby becoming scrap metal seemed to work.
For all of three minutes.
Goddamn it, Sammy...
For someone who advocated 'talking it through' as adamantly as a cheap chat show host, Sam could damn well sulk when he wanted to. The impromptu side trip to the Roadhouse had made some uncomfortable truths evident, and, not for the first time, the enormity of the task ahead of them was hanging like a guillotine above the Winchesters' heads. Sam seemed to have taken the realisation especially hard. The kid was still reeling from the insight into the yellow-eyed demon's plans he'd gained from Andy's batshit brother, and Dean was having a hell of a time dragging him out from under the proverbial black cloud of his depression. Granted, he himself hadn't exactly been sunshine personified lately, but his own grief had the uncanny ability to recede into the back of his mind when faced with his brother's struggle. Glancing yet again at the silent figure sitting like an unhappy statue in the passenger seat, Dean rolled his eyes expansively, and came to a mature decision.
This called for...a chick flick moment. The realisation was not a happy one, and Dean found his face rearranging itself into a petulant frown without his say so. Mentally berating himself (get it together, Winchester, Sammy needs you!), he swung the Impala towards the hard shoulder and winced at the hissing crunch the car's wheels made as they came in contact with chunky gravel. The bumping motion jolted his little brother's gigantic frame, Sam's shaggy head bouncing off of the window with a satisfying clunk.
"What the hell, Dean?!"
Ah, it lives. Pathetically relieved to see his sibling's hazel eyes narrowing in his direction, Dean offered a somewhat lacklustre version of his usual shit-eating grin. Sam didn't look impressed, and looked away with a put-upon sigh. Dean extended an arm, curling his fingers into Sam's plaid overshirt. The material felt soft and over-worn, and he looked hard at a fraying hole just above his brother's elbow instead of his unhappy face.
"Sam," he began, already feeling uncomfortable. "Sam, c'mon, man."
Sam closed his eyes, his forehead wrinkled in exhaustion. Dean's grip tightened slightly, as much an involuntary gesture of concern as a way to keep his brother's attention. Sam's forearm was bowstring taut under Dean's fingers, belying the tension that was keeping them both on edge. When no response seemed forthcoming, Dean tried again, trying and failing to keep the frustration and fear out of his voice.
"You can't just ignore m-"
Sam looks back, his face flushed with sudden anger. "Dude, you're such a hypocrite!"
Momentarily stunned by the unexpected rage twisting Sam's features, Dean said nothing.
"You've been avoiding your crap for months, now you wanna project on me? Screw you, man."
They held each other's gaze for a moment, then Sam broke it. He looked back towards his new best friend, the window, and sighed heavily. "Sorry. Just...I don't want to talk about it right now, okay?" He gently extricated himself from Dean's clenched fingers. Clearing his throat in lieu of actually saying anything, Dean started the Impala, and moved away with a faintly embarrassed blush evident under his freckles.
"Let's just...get this over with," Sam offered. "Then we can go back to the Roadhouse. See if Ash can help us out."
Dean just grunted in reply. Conversation dwindled.
This was gonna be one long-ass trip.
It was interesting, Sam Winchester considered, just how obvious his supposedly bad-ass big brother could be when he was worried. For the three hours they had been driving, Dean had been constantly giving his brother tiny heart attacks every time he took his eyes off of the interstate to glance at Sam. Of course, Dean would never admit out loud that he was concerned (unless, y'know, there's mind control involved), but he was more transparent than the window Sam was currently leaning his aching forehead against. Every time Dean looked at him, he'd unconsciously let out a tiny breath, almost a sigh, that no-one but Sam would realise betrayed his worry. Dean Winchester was an open book to his little brother, just as Sam was sure he was to Dean. Their relationship had become somewhat symbiotic; each sibling's seemed mood firmly dependent on how the other was feeling.
Sam shifted uncomfortably under Dean's surreptitious scrutiny. Dean was famed for his overprotective nature, and, though strangely endearing, it got him into trouble. A lot. Sam's mind jumped back to the awkward scene at the Roadhouse just a few hours before, when Dean had bristled like an angry wolf as Ellen's curiosity got a little too close to Sam's well-being. His growling dismissal of the danger Sam's psychic powers could present had warmed the younger Winchester's heart even as it dropped a block of ice into the pit of his stomach. He had a horrifying idea rooted deeply in his brain, and had done ever since Max Miller. If his powers sent him darkside, if they made him hurt Dean...
...He had a horrible feeling Dean would let it happen.
Sam was yanked out of his dark reverie by the familiar crunch of the Impala's tires on a lumpy gravel road, and the ignoble crack of the side of his face against her window. Suspecting that Dean had gotten bored of his silent concern and had decided to take a more proactive approach, he rounded on his brother as the car came to a halt.
"What the hell, Dean?!"
He softened his glare a little as he noticed Dean's green eyes fall shut in barely restrained relief. However, his irritation rose again when Dean shot him a somewhat washed out variation of his normally devastating smile. If this was a stupid joke...
Sam was in the middle of turning back to his window-slouching position when he felt Dean's warm fingers entangle themselves in his worn shirt. Looking back in surprised incredulity, he noted that a faint blush had spread over his brother's nose, and that Dean's eyes were firmly fixed on Sam's apparently fascinating left elbow.
Oh geez, please don't do what I think you're about to do...
Dean's voice, rough and clearly unhappy, broke into his internal plea for mercy.
"Sam. Sam, c'mon, man."
And there it was. The chick flick moment Dean seemed mortified to inflict was approaching rapidly, and Sam found himself strangely reluctant to give up the disturbing slant his over-active mind had fixed upon. Closing his eyes with a frown (you don't wanna know, Dean, please don't ask me), he jumped a little as his brother's grip tightened. Dean's baffled frustration was obvious in the words he spoke next.
"You can't just ignore m-"
The rage that was so terrifyingly close to the surface erupted in the face of the older Winchester's blatant ignorance of his own point-blank refusal to acknowledge anything close to an issue, and Sam snapped.
"Dude, you're such a hypocrite!"
Disbelief rendered Dean oddly silent. Sam found that once he'd started, it was a little hard to stop, even as guilt niggled unpleasantly in the back of his brain.
"You've been avoiding your crap for months, now you wanna project on me? Screw you, man."
He looked into his big brother's widened eyes for a moment, completely unsure of how Dean would react. This was usually the cue for one of them to throw a painful right hook, shout a few home truths, and quietly reconcile with a muttered aside and a manly pat or two. Maybe even an "I love you, you dope" hidden within the comfortable routine of "Jerk" and "Bitch".
Not this time, apparently. Dean just continued to look oddly wounded, and Sam eventually looked away with a sigh, guilt burning irrationally hot in his chest.
"Sorry. Just...I don't want to talk about it right now, okay?"
He pulled his arm away, careful not to move too fast, as though Dean were a frightened animal, not quite fully predictable, and capable of lashing out. Not too far from the truth.
Wincing as Dean cleared his throat uncomfortably, he spoke up in an attempt to dispel the residual weirdness between them.
"Let's just...get this over with. Then we can go back to the Roadhouse. See if Ash can help us out."
Sam's heart sank even further as Dean only mumbled something intelligible in response. His voice trailed off.
This was gonna be a tough ride.
"And I'm ready for the rain to fall,
Ready, ready for the rain..."
A/N: There, that wasn't too bad, was it? You may be wondering why I used that particular song for the title. Read the lyrics. That's exactly how I see Dean.
Next chapter will reveal where they're going, and why. I hope you enjoyed it!
Music for this chapter: Foreigner - Ready for the Rain.