Disclaimer – Not my characters, I just use them improperly.

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Wow, thank you all for reviewing, I'm glad you liked the first chapter :) The next one should be up on Thursday/Friday…

Chapter 2

"Dean?" All traces of sleep disappeared at the voice on the other end of the phone, the voice Dean hadn't heard in so long. He blinked. Sam was watching him with a tiny frown creasing his forehead and Dean was suddenly very aware that he was lying in bed with another man, a boy, and his dad was talking in his ear. It was one of the most surreal moments he'd ever experienced.

"Dad?" Dean was rather proud that his voice didn't waver, didn't betray any of his confusion. "Dad, what…how did you get my number?"

"Dean. I-I know it's been a while. I need to see you. We need to talk." His dad sounded brusque, as always. Ignoring the issues between them in favour of business, as always.

"I…where are you?"

"Where are you"

"You don't know?" Dean was honestly surprised. He'd always had the sense that his father was watching him, all through college and later in Elmstead. It had been alternately a source of comfort and annoyance to him. He hadn't thought of John Winchester when he'd made the decision to leave Elmstead, assuming with his admittedly blind faith in his father that John would simply know where he was. Would be tracking him with some sort of hunting instinct wherever he went.

"You've been off the map for the last six months, I assumed you didn't want to be found."

"That never stopped you before." The sharp words were out of his mouth before he could think them through, hold them back. To his shock, John gave a short bark of laughter.

"True. But I thought for once I'd respect your wishes. And I've heard talk of you from a few people I know."

Dean blinked, sitting up in bed and ignoring Sam's questioning look. Of course John would have heard he was hunting again. If someone knew who to ask and where to look, as John obviously would, he and Sam were easily traceable. Which led to the question of what exactly his dad had heard about Sam.

"Dean? I…I wouldn't have called if it wasn't important. I do need to meet with you, son."

Dean took a deep breath that made him feel light-headed. "I-yeah, okay. Where do you want to meet?" Beside him, Sam cocked his head, an earnest expression on his pretty features.

"I'm going to be in New Hampshire for a week or so. Can you get there?"

"Okay…yes sir." He felt himself slipping back into the old familiar role of dutiful son, as if each minute spent talking to his father wound back time. He wished Sam wasn't watching him.

"Good. Call me on this number when you arrive."

"Yeah. Bye…dad."

Dean hung up. The phone was once again a lifeless object in his hand, but he couldn't help staring at it, almost in awe. He'd talked to his father for the first time in years, and already it seemed like he'd dreamt it. The mix of emotions roiling around in his gut made him dizzy.

Sam reached out a hand hesitantly, placing it on top of his own. "Dean? What's going on?"

He couldn't answer straight away, couldn't find the thought processes to formulate a reply. And then it occurred to him that he was actually going to see his dad, with his own eyes, for the first time in years. He looked up, meeting Sam's eyes.

"We're going to New Hampshire. My dad wants to see me."


Sam watched as Dean strode back and forth in the tiny motel room, his bare feet padding on the dirty carpet. Dean was biting his bottom lip, his back tense and his hands clenching.

He'd been silent for a while after hanging up with his father, and Sam hadn't been sure what to say, how to help. And then the older man had slapped the cell phone down on the bedside table and stood, his hands rubbing viciously through his hair.

"God, I just don't get it. I don't get him. What the hell does he want?" Dean spun to face him. "After all this time, why'd he want to see me now?"

He didn't seem to require an answer so Sam let him pace, watching in quiet concern. The sunlight was growing stronger behind the closed curtains and already Sam could feel the cloying heat creeping under the door. He wondered where he was supposed to go while Dean was meeting his dad. Did Dean want him to come along? Should he stay here and wait for Dean to come back? Or maybe this was where they finally parted ways. Sam felt selfish worrying about stupid and trivial things while Dean was clearly so mixed up and unsure of himself.

Mentally shaking himself, he decided it didn't matter right now. Dean needed him to be supportive and helpful.

"Dean. Sit down." Dean blinked like he hadn't even noticed Sam was still there. He followed the instruction like an obedient puppy, sitting on the edge of the other bed so he was in front of Sam. "Okay. Where is he?" Dean cocked his head in question. "Your dad. Where is he?"

"Oh. New Hampshire."

"Okay, so you go to New Hampshire, you meet up with him, you find out what he wants…"

"Wait, wait." Dean interrupted, one hand reaching out across the space between them. "What do you mean, 'you'?"

"What?"

"You were saying 'you'. Sam, you're coming too. Aren't you? I mean, you don't have to…"

"Yeah, as-as long as you want me to. I don't mind, if you want to go by yourself though."

Dean looked horrified. "What? No!" Then he blushed, ducking his head. Sam hid a smile, noticing his own bad habit in Dean's actions and feeling warm inside. "Sam, you do know, don't you? I'm not gonna leave you behind. We're sticking together."

Sam felt his own grin spread across his face.

"Okay. We better get ready, we've gotta get to New Hampshire." Dean stood, the softness in his face replaced by the kind of determined expression more commonly seen in men going off to war. He took a heavy breath and vanished into the bathroom, leaving Sam sitting on the bed.


The silence in the Impala was deafening as they drove away from the motel, and Dean stuck a tape in the tape deck, not particularly caring which one it was. Sam was beside him, studying a map with rapt attention.

Being with Sam was a confusing experience at the best of times. Being with Sam and on the way to meet his father for the first time in eight years was downright terrifying. Dean still wasn't sure what his dad had heard, whether people knew that he and Sam were…doing what they were doing. But he'd been careful, he rationalised. No public displays of affection, no declarations of love where someone could hear them.

No way that his dad could have found out that the seventeen year-old ex-student he was travelling with was more than a friend, more than a travelling companion.

Dean sighed heavily, loud enough for Sam to look up from his perusal of the map with a questioning glance. He didn't say anything, clenching his jaw. They joined the highway out of town, the speeding vehicles on both sides making Dean tighten his hands on the wheel. Sam looked away again, obviously deciding Dean's pissiness was due to his intense and much-discussed hatred of highways, where any fucker could come up a little too close on his car and sideswipe the paint job.

Sam himself was another issue. Dean wasn't good with talking about his feelings, which used to be absolutely fine with him and the parade of girls he went home with. But Sam was something else. The kid needed his reassurance and for the first time Dean wanted to give it. Wanted to be able to sit down and talk honestly for once. But changing was hard, and he didn't even know where to begin.

He unwound the window, letting the heat of the day fill the car. Sam touched his arm lightly and he jumped, embarrassed at himself.

"Hey. You okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good." Dean flashed a bright smile that Sam clearly didn't buy.

"Yeah. Sure. Dean, it's okay to be nervous about seeing your dad." The kid was doing his imploring face and Dean felt a tiny but genuine grin pull at his lips. Maybe it was kinda nice to have someone around who knew you well enough to call you on bullshit. "You can talk to me, if you want."

He wanted to talk to Sam. He wanted to tell Sam exactly what was worrying him. Unfortunately, what came out of his mouth was; "Seriously, I'm fine, Sam. Don't worry about me."

Sam looked at him a moment longer, searching his broad fake grin. When he realised that was all he was getting, he gave a weak smile and turned his head to the window. The grin slipped off Dean's face as soon as Sam looked away and he went back to concentrating on the highway, ignoring the waves of disappointment emanating from Sam's direction.

The lines of tension striped across Dean's body were evident to Sam, even in the fleeting glances he took from the passenger seat. It hurt a little that Dean wouldn't talk to him. Sam had hoped that after six months together, the older man might stop thinking of him as 'the high school kid to be protected' and start to see him as an equal.

He wondered what Dean's father was like, to have this kind of effect on Dean. From the vague mentions Dean had given, Sam had gotten the impression that John Winchester was a strict parent. But Dean loved him, Sam could tell. On the rare occasions when John was brought up, Dean would go quiet for a few minutes afterward, his lips tight and his eyes soft. Sam wasn't sure if it was regret, guilt, or something too complex to name. He only had the barest idea of Dean's reasons for leaving his father and Dean had never elaborated.

A hot gust of air blew in as a tanker truck passed Sam's side of the car. Dean's visible flinch made him smile, turning away quickly so the other man wouldn't catch it. Dean's obsessive worrying over his car was cute. It was also annoying, especially when he refused to let Sam take over at the wheel on long drives.

The slow and sweaty humidity was getting to him, making his head ache. Sam rubbed at his temple with one hand, squinting at the road ahead and the wavy lines of heat rising from the blacktop. The traffic was slowing, cars and trucks and family campervans all squashing together. The smell of exhaust fumes was strong, and Sam rolled up his window, resting his forehead against the glass. Dean was oblivious in the driver's seat, tapping his fingers along to Zeppelin and staring straight in front.


The bright neon lights of a motel beckoned as the car approached. They'd been driving all day, and Sam's nagging head ache had rapidly become a stabbing knife of pain in both temples. The highway had been full of people trying to exit Louisiana, escaping the summer heat before it became any more unbearable. They'd been sitting in traffic jams for hours, both of them sweating and irritable. Sam hadn't even tried to talk to Dean about his father again.

"God bless the man who invented air-conditioning." Dean muttered as they swung into the motel's forecourt. Sam agreed wholeheartedly. "I'll get us a room. Wait here."

Sam nodded, instantly regretting it as his entire head lit up with screaming fireworks. The tape deck was still playing, bass guitars a reverberating backbeat and drums pounding out a rhythm on his skull. He hadn't asked Dean to turn it down. His head would still hurt even without the music, and there was no point in making both of them miserable. Especially when Dean was already so anxious about his father. If the only way Sam could help him was by putting up with loud music, then he could do that.

Dean stepped out from the office room, striding back toward the Impala and Sam. Even in the heat, he was still dressed in jeans and a button down shirt. Apparently Dean Winchester didn't do summer clothes.

"Hey. I got us the end room. The lady said there's a bar down the street. I might go see if I can find a pool game or something. You wanna come?"

What Sam wanted was to lie in a dark room for a few hours with a cold compress. He started to nod his head anyway, then remembered that he wasn't with Jim Miller anymore. He could go and lie in the room with a cold compress if he wanted. "Actually, I'm kinda beat. Can I just stay in the room?"

Dean looked concerned. "Yeah sure. You okay, you look pale?"

"I'm fine, just tired."

Dean handed over the room keys and stood awkwardly in front of him for a moment, hands pushed into his front pockets. "Uh, okay. I'll see you when I get back." He looked around the deserted parking lot, then reached one hand out to stiffly pat Sam's shoulder before turning and walking away.

The room was comparatively clean, the floors vacuumed and the beds made. Sam dropped his duffle onto the floor and staggered into the bathroom, his head spinning. Splashing cold water on his face helped a little, clearing the fug that drifted in front of his eyes.

He stumbled back into the room and flopped down on one of the two beds. His mind recalled the memories of another motel room, the first he'd stayed in with Dean. The older man had taken care of him for a whole week, feeding him and sitting with him. On the fifth day Sam had been so sick of bed rest that he'd demanded Dean take him out. They'd gotten as far as the parking lot before Sam had to sit down, his muscles weak and shaky and his body aching. Dean had grinned at him, a bright and sunny I-told-you-so grin that made him smile back despite the pain.

The wallpaper was stripy. It wasn't helping Sam's head, his eyes drawn to it until it seemed to stand out from the walls themselves, crowding around him in a mess of blue and white. He pressed his eyes closed, seeing the lines still painted on the backs of his eyelids.

He wondered what Dean was doing right now. Probably conning someone out of their money. Sam had watched him work, losing just enough to make his opponent think they stood a chance and then taking a 'lucky' shot that kept them coming back to try and beat him again. He'd offered to teach Sam how to play, but Sam had shaken his head, content just to watch from the sidelines.

A sharp pain like needles in his temples brought him back to the present with a groan. His hands flew to his head, like they could squash the ache between them. Everything around him was blurred, like the heat waves he'd been watching on the highway a few hours ago. The vibrating thrum of a car outside sounded loud, as if he were in a tunnel with the noise echoing around him.

Sam closed his eyes, pulling the pillow from beneath his head and pressing it over his face. It muffled the sounds to a dull rumble and he wanted to cry in relief.

And then the blackness in his vision seemed to open up, shattering into fragments and showing him a scene. Not this, he thought, not again.

The picture in front of his eyes was a dark room. He strained to see despite himself, trying to make out the features and place them in memory, but it wasn't anywhere he'd ever seen before. It was a child's room, a nursery, the shelves and cupboards stacked with soft cuddly toys in pale colours. Their black button eyes seemed to see him, watching him invade the space with his unwanted presence. The big bay windows were thrown open, filmy white curtains catching the breeze and floating on the air.

Movement in the barred crib caught his eye and he felt himself being drawn closer. There was a baby in the crib, awake and silent. It was dressed in a light blue babygro, wiggling tiny feet in the air. The picture lingered on the child and Sam took in the shiny-soft wisps of hair, the little hands flexing and reaching for the mobile hanging above it. The tinny music of a lullaby was playing as the mobile turned slowly.

A cold rush from behind pressed against him, like water trickling down the back of his neck. Sam wanted to turn and look, but the scene stayed focused on the child and all he could catch was a glimpse of heavy blackness in the corner of his vision.

The blackness moved closer to the baby and finally Sam caught sight of the dark man, seeming to float across the carpeted floor toward him. The man felt unbelievably wrong, not allowed in this place of innocence, tainting it with his footsteps. Sam wanted to recoil in disgust.

A woman appeared in the doorway, an angel in a white nightgown, her sleepy eyes confused. She froze upon seeing the man leaning over her child, her mouth opening in a scream. The man turned, and Sam caught sight of his sickly yellow eyes, overshadowing the rest of his face. The woman screamed again and Sam wanted to scream too, to help her, to save her and her baby. But he couldn't move, could only observe as the woman was pinned to the wall beside the doorway, pushed up

Sam gasped, inhaling a mouthful of pillow. He sat up, flinging the pillow away from his face with a violent motion. The room around him was the same motel room, stripy wallpaper and air-conditioning humming quietly. The woman and her baby were gone.

It hadn't happened since he'd found Dean again. He hadn't seen things that he wasn't supposed to see. He'd almost disregarded the first time as a dream, something brought on by his injuries and by stress and worry. Besides, it hadn't played out the way he'd seen it, the werewolf hadn't gotten away and the girl hadn't died in the same way he'd seen in his head. It had just been his mind working on the facts, adding them up subconsciously and mixing them with his own guilt until he had to go back and save Dean.

Dean had never asked how Sam had known where the wolf was going to be, or why Sam had finally worked up the courage to leave his father. Sam hadn't told him about the…vision. It would just be one more thing, one more thing Dean would worry about every time he was with Sam.

The door banged open and Dean walked in, his face drawn and closed. He attempted a smile for Sam, dropping his bag on the floor beside Sam's duffle.

"Hey. Sorry, didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't. I was awake already." Sam ran a hand through sweat-soaked bangs, pushing them away from his face. "You were fast."

Dean frowned. "I've been gone over two hours."

Sam blinked. How long had he been out of it, watching some strange woman and her baby get attacked by a yellow-eyed man?

"Are you sure you're okay? You look sick, man." Dean was watching him with concern in his eyes. The dull light from the neon signs outside made his face look older, painting lines where there were none.

"I'm fine, really. Just…lost track of time. How much d'you win?" Dean's face softened a little, a smile removing the tiredness from his eyes.

"Little over two hundred. Shame we can't stick around, there's some real suckers here."

He stepped into the bathroom and Sam let out a heavy breath. Dean didn't need any more burdens, not right now. Sam was the cause of enough of those invisible stress lines already.