Thanks for the reviews guy!
Things may be a little confusing this chapter, but I'll try and explain things as I go. Also, these first few chapters will be a little slow moving until Sam actually meets Alex and so on.
I still don't own Supernatural. Shocking.
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Alex sat in his truck, outside Stanford University. It was late, and he was tired, but he'd told Dean he would be here, so here he was. He could see the battered Impala on the corner. He still couldn't believe John had given it to him. John had loved that car more than anything, and Dean was, accident prone, to say the least, so when he found Dean driving the Impala, his first thought was 'Idiot. Stealing John's prized possession. He's gonna beat your ass.'
Dean claimed that John had given it to him, and while the kid was clumsy, he wasn't a liar, so Alex let it go. He shivered, wrapping his hands around a takeaway cup of coffee that he'd insisted on if he was going to be doing recon. He sipped it, wondering how Dean was doing. He was probably in the apartment now; he was a genius with a lock pick, once you stopped him from kicking the door down as soon as he saw it. After about ten minutes or so, Dean came out, accompanied by Sam, who appeared to have grown about three inches since he'd last seen him. They climbed into the Impala and drive off, Dean looking over at Alex, concealed in his truck, making sure he was following as they pulled away.
It had been Dean's idea not to tell Sam about Alex yet, so he was keeping his distance, ready to offer a hand when and if they needed it. Not that they would in all likelihood, Dean had been actively hunting for ten years, studying the job for twenty, and was a skilled enough tracker to track Alex down, which wasn't easy.
He followed them steadily through the night, until they pulled into a gas station at dawn. Alex pulled into the dirt road a couple of hundred feet ahead of them. He thought about the day Sam had left, over two years ago. It had been the day he had finally decided to reveal his identity to Dean, the day his brother had left. He knew what that was like; he thought they could maybe find solace in each other, two generations of abandoned Winchesters. He climbed out of his truck and moved towards the cabin in the woods. He stopped when he heard gunshots, and saw Dean firing continuously into a tree, standing some way away from the rest. He saw him sink to the ground, and he saw his reaction when Sam left. He retreated after watching him shatter the side of an old wooden building, deciding to leave him with his anger. Behind him, he saw the Impala's headlight flash, and he climbed out of his truck, heading down the dirt road towards the gas station.
--
Dean glanced at Sam, who had been asleep since about ten minutes out of Stanford, thinking back to the conversation he'd had with him the day he left.
'Dean, I'm leaving. Dad told me to get out, so I am.'
'Aww, c'mon Sammy, he doesn't mean it. It's just you guys butting heads again.'
'Not this time. This time he meant it. I can tell.' Sam continued packing clothes into his bag, sidestepping Dean to get to the wardrobe.
'So give him time to cool down. I can talk him outta it, I know I can-' Sam interrupted him, grabbing handfuls of books from the shelf in the corner.
'Don't bother. If it wasn't now, it was gonna be soon. I had to get out, Dean. This life? I can't take it anymore. It's slowly killing me.'
Dean was speechless. Sam chanced a glance at him, and wished he hadn't. He could have handled it if he was angry, or even sad, but Dean's normally vibrant emerald eyes were blank, vacant.
'That's really how you feel?' Dean said eventually, his voice as hollow as his eyes.
Sam didn't trust himself to speak or meet Dean's eyes, nodding at his shoes.
'OK then,' it was said so softly Sam wondered if he'd heard it, or just imagined it and looked up, but his brother was gone, the door to his room swinging shut slowly.
Outside, Dean pulled out the pistol he carried almost everywhere, even at twenty four and emptied a clip into a solitary tree, tossing the gun away when he was done, dropping it on a tree stump. Then he sank down to his haunches, leaning against the old, disused outhouse. The wood creaked with age, and he stared at the clear sky above him. Everyone left eventually. First his Mom left, then Sam. It was only a matter of time before his Dad left as well. He stood up, retrieving his gun and tucking it into the waistband of his pants. He could see out of the corner of his eye the shadow of someone watching him, but whether it was John, back from a hunt or something else, he didn't care. Something else caught his attention, and he turned to see Sam carrying his stuff out of the house, dumping them into a truck he'd borrowed from Bobby. Dean snapped. He whirled around, snapping his foot out, connected with the side of the shack, his boot going straight through the rotted wood, shattering the plank he hit and the ones around it, leaving a large jagged hole in the side. Who cared? It wasn't as if anyone used it any more. Snorting, he turned back towards the house, intending to fill his pockets with bullets and spend the afternoon shooting the hell out of the ramshackle old shed.
He was just in time to see Sam drive off, Bobby in the passenger seat to drive the truck back when they reached California. That should have been Dean, driving him in the Impala, seeing him off. Dean turned and trudged off into the woods, wanting to be alone. He climbed a tree, the one he got stuck up with Sam when he was ten and sat there, one leg dangling down and closed his eyes, remembering his life before the hunt, all four years of it.
Dean shook his head, shaking away the memories. That wasn't a day he wanted to relive any more than the day he lost his mother. Looking ahead at the truck driving up the road, stopping a couple hundred feet away, he flashed his headlights once, signaling to Alex that he wanted to talk. He saw a figure get out of his truck, and start heading this way. Glancing again at Sam, he got out of the car quietly, leaving the door ajar, and headed up to meet Alex.
'You told him yet?' Alex asked, scuffing his shoe idly on a stone.
Dean shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to clear his thoughts. They were muggy from lack of sleep. 'I'm gonna wait for him to wake up, and he's in a better mood. And from a distance. He's got a hell of a right hook.'
Alex chuckled. 'Just like his old man,' he said, tapping his crooked nose.
'Yeah, Dad's a good fighter. I'd rather fight with him than against him,' said Dean, smiling. There was silence for a couple of minutes, until Dean spoke again. 'I hope he's OK.'
'Hey,' Alex nudged him with an elbow, grinning. 'John'll be fine. He knows how to handle himself. When have you ever known him to get in over his head?'
'Only every other week,' retorted Dean, but he laughed, and the solemn mood was broken. Alex yawned, stretching his arms above his head, the joints popping.
'Well, I'm beat,' he declared, turning back to his truck. 'Night, kid.'
'Night, Uncle Alex' said Dean softly, heading back to the Impala for sleep, however short it might be. Uncle Alex… the words felt right in his head, it felt like family.
--
The next morning, Sam woke with a crick in his neck and his face pressed against the car window. He was alone in the car, but he could see Dean inside the gas station, chatting up the pretty little blonde serving him. He quickly flipped through the events of last night, Dean breaking in, the fight, Dean meeting Jess, telling him about Dad, leaving, learning about the case and waking up here, in the middle of the desert apparently. His foot kicked something on the floor, and he bent down to pick it up, groaning as his back cracked noisily. It was an old-ish wooden box, full to the brim of cassette tapes. He flicked through them idly, he opened the door and stuck his feet outside, stretching his legs in bliss. Six foot four was definitely too tall to spend the night crammed in a car. Never again, he promised.
Dean appeared round the back of the Impala, waving breakfast bars and juice at him, grinning. 'Hey, you want breakfast?'
Sam looked at him, before going back to the tapes. 'No thanks. So how'd you pay for that stuff? You and dad still running credit card scams?'
'Yeah well…hunting ain't exactly a pro-ball career. Besides, all we do is apply, it's not our fault they send us the cards.'
'Yeah? And what names did you write on the application this time?' Sam asked pointedly.
Dean climbed back in the car, uncapping a bottle of water. 'Uh…Bert Aframian and his son, Hector. Scored two cards out of the deal,' he proclaimed, seemingly proud of that fact.
Sam snorted, before pushing the cassettes away. 'Sounds about right. I swear man; you gotta update your cassette-tape collection.'
Dean looked at him, puzzled. 'Why?'
Sam raised an eyebrow. 'Well for one they're cassette tapes, and two,' he pulled out a handful, reading the labels. 'Black Sabbath? Motorhead? Metallica? It's the greatest hits of mullet rock.'
Dean grabbed the cassette Sam was holding, popping it in the player, music blaring out. 'House rules, Sammy. Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cake hole. '
Sam scowled at the use of his old nickname. 'You know, Sammy is a chubby 12 year old. It's Sam, okay?'
'I'm sorry, I can't hear you. The music's too loud!' Dean said, smiling evilly. They pulled out of the gas station, passing a beat up old truck with bags in the back, and a man asleep in the front. Dean blasted the horn quickly, and, at a look from Sam, explained that 'my hand slipped man.'
Unnoticed by Sam, the truck pulled out of its dirt parking space, chugging quietly along behind the brothers, and the two cars drove in peace, apart from Dean's music, until they reached a sign that said 'Jericho 7 miles.'
Sam hung up his cell. He'd been calling the hospital under the guise of an FBI agent, the ID of which he's found in the glove compartment. He didn't know how Dean got it, and he didn't want to. 'All right, so there's no one matching Dad at the hospital or morgue, so that's something, I guess.'
They pulled up by a bridge surrounded by police cars and men in either uniform on a suit. 'Hey, check this out,' said Dean, pulling his box of ID's out again and grabbing two, handing one to Sam. 'Let's go.' He smiled and climbed out of the car before Sam could protest. They headed over to the accident, glancing around them, for signs of preternatural activity, sulphur, or flickering car radios. One of the uniforms was leaning over the bridge, yelling down to the two cops from the diving unit, climbing out of the rover, covered in a thick layer of mud. 'You guys find anything?'
'No, nothing!' One yelled back. Another cop was inside the car, searching for evidence. 'No signs of struggle, no footprints, no fingerprints. Spotless, it's almost too clean.'
A uniform was standing next to the car, talking to the one inside. 'So this kid Troy, he's dating your daughter isn't he?'
'Yeah.'
'How's Amy doing?'
'She's putting up missing posters downtown.'
Dean took this opportunity to approach, using the thing he's learnt from his dad about taking control of the scene quickly and effectively. 'You fella's had another one just like this last month, didn't ya?'
One of the police looked at him, confused. 'Who are you?'
Dean flipped open his ID, revealing an ID and a US Marshall badge. 'Federal Marshalls,' he said, flipping it closed again.
The cop didn't look convinced. 'You two are a little young for Marshals aren't you?'
Dean smiled. 'Thanks, that's awfully kind of you. You did have another one just like this correct?'
He nodded. 'Yeah, about a mile up the road. There have been others before that.'
'So, this victim, you knew him?' he asked, gesturing to the car.
The cop nodded again. 'In a town like this, everybody knows everybody.'
Dean nodded knowingly, and started circling the car, pausing every so often to examine parts, or kick a tyre. He looked up at the cop, who must be feeling pretty uncomfortable by now, this quick fire interrogation style. 'Any connections between the victims besides that they're all men?'
'No, not so far as we can tell,' he said, his eyes darting between the two brothers.
Sam pulled out a small black notebook and a pen in an attempt to look official, despite the jeans and old shirt he was wearing. 'So what's the theory?' He moved to stand next to Dean; if the cop's eyes kept fluttering he might have a stroke or something.
'Honestly?' he started, looking more relieved now he didn't have to address two different people. 'We don't know. Serial murder? Kidnapping ring?'
Dean snorted. 'Well that is exactly the kind of crack police work that I'd expect out of you guys.'
He yelped as Sam stood on his foot. 'Thank you for your time.' He nodded at the other uniforms gathered. 'Gentlemen.' He started walking back to the car, not waiting for Dean. Suddenly his head jerked forward as Dean smacked him on the back of his skull. 'Ow! What was that for?' he complained, glaring.
'Why'd you have to step on my foot?' pouted Dean.
'Why'd you have to talk to the police like that?' Sam asked, rubbing the back of his head.
Dean looked at him like an idiot, which Dean probably though he was. 'Come on. They don't really know what's going on. We're all alone on this. I mean if we're gonna find dad we've gotta get to the bottom of this thing ourselves.'
Sam cleared his throat, signaling the arrival of the sheriff and two important looking men in suits.
'Can I help you boys?' the sheriff asked.
Dean straightened up, trying to look official. 'No sir. We were just leaving.' The men in suits were walking past at this time, and Dean nodded at them, acknowledging them. 'Agent Mulder. Agent Scully.' He chose to ignore the glares from behind the shades, and headed towards the car, Sam on his heels.
--
Alex, having watched the scene unfold before his eyes, concealed down the road, laughed and shook his head. Only Winchesters would have the bare faced cheek to lie to law enforcement like that. No, he thought, only John's boys.
He pulled out onto the road, heading for the motel he and Dean had prearranged, ready to set up base camp there. What he didn't notice was Sam watching him leave, recognizing the same truck from Stanford. He and Dean were being followed.
--
OK, shameless self promotion time!
I think you should all go read my other SPN fic, All We Are. It's one of my favourites to write, and will hopefully be around for a while. Go, enjoy!
Also, go vote on the poll on my profile!
