A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed the first chapter. I really appreciated the feedback! Here's chapter two, please read and review!

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Refer to previous chapter.


House of Cards

By: Ada C. Eliana

Chapter 2


The screen door whined on its hinges as it slammed shut. Marty Guenther sighed with exhaustion after a day's work as he entered the kitchen of his old farmhouse. His wife had picked a design for the kitchen over twenty years ago, peach walls and a fruit border running just below the ceiling. She loved it, but him and his son, well they couldn't stand it; been trying to talk her into changing it for years.

He grinned as the smell of meatloaf wafted across the room, and looked in to see his wife at the table, three plates set out and covered, her fingers twisting nervously in her hair. His grin slipped into a frown. It was a Thursday, the night Ella set aside as 'family dinner night' and made sure their adult son attended every week, despite the fact that he had his own apartment. She never wanted him to leave in the first place, but the boy had quite the independent streak in him, and Marty supposed it wasn't cool to bring the ladies back to his mother's house.

So most Thursdays Marty came home to the sounds of laughter and chatter; Dean explaining the most innocent of his latest exploits to his mother.

"Ella?" Marty called, running his hand over his face.

"Marty," she said, startled, her finger still twisted up in her dark locks.

"What's wrong? Where's Dean?" he asked, a million worst-case scenarios running through his head, ranging from a fender bender to Dean being dead at the morgue.

"He's uh… he's visiting with John," she said, her eyes staring at the wall across from her, studying the fading image of a pear on the border.

"Oh," Marty said, his muscles immediately relaxing and his heart slowing down again. "From the way you're acting, I thought something bad had happened," he sighed.

"John called him. Asked him to stop by. Dean said it sounded important. What could that mean, Marty? Why would he do that?"

"I don't know, Ella. Maybe he just wanted to see him?"

"No, no something's wrong, Marty, I know it."

Marty heaved a long sigh and studied his wife's expression, his mind searching back twenty years to the day he called Social Services to report John Winchester's spiraling psychosis. The man had been losing it ever since his wife's death, and Marty had waited two years, thinking he would calm down, he would accept what happened to Mary and move on with his life; that he would get better. But it never happened.

John sold his share of the garage they owned together, started frequenting the house of a local palm-reader, and bought a bunch of guns. When Marty asked him about it John kept raving about the 'thing' that murdered Mary; the evil, otherworldly, supernatural 'thing' that killed her.

He finally had to accept the fact that his old friend John had lost it. Dean was seven, and Sam three, and he could see John leaning on Dean to help take care of Sam already; shirking his fatherly role in search of some elusive answers to his why his wife died. Marty just couldn't let that go on, so he took action.

It appeared that John had been worried about that happening, when the feds took away his kids and had him remanded for a psychological evaluation they found all of their bags packed, they had been planning to leave the next morning.

Once John was declared mentally incompetent, the state sought to have the children adopted. Ella couldn't stand to think of him shuffled around in foster homes. Mary had been her best friend, and since Ella couldn't have children she spent a lot of time with Dean and Sam. So she and Marty decided to seek custody of the boys. Usually three-year-olds were considered too old by the typical white-bread professional prospective parents, but Sam was so sweet and beautiful. A couple: a doctor and writer who had been hoping to adopt for years snatched him up right away. Even though Marty and Ella tried to adopt both of the boys, the judge ordered in favor of the professional couple, and so Sam was out of their grasp.

But that couple did not adopt Dean. He was just too old. And the typical couple worried about any psychological or emotional problems he may have incurred, living with a mentally unstable father. The judge ruled to place Dean in Marty and Ella's care, and so they brought him into their home, and made him their son. And that's what he had been for twenty years.

But Dean's visits to John frightened Ella, she swore she could sense him distancing himself from them after each one, and she knew that John talked about his delusions to him. He never told her what they spoke of, but she could tell from the look in her boy's eyes. She couldn't stand the thought of losing Dean to John, and agonized every minute of his visits, even now, when her boy was twenty-six.


"Dad, what… what do you mean?" Dean asked, sinking into a chair and staring at his father in disbelief. "How do you know it's back, I mean how do you know anything?"

"I have some contacts," John said, his eyes not quite meeting Dean's.

"Contacts? What you've been setting up a network from your cozy little room? Pencil it in after arts and crafts?"

John glared at Dean in response to his comment

"All right fine, but what do you want me to do here?" Dean demanded.

"Go tell Sam what's going on," John shrugged as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

"Go tell Sam? Dad, I haven't seen Sam in twenty years! He wouldn't even recognize me if I showed up on his doorstep! And you want me to do what – say 'Hi Sam, I'm your older brother, and by the way there's a demon after you'? Yeah, like that will work," Dean sputtered.

"It'll have to," John said gruffly.

"Dad… you don't even know him. Hell, I don't know him either. I can't believe that I actually buy in to your 'supernatural' tales half the time, and I've been around you all my life. How am I supposed to drag Sam into this when he's been living some normal life out there all this time?" Dean stammered angrily.

The thought of Sam always caused a sharp pain to punch through his heart. The memories of the brother he had never really gotten to know stored away in the back of his mind, only brought back when he heard the kid's name or saw a brown-haired three-year-old. He had convinced himself ever since Sam's new parents moved away that Sam was better off with them, that he would be safe with them. But it never stopped hurting. And thinking of his baby brother out there somewhere and twenty-two just ached. It was his brother and he probably wouldn't even recognize him if they passed each other on the street. But only one person was responsible for their separation, and he split them up twice – dear old Dad.

"Don't you want to protect your brother?" John accused with irritation. "You need to find him, Dean, and you need to make sure he stays safe."

"Why don't you do it? Oh wait, you got yourself locked up in a loony bin – twice!" Dean mocked. John sent a warning glare his way and Dean deflated slightly. "Fine, I'll find him, I'll talk to him, but I'm not promising anything here," he said quietly, walking towards the door. "And maybe you should see about getting yourself released so you can help too," he added before exiting angrily.


"Mom? Dad?" Sam called as he walked into the front door of the place he called 'home' for the past ten years. "Hello! Anybody home!" A young woman stepped in behind him, her gold curls bouncing as she shut the door. Sam shrugged when he received no reply and tossed his keys on a little table with a bouquet of fake flowers that adorned the entryway.

The house had been decorated by a top of the line interior designer and so it was immaculate, with strategically placed knick-knacks, paintings that matched the walls, and useless furniture. Sam had always delighted in cluttering the place up, and it drove his mother crazy. As a gesture left over from his teen years, Sam made sure the keys were splayed on the table.

"Is that you, Sam?" a female voice shouted, and Sam heard the screen door that led to the garden clink shut.

"Yeah Mom," he called back.

She raced into the room, wearing garden clogs and gloves, dirt covering the knees of her jeans. She took the gloves off and tossed them beside his keys – an action that surprised him, before pulling him into a warm embrace. "I've missed you," she said before releasing him. Then she turned her attention to Sam's girlfriend. "Jessica," she smiled, hugging her briefly.

"Hi Patty," Jessica greeted back.

Patricia Jacobs was a slight woman, small and thin. Her red hair was mixed with white she bore the signs on age on her freckled face. A journalist by trade she had risen in the ranks ever since her, her husband, and Sam moved to California after an unfortunate incident in Kansas.

She ushered them into the living room. "I didn't think you'd be here for another hour, Sammy," she smiled. He winced at the nickname and Jess laughed.

"Yeah well traffic was good and Jess made me keep the top up on the car, something about not wanting to mess up her hair," Sam sighed, mocking her lightly. "So we took the short-cuts instead of the long route."

"Oh you and your convertible, Sam. Really, you'd think it was your baby the way you go on and on about that thing. I don't know where you get it from."

"Ah yes, because Dad never had any special affection for his BMW," Sam jabbed.

"Men and cars," Patty sighed. "Honestly Jessica you better watch out, if he's anything like his father, if it comes down to a choice between you or the car, he just might pick the car," Patty joked good-naturedly.

"Hey now, let's not pick on Christina and me anymore."

"He named it? When did he name it?" Patty sputtered.

"Yesterday," Jess said, rolling her eyes.

"I can name her, I spent my hard-earned money on Christina, she deserves a name."

"Yeah, 'hard-earned' library book re-shelving guy money."

"That was just during sophomore year," Sam frowned. "I got to be an office assistant in my junior year," he laughed.

"Yep, and now you're a research assistant for Professor Clarke, you're moving up in life, Sam," Jess added.

"Where's Dad, anyway?" Sam asked, bluntly changing the subject.

"He should be home soon," Patty answered. Sam nodded, staring around the living room at the family photos on the wall. The most prominently featured one was of a three-year-old Sam with Patty and Dan on the day they adopted him. He looked pensive and nervous, but Patty and Dan were smiling broadly. Dan was a doctor, and had been working in the hospital one night when Dean and Sam came in. He instantly fell under the spell of Sam's puppy-dog eyes and sad smile and couldn't get the child out of his mind. He and Patty had been trying to adopt for years but something always messed it up for them. They got lucky when it came to Sam and were able to take him home almost right away.

Sam didn't really remember much from before he was adopted, he was too young. He did remember being scared, and desperately wanting a certain person to stay with him. Patty later explained to him that he had an older brother; that his brother hadn't wanted to let him go.

Sam had few real memories of his brother. He could however remember his father, and that memory frightened him.


"Dean?" Ella called, jumping to her feet instantly as the screen door slammed shut behind her son. Dean nodded in acknowledgement to her, head down and brow furrowed. He slumped down in the kitchen chair, his mind running through the conversation he had with John, and trying to figure out what to do next. "How was your… visit?" Ella asked tentatively from the chair beside his.

"Don't want to talk about it," he mumbled.

"Okay…" Ella responded, chewing her lip slightly. Dean had always been a mystery of strange moods and the occasional brood. But still, she could always tell when Dean was happy, and always knew when something was upsetting him. She knew better than to push him to talk if he wasn't ready. "How was work?" she tried instead.

"Finished my paperwork," he said with a shrug. "Wasn't real exciting."

Dean was a detective in the Lawrence police department. His original plan after graduating high school had been to join Marty at the garage and fix cars for a living, but Ella stopped him. Working at the garage wasn't good enough for her son, he was smart and could go further in his life than that. Besides, wasn't it every parent's goal to have their child surpass them? He liked structure, order, helping people, and well he also liked guns, so he entered the police academy and quickly rose to the top of the class.

Marty entered the room and joined them at the table, greeting Dean and receiving barely a response.


They ate in silence for a while, chattering off and on about the happenings at the garage, and poor Mrs. Burton's sick daughter. Finally, Dean put down his fork and looked up at his parents. "I'm going to see Sam," he announced.

"Sam as in your brother Sam?" Marty clarified.

Dean nodded. "He's twenty-two now," he added. "I never tried before because I didn't want to interrupt his life or anything but… I just… I want to know what he looks like, and what he's been doing, I want to get to know him," he said, all of his words the truth. His father's demon ravings aside, he did want to see Sam again.

"I think that's a great idea," Ella agreed. "Do you know when you're going to contact him?"

"I was actually thinking of leaving tomorrow," Dean announced sheepishly. "I don't want to do this over the phone, and I have some vacation days I haven't taken yet."

"Do you even know where he lives?" Marty put in, surprised that Ella was not more worried about him looking for his brother – seemingly step one to separating himself from them. Couple that with the fact that he had come to this sudden idea just after seeing John, and Marty had reason to be concerned.

"Well see that's where having access to the police database is so nice. I figured I'd look him up while I'm at work tomorrow. I know the Jacobs moved to California; maybe they're still there."


"How'd your appointment with the cardiologist go?" Patty asked, lifting a forkful of food as she spoke.

"Dr. Barnes said as long as I stick to my pills and avoid stress I'll be just fine," Dan responded, rolling his eyes slightly. "Avoid stress, hah, if that's the best advice he can give then he needs to go back to med school."

"Doctors are always so picky when it comes to other doctors," Sam sighed in explanation to Jessica who was seated beside him at the dinner table.

"That's because who better to know that all doctors are quacks than a doctor?" Dan said, the second part in their old 'inside joke.'

"Just do as he says, Dan," Patty said. "The last thing we need is for you to have another heart attack."

"I know," Dan replied, slightly miffed. "So when are you two kids heading back to your apartment?" Dan asked, swiftly changing topics.

"Tonight actually," Jess answered. "Sam wants to get himself all settled in before classes start. He's been driving himself crazy, already studying for his LSATs," Jess added with a laugh. Sam glanced at her reproachfully. He opened his mouth to explain the importance of scoring well on his tests so that Stanford Law would accept him when a sharp pain flared behind his eyes.

Kneading his forehead with his hands, he let out a small cry that had his family at his side in an instant. "Not again," Jess whispered as Sam's eyes closed, his forehead creased and jaw tight. "It's okay, it's okay," Jess said comfortingly, her hands tangled in his hair. But Sam did not respond.


A/N: Please let me know what you thought!

Until next time,

Ada