Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or any of its characters. This is all just a bit of harmless fun.

Summary: Sam and Dean knew this wouldn't be a normal hunt, but they underestimated how un-normal it would actually be. Takes place during season one, following the episode 'Shadow'.

Author's Note: I'm a new player in town so I appreciate any comments you could give me. The story starts a bit slow so I'll probably be posting the next few chapters within the next week.

-Chelsea

Come Alive

Chapter Two – On the Road

Dean cursed his luck when the light up ahead turned yellow and he was forced to slow to a stop. Fortunately, the intersection was completely empty, and Dean didn't even blink before letting his foot off the brake and employing the accelerator to speed right through the red light.

Taking his eyes off of the road for no more than a second, he grabbed his cell phone and dialed Sam once more. Getting voicemail again, he slammed it shut and threw it agitatedly against the passenger seat. Now he knew how Sam must have felt.

Dean had detached himself for one night. One night. He'd met a beautiful waitress at the bar and gone back to her place once her shift was over. His cell phone had been in his jacket, which had been laying across her sofa in the other room, when it had rung countless times that evening. Each time it had been Sam, calling for help. Dean had been completely oblivious until he'd left her place just after two and realized the number of messages his brother had left.

"I…I just had a vision. Get back here. We need to go."

"Did you get my message? Dean, we need to leave. Now."

"Yeah, it's me. Again. You better be on your way."

"You're starting to freak me out. Where are you?"

"It's me again. Look, I'm really close to leaving your ass behind so get back here."

Dean would have been mildly amused at how Sam's tone had gone from pained and soft to downright pissed, but Dean didn't have the energy to be amused. He was too worried and pissed at himself. Sam's last message had been left around midnight, and it was already after two. The fact that Sam's constant phone calls had abruptly stopped two hours ago had Dean believing that Sam really had left him behind. But Sam would have at least called one more time to tell him that.

The first message played back in Dean's mind: "I…I just had a vision. Get back here. We need to go." His little brother had sounded so broken and scared. After their run-in with Max Miller, Dean knew how increasingly painful these visions were becoming and the fact that he hadn't been there when Sam endured another one had Dean feeling guilty through and through. And it was a whole new kind of guilt when he realized that Sam had been calling him for an hour and a half, asking for him, and Dean hadn't come. Then, he'd stopped calling over two hours ago, and now Dean couldn't get him to answer his damn phone. Maybe he was just enacting his revenge on Dean for not picking up, but that didn't seem like something Sam would do.

The cheap motel sign came into view up ahead and Dean sighed in relief. Although, still, a foreboding feeling went through him because he didn't exactly know what he'd find when he got there.

Dean pulled into a space just outside their room and bolted from the car. He used the key to let himself in and nearly fainted in respite. Sam was stretched out across his bed, fast asleep. Dean's racing pulse slowed, and he shut the door. The sound of it closing jerked Sam awake.

"You're kidding," Dean said. "I call you a billion times and you don't even stir and the door wakes you up?"

"Dean?" Sam pushed himself up and rubbed his eyes. He caught a glimpse of the clock on the bedside table and instantly his eyes shot open wide and he became completely alert. "Two thirty?"

Sleep forgotten, Sam jumped up from bed and scrambled to gather their things. Dean watched for mere seconds before he cut in, "I'll get us checked out and meet you by the car."

As Dean made his way to the motel office, he wondered if there would even be someone there to check them out at this hour, but it didn't really matter. If there wasn't, he'd leave the keys on the desk and vamoose. Dean didn't care if that was against protocol. He wasn't about to go back and tell Sam they had to wait until seven AM when the front desk would open up.

Within minutes, the car was loaded and they were on their way. As they pulled out of the parking lot, Sam told him in an even tone to get on I-70 and head west. After a few minutes of complete silence, Dean finally managed to say, "I'm sorry, Sam."

"Where were you?"

Dean sighed. "I was with a girl. Didn't realize you'd called until I left around two o'clock. If I'd known, I would have been back in seconds."

"Yeah, I know. I didn't think you were just ignoring me." The even tone was gone and replaced with bitterness.

"Then why all the messages? Sounded like you thought I was ignoring you."

"Don't turn this around on me. I get to be the one who's pissed. Not you."

"Fine, but if you know I wouldn't ignore you then how can you be pissed? It was out of my control."

"Well maybe if you'd actually think with your brain instead of your -"

"Hey! I told you I was sorry. Don't you think I feel bad enough? We're on our way now and that's all that matters, OK?"

"Probably too late," Sam muttered.

"You don't know that."

"It was dark in the vision, Dean. We're four hours away, and the sun will be up by then. It's too late."

"Maybe it's gonna happen tomorrow night. We don't know." Dean glanced sideways at Sam and noticed his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes staring out the window like he refused to look at him. "Look, just chill out. We'll get there when we get there."

With that, they lapsed into silence for a long period of time. As much as Dean wanted to believe that Sam's vision wouldn't happen that night, a nagging feeling told him that it probably would. As time went on, Sam's visions were giving them less and less of a head start. Initially, his visions would occur days before the event were to take place, but with Max Miller, they'd only had hours, in some cases minutes to stop it. Sam's visions were progressing, and not in a good way. And that scared the hell out of Dean. But he knew that if they were too late on this one, inwardly Sam would blame himself even though it was Dean's fault they hadn't left right away.

With that thought, Dean realized that he didn't even know what they were trying to stop. "What'd you see?" he asked quietly.

"Huh?" Sam turned to look at him.

"In the vision. What'd you see?"

Sam let out a quaking breath. "A school. A few kids broke in in the middle of the night. Some creature attacked them."

"In a school?"

"Yeah. One kid for sure is dead. I don't know about the other two."

"What kind of creature?"

"I don't know, Dean. It looked like a…lion or something."

"How do you know where we're going? In fact, we are we going?" When Dean was met with silence, he looked at Sam briefly, but in the dark he couldn't read his expression to see what Sam was thinking. "Sam?"

"Look, I wasn't exactly happy about this either, but…"

"Sam…"

"It's in Lawrence."

"Lawrence? Lawrence, Kansas?" Dean marveled over the new information. "Dude, that's two haunts in the same town in one year. That ain't no coincidence."

"Maybe not. But I had a vision about it for some reason so whatever it is, it's probably important." Sam paused. "Maybe I'm connecting with someone again. Like I did with Max."

Dean rolled his eyes, knowing that Sam couldn't see it. Dean hated to think that Sam had ever "connected" with someone as twisted as Max, but it was hard not to see the similarities. "Or maybe you're not. You didn't exactly 'connect' with anyone when you saw that poltergeist in our house. Or when…"

Sam noticed the abrupt way that Dean stopped himself from finishing that thought, but he didn't need Dean to verbalize to know what he was thinking. He was going to say or when he'd seen Jessica die at the hands of the demon.

"I don't know why I saw it, but I guess we'll find out when we get there." Sam looked down at his hands for a second before looking back up at Dean. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For getting so mad at you before. I know you didn't do it on purpose."

"No big deal, Sammy."

"I shouldn't have yelled at you."

"You hardly yelled at me."

"Still, I'm sorry."

Dean took the apology and nodded, signifying that he forgave him, even though forgiveness wasn't really necessary. Dean stared at the road again before asking, "So how'd you know it was Lawrence?"

"There was a banner hanging on the wall. Said, 'Go Lawrence Lions'. I checked it out, and they were the only ones."

"Lawrence lions?"

"Yeah, I thought about that too. Maybe the mascot has something to do with the creature that attacked those kids. I don't know."

"I guess we'll find out when we get there," Dean said, repeating Sam's earlier words. With that, Dean cranked up the Black Sabbath cassette in the tape deck and continued on down I-70, back towards the only place that even closely resembled a home for Dean.