Hey Everyone! Thank you so much for the reviews! This is still dedicated to Liv, who read it over and gave me adivce!

I don't own Supernatural or it's characters. I only own Wynn and her brother...though, I asked for Jensen for Christmas...

Enter Sandman

Chapter two

"Okay. So Axlyn is kinda small, hey? Only about sixty people beside a lake…" Sam scrolled down the information Dean had retrieved the night before. Dean glanced over at his brother, who was biting his lip, brow furrowed in concentration, no doubt trying to picture Axlyn in his mind. "Becoming a ghost town. Last year alone there were 571 people. That's a major drop."

"Their largest business closed down three years ago." Dean said, stuffing his clothes haphazardly into the blue duffle bag on his bed. "There was a large fire in the basement, a few people died or were injured." He lowered his voice conspiratoreously, for added effect. "Maybe some pissed off spirit, looking for a little revenge?"

Sam shrugged and leaned closer to the computer. "Possible. I'd look at the ones who died first. But if it was a spirit, the fire would have destroyed the bones, hey? Maybe it was someone who died of his injuries?" Sam looked up, watching Dean pull a dirty shirt from his bag and slip it over his head, struggling with getting his arms through the armholes. The long sleeves had been pulled inside the body of the shirt, with him. Sam tried not to laugh and continued. "The bones wouldn't have been destroyed…do you need help?"

Dean growled and pulled the shirt off. With the offending, and oddly enough, difficult object held at eye level, he turned it around in his hands, glaring. Sam laughed.

"Dean, the arms are…" Dean silenced him with a look and began pulling the arms out the proper way. Then he began putting the shirt back on, speaking in a muffled voice as the fabric obscured his mouth.

"Shut up, Sammy." Finally getting the shirt on, Dean straightened it, zipped up his duffle bag and threw it onto Sam's bed. The bag bounced off, scattering a few of Sam's neatly folded shirts into a mess on the puke green carpet.

"Oh thanks!" Sam muttered, getting up and gathering his stuff up again. By the way he was going on, Dean would have sworn it had been hours of work unraveled instead of just minutes. Smiling evilly, he took Sam's place beside the computer and sipped his coffee innocently. The brew tasted like onions for some strange reason. Dean decided he really didn't want to fathom this mystery. Sometimes it was better not to know what was in what you were drinking, especially if it came from a dingy, roadside motel, known for its cheapness, not cleanliness.

"We're headed to Wynn Dodge's house." Dean announced, "She's been covering the case. She seems to be the one most willing to talk." Dean began to close down his computer but a flashing message caught his eye. He had an unread email.

"Wynn might also be a tall blond, single and attractive." Sam muttered, giving his distracted sibling and icy glare. "What about that Andrea? You probably don't remember her. She had a kid and you two still seemed to get along great. She dissed you with the whole pick-up line comeback." Sam chuckled at the memory…and the look on Dean's face when she'd said it. He wished he'd had a digital camera at that moment. Sam would have and made copies to show Dean every chance he got. Unfortunately, Dean couldn't see the evil grin that had spread across Sam's face. He was staring at the computer, mouth open. "Dean?" Sam groaned. "Don't tell me you're looking at porn or something. If I have to see Paris Hilton in night vision again, I'll…"

"Metallica?" Dean whispered. Sam sighed and leaned over Dean's shoulder. It was an email from someone called Reaaper665. Sam nodded and raised an eyebrow. The message was one word, METALLICA.

"Metallica?" Sam asked, confused. "Who sent you that?"

"Dad." Dean answered. He clicked reply and began typing in a message to Reaaper665. Sam sighed and sat down on the bed, watching his brother with a mixture of pity and confusion. Dean had to believe their dad was still helping them, even if Sam knew he wasn't.

"That's not dad's email address, Dean." Sam answered, trying to wash the pitying tone from his voice. "Dad's email is jwinches…" Dean cut him off.

"Sam. He could easily have made a new one…faked a name, address and everything. Please, we run credit card scams and carry fake ID. Do you think faking an email address is hard?" Sam stared over Dean's shoulder, not wanting to meet his brother's glances.

"I had a weird dream last night." He said, trying to change the topic. Any more discussion about dad might make him want to punch something. Dean smiled, his fingers halting on the key board. He cocked an eyebrow and pulled his face into serious mode.

"I wasn't wearing a dress and eating cocktails while being chased by an evil crab, was I?" Sam snorted, shaking his head. Dean nodded, turning back to his message. "Go on then."

"I'm curious about this whole crab thing now." Sam answered, wanting to get down to the bottom of this new mystery. Dean gave him a strange look and continued typing. "No, seriously, Dean. What's with the dress?"

"Shut up." Dean snapped back. "Just tell me the damn dream already." Sam laughed.

"Okay. I was in my room…at the university." Sam stopped, his voice catching. With a quick swallow, he cleared his throat and continued. "But…when I looked up, there was empty blue sky above me and rushing wind." Dean sent his message and leaned back in his chair, still staring at the laptop but his face was set in concentration. He was hanging on to Sam's every word. "I was in a plane…and…I felt alone and scared. It was so strange because I'd abandoned myself."

"Like a whole, Strawberry Blond Max conundrum?" Dean muttered, obviously more to himself then Sam. Sam had no idea what he was talking about and stayed silent, waiting for Dean to continue. When he didn't, Sam cleared his throat again.

"What? Strawberry…"

"It was in a book I read about some psycho serial killer who had like…twelve different personalities and he killed strawberry blonds for kicks." Dean answered. "It was a good book." Sam raised his eyebrows. It seemed everything in Dean's life revolved around entertainment. Dean's brow furrowed and he made a weird gurgling in his throat for a second. "It was just a dream."

Sam shrugged. He wasn't sure it was possible for him to have 'just' dreams. Dean closed the laptop and busied himself with its carrying case, his face still grim. Sam had begun to get worried about him, since they had left Lawrence. He was quieter then usual and seemed on the verge of going over the edge. It was scary for Sam, seeing his older brother struggling. He'd been the one constant in Sam's life. He'd need to talk to him soon, about what happened at their old house…with their mom.

SUPERNATURAL

The morning was almost over before they hit the road. Dean had decided last minute that he needed a shower, leaving Sam to load the car and check out. Once on the road, Dean turned up the tunes and tapped on the steering wheel in time with ACDC, leaving Sam with his thoughts. He needed to talk to his brother, and the trip to Axlyn would be the perfect time in his opinion. This way, Dean couldn't get away.

Reaching over, Sam shut off the music and greeted the constant, loud thrum of the car's engine with grateful enthusiasm. After all these years, he still hadn't developed a taste for ACDC…or any of Dean's music.

"Hey! I was listening to that!" Dean whined, glaring at Sam. "Where the hell are your manners, huh? Turn that back on! You don't shut off a guy's music in his car!" Sam rolled his eyes and covered the tape player as Dean's slender hand strayed toward it.

"We need to talk." Sam said sternly. Dean's face scrunched up in disgust and he groaned melodramatically. He knew when Sam said, 'we need to talk' the younger Winchester would not be diverted. The only saving grace would be a car accident to break the misery…if he were driving another car.

"No, Sam. We don't need to talk. Anything words can fix, ACDC can fix better." Again, Dean tried to turn the music back on and again Sam blocked him. "Don't make me turn this car around!"

"Dean." Sam said, his voice low and pleading. Dean groaned again and slammed his head back into the headrest. He wanted to die right now. "You admit something needs to be fixed?"

"No!" Dean answered, his voice a little snappier then he had intended. "I just don't really want to talk; I want to listen to…"

"You can listen to me then." Dean sighed and made another childish face but remained quiet. "Are you okay? I mean…with mom and everything the other day I just thought…" Sam took a breath and looked away, watching the scenery flash past the window. "I…um…"

He glanced back at his brother who was determinedly keeping his hazel eyes on the road. There was no trace of emotion on his face. It was just a solid, blank mass of nothing that was oddly chilling and comforting. It was a face he knew so well.

"I was thinking that you were upset that she didn't stay very long?" Sam ended pathetically. He didn't know how to voice the issue he wanted to address without causing a rift between them. The shape shifter had voiced Dean's inner thoughts and one of the main ones had been how lucky Sam was. Sam thought maybe because their mom had said she was sorry to him, and not Dean, maybe Dean would get the notion into his head that she had loved Sam more.

Dean swallowed hard and shook his head. Sam wasn't sure what that was supposed to answer but took it as a good sign all the same. "Okay. I was just wondering." He looked away, mentally kicking himself for his tactlessness. Very good, Samuel! That's the way to step around it. But curiosity was now weighing in on him.

"What was mom like?" He asked, realizing he really didn't know much about her. Dad hadn't been the most forth coming on the subject, preferring to focus on the future and his defeat of her killer. He wasn't really one to dwell on Mary's life, just her death. Dean had taken over their mother's role, looking after Sam and his dad…giving up his childhood in one night.

Dean shrugged and smiled suddenly, his eyes lighting up. It was such a startling change from the closed, masked Dean that had sat in the driver's seat a mere second before.

"She was an awesome mom." He answered, a small laugh escaping his lips. "She used to tell the stupidest jokes. I'd laugh to make her happy. When she smiled, she lit up a room. I'd do the wildest things to make her smile." Sam grinned. He'd heard all this before. He wanted something new.

"Did she ever give you any…advice, or anything?" He asked, propping a hand on the car door and leaning his head against it. Dean shook his head.

"If she did, I don't remember. It was probably 'don't lick cold metal' and 'yellow snow doesn't go in your mouth' type stuff." His face relaxed and he tilted his head to the side slightly. "I remember when I was three, at Christmas…just barely remember," Dean sniffed rubbed at his nose for a brief second. "We were unpacking ornaments and I dropped one of mom's favorite glass angels." Sam's mouth twitched. Dad had kept those glass angels. One year, while dad was out doing God knows what, Dean and Sam had found them and put them on the fig tree that was serving as their Christmas tree that year. Dean hadn't said they were moms. "She was so sad but she refused to cry about it. She didn't want me to feel bad…"

Dean paused, accelerating to pass a green Mazda before the Semi coming in the opposite direction closed in to much of the gap. When they were around, he continued. "That night, I taped it up and put it on the tree. The next morning she found it. Dad said she wasn't crying because she was sad about the ornament. She was happy that I had tried to fix it. She was like that. It wasn't what you did; it was what you tried to do."

Sam smiled and glanced at the road. "You're not gonna cry on me, are you?" He teased. Dean blinked and glared at him.

"Shut up diapers! Without me you'd still be in nappies, you know." Dean answered, smirking. Sam raised an eyebrow.

"You potty trained me?" Dean nodded, grimacing as though he didn't want to think about it. "Yeah, right. You probably just stopped changing me and I got sick of being dirty and taught myself, you slacker." Dean snorted and glanced in the rearview mirror.

"Well, Sam, I had to do something. You were seven for heaven sakes." Sam laughed and was about to retort when Dean pointed to the glove compartment. "All this talk about potty training's got me hungry. Pass the jerky in there."

"You're sick." Sam pulled out the beef jerky and tossed it into his brother's lap. "And I wasn't seven."

"Yeah, whatever." Dean answered. Without another word, he turned ACDC back on.

TBC…