A/N: Thanks to anyone who drops a review. Your kindly prodding over the last few years (eek!) got me back into the FF pool again. So, I thank you. I appreciate you. I dedicate this story to you. I am sorry I can't keep up timely with all the PM's I'm getting so here are some general answers to the most frequent questions I'm getting:
Yes, this story has a slower start than the others. We've jumped ahead 4 years since IN THE BEGINNING so it needs some real estate devoted to exposition covering that time.
For those who visited my FB author page and scrolled deep: Yes those are photos of me with SPN co-star Jim Beaver (Bobby Singer) and SPN Producer Jim Michaels. We talked politics, the show, and they got autographed copies of my novels (Jim Beaver also autographed his book for me) over breakfast a while back. I also met up with Jim Beaver at a play he wrote and performed in Hollywood; I attended opening night so that's where the red carpet photos with him were taken.
-oOoOoOo-
Morning rudely came exceptionally early for John. The dark hours after Dean's return dragging endlessly for the family patriarch. Dean's bizarre comments before going to sleep gnawed on John and drove away all hope of sleep. When his alarm sounded, he was out of bed and ready for the day with a heavy feeling of dread in his chest. He usually left the spying in the house to his wife, but he made it a point to peek into Dean's room as he passed by that morning. He was relieved to see his son sleeping. It caught his attention that he still wore his clothing from the night before: a dark hoodie and some faded jeans. He had kicked off his boots and socks to reveal dark, shiny colors on his toenails. John stared at them but shelved his questions for another time as he also noted Dean was sleeping on his side with his back to the door. More often than not, Dean was a belly sleeper, dozing off on his stomach while clutching his pillow with desperation like it was a life preserver.
Maybe the girl of the month likes spooning, John thought silently but the humor felt stale and fell flat in his mind.
With worries now churning in his mind, he stumped down the stairs and to the kitchen where coffee beckoned along with the beginnings of an immense breakfast that looked more like Christmas had arrived already rather than loomed several days in the future.
"I was joking about the feast for the prodigal son," John said as he spied the mountain of pancakes teetering on the counter.
"You didn't get much sleep, and it's Sam's last day at school for 10 days," she explained.
"And Dean is home," John added and received a guilty grin from his wife whose late night worries appeared to have vanished just as his own had bloomed.
"You all need to eat," she said. "Whatever Dean's doing with his money, food obviously isn't a high enough priority. He looks too exhausted for this thing to just be a cold. And even if it just a cold, he doesn't fight those off as well as Sam because…"
"Because of the organ that shall remain unmentioned," John rumbled. "Ix-nay on the een-splay, Mary. The last thing any of us need is to revive that lament—unless you want Dean writing a Christmas carol about his missing organ."
Mary nodded her agreement to curtail the subject but smirked as she turned back to the stove as the bacon began sizzling. There was a lightness in her face that did not fit with her previous mention of worry over whether Dean's stuffy nose was fatal. Her immediate and most desperate concern was put to rest as soon as both of her boys were under her roof once more. John shook his head as he sipped his coffee and tried to convince himself that his own worries should take a cue from that and settle down. He tried telling himself his pangs of fear were probably fueled more by lack of sleep than facts. After all, his wife's senses about anything that posed any danger to their children were always much more acute than his own. She would see danger in a butterfly landing on Sam's nose. Her renewed happy mood gave John a flicker of hope that he was misconstruing his own observations.
As the inviting smells of a hearty breakfast filled the house, noises from the upstairs increased. Sam eventually appeared, bright eyed and eager for his final day of school for the year. It was an unexpected eagerness. He generally enjoyed school and treated breaks from it like a punishment.
"You've only got half a day today, honey," Mary said to him. "If you don't want to ride the bus, you can come to the library and I can bring you home rather than take a lunch."
"You don't need to do that," John offered. "Dean can pick him up. First thing he's going to do is go visit the love of his life."
John made the remark without any sarcasm or judgment. His son had rebuilt a classic muscle car over the course to two years and treated the machine like a pampered mistress. It wasn't quite the masterpiece that John's own 1967 Chevy Impala was, but he agreed that the shiny, black, 1969 Camaro Z28 was a thing of beauty. He was proud his eldest son revived her from her skeletal state and loved her the way she deserved.
"That car hasn't been driven since June," Mary reminded him. "It's been locked up at Bobby's for months. It'll be dead where it sits."
"Bobby has the battery on a tender so it'll fire without hesitation," he replied. "He also runs it once a week to keep the seals and belts working. Dean made him promise."
"It doesn't have snow tires," Mary added.
"He knows how to drive," John said with emphasis as he opened the paper—skipping the front page and going to an interior one to observe the ad his partner was running for their upcoming January service specials. He nodded, glad this time they spelled all the words in the advertisement correctly. "Dean poured hundreds of hours into that car, Mary. He's not going to do anything reckless that will damage it."
"Yeah, he cares about a stupid car more than he does people," Sam muttered with a scoff then stuffed a piece of toast in his mouth as he caught his father's heavy stare.
A chill settled over the warm kitchen as Sam finished his breakfast in silence. It was into that tense atmosphere that Dean appeared, still wan in appearance as he rubbed his sunken eyes. Without asking his preference, Mary placed a heaping plate of pancakes in front of him. He merely nodded his thanks then filled a mug full of black coffee and let the scalding black water slide down his raw throat. He opened his eyes enough to see his father staring at him.
"Breakfast of champions," Dean croaked and offered a weak grin.
"Know what works best to help you wake up in the morning?" his father remarked. "Getting enough sleep at night regularly."
"Good tip," Dean nodded and offered a thumbs up before he began drowning his pancakes in syrup. "I'll remember that."
"Like you remembered to call with your travel plans?" John asked.
"Uh, I'll try to remember it better than…," Dean replied, but his words trailed off.
His eyes fixed on the headline in the paper. Without asking, he snatched the pages from his father's grip and dropped them over his plate as he gaped at the lead story: FROZEN BODY IDENTIFIED AS LOCAL REALTOR.
"What do you think you're doing?" John asked gruffly, but Dean did not appear to hear.
He stared at the words in front of him, several popping off the page and stinging his eyes: Lucy Reese; deceased; acute hypothermia; Simpson house. Dean's breath snatched in his chest as his throat went dry. His appetite vanished and a chill slithered under his skin.
This evil crap really is everywhere, he thought as the hopes he had that returning home would restore some of his will disappeared just like Lucy's last breath.
"Son, I was reading that," John continued sternly until Dean looked up with eyes so profoundly lost that the elder Winchester tugged the paper back and scanned for what could have caused the expression. "Lucy Reese?"
"What about Lucy?" Mary asked, peering at the page then gasping.
"She's Tommy's sister," Sam scoffed, thinking of his best friend's older sibling, the one who used to only pay chauffeur to her little brother when he would be going to Sam's house (and she did so only to try and finagle a chance to see Dean and thrust out her chest at him in her low-cut blouses). "Remember, she was the girl Dean was 'just friends with' in high school. She's engaged now."
"No," Dean said quietly pushing away from the table as he turned to leave the room. "She's not anything anymore."
Sam blinked and looked at the stunned looks on his parents' faces before leaning across the table to see the source of their despair. As he read the first paragraph of the article finally publicly naming the victim of the sudden death in town days earlier, a cold sinking feeling began in his stomach. He turned to speak to his mother only to see her slipping out of the kitchen—no doubt following his brother who had abandoned his breakfast. Sam swallowed and looked to his father instead.
"But Lucy was Dean's age," Sam gaped. "She can't be dead. How does someone her age just collapse and die on her way home? That makes no sense."
"Eat your breakfast, Sam," John ordered as he pushed away from the table.
"I already ate," he gestured to his empty plate.
"Then eat Dean's," John said with an eerie, controlled calm as he began to follow his wife. "Your brother's lost his appetite."
-oOoOoOo-
Neither Mary nor John got much of a response from Dean after they tried to speak to him. He had returned to his room, leaving the door strategically ajar as he figured at least one of them would stick their head in out of obligation. He brushed off their concern with a practiced poker face (the one that won him most of his electricity and grocery money each month). He knew the trick with parents on the lookout for trouble was to let them see just a bit but hide the tonnage that really existed. So he copped to being sucker punched by the news about his high school classmate's death. He admitted it nixed his hunger for the moment and asked to be left alone for a little while.
He offered each piece with rolling eyes, snappish tone, and salted in a few coarse words for good measure. They'd never have believed him otherwise. After each departed, he lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling, listening to the thump of his heart against his sore ribs. The part of him that remembered when sorrow for the unfortunate and untimely death of someone ached as well. He'd seen a lot of death in the last year and a half. All of it was messy. None of it was ever going to leave him. He heard the screams of possessed people shrieking through their exorcisms; he smelled the acrid smoke of burned corpses of freshly slayed monsters; he would wake up bathed in sweat and initially think it was the spray of blood from a severed head.
He thought it strange that his newest hobby left him wondering what was actually harder for him to survive: academic classroom lectures or hunting the big, bad fuglies that tore humans to shreds for food and kicks.
Lucy's death was reportedly an accident: a slip leading to a head injury that resulted in death by hemorrhaging and severe hypothermia. The paper quoted the Sheriff as stating there was no foul play and that the investigation was closed. Dean could point to no detail in the article to make him doubt that finding, but that didn't mean he believed it.
In his recollection, Lucy Reese was many things: a bit of an airhead; entirely too hung up on wearing the right labels and getting her hair and eye makeup just right; and a horny sex pot. She was the captain of the cheerleading squad and a gymnast during her high school days, which was where Dean's doubts began.
She'd been dropped during lifts and pyramids and knew how to hit the ground without getting badly hurt. She was nimble and flexible and graceful generally. No stubbed toe, slip on the ice, or missed stair tread was going to leave her tumbling to the ground so ungainly that she fractured her skull. The Vegas money said if it wasn't an accident, then the next most likely cause was human—a pissed off fiancé or some nutjob who crossed her path—but the cops weren't thinking there was anything strange. It was obvious to Dean that strange was the only option on the table. Healthy, coordinated girls with a big ring on their fingers didn't accidentally die in the snow two miles from home for no reason.
Knowing that left him only one logical option. He reached for the phone resting on the nightstand beside his bed and decided to call his high school buddy. He dialed the sheriff's department and was eventually connected to newly-hired Deputy Charles Pratt.
"Chuck," Dean said. "I owe you lunch for the ride last night. Can you meet me at the dinner today?"
"You buying?" he replied and got an affirmative answer. "Then hell yes. I gotta be in court at noon for a hearing on speeding tickets so get there early—say 11. They'll be serving lunch by then. Hey, I forgot to mention it last night, but did you hear about Lucy?"
"Yeah," Dean swallowed hard. "I read about her in the paper this morning. You're Mister Insider now. You can tell me all about it at 11."
"Not much to say," Chuck sighed. "A fluky accident is all. Man, I just saw her that morning. Just goes to show you."
"Show you what?"
"You never know when your time's up," Chuck replied.
"If only," Dean mumbled before disconnecting.
-oOoOoOo-
As mid-morning rolled around with bright sunshine acting as deceptive camouflage for the still freezing temperatures, Winchester Auto Repair was experiencing an expected (if chaotic) increase in calls for tows as batteries died and drivers landed their cars in ditches after the previous night's snow. John left his two workers to man the repairs that were in the bays and took over the phones while his other employee took out the tow truck to fetch the next round of customers.
Despite the active morning, his mind kept straying to home and history. Home was easily explainable. He was worried about Dean and felt for the kid. He had just learned the girl John was certain was more than a spit swap partner in high school was going to be cremated that day and a private funeral held for just her family the day after Christmas. Dean held no torch for the late-Lucy Reese, but the few people on the planet Dean allowed to know the real him (rather than just the façade) were ones he actually liked. Lucy Reese had been a member of that small circle.
The history reason niggling at John's mind was less obvious and nearly impossible to quantify. Until he read about the discovery of the body days earlier, he'd never heard of the Simpson House. He'd never even heard of Polly Decker Road, but that didn't mean it wasn't famous in its own way in Sioux Falls. Local legends, particularly those of the haunting variety, often got passed around by the younger set. John did not grow up in Sioux Falls. His sons had to some extent, but he was not going to ask them if they knew spine-tingling tales about the house. He and Mary had a pact. There would be no mention by either of them of anything supernatural to their children. Ever.
However, that didn't mean John couldn't ask another local expert. The trouble was, he was out of town and unreachable. That left John with only one reasonable option: Call Harvelle's Roadhouse.
Bill and Ellen Harvelle ran a dive bar that served greasy food to truckers and hunters who passed through eastern Nebraska in the vicinity of Dakota City. Their joint was actually 15 miles from Dakota City, but the town was a speck on a map and was only found by those specifically looking for it. The out of the way nature of the place made it an ideal locale for hunters needing a meal, a drink, or a hand. It also left the Harvelle's as a hub of sorts for information. Ellen served in that role fairly often, playing dispatcher and messenger between hunters when her husband was on the road. She gave up hunting when their daughter arrived, but she never convinced Bill he to do the same.
"Uh, Harvelle's," an unsure voice answered as John phoned the hole in the wall establishment. "What can I do you for?"
"I'm looking for Ellen," John replied. "Tell her it's John Winchester."
"Winchester?" the confused voice with the slight southern twang replied. "Like the rifle?"
"Yeah."
"Sorry, no can do, compadre," he answered. "There's been a… well, something happened and…. Wait. Hold on."
The sound of a moderately full if subdued room filled the line as the phone got handed off, and the voice John needed to hear but did not expect to locate chimed in.
"Mary?" Bobby Singer questioned.
"No, it's me," John answered his neighbor, the man who his sons adopted as a family member six years earlier when the family settled in Sioux Falls just down the road from the junkman/hunter.
"John," Bobby's voice flattened. "What's wrong? The boys okay? What about Mary?"
"They're fine, mostly," John said. "Dean just got home last night. Looks like hell; probably feels like hell too, but some of that is what happened this morning, which is why I'm calling. I was actually going to leave a message with Ellen to see if she could locate you."
"You need something?"
"Information," John said, lowering his voice out of caution and closing the door to his small office at the back of the shop. "What do you know about the Simpson house here in town?"
"The what?" Bobby questioned. "Where is it? Who lives there?"
"No one lives there," he answered. "It is an abandoned farmhouse on Polly Decker Road."
"You mean the Decker farm," Bobby corrected him. "They owned a chunk of land east of my place on the other side of those woods. Ran a farm there through the 40's, I guess. Now that I think about it, the youngest daughter married a guy named Simpson. Had a couple kids. Wife died in the '50s. Son died in Korea not long after. Daughter ran off to California or something like that—wanted to be the next Marilyn Monroe. I think her father took off to bring her home, but he never came back. Why?"
"So that house never had any… activity?" John asked painfully.
"Activity?" Bobby repeated. "You mean a ghost? No. Why?"
"Someone died there last Friday—one of Dean's friends from high school," he said.
"Deputy Dipshit or Loose Barbie?" Bobby asked.
It wasn't a deep bench when listing those who could be considered Dean's friends. The former Sheriff's idiot son was Dean's tagalong and shadow, a baseball buddy who played catcher and took a few too many shots to the head without a helmet when runners stole home. The other candidate was his Friday night entertainment, a one woman harem who asked nothing of him but also offered nothing in return other than fun fondling in the back of a pickup.
"It was Lucy Reese," John reported. "The Sheriff ruled her death an accident. Slipped on the ice, hit her head, then laid out in the freezing temperatures all night and died of exposure."
Bobby sighed. It wasn't impossible. It didn't sound suspicious exactly. There was never any sign of trouble at the old dwelling. Then again, no one ever went there. It was out of the way (which usually attracted kids looking for trouble and party spots), but there was no electricity or water there once the family pulled up stakes so even the local delinquents avoided it. There were plenty of other spots that lured the local teens. The quarry up the road from Bobby's salvage yard was the true prime real estate for lover's lane liaisons and bonfire bashes.
"Never been anything there before," Bobby said. "You think there's something?"
"No," he sighed. "I just… I thought I should check. Mary said she had a feeling something was… off. Then this girl dies. Actually, the girl died first. Then Mary got to worrying about Dean coming home. You know what, I'm blowing this out of proportion. Forget it."
Bobby allowed the man his moment of suspicion, whether it was triggered by his own tingling nerves from a limited career as a hunter or whether it was jump-started by his wife's Jedi level senses. The Winchesters were always looking out for anything odd that might in anyway get within a mile of their kids—not that Bobby blamed them (or didn't act the same way himself). He just didn't see any dark shapes on the horizon because of a winter accident. The only thing that gave him any pause was learning the identity of the victim, and even that feeling wasn't so much a worry about anything supernatural as it was general concern for how Dean might take the girl's death. Rumors about still waters running deep were an apt estimation of what went on behind Dean Winchester's green eyes. Since leaving the most turbulent of his teenage years behind, he had developed a poker face of epic proportions to the point that even Bobby, who knew the boy like he knew his own handwriting, now occasionally wondered what was going on in the kid's head.
"How's Dean taking the news?" he asked solemnly.
"He said he was shocked then said he didn't want to talk about it," John replied. "He's still fighting with Sam so that's not helping."
"Idgits," Bobby grumbled. "Well, let them know I won't be around for the holiday. Won't be back until the New Year probably."
"Why?" John asked. "You out of retirement?"
Since the Winchester boys took up residence down the road, the old hunter had hung up his salt guns and made himself the hunter's helper in the form of head researcher or fake law enforcement supervisor, news editor, or whatever it was the roving band of monster killers needed on the phone in a pinch. Bobby had left town with little notice and fewer details a few days earlier, and it was the longest he'd been gone from Sioux Falls since the Winchesters began calling the town home.
"Pulled off the bench for an emergency," he said with regret. "Ellen called me. Bill was in a bind. He hunted a while back with this nutcase called Gordon Walker, fancies himself the Vampire Slayer. Well, Bug-Eyed Buffy got a hair across his ass when Bill and Jefferson rolled into town looking for the fang Gordon was hunting. They spooked the nest or rousted some of it—depends on which story you hear. Gordon wasn't pleased. He decided to flush what was left into the open so he set them on Bill and Jefferson, who had moved on to another town and another case. The thing is, when those bloodsuckers get your scent, it's for life. The way Jefferson tells it, once the vamps tracked them, it turned into a bloodbath in an old warehouse outside of Peoria. Gordon took one head then got his own bashed in. He crawled into concrete and steel room to bleed in peace while Jefferson and Bill took on three vamps. Jefferson got one, but another got the drop on Bill. He was hurt bad. Jefferson was sure he was done for himself with two ready to chomp on him when some guy, another hunter, showed up. He took out one of the fangs. The other ran. Jefferson decided to follow that one thinking Bill was already gone."
"Was he?" John asked with dread.
He'd never seen a vampire kill, only heard about them from a crazed hunter named Daniel Elkins in Colorado. The old hermit claimed he had the only surefire way to kill a vamp but would never say what it was. All stories told by those who knew him said he used a machete like the rest of them, but there was something in Elkins' eyes that made John not so sure. What he was sure of was that he was glad he never faced a bloodsucker. They were among the most vicious and nearly indestructible monsters that roamed the land. Just thinking about them gave the former Marine chills.
"Bill was nearly gone, but this new guy, Hawkins," Bobby explained with a touch of thankfulness in his strained voice, "he hauled Bill to his car and got him to the ER. They got Bill stable enough that he was able to call Ellen and talk to her and their daughter and at least say goodbye before…"
John groaned as the old hunter fell silent. Bobby roughly explained that Jefferson finally returned, guilt ridden about not killing the fang that escaped and felt worse still after learning he left his friend behind still pumping blood. Like Bobby, Jefferson wanted to thank the mysterious Hawkins, but the guy had disappeared before Jefferson arrived at the hospital. He called Bobby, who was on route still. The two hunters then bogarted the body from the morgue. Bobby reported they had just brought it back to Nebraska that morning. They'd be holding a hunters funeral that evening.
"How is Ellen?" John asked.
She was a strong woman in his recollection. He owed her for her role in extricating his sons from their custody in Chicago so that they could return home. John wasn't sure how to repay that, but hearing her husband had just died trying to rid the world of a vicious menace reminded him that the universe didn't seem to care if there were good deeds, good men, or thanks given when there was a job well done.
"She's shattered but don't show it," Bobby sighed. "The daughter is hell-bent on hunting down Gordon. I recommended Ellen handcuff Jo to her to keep an eye on her. She's turning 16 in a couple months and apparently can already hotwire a car and fields strip a rifle as well as I can. She was her daddy's girl and now she wants blood."
John nodded. He understood wanting to kill the thing that took your family. He wanted that, even when he thought it was a man, after his boys disappeared. He had wanted to drain the life out of whoever (or whatever) stole his family. Now, years later, he just wanted to forget all of that and all he knew about what might be responsible and how to put down any of those threats. It reminded him suddenly of Dean's odd comment the night before: I get why some people go off on their own to live in the middle of nowhere away from everything.
"She was raised in the life?" John asked, shaking the chill from his bones that his son's words raised.
"Yeah," Bobby said. "Bill and Ellen thought the best way to protect her was to let her know what was out there. Ellen don't want her hunting—Bill didn't either, but he made sure she knew how to shoot and throw knives, just in case."
John heard the mild rebuke in the man's tone. Bobby disagreed with the Winchester's decision to keep their sons in the dark about what lurked in the shadows. There was a time when it appeared the revelation was inevitable, after a camping trip nearly turned deadly when a Wendigo went after Sam and Dean. Somehow, the big lie that it was just a bear caught on and no more was said about the terrifying adventure.
"I'll tell Mary and the boys you're out of town for a funeral," John said quickly. "We'll see you when you get back. Thanks for the information on the Simpson or Decker house, whatever it is. Good to know there's nothing there."
"It's just two miles from my place as the crow flies," Bobby assured him. "If anything was there, I'd have hunted it years ago."
-oOoOoOo-
Emery's Diner sat in the middle of Crazy Horse Avenue, a fairly busy chute off North Main Street. The diner was not a favorite haunt for police, prosecutors, or local politicians as it was far from the municipal offices. That alone endeared it to Dean. It was also just two blocks from the high school, which made it a convenient stop for him when he used to go from school to his afterschool job at an autoparts store just down the street. The people at the diner didn't much care what was new or popular in Sioux Falls. They liked gossip as much as anyone, but they were a blue collar crowd—city road and sanitation workers, construction crews, utility workers, and even a few mechanics from Dean's father's shop. The place had a familiar feel to it for Dean, and the waitresses (one old enough to have babysat him and the other old enough to be his mother) liked to flirt with him. He obliged usually as it often got him a slightly bigger slice of piece or extra strip of bacon.
"Welcome home, Hon, and Merry Christmas," Martha Blanchard said, the aging and doughy waitress who had worked there nearly all of her adult life. "The usual?"
Dean nodded as she jotted down his order of a bacon cheeseburger with fries. When Chuck arrogantly said "me, too" she offered him a blank stare and made him give his order—the same one as Dean. Dean smirked. He was certain Martha knew precisely what the deputy wanted to order; she just disliked him on principle as his father put her son in jail for boosting cars years earlier.
The frigid air left a heavy frost ring around the diner's windows, partially obscuring the street where passersby hurried along with their faces buried in scarves and immense plumes of frozen breath escaping like lost souls. The warmth and bustle of the diner kept Dean sufficiently distracted from the street that he did not see the tall, stick-like kid who happened by, nearly tripping over his recently big feet upon spotting Dean seated in a booth. With troubling thoughts and a desire to hitch a ride rather than shiver his way to the library, Sam Winchester ducked into the diner and slid into the booth behind the one occupied by his brother and the jackass that liked to claim he was Dean's best friend. As Sam did, the duo's order arrived.
"One bacon cheeseburger—I had them throw on extra bacon for you-and curly fries," Martha winked at Dean. "Let me refill that coffee for ya, Hon."
"I could use a refill, too," Chuck said eagerly as she slapped down his plate with a clatter without bothering to recite his order.
"Sally's got some left in her pot from early this morning," Martha snarled. "This one's fresh."
"Right, so why don't you just…," Chuck began, leaving Sam smirking mercilessly at his attempt to get remotely kind service only to fail with the older woman ignored him.
"Dean, honey, can I get you anything else?" she asked. "You look they're starving you at that school."
"No thanks, sweetheart," he replied smoothly (as expected), which left the departing 50-year-old giggling like a teenager whose crush just looked in her direction.
"Mean, old bitch," Chuck grumbled as he viciously spattered his burger with ketchup.
"Hey," Dean warned. "She is not. Your dad was a dick to her. She's just repaying the favor."
Chuck scoffed.
"That's him, not me," he complained.
"Yeah, well, we pay for our parents' screw-ups sometimes," Dean remarked in a voice that struck Sam as both cold and wise beyond measure with sorrow and understanding.
"I'll bet that old bat wouldn't even smile at me if I paid her $100 to do it," Chuck grumbled.
"Well, why don't you try that next time," Dean suggested. "So, what's the news in 5-0 Land?"
What Chuck offered did not surprise Sam much. Sioux Falls was not a small town, but it was not a bustling metropolis either. If anything big had occurred recently, everyone would be talking about it (including the elder Winchesters parents, who would have mentioned it to Dean if he bothered to stay in touch with any of them, Sam thought viciously). For the most part, Dean seemed uninterested in what Chuck related. Sam used to wonder why Dean was friends with Chuck. After a while, he realized it was mostly because Chuck never asked anything of Dean and didn't seem to care what anyone else thought of him. Chuck just liked hanging out with the Sioux Falls version of James Dean. There was a rebellious and surly air about Sam's older brother that made many people talk about Dean and more than a few want to be friends with him but left very few brave enough to try to actually know him. Sam always found that reaction laughable. His older brother had a steely glare and brusque ways about him, but he was actually kind of a teddy bear deep inside. Sam knew that, in truth, the only person Dean really didn't like on the planet was himself.
That reminder tugged on the knot that formed in his chest at the breakfast table that morning. Yes, he was still mad at Dean. No, he did not want to just drop his anger like the issue causing it never happened. But the look on Dean's face as he read his sort of ex-girlfriend's name in the paper haunted Sam. It had hurt Dean, honestly cut him deeply and caused him pain in a way that Sam had not seen since the year their mother nearly died of cancer. All morning in his classes, Sam kept straying to that hollow and hurt look and felt a desperate urge to do something to stop it. When he was little and afraid or sick or hurting, Dean always found a way to make it better. Most of the time, it was just knowing Dean was there and he wasn't alone that did it for Sam.
Unfortunately, that would not work for Dean. He was a loner. He liked to pretend he didn't need anyone, and while Sam really didn't buy that, he also knew that his older brother had proven it sufficiently to himself to the point that Dean believed it. It was, in fact, one of the reasons Sam was not currently speaking to him.
Sam also knew he could not do for Dean what he had done for his mother when she was ailing. Prayers, Sam realized, only worked on those who believed. His mother always said there were forces of good in the universe and they took care of the bad things. She even said once that there were angels watching over all of them. Sam was certain that was true. His mother recovered, almost miraculously, from what should have been a fatal bout of cancer. He knew she had done it through the wonders of science, a desire to live, and her youngest son's prayers.
Dean didn't believe in guardians of the universe. He didn't believe in God or angels. He didn't even believe in doing homework on time, calling to check-in when required, or obeying the law if it was inconvenient for him to do so. Saying a prayer for Dean Winchester would have been a waste of time and breath, his little brother knew. But that didn't mean Sam wasn't willing to try something to help. Being mad at Dean was one thing; watching him suffer and doing nothing to try to make it stop was something else.
"So, about Lucy," Dean began as Chuck ran out of other things to say. "She really just smacked her head and died?"
"Well, kind of," Chuck said lowering his voice, forcing Sam to press further into the booth behind them to listen. "Being in the cold overnight would have done her in. The paper got part of it right. She did have a head injury, a bad one. I just don't see how she got it. There was no blood on the ice from an impact. Like, she was face down near the driver's door, like she crawled there. There were marks near the front steps of the house 20 feet away like she might have fallen, but unless she jumped off the porch, they shouldn't have been that far from porch steps."
"And the cops don't think that's strange?" Dean asked.
"They think they got girl who didn't bother to wear a winter coat because it would cover her silk suit and didn't bother to wear winter boots because she'd rather wear high heels even in rotten weather," Chuck explained. "Come on, Dean. You know how Lucy was. She liked being looked at. Her reputation makes the theory that she wasn't dressed for the weather so it made her take a tumble pretty likely. I'm just the department moron who got hired before my dad got voted out of office. I'm the youngest guy on staff, so what the hell do I know about anything?"
Dean grunted. Whether he was disagreeing or agreeing, Sam could not tell.
"What's the story with the house where she died?" Dean asked.
There was a forced casualness in his tone that perked Sam's interest. Dean didn't go for chitchat or gossip. He never cared about any history of Sioux Falls, and he never asked questions unless he had a direct need to know something.
"No story," Chuck replied through a mouthful of fries. "Old farmhouse. Family left back when my dad was a kid. The daughter ran off to be a movie star and failed. She actually babysat my old man. He said she was kind of bitch, a real shallow piece of shit, kind of like Lucy, I guess."
"Hey," Dean snarled.
"I just meant the daughter was a cheerleader and part of the look-at-me crowd, too, in her day back in the '50s," Chuck relented. "She ran off after graduation and left her old man. Sounds like it was a sad time for the family. Her mom died then her bother bit it in Korea. When she ran away, the old man went to find her and never came back. I guess he settled in California. The daughter returned this fall and sold the place to the Halston Group—they're the construction and real estate douchebags who do those shitty radio commercials that always end with 'let us make one of our houses your home.' Lucy was going to marry one of them."
Dean huffed. Everything he heard about Lucy's death was mundane and did not point to anything evil or undead as the cause of it. He sighed and wondered if his recent exposure to the other side of the world left him unable to see anything but the awful possibilities—even when they did not exit. Still, his spidey senses were tingling, telling him that he should at least look into the possibility. That truly would be the only way he could put his worries to rest.
He continue his lunch with Martha eventually bringing him a slice of pie (on the house as a Christmas gift) and still forgetting to refresh Chuck's coffee and not bothering to ask if he wanted to order dessert. Over the course of the meal, Dean ate mechanically. His felt nauseous if he moved too swiftly and twisted in anyway as the pain in his side lanced through him. That morning using a needle and dental floss, he sewed up the loose stitches holding the cut on his chest together. He downed the last of the antibiotics he swiped from the hunter's kit he found at the warehouse where he had tracked a vamp in Illinois. He figured lifting the dying man's stash of infection fighting drugs was fair payment for hauling his nearly lifeless, bleeding ass to the ER. He knew the man would not survive the night, but Dean saw he wore a wedding ring and he babbled the names Ellen and Joe in his delirium. That told Dean the man had a family. He hoped the doctors could patch him up enough so that he could get in some final words to them. Failing that, they would at least be notified of his death once his identity was discovered, assuming they were not already dead themselves. Hunters didn't have families, Dean was learning. It was often the loss of a family that brought them into the profession.
He had been on some hunts and seen massacred families, but most of his experience was in tracking demons. Those tended to crop up a lot in the vicinity of South Bend—something he learned from the source of their interest, his landlord, Father Frank Reardon. The rest of the campus knew the old man as a tight-assed professor in a starchy collar; Dean knew him as a retired Vatican exorcist. Demons flocked to him like moths to flame, but like the actual flame, Reardon was untouchable as long as he remained on certain parts of the campus. It was Dean who was sent out to deal with the black-eyed visitors, which was convenient for Reardon and (Dean had come to believe) fitting for the college sophomore. One of those hell bitches would take him out in a few short years. The least he could do was send some of their smoky asses back to the pit first.
What initially what brought Dean and the retired exorcist together was the man's hunting old friend and honorary Winchester family member, Bobby Singer. Somehow, Dean's high school warden and history teacher, Norman Phelps, was in the mix as well. Their intentions in making the introduction were surely strictly supervisory. Both men knew Dean well and figured a man who used to track and banish demons might have a fair chance of keeping Dean in line at college. Neither knew that Dean knew what they did in their spare time and what was in all those dusty books each man kept, and neither knew Dean used what was in them once and it ended up being his death warrant.
But that was something Father Reardon did know. Dean was going to be a victim of the thing he helped Reardon hunt. At the tender age of 16, terrified of losing his mother to a dreadful disease, Dean reached out to something powerful and predatory to save her. He hadn't researched the process well; he didn't understand the ramifications of his agreement. All he knew was that one little kiss saved his mother. That it truncated his life and left him knowing precisely when he would die hardly seemed to matter to him. Granted, he was shocked when he learned during his freshman year at Notre Dame what he had done after he spent an afternoon looking at the books in Reardon's library. Learning of his stupidity and mistake gave him a sense of defeat, yet it also seemed fitting. He knew he wouldn't amount to much in life. Ending as puppy chow for a hellhound at least let him know he'd go out with some action.
He confessed to Reardon what he'd done. The old man took Dean's words in stride and let him know there was nothing he could do to save him from the pit, but he said that didn't mean there was no hope. Reardon knew how to find, trap, and banish demons. He knew little about crossroads deals other than how they ended; his job had been to rid the world of the ones offering those contracts. However, he confirmed what Dean suspected after reading Bobby's journal: There was a roving band of warriors known as hunters in the land who might know things the Vatican didn't. They had first-hand, 20th century working knowledge about fighting evil. The boys in Vatican City stuck to their 12th century playbook because the flowery language both worked and gave them comfort. So the good father armed Dean with books, salt, and holy water then set him loose on the evil dwelled in the regions surrounding the campus.
Dean had notches in his proverbial belt for exorcisms (three), shapeshifters (four), and after his route home hitchhiking from truck stop to truck stop his second vampire. He'd met a couple hunters on his cases, gaining their trust using his assumed name and dropping the name Bobby Singer once or twice casually without claiming he knew the man well. The rough men who roamed the back roads looking for monsters were a coarse but dedicated lot, he learned. They taught him about having a variety of fake IDs and badges; how to ask the right questions without stirring up too much suspicion; and how to suture a wound so he could avoid hospitals as much as possible. They offered their knowledge because they were appreciative of his youthful speed, sharp aim, and ability to take direction while acting relatively calm in tense situations. Then, at the end of each escapade, their new protégé (Jack Hawkins) disappeared into the landscape with a bland farewell that he hoped to see them again sometime.
With just six years left on his contract, Dean doubted he would cross paths with any of them again. At least, he wouldn't if he kept to his idiotic class schedule. Remaining in school was something he saw as pointless, but he was keeping a promise. His mother begged him to go to school and while she never asked that he graduate, Dean suspected she expected he would finish what he started. He felt he would do more good with his meager and waning life if he just hit the road and killed as many evil things as he could, but for now he was going through the motions to keep his mother happy. The only upside he saw was stiffing the banks for the loans he never intended to repay. The problem was, hunting and playing student was taking its toll. Cuts, bruises, burns, and broken bones were part of his life. Exhaustion and nightmares now were as well. Hiding all of that from the civilians of the world was nearly as difficult as keeping his real identity secret as he hunted and avoiding while the police in the process.
"Well, I better get my ass to the courthouse," Chuck sighed. "I'm working on Christmas then have to go to Omaha to my Aunt Eloise's with my father for New Year's Eve—something about her keeping me in her will since she ain't got kids. Give me a call after the First, and don't even think about slipping out of town to go back to Indiana like you did last summer. We are making plans for me to come see you this spring. It's either Spring Break in Florida or you gotta show me what one of the big university frat parties is like."
"I wouldn't know," Dean said. "I got my nose stuck in a book or I'm working my ass off to pay the bills lately."
"Bullshit," Chuck said as he rose. "You living like a monk? Dean, I was there the night you got Lucy to leave Chris Zepher's party with you by using just two words. The Queen of the Tease strolled up to you all flirty like she did every other guy and said 'wanna dance?' All you said was 'wrong verb' and walked her out of there like she was a devoted Golden Retriever on a leash. No way college girls are harder flowers to pluck than picky Lucy was. You've got to have four or five who you rotate through. I know you, man."
Sam's face felt hot with embarrassment, but he was not sure why. Dean's proclivity to attract eager girls was not news to him. Hearing the envy in Chuck's voice and the confidence in his belief that Dean was something of a slut did not sit well with the high school sophomore, but Dean's dry chuckle was as good as an admission.
"Well," Dean said, "I do take the occasional coffee break while I'm working."
Chuck crowed with laughter and clapped his pal on the shoulder as he headed back to work grinning foolishly. Dean's smothered yelp was missed by everyone except Sam, who was literally inches from him in the next booth. The younger Winchester pressed himself into the booth further as he heard Dean rise from his seat. Sam was planning to follow him and strategically bump into him so that he could seek a ride home rather than go to the library and wait for his mother to give him a lift during her lunch break. However, Dean did not head for the door. Instead, he walked to the far corner, passing Sam without noticing him as he ducked under the table. At the back of the diner was a pay phone tucked into a tiny alcove near the men's room. As Dean approached it, Sam slipped out of his seat and nestled himself into another booth close enough to hear some of the conversation. What he heard first wrinkled his brow. It next got him out of his hiding place to full blatantly listen, and absolutely left him wondering which of his parents he should speak to.
-oOoOoOo-
Dean tucked himself as far into the small nook just outside the urinal closet as possible. The diner was not as busy as he hoped so there was a chance his voice would carry; however, it was just noisy enough that he had to speak up to be heard.
"Yeah, I know it's thin," he said after explaining what he knew about Lucy's demise. "But it might be something."
"Dean, there are so many things it could be including simply an accident," Father Frank Reardon advised. "It doesn't sound like a demon. That's what I've trained you to face. You've done some independent study—against my advice—and have learned a bit about other entities, but this does not sound like any case you have tackled before. I suggest you call Bobby Singer and leave it to someone with greater experience."
"He's not here," Dean said through gritted teeth worrying that if he did nothing someone else would get hurt and that would be his fault. "It looks like he's been out of town for a few days. I can't just let this go and wait for him to return. The guys I've met told me that if you catch a case, you run with it. Finders keepers rules, Padre."
"You do realize that your current predicament does not protect you?" the priest reminded him. "You were guaranteed up to 10 years. The crossroads demon did not promise you that you were invincible during that time. If you encounter something you cannot handle and die, you will go to Hell early. Dean, I am trying to keep you here as long as possible. You've learned so much. There are a lot of people you can still help. And need I remind you that the more you focus on the work of demons, the greater chance you have of learning if there is a way to save yourself?"
Dean scoffed. It was weird talking to Reardon sometimes. The guy was part Ra's ah Ghul and part Yoda with a dash of Louis Gossett's character from An Officer And A Gentleman. Dean knew he was the man's tool to get in some licks on the black-eyed bitches who kept him trapped on the sacred ground of the campus after spending three decades fighting on behalf the church. Dean also knew that the man was sincere in his desire to help Dean find a way to save his soul—if only to avoid him returning to the earth as yet another monster for the priest would have to eradicate.
"I know it would be easier if I quit school," Dean sighed. "That's what I want to do and what I should do…"
"That is not what I want nor is it what we are talking about right now," Reardon scolded. "I have tried to teach you this for two years. I want you to think before you act, Dean. What I don't want you to do is make an emotional decision when you should be strategic. The dead woman was a friend. I am sorry for your loss. I agree there are a few questions that might perk the interest of a hunter, but you are not qualified. Wait for Bobby to return and give this to him."
"By telling him what?" Dean snarled. "Hey, Bobby, there's this great big fucking secret I'm keeping and by the way, while hiding it I discovered something you should know? Now, do me a favor and take care of it without letting on to my family. Oh, while you're at it, make up some crap lie for them when I'm found dead in…"
His voice trailed off as a prickling sensation began on his neck. He spun around, biting the inside of his cheek as the twist of his torso tugged on the stitches. Behind him he saw the startled, wide eyes of his younger brother. Sam stood in the hallway 10 feet from Dean with his jaw hanging slack and an avalanche of questions evidently forming on his lips.
"I'll be back in three weeks if not sooner," Dean said swiftly then hung up and growled at Sam. "So what, now you're a snoop and a bitch?"
"Dean?" Sam began as he blinked in surprise. "What is going on?"
-oOoOoOo-
A/N: More to come.