Creatures of Habit

Fandom: Supernatural

Author: maybe-moey

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. Shocker, I know, but if I did, Sam and Dean would be shirtless a helluva lot more often. But I do own Erica. Yay me!

Upwards and onwards with the story. Drop me a line if you wanna, okies? I really wish y'all would.

Chapter 1 - Another Fire

I don't know how I manage to get into this position. I sit quietly, a foreboding feeling just seems to well up and settle in the bottom of my stomach forcing me to be unable to eat, sleep or even breathe properly, and then when it all becomes too much, I creep quietly to the area where the feeling seems to get worse.

The first time I really noticed that feeling was two weeks before my fourth birthday. It was about two days after Halloween, my older brother and me were playing around in our backyard jumping into three-foot piles of crisp golden and scarlet leaves and basically running amuck. My dad, he was pulling down the last of the pumpkin-shaped lights that we put up every year when a cold chill seemed to settle itself in my bones. I remember barely calling out to him and ordering my brother to help me stabilise the ladder before the huge gust of wind hit.

I was lucky that my mother had come outside just in time: my brother and I wouldn't have been able to keep him on the ladder by ourselves. Dad, he was grateful and proud, you know? That kind of feeling, I could see it in his eyes, even though he did have questions. Questions I still don't know the answer to.

It was later that night, just after dinner, I'd say, when I got that feeling again. This time, though, I was drawn to my mother. It was the same foreboding feeling as before, 'cept this time it was different. Worse. Stronger.

I'd hang off of her all night and she'd tell me off because I was being too clingy. In the end I ended up going to bed sick; my food didn't settle, my head hurt, and not to mention that I was sad, too. And after all that, and a very skeptical conversation with my mother, that mood seemed to have shifted, not all the way from my mother… but to the nursery where my baby brother slept. I was certain that my parents wouldn't catch me if I snuck into his room to watch over him as he was sleeping, but I also knew that they'd come in to feed him during the night, and I hid behind the rocking chair and dozed amongst the teddies there.

There's not much I remember from that night other than three distinct things: pain, smoke and Mum. Pain, because of the fire, in a blaze I thought that I tried to save my mother from being hurt by that son of a bitch and he threw me at the wall like I was nothing but a piece of trash.

The next time that I got that very same feeling was eleven and a half years after that. We were out on a hunt, the third time for my little brother and my first time with my father and big brother. I'd hunted in secret for about 2 years in secret. Dad refused to take me along, even though he knew I was more than capable for this one job. Damn, ignorant males. Anyway, my spidey-senses were tingling yet again towards my younger sibling. He'd've been in danger if I didn't tag along.

The hunt itself was fine, no complications at all, but it was what happened afterward. We went out to celebrate that I was right and my father should listen to me more often. (You ask him, though; he'd tell you that it was for everything going without a hitch... Liar.) We walked out of the tiny diner in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, the feeling was running overdrive and I couldn't control it, or, in the very least, rein it in. He was crossing the street going to the car while Dad and my other brother paid for our meal, when a white sedan came roaring around the corner. I was like an out-of-body experience. I was watching through my own eyes, but someone else was controlling my body—I didn't even think about it, it was instinctive. Protect. Before I know it, my brother was lying in a grassy patch on the other side of the road calling my name, there was a scream and everything was turning into a blur. I was in a coma for three weeks after that night. In a wheelchair for about three months after the hospital and spent like a gazillion dollars on pretty intense physiotherapy, only to be told that I'd never walk again. Well, I showed them fuckers; I was on my feet within a month of losing the wheelchair, walking freely on my own. All of that happened over the summer of '95. Longest summer in my life to date.

Anyway, here I am, ten years after a severe dose of my spidey-senses later. Sure I get some watered-down versions of the same feeling, but it's only natural, you know? Ten years… and I still remember it like yesterday. Hell, it could have been yesterday, for all I know, time really does fly, and nothing changes. Even though I haven't seen either of my brothers for about two years, doesn't mean that I don't care. I do, so bad.

So when my guts tells me to go to Palo Alto, California, I will not stop driving until I get there. Speeding and traffic laws be damned…

NOVEMBER 2ND, 2005

Erica Winchester woke to the smell of burnt flesh, hair, and complete and utter determination coming from the gorgeous—except for the fact that he was arrogant, that's a turn off—fireman in front of her. Sometimes, her partly conscious mind connects with her mouth before she realises fully, often leaving her fully conscious mind to somehow bring the situation back into her side of the court. One of those times was now.

"Put me down, you perv with ridiculously nice eyes. I can walk, you know," she argued with the yellow-clad man and wiggled in his grip. "I was in a house fire, not hit by a freaking car, dude. Oh, and for your information, that's happened to me too."

Fireman resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "I'm sure you have—"

"I have. Put me down and I'll show you the scars from the surgery I had about a decade ago," Erica said rudely, cutting him off. She was just pulled semi-conscious from a burning building, yeah, she was grateful, but she'd be even more grateful if he let her walk.

"If I put you down, do you promise not to run? Because, seriously, the D.A. will have my ass if something happens to you and you say that I haven't followed protocol."

"Cross my heart and hope to die…"

"Right."

"Stick a needle in my eye…"

"Uh huh."

"Boil in oil until I fry." She finished reciting with a smirk, remembering all the trouble she used to get in, after promising with that same little poem that she and her brothers shared, as a kid.

The fireman just stared at her, they had reached the ambulance by now and he still hadn't put her down, firmly believing that she was delirious. "Please don't say that."

"Say what?" She tilted her head to the left slightly, arms tightening just a little more around his neck, her burnt, once-honey coloured locks tickling his ear. "Boil in oil until I fry? Why, does that upset the poor fireman? Whatever, dude." Erica, digging her heels into the guy's side and making him lose his grip on the twenty-five-year-old. Once on her feet, Erica swayed for just a moment at the sudden rush of blood to her legs and started walking briskly in the opposite direction to the persistent fireman.

"Hey! Where the hell do you think you're going?" Asked the fireman in question.

Erica rolled her eyes and kept walking, not bothering to stop to answer the man. Instead she called over her shoulder. "Away. My car is around back. I need to find where the hell my brothers have gone."

"Oh, no, no, nono." His footsteps were getting louder. Damn, she cussed, persistent fucker. A hand grasped her forearm, touching her burned skin and forcing her to turn. "You are going to see the paramedics." He stared sternly at the escapee and added a more assertive tone to his demeanour. "I won't let you leave."

Her eyes narrowed. "That last time someone used that tone of voice on me was unable to breath properly for a month and had paid an extensive amount of money to have their nose surgically reconstructed." She flexed her fist. "Don't even try to stop me… or else." Erica glanced down at his still lingering hand, enough fury in her gaze to be able to melt glaciers if she stared at one for long enough. Fireman's hand dropped to his side.

Smiling, she turned and ran.

"See ya later, baby! I'll catch you next time!"

"Hey! Someone stop her!"

~x~

Nineteen miles down the road later, Erica stopped running. Lungs burning because she was sure that she inhaled too much damn smoke in that fire. (The girl could run for thirty miles before she had a stitch.) She'd been running for a couple of hours and barely had enough change in her pockets for a bottle of water from the minimart across the road… She had to find a pay phone. Call her idiot brother to come and pick her up, because he was bound to have not gone far enough away from the unit so that—if the need arose—Sam could have gone back to the ashen place and scrounge out some of his belongings without having hours to travel to get there.

That kid has had enough sadness in his short life to last a lifetime. Hell, we all have.

Walking past the minimart with a small limp—no, muscle cramp, because Erica never limps—in her step, Erica scanned the immediate area looking for a payphone when her eyes immediately fixed themselves to a shoddy motel across the street. Well, not the motel, per se, but the V8 that sat outside of the motel was what caught her attention.

"Son of a bitch… Looks like I'm not gonna need that payphone, now," she said breathlessly as she walked across the road, narrowly being missed by a late night driver. Glancing up, she saw that address of the motel on the sign, sighing as she did so.

"Typical." Erica shook her head as she approached the room that she assumed belonged to her brothers for the night (if it weren't for the fact that the Impala was sitting outside of the front door, the almost unnoticeable salt line gave them away… only if you knew what you were looking for) and twisted the doorknob.

Locked. Of course it'd be locked, for cripes' sake. Her baby brother was a potential target for a demon tonight. If by any means that a locked door—if not for the sentimental value it gave—would give Sam the peace of mind to be able to sleep tonight, then knowing her barely-older brother, Dean would no doubt do everything in his power to keep their younger sibling safe… even from Sam's own imagination. Lord knows the amount of times that Dean's tried to do that...

Reaching towards her scalp, totally ignoring where the burnt—singed—ends of her hair were, she detangled one of the many bobby pins from her head and used as a makeshift lock-pick. Yes, Erica could have knocked and scared the living daylights out of her more than likely sleeping brothers, but she can't bring herself to the idea of her brothers missing out on a chance at sleep by waking them, even if it were only a mere few seconds.

Erica jiggled the bobby pin another time before finally unlocking the door and moving carefully over the salt line to close the door and locking it again.

It was only then that Erica allowed herself to relax. It had been a very long last few hours and she was dead on her feet, almost literally. Her lungs ached; her feet ached (she was pretty sure she'd have about a million blisters on the soles of her feet); her burns she could feel, now, and they hurt like a bitch. Maybe they were bleeding again? Or hadn't they stopped? She knew that it'd didn't matter if her shirt was soaked with blood—it was more a case of what shirt?—and her bra was barely clinging itself to her shoulders. The legs of her jeans didn't exist anymore. Erica's legs were so numb she couldn't be sure if she really burnt them bad or not. But one thing was certain, she was definitely a sight to been seen if anyone did see her. She didn't want that, especially since now that an arrogant, sexy fireman wanted her to go to hospital. 'Over my dead body,' she could almost hear herself saying. Hospitals brought unwanted attention, and if John E. Winchester taught them anything, it was to not attract any unnecessary attention.

Erica sighed and turned around. He sight before her was something she had missed over the last four years.

I should have taken more photos of these two. Damn, how Sam has changed, kid must be at least six-two.

It was adorable. Dean hung himself halfway off of the single bed, legs and arms flailing out from under the sheets at odd angles, a dopey sleep-grin plastered on his face. Anyone looking at him would think he's a messy sleeper, they'd be wrong though. It was a practicality thing. Easier for Dean to jump up and out of bed to "make the bad things go away," something he once said to a nine-year-old Sam.

Sam, though, was quite the opposite. Maybe it was because he's been so accustomed to living with another person that he's managed to bring the covers up higher than his waist, maybe it's because he was emotionally shaken at the moment. But whatever the Hell it was, it was different because Sam slept very similar to how Dean does, maybe even worse, and that caused Erica to worry more about her baby brother than usual.

Deciding to leave them at peace rather than go over and neaten their sheets (habits that haven't died since she was about fifteen… she's gonna blame it on the maternal bones in her body) and possibly wake them in the process, she blew them a kiss each and snuck her way towards the bathroom to shower and hopefully clean herself off before she was going to eventually pass out on the couch due to exhaustion… and before Sam and Dean see how fragile she looked at the moment. Because if there is one thing that Erica May Winchester is not, it is delicate and fragile.

Closing the door behind her, Erica groped blindly to find a towel or something to shove underneath the door so the light wouldn't disturb her brothers. Erica flicked the light on…

…and screamed when she looked behind her.