Stanford University
Palo Alto, California
October 30, 2005
"Sam, get a move on, would you? We were supposed to be there like fifteen minutes ago."
"Sam!" Jessica called, exasperated. "You coming or what?"
Sam Winchester stuck his head through the doorway to make a face at his girlfriend of almost two years, Jessica Moore. "Do I have to?" he asked.
"Yes," she informed him, giving him a smile. "It'll be fun." He walked over to her, and she smiled again. "And where's your costume?"
He made a noise like a half-laugh, half-snort and looked at her. "You know how I feel about Halloween."
As it turned out, the Halloween party Sam was being forced to attend was loud, dirty, packed with booze, and full of a bunch of idiots in costumes. But Jessica seemed to be enjoying herself, so he put up with the chafing and tried not to smirk at the men dressed up in 'demon' and 'ghost' costumes. It was so far from the real think they were pathetic.
That was how he found himself at a table with Jess and his friend Roy, with a few glasses of booze and Jess toasting his excellent test scores and his chance at a full ride to law school. He wasn't surprised when Roy wanted to press the subject of his family.
"How does it feel to be the golden boy of your family?" Roy asked.
Sam fixed his eyes on the table. "Ah, they don't know," he said, trying to keep his voice light, but obviously not succeeding due to Jess's face expression.
"They don't know?" Roy hooted. "I would be gloating! Why not?"
With a chuckle, Sam threw a cheese puff at him. "Because we're not exactly the Brady's."
"And I'm not exactly the hardy boys," Roy scoffed. "More shots!"
"No," Sam and Jess protested together, but their friend just ignored them and stumbled off into the crowd anyway – to get more booze.
"Look, seriously," Jess said as soon as he was gone, "I'm proud of you, and you're going to knock them dead on Monday and you're going to get that full ride. I know it."
"What would I do without you?" he asked in wonder.
"Oh, crash and burn," she said, before leaning across the table to kiss him.
Roy came back, tray piled high with booze. Sam rolled his eyes and Jessica laughed. "Roy, do you honestly think you can drink this much?"
"Maybe," Roy replied with a smirk. He sat down with a thump and elbowed Sam in the ribs. "So what's up witcha family, man?"
"Your speech is slurred," Sam pointed out, grabbing the booze and putting it on the table behind him.
"Sam!"
"Okay, okay, fine," he sighed, shifting uncomfortably. "My dad…well, he's kind of an ass. And my older brother is cool enough, I guess, but he's an ass, too. When I left, my dad was pissed, okay? And my brother wasn't exactly peachy about it either. Dad left for his job, and Dean…he's been flying solo, so far as I know. I haven't seen dad or Dean in almost three years now."
"'S too bad," Roy sighed, slumping on the table.
Jessica smiled at him. "You okay?" she asked, brushing her hand down his cheek.
Sam forced a smile. "Yeah. I just don't like talking about my family. Or Halloween."
"Then let's go home," she sighed. Sam grinned and followed her out the door.
Sam & Jessica's Apartment
Palo Alto, California
October 31, 2005
That night Sam was asleep beside Jessica. He was awakened by a soft thump from their laundry room, and his eyes snapped open to full alertness.
He crept out of bed, and leaned around a corner, the light illuminating his face. The window to the laundry room was halfway open and the door was, too. Someone was in their house. Snapping to full marine mode, he crept forward silently to flatten himself against the wall, listening to the door creak open.
A man's silhouette passed through, and for a slight moment, he thought he might have known the guy, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was getting him out. When the man was in front of him, he lunged forward to hit him on the back.
His opponent was faster than he had anticipated, and spun to face him and knock his hands aside. It was clear in an instant he was facing another master of hand-to-hand combat. He twisted free of the hold and spun quickly when he was shoved forward, slamming his foot into the man's chest.
The man grunted and fell back before retaliating with full-out attack. A blow landed on Sam's face, and he paused, glaring, before lunging up with foot raised, only to be blocked by the arms of his opponent. They spun, faster and faster, grunts and yells echoing through the silent house, tripping over furniture and shoving each other into walls.
Then, before he could blink, Sam's feet were flying from underneath him and he was pinned to the ground. All he could do was stare when Dean's face came into the light above his.
"Whoa, easy, tiger," Dean suggested mildly, hand still on Sam's throat.
"Dean?" Sam gasped.
Dean laughed shortly and grinned.
"You scared the crap out of me!" Sam yelled angrily.
"That's because you're out of practice."
Sam grabbed his wrist, yanked him down, brought his foot up to kick Dean's back, and shoved him over, switching their positions so that he was dominant.
"Huh, or not," Dean corrected himself, patting his brother's arm. "Get off me."
Pulling his brother to his feet, Sam demanded, "Dean, what the hell are you doing here?"
"I was looking for a beer," Dean replied, brushing off Sam's upper arms.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Sam repeated; he could feel his face going cold and heard his voice – as cold and hard as a rock in winter.
"Okay, alright – we've got to talk," his brother amended, face-to-face with him, though he was four inches taller than his older brother.
"Uh…the phone?"
"If I had called, would you have picked up?"
Sam remained silent.
"Twice I called you, Sammy. With the most important news of my life – and my own family can't even be bothered to pick up the damn phone." Dean pulled a white envelope out of his pocket and held it up in front of his face. Sam squinted in the poor light and was able to make out Dean's name on it. "This, Sammy, is one of the reasons why I'm here."
He remained silent.
"Open it," Dean demanded, glaring right into his little brother's eyes.
Sam glared back but didn't reach up to grab it.
"Just open it, damn it!"
"No, Dean."
"Fine." Dean snatched it back. "Not that you really deserve to know or anything, anyway." He tucked the envelope back inside of his pocket, green eyes blazing with anger.
"Important news?" Sam hedged, curious now.
Dean wordlessly glared at him.
Sam realized that Dean was being dead serious, and that the news must be major. "I'm sorry, Dean," he said softly. "I didn't know."
"Exactly. You wouldn't have. Because until you get past your foolish, stubborn, pride-filled ways, you will never be happy, and until you accept your past, accept who and what you are, you – "
Sam lifted a fist and let it fall when he saw his brother's cocked eyebrow. Go on, do it, he seemed to be silently taunting, I'll just kick your ass from here to Kansas. "I swore, Dean. Ne-"
The light clicked on. "Sam?" Jess said, looking between the two when their heads spun to look at her at exactly the same time.
"Jess," Sam exclaimed. "Dean, this is my girlfriend, Jessica."
"Wait, your brother Dean?" Jess asked.
Dean nodded but his expression didn't change. Instead, he gave Sam a quiet level look that made most men squirm in their seats. "What was with the emphasis on 'girlfriend', Sam?" he said mildly. "Although I must say…you are completely out of my brother's league." He looked her up and down thoughtfully, as one might look at a dog or a tree.
Sam did his best to control his temper and try and piece out why the hell else his brother would be there besides for a beer. And he was suspicious over Dean's apparent lack of interest, though his brother was so good at lying, he could convince the devil he was actually God.
"Just, let me go put something on," she pressed.
"Oh, no, I wouldn't dream about it," Dean said easily, flashing her a cheeky grin.
Now Sam was really suspicious. Had his brother gone gay or something?
That startled a brief laugh out of Jess, before she looked over Dean's shoulder and saw Sam's face. She frowned and suddenly found herself wondering what Dean was doing there…at three o'clock in the morning.
Dean cleared his throat and turned away from her. "Anyway, I need to borrow your boyfriend here and talk about some private family business, but it was nice meeting you."
"No," Sam said simply, moving to stand beside Jess in a protective manner. "Whatever you're going to say you can say in front of her."
"Okay." He turned to face them. "Um…Dad's hasn't been home in a few days."
Sam had to hold back the groan of disbelief. "So he's working overtime on a Miller time shift. He'll stumble back in sooner or later."
Dean pursed his lips and dropped his chin to his chest briefly before lifting it again and meeting Sam's gaze with intense eyes and a smirk. "Dad's on a hunting trip, and he hasn't been home in a few days."
At the words Sam froze. Jess glanced up at his frozen face. "Jess, excuse us. We have to go outside."
Sam chased Dean down the apartment stairs, going into orbit over his brother's nerve. "Come on, Dean you can't just break into my house in the middle of the night and expect me to hit the road with you."
"You're not hearing me, Sammy. Dad's missing. I need you to help me find him."
"You remember that poltergeist in Amherst? He's always missing, and he's always fine. Why can't you get that through your thick skull?" he stopped, and Dean had to turn around to look at him. "I swore, Dean. I swore that I was done hunting. Forever."
"Come on," Dean scoffed. "It wasn't easy, but it wasn't that bad."
"Yeah? When I told dad I was afraid of the thing in my closet, he gave me a colt .45."
"So? What was he supposed to do?"
"So? I was nine years old, Dean. He was supposed to tell me not to be afraid of the dark."
Dean spun around to face him again, his expression of intense disbelief and scorn. "Come on, what, are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what's out there, all the creepy things that go bump in the night!"
"Yeah, I know, but still. The way we were raised after mom was killed, and dad's obsession to find the thing that killed her. But we still haven't found the damn thing. So we kill everything we can find."
"And save a lot of people doing it, too," Dean said flatly, his expression dark.
"You think Mom would have wanted this for us? The weapon training, the melting the silver into bullets? Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors!"
"What, so, are you just going to live some normal apple pie life?"
"So what?" Sam said softly. "And no, Dean. Not normal. Safe."
"And that's why you ran away?" Dean challenged, looking away with an annoyed sound.
"I was just going to college. It was dad who said if I was going, I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing. If you don't like it, tough."
"I can't do this alone."
"Yes, you can."
"Yeah. Well, I don't want to. I want to go home," Dean said softly.
Home? That was new. As far as Sam knew, the Impala was the only home they'd ever had and it was currently parked ten feet away from them. Dean's expression wasn't offering much, though, and he didn't feel like pressing the issue. He dropped his head to his chest and sighed heavily. "What was he hunting?"
Dean popped open the trunk of the impala, grabbed the flap, and pushed it up, displaying a massive rack of weapons. He propped it up with an unloaded shotgun and dug around among the weapons for a moment. "Alright, where the hell did I put that thing?" he muttered.
But Sam wasn't listening. There was a picture tucked into the corner that he gently pulled out. "When dad left, why didn't you go with him?" he asked, studying the picture. The first was of a blonde woman with a little boy on her hip, both of them grinning at the camera, and a barn and paddock of horses in the background. There was another picture behind it, this one of Dean in a Stetson (a gigantic shock as it was) and two other Stetson-wearing men wielding rifles and with gigantic grins, a dead deer on the ground in front of them.
"I was working my own gig…this voodoo thing down in New Orleans."
"Dad let you go on a hunting trip…by yourself?" Sam's eyebrows shot up.
Dean shot him a flatly unimpressed look. "I'm twenty-six, dude."
He pulled the papers out and handed the top one to Sam.
"So Dad was checking out this two lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California…about a month ago this guy, they found his car, but he vanished. Completely MIA."
"So maybe he was kidnapped?" Sam suggested.
"Yeah, right. Here's another one in April, December of '04, '03, '98, '92…ten of them over the past twenty years. All men, all same five mile stretch of road." He snatched the paper back from Sam and tucked it in his folder, allowing Sam time to tuck the photos into his jacket. "Started happening more and more so dad went to go dig around. That was about three weeks ago. Haven't heard from him since, which is bad enough, but then I get this voicemail."
He held up a tape recorder and pressed play.
"Dean…something…starting to happen…figure out what's going on…may be what…we're looking for. We're all…in danger."
"Is there EVP on that?" Sam wondered.
"Nice, Sammy. Kind of like riding a bike, isn't it?" Dean smirked. "All right. I slowed the message down and ran it though a Goldwave, took out the hiss and this is what I got."
"I…can never go home…"
"I can never go home?" Sam repeated, a revolted look on his face. "That's dark."
"You know, in almost two years, I've never bothered you, never asked you for a thing." He sat on the trunk.
Sam sighed. "Alright. I'll go." He looked at Dean for a long moment. "I'll help you find him. But I have to be back first thing Monday. Just, wait here."
"What's first thing Monday?"
"I have an interview."
"What, a job interview?" Dean asked with a smirk. "Skip it."
"It's a law school interview. And it's my whole future on a plate."
"Law school?" Dean repeated, his expression closing off.
"So do we have a deal or not?" Sam demanded, ignoring his brother's skepticism and his sudden dark mood.
With a heavy sigh, Dean shrugged and nodded. He needed help, it had been pounded into his skull to never hunt alone, and now that Ch—well. John had told him in no uncertain terms that if he was going to look for his dad, he needed a partner, and Sam had been the first person he thought of. Shoulders slumped slightly downwards and missing home fiercely, he closed the trunk and sat on it to wait for Sam.
Back in the apartment, Sam slipped a curved blade into his bag.
"Wait, so you're just taking off?" Jess inquired, incredulous. It was the middle of the night! "Is this about your dad? Is he okay?"
"Yeah, he's fine. You know, just a little family drama."
"Your brother said he was on some kind of hunting trip."
"Oh, yeah, he's just deer hunting up at the cabin, and he's probably got Jim, Jack, and Jose up along with him. We're just going to go and bring him back."
"What about the interview?"
"I'll make the interview. This is only for a couple days."
"Sam!" Jess exclaimed, jumping off the bed to grab his arm. "Wait, please, will you just stop for a second. Are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine," Sam promised.
"It's just…you won't even talk about your family. And now you're taking off in the middle of the night to spend the weekend with him." She paused. "And with Monday coming up, it's kind of a big deal, and…"
"I will be back in time. I promise."
He sealed that promise with a kiss and walked out the door.
"At least tell me where you're going!" she called after him.
A/N: Edited this again on 27 April, decided to add dates. Helps people keep a frame of reference.