Detour

On a dark and stormy night two brothers were driving along one of the nation's greatest roadways known as Interstates because of how they connected one state to another in the most convenient of ways. Unfortunately, most of the time, the brothers discovered these big long stretches of road were often, and almost continuously…under construction.

"Another detour ahead," Dean announced with a sigh. This was the third one that night on the same road. The previous two had merely moved traffic over to share the lanes moving in the opposite direction. This one looked like the entire road ahead might actually be closed for the night.

Passing by the flashing neon lights and looking ahead for the orange detour signs, Dean grumbled, "Why do they always close the freeways down at night?"

Sam looked at him in momentary silence before sarcastically replying, "As opposed to the day when they're the busiest?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Forced off the Interstate, Dean followed the row of detour signs, surprised when they took him for a turn rather than onto one of the frontage roads that often paralleled freeways. That meant more than just a small section of the Interstate was closed. That or they were in the middle of nowhere. "Hey, see where they might be taking us."

Sam dug around for a map and after much deliberation and a few more turns encouraged by the orange signs, he decided the detour was directing them towards another freeway that would later merge with the Interstate.

Sam's guess was dead on and Dean breathed a sigh of relief as they left the uneven back roads for the smooth pavement of the freeway. But it wasn't long before they were met with yet another series of flashing neon lights. "You have got to be kidding me!"

"Just follow that guy," Sam suggested, pointing to the taillights of a little jetta. "I think they were on the Interstate with us."

"I'm telling you, if they ever ran out of road repairs a lot of construction workers would be out of business. Seriously, did this road even need to be repaired or do you think they just do it for job security?"

Chuckling, Sam shook his head as if to say he didn't know. Then, nodding towards the orange sign up ahead, Dean's brother remarked, "There's the detour sign. Looks like they're shutting the whole road down here, too."

Unable to do much else, Dean followed the jetta as they took the next exit and obediently turned wherever the detour signs took them. This time they ended up on a road that seemed to be in worse disarray than the freeway could ever possibly have been. Dean worked hard to avoid the many potholes, but it was hard to tell them from the puddles in the rain.

Once again Sam had the map out trying to figure out where they were.

"Don't bother, Sammy," Dean told him, spying yet another detour sign ahead. "Wait till we're off this rollercoaster and then we'll figure out where we are."

"If we just keep following the signs the detours are bound to lead up back to the Interstate," Sam remarked, but he kept the map out anyway.

Rollercoaster had been right. Dean wasn't easily turned around, having been trained by his father to hone his sense of direction, but in the rain and the dark with nothing but orange signs to reassure them they weren't heading for Mexico, Dean finally had to admit to himself that they were lost. They were still tailing the jetta, so if they were heading for Mexico, at least they weren't the only ones.

Then, to his intense relief, Dean sighted an Interstate sign next to the detour sign. "Finally!" They took the next ramp onto the welcomed Interstate, their world a glow with working streetlamps and reflective road turtles. Able at last to stretch his legs, relatively speaking, Dean directed the impala over to the far lane and settled back into the long drive with ease. "This is much better," he stated with a satisfied smirk.

The moment they passed the next exit, Sam consulted the map, and looking up, hesitantly said, "Ah…you know that town we were heading for?"

"Yeah," Dean drawled out, just knowing he wasn't going to like this.

"It's back that way," his brother stated, pointing behind him. The detours had managed to take them all the way around, completely bypassing the town.

Dean swore.