Chapter 4

John watched Sam stride away from the truck, well aware that he'd managed to put his foot firmly in his mouth . . . again. He didn't know why, but he and Sam had never seemed to communicate well. It didn't take much out of his younger son to send him over the edge into fury, and often it seemed to take even less from him to send Sam raging, even when he'd been much younger. Closing his eyes, John leaned back against his seat for a moment. He needed to get a handle on himself. This wasn't about him and Sam, this was about Dean.

He got out of the truck and walked across the parking lot in Sam's wake. Fortunately, they didn't seem to have garnered much attention from the casual visitors to the rest stop. He went inside and found Sam staring at the snacks he held in his hands. "Sam?"

Sam looked up, his expression strangely puzzled, like he didn't quite know why he was holding chips and soda. "Doritos?" he asked, holding them out towards John. Raising his eyebrows, John took the chips and the Coke Sammy offered him. After a second, Sammy spoke again. "I would do anything for Dean, Dad. Anything."

That declaration sparked against one of John's grudges. Dean had tried to keep contact, John knew that, and Sam had clearly rebuffed him till his brother had stopped trying. The words were out of his mouth before he thought about them. "Anything but call him back?" he asked sarcastically.

"Fuck you!" Sam snapped, and he turned to go back to the truck. Feeling more than a little abashed, John followed along beside him without speaking. He was supposed to be the grown up here, wasn't he? He really needed to keep a rein on his temper. "Where were you, anyway?" Sam asked after a minute.

John blinked and glanced at him. Sam's voice was studiously neutral, so he, too, was trying to stay under control. Clearing his throat, John tried to match the tone. "What do you mean?"

"I asked Dean to come with me," Sam said. "I suggested he could get a job at a garage somewhere in the Bay area, that we could have a normal life, but he said no. He said someone had to stay with you." He glowered over at John. "So, why weren't you with him?"

John shrugged. "We followed different cases," he said. "He worked a lot of stuff by himself over the past few years."

Sam climbed back into the driver's seat and started the truck in smoldering silence. John grimaced. He could sense the anger emanating from Sam as they pulled back out onto the highway. He wondered what was going on in his son's mind. Finally, Sam shook his head. "He wouldn't have left on his own," he said. "Not for long, which means you sent him off on those jobs."

John really didn't want to think about that. "Sam –"

"Dean never liked being on his own," Sam interjected. "He didn't want to be on his own, but he did everything you ever told him to." John looked away, wishing Sam would let up. Sam's voice gained intensity as he reached his point. "That demon wouldn't have gotten him if he'd been with you."

It felt like a sledgehammer, Sam's certainty that he could have stopped Azazel from taking Dean. "Maybe, maybe not. I'm not infallible."

Sam leaned forward and squinted out the windshield. "Is that a pig flying?" he asked snappishly.

John's stomach roiled, but he attempted to keep his cool. "Very funny."

Sam shook his head, and his voice took on a somber, serious note. "Dad, I would do anything for Dean. Seriously."

John let those words sink in for several long moments, trying to figure out why they alarmed him rather than reassuring him. He could count on Sammy to . . . do anything for Dean? How far did that 'anything' go? He glanced at his son's profile and found himself even more deeply disturbed. Pretty far, he had a feeling. Crises were different from everyday life for some people, and neither of his sons had ever held back anything in a crisis. "You know," he said, his voice seeming loud in the silence that had reigned, "I can't believe I'm saying this, Sammy, but that's not actually a good thing."

"What?" Sam asked, clearly puzzled.

"That you would do anything for Dean," John said, hoping Sammy would understand. "There should be some things you wouldn't do."

Sam blinked out the windshield, his jaw setting, and John could see that his hope was in vain. "Okay, earlier you were implying that you couldn't really trust me to help Dean because I hadn't spoken to him for a while, and now you're not happy that I say I'll do anything for him? Make up your mind."

Why did the young always see things in such black and white terms? "There is a middle ground between not being willing to do anything for someone and being willing to do anything for them," he said. "You need to – look out!"

Sam had clearly seen it a second before John yelled because he jammed on the brakes just as John exclaimed. A figure had appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the road. Sam swerved onto the shoulder to avoid hitting him. John had a confused impression of dark hair and a trench coat – and blazing blue eyes.

The loose gravel of the shoulder shot up in a rooster tail behind the truck, and John felt the wheels lose traction. He wished he was driving – Sam had limited experience and probably none at all in defensive driving. For a second John thought they were going to slide right off the road into a ravine, but then Sam managed to pull back onto the highway.

"Pull over," John said. "We need to find out what's wrong with that –" As Sam pulled off a little more sedately, the man was suddenly in front of them again, on the shoulder. Sam jammed on the brakes again, and John leapt out of his side of the truck. He ran around in front and stared in total disbelief. The man had utterly vanished in the instant that had passed since Sam had braked the truck to a stop. "What the hell!" he exclaimed as Sam came around the front end and stared at the empty shoulder.

"Where is he?" Sam asked.

John shook his head. Now was not the time. "Never mind. Get back in the truck." Sam nodded wordlessly and started back towards the driver's side. "No," John ordered, and his son stopped, giving him a startled look. He held out his hand for the keys. "I'm driving."

Clearly stung, Sam stared at him. "What?" he exclaimed. "Dad, I can –"

"You did fine, Sammy," John said urgently. "I just have more experience with defensive driving than you. Give me the keys."

After a second, Sam reached into his pocket for the keys and handed them to his father. Despite this, however, he turned towards the driver's side again and it was only then that John realized that his son – the one who hadn't been hunting in four years – had grabbed the shotgun out of its sheath under the driver's seat. When Sam saw him gazing at him, he gave his father a dark look, then hurried around the truck and got back in on the passenger side. John hadn't waited. They were back on the road as soon as Sam's door slammed shut.

"What the hell was that?" Sam asked, sounding a bit shaky. "Did you see what I saw? A young guy in a trench coat?"

John nodded. "A demon," he said without hesitation. He frankly couldn't imagine what else it could be, and coincidence didn't rate high in his thinking.

"You think?" Sam shook his head. "Was he trying to crash us?"

"That's my best guess at the moment," John said. "You okay?"

"I'm freaked out, but yeah, I'm fine."

"Good." John spent a couple of minutes trying to figure out how to tell Sam what he thought. Finally, he cleared his throat and glanced over at him. "You handled yourself great back there," he said.

Sam snorted. "You know, Dad, the days when I longed for your approval have been gone for a while," he said.

John shook his head. "I call it like I see it, Sam." He caught himself before he added the second syllable, trying to give Sammy the name he preferred. It wasn't easy to change. "For someone who hasn't hunted in four years, you did good."

"Wow, that's laying it on with a trowel," Sam said sarcastically. "You're going to embarrass me."

John rolled his eyes. "What do you want from me?" he asked.

"I don't know, Dad," Sam said. "I know what I wanted, but I never got it." He sat seething with silent tension for a moment, then relaxed a little. "It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters right now is Dean."

"At least we can agree about that," John replied, wanting to cut the subject short anyway. A long discussion on their shortcomings as father and son wouldn't get them anywhere. After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, John turned on the radio. Within seconds, Sam pulled out a little flat, black contraption and stuck some itty bitty earphones into his ears, no doubt listening to the stuff Dean called 'emo rock,' whatever that meant.

There weren't any further exciting episodes for a while. They hit some traffic in Salt Lake which slowed them up a bit, but after that they were going pretty good. Fortunately no snow was falling, though this late in the year, the land on either side of the road was blanketed, especially as they got further into the mountains. John's phone rang when they were level with Park City, and Sam glanced over at him before picking it up. "Bobby," he announced. John shrugged, fairly certain that Sam would do whatever he wanted no matter what he said. Flipping the phone open, Sam answered it. He was silent for a second after his greeting, then said, "Park City, Utah, but Dad's going to do all the driving here on in because we had a little incident outside Elko that made him nervous about me driving." John could hear Bobby's tone of voice, even if he couldn't hear the words. Bitching as always. Sam shrugged. "I know, but you know Dad." John rolled his eyes and ignored them. After a moment, Sam sighed and held out the phone. "He wants to talk to you."

John eyed the phone with disfavor. "Tell him I'm busy."

"Dad, he can probably hear you."

"I don't care. I –"

Sam fiddled with the phone for a second, then pressed a button. "Bobby, you're on speaker. What's up?"

John ground his teeth at Sam's high-handed behavior, then Bobby's irritated voice issued from his phone's speakers. "John, you cannot possibly drive that long without any sleep. If I know you, you didn't sleep a wink while Sam was driving. Killing yourself on the way here will not help Dean."

Setting his jaw to control his anger, John said, "We need to get to you, Bobby, and we've already had someone try to make Sam crash the truck. I don't want to risk it."

"Give me what I need to start with the scrying, then, John." John shook his head. If things were that simple, he wouldn't even be going to South Dakota. "I know you sent the car to me on Tuesday, but I don't have a clue how long it was even in Beatrice."

"Beatrice?" Sam asked.

John glanced over at him. He must not have mentioned where he'd found the car. "Beatrice, Nebraska," he said in an undertone. Raising his voice, he continued. "The cops picked it up on September 9th. The only reason they let me take it was because I still have a valid title."

"Dean's been missing that long?" Bobby exclaimed. "What the hell makes you think he's still alive?"

Sam's brows knit and he gave John an anxious look, obviously waiting to hear the answer.

John didn't want to go into detail about this right now. "Because he is," he said flatly.