Disclaimer: The only thing I own are the ridiculous situations in which I've placed these boys.
Author's Note: Thanks for all of the continued support and encouragement – I love each and every one of you!
o()o()o()o(O)o()o()o()o
Dean awakens with a gasp, the sheen of cold sweat covering his body just as likely to be due to the images that have been floating through his dreaming brain as it is to the pain that has reared its ugly head yet again.
His right hand grips his stump reflexively, his jaw clenched in an effort to keep any further expressions of pain under wraps until he can leave the bedroom he's sharing with Sam, not wanting his little brother to witness yet another episode of weakness.
He makes his way carefully downstairs, Sam merely rolling over when Dean fails to keep another gasp of pain to himself, only to find Bobby wide awake in his study, thumbing through a pile of dusty tomes on the desk of front of him.
"You okay?" Bobby asks earnestly, seeing Dean's face locked in a grimace, his right hand desperately clutching the end of his left arm while he props himself against the doorway.
Dean manages a weak nod, pushing himself off of his momentary resting spot in order to sink into the chair opposite the older hunter before doubling over and laying his head against the cool wood of Bobby's desk.
Although he's not all that excited to have Bobby as a witness to his pain, he figures that at least the older hunter's likely to leave him to his own devices, unlike his little brother who would be wringing his hands and biting his lip in sympathetic agony.
Cursing himself momentarily for not thinking to grab his compression sock before he'd left the bedroom, he commences deep breathing, trying to refocus his attention away from the pain like their father had taught them years ago. When that in addition to an impromptu Led Zeppelin concert in his head fails to create the necessary diversion from his rather impressive level of torture, he tries to think of other possible distractions, his mind finally alighting on the images he'd seen just before waking up.
He's only able to recall brief flashes, but he can clearly visualize the face of a woman, a passenger in the Impala, face cracked in a malicious-looking smile that sends a chill up Dean's spine even now, bright blue eyes flashing black before she reaches over and yanks the steering wheel hard, sending the car careening towards the concrete divider in the middle of the highway.
Dean lets out a gasp, this time in disbelief instead of pain, his stomach plunging towards his toes as he sees the car spinning in tight circles, not flipping like he'd told Sam. Just as abruptly as it begins, the motion stops, the car sitting idle for the briefest of moments before sliding sideways into the concrete barrier as if being pushed by a tremendous invisible force, the immobile structure rushing towards Dean before he can move, his arm trapped in an unnatural position against the dashboard as a result of the car's motion.
"What the…," he mutters to himself, watching as the woman smirks and calmly opens the passenger's side door, leaning back in, her mouth forming soundless words before closing the door and disappearing from view, leaving him in a fruitless struggle to extricate himself from the Impala.
He can now identify the phantom pain as exactly the same as what he felt while he was trapped – the same location, the same intensity, the same feeling of the bones in his arm being crushed beyond repair.
"Son of a bitch," he grinds out, a combination of the continued pain in his residual limb and the recall of the initiating event as well as the feeling that he's still missing some rather significant pieces of the puzzle, his futile efforts to recall what she'd said adding yet another layer of frustration.
"Dean?"
"Yeah?" he gasps, working to get his traitorous body back under control.
"You sure you're okay?" Bobby asks, the sincere concern evident in his tone.
"Yeah. I'm fine," he says, blowing out a relieved breath when his words ring true, the pain in his arm relenting as quickly as it had come.
"Son of a bitch," he reiterates, this time with an air of exhaustion, raising his head up off the desk only to slump back and slouch down in the chair, warily eyeballing Bobby who's eyeballing him right back.
"That happen a lot?" Bobby asks, pouring two glasses of whiskey and placing one on front of Dean before taking a sip.
Dean takes a healthy gulp of his own, enjoying the sting of the liquid as it races towards his stomach, swirling the remainder around the bottom of the glass before downing the rest of his drink.
"Not as much as it used to," he answers, hoping that he's not jinxing himself; he hasn't had two close episodes like this for a couple of months now.
Dean squirms under Bobby's scrutinizing gaze and before he can second guess himself he blurts out a question that he thinks will get the older hunter's attention off of him and back to more important matters.
"Do black eyes mean anything to you?"
Dean doesn't miss the way Bobby straightens up almost imperceptibly in his chair, his eyes slightly widening before quickly narrowing again as he searches the younger hunter's face. "What kind of black eyes?"
"Like normal blue eyes one minute, then they flash to black," he says, worrying his lower lip while he watches the older hunter on the opposite side of the desk.
"Where'd you see that?" asks Bobby, leaning forwards on the desk, his body tense.
"Up here," Dean says, tapping his head. "Just now. Before I woke up," he adds, not missing Bobby's laser-like focus as he describes the images he's managed to recall.
"Dammit," Bobby mutters when Dean's finished, sitting back in his chair heavily and pouring himself another drink.
"What?" Dean asks warily, not liking the look on the older hunter's face, something akin to a mixture of fear and concern.
Bobby taps his now empty glass on his desk a couple of times, mind working to get his thoughts lined up. He leans forward, bracing himself on his desk, weighing his words carefully before he speaks.
"I think there was someone else in the car with you," he says, his intense gaze locked on Dean. "And I think it was a demon."
o()o()o()o(O)o()o()o()o
"A what?" Sam asks, eyebrows up to his hairline as his eyes bounce between Dean and Bobby. He'd known something was up from the moment he came downstairs earlier in the morning, both hunters already amped up on caffeine and nerves before he'd barely managed to get his brain kick-started for the day.
As it turns out, Bobby's answer to his previous day's question regarding Dean and his possible traveling companion gets his brain cells activated much quicker than any cup of coffee ever has.
"A demon," Bobby reiterates, not blaming the younger Winchester for the disbelief evident on his face. It had taken a face to face meeting with his own possessed wife before he himself had become a believer.
"And what makes you think that?" Sam asks, his glance traveling over to his brother before returning back to Bobby. Dean's taken up wearing down the hardwood floor in Bobby's study, his restless pacing adding to Sam's growing agitation.
"Something your brother said," Bobby answers, pushing himself off of the edge of the desk he'd been perched upon in order to make his way back around to the seat he'd spent the better part of last night warming, yet another sleepless night trying to pull together pieces to a puzzle he didn't even know existed.
"Care to elaborate?" Sam prompts when Bobby fails to continue, the older hunter still grasping to make sense of the picture he can't yet see.
Bobby and Dean engage in a rather heated nonverbal contest of wills, each man giving the other the hairiest eyeball he can muster, Dean trying to get the point across that he's not too keen on reliving the vivid memories of his accident quite yet while Bobby tries to nonverbally communicate the fact that since it's Dean's brain, he should be the one to spill the proverbial beans.
Dean finally huffs out a resigned sigh, pausing his attempt to wear down Bobby's hardwood floors just long enough to fill Sam in on the previous night's events, the fact that he's retelling it in the morning daylight as opposed to the middle of the night doing nothing to lessen the feeling of doom that continues to churn in his gut.
"You remember smelling any sulfur?" Bobby asks at the tail end of Dean's revelations, having forgotten to confirm this piece of information the previous night in all the excitement.
"What?" Dean asks, his face showing the confusion at Bobby's question and the effort he puts into trying to recall that tidbit of information as well.
"You know – sulfur. Rotten eggs? Or see any yellow powder? Right up there with the black eyes as a sign of a demon's presence," Bobby says, his attention grabbed by the face of the younger Winchester, Sam's complexion paling rapidly as he hears the older hunter's words, his eyes rounded into wide unblinking saucers.
"Sam?" Bobby asks, his verbal nudge bringing Sam back to the present, shaking his shaggy head slightly to try to clear his brain.
"Yeah," he says, swallowing several times in order to get some moisture back into his suddenly desert-dry mouth.
"What's wrong?" adds Dean, glad to have the attention off of himself while not liking the sudden turn Sam's countenance has taken.
"It's just," Sam begins, fidgeting in his seat as he tries to make sense of his own revelations. "I remember smelling sulfur the night Jess died." He glances across the desk at Bobby before swinging his glance over to Dean, both men utterly still at his words. "And I'm pretty sure there was some yellow powder in the apartment too. I overhead a couple of the fire fighters talking about it afterwards. Didn't know what to make of it, so I just assumed it was part of the fire."
"Ah, hell…" Bobby says, thumping backwards into his chair heavily, lifting the hat off of his head in order to scratch his head in consternation.
Because if he's right about this, then not only was Jess killed by a demon, but the supposition would be that the boys' mother was as well. Add in the fact that Dean had a close encounter of his own around the same time as Jess' death, and there's a pretty strong chance that the Winchesters are part of something big.
He's never wanted to be more wrong about something in his entire life.
Nor does he ever think he's been more right.
o()o()o()o(O)o()o()o()o
"You're sure about that?" Dean asks the person on the other end of his phone, the husband of a couple whose house he'd de-ghosted in the days leading up to his accident. "Okay then, thanks. And give Sandra my best," he says, clicking his phone closed and tapping it lightly against his chin, eyebrows furrowed in deep thought.
"Sandra, huh?" says Sam, his own eyebrows wagging suggestively at Dean's end of the conversation.
"Yeah," says Dean blandly, "Sandra. Seventy years old, round as she is tall. But bakes a hell of a pie. Go for it Sammy, I think she'd love you. Of course, you might have to fight her husband for her. He walks with a cane. I think you might just be able to take him," he adds, keeping a straight face.
Sam's Bitch Face makes an appearance, the younger Winchester schooling his features again quickly, not wanting his brother's smart mouth to divert their attention away from the task at hand.
The brothers have redoubled their efforts, working furiously to continue to try to figure out the events surrounding Dean's accident and Jess' death, Bobby having taken a Time Out in order to help another hunter who'd gotten himself into some hot water with the local authorities.
"So if you're done thinking dirty thoughts about someone who could be your grandmother," Dean continues with a bland raise of his eyebrow, "I think I might have something."
"You mean besides a couple of STDs?" Sam asks, reflexively ducking away from the pen that whizzes past his right earlobe.
"Funny," Dean says, his expression and tone of voice saying otherwise. He leans against the bookcase in Bobby's study, the two of them having barely stepped foot outside of the room save for eating and sleeping since their arrival, and crosses his arms before quirking his eyebrow at Sam. "You want to hear this or not?"
Sam just rolls his eyes and huffs out his response, recalling all too well how it feels to be so cooped up with his brother in the midst of a hunt. They'll both be lucky to make it out alive.
"So, Walter just told me that I'd been talking about going out to California. Wondered if I'd made it out there yet."
"Well, did you?" Sam asks, wondering not for the first time if Dean had ever come close to visiting him. "Would have been nice to at least call," he mutters under his breath.
"Sam," Dean barks, his voice snapping Sam's eyes to his own. "They were the last job I did before my accident."
"Okay," Sam draws out, the hurt confusion still evident on his face.
"Oh, for Pete's sake, boy genius," Dean says, raising his arms in exasperation, his left stump doing little more than trailing along after the right like an afterthought.
"What?" Sam asks, now sliding into something closer to a sulk at the annoyance directed his way by his older brother.
Dean takes a couple of deep breaths, trying to get himself back in check, and finally sits down across from Sam in Bobby's chair, turning the map of the United States that the older hunter keeps handy around to face his brother.
"Walter and Sandra live in Omaha," he says with measured patience, placing his finger on the appropriate spot on the map. "My accident was outside of Denver," he says, tracing his finger along the direct highway linking the two. And apparently, I was headed to California," he adds, finally seeing the lightbulb go on in Sam's head.
"Sam," he continues, his eyes searching his younger brother's face, "I think I was coming to find you."
To Be Continued…