Born Under a Bad Sign Part 1
Dean was on his cell phone, leaning against his car, Angela stood across from him. Both were fidgeting, clearly upset.
"Ellen, it's me again." Dean said. "Any chance you've heard from him?" he asked. There was a pause. "I swear, it's like looking for my dad all over again." He added. "Angela and I are losing our minds here." He said. "No, we've called him a thousand times, there's nothing but voicemail. We don't know where he went, or why. Sam's just gone." He added after another pause. His cell phone beeped. "Hang on."
The phone showed another incoming call from Sam. He answered it.
"Sammy? Where the hell are you? Are you okay?" Dean asked. There was a pause. "Hey, hey, hey! Calm down. Where are you? All right, don't move, Angie and I are on our way."
~/~\~
Sam hung up the phone slowly, looking numb. His knuckles were bloody.
Dean and Angela drove to reach Sam, passing a sign that read TWIN LAKES; they arrived at the hotel, parked, and got out.
~/~\~
Dean and Angela walked frantically down a narrow hallway, checking door numbers until they reached room 109.
Dean knocked. "Sam, it's us. Sam!" he said.
Angela tried the door, it was open. Inside, Sam hadn't moved, still sitting numbly on one bed. "Sam?" She asked softly. "Hey."
"Hey, Angela. Hey Dean." He muttered.
They both knelt beside him. "Are you bleeding?" Dean asked.
"I tried to wash it off." Sam said.
Dean saw Sam's shirt covered in blood; he groped at it, searching for a wound. "Oh my god."
"I don't think it's my blood." Sam muttered.
"Whose is it?" Angela asked.
"I don't know." He shrugged.
"Sam, what the hell happened?" Dean frowned.
Sam finally looked up at them. "Guys. I don't remember anything."
~/~\~
Dean and Angela returned to the room, and Angela was carrying a grocery bag. Sam had changed clothes and looked a little less out of it.
"What'd you guys find out?" Sam asked.
"You checked in two days ago under the name Richard Sambora." Angela answered.
"Of course, I think the scariest part about this whole thing is the fact that you're a Bon Jovi fan." Dean muttered.
"Dean." Sam and Angela said seriously.
"Your room's been quiet, nobody's noticed anything unusual." Dean said.
"You mean no one saw me walking around covered in blood?" Sam asked.
"Yeah. That's what we mean." Angela said.
"Then how the hell did I get here, guys? What happened to me?" Sam frowned.
"We don't know." Dean shrugged. "But you're, you're okay, and that's what matters. Everything else we can deal with."
"Oh really? Cause what if I hurt someone? Or worse?"
"Sam…" Angela murmured.
He just ignored her. "What if this what Dad warned you about?" he asked Dean.
"Hey, whoa, whoa, come on man, let's not jump the gun here." Dean said. "We don't know what happened. We've just got to treat this like, like any other job." He added.
"What's the last thing you remember?" Angela asked.
Sam sat down. "Just us three, just in that motel room in West Texas, going out to grab some burgers, and…"
"West Texas?" Dean asked. "That was, that was over a week ago."
"That's it." Sam shrugged.
Dean and Angela looked stunned.
"Next thing I knew I was sitting here." Sam whispered. "Bloody. Felt like I'd been asleep for a month."
"Okay." Dean nodded. "Retrace your steps. The manager said you left yesterday afternoon and he never saw you come back, so," Dean said, pulling back the curtain, and finding a bloody fingerprint on the window. "Hey."
~/~\~
The three walked outside the motel. It was daylight, but raining.
"Recognize anything?" Angela asked.
"Not really." Sam mumbled. They went towards a parking garage out back. "Wait."
"What?" Dean asked.
"I think I was here."
"You remember?"
"Not really, it just feels familiar, you know?" Sam replied. Dean shrugged and went to the nearest garage. Sam looked over to the second and pointed. "Try that one. Yeah."
Dean tugged on the padlock. "Okay."
"Wait." Sam said. He dug in his pocket, frowning. He pulled out a key, and gave Dean and Angela a significant look.
Dean opened the padlock with the key, raising his eyebrows at Sam. He pulled the garage door open to reveal a filthy, beat-up VW Beetle. "Oh, please tell me you didn't steal this."
Sam fidgeted. They went into the garage and opened both doors to the car, Sam and Angela on the driver's side. He touched the wheel, and showed Angela his stained finger.
"More blood." He mumbled.
Dean pointed. "Guys. Back seat."
Angela reached down, picking up a blood-stained knife that stuck to the floor of the backseat.
Sam just stared at it. "You think I used this one someone?"
Dean paused. "We're not thinking anything."
Sam looked around, took the knife from Angela, and rubbed the handle off on the inside of his jacket. Dean picked up a pack of cigarettes.
"Okay now, this is disturbing." Dean said. "Come on, man, this couldn't have been you. Had to have been someone else, someone who," he added, sniffing the pack. "Smokes menthols."
"Here. Gas receipt. Few towns over." Angela said.
~/~\~
The three pulled up in front of a small gas station.
"All right. Receipt's good for ten gallons at pump number two. You getting any, uh, any goose bumps yet?" Dean asked. "God, this looks familiar, déjà vu vibes?"
Sam shook his head quietly.
"Maybe someone inside will remember you." Angela said. "Come on."
They went into the convenience store; the clerk looked up in shock, then anger.
"You." He glared. "Outta here, now, I'm calling the cops."
"You talking to him?" Dean asked.
"Yeah, I'm talking to him." The clerk nodded. "Jerk comes in yesterday, stinking drunk, grabs a forty from the fridge, starts chugging it."
"This guy? You're drinking malt liquor?" Dean asked.
"Not after he whipped the friggin' bottle at my head." The clerk replied.
"This guy?"
"What, am I speaking Urdu?"
"Look, I'm really sorry if I did anything." Sam said sincerely.
"Tell your story walkin', pal." The clerk said. "Po-po will be here in five."
"Wait, wait, put the phone down." Dean replied. "Sam, go wait in the car. Angela, go with him."
She nodded. "Alright."
"But Dean," Sam started.
"Go wait in the car!" he replied. Sam sighed and left with Angela. Dean turned back to the clerk. "Okay, look, man. I just want to talk to you, that's it. Okay?"
The clerk hung up.
"Now, when he took off yesterday, where did he go?" Dean asked.
"Why don't you ask him?"
"Cause I'm asking you." Dean said. "Now please, you'd be doing me a huge favor."
"Oh, do you a favor?" the clerk asked. "Well, that is what I live for. You know, your buddy didn't pay for the booze. Okay? Or the smokes, which he also illegally lit up."
"You saw him smoking?" Dean frowned.
"Yeah. Guy's a chimney."
Dean cleared his throat and pulled his wallet out, placing some bills on the desk. "This, uh, ought to cover it."
"Hmm." The clerk nodded. "It's, uh, it's coming back to me now. He took two packs."
Dean pulled out more money. "Of course he did."
"He went north." The clerk said. "Route 71, straight out of town."
Dean nodded, and grabbed two candy bars, leaving with a smirk.
~/~\~
Dean was driving down a dark road, Sam was staring out the window, and Angela sat silently in the backseat.
"What's going on with you, Sam? Hm?" Dean asked. "Cause smoking, throwing bottles at people, I mean, that sounds more like me than you."
"Dean, wait, right here." Sam muttered. "Turn down that road."
"What?" Dean asked.
"I don't know how I know, I just do." Sam shrugged.
Dean turned down a back road and onto a private property. It was a large house with plenty of emergency lighting and security cameras.
"Whoever lives here, I'd say they don't like surprises." Sam said.
"Should we knock?" Angela asked.
"Yeah, I guess." Sam nodded.
Dean knocked on the front door while Sam and Angela poked around the corner.
"Hey Dean." Sam and Angela called.
Sam waved his flashlight at a window; it was broken, the ledge covered in shattered glass.
"I'm surprised the cops didn't show." Dean muttered. "Place like this you'd think it'd have an alarm."
Sam found a disabled alarm on the wall. "Yeah, you would." He mumbled.
~/~\~
They went into the house; the floor was covered in broken glass and scattered items. In a back room, the came across a body on the floor.
"Get the lights." Dean said.
Sam turned on the lights as Dean knelt behind the body. He placed a hand on it and turned it over; it was a middle-aged man with a deeply cut throat; he was dead, his eyes staring. Dean put a hand over his own mouth, Angela just went wide eyed, and Sam looked horrified.
"Dean, Angela, I did this." Sam muttered.
"We don't know that." Angela replied.
"What else do you need?" Sam sighed. "I mean, how else do you explain the car, the knife, the blood,"
"I don't know, man, why don't you tell me?" Dean asked. "Look, even if you did do this I'm sure you had a good reason; you know, self-defense, uh, he was, he was a bad son of a bitch, something."
Angela patted down the body. "He doesn't have any ID."
Sam looked at her. "I need your lock pick."
"What?" she frowned.
"I need your lock pick." He repeated. Sam took the lock pick and opened a double door closet in the room. Inside the room, one wall was covered in firearms, the others in charts and clippings.
"Either this guy's a Unabomber," Dean started.
"Or a hunter." Sam muttered. "Guys, I think I killed a hunter."
Dean saw a security camera near the ceiling. "Let's find out."
~/~\~
Later, Sam was sitting in front of the desktop computer, Angela stood next to him, and Dean stood behind them. He cued up the security tape.
"Here we go." Dean said.
On the tape, Sam was fighting the same man who lied dead on the floor behind them. The fight moved off camera and Sam dragged the man back into the frame; he kneeled, the man pulled up against his legs, and slit his throat. Sam and Angela stared in shock as Dean pulled back from the screen and stood straight.
~/~\~
Sam was sitting at the computer desk, staring at a page in his hand and Angela stood next to him. Dean bustled around behind them, cleaning up.
"How do you erase this? Huh?" Dean asked. "Guys, come on, I need your help."
"I killed him, guys." Sam whispered. "I just broke in and killed him."
"Listen to me." Dean replied. "Whoever this guy is, he's a hunter. Which means that other hunters are going to come looking for his killer, which means we've got to cover our tracks, okay?"
Angela took the pages from Sam. "His name was Steve Wandell." She said. "This is a letter from his daughter."
Dean looked at the letter, then made a decision. He grabbed the CPU, lifted it above his head, and smashed it to the floor, stomping it with his boot for good measure.
"Wipe your prints, then we go." Dean looked at them both.
~/~\~
The three proceeded into the motel room.
"All right, we get a couple of hours sleep and then we put this place in our review mirror." Dean said. "Look, I know this is bad, okay? You've gotta snap out of it. Sam, say something!"
Sam looked at Angela and Dean. "Just get some sleep and leave in the morning?" he asked. "Murder, guys. That's what I did."
"Maybe." Angela said.
Sam just scoffed.
"Okay? Hey, we don't know… shape shifter!" Dean suggested.
"Oh, come on. You know it wasn't, you saw the tape." Sam replied. "There was no eye flare, no distortion."
"Yeah, but it wasn't you!" Dean retorted. "All right? I mean, yeah, it might have been you, but it wasn't you."
"Well, I think it was." Sam muttered. He sat on the bed. "I think maybe more than you know."
"What the hell does that mean?" Angela asked, sitting next to him.
"For the last few weeks I've been having… I've been having these feelings."
"What feelings?" Dean asked.
"Rage. Hate." Sam muttered. "And I can't stop it. It just gets worse. Day by day it gets worse."
"You never told us this." Angela said.
"I didn't want to scare you guys."
"Well, bag-up job on that." Dean muttered.
"Guys, the yellow-eyed demon, you know he has plans for me." Sam muttered.
"Us. He has plans for us." Angela corrected.
Sam sighed and looked at her. "Fine. Us." He replied. "And we all know that he's turned other children into killers before, too."
"No one can control you but you. Same goes for you Angela." Dean said.
"It sure doesn't seem like that, Dean, at least for mw. It feels like no matter what I do, slowly but surely I'm, I'm just becoming…"
"What?" Dean asked.
"Who I'm meant to be." He sighed. "I mean, you said it once yourself, Dean. I gotta face up to who I am."
"I didn't mean this!" Dean replied.
"But it's still true. You know that. Dad knew that too, that's why he told you, if it ever came to this…" Sam muttered.
"Shut up, Sam." Dean whispered.
"Dean, you promised him. You promised me." Sam replied.
"He also promised me." Angela said. "Cause I'm in the same boat as you Sam." She added.
Sam just frowned. "He what?"
"No. Listen to me. Both of you." Dean said before Angela could explain. "We're going to figure this out. Okay? I mean, there's got to be a way, right?"
"Yeah, there is." Sam said. Sam took his handgun from his duffel, and shoved it at Dean. "I don't want to hurt anyone else. I don't want to hurt you or Angela." He murmured. "And Angela, you're not gonna turn…" he added.
"You don't know that." She retorted.
"You won't. Neither of you will hurt anyone. Whatever this is, you can fight it."
Sam was tearing up. "No. I can't. Not forever. Here, you gotta do it. Just take care of Angie." He mumbled.
The three of them stared at each other for a long moment; then Sam grabbed Dean's right hand and placed the gun in it. Dean didn't move, he just stared in shock.
"You know, I've tried hard to keep you safe. Angela too." Dean muttered.
Sam nodded. "I know."
"I can't. I'd rather die." Dean said. He dropped the gun and shouldered past Sam.
"No. You'll live." Sam muttered. He picked up the gun as Dean turned to face him. "You'll live to regret this." He added. He pistol-whipped Dean, who fell to the floor unconscious.
Angela went wide eyed. "Sam!" she yelled.
He turned to her, and did the same. He then picked her up and slung her over his shoulder.
A/N: Hey guys! So I have officially made a schedule. I'll post a chapter every night at around 10:00 PM, so yaay! :D I hope y'all really liked this chapter, some parts were kind of difficult to write. I'm really excited for the next chapter though. :) Anyway, hope you enjoy! I'll do a lot more editing writing tomorrow, but currently I'm at Hershey Park. :)
Don't forget to drop a review ;) And happy holidays! Love you guys.
~Emily
