Family is Where the Heart is

Chapter 36

Sarah was still trying to wake up as she, Dean, and Sam waited by the Impala as John talked to the police about a body found in a street along with an abandoned car. John knew it was the vampires and dragged the rest of them out, early in the morning. Sarah rubbed at her eye, "Why couldn't we all go over there?"

Sam scoffed, "I'm with you, peanut."

Dean looked over from the cops and his father, over at his brother. "Oh, don't tell me it's already starting," he asked Sam.

"What?" Sarah asked. "I was just asking. The three of us does this together."

Dean rubbed his hand along the top of her head. "Not you, Sarah. I mean Sam," he assured her as John was walking towards them. He turned around to face his father. "What do you got?"

"It was them all right. Looks like they're heading west," John explained his hands in his jacket pockets. "We'll double back to get around that detour."

"How can you be so sure?" Sam questioned him.

"Sam," Dean told his brother in an annoyed tone.

"I just wanna know we're going in the right direction," Sam explained.

"We are," said John.

"Are you sure?" Sarah asked.

"Sarah, not you, too," Dean said, with the same annoyed tone.

She shrugged, "I'm just asking, Dad." She looked back at her grandfather. "I mean, I don't know what you talked about over there, Grandpa, but usually we do a lot more research before we even get close to a lead. What are you going off of?"

John couldn't help but think that they may have two Sams now. He removed his right hand from his pocket and showed the three of them a vampire tooth. "I found this."

Dean was the one to take it from him and examine it. "So, this is one of them vampire teeth?"

"Yes," he replied.

"Looks more like a fang."

John looked between his youngest son and granddaughter, "Anymore questions?"

Sarah was about to open her mouth to continue when Dean gently kicked her in the leg, cautioning her not to answer. Instead, she replied, "No, sir."

Sam did not respond at all, he just stared at the tooth.

John started walking towards his truck. "All right. Let's get out of here, we're losing daylight."

"Daylight?" Sarah questioned. "The sun is barely even up yet."

John ignored it. "Hey Dean, why don't you touch up your car before you get rust? I wouldn't have given you the damn thing if I thought you would ruin it."

Dean kept quiet, not responding as he walked over to the passenger side of the Impala. Sam looked at him as if to ask, "Are you gonna say anything?" and Dean just shrugged.

Sarah didn't like how her father was talked to, of course, even by his own father, and quickly shot, "My dad takes good care of his car, you jerk!"

John turned around, his hands still in his jacket pockets. He looked over at his granddaughter, "excuse me, young lady?"

"You heard me," she glared at him.

Embarrassed, Dean pulled Sarah back, against him, covering her mouth. "Sorry 'bout that, Dad," he apologized.

John looked at his first-born, "Why don't you control your kid, Dean?" and walked away.

Sarah was struggling against her father's strong grip. Dean removed his hand from her mouth when John was inside his truck, and turned her around to face him. "Sarah, you have got to stop this. I mean it, it's okay," he told her for the umpteenth time.

"I'm sorry, Dad but it's not true. You do take very good care of your car," Sarah said.

Dean sighed. John honked his horn in impatience so Dean stood up and told Sarah to get in the car as he opened his door. He swore it was like taking chocolate away from a fat kid in trying to convince his daughter in not lashing out at whoever was talking to him the wrong way. And now even worse, he looked like a bad parent in front of his own father.

As Sam followed John, Dean read up on vampires from Sarah's book. "Well, I wonder if that's what happened to that 911 couple," he said, afterwards.

Sam stared ahead as he drove with one hand on the steering wheel. "That's probably what Dad's thinking," he said. "Course it'd be nice if he just told us what he thinks."

Dean looked over at his brother, "So it is starting."

Sam looked back at him for a brief moment then returned his attention to the road, "What?"

"Sam, we've been looking for Dad all year," Dean told him. "Now we're with him a couple hours and there's static already?"

He scoffed, "No." Sam took a deep breath. "Look, I'm happy he's okay, all right? I'm happy we're all workin' together."

"Good," Dean mumbled returning to the book.

Sam looked at him and then looked away, shaking his head. "It's just the way he treats us like children."

Dean moaned, "Oh, God."

"He…He barks orders at us, Dean," he continued. "He expects us to follow'em without question. He keeps us on some crap need-to-know deal."

"He does what he does for a reason," said Dean.

Sarah jumped up onto the back of the front seat. "I've only known Grandpa for a few hours but I have to say, he isn't like you, Dad." She shrugged, "We always consider things before we jump into what we're dealing with. The only research we've done is Grandpa talking to the cops and he barely shared anything with us except a stupid tooth."

"That's enough, Sarah," he warned her, looking at the book still.

"We're a team, we should all be on the same level," she argued with him.

"Sarah's right, Dean," Sam agreed with his niece.

"That's just the way the old man runs things," Dean shrugged.

"Yeah, well, it's a pretty crappy way, if you ask me," Sarah mumbled to Sam.

Dean looked back at his daughter, "What was that?"

"Nothing," she replied, quickly.

"You're coming close to me having Sam pull over and taking you across my knee," he warned.

Sam jumped in to defend his niece. "She's just speaking her mind, Dean."

"Yeah, about her own grandfather when she speaks very highly of her other one," Dean pointed out. He turned in his seat to look at his daughter. "You tell me all year you can't wait to meet the man and just like your uncle, you're talking like this about him?"

"I didn't know he was like this and you didn't say nothing to me either. You made him out like he's this perfect somebody who you learned everything from." Sarah didn't normally talk back to her father like the way she was but something just happened. It was mostly disappointment from seeing how her grandfather really was. All this time, she just thought he was just like her father. "Guess I was wrong."

Dean turned in his seat the moment he heard his daughter say she was wrong on her opinion of her grandfather. It hurt to hear and Dean refused to continue with this discussion.

Sarah realized what she had done though, and settled down. "I'm sorry, Dad. I didn't mean…"

"Just drop it, Sarah. We're in the middle of a hunt and need to focus on that," he interrupted her.

For the whole day, they continued to follow John. The Impala was in complete silence except for the engine, and Sarah's PSP and for a brief moment, her making sounds as she battled her toys against each other. Even though she didn't show it, Sarah couldn't understand why they just kept on driving around when it clearly wasn't getting them anywhere. The only time she could express her thoughts was when they stopped for gas and she and Sam went inside to grab something to eat.

"Is Dad always like this when you're around Grandpa?" she asked, grabbing a bag of Cheetos from the rack.

"He's just like you, peanut," Sam shrugged. "You can't see it? Your dad's just trying to follow our dad's orders like we were taught to do."

"Yeah, but Grandpa won't tell us anything. We're jumping into the lion's den." Sarah was following her uncle down an aisle back to the cooler section. "I need to know stuff or it drives me crazy."

"And I feel ya, peanut," he told her. "I really do and trust me I will get it out of your grandfather. Okay?"

"Okay, Uncle Sam," she replied. "Just do me a favor and do it without a fight."

"That I can't promise."

Later, that evening, Dean was talking to John on his phone. When he finally hung up, he told Sam to pull off at the next exit. Sam had to ask, why. "'Cause Dad thinks we've got the vampires' trail," Dean told him.

Sarah looked up from her PSP. "From what lead? We've been driving around all day."

"I don't know, Sarah. He didn't say, so can you not start this up again?"

At that, Sam revved the engine and sped up, switching lanes and eventually passing his father's truck, skidding in the middle of the road to block him. He got out of the truck, slamming his door shut.

"Oh, crap," Dean moaned. "Here we go. Sam!"

John was walking towards him as Sam stepped towards his father. "What the hell was that?"

Dean tried to tell his daughter to stay in the car but she was already halfway out, tossing her PSP onto the seat. He hurried around to their side.

"We need to talk," Sam told his father off.

John demanded, "About what?"

"About everything."

"Easy, Uncle Sam," Sarah tried to calm her uncle down. To her grandfather in the calmest tone she could use, "For starters, where are you getting your leads when all we've done is drive around all day?"

"That's enough, Sarah Lynn," Dean warned her.

"And what's the big deal about this gun?" Sam added not even trying to mass his anger.

"Come on, you two," Dean told his brother as well. "We can Q and A after we kill all the vampires."

John was mostly staring at Sam since he was more his eye level. "He's right. We don't have time for this."

"Last time we saw you, you said it was too dangerous to be together," Sam pointed out. "Now, out of the blue, you need our help."

"Help? What help? 'Cause so far, all we've done is nothing!" Sarah shot out, losing control of her temper as more of her uncle was starting to come out of her.

Sam continued, "Obviously something big is going down, and we wanna know what."

John just stood there, not budging an inch. "Get back in the car," he told Sam.

"No," he replied, shaking his head.

He moved closer to his youngest son and nodded up at him. "I said get back in the damn car."

Sam did not flinch at all. He just simply said, "And I said, no."

"Okay," Dean stepped in, "You made your point, tough guy. Look, we're all tired. We can talk about this later. Sammy, I mean it." He shoved both his brother and daughter back towards the Impala. "Come on, both of you."

"This is why I left in the first place," Sam muttered to them.

"What'd you say?" John asked, still standing in the same spot.

Sam spun back around, "You heard me."

"Yeah," he shot back. "You left. Your brother and me, we needed you. You walked away, Sam. You walked away!"

Dean was busy holding Sarah back as John got back up in her uncle's face. "Stop it, both of you," he told both his father and brother, struggling with his daughter.

"You're the one who said, 'don't come back,' Dad. You're the one who closed that door, not me." Sam started getting louder as he spat out, "You were just pissed off you couldn't control me anymore!"

While holding Sarah back in one arm, Dean got in between them, breaking up the argument. "I said, stop it!" he exclaimed. "Stop it, all of you. That's enough!"

Sam and John stepped back but they still continued to stare daggers at one another. Sarah stopped, struggling and just stared at her grandfather as if he was about to attack one of them.

Dean looked at his father, "That means, you too" before he realized Sarah was doing it, as well. Sam was already getting back into the Impala. "And you, too, Sarah Lynn. Get back in the car, now."

Sarah did not say a word as she thrust open her door and got into the backseat, slamming her door shut before returning to her game, which was a shooting game and gladly took all her anger out on the little, pixelated bad guys.

John walked back to his truck as Dean looked between all three of his family members, shrugging his arms up. "Terrific."