Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.

A/N: I guess at this point, it's silly to keep apologizing for the long delays. You guys already know why I haven't been updating frequently; it's not likely to change too much until the baby is a little older, but I'll do my best. This chapter is a bit shorter than most, but I needed it to end when it did so that I could work into the next scene, which works best from Sam's POV.

Chapter 51—Rules of the Road

"Sam, call Dad—tell him we got it," Dean told his brother as they reached the car.

"Why do I have to call him?" Sam asked, stopping at the passenger-side door to stare back at Dean over the hood of the car.

"Because I'm older, and I said so," Dean replied matter of factly. He slid into the driver's seat and put the key in the ignition, waiting impatiently for Sam to get in the car.

"What are you gonna be doing?" Sam asked, continuing what Dean had already thought was a closed conversation.

"Driving."

"And you can't talk to Dad while you do it?" Sam asked him, prompting an aggravated look from Dean.

Why does he have to fucking question everything?

"I could, but I don't want to."

"So make one of the twins call him," Sam retorted.

"Quit bein' a little bitch and call him."

"You're refusing to call him yourself, and I'm the bitch?"

Dean didn't bother to respond, letting his face and his middle finger speak for him, and with a put-upon sigh, Sam dug his phone out of his pocket.

"Hey, Dad—Dean said to call and let you know that we have the rifle…Well, I guess…we don't exactly have a demon around to test it on…Okay…yeah, seems to be…Okay…Okay..." Sam sighed, clearly ready to be done with the conversation. "I got it, Dad…okay, bye."

"What 'seems to be'?" Dean asked, narrowing his eyes as he glanced over at his younger brother.

"Nothing."

"Sam."

"You didn't want to talk to Dad yourself, so you don't get to hear what he said."

"What are you, six? Just tell me what he said."

"Just told us to go back to Bobby's," Sam said sullenly, and Dean couldn't help but be reminded by a stubborn mini version of Sam, defiantly refusing to budge on, well, anything. It was cute when he was four, but now it was just fucking annoying.

"And?" he prompted.

"Nothing."

"Bullshit. I know he said something else. Spill," Dean told him, ignoring how much like his father he sounded.

"D, c'mon," Braden interrupted. "It's so obvious. Dad asked Sam if you were okay. Quit givin' him a hard time. Anyway, he's right—you didn't want to talk. That's on you, man."

"You're taking his side?" Dean asked, casting an annoyed look at Braden in the rearview mirror. Yeah, and my baby brother giving me a damn lecture is even more annoying than Sam channeling his inner child.

"I'm taking the side that will stop the bitchin' the fastest. It's irritatin'."

"You're one to talk—you and Aub do that shit all the time, too."

"Yeah, well, we're not now, and I feel kinda like I'm gonna yack, so…"

"Shit—do you have Dramamine back there?"

"Uh…yeah, probably…somewhere," he said, casting about in the backseat for the small travel-size canister of pills. A few minutes later, though, they didn't seem any closer to finding it, and Dean was starting to cast about for a place to pull over. Though Jessica was trying her best to help search find the medicine, they weren't having much luck. Between the bags and the massive accumulation of pillows courtesy of the youngest Winchester, there just wasn't room to look.

"Looking around is just makin' it worse," Braden said, and Dean could tell from the sickly shade of Braden's face that they weren't far from an emergency pull-over. Yeah, they had a bucket for situations like this, but still…nasty.

"Fuck," he said with a sigh, pulling on over, unwilling to push his already shitty luck by driving further. Braden bolted as soon as the car came to a stop, coughing up just enough bile in some meager bushes beside the road to make Dean glad he stopped.

That shit's as bad as straight-up vomit. Especially in a bucket in the car. Gross.

"Aubrey, get back there and help find the pills," Dean told her, giving her a not so gentle nudge when she didn't move from her seat between he and Sam.

"I'm comfortable."

"Yeah, well, tough. That's mostly your shit back there. Nobody can find a damn thing under all of the fuckin' pillows. Now do what I said."

With a huff, Aubrey pulled her feet up onto the seat before Dean could protest and crawled over the back of the seat into the back, half falling onto Jessica with a hastily muttered apology.

"You put your foot in my seat again, you and I are gonna have words, you hear me?" Dean told her with a dark look, reaching down to brush the seat off as Sam sighed.

"There's not even a mark—" he began, but Dean cut him off.

"Don't take her side! You know the rules—"

"Found it," Aubrey announced, putting a stop to the opening salvo of Dean's totally justified tirade.

Jessica found a bottle of water, probably one that had rolled out from under the seat at some point, and within twenty minutes of Braden taking the Dramamine, the car was quiet once more as not only Braden but also Jessica and Aubrey settled in for car napping.

The sun went down, and Dean drove on, something instinctive urging him to keep going, to push on until they got to Bobby's. He lapsed into silent brooding relatively quickly, he realized, but he'd lost the ability to shake himself out of such moods a considerable time ago.

"Dean?" Sam said quietly, breaking into his reverie, and Dean glanced at him, his eyes narrowing a bit at the hesitant expression on his younger brother's face. "I know I've been asking you this a lot lately, and I know you'll probably bullshit me, but I'm gonna ask you anyway—are you okay?"

Dean started to do just that, to give his brother the token "I'm fine" answer, but he found himself pausing instead to actually consider.

"Well?" Sam prompted after only a few seconds.

"Shut-up, I'm thinking about what I wanna say." Sam pursed his lips and turned away, perhaps figuring out that he might get an actual honest-to-God answer if he shut up. Finally, after a few minutes, Dean sighed, his shoulders tensing a bit as he spoke.

"No, I'm not okay," he said, not even sure what made him give Sam a truthful answer. His rule of thumb was to pretend everything was fine, but something had him wanting to actually emote.

's gotta be all the girl spirits hanging out in my head. Gotta be. Course, that's part of the problem, isn't it?

"What's wrong?" Sam asked him softly.

Dean glanced down at Aubrey, who was slumped against him where she'd fallen asleep a few hours ago.

She'd crawled back into the front seat sans shoes a while ago and curled up beside him, hugging his arm, and it hadn't taken much insight to know she was still a bit shaken from what had happened back at the Winchester Mystery House.

"This is all my fault," he said, his fingers tightening around the steering wheel as he finally blurted out what was bothering him.

"What are you talking about? What's your fault?"

"All of the shit that went down in the house with that spirit."

"How is that your fault? Aubrey opened herself up to it after you specifically warned her not to."

"Yeah, but it never would've happened if she hadn't had to take some of this fucked up clairaudience shit from me."

"True, but no one forced her to do that. And if she hadn't, you'd still be stuck in a salt circle at Bobby's, unable to function."

"Thanks for reminding me. This was a nice chat, Sam," he snapped, wishing he'd never brought it up.

"Dude, that's not what I meant. I'm just saying that Aubrey stepped up to the plate when we needed her and gave you the time you needed to adjust. She's been dealing it with it just fine. So she made a mistake this time—she's fifteen. It's sort of expected. And none of it is your fault."

"But if I'd handled it better at the house, she never would've—"

"No, she probably still would've. How many times did Dad tell you not to do something when you were fifteen that you did anyway?"

Touché.

Hell, I still do, he acknowledged.

"You put too much blame on yourself, man," Sam went on, "You always do. People make choices. Aubrey's old enough to make her own, and it has nothing to do with you. I'm not saying you shouldn't talk to her about how stupid her choice was, but…let it go. Not everything is your fault."

Tension he didn't even know he was carrying eased in his shoulders, and he found himself beginning to relax a little.

'Your little bro is pretty smart, man,' TK told him, his voice emerging from the blur of voices that Dean had managed to relegate to white noise. And this time, it was actually okay. It didn't seem quite as overwhelming, and Dean began to think that maybe things were getting better. 'You should listen to him, man. He's right.'

Yeah, okay, so little brother makes a good point…

Ah, damn, he's right—I'm gonna have to talk with Aubrey about her 'choices.' Fuck.

Never did Dean feel more like their father than their brother when he had to have those "do-you-understand-that-what-you-did-was-wrong" talks. But somebody had to do it, and Dean loved his siblings enough to suck it up and deal with it if it meant they'd learn from their fuck-ups.

Dean's grip on the steering wheel eased and for the first time in a while, he settled back to enjoy the drive. We got the rifle, we're heading back to Bobby's, and everyone's safe.

But something told him that maybe he was just fooling himself.


"And watch it with that oil—I don't want it spilled on my seat."

"Dude, this is hard enough to do in a moving car without you bitching at me from the front seat," Sam retorted, looking up from the Winchester rifle in his lap. Jessica clapped a hand over her mouth as she started laughing.

"If I didn't know you guys were talking about cleaning that gun…" She laughed again, even as Dean scowled at her.

"You—not funny," he said, pointing at her. "And you," he said, turning his gaze on Sam in the rearview mirror, "no spills."

They needed the rifle cleaned and ready to fire. There was no telling how long it had been hidden away, unused and gathering dust, and Dean didn't want to risk a misfire at a crucial moment. Of course, cleaning it in his car wasn't exactly the best place for it. He just didn't see any other option, not unless he was willing to stop somewhere for the night. Which he wasn't.

Still, it was messy as hell. The oil and the solvent alone were a hazard to the interior.

But he couldn't ignore the urgency of the situation or the growing sense of 'hurry-hurry-hurry' that was beating at him. Bobby's meant safety, and Dean was so ready to be someplace where he could relax and let his guard down. So Sam was doing his best to clean the lever-action rifle in the middle of the back seat while Braden did what he could to contain the mess and hold supplies.

"Just watch out—I don't want to get whacked in the back of the head by the barrel or something," Aubrey said, giving Sam a look from her place in front of him.

"Uh, I think you're mistaking me for you. I'm not the one that accidentally hits people while holding firearms," Sam told her pointedly. From the corner of his eye, he watched Jessica eye Sam, who was ramming the cleaning rod down the barrel. She glanced out at the cars around them, biting her lip until she caught Dean looking at her.

"What?" she asked, turning her eyes back on the road in front of them.

"What's wrong?"

"Um…it's just that…well, this has to be kind of illegal. I mean, he's not exactly hiding the fact that he's got a rifle out in plain sight of anyone that drives past us."

"It depends," he told her with a straight face. "What state are we in?"

"Nebras—Dean Winchester!" she yelled, catching on that he was teasing her.

"Look, don't sweat it, okay? A lot of stuff we do is illegal. You're just gonna have to get used to it, sis." He chuckled, glancing back in the rearview only to scowl once more. "Dammit, Sam—you're dripping!"

"Dean, we're doing the best we can! Lay off!"

"Dude, you're not even having to break it down—what's so hard about a quick lube job?!"

"Dean, if you don't shut the hell up, I swear to—"

"Alright, alright! At least use some of those pillows or something to catch the drips! Do you know how hard it'll be to get that shit out if it gets on the upholstery?!"

"Hey, those are my pillows!" Aubrey shouted.

"Yeah, and there are plenty more just like 'em at the next hotel we stop at, so suck it up. Baby's interior is more important than your weird-as-hell pillow collection."

She won't filch so much as a candy bar from a gas station—that's wrong—but she doesn't have a problem taking the fucking pillows from the hotels, he thought, shaking his head ruefully. So fucked up.

With a huff, Aubrey slumped back in her seat, crossing her arms over her chest with a scowl.

"Bray, you're sure you're okay to do that?" he asked, glancing in the rearview again. "You don't feel nauseous, do you?"

"D, I told you—I took the Dramamine, and it's working. I'm tired, but that's all. I'm fine. Quit bein' such a grandma."

"How's it look, Sam?" Dean asked, ignoring his younger brother's jibe.

"The seat looks fine, Dean," Sam replied, rolling his eyes.

"I meant the gun."

"Oh…not too bad, all things considered."

"She gonna be capable of firing?"

"Looks like. If we can stop somewhere and fire off a few rounds, though, I'd feel better."

"I'll keep an eye out for a good spot."

"You know, we should get one of those RV things," Aubrey said suddenly, and everyone looked at her, thrown by the extreme change of subject.

"Non sequitur much?" Sam said with a shake of his head, catching Dean's eye in the rearview with a look of bemusement.

Yeah, don't look at me—I don't know where the hell that came from, either.

"No, think about it, though," Aubrey continued earnestly. "We'd have a table for cleaning guns instead of having to use the backseat. We wouldn't have to stop for breaks every couple of hours, either—we could stash snacks in the kitchenette, and there's a bathroom in the back. And we could skip the hotels and sleeping crunched up in the car—we'd have beds."

"What you're describing sounds an awful lot like camping—I don't camp, Aubrey," Dean told her firmly.

"Why not? You know how to hunt and fish and all that other stuff. You even know how to put up a tent! Dad showed you, I know!"

"Yeah, he showed me, and I learned it—for survival. Knowing how doesn't mean I enjoy it. We're not camping."

"Well, it's not even camping, though—it's RVing, which is totally different," she told him.

"Doesn't matter—I'm not driving an RV. Never gonna happen, little sister."

With a defeated sigh, she settled back against the seat, crossing her arms over her chest. Sam snickered, and Dean glanced over at him questioningly.

"Can you see Dad driving around in one of those? That'd be funny as hell," he said, and Dean found himself chuckling as well, his mind's eye seeing the image of his dad laying on the horn of an RV when some asshole cut him off.

Man, he'd be pissed.

"Speaking of driving," Braden spoke up, "can I drive?"

"Hell no," Dean told him easily.

"Why not?"

"You've got Dramamine in your system for one thing. There's a "Do Not Operate Heavy Machinery" label on the box for a reason. You're not driving my baby while you're on drugs."

"It'll wear off soon. What about then?"

"Answer's still no."

"How come!?"

"Dude, you've got a nineteenth century dead guy in your head that isn't afraid to hijack your body. Dude wasn't even alive when cars were invented—I'm not trusting him with my baby."

"You've got dead people in your head, too," Braden retorted.

"That don't hijack my body," Dean threw back.

"They did when we were in the Winchester Mystery House."

"Yeah, one, because I gave consent. They can't just take over whenever they want."

"Neither can Oliver!"

"Uh-huh, sure. You just keep telling yourself that. I'll be sure to remind Oliver of that the next time he takes control of your body when you're not looking."

"How am I supposed to learn to drive, then?" Braden asked exasperatedly.

"Dad's got a truck, and he's a licensed driver over the age of twenty-one—I'm sure he can help you out."

"But I want you to teach me. If I get the truck from Dad, will you still teach me?"

"So long as you tell Oliver to stay the fuck out of the driver's seat, sure."

"Fine," Braden agreed, leaning back with a sigh.

"Same goes for you, Aub—no driving Baby while you've got hijackers."

"Convenient excuse—like you'd let me drive Baby even if I didn't," Aubrey retorted with a snort.

True, Dean conceded with a smirk. That was the beauty of being the oldest, though—he could do shit like that, and there was no one but Dad to countermand him.


They were making good time, he decided as he replaced the cap on the gas tank at their latest stop. Of course, that was when his cell phone rang. No doubt it was gonna be bad news—no one called just to say 'hi, how are ya'?'.

Figures. Why can't we just have a peaceful, fucking drive to Bobby's?

He glanced down to see "Dad" on the screen, and since everyone else had gone inside the gas station, it looked like he didn't have much choice. It pissed Dad off if you ignored his calls.

With a sigh, he answered, hoping like hell that he had his shit together enough to actually speak fucking sentences to his father.

It'll be a short and one-sided conversation otherwise.

"Yeah?"

"Change of plans—I'm sending you a set of coordinates—I need you there."

"Where?"

"B.F.E. Wyoming. Get there as fast as you can."

Though the most obvious question was, perhaps, what was in Wyoming, he found himself asking the why instead, the urgency in his father's voice prompting him.

"Why the change?" he asked.

"Yellow Eyes is back—he showed up at Jim's."

Which doesn't really answer my question, since Pastor Jim lives in Minnesota.

"Is he okay?" He braced himself against the frame of the car door, holding his breath as he waited for the inevitable bad news. He wouldn't put it past his father to break bad news over the phone, and Dean could only hope he wasn't about to learn that Jim was dead.

"Yeah, he's okay. He managed to make it to the church grounds where the demon couldn't reach him. It's warded out the yin-yang, but he can't stay on holy ground forever, and I'm worried it'll try for him again. I don't know why it shifted its attention to Jim, but I know one thing: I'm tired of it going after our family."

"So why Wyoming?"

"That's where we're gonna find Yellow-Eyes."

"How do you know?"

"It's been staring at me in the face for weeks, and I almost missed it."

"Missed what?"

"The pattern. This thing's been moving around more in the last few weeks than it has in twenty years, and I've finally got it figured out. So head for Wyoming, all hands on deck. It's time to end this. I'll fill you in when you get here."

"Yes sir."

The call ended, and Dean shoved it in his pocket, heading inside to round up the others with a sick feeling in his stomach. Ready or not, it was time. And Dean feared that 'not' was more likely.

Fuck. Oliver was right. We're not ready.


A/N: Thanks to all the reviewers who still send reviews, even though I've been so long between updates. I'm sure most of you have forgotten what you said in your reviews, or even that you reviewed in the first place. Please know that I treasure the reviews, even if I don't reply to each one individually the way I used to. I really appreciate knowing that you all are still out there, patiently waiting for updates.