The next day, we had stopped at a motel. To set our next course, to get our heads together, just...we had to stop.
Ever since yesterday Sam, Dean, and I had been on edge. With good reason, mind. Who could properly handle the knowledge that you had a long lost sister that apparently wasn't lost she was sitting right next to with no idea you were her long lost brothers?
Seriously who could do that? Give me their number. I won't kill them, I promise. Or maim them.
Dean had been searching through John's journal. He was scanning pages for any sign of me, or anything related to that. Sam was searching for John himself- the main bastard- with no luck. Calling all of John's known contacts to ask them if they'd seen him.
To keep myself from fretting, I'd started a search on my laptop. Just something- anything- to get my head on straight. It hadn't worked, but hey it wasn't pacing or hair pulling so yay!
"No, Dad was in California last we heard from him. We just thought...he comes to you for 'munitions...maybe you've seen him in the last few weeks." Sam asked the man on the phone. "Just, call us if you hear anything. Thanks." He clapped the phone shut.
"Caleb hasn't heard from him?" Dean figured.
"Nope. Neither has Jefferson or Pastor Jim." Sam explained. 'Why hadn't the fuckheads called Bobby yet? I am enraged.' "How about the journal? Any leads in there?"
"No, same as last time I looked. Nothing I can make out... I love the guy, but I swear, he writes like friggin' Yoda." Dean remarked. He glanced to me. He went back to the journal, not even looking at me for longer than necessary. "Anything on your end?"
"He hasn't shown up on any newspapers, reports, or even been involved in any recording robberies." I reported, idly searching the newspapers online. Granted I hadn't even bothered searching for John- not even once. Azazel could take that bastard.
"You know, maybe we should call the Feds. File a missing person's." Sam suggested.
"It would be easy. Just a little file on their database- have them do all the hard work." I encouraged.
"We've talked about this. Dad'd be pissed if we put the Feds on his tail." Dean denied our request.
"I don't care anymore." Sam answered.
"Here, here." I cheered. Raising up a glass of water, I toasted to Sam's choice.
Dean's phone began to ring with the text. He went to his jacket, searching it.
"After all that happened back in Kansas, I mean...with Raven being Mille...telling us there even was a Millie...he should've been there, Dean. You said so yourself. You tried to call him and...nothing."
"I know!" Dean snapped. He went back to his belongings. "Where the hell is my cellphone?"
"The stuff Raven said, about how she grew up? Dean we could've been looking for her for these decades instead of that thing that killed Mom." Sam added. I winced. 'Geez. Did you have to drag me into your bitch fit?' "You know, he could be dead for all we know."
Dean glared over at his brother, scolding him. "Don't say that! He's not dead! He's– he's-"
"He's what? He's hiding? He's busy?" Sam pointed out.
"Maybe he just doesn't want to be confronted with the truth." I stated.
"What truth?" Dean asked, snapping.
"That I didn't die that night. That I was taken instead. Cause if he's confronted with that truth then he'll have to admit he should've been searching for me instead of hunting that thing." I explained. Leaning back in the chair, I had a sip of my water. "And maybe, he doesn't want to be confronted by the thought that I'd been abandoned."
In that explanation, Sam's face fell with each word but his anger rose in his eyes. He probably had much more to say in addition to me. From what I'd seen on the show, he had more passion in hating John Winchester than I ever could hope to achieve.
Dean though- was working to tune me out. He pulled out his phone. "Huh. I don't believe it."
"What?" Sam and I asked.
"It's, uh...It's a text message. It's coordinates." Dean went over to his own laptop, typing in the coordinates.
"You think Dad was texting us?" Sam asked.
"He's given us coordinates before." Dean pointed out.
"And those hunts went so well." I snarked.
"The man can barely work a toaster, Dean." Sam argued.
"Sam, Raven, it's good news! It means he's okay, or alive at least." Dean reminded us both, genuinely happy about that.
"Well, was there a number on the caller ID?" Sam prompted.
"Nah, it said 'unknown'."
"So it could've been from anyone. Great. But knowing your dad, it's probably from him so we can't text back." I reasoned.
"Well, where do the coordinates point?" Sam asked Dean.
"That's the interesting part. Rockford, Illinois." Dean answered.
"Ok, and that's interesting how?" Sam asked.
Dean turned the laptop towards us. "I checked the local Rockford paper. Take a look at this."
Sam went up to it. I did too, hesitantly. It was pure willpower that kept me from a nightmare about the murder. Considering what happened yesterday, I was surprised I had the wits about me to carry through.
"This cop, Walter Kelly, comes home from his shift, shoots his wife, then puts the gun in his mouth, blows his brains out. And earlier that night, Kelly and his partner responded to a call at the Roosevelt Asylum." Dean summed up.
"Okay, I'm not following. What has this have to do with us?" Sam asked.
"Same."
"Dad earmarked the same asylum in the journal. Let's see..." Dean turned a few pages of the journal. "Here. Seven unconfirmed sightings, two deaths– till last week at least. I think this is where he wants us to go."
Sam scoffed, grinning almost in disbelief. "This is a job...Dad wants us to work a job."
"No meet up for coffee? Or bowling? I heard normal families do stuff like that." I mused.
"Well, maybe we'll meet up with him? Maybe he's there?" Dean suggested. I gave him a flat look. His hero worship of his father- while an admirable trait- was quickly showing to be a downfall.
"Maybe he's not? I mean, he could be sending us there, by ourselves, to hunt this thing." Sam countered.
"Who cares! If he wants us there, it's good enough for me!" Dean stated. He stood up on his feet to help him make this point.
"This doesn't strike you as weird? The texting? The coordinates?" Sam questioned.
"Sam! Dad's tellin' us to go somewhere, we're goin'." Dean ordered. Sam made his Bitchface, sighing.
"No."
Sam and Dean turned to me.
"What?" Dean asked.
"No. I won't do it." I stated firmly. "I won't follow the orders of John Winchester."
"Raven- Mil- Raven. He's our dad. You hunt good, but in this family what Dad says-"
"I have had it with obeying the whims of a man who refused to talk about his own daughter's kidnapping." I interrupted Dean. The hunter didn't even wince, but he knew I had a point. "Never even telling his own two kids they had a sibling. Never telling Sam he had a twin. How messed up is that? The people in Lawrence, Kansas knew more about you than you did."
Dean's expression was more confused, and maybe a little worried. "Raven-"
"No, Dean. No. You two go off on John's orders. I'm going to do things my way." I turned my own laptop towards him. "There's a salt-and-burn a couple hundred miles South. I'm headed there."
Sam's face fell. "Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Sam! You can't be serious."
"Dean if she wants to go, she can."
"We just got her back!" Dean yelled.
"We didn't even know she existed!" Sam argued.
"She still exists right here!" I yelled over them both. Both boys winced, turning back to me. As I kept on, I packed up my few belongings into the Bag. "I'm used to handling problems alone! So, I'm going on a salt-and-burn. By myself. With nothing to help me but my own thoughts. Dean you can do your freaky haunted asylum case. Sam do whatever. Me? I'm going to adjust to a reality where I have a twin."
And that twin isn't Darcy.
"Oh and I'm taking the grenade launcher out of the trunk." I told them, before walking out of the motel room.
==DG==
The salt and burn was truly over way too fast.
It had been easy to steal a car from a place near the motel. Like, really, too easy. It's basically people asking me to steal their shit.
But the ghost was dealt with. No added horrors- like a donated kidney or a strand of hair in a hairbrush type things. Maybe...maybe it was just when the Winchesters were on a hunt together that things went shitty.
I had half a mind to call Home, tell them what was going on. How could I reasonably explain another bullshit backstory that I'd been given? That I was related to the Winchester? Right off the bat I expect jokes about of course I was a Winchester, have I seen myself past work? It was practically my fucking destiny.
With the case done so easy it lead me to another issue. One not so easily resolved with a phone call.
Nah.
I had to rethink my Plan.
Which- as much as I love doing it- I also loath doing it. Who likes doing work over? Especially when they put in so much effort already. It was fucking torture.
Oh and I will have to add a step somewhere where I punch Chuck in the face.
He may be an Author- but he's also that bitch.
==DG==
It was a few days later, as I was making my way towards Illinois, that I got a call. It made me have to turn down the radio station.
"You called me- you know who I am." I spoke.
"Hey...uhh...Raven?"
"Oh. Sam." I swallowed, nervously. Despite having a few days reprieve, I hadn't fully adjusted to the new dynamic yet. Or in the idea of having a twin that wasn't Darcy. One of Chuck's cruel jokes again. "Uh...hey."
"Hey. How'd that- uh- Salt-and-burn right? How'd that go?" Sam asked, awkwardly.
"Good. Really good." I replied. "It goes...good. Nothing weird about it. Just a simple open-and-shut. Could've been worse, ya know, could've had the wrong ghost."
"Yeah...we kinda had that."
"Oh?"
"Yeah." Sam explained to me the craziness that was Asylum. I made appropriate noises of shock and disgust.
"So you got possessed by him?"
"Yeah. I said- I said a lot of things, Raven." Sam admitted. "A lot of stuff that I didn't mean."
"Dean wasn't up for a 'chick flick moment', huh?"
Sam let out a small laugh. "Not even a little." His voice went back to serious. "Raven, do you really think you were abandoned?"
I let out a sigh. So as I drove, I pulled off the side of the road. "...they said it, a lot. Any time I wasn't doing a good enough job, they'd tell me-" Yet the phrase caught in my throat.
"Tell you what?" Sam asked, as calm and as caring as could be.
"That it was no wonder my mom gave me up." I revealed.
Though I knew it hadn't actually happened to me, that it happened to Millie Winchester, I couldn't help the pang of sadness that tore through me. The phrase cut to my bones, to some deep part of me that had never felt good enough no matter how much I did.
Back Home, when my powers had been revealed, I think it was Mom that was disappointed the most. Yeah, Dad was mad, but Mom was incised. There I was, having a totally secret life from her where I'd raised a dragon, had a sister, stopped supervillains, and sometimes became one, but Mom couldn't let it go that I wasn't doing what I should. I was saving the world a hundred times over, and it wasn't enough.
"It was a bad house, Sam." I exhaled, breath coming out shaky. "Not even a house- a prison." Taking a breath to brace myself, I ignored any water in my eyes. "Like the asylum. So take it from me- that wasn't you. You may have thought those things, but they aren't really what you feel. That ghost twisted it for his own purposes. Dean'll see it eventually."
"You think so?"
"If not, well then it's a good thing I'm headed your way to knock some sense into his ass."
Sam snorted. "You don't need to do that."
"Hey. I'm the big sister-"
"What? No. I'm the big brother."
"Prove it." I challenged, starting to grin. "I'm older until proven otherwise-"
"My name was first in that picture. I've gotta be the older one." Sam argued, sounding like he was fighting a grin himself.
"I was the much ignored middle-child." I dropped on him. A moment of silence. "Ha! Take that! I used my own trauma to secure a victory. Score!"
Sam only gave a shocked laugh.
"I am ruthless, Sam, when victory is on the line. If we're going to work on this whole family thing, you best accept that." I warned him, only half joking.
"You really think...we could do it?" Sam asked. "Be a family? What you've said- about your sister- I know it must be hard."
"Harder with each breath." I agreed. "But...I think she'd like it if my twin was you."
Mostly because she'd be laughing at the fact that I'm a Winchester
Then being jealous because she wasn't.
Really- she would fit in so well. Look at them! Hunting people, saving things, the family mafia!
Yeah she never really knew what the fuck was going on...
"Yeah. I think I'd like it too." Sam replied. And if that just didn't butter my eggrolls- "Hold on- I'm...getting another call?"
"Huh. Weird. I'll be there in the morning. Bye Sam."
"Yeah. Sounds good. Bye Raven."
He hung up after that.
I let out a long sigh. My head thunked on the steering wheel. "Just a few days- just a few days without the Winchesters, and I felt like Hermione Granger instead of Harry Potter. Now that I'm talking to them- fuck what I wouldn't give to have the emotional range of a teaspoon."
So I pulled the car back onto the highway. Not even caring that a few minutes later I got a text from the Winchesters, telling me John had called.
==DG==
AN: Asylum hates me. It has put a curse on me, on my lands, poisoned the water hole, it's not looking good. So I decided that episode can go fuck itself. Take this you bastard- Bugs pushed me to the edge and Asylum hefted me over it. Watch yourselves, Supernatural, I'm ready to fuck your shit up.
Thanks to TheBambi555 for following