Three weeks ago
If anyone had had the misfortune to just stumble across the area where the Lebanon Men of Letters bunker was situated, and to be near enough on the wrong day at the wrong time, they would have seen a large cloud of black smoke billowing gracelessly across the sky. If they hadn't been looking up, they still might rub their arms in discomfort, feeling, in a way they likely never had before, something wrong. It was evil in its purest form—a complete absence of good. This demon was different from most in that it had not yet partaken in many acts of evil at this point in its existence, but still they would have been thoroughly unsettled by the sensation of a complete vacuum where something endlessly good should have been.
As it happened, the nearest man to the bunker at this time was a thirtysomething Asian American IT worker called Robert Li. He was about five foot nine with more than a little pudge, but enjoyed frequent nature walks, which as it happened was what he was doing on this particular day and in this particular place.
Dean Winchester, of course, had never done this before. He didn't even know how he'd known what to do. He'd just let his brand new instincts take over, and just like that he'd torn himself out of his body, stumbled his way around the building he knew so well but looked so different through whatever the hell senses he had as a freaking cloud of smoke, and bust out into the open air, hopefully for the last time. All he knew for sure as he tried to navigate through the outside world, barreling through the sky faster than he wanted to be, like running down a hill and being afraid with every step of tripping and falling headlong down the remainder until coming to a total stop as a mass of broken bones at the bottom, was that he needed to find a body. Pronto.
So when he passed over a portion of the woods several miles out that contained a nature walk and happened to glimpse poor Robert Li taking a respite on a bench and typing out a text, he doubled back, diving down from the sky like lightning, and shoved himself in through the man's mouth.
It almost felt like falling. He found himself filling up Robert's furthest extremities first, his toes and his fingertips, and he could feel them twitching involuntarily before the tail end of his gaseous form had threaded itself between the man's lips. He felt the man's heart pounding in his chest just as his mouth snapped shut, and he blinked, feeling himself infiltrate Robert's blood and run through his veins like quicksilver, feeling the Mark burn the edges of the man's soul as he was shoved deep, deep into his own subconscious in a way that would take a very long time to heal.
He immediately flexed his stolen fingers, springing to his stolen feet. The phone was discarded on the ground; he'd take a look at that in due time. He rubbed his hands up and down Robert's face, opening and closing his mouth, making use of the fullest extent of expressions he could manage, because it felt more than anything in need of being broken in. He kicked his feet (a size or two smaller than the ones he was used to), popped his fingers (one of which bore a simple engagement ring), ran his tongue along his teeth (nothing overtly wrong with them but even they felt strange), blinked his eyes repeatedly (damn, this guy was slightly nearsighted, everything had just vaguely fuzzy edges and Dean was not prepared to deal with that), and patted his protruding belly (it felt so much more burdensome than he would have expected, he'd have to move on to a new body as soon as possible). He bent over (almost falling, the art of balancing was ever so slightly different in this form) and snatched up the man's phone, running his thumb across the screen just to make sure it didn't lock itself, as he shoved the other hand into the guy's pockets, searching for his wallet. A quick examination of his driver's license told him his name, his age, and most importantly, his address.
He did not want Sam finding him. If it was a choice between going home with his brother and being dragged to hell, he thought he'd take the latter option, because at least he knew he'd be able to crawl out of there eventually. If Sam got to him again and managed to successfully restrain him… then he'd have to go back to being his brother again. To… to all the crap he put up with on a daily basis because it was less painful than the idea of losing Sammy. He was finally able to see the forest for the trees like this, and the power the Mark of Cain lent him… Well, he wasn't about to let that go.
Immediately as the thought occurred to him, he rolled up Robert's sleeve to check his arm. The Mark was notably absent. Didn't matter; he could still feel it. It was still with him, beyond any shadow of a doubt. This was extraordinarily comforting, even more so than he'd have expected. Here, at last, was one thing he could count on.
He turned his attention back to Robert's phone, pulled up his map app, and started entering in his address.
He got turned around a few times trying to find the parking lot, and by extension Robert's car, but after he did it was just a short, simple drive to his house, which he found utterly packed with food. It kind of looked like he was preparing for a party in a few days. Well, an extra trip to the grocery store wouldn't kill him.
Dean ate. He played loud music (and had to hook up his speakers to friggin' YouTube; the only CDs Robert had were pop groups Dean had never heard of). He put Robert's phone on silent and later found that he had been called four times by a "Madeline"—hearts by her name like Robert was an infatuated teenager, so he could guess what that meant—which might also explain the doorbell ringing, which he had endeavored to drown out with Led Zeppelin. Figuring Robert didn't seem to mind such behavior, he ate until he was ready to enter a food coma, took a very long nap, and then woke up to get drunk off his ass. Robert, as it turned out, had quite the wine selection.
It was a night of indulgence, and the best part was that the King of Hell wasn't standing by harping on his life choices. He was mildly worried about Sam finding him, since he was in fact very geographically close, but this faded away almost completely sometime during the second bottle of wine.
Of course, as morning came, the pleasant buzz in the back of his head was starting to be replaced by an awful migraine, a significant portion of the massive amount of food he'd consumed made a reappearance, and everything fun about being drunk was fleeing away from him fast.
Time to leave this body, and find one better suited for partying.
He braced himself to face the challenge of navigating the world as a disembodied smoke cloud, before letting his demonic instincts overtake him entirely and pull him up and out through Robert's mouth. He left the man gasping on his living room floor, rose up through his chimney, and started his search.
He found a body suitable for his needs—namely, to get as far away as possible in as short a time as possible—only a few houses down. A guy about his age and height, and a decent build. It'd do.
He immediately threw on some clothes, found the guy's car keys, and put Lebanon in his rearview mirror. He didn't even know where he was going, and it felt fantastic. All he was looking for, at least in the short run, was another body to inhabit. With each change, all consequences of anything he'd done in the previous body dissipated.
He'd wanted to howl at the moon, and hell was he going to howl.
The gas gauge was looking pretty low just as he crossed the border into Colorado, so he stopped in the first small town he found, grabbed a bite to eat at a diner, and moved into a guy in his late forties who was just about to get into his car in the parking lot. His feet were immediately killing him but he wasn't picky, particularly since all he was going to do was drive.
He had to get as far away from Sam as possible before making any sort of scene, because he didn't know when he was going to have to make a scene. If he'd stayed near the bunker long enough for his constant need to kill to overwhelm him, it was likely he'd lose control to the point that Sam would show up on the scene shortly after it happened. Even if he just rode one guy out of town and stayed wherever he ended up, Sam could use information on local disappearances, follow up when they came back, and look for suspicious activity and crimes of potentially paranormal nature in the towns they reported waking up in. No, the next time he killed had to be as far removed as he could make it.
As it turned out, it was three host bodies and almost a full day on the road before he couldn't take it anymore.