An End
(or maybe just another beginning)

"Sam."

Sam groaned, burrowing his head further into the pillow, attempting to drown out the voice coming from the hallway. He heard partially through his half-asleep daze, footsteps getting closer and the squeal open of a door.

"Sam, you need to get up."

Sam didn't want to get up. He never had the opportunity to sleep in. He tightened his grip around his blankets, wrapping himself in a tighter cocoon.

"Sam. I'm not kidding. Get up now!"

"Leave me alone," he mumbled to Dean.

"If that's the way it has to be," he heard his brother muttering and suddenly, his sheets were wet. Sam groaned and slid off the bed. A wet spot was in the center of the bed and Dean held the empty bottle of water as proof of his prank.

"That's not cool."

"Whatever. Get dressed. You're taking Dad to Lawrence."

"What? Why?" Sam looked up from rummaging through his drawers for a clean t-shirt.

"He wants to see Missouri."

"And why can't you take him?" Sam grabbed the hairbrush off the floor and yanked it through his hair.

"I have a job interview."

That explained why Dean was dressed in his good jeans and a button-down shirt. " Layla guilted you into it, didn't she? Couldn't pay for her movie ticket?"

Dean glared and Sam mentally congratulated himself for getting it right. " Someone needs to pay the bills since someone lost their job."

Sam wasn't going to succumb to the bait. He wasn't awake enough to argue. He took a seat on the dry part of his bed and worked on wedging his feet into his tied sneakers. " So where's the interview?"

"A club downtown, near the college. They need some bouncers."

Sam nodded. The job was a good fit for Dean. " How much do they pay?"

"Don't know. Doesn't matter either," Dean said. He reached his hands into his pockets and pulled out the keys to the Impala. He tossed them to Sam. " You have a long drive. She has a full tank of gas," he offered as his explanation.

Sam looked at him confused. " How are you going to get around?"

"We have other cars, Sam."

" I know that. Just…do they work?"

Dean laughed. " I fixed up the Cordoba."

"Isn't that the car that we used when you drove me out to California for orientation?" Sam asked.

Dean nodded.

"That was a good trip," Sam lamented.

"I spent the whole time wishing the car would break down," Dean mumbled under his breath.

"Huh?" Sam didn't hear what he said; only getting a few scattered words.

"Nothing. Go…Dad's probably dressed by now."

"You let him dress himself?" Sam practically screeched.

"The man has pride," Dean shrugged. Sam rolled his eyes and left the room. He found his father sitting on the couch, patiently, hands in his lap, much like an obedient child.

Sam twirled the keys around his hand. " Ready to go."

John standing up was Sam's answer and John followed him to the car, Sam keeping an eye on his father as he descended down the stairs into the garage. John was moving fairly well, Sam concluded. He just needed to rest between long distances, such as the distance from one end of the house to the other. Both men got in the car and Sam stuck the keys in the ignition, starting the engine. He could see Dean entering the garage out of his rearview window as he pulled out of the garage and onto the road.

Sam wondered ten minutes into the drive, if this was how it was going to be the two-hour drive; silence and shifty glances at each other. Neither had any clue what to say to bridge the rift that had formed between them. Sam wasn't sure if he wanted to bridge it. He had worked through his resentment for his father. He didn't want to rehash old feelings.

"So, Dean had a job interview," his father suddenly said, and Sam zoned in on the conversation.

"Yeah. To be a bouncer."

" He always did have a need to save people."

Sam thought about it. " That could explain his infatuation with Layla."

John looked confused. " Who's Layla?"

Sam had forgotten how little of their hunting adventures their father actually knew. " She's this girl that Dean met at the fake healer when he was dying."

The words escaped out of his mouth before he had time to censor their bluntness. They were almost nearing a civil conversation and now he had to go and ruin it. But there was no other way to put it without hinting at the negative connotations of the incident. John hadn't even tried to call back or made any effort to see Dean after Sam called him to inform him of Dean's condition. That still angered Sam. He would have understood if it was him dying, but not Dean, the prodigy. He thought Dean meant more to his father then that.

Sam decided to rescue the conversation. " I find their relationship odd. It's not weird as much as it is weird for a relationship involving Dean. I mean, they do all the normal couple things such as movies, dinner, but…from I know…it's not physical…Dean never…"

John interrupted. " …never stays in a relationship unless he's getting action."

Sam wasn't aware that his father paid that much attention to Dean's dating habits. John wasn't around for much of his or Dean's teenage years.

"Yeah," Sam acknowledged.

"Dean has always looked for someone he could confide in. He probably found it in Layla."

"But does the person that he choose to fall in love with have to be dying?" Sam blurted out.

John sighed. "Everyone dies at some point," he said softly after some thought. " It always hurts when they leave us, hurts more when we love them, when we have spent our life with them. But it's worth it in the end. Because that joy…the joy they gave us never leaves…"

John trailed off, his silence saying more then his words could ever say as he remembered. Sam had never seen his father so somber and pensive before. It made his father human to him.

"I don't know what's going to happen to Dean when she's gone," Sam admitted.

"Dean will be okay. He's strong."

Sam felt his father was overestimating Dean's strength.

"That reminds me. I stopped with Dean the other day at the grocery store you worked for."

That peeked Sam's interest. " What's going on there?"

"Nothing. From what Dean mentioned, it was exactly the same as when you left it."

That annoyed Sam. He wanted to see the company suffer. " Then why did they fire me if they weren't planning on changing anything?"

John shrugged. " What was their reason for firing you?"

"I supposedly handled the robbery the wrong way. I attacked the guys myself instead of waiting for the police to take care of them."

"Did anyone get hurt?"

"Just the robbers."

"Good boy." Sam felt a welling of pride at his father's words. It felt criminally good. " In any case, that was a shitty bogus reason."

"Tell me about it," Sam mumbled. " They probably couldn't find anything wrong with my performance. My workers adored me because I started paying them a dollar extra, profits were up despite that, and we had far less consumer complaints then we did the month before with the old manager." Sam sighed. " I guess I pissed off someone near the top, someone with power…maybe the lawyer?"

"You could have. It's more likely they were just intimidated by your competence. It makes them look bad, makes them think you are gunning for their job. I remember this time, I was working this job on a constriction sight, shortly after Dean was born and my boss hates me. He…."

As Sam listened to his father prattle on about his evil boss firing him, all he could think about was how it was the first time he remembered actually feeling bonded to his Dad. It was something he wanted more of.


She was sitting on the porch, rocking back and forth on the wicker swing, appearing to be waiting for them. As soon as Sam had stopped the car, John was out the door and walking up the sidewalk to the house.

"I knew you would come," Missouri told him, hugging him tightly, when they met on the stairs.

"I know. It's real good to see you."

She pulled away, smiling knowingly. " It's nice to see you alive as well. Come on in."

John glanced at the car to make sure Sam would be all right and he followed her indoors to the living room. She had switched the couch from the last time he had visited, but it was still comfortable for a fold-out bed.

"You found her killer," Missouri stated.

"Dean and Sam found it. I only got there in the end to watch it die."

"It bothered you that you didn't get to kill it."

John shook his head. " That's not really it. It hurt more to see Dean lying lifeless on the ground and Sam over him, stabbing that monster over and over again even after it was dead."

"You didn't think he had it in him," Missouri stated.

"I always knew he had it. I just hoped he never had to find out he was capable of killing another human being."

Missouri took a long sip of her tea. " You didn't come here to discuss this. Why are you here, John?"

John had the suspicion she already knew but wanted to be told anyway. " I had a dream. Mary was in it."

"Which is unusual how?"

He guessed she didn't know. The eye wasn't all seeing. " I have never had a dream with her in it since she died."

" Which is not that strange. Why else do you want to talk about it?"

"It felt prophetic, like she was really there, trying to give me a message."

Missouri's eyes lit up and John saw that she understood what he was saying. " Benevolent sprits have trouble staying in this world because they have no ties on this world other then the ones they loved. The only time they can ever visit this earth is through dreams. If you aren't willing to open yourself up to their presence, you are unable to see them."

"But I wanted to see her. I prayed for years, right after you told me I could see her, that she'd show up. Why now? Why not when I needed her most."

"What, trying to kill yourself isn't when you need her the most," Missouri deadpanned. John flushed. She continued. " I don't think you were ready to face her. You were bent on revenge. It was all you saw. What time and energy wasn't devoted to that was to your boys and trying to stifle your grief. Your mind couldn't let you see her if you were ever going to move forward with your life."

That made sense to John, though he wasn't all that happy with the conclusion. "Maybe I didn't want her to see me because I was ashamed."

"Of what?"

"Of how everything turned out. She would have never wanted revenge. She would have wanted me to be a good father to the boys, wanted…"

Missouri cut him off, laying her on top of his. " You are a good father."

"I'm not. I never been…"

She shushed him. " You have two amazing boys who know the difference between right and wrong, who are successful, who are thriving. Who else could they have gotten it from if not you?"

"It's not me though," John whined. " Sam turned out that way because Dean and Dean…" John trailed off, realizing he didn't know what had molded Dean.

"So you made mistakes, John. Big deal. Parents make them. It's now time you fix them."

"I don't know how."

"No one ever knows…" Missouri responded.

"Where do I start?" John asked, more to himself then to Missouri.

"Where you want your relationship to begin with them."

"Do you have to be so goddamn cryptic?" he snapped.

She smiled at him. " Start with emotions. Stop repressing them, and tell them what you really feel. Only then, can they heal as well."

"Thanks."

The kettle on the stove whistled and Missouri sprung up to grab it. She poured the hot water into the cup and after adding two teaspoons on sugar and one of milk, she walked over to him to hand him his tea.

He took a sip. She had gotten the mixture perfect like always.


"So you used to be a private investigator?"

Dean nodded at his interviewer. He was sitting on a bar stool, in the corner of an empty nightclub, with tables surrounding him with chairs piled on top of them. A drink was by his hand though he hadn't yet taken a sip of it, not sure if it was polite or wise to drink alcohol while being job interviewed.

"What did your job entail?"

Dean wished he had thought up his lie better. He had wanted to show that he had experience with violent people and subduing them, but hadn't wanted to lie and say he was a cop. Private investigation was his best option, seeing that he actually did have a license on record, though he never used it. It had been a prop for one of the infamous hunting trips he had taken to New Orleans for Mardi gras. He decided to wing it.

" Normally, I was hired by women who thought their boyfriends or husbands were cheating on them. I would follow them around, trying to get proof of their infidelity. I would then hide out, keeping close to the women when they confronted them about it."

"Did they ever get violent?"

Dean wanted to smile. He had set the bait perfectly. " Yes, they did. I would have to subdue them to make sure no one got hurt."

The guy looked impressed. " Do you have any experience working as a bouncer?"

Dean shook his head.

"That's alright. You're the right height and build. You look intimidating but welcoming enough for people to approach you for help," the man listed. " You're hired."

It was almost too simple. " Thank you."

"You're welcome. Next week, we'll train you so you can be on shift when the college kids come back."

Dean nodded, giving a quick covert glance at the clock. " Thank you for your time," he told the guy as he slipped off his stool.

"It's all mine," the man told him, shaking his hand, and Dean walked towards the exit, shadowed by the interviewer.

He crossed the street, unlocked the car doors, and started the engine, peeling out of there before the next wave of traffic could halt him. The clock had read that it was seven minutes of one, and he had to be at the hospital at that time to pick up Layla. It wasn't too far of a drive, which he was thankful for. He presumed that since college was nearby, they needed reliable care for the constant partiers who didn't know their limits with the drugs.

Layla was waiting by the front entrance when he pulled into the parking lot, leaning against the wall. She didn't look too well though Dean couldn't put a name to what actually looked wrong. He leaned over and unlocked her door to let her in. She plopped down on the seat, and hit the button to recline it.

"Drive," she ordered and Dean hit the gas.

"What's wrong?" he asked when they had to stop at the red light.

"Nothing."

"What's wrong?" he repeated.

She looked over at him. " Nothing…" At his huff of indignation, she added, " It's really nothing. It just annoys me having to go there every week."

The light turned green and the car surged forward. " Don't like your new doctor?"

"He's nice enough. They all are. They are just too optimistic. They keep up coming up with new ideas for treatment, spurred on by my mother. And of course, they don't work. I get my hopes up yet again. They say next time, next time they'll get it right," she sighed. " It's too exhausting for doing no good."

"Then quit," Dean suggested.

Layla grew quiet, appearing to think over his suggestion. " My mother would kill me," she whispered.

"She…" Dean stopped his joke in midsentence, scared of offending her.

" She wouldn't have a chance to," Layla finished for him. She gave him a soft smile. " That was what you were going to say, weren't you?"

"Yeah," Dean admitted.

"You can just say it, Dean. It's inevitable that I am going to die. We don't have to beat around the bush about it," she told him. Dean noticed the way her voice trembled at the end of her sentence.

"We don't but it's easier to pretend it's not happening."

It was a long pause before Layla responded. "You're a good man, Dean."

They were at her motel and Dean pulled into a handicapped spot.

"What do you mean?" Good wasn't a word that Dean often heard. Obsessive, creepy, and slick were more up his ally.

" Most people leave when they find out. They get freaked out, scared, and run, too afraid of something to stay with me. But you're not running; you're dealing with it. You have no idea how much that means to me."

Her words were sincere, Dean knew, because her eyes were welling up in tears. It made him feel special because he was needed. It was a feeling he never realized he missed. " Come here," he whispered.

She leaned over and he hugged her, sating his desire for touch. He wanted to do more but he didn't think it was worth the risk. Plus kissing someone who was crying never ended pleasantly for him.

"Don't leave me," she whispered into his shoulder.

"I wouldn't," he reassured her.

"Please don't," he felt her whisper over and over again. He held her, letting her cry out her fear. Dean knew, that deep down, she was terrified of dying though she always had known it was coming. He knew subconsciously that she longed for someone who could just accept that she was dying, someone who wouldn't fight destiny, and someone who could allow her to do the same. He could be that person. He would be.

"I'm sorry I got your shirt all wet," she told him as she pulled away, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

"It's fine. I already had my interview."

"How'd it go?"

"I got the job."

She laughed. It surprised Dean how fast her moods could change. " Nice," she said. Before Dean had a chance to respond or get his brain to comprehend what was happening, she kissed him. She smiled at his dumbfounded look as she got out of the car. " Thanks for the ride."

Dean could only nod and it was only when she got into her room at the motel, did Dean curse himself out for not doing something about it.


Dean found Sam in the living room, hunched over the end table where a lot of scattered pieces of paper lay, when he got home at nine, after driving a few hours to meet up with his lawyers over his upcoming trial. Sam was focused completely on the documents he was analyzing, not even looking up when Dean walked into the room. For some unexplainable reason, that annoyed Dean, and he moved silently to the back of the room where the arc of candles were placed, and blew them out.

He heard Sam swear and then a flopping noise as Sam reached for the flashlight they kept on the other side of the couch. He heard the button being pressed in, and the light sprung on.

"You're an asshole," Sam told him, eyes never straying to his, but returning to the papers.

"What's so important?"

"It's just some forms I need to go through."

"For what?" Dean was curious to know why, when he moved closer, his brother shielded the paper with his body.

"Nothing that concerns you."

"So I guess it isn't the electricity or water bill then?"

"No…I mean it is. It's just that it's my money and I am trying to figure out how much I'll left over when it's done."

Dean saw right through it. " Liar. What is it that you are hiding from me?"

"It's nothing, Dean."

Funny, it was the second time today Dean had heard that. He felt it was safe to presume that it wasn't nothing like the first time around. " Then why are you hiding it?"

Sam didn't have an answer, and while he was searching for one, Dean pounced, snatching a few of the papers.

"Hmm…Stanford Law School," he flipped to the next one. " Harvard Law School. Columbia Law School," he handed the papers back to an angry Sam. " It looks like someone wants to go to law school."

Sam glared at him, not responding or giving answers.

"Why were you trying to hide it from me?" Dean asked.

Sam stayed silent.

"I'm fine with you going, if that's why," Dean continued.

"Are you, Dean?" Sam said quietly.

Dean looked at him strangely. " Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

Sam closed his eyes and sighed, reopening them. " Last time, you told it was okay even if Dad didn't approve. But it wasn't with you. You resented me. You hated every second of the paperwork and hated that I actually got accepted…"

"That's not true," Dean butted in.

"Dean, you tried to hide the admission letter from me."

He had. " Maybe I didn't want you to go."

"I don't belong here, Dean. I never have. I'm not like you. I can't just be content with my life the way it is," Sam said wearily.

Dean started laughing. " Do you think I was content, Sam? I would have killed to go to college. But unlike you, I had responsibilities. I couldn't just neglect my family, leaving you to get destroyed by Dad, and leaving Dad to die," Dean's voice was rising slowly into a scream.

"You know what, I didn't want you to go to college. But I let you. Do you think I couldn't have stopped you? Who drove you there because we didn't have enough money for an airplane? Who worked their ass off getting you the financial aid so you could attend your dream school? Who defended you against Dad? Who, year after year, kept you in school when you couldn't find the time to visit or even call us? Who prevented Dad from driving there and dragging your sorry ass home because you are an insufferable brat who has never had to sacrifice anything and can't even thank me for making sure you never had to? Who…?"

Dean stopped to breathe and Sam struggled to find words to put out what he was feeling. He just kept shaking his head back and forth, transfixed by his brother's words.

"I don't care if you decide to go back to college. It's your decision. But I'm not helping you. Find your own way there," Dean finished, slipping out of the room nearly as silently as he had entered it, not giving Sam his chance to respond.

Sam watched him go and with a sigh, got up and threw the papers away, flicking off his flashlight. He knew that Dean would have some problem with him going back to college but the words that Dean threw at him weren't what he expected. But despite Dean's animosity towards the subject, he had made it clear enough that Sam was free to do what he pleased. That pleased Sam though it was shadowed by his self-loathing for what he said to provoke Dean. He should have known that Dean would respond in that manner, and that what he was saying was a bunch of crap brought forth by frustration and fear. Making a vow to righten it in the morning, he walked blindly to his bedroom and collapsed onto the bed.

She was a pretty blonde, jogging carelessly down the street, bopping her head to the beat of the music in her Ipod. A dog ran beside her, a heavy set Doberman Pinscher, racing with her from lit street lamp to street lamp. Clouds hung in the sky, lighting it from its obstruction of the moon. It was nearing midnight and she had just gotten off from work and she had decided that before bed, she would walk her poor abandoned-feeling dog.

She reached the end of the street where the wire gates stood closed for the local lumberyard. Out of breath, she walked over to the main building, which was open during the day for the public to buy their construction supplies, and took a seat on one of the benches. The dog sat down on its haunches at her feet, guarding her from the heavy shadows of equipment and rooftops.

The dog growled. She looked in the direction his muzzle was pointing.

"There's nothing there, Bruiser," she told him.

The dog didn't back down, rising to all fours. She watched the hairs on the back of his neck rise. She didn't know what he was seeing but she trusted her dog's instincts.

"Let's go," she whispered to the dog, pulling lightly on his collar to get him walking next to her. She reached into the pocket of her sweat pants to shut off her Ipod so she could hear clearly. It was completely silent save for the sound of her steps and the dog's. She walked faster, Bruiser sticking close to her side, sensing her anticipation.

She couldn't hear, see, sense anything around her, but a voice was nagging her to run, to get away while she still had a chance. She wanted to chide herself for being silly but it was better for her to be safe and be embarrassed later then have something bad happened.

She broke out in a run, Bruiser following beside her. She still couldn't hear anything, drowned out from the sound of her feet hitting the pavement and heartbeat echoing through her mind, but she was too scared now to look back and found out if her suspicion was correct. She kept running.

Somewhere between the third block and fourth block back to her house, she could no longer hear the dog when she glanced over. Worry gripped her and she turned her head to the side to see if her dog had fallen behind. Her body hit something and she bounced back, falling on her butt.

She looked up. She saw fiery eyes. She screamed. That was all she had time to do before she died.

Sam opened his eyes, blinking at the bright sunlight shining into his window. He threw the sole sheet off him and stood up, walking over to his mirror. He saw an unshaven man staring back at him and he breathed a sigh of relief. It had just been a dream, something concocted by his brain from the millions of memories he had from various hunts. The girl was too similar to every girl he and Dean met in the towns. He could vaguely remember solving a case like his dream once. It had been a fire demon. He remembered it being a nasty creature, but easy enough to kill once you got over the pain of air brushing against the burns it fired off.

He walked into the kitchen to find breakfast already out for him, meaning Dean had already left. It had became a ritual that Dean would run down to the convenience store every morning to get the paper and coffee because no one in their family could survive with it. There was a fresh box of powdered doughnuts on the table and he took one out of the box, lifted the lid of his coffee cup and dunked the doughnut. It was heavenly and he snatched the paper to read through the job openings.

There was nothing of interest but he found his eyes wandering to the pet section. The first few ads were puppies for sale but near the end of the page, was a hurried message:

" Found Dog: Bruiser, Dobie, on Cedar. At shelter."

Sam was no longer hungry.


End Chapter 5: Octavarium



I never wanted to become someone like him
So secure, content to live each day just like the last
I was sure I knew that this was not for me
And I wanted so much more, far beyond what I could see
So I swore that I'd never be someone like him

So many years have passed since I proclaimed
My independence, my mission, my aim, and my vision
So secure, content to live each day like it's my last
It's wonderful to know that I could be something more than what I dreamed, far beyond what I could see
Still I swear that I'm missing out this time

As far as I could tell, there's nothing more I need
But still I ask myself, could this be everything?
Then all I swore that I would never be was now
So suddenly, the only thing I wanted to become, to be someone just like him