Disclaimer: Rated M. Any places and people mentioned are fictionalised - I've never been anywhere near Humnoke, it's just a name I plucked off the internet, I'm sure it's a very nice town. I still don't own the boys or the concept, although, like everyone else, I still wish I did.

A/N: Hoping for some reviews this chapter, please let me know what you think. I'm really worried no-one's reading.


Chapter 2

"Hey dude, there's the turn off, gonna slow down?" Sam watched the Highway 165 sign blur past and pushed his wheaten hair out of his face as he stifled a sigh.

Dean had been driving like a man possessed since they had hit Arkansas, and they had made world record-breaking time. Sam hoped, somewhat facetiously but nevertheless sincerely, that his brother's body wasn't paying host to an other-worldly presence, and that the reason for his haste was altogether more normal in nature.

"What's biting you Dean? You've been acting like a man on one serious mission ever since we left Jackson. I mean, I know our hunts are important, but anyone would think there was some kind of time limit on this one."

Sam thought he caught a look on Dean's face which betrayed some inner struggle, but it was gone in a matter of moments. His older brother had spent his whole life drawing a veil over the turmoil which lurked in the deepest, uncharted regions of his soul, and in that time had become a master. Sam smiled to himself: his brother, the emotional Black Belt.

"Dean?" he urged. The other Winchester shifted awkwardly against the Impala's leather upholstery, aware of the scrutiny.

"I just think this one's important, OK?" His tone of voice said that this was definitely the beginning, middle and end of this particular conversational thread. Sam decided not to push it this time.

"Well, that's great Dean, I'm glad you're so committed, but you just sent us round the houses by missing the turning. 'More haste less speed' is not a wholly inapplicable idiom in this case, don't you think?"

Dean gave Sam a look like a rottweiler trying to follow a kitten through a cat-flap.

"What?" The look altered slightly as understanding bled into his eyes. "You're one hell of a jerk, you know that?"

"You're the one who's behaving like nine tenths of an asshole."

"I'm just trying to get us there Sam!" Dean's voice was tight and high, almost unrecognisable. Sam reached over and put a calming hand on his brother's tense bicep.

"We're not gonna get there if you take us off the road first." He attempted to inject as much composure into his tone as he could, hoping it would radiate to his sibling. "Look, we've made fantastic time Dean, the Impala's taken a bit of a battering, why don't you go a bit easier on her the last little stretch, hey?" Sam mentally berated himself for his deviousness, but prayed that his mention of the beloved old car would ease Dean out of whatever frenzy he seemed to have been overcome by. To his relief, the shuddering needle on the speedometer began to drop slowly. Dean appeared to collect himself, and Sam fancied his brother was once more packing away his emotions into a little box in his brain. Why don't you just talk to me Dean?

"Grab the map, Sammy, would ya? See if you can't get us back onto 195." The pleading was on the very edge of his voice, barely perceptible, but it was there. Don't ask again, it said, so Sam didn't. Instead he did as he was required, and soon was able to find a route back to the highway which wouldn't put them too much out of their way. As soon as they were once more heading in the right direction, Dean relaxed significantly. Sam, reasonably regardless for his own future well-being, risked trying to break through the ice again.

"You want to tell me what this is all about now?" Dean glowered.

"No, Sam, I don't. Cause it's nothing, little brother. Nothing, alright?" He was so not alright though, that Sam wanted to laugh out loud. Sensibly, he chose not to, and instead rolled his eyes as Dean grabbed a Metallica tape, the same one he'd already forced Sam to endure three times today, and shoved it into the deck.

As it began to churn out its relentless beat, Dean violently yanked the volume knob up to full and started to sing. Sam grimaced and shut his eyes in the hope that his ears would follow their example.

God help me, he thought, that's enough to send any demon to hell.


As a son began a fevered quest for his father, a daughter searched for her mother.

Natasha's feelings about this strange, isolated town hadn't improved with proximity; as she'd driven into Humnoke, all she'd felt was a primeval urge to show the townsfolk nothing more of herself than her retreating behind. The place was creepy, that's the only word she could think of which did it justice. As she drove down the longest of its two main streets, she tried to take in as much as she could about her surroundings.

Not that there was much to take in. The place was as quiet as the grave. She passed a tired-looking convenience store, a tiny bank, too small to sport an ATM, and a post office which looked like it had seen more prosperous days. All the other buildings were residential, and they were like something from a bygone era. Pebble-dashing and whitewash abounded, with virtually every detail to every dwelling the same, even down to the short, buzz-cut patches of grass in front of each property that in better days might have been called lawns. In fact, the dull, grey single-storey houses were monotonously uniform and gave Natasha the impression that, despite there being less than a square kilometre to the town, a newcomer could still get lost here. Well, that had already been proven, hadn't it? She shuddered at the thought, remembering her reason for being here.

Reaching what appeared to be the end of the town, Natasha threw the car into reverse and executed a neat three-point turn, no other traffic in the road to get in her way. She crawled the sedan back the way she had come, and began to look for a likely location to start her investigation. She couldn't very well conduct a house-to-house search though, could she? Natasha decided the most logical course of action was to start at the store, and she parked up alongside. When she had killed the engine, she paused, gazing out of the window which was steadily misting up. Freaky. Nothing moved, not even a tumbleweed. It seemed as if there was no-one here. Not a soul.


"Man, there's not even a motel in our lousy town!" Dean slammed the laptop shut and took a long, deep gulp of his coffee. Not the best he'd ever had, but it was still welcome. Sam had eventually persuaded him that both of them needed to take a break from the long drive, and from the confines of the Impala. They'd found a little roadside café just beyond Stuttgart and decided to make use of its internet connection to plan ahead. It was a good job too, as it was getting late, and it looked to him like they were going to have to hole up here and make the short journey to Humnoke in the morning.

"What do you reckon bro? Down tools here and wait till tomorrow?" He chuckled. "I never thought I'd end up a commuter." Sam smiled, and Dean thought he could detect relief warming his baby brother's brown eyes.

"I thought you'd want to plough on in there, guns blazing. Glad some of my sense seems to have rubbed off on you." The younger man suddenly looked tired. "I was gearing myself up for protecting your reckless ass. Again." Dean was genuinely stung.

"You protect me? Yeah, like when does that ever happen?"

"God, Dean, all the time recently. You haven't noticed?" He passed a hand a across his face and shook his empty coffee cup. "Ever since you left that message for Dad and he didn't come, you've been just that little bit more…" He searched for the word for a second, but then contented himself with waving the cup around some more.

"Focused? Is that the word you're looking for? You think I think something's happened to him." As he spoke, Dean felt parts inside of him start to curl up like flowers taken out of the light. Sam looked shocked.

"No Dean, I, I didn't say that, it's just…" His voice stalled and Dean thought he heard something in Sam's throat get in the way. He wished he knew what to do about it, but he felt utterly impotent. It was all he could manage to prevent himself from going all-out crazy, let alone help shoulder his little brother's burden. Does that make me a selfish person? I want to help you, Sammy, really I do, I just don't feel strong enough.

Dean wrestled his disobedient features into a Scooby-Doo grin and grabbed the cup from Sam's blanched fingers.

"Gonna take that off you before crush it to bits." He assumed his best Annette O'Toole voice. "Clark, honey, you don't know your own strength." He was rewarded with a twitching at the corners of Sam's mouth, and, reasonably satisfied, Dean turned to catch the eye of the boy waiting the tables. The kid shuffled over.

"Get us some refills?" He gathered up their cups and made to go. "Wait…"

The boy – Randy, his badge proclaimed – did an about face, a mildly suspicious look egged onto his soft, fleshy features. His stance, free hand on amorphous hip, ridged chin slightly raised, suggested reluctance and wariness. A reaction they were getting more and more used to. Dean aimed for a tone which said friendly Joe Public, looking to key up on idle gossip.

"You ever been down the road to, er, what's the name of that place again?" He flashed one of his winning, I-want-to-be-your-best-friend smiles. Sam caught on and settled into the familiar routine.

"Humnoke, remember? We're thinking of paying it a visit." Randy's expression transformed immediately into one of barely concealed alarm. Sam feigned ignorance and continued. "Anything worth seeing?" The kid, who didn't look a day over seventeen and had the pockmarks to prove it, answered a mite too hastily.

"Nothing ever happens there. Don't know why you would want to go there." He looked shifty, like he wanted desperately to be someplace else. Instantly alert, Dean picked up the scent. He scooted along the bench, patted the warmed burgundy plastic just vacated and, as Randy perched his ample behind next to him, spoke conspiratorially.

"Why is that then? Why wouldn't we want to go? It's just a boring old small town, right?" Randy relaxed a little, and his look changed to one of mockery and faint disbelief.

"Exactly, it's boring," he intoned, as if he was speaking to someone very young or very stupid. "The people are boring, the houses are boring. Hell, even the animals are boring." The suspicion returned. "Why do you guys want to know anyway?"

Dean had some concoction about vacations and birth parents and long-lost cousins and Auntie Veras already forming on his lips, when his brother silenced him with a pointed glance. Then, as he spoke, Sam's expression became open and honest, inviting trust, an expression that Dean had never fully mastered and could only hope to mimic.

"Dean, I think we can tell Randy the truth." He sounded utterly sincere, and Dean nodded slowly as if giving him leave to continue, which he did. "Our younger sister has gone missing and she was last seen there." Sam's words elicited an immediate replay of Randy's reaction when they had first mentioned the town. He shot up off the seat and darted a panicked look towards the middle-aged lady behind the counter, whom Dean assumed was his boss. Her attention was elsewhere which seemed to galvanise the boy, for he suddenly looked Sam straight in the eye and spoke in a rushed, urgent monotone.

"They're collecting you then, you mustn't go there, you'll be next." He stumbled over his words. "I thought you were just joking around, I thought you knew. Or maybe reporters or something, we've had a few of them. But if that's why you're really here, you better go now, your sister's as good as dead anyway if that's where she is." A fleeting look of regret passed across his face as he realised what he'd said, but he carried on. "I've already said too much, if I get found out…." He tailed off, and his shoulders sagged. Right now he looked, very, very young, and Dean's heart went out to this misfit kid. He exchanged a silent glance with Sam, and took control of the situation back, knowing he was now on firmer territory. Gently, he took the boy's arm and guided him back onto the bench, smiling reassuringly the whole time.

"Randy, I need you to calm down for me now, OK? You see, Sam and me, we need your help." The youthful, pudgy face next to him crumpled in distress, so Dean laid an encouraging hand on his shoulder. The kid squeezed his eyes open and shut several times, before finally replying.

"I'd love to help you, you seem like good people," he said tentatively, and Dean noticed Sam nod in encouragement as Dean himself willed the adolescent on. Then something seemed to snap inside Randy's resolve, and he shook his head, as if to clear it. "But I can't, I just can't. I'm sorry." He pushed himself up from the seat and headed for the counter, coffee cups forgotten, without a backward glance.

Dean was crestfallen; he'd always been able to get kids to open up to him. He noticed the beginnings of a smirk on Sam's face, but then his little brother obviously thought better of it as he realised what a useful source of information they'd just lost. Then something occurred to Dean, and he stood up quickly.

"Come on Sam, I think we're done here, let's go find a motel." He dug around in his pocket and flung a ten dollar bill on the table. "I'm gonna use the bathroom first," he said, his voice raised a little higher than normal, "I'll get you outside." He threw a firm, meaningful look in his brother's direction before heading for the door.


Sam had cottoned on, thankfully, although it had taken a second. Reluctantly he had left the ten dollars, in its entirety, exactly where Dean had thrown it, before exiting the café. He was leaning on the burnished bonnet of the Impala, crushing little stones into the mud with his toe, when his elder brother followed a few moments later. As he went to unlock the door, Sam caught a self-confident smirk on his face.

"I give him ten seconds, maybe fifteen." Sam had to admire the certainty, but he himself wasn't quite so sure this wasn't going to be seven or so of their hard-earned bucks unwisely squandered.

"OK, maybe twenty." The smirk was slipping as Dean realised there was only so much pratting around outside the car they could do before they would have to get in and drive away. Sam turned his back on the building and put his hand on the passenger door handle. As he did so, he heard the squeaky crunch of sneakers on gravel, followed by Dean breathing out slightly more heavily than usual.

"So what can you tell us, kid?" Dean couldn't quite mask the slight irritation in his voice from the finely honed ears of his sibling, but Randy was oblivious. He didn't miss a step as he marched right past the Impala on the passenger side, almost so quickly that Sam nearly didn't catch the four words spat under the boy's breath.

He watched him disappear towards the bin huts out back and then got into the car, trying to arrange his limbs as tidily as possible. Dean jumped in beside him.

"Why are we leaving? Doesn't he want us to follow him?" he demanded impatiently. Sam looked thoughtfully at his brother.

"No. I think he's said all he's going to."

"What? What did he say?" Sam sighed, unsure what to make of it.

"'Don't call the police.' He said 'Don't call the police.'"


A/N: That's it for now. Really hope you liked it, I'm starting to get a bit nervous that no-one does. It's maybe going a bit slower than I'd hoped, but I've got loads of action up my sleeve, so hang on in there! Thanks for reading, see you next chapter.