Author's Notes: I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has reviewed me. I'm sorry to those I wasn't able to get back to, but your reviews were received and appreciated. I'm finally getting back into writing and with the new season approaching, I'm hoping some new ideas will come too. Though I have a couple that should keep me busy if there aren't. So enjoy this new story.

Waking Hour

Chapter One

"Ow, goddammitfuck."

Sam looked up from the book he'd been reading. The Brothers Karamazov, a classic. It had been a while since he'd actually sat down and read a book for the pleasure of it. Books were normally read for research or translations, or at the very least to look up the history behind places or people or things. There just wasn't time for reading books for the pleasure. Especially books that required as much concentration as this one did. If Sam started a book, sometimes it would be weeks or months before he could finish it and by the time he picked it up again, he'd have forgotten what had happened.

Dean sat on the bed opposite him, legs crossed, whetting stone in one hand, and a hunting knife in the other. There were an assortment of knives scattered around him on the bed, with guns up near his pillow, and a crossbow down at the foot of the bed. Dean was very particular about his weapon cleaning time. It had to be a time where he could be undisturbed, quiet, and completely focused. These times were hard to find. Especially recently. Things seemed to be spiraling out of control for them and they had been trying for the past few days to just lay low for a while, take a break for a bit. It wasn't working.

Sam remembered a few years before he left for Stanford, Dean had been cleaning and the doorbell rang. One would have thought the world had just ended with the way Dean threw a fuss once he slammed the door shut on the kid selling magazines. He'd bitched and moaned about being disturbed and then had started the weapons cleaning completely over. An hour of work and Dean dismissed it because of the twenty seconds he was away from them. Sam never understood this quirk of Dean's, but he didn't question it either. He could count on one hand the amount of times Dean's guns had jammed, or his knives had failed to pierce, or his crossbow had been too loose. Sam wouldn't question that kind of skill.

"You all right there?" Sam asked, putting the book down on his stomach, open to the page he'd been on. Dean threw down the whetting stone and stuck his thumb into his mouth. It was a gesture that looked so foreign on Dean that Sam couldn't help but chuckle a little. Dean's face was classic. He looked like a little kid who'd just gotten a splinter, which knowing Dean, that's about the same level of wound he was now sporting. Dean only ever fussed over wounds that shouldn't even be classified as wounds. Skin fractures, maybe.

Dean popped his thumb out of his mouth and examined it. Sam got a good look at it. There was a nice sized slice at the top of his thumb, although it wasn't bleeding. What a baby. "Damn thing's sharp," Dean muttered, wiping his thumb on his shirt, checking it one more time to make sure it really wasn't bleeding and then picked up the whetting stone again.

"Maybe we should keep you away from sharp, pointy objects," Sam said, already grinning at the look he knew that comment would garner out of his brother.

Dean mocked Sam, mumbling what he'd just said, before letting out a, "Ha, so funny I forgot to laugh."

Sam chuckled and laid back down on the bed, picking up his book again. Dean went back to sharpening his knives, wary of his smarting thumb, but working with the ease and confidence he normally had when cleaning weapons. They stayed like that for a few minutes, each brother lost in their tasks. The quiet was finally broken by the ringing of Dean's cell phone.

Already knowing that Dean was not going to abandon his project, Sam laid his book down. Just like he thought, Dean said, "Sammy, answer that for me, will ya?"

Sam rolled his eyes, but stood up. He slapped Dean's head as he walked by him, which earned him a death glare and a punch to the side. "What am I? Your personal man servant?" Sam asked as he reached for the phone, checking the caller ID. It wasn't someone in Dean's phonebook, but the number looked vaguely familiar.

"Little brother, personal man servant, same thing," Dean said, continuing to run his knife along the whetting stone as he watched Sam.

"The number looks familiar, but I don't know who it is," Sam said, looking to see what Dean wanted to do.

Dean nodded his head, holding the knife out to the side. "Well there's this special thing you can do with telephones…it's called answering them."

"Shut up," Sam snapped as he flipped open the phone. "Hello?" he asked.

Someone started to talk on the other end of the line, but paused for a second before they said, "Is this Sam?" The male voice sounded worried. Sam thought he should recognize the voice, but couldn't put a face to it yet.

"Uh, yeah," Sam said, looking over at Dean, who was waiting to be filled in with who was on the other end of the phone. "This is Sam." Dean frowned at that.

There was a sharp intake of breath before the next question, "Wait, you went and saw that guy in Nebraska, right? I mean, you got everything worked out, right? Dean's not dead is he?"

A light suddenly clicked on in Sam's head. Joshua. He was talking to Joshua. He recognized the voice now. Joshua was a friend of John's and the guy who told Sam about Roy Le Grange. Joshua had basically been the one to save Dean's life. Sam wanted to smack himself for not ever calling the guy back and telling him that Dean was okay again.

Sam let out a breath, relieved now that he knew who he was talking to. "No, no, Dean's fine. The Reverend you told us about worked." Sam watched Dean's face darken. Dean had nothing but horrible memories from the brothers' encounter with Le Grange. Even though the man had healed Dean, Sam couldn't help but think that Dean sometimes wished they had never gone there to see him.

"Oh good, I was worried for a minute," Joshua said, sounding just as relieved as Sam felt.

"Yeah," Sam gave a small chuckle. "Dean's doing okay. The whole thing was a mess, but Dean managed to walk away from it fairly unscathed."

Joshua snorted. "That kid can walk away from anything unscathed."

Seeing that Dean was looking frustrated from where he still sat on the bed, Sam cleared his throat. "So, did you want something or were you just checking up?" Sam asked, looking uncomfortable with the words. There was really no way to say them nicely. Joshua didn't seem to mind.

"Well, I was trying to get a hold of Johnny, but his voicemail said to call Dean," Joshua said and Sam nodded, forgetting that the other man couldn't see him. "I was hoping to get his help on this job I'm doing. It's way over my head, and Caleb's tied up in something else on the East Coast. Bobby won't even answer his damn phone. I just could use a little help on this one."

Sam motioned for Dean to give him the pencil and pen sitting on the nightstand between the bed. Dean glanced at it and gave Sam a look to say that he wasn't happy about being kept in the dark, but handed them over. "Where are you?" Sam asked.

"Just outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania," Joshua said. "Little town called Oak Springs. I couldn't find it on a map. Took me a freaking week just to find the damn place." Sam snorted.

"Well we could be in Scranton by tomorrow," Sam told him.

Dean perked up at that. "What's in Scranton?" he asked. Sam held up his hand, motioning for Dean to wait until he was done. Dean didn't appreciate the gesture and grabbed Sam's fingers, wrenching them something awful. Sam had to bite his lip to keep from crying out. He yanked his hand away from his brother and glared. Dean looked ready to jump someone. Either that or he was going to start pulling his hair out. He hated when he didn't know what was going on. Sam was basking in all his annoying little brother glory. Sometimes he loved that title.

Joshua told him the directions to the town and the coordinates just in case they got lost. Sam wrote it all down, while Dean, having abandoned his spot on the bed, was standing next to him, looking over his shoulder while Sam sat at the table.

"You know what you're dealing with yet?" Sam asked after he'd gotten the directions down.

Joshua snorted on the other end of the line. "No freaking clue. I was hoping Johnny could figure it out. All I know is people are dying and something freaky needs to be killed."

Sam frowned. "Well, what made you think it was our kind of thing in the first place?" he asked.

Joshua sighed. "You'll see when you get here." Sam resisted the urge to sigh. What was it with John and all his friends being so damn cryptic? None of them could ever just come out and say what was going on. It had to be all mysterious and secretive. It drove Sam nuts. He didn't know whether it was a Marine thing, a hunter thing, or just an old person thing. He liked to think it was a mixture of all three, although he wasn't exactly sure how old Joshua was. Caleb was only a few years younger than their Dad and he was about ten times worse than John when it came to being cryptic.

There's been a time when they all used to get together; Caleb, Bobby, Joshua, Pastor Jim and their Dad. Sam had been nine the last time they'd all gotten together. Something had happened after that. Something that made them stop wanting to see each other. They only went to each other if they needed something. They hardly talked, except for advice over the phone. It wasn't like when Sam and Dean were kids, when they used to see everyone all the time, learned what everyone knew, shared details. Sam didn't know why those "hunter meetings" had stopped. He remembered something about John telling him it wasn't safe to share all your secrets and knowledge, not even with your best friends.

"All right," Sam said instead. "We'll be there about noon tomorrow."

"Thanks, Sam," Joshua said, breathing a sigh of relief. "Tell Dean I'm glad he's alive."

Sam laughed. "I'll be sure to tell him."

"Oh, and Sam?"

"Yeah?" Sam asked, holding Dean off with one arm as his brother tried to get at the paper Sam had just written all the details on.

"Make sure you bring a shovel."