Chapter 1
Only A Man In A Funny Red Sheet
March 7, 2008
Black Rock, New York, was an innocent little town as far as the casual passer-by was concerned. There was nothing dark there, nothing malicious, nothing to fear. The casual passer-by didn't know what was nestled deep within the town, though. They didn't know what was hidden in the storage locker once owned by John Winchester.
It couldn't be expected for normal folks to know the secrets stashed away in the dark locker. After all, even John's own sons weren't entirely sure what was in there. They wanted to know, though, which was why they'd taken the day off to root through their father's dusty treasures.
"I know what you're thinking," Dean Winchester wheezed, coughing roughly as he pulled a large trunk out from under a pile of old blankets, "and you should give it up."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Sam replied, narrowing his eyes as he carefully inspected a coffin that was sitting on an old work table. The young hunter rapped lightly on each wall of the box with his knuckles, looking for hidden compartments.
"If dad knew how to escape demon deals, don't you think he would have told us?"
"If dad knew I was destined to be the Anti-Christ, don't you think he would have told us?" Sam shot back.
Dean wrenched the trunk lid up, coughing again as a plume of dust sailed into the air and hit him full-force in the face. "He told me," he defended once his hacking fit had tapered off. "Hey, Sammy, what did they call that disease the old miners used to get from working in the coal mines?"
"Black lung?" Sam asked without looking up from the out-of-place casket.
"Yeah, that. Thanks to you and your geeky desire to go through dad's old stuff, I got black lung."
Sam glanced up at that. "You do know that takes years of working in coal mines to get, right?"
Dean shrugged, letting a couple more coughs slip out for effect. "Asthma, then."
"You can't even spell asthma," Sam argued, turning back to his work as his brother began to rummage through the trunk that had, apparently, given him some sort of debilitating respiratory disease.
Glancing up at his brother when he was sure Sam wouldn't see, Dean rifled half-heartedly through the trunk. It felt wrong to go digging through their father's few possessions. John had been such a private person, and Dean figured that there had to be some reason that his father had hidden all of this stuff away in New York.
He wouldn't have even gone out to the old storage shed again if it hadn't been for that damned rabbit's foot and Sam's stubbornness. It seemed to the elder Winchester brother that Murphy's Law applied doubly to his family, and with that kind of luck on their side, Sammy was bound to stumble across something even more dangerous than a very real bad luck charm.
Still, he couldn't help but feel like he was violating his dad's privacy by sifting through the older man's things. It was admittedly cool getting to see what John had kept from their childhood, and Dean had been pleasantly surprised to find not only his first sawed-off, but also a few lopsided Christmas and birthday gifts that had been made by his own small hands.
He shook his head, clearing a layer of dust from his hair, and turned back to his work. The trunk was mostly full of bloody clothing, ripped shirts, old socks- nothing of any importance. He dug a little deeper, past the stained fabric, pretending to be looking for something.
He gasped as his eyes caught a flash of bright red among the more drab colors that his father had chosen to dress the Winchester clan in over the years. Dean's slight motions turned frantic as he attempted to reach the item, afraid it might slip away, might disappear in a puff of smoke, just as his childhood had.
He tore away at the other clothes, sending them flying through the air and into the coffin that Sam was inspect in his desperate attempt to free a cherished memory from his short childhood.
Dean pulled the large, red square of fabric out of the trunk and held it before his eyes, amazed to see that time hadn't changed it. It still looked as new as it had the day he and his father had found it at the costume shop. Before he could even begin to wonder where the rest of the costume was, Dean gained his feet, his knees crackling with protest, and tied the two strings of the musty cape around his neck.
As soon as the old costume was in place he felt something pass through him, as if lightning had stuck, only better. It was a familiar feeling, one that accompanied every hunt, every scare, every adrenalin rush. He was invincible.
Sam spun around, yanking a bloody shirt off of his head. "Dean, care to explain?"
The older man jumped, startled, and felt the heat rise to his face. "Um…"
"Why are you wearing a cape? Where'd you get that?"
"It was dad's," Dean explained hastily, reaching behind his back and grabbing a handful of smooth red cloth, letting it trail comfortingly through his calloused fingers, "he wore it on Halloween… two days before mom died."
All annoyance at being attacked by old clothes faded from Sam's face instantly. "Oh."
"I was obsessed with the Man of Steel," the older man revealed, "and when you're four years old, no one's more invincible than your dad, so I made him buy us matching costumes. We both went as Superman. Last time I ever went Trick or Treating."
"You took me plenty of times," Sam pointed out, turning back to the coffin, wanting to leave his brother alone with the few memories of childhood that they didn't share.
"I took you," Dean clarified, "but I never went up to the houses with you. Couldn't be distracted."
The younger hunter bit his lip. "Right. Sorry."
Dean just shrugged, the cape fluttering with the motion. "Not your fault. So, how do I look?" He struck a pose, standing up straight and tall, his hands placed firmly on his hips.
"Like the runner-up to Tom Welling," Sam said, "now take that off and get back to work. We've got a lot of stuff to sort through."
Sighing, Dean untied the cape from his shoulders. "Fine, but we won't find anything."
"Everything's worth a shot now," Sam pointed out as his brother slid the cape carefully back in the trunk and gently place the old clothes back on top of it, an act of reverence that didn't go unnoticed by the younger man. "Time's running out."
Dean shook his head. He would have said something, if he had been in the mood for another fight, but deemed it too much effort. He felt too good about the world in general at that point to yell at his brother, anyway. Maybe it had been finding the cape, maybe it had been putting on something that his father had once worn with such pride, but something had changed in the older hunter. The end suddenly didn't seem so close, even with Sammy's near-constant reminders. Suddenly, everything seemed to fit. His throat didn't even tickle with the black lung, or asthma, or whatever the hell all that dust had given him. Things were looking good.