Author: Mirrordance

Title: Open, Shut

Summary: A street prophet foresees a deadly disaster and goes to the only people who would believe him:the Winchesters and Bobby Singer. It's an open and shut case except the only solution is-how do you empty a town of four thousand people? Post-Family Remains.

" " "

Open, Shut

" " "

1: Count Us Out

" " "

It was a full-time job, this pissing off demons and angels thing, not to mention staving off the Apocalypse and putting down all the miscellaneous bit-players in between. The triple-task was exhausting, making the Winchester brothers much more selective in their case choices. Gone were the old days when they could go across the country on the loose possibility of a job.

The Paul Reade case could have fallen by the wayside if it wasn't Bobby Singer who personally called and asked for help.

"An honest-to-god seer-slash-street prophet?" Sam said over the phone, "I don't know, Bobby."

They caught the call at a local diner, weary after a long drive following a messy job successfully accomplished. Dean has been pensive about it for hours. He ignored Bobby's call, forcing the older hunter to grumpily call Sam instead.

Dean spared Sam a mildly curious glance, but otherwise occupied himself with doodling on the table napkin, as the brothers waited for their food orders. Sam had noticed that it was one of Dean's freshly acquired post-hell habits, aside from the working-til-he-was-dead-on-his-feet-thing, the drinking-thing, the sleep-without-changing-thing, the wake-after-an-hour-from-a-nightmare-thing... Dean had a lot of new Things.

Sam understood the reason behind the new 'Dean-Things.' Dean wanted to keep working; it took his mind off of hell, at least until he was so exhausted his body just gave out, falling into restless sleep. This strange routine also offered him some sort of penance, or possibly an avenue for self-punishment. The doodling however was a different animal altogether.

The first of the table napkin doodles that Sam spotted had the number 3,650 scrawled on it. After a job, the number would decrease... 3,640... 3,637... they seemed random at first, Sam beginning to wonder if his brother had really lost his mind. But he said nothing, giving Dean the elbow-room he needed to sort himself out, especially since Dean had explicitly addressed the need for that space.

I won't lie anymore but I'm not gonna talk about it.

There are no words...

... no forgetting.

... no making it better.

... they're just right here.

Forever.

Either way, Sam had come to expect this behavior from Dean lately, the ability to start opening up and speaking about the things that bothered him on his own time, made necessary by circumstances so dire that he was apparently filled to capacity until eventually, his defenses would break down and his emotions just gushed out.

How I feel... inside me?

I wish I couldn't feel anything, Sammy.

Besides, Sam decided not to push it. Sam was self-aware enough to know that his current silence was also some form of self-preservation; even though he hated admitting it, hearing Dean in his hopelessness was often crippling for him, and they had a whole lot of work to do to both be crippled at the same time.

A while back, a job had turned bad and they'd lost a mother and a child. When the table napkin doodle went up from 3,637 to 3,639, Sam finally guessed what the numbers meant. People they've saved decreased the number, and people they lost increased it. Why it began at 3,650 in the first place was something Sam had to figure out. The bottom line though, was that every person they saved decreased that confounded number, and Dean seemed in a damn rush to get that down to zero.

It was why they were doing too many jobs. It didn't take Sam long to get on Dean's obsessive little bandwagon, because whatever the hell the numbers meant to his brother, they seemed to mean a lot. Sam started finding easy jobs that they could finish quickly and do more of. He prioritized jobs based on geographic location, to do as many jobs in an area and not loose any time on the road. He had also stopped complaining about sleeping in the car most of the time, instead of kicking back in a motel.

If Dean noticed the change, he said nothing. But Sam felt he had to draw the line somewhere; Dean wasn't functioning at a hundred percent right now, and another job after this most recent mess had him hesitating.

"At least I think he used to be, back when I first ran into him," Bobby was saying, "Paul Reade won the lottery using numbers he saw in a dream. He won it again a couple of months later, same thing. It made the news, of course, especially since he was making a nuisance of himself about this psychic mumbo-jumbo. A bunch of hunters came after him. I talked some sense into the knuckleheads; Reade's harmless. They left him alone in exchange for a donation of ten thousand dollars, which they used for ammo and medical insurance."

Dean listened to Sam's side of the conversation with half-an-ear as their food arrived. His younger brother slapped at his forearm, motioning for him to start eating, seeing as he wasn't paying attention anyway. Dean looked at him irritably, refocusing on his frenzied doodling on the table napkin.

"You said 'used to be'," Sam pointed out, snatching one of Dean's fries in younger-brother defiance. Dean was distracted enough to let him get away with it.

"He can't control the visions," Bobby said, "He gets them in his sleep, so I can never tell if he's just dreaming or if it's the real thing. Worse, he's been living under the bottle lately, so I don't even know if he can tell left from right. That's why I need you boys over there. I need a second pair of eyes to take a look if this thing's for real, and well..."

"Who better to ask than another freak with visions, right?" Sam said sardonically, finally catching Dean's attention.

"It's not that, Sam, and you know it," Bobby said mildly, "Just, you boys'll be reasonable about not-offing this poor sucker if he is supernatural, is all."

"What's going on?" Dean asked. Sam motioned for him to keep it down, and promised with a look that he would fill him in later.

"So in one of his visions, he actually saw the world end?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," Bobby replied, and even over the phone Sam could hear the older hunter wincing, "He couldn't get very specific, though. He was calling from jail."

"Well this just gets better and better," Sam said wryly, "More and more credible, if you know what I mean."

"Don't get sassy with me, boy," Bobby snapped, "Leave the sass to that idjit brother of yours, one Winchester smart-ass is enough for me. I'm telling you, Sam. I think this guy is the real thing. Now whether or not he saw this 'Real End of the World' thing is a different story altogether. I'm thinking a couple of days out in the country, finding out if the damn world is actually ending ought to be worth the trouble."

Sam glanced at Dean, who was making dismissive motions with his hands and, wide-eyed, mouthing, "Just say yes!"

"Okay, Bobby," Sam said warily, "Count us in."

He hung up after jotting down the directions, and turned to his brother.

"You don't even know what the hunt's about, Dean."

"Don't care," Dean said simply, shrugging, "It's Bobby. We owe him."

"We do," Sam conceded, "But we're no good to anybody wiped-out, and to tell you the truth, I'm beat."

Dean looked at him worriedly for a second, and then raised a brow at Sam knowingly. "You're not beat, Sammy. But you think I am."

"Aren't you?" Sam asked, not in the mood to beat around the bush, "You barely eat, you hardly sleep, you never stop moving. It'll catch up with you soon enough man, and we can't get caught with our pants down like that in the middle of a job." He rubbed his eyes tiredly, "No matter how silly it ends up being."

"I eat," Dean said, pointedly taking a large bite of his cheeseburger. He grinned at Sam with a disgusting mouthful of food, "So, this job. What do you mean it might end up silly?"

"Dean," Sam said, leaning forward, looking both earnest, imposing and ultimately, impossibly irresistible, making Dean flinch. "Come on. We've been hopping from case to case like we never have before. We've been doing, what? Two, sometimes three cases a week? One a week used to be murder. You trying to set a record or what?"

"Two a week?" Dean asked, thoughtfully, "And there's like, what? Fifty-two weeks a year?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Nothing," Dean shrugged, "I'm fine, Sam."

"Sure you are," Sam said, flatly.

"So what's with this case?" Dean asked, "Bobby needs us, blah, blah, blah, on with the program."

Sam stared at him for a long, quiet moment, before shaking his head in defeat and taking a deep breath. "Local nut-job in a small town thinks he's seeing the end of the world in his dreams."

"And we believe him because...?"

"Because, amongst other things," Sam replied, "He dreamed up two sets of lottery numbers, played them, and won. They say he lost all the money eventually, became some sort of a street prophet, but that's beside the point. This guy sees the future, Dean. The lottery numbers weren't a fluke, and if that's true, then it's possible that …"

"… the world actually is ending," Dean finished, almost casually, except his eyes were glinting a little, "Apocalypse and all that, right? Maybe he is the real thing. Worth a look, I guess. I mean," he wiggled his eyebrows at Sam, "If we're all gonna get screwed, he may as well tell us when and where, so we can doge it."

"Dean--"

"All right, all right," Dean said, grinning. "So serious! I don't know what's up with the fricking angels since they last tried to fuck with us, but their version of the apocalypse equates to Lucifer walking the Earth, right? If this dude can see it coming, then maybe we can prepare ourselves."

"If," Sam pointed out, "If he sees it. This may likely be just some whack-job-nutter, Dean. When Bobby called me, he said he was going to pick this guy up from jail."

"Well if he's nothing but your garden-variety delusional wacko," Dean said with a winning smile, "Then this might be the downtime you've been looking for, Sammy."

"I was thinking more along the lines of a bed and a shower," Sam said wryly, "But I guess that's too lofty an ambition."

Dean smirked as he polished off the last of his food and rose to his feet. "Gimme a sec to hit the can before we leave."

"Don't forget to powder your nose," Sam teased, as Dean flipped him the finger before walking off. Sam sighed, set aside his own empty plate and found his eyes drifting to Dean's doodled table napkins. He reached for them to see how the count stood.

2 x 52 = 104...

"Whatcha doing?" Dean asked from behind him a few moments later, sounding mildly accusing. They were doing that Winchester tango again; Sam knowing something and Dean knowing he knew, Sam knowing he knew and Dean knowing he knew he knew and so on, neither one willing to just grab the bull by the horns.

"Looking for a clean one, dude," Sam filled in, "Why'd you have to go and draw on everything? And what's up with the Good Will Hunting act?"

He was daring him to answer.

"Just bored," Dean said, flat and calm, even as he swiped at the table napkin in Sam's hand. "Local paper had a puzzle. This is mine." He made a show of wiping his own mouth before crumpling the napkin and tossing it on top of the table.

" " "

"'C'mere baby.'"

Sam woke up to the opening lines of Aerosmith's Crazy, playing on modest volume on the car stereo, underlined by Dean's soft, low singing.

"'You know you drive me up a wall the way you make good on all the nasty tricks you pull,'" Dean and Steven Tyler went on, "'Seems like we're makin' up more'n we're makin' love. It always seems you got somethin' on you mind other than me--' Heya Sam."

Sam cleared his throat, unsurprised that Dean should know he was awake before he could even peel his eyes open, "Wanna switch?" he asked with a wide, indulgent yawn, "You've been driving for hours."

"I don't mind," Dean murmured, "Too keyed up to sleep. 'Say you're leavin' on the seven-thirty train and that you're headed out to Hollywood...' I love this song, man. I think I heard it in '94. Good year. Good year."

"Yeah?" Sam asked, stretching his arms up behind him, which was as much of Sam's wingspan as the Impala could accommodate, "Fifteen. You didn't get the Impala 'til later."

"Started hunting with dad for real at roundabouts of fifteen," Dean said, "My first honest-to-god kill, you know, when it's all me, not him making wacky step-by-step's. That was a clean, clean hunt." He chuckled a little, "It took me a couple years later to even suspect maybe dad was doing something behind the scenes a little after all, making me think it was all me. Wouldn't put it past the man. Besides, hunts haven't come around that simple since."

Sam watched his older brother's face with a pensive smile. "Hey, speaking of dad... His journal's almost full. I think we're gonna need a new one soon."

"Yeah?" Dean asked, brows raising, "Who'd have thought."

"I know," Sam said, picking up said book from the glove compartment, "Kinda weird though, huh? He started this right after mom, and he worked on nothing else since."

"Yeah..." Dean murmured, glancing at his brother, wondering where this was going.

"I got into it after Jess," Sam added, quietly, "And we haven't let it go since, adding our own stuff. It was bound to get full... I'm kinda surprised it didn't happen sooner. Still... it's weird, you know?"

"Maybe we were expecting a magical bottomless journal," Dean joked, "Of all things that could have been supernatural, huh?"

Sam chuckled.

"I was thinking of scanning the pages," Sam said, "Turn everything we have here into a pdf file or something, so that it keeps better and we can have multiple copies. And instead of buying a new book, we can just make digital entries in the computer from here on out instead of writing it down."

"Your handwriting does suck," Dean said, "A what file?"

"You save it in the computer," Sam oversimplified flippantly, mildly annoying Dean who just let it slip as Sam continued, "We can even make an honest-to-god index, rig cross-references... might be easier for research eventually, especially if we can search for keywords. We can be twice as fast calling up stuff. We go everywhere with the laptop anyway."

"Sounds good," Dean said, noncommittal.

"What?" Sam asked, sensing his older brother's hesitation.

"Nothing."

Sam rolled back his eyes. "Dean – What?"

"I kinda like it old school, I guess," Deans said, "Not a big deal. I mean, I get it. Maybe it's time for an upgrade."

It was an understatement, Sam recognized, because in Dean-speak, upgrades were replacements, and replacements always meant leaving something behind, and leaving things behind was something Dean hated to do.

"It's everything he wrote, man," Sam assured him quietly, "Exactly how he wrote it, except it's on the screen instead of on paper. It's not like we'll be throwing the journal out. As a matter of fact, we'll keep it in a safe place, not have to bring it everywhere. That way we won't wear her out so much. I mean a gust of wind and we can lose a few pages. The post-its are losing their stick. The journal falls in a swamp or a river or even gets oil or blood or coffee spilled on it and we might lose the information, you know?"

"I get it," Dean said, mildly, keeping his eyes on the road. At Sam's breathy pause, like he was gathering wind to say something more, Dean glanced at him and insisted, "I do!"

"There's a 'but' I'm waiting for," Sam said.

"Your laptop could do that freezy thing again," Dean said.

"It would stop crashing if you start paying for the porn you surf," Sam said, "Or, we can also save several copies on a flashdisk or a CD that we keep somewhere else. One in the car, one in dad's storage locker, even one with Bobby. Back-up copies."

"We can't always lug a laptop around," Dean pointed out, "Like when we're in a fricking graveyard, or doing an exorcism. And electricity isn't always available, nor are electronics always reliable when the signals are all jumbled."

"We print out two sets," Sam said, "We'll put one in your bag, one in mine. We can even re-size it to something more convenient. We can even have our copies bound and water-proofed, you know, on glossy paper? I'm also thinking about getting one of those Kindle-things, so we have it like an e-book."

Dean wondered if he could make 'But holding it in my hands feels like dad's there with us' sound just as logical. Because as Sam said, coffee had spilled on the journal before; blood too, and tears. Their father's and most certainly their own too.

"Sounds like you've been thinking about this for awhile," Dean commented instead, "What's with that?"

"I haven't, actually," Sam said, "I literally just thought about it recently. I guess you have to step back sometimes, to see things better."

"Step back?" Dean asked, irritably, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Nothing."

"Sam – What?"

"I haven't touched dad's journal in months, I guess," Sam admitted, quietly, "There was nothing in it that could help you, so there was nothing in it that interested me. I only had it back in my hands after you came back, and I just got all these ideas, you know? Just ways to do things better."

"Huh," Dean said, thoughtfully.

Sam shrugged, sinking into his seat a little in embarrassment, like he was four years old. Dean turned to him with a smirk.

"So being without me for months," he joked, "What do you think can make me better?"

Sam laughed, disarmed again. "You're kind of a hopeless case."

"I think that's a euphemism for you saying I'm perfect just as I am," Dean said, obtusely, "Which I always knew."

"Like I said," Sam said, "Hopeless."

"So you didn't do any cases while I was away?" Dean asked.

"It was getting you back or getting back at Lilith," Sam said, chuckling uneasily, "I think I lost it a little bit. There were some calls I didn't take, eventually passed them on to other hunters, and I hope I wasn't too late but... never had the guts to check, I guess. I'm... I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?" Dean asked, "You were allowed to be angry, Sam. Allowed to be sad. Heck, I'd be offended if you weren't."

"You told me to keep fighting," Sam said, looking out his window, "Told me to remember what you taught me. That's one of the things you taught best, that 'responsibility for other people' thing."

"You're allowed to grieve for my hide, brother," Dean told him wryly, in an effort to appease his guilt, "You're supposed to grieve for my hide. Next time I formulate my dying wishes, I'll make sure to be more specific, put it in the fine print."

Sam looked at him, stricken. "There won't be a next time."

"It was a joke," Dean said lightly as he focused on the road, both the one they were literally on and the one that paved their future. "So. This Reade guy says we might all be kissing our asses goodbye any day now, right? So basically we've got the angels talking about the Apocalypse, and Bobby's street-prophet is also seeing the end of the world. You think we'd take a hint or something, huh?"

Sam snorted in agreement.

"Why couldn't your freaky vision things have sent us lottery numbers?" Dean asked.

"I'll write up a request," Sam said, dryly.

"So, what do you think of this guy?"

"He does seem harmless," Sam replied, "Just like Bobby said. I read up on him a bit too. He was a self-employed handyman, dreamed up a bunch of numbers and won about forty million dollars. The first time."

Dean whistled, "Nice."

"He got carried away," Sam narrated, "Partied a little too hard, and his first wife had pretty decent grounds to divorce him and run away with half his money. He marries wife number two, who tries to kill him. He got lucky, got out of that one alive. She's in jail, and he wins the lottery from dream numbers again. He falls in love, falls out. Spends left, then right. Drinks a lot, disturbs the peace a lot, so he spends on overpriced lawyers a lot too. Reade ran afoul of a couple hunters awhile back, just as Bobby said, whom he paid to get off his back. Millions just wash away over the years, somehow. Then he's a drunk on the streets, talking about the end of the world."

"How do we know he's the real deal?" Dean asked, "I mean aside from the two lottery numbers?"

"Like that's not enough?" Sam replied, wryly, "I think he also got out of wife number two's attempted murder by the skin of his teeth, 'cos he might have foreseen it too. It was just too close. There could be smaller, non-newsworthy stuff we'll only find out about after we talk to him."

"Bobby has a lot of weird friends, doesn't he?" Dean said, thoughtfully.

Sam shook his head in amusement, "I wouldn't open up that can of worms, Dean. 'Cos I'd say that bunch of people includes a freak and his older brother, who was pulled out of hell by an angel."

"Yeah," Dean snorted, realizing for the first time that talking to Sam about the things that had happened after he died, was becoming slightly easier for the both of them. They were brothers after all, and the best of friends. Maybe it was just a matter of time. Maybe Sam had been right when he said that talking could help, even just a little bit.

"I passed up on this job when you were... gone," Sam shared, as if his mind were moving along the same lines as Dean's, "And I wanted you back so badly. It called for salting and burning a priceless Grecian antique artifact that was a donation to a big state museum, Dean. We've never done anything like that, it would've been like an Ocean's Eleven heist."

"Yeah?"

"And then somewhere else there's this male ghost streaker in a college girl's dorm that no one wanted to get rid of," Sam went on, eyes alight, "And somewhere else, there's supposed to be three string puppets that would have conversations about the elections late at night."

"Supernatural political conversations?" Dean scoffed, "You must have missed me a lot to have skipped on that one."

"Maybe I wussed out 'cos I'm not used to having intellectual conversations anymore," Sam said, and the brothers exchanged acidic expressions.

" " "

"It's like walking into Paradiso Perduto," Sam muttered, looking up at the looming, vine-plagued, rusted gates of the address Bobby provided.

"You sure we have the right address?" Dean asked.

"Yeah," Sam said, craning his head to take a look beyond the wild grass and untamed foliage around the iron gates and beyond it. "I can see one of Bobby's cars parked somewhere in there."

Dean craned his neck too, and both brothers blanched at the sour sight of one of the weirder occupants of the Singer salvage yard. It was a compact, chick's car in scarred, faded matte-pink. Dean knew that Bobby had it tricked out to go insanely and enviably fast; it was the only way any right-thinking man could justify driving that piece of crap around short of it having any superpowers, or if Bobby had gotten some action at the backseat from a Victoria's Secret angel.

"I wanna see you in that thing," Dean smirked at Sam.

Sam snorted at him, "I can't fit in there, I'm too tall. You on the other hand..."

"Shut up," Dean muttered, as he pressed on the buzzer by the gate, not really expecting it to work until a surly voice retorted, "What?!"

"Looking for Bobby Singer and Paul Reade," Dean replied.

"I'll buzz you in," came the short reply, "You can drive up to the rotunda."

"You heard the man," Dean said, slipping back inside the car, Sam doing the same. The heavy gates whined, but opened inward. Dean drove the Impala up the cobblestone driveway, and glanced at the rearview mirror as the gates shut behind them.

"This place must have been something a couple years back," Sam said, glancing out the windows. Old, shady tress lined the two-lane, curving, cobblestone driveway, their thick roots creeping and cracking into the cement, like curling fingers reclaiming what once was theirs. The road was strewn with fallen branches and leaves, and the brothers drove past untamed gardens. The wild greenery surrounded a colonial home in an odd shade of mossy green-gray-white, the sick color of neglect. The Impala rounded a fountain that looked like falling into its tepid water ensured dying of some exotic disease, and stopped at the main entrance.

Heavy, carved double-doors opened, and Bobby stepped out of the house, looking relatively immaculate despite the permanent sand and soil and oil that trailed after him, compared to his disheveled, slightly squat, fifty-plus-year-old companion.

Paul Reade looked like he was on the tail-end of a hangover. His already-lined face was screwed up in pained irritation, and his clear blue eyes were mostly hidden in a photo-phobic squint. They widened a little at the sight of the boys, but then re-settled when he frowned.

"You said you were bringing in help," he snapped at Bobby, "Not two kids."

"Overgrown ones, I promise ya," Bobby said, wryly, extending his hand out to shake the brothers' in warmer welcome, "Boys, this here's Paul Reade."

"I'm Sam," Sam said, "This is my brother Dean. Bobby said you needed some help."

"Not from you, get outta my house," Reade said, venomously, "Outta my damn town."

"What's with the attitude?" Dean asked, looking at Bobby.

"I don't know," Bobby admitted, turning to Reade, "Paul, what the hell?"

Reade stared at him, and then jerked his head shakily, "Nothing. I'm being a jerk. Come on in, boys." He opened the doors wider, and then stalked inside ahead of his guests.

Sam glanced at Dean, and then at Bobby. "What's his problem?"

"He's hungover," Bobby said, "And spent a night in jail. He's a nice guy, I promise."

The three hunters stepped inside the mansion, and Dean gawked at the high-ceilinged, sunlit, marble hall. The entrance led to a massive lobby lorded over by two curving staircases meeting at the middle, and leading to rooms above. The lobby was lined by anterooms, and everything was lit by the sun streaming in from long, slim windows that let in both light and the view of the untamed gardens from outside. There were more windows than furniture, as a matter of fact, because the neglected house was empty save for the occasional, battered chair.

"You're squatting in your old house?" Dean asked, calling after Reade, who emerged from one of the side rooms with bottles of beer. He handed them around, and then kind of just... plopped on the ground wherever he was standing.

"Please, sit," he said, motioning for the floor, almost graciously.

Dean and Sam exchanged a look, but did as they were invited to do.

"Tell us about this vision you had," Sam said, quietly, "Exactly what you saw, every single detail you can remember. I can guarantee you that everything your mind has shown you will matter, even things that you don't think mean anything."

"You guarantee?" Reade scoffed, "And how would you know?"

"I promised you help, Reade," Bobby said mildly, before Dean could open his mouth in defense of his brother, "Just do as he says."

Reade took a fortifying gulp of his beer before beginning. "Maybe I should get more of the heavier stuff."

"Later," Dean said, tone clipped, "Vision?"

"I don't usually see myself in them," Reade began, "It just looks and feels like it's real, like I'm already there. I remember standing by my door, right where you just entered. It was nighttime, I was just standing by my door. The air was... thick, you know? Sick-carbony or something. Fucking toxic, smelled like those wacky super-glues I used to uh... nevermind. Something was going on, 'cos there was this tick-tick-ticking sound, small and crisp, and I could see worms and insects kind of just coming out from the wood, you know, birds taking to the sky, all headed in the same direction. Like they all knew something we didn't and they were trying to get away.

"The flapping of the wings," Reade continued, "That's what got me to look up. The moon was full, and then a massive plume of smoke just rose up to the skies, made it black, and the moon – it was just gone. Then I heard the screaming, cars screeching, people running, and the sirens.

"My house is pretty far from the center of town," he went on, "But the air was bad. I was coughing. I thought maybe I should go back inside, so I did. And then suddenly, there was this... this white-hot blast, sending me to the wall. The windows burst, glass raining everywhere. But there were no more sounds. I thought I had busted my ears, might have blacked out. I stepped outside after that, and everything was just gone, you know? The trees, the grass, my gates were even melted. There used to be buildings and houses outside my property, but there was practically nothing left. Just... shells, a burning wasteland. I was all alone. End of the world stuff, as I told you. Looked like I Am Legend. Did y'all see that?"

"No," Dean replied.

"Neither did I," Reade shrugged, "So I guess I meant the poster. Without the dog."

"When did you dream this up?" Dean asked.

"About a week ago," Reade replied.

"Have you ever had a dream like it before?" Sam asked.

"The last time I dreamed up something that made me feel like the fucking Earth was ending," Reade gulped, "I saw my wife pushing me down the damn stairs. Got outta that one by the skin o' my teeth. Then I saw her cutting at my brake line. That was a closer one."

"Have you ever heard of a song that goes 'I have a funny feeling,'" Dean said wryly, making Sam's eyes roll, "'You don't love me any--'"

"Dean, shut up."

"I gave her another chance," Reade said, "After that first attempt. But that second... well. Bitch is in jail now, you know."

"Your... your visions," Bobby said, tossing Dean a warning glare, "When did they start?"

"I've always had them," Reade replied, "As long as I can remember, I guess that's why I never thought of it as useful or weird, not a big deal really. I can't control them, can't get them at will. I just dream, like once in awhile this time-door opens and I'm allowed a peek inside, you know? This ex-girlfriend of mine in middle-school, she taught me the term 'deja vu.' I was like, 'Oh! Cool!' Sometimes I'd wake up finding the headline on the newspaper familiar, or knowing how many lines my toasted bread would have, or what the kid in front of me in class would be wearing. Little things, random stuff. I was always like, 'So yeah, 'deja vu!' I had a word for it now, and it stuck. When I got older, I dreamed up the lotto fucking numbers one night, right? And when I woke up, I thought, 'When I see those numbers on TV tonight, it's gonna be like deja vu.' Then I suddenly felt like I got hit by lightning. I was a fricking idiot all this time! So I decided to bet on the numbers, and that was my first forty million. The lotto was the first time I realized I wasn't feeling deja vu after all. I know things ahead of time!"

"Forty mil, huh?" Dean said, "At least you made up for lost time."

Reade gave him a sour look. "Anyway, after what I saw this time around... I talked to the local shrink, who was trying to convince me I was nuts. I talked to the cops, they didn't bother with me. I went to the Church, and the priest told me some mumbo-jumbo about the changes I was supposed to make in my life. The only one who would listen to me was the fucking bartender."

"You were preaching the end of the world in front of the supermarket too," Bobby added.

"That's probably from spending too much time at the bar," Reade said, smiling sickly, "So the cops picked me up, the only guy I could think of to call and who'd believe me is you and your hunting buddies, Singer, so now here we all are."

"Do you ever get dreams that don't mean anything?" Sam asked.

"Sure, like everybody," Reade replied, "I dreamed about this broad I thought I was gonna get in the sack, once. I was so, so sure and I even started getting sweet on her, until she started calling the cops. I don't think that's a premonition. I think I just had that dream because I haven't gotten laid in awhile."

The three hunters blanched, but otherwise kept their mouths shut.

"So what you saw," said Dean, "Probably isn't the end of the world, just the end of this town."

"Probably," Reade shrugged, "I don't know, that's why you people are here. I guess I just said that because it copies better. You know, if you're standing outside the supermarket you can't get very specific. It had to be catchier."

Sam's brows rose, "Right," he agreed, only to indulge the older man.

"Listen, I got an idea," Reade said, "Had a really good dream on some sporting numbers last night. What say we bet money, and then we can use that as a test, huh? See if you win and if I'm the real deal and what I saw is something you wanna work on? If not, then you can just pony on out of here, pretty as you please, and at least someone took me seriously for a couple of hours."

"Sounds great to me!" Dean said, eyes lighting up, and Sam could have heard the actual ka-ching! in that green gaze.

"Okay," Reade grinned, "In the meantime, you can bunk here at my house. God knows I have a lot of room. No furniture, but I turn on the electricity at night, I got working bathrooms and running water. At least it's free."

"We've stayed at much worse places, I can guarantee that," Dean said, "And we got a couple of sleeping bags and camping gear in the car, so we can just grab them and settle. Thanks, man."

"You mean y'all got sleeping bags?" Reade asked.

"Standard hunter's supply fare," Bobby affirmed, "Why?"

"Got one for me?"

" " "

"So how much did you bet?" Sam asked, as the brothers listened on the Impala's stereo to find out if they'd won anything, later that evening. Paul Reade's house had the basics, but no TV or radio.

"Almost everything we saved up the last couple of weeks," Dean grinned, "Oh, we are gonna make a bundle, Sammy. Bobby says this guy's the real deal, and I can live with that."

"It's a test," Sam told him, warily, "You know that, right? What if he's wrong, Dean? He said so himself, he gets meaningless dreams too."

"This'll work," Dean said, determinedly, shushing his brother as the results of the track was being announced, "Here we go..."

" " "

The frustrated, primal scream echoed across the property.

"I think you'd better hide," Bobby told Reade warily, who was cooking them dinner from canned food in the kitchen.

The double doors slammed open a few rooms away. Reade's eyes were wide as saucers. He looked around the glaringly empty kitchen. When he decided to do without the furniture, he never imagined he would be needing it just to have something to hide behind.

"Reade!" Dean hollered.

"Dean," his kid brother said, trailing after the huffing elder Winchester, "He never said it was the real thing, he said it was a test--"

"Reade!" Dean bellowed.

"Help me," Reade said to Bobby in a small voice.

"Oh for god's sakes," Bobby muttered, looking around the room for somewhere he could temporarily stash the little man until he could calm Dean down.

"I smell food," they heard Dean exclaim, "I smell food!"

His pounding footsteps sounded nearer and nearer as he followed the smell of canned chili toward the kitchen.

"Oh god," Reade yelped, just as Dean burst into the room with fury in his eyes. Reade jumped, let out a squeal, and then ran for the back door.

Dean, spotting his prey, followed like a predator.

"Dean!" Sam exclaimed, grabbing for his jacket. Shaking free, Dean ran straight into Bobby who blocked his way.

"Get your wits together, boy!" Bobby managed to say, as Dean struggled against him.

"I'm gonna wring his neck!"

"He said it was a test," Sam reasoned from behind him. He pressed a hand to Dean's shoulder, "Dean. Man, come on."

"Lemme go," Dean told his two companions through gritted teeth and flaring nose, "I'm not gonna hurt him, I'm just gonna tell him it's not nice to mislead people."

Sam bit back a laugh, shoulders quaking. Dean threw his younger brother a glare.

"We lost a thousand dollars, Sammy," Dean said darkly, "Of our hard-earned, too little money."

"We'll get it back, man," Sam assured him, "You've got two hustlers in this family now. It shouldn't take us too long to get it back."

Dean's eyes narrowed in irritation but he calmed, and he really did mean what he said about not wanting to hurt the man. He rolled back his eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled.

"Good," Bobby said, releasing his hold on Dean with a pat, "Come on, you boys get started on the food. I'm gonna pick up the quivering mess of our host before he pees himself. Talk it over and figure out if you wanna stick around for this case or not."

" " "

Bobby found Paul Reade cowering in the backseat of the Impala, parked on the rotunda of the house.

"Last place he'd look," Reade said with a shrug, but he was still wide-eyed, staring at Bobby, "Am I safe?"

"From him?" Bobby said, as he opened the door as he pulled Reade out, "Yeah. From me, though... not so much."

"But you didn't bet nothin'!" Reade exclaimed, "You were with me all this time!"

Bobby grabbed Reade by the collar and pressed him against the car. "You have been acting funny around those boys since they got here, and I got a feeling you gave them bad numbers and I wanna know why."

"It's not my fault they used the damn numbers," Reade spat out, "I said it was a fucking test!"

"Yeah, but you sussed him out, knew by his behavior he was gonna bet whatever he had," Bobby said, "He trusted you because I trusted you. They're here because I needed them, so this is all on me. And you are seriously pissing me off. Now, seeing as I have to both dent my account finding a way to get them back their thousand bucks and dent my brain even harder trying to find a way to make it appear that I'm not giving them any money, I figured the least you can do is give me an answer."

Reade stared at Bobby, "You gotta get them outta here."

"Why?"

"I don't know them," Reade replied, shakily, "But I saw them in my dream too. If they stick around, I think they're gonna die."

To be continued...