PART FOUR - SAM
Sam parks himself on one of the stools at the bar in front of the worn, wooden tap pulls, catching Ellen's eye and waiting for her to make her way over to him. "What're you drinkin', kid?"
"Whatever's on tap is fine," Sam exhales, pressing his fingers against the closed lids of his eyes. Bobby had warned him what to expect, but knowing that Dean has amnesia – and just how bad it is – is completely different than experiencing it. Dean's reaction to the sight of him was a shock, and either something shows on his face or Ellen can read minds, because she slides a frothy mug of beer across the scarred surface of the bar and eyes him with a knowing look.
"It's not as bad as you think. And it could be a lot worse."
Sam scoffs because he just doesn't quite see how that could be possible. His brother has no memory that he ever existed. The only thing worse than that, the one thing that could make Sam feel even more wrecked and hurt, would be if... But Sam can't think of Dean as dead. It makes him picture his father's pyre burning bright against the blackness of an early-winter, Colorado night. He's not in the mood to argue with Ellen, so he takes a long drink from his glass and mutters, "I guess."
"Bobby told me about your dad. John and I, well... He did the best he could by you boys. I was sorry to hear of his passing."
"Thanks." Sam drags his fingertips through the gathering condensation on the outside of the glass. "Bobby tell you anything else?"
"Just that you might've learned something about Dean."
Sam nods, starts at the beginning. "When Dad... As my dad was dying, he told me that the demon – the demon that killed my mother – did something to me, too." He carefully watches Ellen's face for her reaction, but she gives nothing away. "It gave me a psychic ability, Ellen. Premonitions. I had nightmares all the time – bad ones. Then I had a vision one afternoon. We were at Bobby's while Dad was gone on a hunt with Bill."
Ellen's mask slips the tiniest bit as she meets and holds Sam's gaze, her dark eyes widening, lips pressed together in a pale line. "Bill, my husband?"
"Yeah. I saw what happened before it happened, right in the middle of dinner. But I was twelve and... I don't know. I didn't remember it at all. Not until Dad was dying and sent me to a psychic he knew in Lawrence. Missouri Moseley. She helped me remember. Helped me find Dean." He pauses again to take another drink of his beer. "Dean did something, some kind of blood magic, to take my psychic ability or whatever away. But he's not strong enough for the power the demon gave me and Missouri thinks- I think that's what's wrong with him."
"Your father knew about this?"
"No. Not about what Dean did. Nobody knew that. But he knew what the demon did to me, suspected what it gave me. And I didn't know about Dean until Missouri showed me and Bobby told me about his... amnesia. Dean started having nightmares after mine went away and I should've known." He finishes off the rest of the beer in his glass in one big swallow, wishes he'd had something stronger. "I think the only way to save him is to find the demon and kill it."
"How are you gonna do that, Sam?"
"When Dad told me what the demon did, he told me that he'd been working on a way to track it. All his work's in his journal. I just... I was waiting to find Dean to look at it, so we could go after it together, but I-"
"That boy's in no condition to hunt."
"We need to do this together. Dad said-"
"I don't give a damn what John Winchester said. Dean isn't fit for the job. Not now and, hell, maybe never. He's finally... stable. He's got his routine and his sketches and his journals, and he's doing so well. I'm not gonna let you disrupt that because John said you need to track this demon down together. Brother or not, he's in no shape for a simple salt and burn, much less hunting down a demon that's powerful enough to give you some kind of psychic powers. Don't you understand that, Sam? It's too dangerous."
Ellen's outburst is a shock, to say the least. Her protectiveness of Dean is endearing and Sam's glad his brother has someone like Ellen looking out for him. He nods in agreement. "I know. It wouldn't be safe for him."
"So what are you gonna do?"
Sam shrugs. "Track it myself, I guess. Dad did- or tried to for twenty years."
"Look," Ellen sighs wearily, "I've got a friend here that I think can help. Just get me everything John's got on the demon and I'll get him started on it."
Sam nods again and stands from his seat. He's already trusted Ellen with a lot – maybe too much. But she's been looking after Dean, been taking care of him when Sam couldn't, and she seems willing enough to help in whatever way she can. He goes outside to retrieve his bag from Bobby's truck, digs John's journal out of it before setting the thick, leather-bound book on the counter, a rumpled manila envelope wedged between the last page and the back cover. "That's everything I've got."
Ellen rests her hand atop the discolored cover for a moment before pulling it across the pocked surface of the bar. "We'll find something." She takes the journal in hand, carries it under her arm, nods her head towards the doorway in the dim corner at the opposite end of the bar. "Come on. I'll show you to your room."
The sun's just risen over the horizon, painting the world in a muted gray as it attempts to penetrate the snow-leaden clouds that drift slowly across the sky, when Sam wakes. He skips showering and shaving, just redresses in his small room and heads back out to the empty bar. He settles himself on a stool at the counter and waits. He's not sure how much time passes before the back door slams open, Ellen entering with a gust of frigid air and a swirl of snow. She stalls in her tracks at the sight of Sam. "You're up awfully early."
"Couldn't sleep," Sam yawns. "That cot was about a foot too short and lumpy as hell."
Ellen shrugs as she takes off her coat. "Don't get enough visitors staying over to upgrade. You want breakfast?"
"Yes, please."
"Coffee?"
"Absolutely."
Ellen's got a full mug of steaming coffee and a heaping plate of eggs, sausage, and toast in front of Sam in no time. He's halfway through his second helping when there's a bang and the sound of running from the hall where the spare rooms are. A man not much older than Sam himself comes barreling through the door in a wrinkled tee and jeans, blonde hair flying wildly around his face. "I got something!" He strides over to Sam and slaps a sheet of paper down onto the counter next to Sam's plate. "That journal you gave me was insane, man. And the research on the tracking?" The man grins almost manically.
"What've you got, Ash?" Ellen asks without so much as a blink, like this is normal behavior for the man.
"I'm still running the program, but I found a kid whose mother died in a nursery fire and all the omens from the livestock mutilations to the lightning storms were all there." Ash glances from Ellen to Sam and back, then back again. "So what are we looking for?"
Sam sets his fork down. "A demon."
"A what?"
"A demon," Sam repeats. "It's what killed that kid's mother in his nursery. It's what happened to my mom. My dad's been trying to track it for years."
"Oh, he wasn't trying. He'd figured out its pattern."
"So what was he waiting for if he knew how to find it?"
Ash shrugs, snags a piece of sausage from Sam's plate. "Omens stopped popping up. The thing's gone underground." He smiles, pleased with his own pun.
"But I need to find it."
"Good luck with that, hermano," Ash says around a mouthful of meat, reaching for a piece of toast.
"I might have a contact that can help you with that, Sam," Bobby says as he tugs his cap onto his head. Sam didn't hear or see him come in, too focused on Ash. He takes the stool to Sam's right and nods. "I'll give her a call from home when we get back."
Sam reads over the sheet Ash gave him as Bobby eats a quick breakfast. Max Miller is a couple weeks younger than Sam and he lives in Michigan. It'll be a full day's drive after he gets back to South Dakota with Bobby. He'll have to wait until morning and he's not going to have time to come all the way back to Kimball with the Impala before he goes. Dean's not going anywhere.
With his mind made up, Sam turns to Bobby. "How long before we head out?"
Bobby glances at the clock above the bar. "Half an hour, forty-five minutes?"
Sam nods, climbs off his stool as he thanks Ellen for breakfast.
"Try not to stay away too long, Sam," Ellen says as he goes. "It's not good for Dean's memory."
Sam has no intention of letting Dean forget him again. He should be back in a few days if all goes well. He returns to his borrowed room for his bag, drops it off at Bobby's truck before rounding the side of the Roadhouse and finding the faint trail in the snow that leads up the hill. He wonders what Dean will remember as he makes his way across the field to the trailer.
Sam's first series of knocks on the frame of Dean's door goes unanswered. Dean could be asleep or in the shower or, for all Sam knows, avoiding the strange man on his doorstep. But Sam's nothing if not persistent, especially when it comes to his brother, so he knocks again and again. 'A Shave and a Haircut' and the bass-line to 'Kashmir.' Eventually, he hears movement inside, then Dean's throwing the door open, nearly knocking Sam off the stairs. "What?"
Sam just stares up at his brother, takes in the sight of him in wrinkled sweats and a threadbare tee, the sleepy-angry expression on his face, and the way half of his hair is flattened against the side of his head. "Good morning," he offers.
Dean's glare gets a little more pinched and his grunt sounds like a tired-Dean equivalent of 'fuck you.'
Grinning, Sam moves up a couple of steps, leans against the open door. "You remember me from yesterday?"
The expression on Dean's face softens into a thoughtful look as he eyes Sam curiously. He's quiet for a long time before nodding. "You came in with Bobby, right?"
Sam nods back. "But do you remember who I am?"
"It's too goddamn early for Twenty Questions." Dean steps back from the door and disappears down the hallway to the left.
Sam enters the trailer and pulls the door closed, stands in the living room, unsure if he's supposed to be following. Through the doorway at the end of the short hall, he can see Dean standing at the end of his bed, staring at the wall. Curiosity piques Sam's interest and he wanders after Dean, pausing just inside the door to stare at the collage of portraits taped to the faux-wood paneling. They're done in pencil, in varying degrees of detail, and Sam recognizes Ellen and Bobby, some others vaguely familiar. There's a sketch of himself on the far right apart from the rest, and that's the drawing that holds Dean's attention.
"Sam," Dean says, tapping the sketch. He lifts the corner, scans the back of the paper before glancing over at Sam. "You're my brother?"
Sam nods. "You don't remember?"
Dean takes a deep breath, slowly shakes his head. "No, but... it doesn't feel like a... surprise?" He shrugs.
"That's okay," Sam tells him, almost believing himself. "Look, me and Bobby are gonna go back to his place – he's got your car there and maybe some more of your journals. I'm gonna bring 'em back as soon as I can."
"You're leaving? Already?" Dean's forehead wrinkles with the question like he doesn't understand. And he probably doesn't. And Sam can't explain because, 'I'm sorry, but I've gotta go track down this kid in Michigan who might have supernatural powers given to him by a demon that killed his mother when he was a baby and he might lead me to the demon that did the same thing to me so I can kill it and save you from losing your mind completely,' might make Sam sound crazy.
"Yeah," Sam says instead.
"Oh." Dean's shoulders slump and he pushes past Sam out the doorway. He stalls almost immediately, only a foot or two away. "Dude, seriously?" he says, turning on Sam and socking him in the arm. "You tracked snow through the whole goddamn place."
Sam looks down at his wet boots and Dean's bare feet. "Sorry."
"Whatever, bitch."
Sam stops in his tracks and reaches for Dean's wrist. "What did you call me?"
In the dim light of the living room, Dean looks confused. "I don't know. What did I call you?"
"You called me 'bitch.'"
"I'm sorry?"
Dean doesn't understand the significance of the jab, but it makes Sam wonder. Between the dream and the sketch and this, maybe Dean hasn't forgotten everything. Maybe it's all still there, just hidden. That means there's a chance Dean'll get better. That means there's still hope that, once Sam finds and kills the demon, Dean will remember everything about Sam and what they were to each other before he was forced to leave for school. "No," he says. "Don't apologize. It's fine. Better than."
Dean looks skeptical. "Okay."
"I'll be back soon, all right? A few days, tops. Just... try not to forget me."
"Okay," Dean says again, slowly.
"I've gotta go. I'll be back before you know it." Impulsively, he ducks down and captures Dean's mouth in a brief, chaste kiss. "I'll see you." Sam backs away, holding Dean's stunned stare, gives his brother a wave, and lets himself out. He's barely twenty feet away from the trailer when the door slams open.
Dean's standing there, eyes wide, face flushed. "What the hell was that?"
Sam laughs aloud at Dean's indignant outrage. "I'll see you," he repeats, then turns his back on Dean, returning to the Roadhouse where Bobby's waiting on him to leave.
Sam wastes no time unpacking, just drops his bags at the bottom of the staircase as soon as he and Bobby are inside the older hunter's home. "Hold your horses," Bobby mutters at him with a shake of his head as he sets his own bag down in the library before leading Sam through the house and out the back door in the kitchen.
The Impala is covered with a heavy canvas tarp, a thin layer of dirt and dust covering the whole thing, but paint is as shiny as ever beneath it. Sam pulls the tarp off completely, folds it up and shoves it into an empty space on the shelves along the back of the shed. Bobby tosses him the keys and he unlocks the door, climbs inside. She grumbles sullenly before turning over with a smooth purr. Sam can't help patting the dash affectionately as Dean would, praising the car, "That's a good girl," like she's a favored pet dog.
Bobby holds the shed door open against the sharp wind that's begun gusting out of the north and Sam pulls out into the yard and up to the house. He pops the trunk and lets her run for a while, exits the car and moves around back to search for Dean's old journals or anything else of interest.
The weapons in the trunk are in a sorry state, knives dull, guns a few uses past a good cleaning. But, shoved into the corner above the passenger side wheel well, there's a raggedy backpack wedged behind a couple gallon jugs of holy water. It's an old JanSport bag, the black of the canvas faded to the point it's nearly gray, the leather bottom brittle and cracking. Sam lifts it out carefully, sets it atop a half-empty bag of rock salt. Inside, there's a dozen or so spiral notebooks, dates scrawled in Dean's handwriting across the top. They go as far back as 1995 and Sam knows why. He zips the bag back up, slings one of the straps over his shoulder, and turns off the car.
Bobby's sitting at the table in the kitchen with a mug of coffee and the cordless phone in front of him when Sam comes in. "Find what you were looking for?" he asks, reaching for his mug.
"Maybe," Sam says, pushing the door closed tight against the cold.
"I called that contact of mine. She's in Platteville, Wisconsin, so she's kind of on your way out to Michigan."
"But I was-"
"She's expecting you tomorrow afternoon," Bobby interrupts before Sam can finish his protest.
"All we've got to go on is what it did, what it can do. Is that gonna be enough for her to find out which demon it is?"
"Elaine is one of the best demonologists that I know – if she can't help you, I don't know anyone that can."
Sam glances at the clock on the wall. "If I leave now, I'll get there before morning."
"There's another storm moving in," Bobby says with a stern look. "Head out at first light." He holds a folded scrap of paper out to Sam.
Sam pockets the scrap and nods, retrieves his bags from the foyer and heads upstairs. He's got a couple hours to go through Dean's notebooks before bed.
But Sam must be more tired than he'd thought because, somewhere in the middle of the first journal, he falls asleep sitting up, waking with a stiff neck and no recollection of what he'd read the night before. He yawns and stretches, tries to work the kink out of his neck, before giving up and returning Dean's notebook to the backpack. He doesn't bother redressing, just gathers his things and heads back downstairs.
Bobby's already got a pot of coffee brewed, offers Sam a travel mug when he enters the kitchen. "I'll see you in a couple of days."
"Of course. And I'll call you right away if she gives me anything to go on. Maybe you can start looking up summoning rituals."
Bobby looks none too pleased but gives Sam another short nod. "Sure thing, son. Be careful."
Elaine Preston lives on a large plot of land on Southwest Road just off Highway 151 outside the small college town of Platteville. Sam's been through this part of Wisconsin a handful of times, but never in the winter. It's all rolling white hills and dairy farms and everything looks the same, especially in the scant sunlight. He finally pulls into Elaine's snow-drifted lane a couple hours later than expected, the dark, snow-heavy clouds making the early afternoon seem like twilight. But every window in the downstairs of her house is lit brightly, so Sam knows she hasn't given up on him quite yet.
One of the thin, gauzy curtains in the wide picture window at the front of the house is pushed aside at the sound of the Impala's engine as Sam drives up behind the mid-90s Taurus parked beneath a two-vehicle carport. Elaine's waiting for him at the front door as he approaches it and she gestures him inside. "Shoes," she says, pointing at the rug and her small pair of snow boots situated squarely in the corner.
Sam kicks out of his boots, gives each leg a shake to rid the hems of his jeans of any excess snow he's carrying before it can melt all over her floor like it did at Dean's. "I'm Sam Winchester," he says, offering his hand.
Elaine accepts it, her tiny hand dwarfed by his palm. "Bobby spoke well of you and you look like a good boy." She gives his face a long, hard look and nods to herself before leading him down a short hall and into a sitting room with one whole wall lined with books from floor to ceiling. "He said you're trying to find information on a demon?"
"Yes, ma'am." Sam watches Elaine, who's got to be at least a decade, if not two, older than Bobby, round the low couch to the wall of books. She glances back at Sam with a small smile.
"And you're a polite young man, too." She nods again to herself. "So. What does this demon look like? What do you know about it?"
"All I really know is that it came into my nursery when I was six months old – it killed my mother and, according to my father, may have given me some kind of psychic power. It's happened to others. I'm actually on my way to find another guy like me."
Elaine hums, head bobbing as her fingers trail over the spines of the books. "I've heard of something like this happening before, back in the fifties. There was a demon traveling across the states, trying to find a special child."
"For what?"
"To lead an army," Elaine says, selecting a thick book with a cracked leather spine and turning back towards Sam. "Please, sit." She gestures to the low couch with the book in her hands and settles herself next to Sam. Opening the book on her lap, she starts flipping through the thin, yellowed pages, stopping just fifty or so in, tapping at the image on the paper. The demon looks like a man except for his bright yellow eyes, the ink somehow still standing out against the oxidated page. "This is Azazel. He is one of the Kings of Hell, ruling under Lucifer's command. He was charged with finding a special child to help release Lucifer from his prison and lead an army of demons in a war across the Earth."
"Are you saying that- that that's what he did to me?"
Elaine nods and pushes the book into Sam's lap. "He chooses twenty children overall, from varying bloodlines, and only the strongest child is allowed to live. How that's determined, only those children and Azazel know."
"What happened in the fifties? You said this happened before."
"The nursery fires, yes. What became of the children, no one knows." She closes the book and pulls it back onto her thighs. "So, you have the demon's name. Is there anything else I can help you with?"
Sam shakes his head. "No. That's all I needed. Thank you so much, Mrs. Preston."
"Why are you so interested in this particular demon, Sam?"
"Like I said," Sam starts, standing from the low couch with a protest from his knees, "it killed my mother. Now, there's something wrong with my brother because of it."
Elaine looks up at him curiously. "What could be wrong with your brother? I thought you said the demon did something to you?"
"It did. But my brother did something to take my power away. He's... sick. The only way to make him better is to find this demon – Azazel – and kill it."
The frail woman is instantly on her feet, heavy book dropping onto the carpet with a muffled thud. Her hazy blue eyes flash a dull black in the split second before she throws her head back and a dark cloud erupts from her mouth. Elaine crumples to the floor bonelessly and Sam only gives the woman a moment's thought, checking for her pulse and that she's breathing before he's fishing his phone out of his pocket to call Bobby.
Elaine slowly starts to come to as Sam is relaying to Bobby what just happened. "You need to get back here, now," Bobby tells him before hanging up, the urgency in his voice ratcheting Sam's worry up another notch. The demons know what he's planning to do – he's in danger. Dean's in danger.
"What happened?" Elaine asks, a hand pressed to the side of her head as she lifts herself onto the couch.
"You were possessed by a demon," Sam says slowly.
Her revulsion is evident in her face, in the wrinkle of her nose and the curl of her lip. She shakes her head. "Filthy creatures," she spits like a curse, then glances back up at Sam, eyes still troubled. "You best get going. It's only a matter of time before that demon passes on what it's learned and you find yourself in danger." Her gaze clears, eyes widening with alarm. "Your brother! You must go now!"
The panic on the old woman's face underscores Bobby's insistence and Sam's out of the room and down the hall before he's even thought to move. He shoves his feet into his boots and doesn't even bother with the laces, then he's running through the snow and climbing into the Impala, tearing out of the snowy lane and barreling west down the windswept highway.
PART FOUR - DEAN
Sam's parting kiss stays with Dean all day. He's got more questions than his journals can answer and he's pretty certain Sam's the only one who can. Sam, his brother, who kissed him on the mouth.
It leaves him on edge as he goes about his day, taking orders, wiping down tables, going a few rounds in Big Buck Hunter with Jo until she takes what little he's made in tips. It's a long day and Dean feels anxious, wants to do nothing more than go back to his trailer and wait for Sam to return as he promised.
Ellen cuts him and Jo loose early – there's another front starting to move in and it's unlikely they're going to have a sudden rush of customers after nine on a Thursday. Dean pulls on his coat and offers Ellen a salute as he heads out the back door. The snow between the back of the Roadhouse and the storage shed is all stomped flat, but beyond that, he can easily see the path that leads up to the trailer. The snow from last night has drifted over it in some places and the coming storm will erase it completely if the weather reports are anything to go by. The field is like Dean's mind, the trail cutting through the snow is Sam, and the encroaching snowstorm is whatever happens in Dean's head when he closes his eyes. Only a few short hours of exposure to the elements and any trace of the path will be obliterated and forgotten. It's a depressing thought.
Dean climbs the hill and lets himself into his trailer, kicks out of his boots, hangs up his coat, and sets his keys and his phone on the table before shuffling into the kitchenette to start a pot of coffee. He walks back to his room and stares at the sketch of Sam as he strips down to his boxers. After he pulls on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, he heads back down the hall to retrieve a cup of coffee before returning to his room and settling against his headboard to fill out his daily journal.
He starts with Sam, how his brother woke him with his incessant knocking and kissed him goodbye. He details his unease, notes his anxiety for Sam's return. It's more than just hoping for answers, but he can't explain why.
Dean sets aside his journal and finishes his cup of coffee while looking at the sketch of Sam that hangs on his wall. Just a couple of days and Sam will be back, with him. Right where he belongs.
When the dream starts, Dean's not actually certain he's still sleeping. It's as vivid as a few of his nightmares have been lately, real enough that he can smell the neighbor's freshly mowed lawn and feel the heat of the sunlight streaming in through the open window seeping into his black tee. This is the day Sam left. Dean had dropped him off at the bus station after he'd had it out with Dad, held Sam at arms-length when Sam tried to lean in and kiss him as they said their goodbyes inside the car. He'd returned, alone, to an empty house feeling like an absolute asshole for making Sam go. But it was for the best. For Sam.
But Dean's not alone. There's a man sitting on the couch, legs crossed casually with an ankle resting atop his knee. When he looks up at Dean, his eyes are yellow. "Well, well. What do we have here? You're not Sammy."
Dean's hackles rise at the man's stare. "He's gone. And he's not coming back."
"Mm," he agrees with a nod after a long moment of silence. "But it is your fault. You drove him away."
"I'm trying to save him."
"Save him from what? Me or you?"
Dean's pretty sure this isn't how this particular day is supposed to go. "What?"
"You can't protect him forever, Dean. I'll find him." The yellow-eyed man stands and stares up at Dean. "I'll be seein' you soon, kid." Then he disappears.
Dean wakes with a start, a strange chill racing down his spine. That was new. He knocks the lampshade askew in his haste to turn on the lamp and write down the bizarre, hijacked memory in his journal. Who is the yellow-eyed man and why is he looking for Sam?
He leaves a post-it for himself on the front cover of the notebook to ask Sam about it when he comes back and turns off the lamp before rolling over and tucking his face against the cool side of his pillow.
Dean has similar dreams throughout the night that interrupt his sleep. And every time, the yellow-eyed man warns him, "You can't protect him forever, Dean. I'll find him."
Dean wakes with his alarm, dead tired and wanting nothing more than to roll back over and bury his head under his pillow. The unease from the previous day comes back full-force in the light of his unsettling dreams and it makes his stomach turn. Something is wrong.
As he slowly dresses, he wonders if he should tell Ellen about the almost-nightmares and the yellow-eyed man. But he knows what she'll say – the same thing she always tells him when he tries talking to her about his dreams: write them down. That's the only advice she can give him. It's not like his nightmares can be useful anyway.
Dean brews a full pot of coffee and drinks every last drop in the hope that the caffeine will keep his bone-weariness at bay. All it really serves to do, though, is keep him warm on his trek down the hill to the Roadhouse. He opens the back door with the red-coded key on the fob in his pocket. The inside of the bar is as silent as the open field surrounding it and, while that would normally be a kind of blessing, with the way Dean's feeling this morning it only makes the fine hairs along the back of his exposed neck rise and a chill run down his spine.
He feels, again, that something's off. Feels like he's... being watched. Dean does his best to shrug off the feeling and sets the jukebox to playing Zep IV. He pulls off his jacket and takes the chairs down from the tables, moves into the kitchen for his daily preparations. Tomatoes and onions are sliced, ground beef is formed into patties and placed between layers of waxed paper before going into the freezer, then ketchup and mustard levels are checked and filled.
Just after noon, the back door slams open, Ellen and Jo's voices carried on a frigid blast of air to where Dean's behind the bar stocking the coolers. With the way the snow's coming down, though, he highly doubts there's going to be a flood of customers coming in right this very moment, all wanting a Coke.
"Seriously?" Jo asks with a huff, coming into the bar proper, dusting snow off her jacket before hanging it up on its hook. "It's like all Zeppelin all the time with you." She crosses the time-darkened floor to the jukebox and pushes a couple buttons until Kevin Cronin is wailing out an REO Speedwagon power ballad.
Dean groans as he slides the cooler lid closed. "Really?"
Jo glances over her shoulder at him, still bracing herself against the jukebox with both arms. "Hey, I can play some Bon Jovi if you'd rather."
The tone of Jo's voice makes it sound like a threat. "REO Speedwagon it is."
Jo grins at him smugly. "Knew you'd see it my way."
"Like I had much choice," Dean grouses at her when she slides onto a stool opposite him.
"It's gonna be a long day," she sighs, glancing out one of the frosted-over side windows.
Dean can only imagine. There's not much to keep them busy if they have few to no customers. He can only stock or restock so much. And without customers to leave him tips, he can't challenge Jo to Big Buck Hunter or a game of cards. All they can do is sit and wait and hope.
But sitting and waiting and hoping proves to be nearly futile as the place remains empty, save for employees, nearly all afternoon. At four-thirty, however, headlights cut wildly across the front windows as a small sedan bounces down the drifted-over driveway. The car slides to a stop near the front door, which creaks open ominously a minute or two later. The man that enters huddles in the doorway, taking in the Roadhouse's atmosphere with something like uncertainty, eyes darting to every corner and scanning the ceiling.
"Welcome to Harvelle's," Jo greets with her sunniest – and, in Dean's opinion, ridiculously fake – smile as she approaches him like he's an easily spooked horse. "You lookin' for a place to wait out the weather or an early dinner?"
The man glances at Dean behind the bar before turning his gaze back to Jo. "Dinner sounds good," he nods, dragging the knit hat off his head, sending his thin, dark hair into haphazard tufts, and wringing it in his hands nervously. "Could I get a cuppa coffee, too?"
"Sure thing," Jo says, still smiling, and Dean thinks her face must hurt from all that false cheer. "Have a seat and I'll grab you that coffee and a menu."
Dean fills an old ceramic mug with hours-old coffee and sets it on the counter in front of the stack of menus, lifting up the lid to the left-most cooler for the half-gallon jug of milk that's in there. Jo gathers the milk and coffee in one hand and the menu and a small bowl of real and artificial sugars in the other and carries the load over to the man.
"I'll give you a couple minutes to look over the menu," Jo tells him as she sets everything down on the table. When she turns back towards Dean, her smile falls from her face.
Dean just raises an eyebrow in question, subtly looking over Jo's shoulder at the man.
She presses close to the bar and leans on her elbows on the counter as she shrugs and shakes her head, blonde hair spilling over her shoulders. "Just got a weird... vibe."
The guy does seem a bit strange, still wearing his moth-eaten wool coat, stained leather work boots dripping melted snow into a puddle beneath his feet, hands still wringing his knit cap as he stares at the menu on the table in front of him. Of course, the feeling could simply be chalked up to the anxiety he's been carrying around all day. But Jo's picking up on it, too.
"It's probably nothing," she sighs with another shake of her head. "Like we've never had a weirdo pass through the Roadhouse before." She stands up straight, squares her shoulders, fixes her fake smile back in place, and returns to the man's table to take his order.
Feeling useless behind the counter now that he's poured a cup of stale coffee, Dean empties the last of the dregs from the carafe, rinses it out and refills it with water to start another pot. When he goes to replace the grounds, there's barely a tablespoon left in the bottom of the plastic Folgers container. Jo was the last one to make coffee, so he's not really all that surprised. "I'm gonna run out to the shed," he tells her as she rounds the end of the bar with her order pad in hand.
"Okay," she nods, hustling past him, into the kitchen.
The man at the table stares at Dean with dark eyes as Dean pulls on his jacket. A disconcerting shiver races down his spine when their gazes meet for the briefest of moments and Dean understands Jo's urge to put distance between herself and the unkempt stranger sitting slack-faced at the wobbly table near the Big Buck Hunter game. "Outta coffee," he tells Ellen and Jo as he passes them on his way to the back door.
It's so much easier to breathe outside, even if the chill does initially steal the air from his lungs. Dean recovers, slowly draws a breath and releases it as a cloud of mist that dissipates on the wind gust that sweeps across the field, swirling the wet flakes of snow as they lazy drift down from the low clouds. After a couple of moments, Dean moves over to the shed, pulling his key ring out of his pocket and opening the padlock with the smallest key.
There are only three canisters of Folgers left on the shelf and he makes a mental note to add it to the list next to the cash register so Ellen can pick more up when she makes her next trip into town. On the shelf below the coffee, wedged between boxes of real and artificial sugar packets, is a soft-pack of Marlboros, a worn book of matches slid beneath the cellophane. Dean's in no hurry to get back inside, so he taps a cigarette out of the pack and puts it to his lips. The matches are old and slightly damp and it takes three tries with three different matches before one finally strikes. The small burst of flame is just enough to catch the paper of the cigarette alight and Dean has to suck hard on the filter for it to burn properly.
He takes a long drag, fills his lungs with smoke, and watches the snow fall from the shelter of the supply shed. It's peaceful and quiet enough that he almost forgets what's waiting for him when he returns with the coffee, but the solitude is encroached upon by some foreign feeling Dean can't even begin to recognize. It's like static electricity and fear, skin buzzing while the bottom drops out of his stomach. He sets the coffee container back on the shelf and slowly moves towards the doorway, leaning beyond the threshold to look for whatever could possibly be causing the feeling.
No more than twenty feet away, writhing and undulating above the roof of the Roadhouse, is a small, black... cloud. Dean gets that weird sensation, that rising of the fine hairs at his nape, like he's being watched. The cloud shifts and moves with a speed much too swift and against the wind to be natural, dropping low and darting towards Dean. His vision goes dark and he feels like he's suffocating on something vile, something noxious.
Then, nothing.
Dean wakes with a start, sucking in a deep, damp breath that makes him choke and cough. The way his body hunches over pulls at his arms and he realizes, with more than a little panic, that his hands are bound behind him, rough fiber of the rope around his wrists itchy and cutting into his skin, cutting off his circulation the more he pulls against it. He forces himself to relax, takes slow, shallow breaths and tries to think. It's dark and he doesn't know where he his or who did this to him. Last he remembers, he was going out to the shed for coffee.
"Oh, there he is," comes a gravelly voice out of the darkness.
"He-hello?" Dean asks, uncertain, straining to see something, anything.
"What's he planning, Deano? Huh? Poking his nose into places it shouldn't be." A man steps forward from Dean's left, eyes blazing a bright, sickly yellow as he leans down so his face is level with Dean's. "If Sammy's not careful, he's gonna lose it." He grabs Dean's nose between the second knuckles of his index and middle fingers, pulling his hand away to reveal the tip of his thumb wriggling between the digits. "Got your nose," he grins.
Dean jerks as far away from the man – no, not man – as the chair and his restraints will let him, but it's not far enough at all.
"Come on," Yellow-Eyes wheedles, "tell me what Sammy's planning. Seems to think he can kill me, but we all know that's impossible."
"I don't-" Dean starts, takes a breath and licks his lips, and tries again. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Aw, is little brother keeping secrets from you?"
Brother, Dean thinks. Sammy. There's something there, at the back of his mind, just out of reach. Bright hazel eyes and a frown. A promise and a kiss goodbye.
Yellow-Eyes tilts his head, fixing Dean with a curious stare. "You know," he says, eyes flaring brighter, "I don't have to do this the nice way. I could do this the easy, fun way. And you're probably not gonna like it one bit."
Dean's confused and edging on scared. He has no idea what the man - thing - before him wants.
"Oh, Dean, Dean, Dean. Whatever will I do with you?" It's eerie, the way Yellow-Eyes smiles at Dean then. "I'm sure we'll think of something." His head tilts back and something even darker than the room around them streams from his gaping mouth.
The memory comes back so suddenly his heart stutters with the force of it. Dean in the shed, that unsettling feeling of being watched, the black cloud. And all he can think as the darkness swirls above him and the man's body collapses to the floor with a hollow thud is, Oh, God, not again.