Mad World

Chapter Two: Bright and early for the daily races

Three Weeks Ago

Sleep with one eye open

Grippin' your pillow tight

Exit light

Enter night

Take my hand

We're off to Never-Never Land

Sam found himself following along with the tune blasting through his brother's Impala. Following along easily, because he had long ago memorized every word to every song on every single one of Dean's cassette tapes. Because they had been his father's tapes first - for the most part, anyway; teenage Dean had defiantly made his fair share of contributions to the box - and Sam had grown up in this car.

Mullet rock had always been a part of that, part of their life together; hunting things, saving people. Their family business. Music had just faded into the background of that, became a comfort; something that Sam unknowingly relied on quite heavily. Almost as if the tunes set the stage for whatever adventure they happened to be on.

"So, you sure you got that address right?" Dean questioned, glancing over from the driver's seat to look at his brother - again.

"Yes," Sam sighed, exasperated. "And if you ask me again in another five minutes, the answer's still gonna be the same."

"Alright, geez," Dean placated. "Just wanted to make sure. Ya know, we are going way out of our way for this."

"I know," Sam breathed with less anger, mad at himself for being short tempered. "It's just... Ash came up with this name, someone who's supposed to know all about my visions. I mean... What are the chances this is for real?"

"I don't know," Dean admitted. "But I trust Ash. I think if he says this woman can help, then she can."

"Yeah," because Sam trusted Ash too, "But how? How could she possibly know? About the demon? My premonitions? I mean, don't you think that if there was someone out there with this knowledge that-" Sam stopped himself there, but continued quickly, before he caught Dean's attention. "-that we would know about her?"

That dad would have known her.

Was what he was going to say. But they hadn't really brought up the subject of their father since Dean's breakdown on the side of the road a couple weeks ago; and Sam wasn't about to upset the precious balance that had been restored between them.

And while it was obvious that Dean had realized what his little brother had meant by the statement, he too left it alone - just confirming Sam's belief that it was indeed too soon to reopen that wound.

"I don't know, Sam." Dean sounded exasperated now, "But we agreed it was worth checking into, so that's what we're gonna do. Okay?" His voice told the younger man quite clearly that, yes that was the end of this particular conversation.

"Yeah," Sam whispered, giving in. "Okay." He was so goddamn frustrated; he had these freak powers and he didn't know what they meant, couldn't possibly even contemplate what they meant in the grand scheme of things.

Other than their tie to the demon and the other children like him. All Sam could see, all he really knew, was that these powers, the fact that he was a freak - it was keeping him anchored to this world. To hunting and his brother.

And at the moment, that was okay, it's where he wanted to be, where he needed to be. But what if he did decide he wanted to go back to school? To leave this life for good? He hated his lack of option in the matter now - resented how things had changed.

Sighing again and leaning back in his seat, he decided not to think about it anymore, not now anyway. Perhaps this girl would give him a way out.

Never mind that voice you heard

It's just the beasts under your bed

In your closet, in your head...

A month from now, Sam wouldn't remember what song had been playing as they sped down that highway on their way to Maine, to visit one Hallie Morgan -supposed vision expert extraordinaire. He wouldn't recall the words he'd been mouthing along to silently, but if he did... He wouldn't fail to see the irony.

Now

Sam reentered their motel room with a takeout bag from Denny's and a tray holding two large coffee's, one of which was already half empty and he silently scolded himself for not getting a third like he'd been debating at the checkout counter.

"Dude," Dean's annoyed voice assaulted him before he even had a chance to lower the greasy bag onto the table. "Since when does it take three friggin' hours to grab breakfast?"

"Long lines," Sam responded with a shrug. He'd debated it on the car ride back from the hospital; what to tell his brother. He'd actually come up with this whole elaborate scenario, involving possessed silverware and angry pancakes.

Lucky for him, his bull-shit filter had kicked in before he'd had the chance to spew that particular cocktail of lies to his big brother. Not so luckily, he hadn't had a chance to come up with anything else, anything logical. He hoped shrugging it off as nothing would suffice.

"I got extra sausage," he pressed on, hoping to just not give his brother time to question his long absence. "So don't eat it all, alright?"

Dean huffed, annoyed, "Since when do I eat all the sausage?"

"Since you were twelve," Sam countered quickly, temporarily relieved. "So seriously, leave me some."

"Yeah, okay," he agreed, rolling his eyes. "You need it anyway, you friggin' skinny bastard."

The two Winchester's went about their bickering while unloading all the food containers on the top of the table in their makeshift kitchen. "I'm not skinny," Sam countered.

"Nah," Dean shrugged. "But you 'aint as big as me. You need some more muscle, man." He punctuated the assessment with a slight jab to the younger man's upper arm.

Sam laughed, "You know you're just overcompensating cause I'm taller than you."

Dean glared, and mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, "How the fuck'd that happen anyway?" Then something that easily could have been, "Friggin' cruel twist of fate."

But all Sam did was smile genuinely at the affection laced through his brother's mumblings, as they sat down and began devouring their rather large breakfast of pancakes, hash browns and every other breakfast meat known to man - especially the sausage - which Sam had actually managed to get a large helping of.

"What're you grinning at?" Dean spoke with his mouth full of fried, syrupy, bread; and Sam couldn't find it in himself to be at all disgusted with his big brother. It was something that had always been a part of Dean's persona. His complete and utter lack of table manners.

"Nothin'" Sam dialed his lightheartedness back to a half-grin, which he hid as he went to take a bite of his own food.

Never in his life had sausage tasted so good. He chewed slowly, savoring the texture, inhaling its fragrance. He'd always love the fried food, but never, never had he truly enjoyed it so much.

See, usually, when he ate greasy sausage and artery clogging bacon, carb-loaded pancakes with sugary syrup, a part of his mind was always stuck on how unhealthy it was. How he was slowly killing himself with his food choices - but now... Now those thoughts were gone.

He refused to think about death - at least in association with himself. Death was a non-issue, it didn't exist.

And holy fuck - didn't life taste great?

He took another bite of the sausage and found that he loved this moment just a little bit more.

This was the essence of who he was, of what his life was all about; him and his brother, together at a cheap, nameless motel in the middle of nowhere. Hunting, saving people. The family business.

He couldn't imagine being anywhere else. The thought of going back to school and being normal, faking normal... It was laughable.

And as if reading his thoughts, Dean cleared his throat and broke though the silence of the room and the content-ness of Sam's musings.

"I think I found us a new gig," he began, and Sam nodded his acknowledgement. "There's been this rash of unexplained murders in New Jersey..." Dean went on and Sam listened.

This was his life.

TBC...

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