Chapter 5

That night Sam Dean and Bobby found it rather difficult to get any sleep, so they spent most of the night doing research.

Well…Dean and Bobby spent most of the night doing research. Sam found himself too easily distracted to concentrate on anything for too long.

Once he showed his hands to his brother and Bobby, they hadn't spoken too much. Sam had reopened his laptop, but couldn't focus on the words on his screen. He would be distracted by a persistent itch on his right knee, and then scratch at the spot which was covered by his jeans with his sharp claws.

He would then take a long look at his hands, and feel dread seep into his mind. Of course this dread caused the animalistic thing in his head to snicker with glee.

And on top of that, the throb at the bottom of his spine had returned with a vengeance causing him to adjust his position in his seat every couple of minutes. This of course earned him pointed glances from Dean, which he would ignore.

But of course Dean had been drawn from his reading every couple of minutes to sneak a glance at Sam…though Sam noticed it every time and it nearly drove him crazy.

Bobby on the other hand would look up from his work to give Dean a silent warning glare, which Sam was grateful for but didn't say anything about it.

Now though, Sam finally had enough. He sighed and closed his laptop forcefully, earning him a curious gaze from both Dean and Bobby.

"What's goin' on?" Bobby prodded.

"Nothin' I just can't keep sitting here doing nothing!" Sam exclaimed louder than he meant to.

"So what are you saying?" Dean asked almost accusingly.

"I just…need some fresh air." Sam replied innocently enough with a deep inhale of breath at the end of his sentence to steady himself.

"The porch is right there, boy." Bobby said as he pointed to the front door, "Take a breather."

"No…I just need to go do something." Sam complained.

"Do something like what?" Dean asked shakily, swallowing down the saliva that had formed in his mouth, nervously.

Sam got to his feet with his laptop in his hands, and then turned to place the computer in his seat. He looked back at Dean, before walking out of the library and into the living room.

Not much to his surprise, not even a second later did he hear a second later he heard a pair of footsteps following close behind him causing the fine hairs on the back of his neck to rise in warning.

He knew it was Dean, but ignored his brothers' presence and gathered his jacket which he had left in a heap on Bobby's couch next to his brothers' brown leather jacket.

"So where you gonna go, Sam?" Dean asked his voice thick with worry, fear, and anger.

Sam turned around to face his brother with an angry glare of his own as he slipped his jacket on quickly.

"I dunno…I'll just go get food or something, Dean. I won't be gone long." Sam responded shakily, trying his best to keep his anger in check so that the thing didn't try to feed off it like it did last time.

Sam noticed that it seemed to like when he was angry.

"Then I'll go with you," Dean said with a shrug, "I'll drive."

"Dean there's no reason why I need a friggin escort!" Sam snapped, shaking his hands in front of him for emphasis. He then took in another deep breath, and looked down at his feet.

Dean on the other hand, kept his eyes fixed on his little brother pointedly.

"We'll either go together, or I go alone. Take your pick." Dean said seriously with a tiny shrug.

Sam looked over toward the threshold into the library where he and Dean had just come from, and saw Bobby standing there leaning against that slab of plaster with his arms crossed over his chest. He looked back at Sam and shrugged, Sam knew that meant Bobby was taking Dean's side.

Sam found himself taking in another deep breath and holding it in his chest for a while before releasing it. He needed to calm down, but it didn't help that Dean and Bobby were treating him like a child.

But Sam found himself needing to get outside and do something, anything. It was a kind of restlessness he'd never known before.

Sighing in defeat, Sam looked helplessly toward Dean and walked out the front door, slamming the door shut behind him.

Dean glanced back at Bobby and nodded.

"Be back soon." Dean called to Bobby as he followed his brother out the front door, closing the door much more gently.

Bobby nodded to himself, and then turned back into the library. He looked at the scattered mess of books and papers, and Sam's forgotten laptop that was now sitting in his vacant seat.

He tried not to worry so much, usually whenever one of those Winchester's were in deep; the other would pull them out with his help of course. This was probably just another thing.

But Sam was beginning to make it difficult.

He told them about some sort of presence that resided in the deep crevices of his mind, and admittedly that scared the ever-living hell out of Bobby. Hearing voices alone wasn't a good thing, but feeling its presence…and just knowing that it's living in Sam's mind getting stronger and stronger as the moments passes – it made Bobby sick to his stomach.

Certainly he wasn't alone in that feeling. Dean must have been torturing himself in his own way, because that's just how the kid was. So Bobby decided he would have to buck up and be there for the boys the best he could.

And that was by helping Sam out of this mess…by any means possible.

Even now he had other hunters working on the list he had gotten from his friend Rufus Turner. Rufus was just one of those retired hunters that knew almost everything. How he knew what he knew was beyond Bobby, and he was never one to ask.

So when Bobby got the list of names from Rufus, Rufus took a moral stand and refused to help the case any further. Even though Bobby hadn't given the old hunter any specifics, Rufus already knew what was happening to Sam…which of course had Bobby wondering what Rufus knew.

Did he know what Sam was turning into? Did he know if there was any chance in hell Sam could be saved from this?

Bobby didn't know, and it bothered him that he didn't know. It made him angry that Rufus was clearly holding out on him, and he needed to know what he knew.

At that moment, Bobby's cellphone rang loudly from his pocket. He dove his hand in his jeans for a moment before retrieving his phone.

He looked at the flashing screen and saw that the ID read 'unavailable'.

That could have been any mess of hunters, he knew. So without hesitation, Bobby flipped the cellphone open and put it to his ear.

"Hello?" He asked.

"Bobby?" The deep husky voice of John Winchester asked almost nervously.

"John?" Bobby asked, his muscles tightening with surprise, "Where the hell are you?"

"About twenty minutes from your place," John replied sounding winded, "I got a call from a guy named Rufus this morning, saying I'd better come to your place to check on my kid, then he hung up. He didn't say which one, but what's going on?"

Bobby closed his eyes and sighed. How was he going to get through the thick head of John Winchester? Sam sure picked a hell of a time to go out.

"It's Sam." Bobby said simply.

"What about Sam?" John snapped.

"We don't really know John," Bobby said honestly, "he and Dean went chasing after some creature that resembled The Beast of Bray Road that you took out…well it got the drop on Sam, and now…"

Bobby's voice trailed off not knowing how to say what was going on properly.

"Now what? Bobby, what the hell happened?" John demanded angrily.

"It's changing him, somehow." Bobby replied.

There was a long silence, in fact – Bobby would have thought John had hung up had he not heard the sound of passing traffic in the background on John's end. He truly was on the road on his way over.

After a moment, John finally responded.

"I'll be there soon."

There was a small click before the line went dead.

Bobby pulled his phone away from his face before closing it and shoving it back down into his pocket.

He hoped Dean and Sam get back before John arrived.

xXx

Dean was starting to get fed up with Sam's crap now. His hands tightened around to steering wheel till his knuckles turned white as they passed yet another diner.

"I'm gonna pull in here, alright?" Dean had asked when they had gotten to the third diner along the way.

Sam raised his upper lip in disgust, and shook his head.

"No, just keep going."

Dean did as Sam said and didn't even slow the car down and whizzed past the diner.

He glanced over to Sam who was looking out his window with a certain alertness that was pretty un-Sam-like. But Dean turned his eyes back to the road and shut his mouth.

After a few minutes, Sam perked up and looked at Dean with an excited glint in his eyes before looking back out his window.

"Here," Sam said, "pull in here."

Dean looked at the establishment his little brother was pointing to with wide-eyes. Okay, this was definitely un-Sam-like.

Sam was pointing to a small building with a red lit up sign reading, 'Big Red's Bar'.

"Here?" Dean asked skeptically, "You said you wanted food."

"They sell food here." Sam pointed out as he nodded toward the white billboard just beside the entrance to the parking-lot which read, 'Burgers and Fries! Hotdogs and Salads!'

It definitely wasn't a stable menu, Dean thought to himself. But obviously judging by the sign it was a bar, first and foremost.

Dean grunted in annoyance as he slowed the Impala to a crawl and pulled into the parking-lot. He got a good parking spot right in front of the entrance, and turned the car off.

"What do you want?" Dean asked as he turned his head toward his little brother.

"I'm coming in, Dean. I'll order for myself." Sam replied hotly.

"I don't think that's such a great idea." Dean argued gently as he looked down at Sam's hands which were placed neatly in his lap.

Sam looked down at his hands where his brother was looking, and laughed mirthlessly.

"Dean, no one's gonna be looking at my hands!" Sam yelled, "I mean come on! The whole point of this trip was so I could get out and do something!"

Dean sighed and looked up into Sam's pleading eyes. He never could deny that look, it just killed him.

"Fine," Dean surrendered, "but you don't leave my side. You don't talk to anyone. We'll stay for one round of drinks, then we'll get the food to go. Am I making myself clear?"

"Crystal." Sam agreed with a thankful smile as he opened the car door and got out of the car.

Dean did the same, and once standing outside, both doors slammed closed at the same time. Dean really hoped he wasn't making a mistake here.

Once inside the bar, Dean saw that it was like any other bar he'd been in his entire life. It was pretty crowded and everyone had a drink in their hands. The place reeked of frying food, liquor, and cigarettes. And on the walls were posters and t-shirts advertising the bar and popular beer brands.

Dean and Sam pressed onward through the flocks of people, toward the bar forcefully.

Once there, Dean took a seat on a stool as he agreed to be the one to order the drinks. The other stools were being occupied, so Sam was left to stand behind his brother with an excited grin on his face.

A petite barmaid in a black t-shirt and tight dark jeans stood in front of Dean on the other side of the bar. She batted her thick lashes over her dark eyes at him flirtatiously, and Dean couldn't keep the sly smile from his face.

"What can I get for ya?" She asked in a smooth voice.

Dean looked at her a little harder, and saw that she couldn't have been older than twenty-five. Her long brown hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail on top of her head, but Dean noticed that her long hanging hair bounced every time she moved her head.

Clearly she was into him too. That was okay, Dean decided. Because he really liked her too.

"Two beers." He said simply, offering a flirtatious smile of his own at her.

The woman smiled brightly, and nodded as he ducked down slightly behind the bar and came back up with two cold beers in her hands before placing them on the bar in front of Dean.

"Anything else?" She asked hopefully.

"Got a name?" Dean asked coyly.

"Misty, you?"

"Dean."

"Well," Misty said in a confident tone, "wanna stick around for a little while? You're the most interesting person to walk through that door all night."

Dean nearly laughed, he really wanted to stay and see where things could go with Misty, here. But he knew he couldn't.

"I wish I could…but I gotta be getting back to my brother." Dean explained a little sadly.

"Well then, Dean it was nice meeting you." Misty said playfully, in clear hopes that he would reconsider.

Dean smiled and grabbed the beers before sliding off the barstool.

He turned around with the beers in his hands and his heart nearly skipped a beat as fear held his gut in a vice-grip.

Where the hell had Sam gone?

Oh dear...what have I done now? :)