A/N: To my guest reviewer: First of all, thanks for reviewing! Much appreciated. To answer your question, a link to the early draft of the pilot episode can be found at the bottom of the Wiki article on the Pilot episode (under "Sides, Scripts and Transcripts").
It's a really fun read. :)
Sam peers down at the cold, pale bodies laid out for identification at the mortuary. He knows, objectively, that they are his Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Tommy, but he can't seem to reconcile the people who took him and Dean in after their mother's death and their father's abandonment, who supported him through college, who cried at his graduation only a few months ago, with the lifeless gray shells lying before him. They look like the cadavers he dissected in his Anatomy and Physiology class at Stanford, not like his aunt and uncle.
The coroner only draws the sheet covering each body down far enough for the faces to be visible, but even so, Sam glimpses the sickly purple bruising around each of their necks. The sight ignites a spark of anger that melts through his numb shock. He looks across the morgue to Dean, whose eyes are as bloodshot and shadowed with tiredness as Sam knows his own must be; they drove for nearly twenty-four hours straight to get here to identify their aunt and uncle's bodies. Dean meets Sam's gaze grimly, and Sam knows he's seen the bruising, too.
Cheryl and Tommy's house is marked as a crime scene, but after a little pleading, the police agree to let Sam and Dean in, ostensibly to collect a few personal possessions before everything is put up for public auction. Ducking under the police tape and into the foyer, though, the thought of claiming any personal possessions from here seems odd to Sam; everything he needs in the world is already out in the Impala. He hadn't noticed how accustomed he's already become to living out of a car.
The house is exactly as Sam remembers it, except that it feels foreign, alien, without the sounds of Cheryl clattering around in the kitchen, or Tommy watching TV in the living room. It feels like it's been years since he set foot here, not months. With a pang, he remembers how wistful Cheryl sounded the last time he spoke to her, asking him when he'd be coming home again. He'd put her off with some vague excuse, taking it for granted that there would be plenty of time to visit later. His mother's death should have taught him not to do that, he thinks, desperately blinking away the burning sensation at the corners of his eyes.
Sam moves from the kitchen to the dining room to the living room, a little unnerved by how undisturbed everything is, nothing to give any indication of the violent deaths that took place here. Then, in the living room, he spots something amiss. A framed picture that usually sits on the mantelpiece is smashed on the hearth. Sam goes over and pokes gingerly at the glass. The photo underneath is of a much-younger version of himself, smiling widely, the bronze amulet that he still wears gleaming on his chest. There's something sad about seeing that happy picture lying in the ruins of its frame, so Sam looks back up at the mantel. There are many other pictures there, pictures of Dean and Cheryl and Tommy, pictures of John and Mary too, but the one of Sam is the only one to have fallen.
"Sam?" Dean's voice filters down from the bedrooms upstairs. Glad for a distraction, Sam abandons the photo collection and rushes up to him.
Dean is standing by the window in Cheryl and Tommy's room.
"What is it? You find something?" Sam asks from the doorway.
Dean beckons him over. Sam joins him at the window, and Dean points silently to the windowsill, his jaw tightly clenched. Sam peers closer, then runs a finger along the wood, coming away with a faint residue of yellow powder on his skin.
"Sulfur? Dad's journal said that's a sign of—"
"Demons," says Dean tightly. "Yep."
Dean appears perfectly satisfied with this conclusion, but Sam shakes his head. "Why would demons come after Cheryl and Tommy?"
Dean shrugs, still staring at the window. "Why did that thing that killed Mom come after her?"
"You think...you think there's a connection?" Sam asks, an icy feeling settling in his gut.
"Let's find out," says Dean, looking suddenly determined. He's out of the bedroom and down the hall before Sam can ask where he's going.
Sam catches up to him in the room that Tommy used as a home office, fiddling with the antique writing desk at the far wall, which Tommy always kept locked. Sam's learned, over the last four months, that Dean never goes anywhere without a set of lockpicks, so he's not surprised when the lid of the desk springs open a couple of seconds later.
"What are we looking for?" he asks, peering over Dean's shoulder at the mess of papers inside the desk.
"Don't know yet," Dean says distractedly, rifling through a sheaf of financial documents.
Sam starts pulling out the small drawers lining the inside of the desk. He finds nothing but office supplies and loose change.
"Hey, check it out." Dean is pointing to a carved rosette on the top edge of the desk. Sam is about to ask him what's so special about that when he notices that it's oddly raised.
Dean presses it, and the whole bottom panel of the desk springs free from its mooring.
"You've got to be kidding me," Sam sputters, staring. "What is this, Sherlock Holmes or something?"
Dean grins and claps him on the shoulder. "Welcome to the life, my dear Watson."
Sam makes a face at Dean, pulls the secret drawer all the way open, and recoils in disgust.
"Uh, Dean?" he says, looking down at the contents of the drawer. "Please tell me our uncle was not a sadistic animal torturer."
The drawer is full of a jumble of small white animal bones, feathers, bundles of dried plants, and scraps of twine. Dean reaches out and picks up one of the bones, examining it closely. It looks like the metatarsal of a cat.
"If he was killing animals, I don't think it was for fun," says Dean. "This is all stuff you can use to make hex bags."
"For protection?" Sam asks, recalling a page of their father's journal.
Dean tosses the animal bone back into the drawer with a clatter, his eyes blazing. "They were trying to protect themselves from something supernatural. Using magic."
"So they knew about that stuff," says Sam slowly.
Suddenly, Dean is on the move again. Sam can hear his footsteps retreating down the hall back to the bedrooms, the sound of a closet door opening, and Dean rummaging around. He's back soon enough, an old duffel bag in his hands. He brings the bag straight over to the desk and starts emptying the secret drawer haphazardly into it.
"We gotta get this stuff out of here before the police find it," he says as he works. "You go through the first floor, see if you can find any more stashes. I'll look around up here."
Now that he's aware of their presence, Sam seems to find a hex bag nearly everywhere he looks—stuffed at the back of drawers, under couch cushions, behind books on the bookshelves. He also finds packets of a strange gray dust, which he recognizes from John's journal as goofer dust, tucked between the books, and bags of rock salt in the pantry. He brings it all back upstairs and tips it into the duffel just as Dean is finishing his inspection of the room that used to be his bedroom. Sam zips the duffel closed and looks over at Dean. He's staring at the opposite wall, his expression unreadable.
"Dean?" Sam asks tentatively. He doesn't really know what to say. Strange as it was for Sam to come back to this house now that Cheryl and Tommy are gone, he realizes abruptly that it must have been even stranger for Dean, who hasn't set foot here since he left, just after Sam went to Stanford.
Dean shakes himself visibly and grabs the duffel, not looking at Sam. "Come on, we'd better split."
Sam has been bracing himself for the moment when they would have to leave the house for good, expecting it to be just as painful as it was to leave the house in Kansas after their mother died. But as he follows Dean down the stairs and out the door, he's surprised to find that he doesn't feel anything but an eagerness to get back to the Impala; it's like he's heading home after an extended visit in a stranger's house.
Dean is silent as they drive to a motel in town, silent as they check in, silent as they bring their bags to the room and settle at the tiny motel table to eat the fast food dinner they picked up on the way. Sam is desperate to discuss what they've learned; his own mind is whirling faster than a spinning top, but Dean looks so remote he doesn't know if he should dare break the silence. When they finish eating, Dean pulls a bottle of whiskey from one of his bags, uncaps it, and takes a swig before offering it to Sam, who accepts; if he can't give voice to the tidal wave of thoughts in his head, maybe the alcohol will help quieten them. All it really seems to do, though, is make it harder not to talk, and eventually, a thought hits him with such force that he can't help saying it aloud.
"So I was the last to know."
Sam thinks Dean might have started at the sound of his voice, except that Dean is never startled. Still, he does look distinctly wary as he raises his eyes from the whiskey bottle and asks, "The last to know what?"
"About monsters and stuff," Sam clarifies. "The supernatural. All of you knew, you and Dad and Cheryl and Tommy, but nobody thought I should know. I guess none of you thought I could handle it."
Dean doesn't react to Sam's snippy tone, doesn't even roll his eyes. He just returns his gaze to the bottle and says dully, "If it makes you feel better, Cheryl and Tommy never told me, either." He shakes his head. "They lied straight to our faces all that time, they kept us away from Dad, when they knew all along—"
"They couldn't've kept us away from Dad if he'd wanted us to be with him," argues Sam. "Well. Apparently he wanted you," he amends, his throat tightening the way it always does when he thinks about John and Dean, hunting together for four years without a word to Sam. "I'm not surprised Dad didn't tell me," Sam continues with some difficulty. "But you could've."
"Hey, Dad tried," says Dean, shrugging. His eyes look oddly bright. "He did try. You didn't wanna listen."
Sam's head is starting to hurt from the whiskey and the incessant whirl of his thoughts. He leans forward, resting his elbows on the table, and kneads his knuckles into his forehead. "Cheryl and Tommy—they were trying to protect us."
"And Dad wasn't?"
Sam doesn't have a response to that, so he grabs the bottle and takes another swig of whiskey.
"Sam?" Dean asks, after they've passed the bottle back and forth a few more times in silence. "You get that...that's what I was trying to do, too, right? On the hunt yesterday?"
Sam sets the nearly-empty bottle back onto the table. "I get that this is a dangerous life. Never know what might be comin', do you?"
Dean looks suddenly disconcerted, though Sam can't imagine why. "No, you don't," he says, after a moment, looking directly into Sam's eyes.
Sam has a feeling that Dean is trying to communicate something important with that look, but he's too tired and drunk to figure it out now. He draws in a deep breath and continues, "Guess I shouldn't have made fun of you for wanting to try on the ballet slippers."
Dean's intense expression disappears as he snorts, rolling his eyes. But the corners of his mouth twitch, and Sam lets out his breath.
"Yeah, well, you were the one who was actually going to do it, Uncle Drosselmeyer."
They lapse into silence again for a few more minutes, until Sam asks, "So what are we going to do now?"
Dean stirs himself out of a reverie. "Soon as we're up tomorrow, we'll head over to South Dakota," he replies. "I know someone there who might be able to give us some info. He knows about demons...and if there is a connection between this demon and whatever freak killed Mom, we'll need his help to catch it."
Sam nods, glad for once to be following Dean's lead. He doesn't say anything about the fact that they'll be skipping town before the funeral. Whether or not John was trying to protect him and Dean by leaving them, Sam reflects that he can see at least one reason for it.
Hunting doesn't wait for family obligations.