"I miss Biggerson's," Dean grumbled, staring balefully at his doublemeat burger. He and Sam were sitting in the corner of a Double Meat Palace in upstate New York. Dean was trying to choke down what they erroneously described as a burger while Sam made use of the free wifi.
Sam glanced at Dean over the top of his lap top and refrained from rolling his eyes. Dean grimaced and threw the "burger" down. "So what do ya got?"
"Well, I've got a lead. But first I gotta ask, are you sure you wanna do this?" he asked hesitantly. Dean furrowed his brow.
"Do what?"
Sam made an impatient noise.
"Do, this. Get involved in the supernatural again. I mean," Sam started, looking around furtively. He leaned in and continued quietly, "the plan was to stop hunting. Settle down, go legit. Whatever's going on in this world, it's not our fight. We don't have to get involved," he urged, his doey brown eyes blown wide with earnesty.
Dean stared back at him flatly.
"We don't have to get involved?" he asked, voice dripping with disbelief. "Sam, we popped up in a graveyard, ganked some monsters, and saved some innocent people. Less than 15 minutes in this dimension, we're already a lightening rod for supernatural crap. Even if 'not getting involved' were an option, it's not a safe option. We need to know what's out there so at the very least we can protect ourselves. We can't just bury our heads in the sand, Sam."
Sam's earnest stare withstood Dean's "are you serious" glare for a couple more seconds, before crumpling into predictable resignation. He sighed.
"Fine."
"Ok. So, what's the lead?" Dean asked, leaning back again. Sam cleared is throat.
"Alright. Well, I started thinking. We've got no contacts, and we don't know where to go for information. But neither did Dad when he started out."
"But he had Missouri."
"Exactly!" Sam exclaimed. Dean stared at him blankly.
"Exactly what, Sam? We don't have Missouri."
Sam sighed in exasperation.
"No, Dean, we don't have Missouri. But what we do have, are psychics." Dean nodded, digesting that.
"Alright, I get it. Just like in our world, some of the Miss Cleo's around here are at least a little legit."
"Right! So, from there, it's just a matter of separating the genuine article from the charlatans."
Dean groaned.
"How the hell are we supposed to do that?"
"Well, lucky for you, I am a genius." Dean shot him a look. "Shut up. I'll spare you the details, but I spent all night searching forums, comparing user ids, looking for clues, and I finally managed to compile a list of psychics who I think are the real deal."
"Great. Pick one and let's go." Sam clenched his jaw in frustration.
"I tried that, Dean. I called all the genuine psychics in a 25 mile radius-all 3 of them, by the way-and all I got were answering machines, saying that they were closed for the foreseeable future." Dean stared at him in disbelief.
"Did the message really say, 'for the foreseeable future'? Because man, for a psychic, that seems kind of ironic."
Sam ground his teeth and fought the urge to smack Dean upside the head. Dean grinned at him and slurped his soda loudly.
"The last psychic I called," Sam continued through gritted teeth, "had a message with an alternate contact in case of emergency. So I called that number, and talked to this guy..." Sam trailed off. Dean waved his arms impatiently.
"And?!"
"Well...it was...kind of weird."
"Weird how? What'd he tell you? What'd he say, what'd you say? What happened?" Dean egged him on, taking another cautious bite of his fries. Sam was quiet for another moment, trying to gather his thoughts.
"Well, the guy I spoke to, when he asked what I wanted I told him the truth, more or less." Dean coughed, choking on his fries. When he had his breathing under control again he stared at Sam in shock.
"The truth? Are you insane?"
"Not the whole truth, obviously. I'm not an idiot, Dean. I just told him that last night, we got attacked by some creatures, we managed to get away, and we're shaken up and trying to get some more information." Dean grinned.
"You convinced the guy we were innocent victims? Nice one."
"Yeah. I think so, at least. I asked where we could go to get information, and he offered me a list of books and some websites that we could look at. He emailed them to me.
"Nice going, Sammy. We got ourselves a starting point."
"Yeah, but get this. I was trying to get more general information, just on how to protect ourselves, and there was some kind of emergency and he had to go. But he said if we wanted, we could stop by his place and talk to him." Dean shrugged.
"Alright. Sounds good, let's go." Sam made a face, which Dean recognized as scrunched up face number 3 – his, 'I'm not telling you something and it's going to upset you' face. "What?"
"Well, here's the thing. The guy I talked to, he sounded a little...off."
"Off? Off how?"
"Off as in, he described the creatures as, 'Vampyrs' or, the 'evil, souless minions of darkness'." Dean stared at him.
"Are you freakin' kidding me?"
"Hey, just because he's..."
"Lame?"
"Dramatic, doesn't mean he's completely clueless. I mean, the Ghostfacers?" he gestured, waiting for Dean's reluctant nod before continuing. "Totally lame, but they stumbled into the real deal and now, they're almost, nearly, semi-legitimate."
After staring in disbelief for several minutes Dean sighed heavily.
"Fine. Let's go." Abruptly he stood to go, cheap plastic chair scraping loudly over the cement.
"Dean, if you'd rather not talk to this guy-" Sam subsided as Dean held up a forestalling hand.
"Hey, like you said. We're civilians. We can't be choosey. We found someone willing to help us out, that's great. So this is me, making the best of things."
Sam swallowed whatever else he was going to say. He started to gather up his lap top as Dean tossed the mostly uneaten remains of his doublemeat medley with a grimace of disgust. He supposed he should be happy that Dean was trying to be positive. But he really wished they could just stay civilians. Right now it wasn't their fight, wasn't even their world, but if they kept digging he was sure that was bound to change.
"So what's this guy's name?" Dean asked absently as he slid into the driver's seat of their stolen car.
"Andrew."