Dean followed Andy. When the young man stopped the van, Dean hesitated a moment before putting the car in park. Andy got out and started walking back towards the Impala. Dean grabbed the handgun off the seat near him and tucked it into his jacket before Andy approached the call, looking it over then speaking to Dean.
"Hey." Andy said.
"H-hey."
"This is a cherry ride."
"Yeah, thanks." Cautiously, Dean reached for the gun, unsure what Andy's motivations might be.
With his hands on the open window, he leaned down a bit but still looked over the sleek, black car. "Man, the '67? Impala's best year if you ask me." Dean relaxed a bit, sliding his hand out from under his jacket. "This is a serious classic."
"Yeah. You know, I just rebuilt her, too." Dean said, obviously proud of his work.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, can't let a car like this one go."
Andy slapped Dean's shoulder, as if they were long lost friends. "Damn straight. Hey. Can I have it?" Andy asked.
"Sure, man." Dean replied with ease and a smile on his face.
Andy got in the driver's seat. "Sweet."
"Hop right in there." Dean even closed the door for him. "There ya go."
"Take it easy." Andy said to Dean
"All right."
Dean watched Andy drive off in his beloved car, finding himself incredibly confused as to why he let it happen, as he stood in the street.
Sam and Mae tried to look inconspicuous as they followed and watched Dr. Jennings, from a respectable distance away. When the man's cell phone rang and he answered it, Sam stiffened beside her.
"It's happening, Mae. Just like my vision."
"Okay," she nodded, "so, let's stop it"
They looked around for any sign of Andy or anyone else who looked out of place. Sam watched the Blue Ridge bus approach and the two hunters ran across the street in front of it, heading to the sporting goods store. They ran up the steps and entered. There were a fair number of people inside. They could cause some sort of scene, a fight? Maybe a fake proposal? Anything that might move people out of the store or make it so Dr. Jennings couldn't get his hands on a weapon.
Sam looked down a Mae, catching her attention and nodding subtly toward the fire alarm on the wall. Again, Mae nodded and shifted to provide him a little bit of coverage as he turned to pull the handle and trigger the alarm. It seemed to work as the customers and clerk filed out of the store. Dr. Jennings, upon hearing the alarm, also stopped. Confused, the turned and walked away. Mae and Sam both gave small sighs of relief.
The pair walked doe the stairs, intending to still follow the man but stopped cold when the saw the Impala go by, not with Dean Winchester at the wheel but Andy, on his phone.
"Okay, so...we've gotta assume Dean's dead." Mae said, mostly tongue and cheek but knowing something major had happened for Dean to not be with the car.
Sam smirked a bit but got his phone out. They picked up their pace to keep tabs on the car but Mae also looked to see if they could spot Dr. Jennings. He hadn't gone far and it looked like he took another call. They were too far to hear what he was saying but it was a quick call. She heard Sam to her side as she watched the other man, trying to figure out what he might do next.
"Dean! Andy's got the Impala!"
Mae couldn't hear Dean's reply but at least he was alive. They could split up again, the boys going after Andy and she tailing the doctor.
She heard Sam ask Dean, "You what?
Sam was unable to say anything more to his brother as he and Mae watched, powerless, as a city bus ran full speed into Dr. Jennings, the man having walked directly in its path. Sam grabbed Mae instinctively, as if she would have run into the street to provide aide. He heard her curse before turning into his chest, not wanting to look at the carnage.
Sam, Mae, and Dean gathered together again on the street, watching as the paramedics put Dr. Jennings into a body bag. Sam sat on the edge of the sidewalk, while Dean crouched behind him, offering a supportive hand to his back. Mae stood behind them, leaning against a tree.
Sam shook his head, his words heavy with guilt. "I kept him out of the gun store. I thought he was okay. I thought he was past it, at least... I should have stayed with him."
Mae looked at Dean. She had seen death before, of course, but this one shook her more than usual. "He just-he got a call and-he walked right into the street. The bus didn't even have time to slow or-he didn't pause or stop."
This was another job where things felt like they were spiraling and what they would learn would be more disturbing than if they hadn't followed Sam's vision. Of course, Dean knew Sam would have gone off on this one on his own if he'd said no. Dean looked over both of the other hunters, his focus now landing on Mae, worry etched into his features. She looked more shaken that she normally did at grizzly scenes.
Sam let out a weary sigh, running his hand through his hair. "It did happen right after Andy drove by. If it is mind control-"
"You can't mind control someone to kill themselves." Dean cut in, cheeks reddening.
"Well, sweet van or not, if you can- maybe Andy did." Mae said.
Guthrie, Oklahoma wasn't so large that they would have to do a lengthy search for the Impala. However, hoping that Andy was a creature of habit and would make his way back to his van. On the way however, they found the car near the diner he used to work.
"Thank god! Oh. I'm sorry, baby. I'll never leave you again." Dean took a moment to look over the car, checking for any obvious damage. "Well, at least he left the keys in it."
"Yeah. Real Samaritan, this guy."
They stood in front of the car, regrouping for a moment. "Well, it looks like he can't work his mojo just by twitching his nose, he's gotta use verbal commands."
"The doctor had just gotten off his cell phone when he stepped in front of that bus." Sam took a deep breath. "Andy must have called him or something."
Dean looked down and away from Sam before looking back up, squinting against the sun. "I don't know, maybe."
"Beg your pardon?"
"I just don't know if he's our guy, Sam."
"C'mon Dean," Mae said, "you know Andy can do it. Maybe he's not the chill, pjs all day, good guy you want him to be."
"You had O.J. convicted before he got out of his white Bronco and you have doubts about this?" Sam asked
"He just doesn't seem like the stone-cold killer type, that's all. You know. And O.J. was guilty." Dean said with a slight gesture of his hand.
"Either way, how are we going to track this guy down?"
"Not a problem." Dean said after a moment of thought.
Since Andy himself was nowhere to be found, they went to check out his van. "Not exactly an inconspicuous ride. Let's have a look."
Mae and Sam stood in front of Dean as he pulled a small prybar out of his jacket and let them into the back of the van. Inside, there were a plethora of fur rugs, a beaded curtain, a disco ball, a tiger painted on the wall, a number of thick books on the bed, and a huge bong.
"Oh. Oh, come on. This is... this is magnificent, that's what this is. Not exactly a serial killer's lair, though. There's no... clown paintings on the walls, or scissors stuck in victims' photos. I like the tiger." He said, regarding in and scratching his upper lips thoughtfully, "C'mon Red, you'd at least let some guy get to second base in a ride like this."
"I have notoriously terrible taste in who and where I hook up. So, yeah, probably I would." Dean looked over at her but her expression said she was mostly joking, at least as far as the implication of a judgment of him went.
Sam ignored the pair, something he was getting better and better at when it came to their innuendo. Instead, he looked over the books Andy had. "Hegel, Kant, Wittgenstein? That's some pretty heavy reading, Dean."
"Yeah, and uh, and Moby Dick's bong."
They were back in the Impala, sitting and watching, slightly obscured by a chain link fence, over grown with a green, vining plant. Mae and Sam were going through the information they'd pulled at the library on the doctor. Dean ate a sandwich, not completely displeased with it but not enjoying it like he had hoped.
"Ugh. You know, one day I'd love to just sit down and eat something I didn't have to microwave at a mini-mart." He said, tossing the wrapper in the back, careful to avoid hitting Mae with trash.
Her lip curled a bit as it landed on the floor beside her but she didn't say anything, just kicking it to the other side with a soft tap of her boot. "I've got a nice kitchen. We could swing back home and cook a real meal next time we're through that way." she said offhandedly as she read.
Dean smirked a bit to himself. He owed her a home cooked meal. Maybe even a pie.
Sam interrupted that train of thought as he refocused on the job. "What I don't get is the motive. I mean, the doctor was squeaky clean, why would Andy waste him?"
"If it is Andy."
"Dude, enough." Sam said, exasperated.
"What?"
"The doctor was mind-controlled in front of a bus. Andy just happens to have the power of mind control. You do the math. I suppose you're all lock step in agreement with Dean on this thing?"
"I don't get my opinions from your brother's dick, okay?" Sam coughed, as if he were going to spit out something he was drinking, had he been drinking. And Dean chuckled but Mae ignored both of their reactions. "It really seems like Andy. Unless these people are...being possessed or... I don't know, can someone be hypnotized into killing themselves?"
"I just don't think the guy's got it in him, that's all."
"Well, how the hell would you know? I mean, why are you bending over backwards defending him?" Sam's tone bordered on angry now.
"'Cause you're not right about this." Dean said, as confidently as he could.
"About Andy?"
As if on cue, Andy appeared at Sam's side of the car, slamming his hands down on the open window and leaning in. "Hey! You think I haven't seen you three? Why are you following me?"
The last sentence seemed to reverberate strangely. Dean looked stunned, Mae looked rather sick, and Sam didn't notice anything was different. Calmly, Sam continued as he would have normally, "Well, we're lawyers. See, a relative of yours has passed aw-"
"Tell the truth!"
This time, Mae pressed her fingers to her temples, a headache suddenly setting in. She could feel...something, something trying to worm its way into her mind. It was similar to being possessed but not exactly. She could feel the suggestion. And the resistance to complying. It was a sharp pain and she couldn't do or say much more.
"That's what I'm -"
"We hunt demons."
Whatever Andy was anticipating the three people would say, it wasn't that. "What?"
"Dean!" Sam admonished.
"Demons and spirits. Things your worst nightmares wouldn't even touch. Sam here, he's my brother. The redhead's my girlfriend."
"Dean, shut up!"
"I'm trying." And he really was trying to stop but he couldn't help but rattle off the actual truth about them. "He's psychic. Kind of like you. Well, not really like you, but see, they think you're a murderer, and he's afraid that he's going to become one himself, 'cause you're all part of something that's terrible. And, I hope to hell that he's wrong, but I'm starting to get a little scared that he might be right. There's the whole other crazy thing with the lady. A fox told her she might not be human, which is clearly not true but I think she might be crazy. But things are going so well between us right now that I'm just waiting for her to leave."
Andy wasn't sure that the guy he was talking to wasn't the crazy one this time but he must have believed it was true. "Okay, you know what? Just leave me alone."
Mae's nose started to bleed and despite the urge, she refused to pass out. Dean agreed however to the request.
"All right?" Andy said and walked away.
However, Sam got out of the car and followed Andy, leaving Mae and Dean in the car. Dean pressed his hand to his head, in both embarrassment and pain.
"What are you doing? Look, I, I said leave me alone. All right? Get out of here, just start driving and never stop."
"Doesn't seem to work on me, Andy." Sam said, still advancing towards the obviously scared man.
"What?"
"You can make people do things, can't you? You can tell them what to think." Sam accused.
Mae and Dean had gathered themselves together and got out of the car to help Sam. But he held up a hand, warning them to keep their distance. The two hunters exchanged a look but didn't leave the relative safety near the vehicle. Dean turned back to Mae.
"You've got a little," He wiped the blood from her nose with the cuff of his shirt.
"What happened?"
"Your guess is as good as mine Red."
Sam and Andy continued their conversation. "Look, tha-" he laughed, "that's crazy."
Sam kept going. "It all started about a year ago, didn't it? After you turned twenty-two. Little stuff at first, and then you got better at controlling it."
Andy put his hands on his head, seemingly reeling from what these people were telling him. "How do you know all this?"
"Because the same thing happened to me, Andy. My mom died in a fire, too. I have abilities too. You see, we're connected, you and me."
"You know what? Just, just, just, just get out of here, all right?!"
Sam close to Andy as he tried to walk away. Mae and Dean followed further behind. "Why did you tell the doctor to walk in front of a bus?" Sam asked, unaffected by Andy's instructions.
"What?"
When Sam stopped, it was because his mind was bombarded with a flash of fire, a hand holding a gas pump. But he tried to continue through the vision.
"Why did you kill him?"
"I didn't!"
Sam cringed again, the vision hitting more forcefully this time. He saw a middle-aged blond woman wearing leather gloves and a long black coat as she pumped gas into her vehicle. When her cell rang, she answered it. "Hello? Sure. I can do that."
The woman hung up the phone, then she leaned into the car and pressed the cigarette lighter in. Then, she pulled the nozzle out of the car and let the gasoline pour all over herself. A gas station attendant saw her. "Hey! Lady, what are you doing?!"
The woman took the cigarette lighter out of the car, and stepped into the open with arms out. "It's gonna be okay."
She lowered the cigarette lighter to her drenched arm.
"Lady, no! No!"
And the woman went up in flames. Sam's vision started to swim back to normal, though he clutched his head and started to fall. Mae and Dean disregarded the risk that Andy might pose. Dean was able to catch Sam before he hit the pavement but lowered him to the ground gently. "Sam? What is it?"
"Look, I didn't do anything to him." Andy said.
They ignored him for the time being. "A woman." Sam said. "A woman burning alive."
Mae pinned Andy with a withering stare. Despite Dean's belief that Andy wasn't their guy, there were a number of indications he was and she had no interest in seeing another innocent person die a terrible death on some kid's whim.
"What else'd you get?" Dean encouraged Sam to share the rest of the vision or any other details that might help them figure our where to go next.
"A gas station, a woman is gonna kill herself."
"By setting herself on fire?" Mae asked.
Sam was about to answer when Andy interrupted.
"What does he mean, going to? What is he, what is -"
"Shut up!" Dean yelled at Andy.
"She gets triggered by a call on her cell." Sam said.
"When?"
"I don't know." Sam said as Dean helped him to his feet, "But as long as we keep our eyes on this son of a bitch, he can't hurt her."
"I didn't hurt anybody."
"Yeah, not yet."
"Okay well we can't stake out every gas station in town. Do you have anything else to help us narrow it down?" Mae asked.
They heard the sirens behind them followed by a fire engine speeding past, which they turned to watch. It could have been a coincidence but not with their luck. They turn to watch it.
"Go," Sam said to Dean and Mae, as he was the only one immune to Andy's power.
They were too late. The firemen were already trying to douse the fire and keep the rest of the gas station from going out. The air was thick with the smell of smoke, gasoline, and human flesh.
"Oh God," Mae said, the order making her gag a bit. She had no idea why these death or Andy's abilities left her feeling so physically ill.
Dean took his phone out of his pocket and dialed. "Hey, it's me. She's dead. Burned up, just like you said."
Seeing the paleness on her face, Dean pulled Mae closer. She didn't resist, letting him hold her while he talked to Sam. "Like minutes before I got here! I mean the smell hasn't even cleared. What's up with your visions, man? This wasn't even a head start."
He listened to Sam on the other end. "Listen, you were with Andy when this whole thing went down, so it, it can't be him, it's gotta be somebody else doing this."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"What else is new? Well, I'll dig around here, see what else I can find."
Dean hung up and looked down a Mae. Gently, he pushed her hair away from her face "Are you okay, Red? Let me know if you're gonna faint like a princess."
The slight brought a little more color to her cheeks, as Dean intended. "I just watched two people get murdered practically in front of me. I'm not awesome. Are you?"
Dean frowned. He wasn't but not for the same reasons as Mae. "Well...we've got work to do before we deal with that."
"Yeah. It's happened before, you know."
"What?" Dean said as they began to walk slowly.
"Sam's visions, not coming in time to stop something."
He wasn't sure where she was going or what she was implying but he didn't like it. "No offense sweetheart, but I've seen this a lot more than you have."
"I know. But back in Idaho," She paused him with a hand to his arm, "he had that vision where I stabbed you and got possessed. He had it pretty much at the same time we were... you know..."
"Fucking in the next room?" He finished.
The corner of her mouth twitched. "Yeah. And the vision wasn't totally accurate."
"Sure but... you're not one of these kids that the demon picked out, you don't have weird psychic powers or mind control. Dick control maybe." she said with a mild wink, trying to direct the conversation anywhere else.
Mae rolled her eyes but she was still a bit amused by him. "I have no more control over him than you do. He just likes me but I'm serious."
"Mavis," He said with a sigh as they started to walk again, trying to determine who they'd be able to get the most information out of on the scene. "we don't even know how all this fits together, okay? Let alone that vision."
"Maybe the demon was involved there too?"
"You think the demon used two stupid kids to get us there, have spell sex, and what? What, Mae?"
"I don't know but Sam's pretty convinced his visions are connected to the demon, connected to these kids, and with what your dad said about Sam-"
"He was wrong about Sam, you hear me?" he cut through the air in front of her with a hand, his tone hard and final. "Maybe that vision doesn't fit. Maybe it's not connected. Maybe you were right from the get go and he just overheard us and it worked its way into the rest. I don't know. Even if these other kids are evil freaks, Sam isn't. You still can't convince me Andy is."
"He might have mind controlled two people to kill themselves. That's not exactly the stuff of beatification."
Dean's forehead crinkled. "What?"
"Nothing. But some of those kids might not be sweet van havin' stoners and nerd boys."
"You think I don't know that? Max Miller was pretty okay with murdering his dad, uncle, and would have taken out me and his step-mom if not for Sammy. He's not evil." Dean said.
"But the demon is and whatever his plans are won't end up being good."
Sam and Andy had stayed put at the abandoned lot. Andy sat on the open flat bed of an old pickup truck, Sam across from him. "So, you get these premonitions of people about to die?" Sam nodded, "That's impossible."
Sam scoffed. "A lot of people would say the same thing about what you do."
"But ... death visions."
"Yeah."
"Dude, that sucks." Sam didn't disagree, "I mean, like, when I got my mind thing? It was like a gift, you know, it was, it was like I won the Lotto."
"But you still live in a van. I don't get it, I mean, you could ... have anything you ever wanted."
"I mean, I, I got everything I need."
"So, you're really not a killer, huh?"
Andy laughed, "That's what I've been trying to tell you!"
"That's good. Means there's hope for both of us."
Dean and Mae arrived and got out of the car while Sam and Andy stood to meet them.
"Victim's name was Holly Beckett, forty-one, single." Dean said.
"Who is she?" Sam asked Andy.
"Never heard of her."
"Called Ash on the way over here;" Dean added, "he came up with a little something. Apparently, Holly Beckett gave birth when she was eighteen years old, back in 1983. Same day you were born, Andy."
"Andy, were you adopted?" Sam asked.
"Well, yeah." he responded, as if it should have been obvious.
"You were? And you neglected to mention that?"
"Never really came up. I mean, I, I never knew my birth parents, and, and like you said my adopted mom died when I was a baby - do you, do you think this Holly woman could actually be my m-"
Dean interrupted. "I don't know. I tried to get a copy of the birth records, but they're hard copy only, sealed in the county office."
"Well, screw that." Andy said, knowing that wasn't an obstacle for them.
