A/Ns: Thank you for the continued support you guys are giving this story. Real Life is taking a chunk out of my soul right now, and writing this story and hearing how you all receive it is helping me get through it.

Future Update Status: Alright, I think I've found a way to let you all know when there's a delay without posting a note chapter. I've updated my profile on both sites with a 'current works' and 'current update stats' section. So if you haven't heard from me in two weeks, go check there. Unless I'm utterly incapacitated, I will update that section with an explanation and ETA of the next chapter.

Chapter Warnings: It has been far too long since we had a proper bout of brotherly angst! And nothing balances out Winchester Angst like a little bit of Andy Gallagher, back on his feet and not bleeding out as a crumpled pile on the ground. Good for him!

Actual Chapter Warnings: I'm kind of a meanie-head, if you hadn't already picked up on that, so there is a small cliffhanger at the end. Itty bitty one. But it's a nice long chapter to make up for it!

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The Road So Far (This Time Around)

Season 2: Chapter 46

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Andy sat bolt upright in a cold sweat. He had no idea where he was or what was going on, but his heart was pounding like he'd just been running a marathon in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

Zombies.

The psychic gasped, clutching at his chest as he doubled over his outstretched legs, the memory of torn flesh and agony taking his breath away. Oh god. He grappled desperately with his own t-shirt, patting down his chest and ribs, searching for the pain that should be there, but wasn't.

He was…he was….fine. Remarkably fine. Andy grabbed at his shoulder, at the back of his arm, but he loosened bloody bandages to find clean, unmarred skin. Add to that a lack of wanting to eat brains or Reaver-fy the people around him (not that there were any…), the shirt he was wearing wasn't even sporting a bullet hole or jagged tear marks across his chest, and he was ridiculously, completely, absolutely fine.

Also, apparently, he was in a…saloon?

Okay, was he drunk and really high and had just…imagined the thing with the zombies, or something?

Andy blinked at the room around him. Round wooden tables, tipped over, broken chairs, an old-timey bar, a curved staircase disappearing up to a second floor and missing half its steps. It looked like the set of every western ever, except all dusty and completely, utterly abandoned. This…this was not where Andy had been a minute ago.

He climbed to his feet in more of a scramble than anything resembling calm observation, spinning in a circle. What… what the hell?!

He had been in- in- in the Zombie town with Sam and Dean. He'd been infected, and shot, and sliced, and frigging carved up, and pretty certain he was dying. No, very certain he was dying. What the hell happened to all that? Not that he was complaining or asking for any of it back. Nope, no, he was good in, uh… Frontier Land… he just would like some answers as to why the change.

This didn't exactly feel like a Winchester last-minute-save that he'd heard so much tell of and even witnessed a time or two himself. This…was weird. Really weird. And he'd spent the last three months hanging out with a man from the future, an angel, and a guy who saw dead people (or, okay, fine, they all saw dead people, Sam just saw 'em die first), so that was really saying something.

Andy stumbled out of the saloon through a pair of swinging shutter doors that squeaked awfully and oh-my-god he really was in Frontier Land. The philosopher-junkie didn't quite know what he'd been expecting – maybe to accidentally step off a movie set or find out that he'd been 'Punk'd' or something – but stepping into bright sunlight pouring down on an honest-to-god ghost town straight out of the Frontier was…well, it was… it was, uh…

Weird.

"Hello?" Andy called out as he spun in another circle, stumbling off the old, creaky wooden walkway and onto dry, cracked dirt littered with pine needles and dead leaves. The town didn't look that big, but it definitely looked empty. Andy was standing in what he'd guess was the center of it, an intersection of two roads that stretched about two blocks in each direction. Then there was just…nothing. Woods, from what he could see.

What the hell? Where was he? He was no botanist or geologist, but this didn't look like Oregon. At least, not that part he'd just been in. And hadn't it been night? Andy was pretty sure he'd passed out there, back in that classroom with a homicidal maniac with yellow eyes and Sam-

Andy's brain faltered, realizing for a second time but in a whole new way that he was very much alone.

"Sam?" Andy cupped his hands around his mouth and tried again, louder this time. As loud as he could go. "Sam!"

If Sam wasn't here…was he still with Azazel? Andy's hands started shaking and he shoved them in his jean pockets. It was cold here; way colder than Oregon had been. Andy pulled his hands back out almost immediately to rub at his arms as he noticed the frosty air for the first time. He was definitely further north. No clue where along that latitude they were talking, but definitely north. He wished he still had his jacket, blood-soaked as it had been. But they'd left it behind at the doc's office when he and Sam had run.

Andy shuddered, memories of those Croats pounding on the door, scrambling to get in, memories of their hands on him, holding him against those bars- The psychic pushed those thoughts back before they could turn into a full-blooded flashback, extra emphasis on the blood. He needed to focus. Survival first, panic and PTSD later. That sounded like a good plan.

Okay, so… He was alone in Frontier Land and…

"Stupid!" Andy suddenly cursed, frantically digging at his pants for his cell phone the second the realization hit him. He pulled out the small device, flipping it open and praying to absolutely no one but karma and cosmic fate. The universe pretty much owed him one by now, he figured.

The screen lit up; it had a charge. Great first step, go Universe! Andy held the thing up, squinting in the sunlight, and his expression fell. No service. Yeah, well, screw you too, Cosmos.

With a devastated sigh (although, really, he hadn't been expecting much to start with), Andy flipped the phone shut and stuck it back in his pocket. Okay, well, at least that helped him formulate a plan. He needed to find someplace with service, which was definitely not going to be Frontier Land. The psychic spun in a calculative circle this time, eyeing his four directional options, then the sun still climbing towards noon.

"Well, I'm already freezing my butt off, so North is out." Andy turned on his heel, spinning one-eighty to face the opposite direction. "South it is! Mexico, here I come. Get your beaches and margaritas ready."

"You're going to walk to Mexico?"

Andy damn near tripped over his own feet and let out a staggered yelp as he scrambled to stay upright and then back the hell away from the new, petulant, female voice. It was a girl (duh, as if the part where it had been a female voice didn't tip him off), maybe Latina heritage, roughly his age, about the same height too, with light brown skin and dark hair standing on the wooden boardwalk of the intersection's southwest corner.

His first, immediately relieved thought was that she wasn't a ghost. Well, probably not, anyway. She had on a pair of black yoga pants and a loose, knitted tank top with two little tassle-y things dangling from the v-cut neckline. There was a light sweater tied around her waist, but Andy was busy staring at those dangling strings, bouncing with every small movement the girl made. He wondered if she had a cat. She looked like the type who'd have a cat. Why else would someone actually hand over money for a shirt that had bonafied cat toys hanging off of it unless they had a cat?

But he digressed.

The girl stood with hands on her hips, nothing but attitude in the downturn of her pouty lips, and an utter lack of interest in Andy as a human being who had a soul, feelings, and, oh yeah, was freaking the hell out right now, thank you very much.

"You're nowhere near Mexico. And I hate cats," she said in that same tone, her lips thinning in an obviously unimpressed manner. Andy just couldn't catch a break with women lately, could he? Either they were too busy being defensive about their first time hunting and almost dying, they were trying to kill him with his own clothing and magic powers, or they were slicing him up for zombie chow.

Or giving him crap for liking cats and wanting a warm beach and a Piña Colada with a little umbrella on top.

The train of thought ended where all his thoughts inevitably did: he missed his girl. He missed Tracy. A woman who actually liked him and enjoyed his company and quirky humor. Until she'd been murdered by his evil twin brother, that is.

Like all the thoughts before it, Andy shoved that one and the empty, hollow pain that came with it, far, far away. Unless there was a crossroads around here with a demon willing to deal and Andy was feeling morose and suicidal enough to make that deal (eh, it came and went), those thoughts did nothing but tank his soul so deep down in an ocean of depression that he might as well be down in Hell already.

"Uh…" Andy realized he was just staring at Ms. Nowhere-Near-Mexico and had been for several long, embarrassing moments. That sass was turning into suspicion and something a lot worse. Andy cleared his throat and opened his arms wide. "Look, a tour guide! That's great. You wouldn't happen to know where we are, would you?"

She eyed him up and down like a particularly unappealing bug in a specimen jar. "Not Mexico."

Andy sagged, dropping his arms and using the last of his energy to resist telling the only living thing he'd seen so far to piss off. Instead he looked around again, detrimentally hopeful that maybe a third living thing might exist that wasn't an obnoxious college sorority girl. Maybe he could hire them as a tour guide.

He'd take a raccoon at this point, seriously.

"Yeah, thanks, I'd figured that much out for myself," he answered instead, keeping the sarcasm to not-completely rude levels (just mostly-rude). "It's not Berkley either, though that's just an educated guess. I've never actually been."

The girl dropped her arms from her hips in alarm, all that attitude disappearing in a wave of mild fear. "How do you know where I'm from?"

Andy nodded his head at the jacket tied around her waist, one arm reading Cal Softball along its length. "Your jacket. University of California Berkely, right? I looked into that place a little, back when I actually thought about going to college. I hear it's a nice campus."

In the end school hadn't been for him, but sometimes he did wonder where his life would have ended up instead.

She looked down at her waist and the jacket nodded just below her stomach. "Oh. Uh…it is."

And apparently that was all it took to kick Ms. Mexico off her throne of Bitch Supreme. She crossed her arms, body reading a lot more insecure than the strong stance she'd taken a minute ago. Andy was no expert of female body language (as Tracy had told him on several occasions aaaand oh, look, there went that thought, too, as far away from him as physically possible, bye, bye, now), but he was pretty sure she was embarrassed.

"Where are you from?" She hopped off the walkway and trudged a couple cautious feet forward in the dirt.

"Guthrie, Oklahoma," Andy answered casually. "But last night I was in Oregon."

"Oh, another West Coaster," the girl said, perking up a bit with a smile. Andy stared at her, not remotely understanding why that made her feel better.

"Not really," he shrugged, unsure what her deal was. He really didn't understand girls. Or most people, in general, really. He missed his van, man. "More of a nomad these days. Don't think it matters though; I doubt we're anywhere near the West Coast anymore."

Not if Andy had any sort of read on the trees around them. Again, he was no geographer, but this forest, the mostly flat land and lack of any mountainous features in the distance reminded him way more of home than it did of the West, at least what he'd seen of it so far. Not that that gave him any real clue as to where he was. There was a lot of the United States covered under 'not California, Oregon, or Washington.' Like…the entire rest of it. Well, okay, given how cold it was, he could probably knock out all the southern states too. Whoopie, only, like, thirty other possibilities left!

"Well, I've got a cell phone but no service," Andy continued when his companion fell silent. He wondered if their situation was settling in. She didn't ask how it could be possible, the both of them transported overnight to a ghost town in the middle of…uh…somewhere. "Maybe we can hike out of here, try to find a signal."

The girl shrugged, but didn't seem against the idea. She nodded her head down the road that went East, untying her Cal jacket and tugging it on. "There's more buildings that way. I woke up over there. Maybe we can find a road leading out?"

Andy spun on the heel of his shoe to stare down the innocuous street lined with more of the same old-timey buildings, all slowly succumbing to time and gravity. A road would be a lot nicer walking than struggling through the woods that seemed to surround their other three sides. Plus, if they made their way through town first, maybe Andy could find some supplies. Salt, at the very least, something with some iron in it if they were really lucky.

"Sure, worth a shot. I'm Andy by the way."

"Amanda."

Andy nodded. Not a bad start for waking up in the middle of nowhere with some girl who came on way too strong. Beside him, Amanda jogged a couple steps to catch up as he started down the wide dirt road in the direction she had indicated.

"Sorry," she muttered after a moment, and he blinked, turning clueless eyes her way. She offered a weak smile. "I come on kinda strong. Or, uh…so I've heard."

Andy just shrugged, appreciating that. "Everyone deals differently with waking up thousands of miles away completely alone in a ghost town probably filled with actual ghosts. So…yeah, you did okay in my book."

Her smile turned a little more genuine and the two walked in companionable silence on their search for a road away from that place.

"Wait…" Andy said in sudden realization, turning to her. Amanda withdrew, hunching in on herself like she was expecting something ugly from him. "Did you say you hate cats? No one hates cats; I mean, plenty of people don't like cats, but no one hates them. Are you allergic or something?"

-o-o-o-

Cold Oak was a deserted town deep in Black Hills National Forest on the western edge of South Dakota. It was about as far from Sioux Falls as it physically could be while still being in the same state. Despite the fact they wouldn't be crossing any state lines, it would still take them almost seven hours to get there. Something that weighed heavily on both Winchesters.

"It's not even on Google Maps," Sam muttered, staring at the small screen of his blackberry as he used two fingers to inch his way through the National Forest pixel by pixel, looking for any sort of roads or markings that could indicate the haunted town.

He'd heard of it, long before his brother came ten years back in time talking about a battle royale. It was one of the most haunted mining towns in all of North America. Rumor had it that the town was so infested by the things that went bump in the night it had been unlivable; the inhabitants all fled. Given it was in the middle of nowhere with no current population and a very low known death toll, no hunter had ever bothered to take it on. So it sat untouched, a literal ghost town in the South Dakota woods.

Until now. Yay for the Winchesters, yet again.

"Here," Dean said out of nowhere, letting go of the wheel with one hand to dig around in the back seat. Sam looked up from his map-scrolling in time for his brother to dump a small box in his lap. The contents inside rattled. Sam blinked down at the case of .45 caliber bullets as Dean put his hand back on the wheel. "Carve devil traps into those. I'm done being the underdog. We're not going into this shit unprepared again."

Sam stared at the box for a scant second before setting down his phone and digging through the bag at his feet for a switchblade sturdy enough to do the job. There were way better tools that would take less time and provide better results, but Sam didn't have any on hand, or a plug for the electric dremel he'd prefer to be using. And pulling over and finding one to get the job done was not an option.

Sam got to work carving the bullets, Dean warning him anytime the road was about to get uneven. They weren't perfect, but as Sam blew away the miniscule metal shavings to observe the first of many to come, he was fairly confident the trap would function. They'd carved seven of them originally, when confronting Crowley and Azazel the first time. That was the magazine load of their standard ivory-gripped 1911A1 Colts that John Winchester had given each of the boys on their eighteenth birthday. Once they'd concluded their business with Crowley that night, no firing needed, they'd kept those bullets in a special clip in the Impala's trunk ever since.

Dean honestly hadn't thought to bring them to Rivergrove. There wasn't supposed to be demonic activity there, and especially not the whole of Hell's population on Earth. It had been a trap, pure and simple, and not at all the one Azazel had lined up the first time around. No, Hell had made a play to see where the Winchesters stood on the board. To see if they had an angel in their back pocket or just in Dean's chest. To gauge just how deep Dean's insider knowledge went. To get Sam back onto the demon blood he'd flushed from his system and since been able to avoid.

And they'd succeeded, on all fronts but one.

Dean glanced at his brother again from his peripheral vision. Sam had been morosely quiet, and it was beginning to gnaw at the older Winchester. With every bullet the kid completed he'd stop, knife in hand, and rub at his injured palm in a way Dean was uncomfortably familiar with. It was just like what he used to do when Death's wall had come down. When the kid had lost all grip of reality, Hell scars literally driving him insane. He'd rub and press and worry at a not-so-different injury anytime he saw Lucifer, using the pain to remind himself it wasn't real.

The man from the future knew Sam was worried about Andy. The kid had apparently been in really bad shape when Azazel disappeared him, bleeding out and on Death's door, and Sam couldn't say one way or another if he'd even be alive when they found him. But this quiet was something more than just that worry. Something…unnatural, with an air of something dark. Something sinister, just beneath the surface. Dean was uncomfortably familiar with that, too.

"I need to ask you something," the older Winchester announced suddenly, but from the way the silence immediately turned into tension thick enough to poke with a stick, Sam had been expecting it. Dean wrung his hands on Baby's wheel, listening to the comforting creak of well-loved leather and steeling himself for an ugly conversation. "And I need the truth. No judgement, no anger, like we talked about, alright?"

Green eyes glanced at his younger brother. Sam watched him in tense silence for far too long, before the kid finally lowered his gaze and nodded.

"Did you drink it?"

It stung, being asked that yet again, though Sam knew there was good reason. Knew it had been coming. But a bitter part of him that still railed against being treated always like the kid brother, was angry that Dean wouldn't just believe him. Even if it was an omitted truth, what he'd said was still the truth. He hadn't drunk it.

"No," Sam answered, voice clipped, but his shoulders sagged with a weight of a burden he had no interest in carrying alone. He just hadn't wanted the burden of sharing it, either. "But in the end it didn't matter."

Dean's eyes shuttered closed for a brief moment, as long as he dared while actively driving. "The syringe?"

"I think so," Sam answered, though there was little doubt at this point. The needle mark was still sore and tender, red around the edges, but the surrounding muscles were taught with a strength Sam hadn't had before. Azazel had been right; he'd been weak, weaker than ever before. And now he wasn't.

Sam held his palm out, fingers stretched flat, switchblade balanced atop the bandage wrapped around damaged flesh. "My hand, too. When the jar broke."

"Damnit, Sammy." Dean hit Baby's wheel with a closed fist hard enough to make the entire steering column shake. "You can't- You can't keep this stuff from me!"

Despite his promise of no anger or judgement, he was angry. Furious. But not at Sam. Not really. Dean hit the steering wheel again, silently apologizing to Baby but needing the outlet. They couldn't afford to pull over so he could take his anger out on something more substantial and less loved. Andy needed them; they didn't have the time. Dean let out a frustrated noise and Sammy just kept quite beside him. That unnatural, tense silence.

"God damnit!" Dean yelled again, wringing his hands around Baby's leather hard enough to make the skin on the undersides of his fingers hurt. "I'm- Sorry, I know I said- Fuck! I'm not- I'm not angry with you, damnit, I'm just…"

"Angry," Sam supplied, like it was the easiest answer in the world. Two plus two. Dean realized that it was an easy answer for Sam, because he was angry too. He'd just always been so much better at turning it into something useful. "I get it, Dean."

"I promised you." The older Winchester's words dropped in timber, to the point where Sam almost didn't hear them. His eyes were locked straight ahead, like he couldn't even look at Sam, and the younger Winchester sighed as Guilty Dean reared his ugly head in the worst of ways. "I promised this wouldn't happen again."

"It was never a promise you could keep." Though it sounded harsh, it was forgiveness in the only way Sam could really offer. "Azazel was never going to let you."

Still wouldn't. Sam had only gotten a partial dose, and he knew the demon wouldn't stop until he took the rest. It scared him, knowing there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it, in such a way that he was left numb to that fear, that inevitable truth.

"I need you to tell me next time. Sooner." It wasn't as demanding as his older brother usually got, nor as self-righteous and hypocritical. Sam appreciated the effort, despite the white-knuckled grip Dean had on the steering wheel that belied just how much anger he was holding back.

"What's the point?"

Sam knew he shouldn't say it, at least not like that, but he was tired. Tired, and just as angry.

"What? What?!" Dean's head whipped around hard enough to crack his neck, but he had other things taking priority at the moment. "The point is I need to know these things, Sammy!"

"What difference does it make, Dean?" Sam dropped the bullet he was working on – hadn't really been working on since Dean started this – and turned to his brother. "You can't change it."

Dean eyed him like he'd grown a second, then third head. "I need to know so I know if you're gonna-"

But the man from the future abruptly cut himself off, biting down on his own cheek to keep from saying too much.

"Say it," Sam said, at first soft, then firmer. "Say it, Dean. You need to know if I'm gonna go dark side, so you can stop me!"

Dean's hands tightened on the leather far beyond what Baby was ever built to take. "Not what I was gonna say, Sammy."

"Yeah?" Sam let out a huff of laughter, but it was bitter and angry and dark. "Well, it might as well have been, because that's what you're going to have to do."

His brother was as tense as he'd ever seen him, but Sam knew it was because he was right.

"You're not gonna go dark side."

"Not now." The surly, petulant tone was hardly reassuring. Then again, Sam didn't mean it to be. "It's not enough. Not yet. But eventually it will be."

Because eventually, Azazel would corner him with another jar of blood and more, and the Winchesters would be all out of miracles and last minute saves.

"No, it won't, because you're not gonna drink anymore," Dean argued, the tension in his voice causing the words to practically vibrate. It was usually a warning that it was time to change topics, lest the older Winchester finally boil over. It was the last sign before impending ugliness.

Sam didn't care.

"Don't you get it, Dean? Yes, I will! Even if I don't drink it, I'm still going to end up with it inside me!" Sam held up his hand like weaponized truth, palm flat and cuts bandaged. Dean flinched, remembering a time when Sam's hand alone was a weapon. "We can't stop this. They're never going to stop, they're gonna get me hooked and there is nothing you or I can do to stop it! Whether it's Layla or Andy, or someone we haven't even met yet, Azazel can threaten anyone and I won't have a choice."

Sam's voice dropped as heavily as his hand, and he stared at it, laying atop the box of bullets in his lap. "I'll never have a choice. I need you to get your head around that."

Dean was silent and the quiet this time was an angry one, as only Dean Winchester could ever truly make it. His eyes stayed locked on the road, but his shoulders were slumped in a defeated way that Sam always hated to see in his stalwart big brother. "What do you want from me, Sam? You want me to give up, throw in the towel?" He glanced over for a split second before refocusing on the windshield. "Cuz I can't do that."

Sam knew that. He knew it, and he didn't want that anyway.

"I want you to start thinking about containment instead of prevention, Dean." He sighed, raising his uninjured hand to pinch at his forehead and try to rub the developing headache away before it could get any worse. "We're always going to be two steps behind if we don't start thinking three steps ahead."

Beside him, Dean swallowed, having absolutely no idea how to do that. Damnit, he was from the friggin' future. He should be three steps ahead by the very nature of this nightmare. But he wasn't, and he didn't know why, or how to be again. And the only containment they'd ever tried had been locking Sam in the panic room. Lot'a good that did them. They'd almost killed him before Cas set him free to destroy the world.

Dean couldn't think about that right now. Any of it. He just…he couldn't. Not right now.

"Let's just…focus on finding Andy, alright?" They could worry about the rest of it after. One thing at a time.

In the passenger seat, Sam let out a world-weary sigh, eyes tracking out the side window at the passing landscape. With those words, Dean had once more set his mind to the step they were currently on, only illustrating just how much he'd missed or chosen to ignore Sam's point. The younger Winchester really didn't know how else to get his warning across before it was way too late. Part of him, a part that had grown bitter in the stubborn shadow of the Winchester name, didn't even know why he bothered.

-o-o-o-

"So what's Oklahoma like?"

Amanda trudged along behind Andy, swinging the iron skillet they'd found back and forth as she walked alongside him. It had been in the third building they'd ducked inside on their supply search. She'd picked it up, hefting it up and down to test its weight, and asked if that would work as one of those weapons he'd mentioned. You know, in case that 'wild animal' attacked them.

Honestly, she'd just stared at him when he'd said it. Long and hard and kind of like he was crazy. But there she was, finding a potential weapon, and beggars can't be choosers.

Andy took it, feeling the weight and balance of it. It was old, covered in a layer of dusty rust, and not particularly large, but it was heavy and probably solid iron, even if it wasn't pure. Yeah, this would definitely do, at least against any ghosts they might run into. He lifted it up, a batter's two handed grip wrapped around the short handle, and mimicked a swing.

Amanda backed off a step, the kind of uncertain concern in her eye that Andy had seen on many a girl on the bus, or walking home from school, or just standing outside the 7-Eleven having to deal with some asshole catcalling her. He knew that look, though he couldn't say he'd ever been the cause of it before.

The Jedi lowered the weapon with an apologetic grin and held it out to her instead, much to Amanda's surprise.

"You'll probably be better with it, being on an actual softball team and all," he said, feigning obliviousness at her relief. He didn't blame her; it was a lot easier being the one with something to swing rather than worrying about the other person you barely knew swinging at you.

She'd taken the skillet gingerly, but soon enough hefted it on her shoulder with a more enthusiastic expression, and they'd gotten back on their way, searching through the abandoned down.

Now, almost reaching the end of the current road they were on, Andy shrugged at her question. "Guthrie's a pretty small town, but not the smallest. I don't know, it was nice?"

He didn't like to think about it, about the life he'd had that he'd been forced to leave behind. About Tracy, which inevitably led him to think of what had forced him to flee, to join the Winchesters in wandering the country fighting monsters of all things.

"I'd rather not talk about it," Andy concluded, not noticing that Amanda had staggered to a stop several feet behind him and not resumed walking. Andy made it another half dozen feet before he glanced over his shoulder at her silence. He frowned at the girl, standing stalk still in the middle of the dirt road, eyeing him with that same 'oh god, please don't be crazy' look back on her face. "You coming?"

"Um…I…" Yup, that worried look was definitely back, a hundred times over. That was the best word he could put to the wide eyes and stiff posture. Andy frowned even more, realizing she looked scared. A quick flash of panic hit him, thinking perhaps she'd seen something behind him. A ghost or maybe a-

"Hello! Is anybody here?"

A panicked voice shattered the otherwise calm around just the two of them and both kids jumped at the sudden disruption. Andy spun around in time to see a kid, lanky and tall, dressed in an old brown bomber jacket, and looking a step from the grave with unwashed, messy brown hair and circles under his eyes so dark in contrast to his pasty white skin it was a wonder if he'd slept in the last century. He was kind of stumbling on the wooden boardwalk that wrapped the corner building, and he had a wild look in his eye like a man who'd just woken up in the middle of a Frontier time ghost town, completely alone, thousands of miles from where he'd fallen asleep.

Andy could relate.

"Hey!" he called out, waving an arm over his head. Tall-dark-and-exhausted spotted them right away, going completely still as he realized he finally wasn't alone. Andy hoped the energetic wave would be enough to convey 'non-threat' status as he started towards the guy who definitely looked like he might be a threat. At least in that cliché, obviously-evil-villain-in-a-spy-movie sort of way. As he jogged towards the fellow who he most definitely hoped was not evil, Andy called over his shoulder to Amanda, "Hey, looks like we're not completely alone after all."

Mr. Disney-Channel-Movie-Villain faltered on the first few steps, clearly relieved to not be alone in this town but also realizing he was now alone with two other people he knew nothing about. But eventually he climbed off the wooden boardwalk and met Andy halfway. Amanda followed with a little more caution, whatever had scared her before not entirely forgotten but also not the focus of her attention any longer.

"Hey, man," Andy greeted with as friendly a smile as he could muster. "I'm Andy. You just wake up here?"

"Y-Yeah," the guy answered, obviously still shaken by the entire event and not too trusting of its most recent changes. "Uh, Scott. Scott Carey."

"Nice to meet you, Scott. This is Amanda," Andy introduced, gesturing behind him as the Berkley student hesitantly caught up to them. "We just ran into each other, like, ten minutes ago? We've been looking for any sorta supplies or tools we can use. We're gonna hike outa here."

"You…uh…how did you…we…get here?" Scott looked shakily between the two them, face a picture of near panic, even when Amanda gave him a little wave with her free hand. Personally, Scott was finding Andy's calm demeanor about the entire thing both comforting and the absolute opposite of comforting. Dr. Waxler would probably tell him that was a dissociative defense mechanism in response to his recurring distrust of people coming into his life.

He still wasn't sure about the new therapist.

"Not sure," Andy answered easily enough, his cheerful demeanor taking no hits in the light of…well, whatever this was. "But I think we should get outa here as soon as possible. Don't you?"

Further movement over Scott's shoulder caught Andy's attention, and the Jedi blinked at a fourth kid, mostly hidden behind the corner of the building Scott had just come from. The guy was watching them.

"Hey!" he called out again, making Scott jump, and he went for the same arm-over-his-head friendly wave, since it seemed to work so well the first time.

The fourth guy, a bulky kid with a broad-shouldered frame, dirty blonde hair, and suspicious, narrowed eyes, slowly stepped out from behind the building. He crossed his arms, staring at the three of them for a moment before finally coming to whatever decision he was contemplating and stalking towards them. Andy didn't hold it against the kid; he'd be pretty cautious of all this too if he hadn't spent the last three months traipsing the country with the Winchesters.

"Hey," Andy repeated yet again once the guy was close enough not to require shouting. "I'm Andy. This is Scott and Amanda. I take it you're new here too?"

"Hilarious," the other kid spoke with a scowl. Andy let it flow right off of him. Again, he'd be pretty grumpy if all of this was happening to him unprepared. Hell, he was just happy not to be bleeding to death anymore. "You know where we are, or are you just the Walmart greeter?"

Andy shrugged. "Nope. Just trying to get out of wherever this is. I've got a cell, but no service. Figure we could try a little further down the road."

"There is no road," kid number four spat, arms still crossed, and a little more of Andy's forced calm and cheer chipped. "I've checked."

Andy didn't know why, but he didn't believe him. Still, calling out Mr. Grumpy Pants on the first day of class when they were all the new kid seemed in poor taste. Andy was pretty sure they'd do better making friends in this place than enemies.

"Alright, then…we'll hike through the woods." Andy turned to the other two, Scott who was slowly shying in on himself with every disparaging word Sir Grump-a-lots had to say, and Amanda who looked about ready to strike it out on her own and leave the behind the useless, bickering boys. Andy's frown slowly returned. If this town really was haunted (and, come on, look around. It was most definitely haunted), they'd have better luck sticking together. He spared the scowly guy another look. "What's your name?"

"Jonathon."

"Alright, well, Jonny," Andy said, giving him a light slap on the back in a second attempt at comradery, "we were thinking-"

"I said it's Jonathon," the guy snapped, immediately stepping away from Andy with something between defensiveness and aggression filling every line of his closed-off posture. "Are you deaf?"

Andy frowned but tried to shrug it off yet again. Some people didn't like being touched; water over the bridge and under the bridge and all that, right? "Sorry, Jonathon. We were looking for-"

"Supplies. Yeah, I heard you."

Andy let the awkward silence stretch, blinking at Jonathon who seemed utterly determined to be an ass.

"Alright then," Andy muttered again, finally letting some of his own annoyance bleed through. He turned away from the obnoxious guy, much preferring the company of Amanda and Scott, despite the fact that Scott was about half a second from a full freak out.

To be honest, inner Andy wasn't doing all that well himself, he just had more practice at burying the oh-my-god-this-can't-be-happening-this-isn't-real-this-sort-of-thing-doesn't-actually-happen gut reaction and panic. About three months more experience.

And, he knew more about what was happening than any of his current compatriots. Andy might not know where they were or the name of this god-forsaken town, but it was certainly ringing all the wrong alarm bells. The young hunter was slowly but surely getting the feeling that waking up here of all places, magically not bleeding to death, when Azazel's ugly mug had been the last he thought he'd ever see, was a lot less of the miracle than it first felt like.

-o-o-o-

- Two Months Ago -

They'd been sitting in the Impala, Dean in the driver's seat, Andy in the front seat (for once!) while Sam ran into the diner to grab a late night snack (and pie. Dean always insisted on pie. He had a minor obsession, Andy was starting to realize after just a few weeks around the man). Andy hadn't been with the brothers for much more than a month now, but the red-eye drives through the night to the next hunt were becoming unsettlingly familiar. Sometimes, Andy wondered why he hadn't moved on yet. Find a nice corner of nowhere, stock up on weed and Hot Pockets, and smoke and feast till the end of the world. But then they'd face their next werewolf or ghost or wendigo, for Pete's sake, and Andy remembered that he absolutely did not want to be alone in this monster-infested worldat allorever again, please and thank you.

"Here."

Andy, lost in thoughts about the terrors of a world he'd never even known existed, glanced over at Dean's sharp voice. That was his trying-to-be-the-adult-in-the-car tone, something that never failed to amuse the likes of Andy Gallagher. Usually because Dean only summoned it in the middle of some of the most childish arguments Andy had ever heard. He'd never had brothers, but listening to Sam and Dean bicker about music choices, movies that weren't even from this century, and which of the bachelorettes was the hottest was, by and far, making up for twenty-three years of single child syndrome.

Dean was holding a gun out in the flat of his palm. Andy blinked at it.

"Uh…?"

The older Winchester leveled him with a look that clearly said don't-make-me-rethink-this and Andy took the weapon quickly. It was heavy in his hand, heavier than he'd expected. Which seemed both profound and profoundly ridiculous. It was hardly the first gun he'd held this week alone.

"What's this for?" Andy asked, a little nervous. In no way ever did a good situation require one of the Winchester's to hand him a gun. The kid managed not to glance around the mostly empty diner parking lot in search of the newest threat, lurking in the dark.

"You wanted a gun," Dean answered like it was obvious. Andy's head whipped back around to stare at him.

He…had asked for a gun, on that first hunt in the graveyard, with the crazy witch controlling an even crazier civil war dude's ghost. Andy lost his robe that day and learned an important and vital lesson about capes. But he hadn't gotten a gun. And it took a good couple of hunts after that before Dean finally trusted him not to friendly-fire their asses into an early grave.

"Yeah…" Andy glanced down at the weapon. It was a standard fair handgun, nothing particularly special or unique about it. But still. He looked back up at the hunter. "Thought you and Sam said I didn't need one."

Dean shrugged. "That was when we didn't know you'd be sticking with us. But if you're gonna be a hunter, you need a gun."

Andy slid the magazine out, checking the bullets. They weren't silver, but he knew they had that amo, and he got the feeling Dean was offering him a lot more than just one gun and one magazine, here. He slid the magazine back into place with a click.

"Uh…thanks." It didn't sound like enough, but Andy wasn't sure what else to say.

"Look, there's something else too…" Dean's voice trailed off in full-on hesitation now, and he sighed. Andy sat up a little straighter as something small and tight and definitely one hundred percent worry knotted in his gut. Dean Winchester didn't sigh. Not un-ironically, at least. "Sam told you about the yellow-eyed demon, right?"

"Azazel? Yeah, he's, uh…he's mentioned him." Andy swallowed a little roughly, throat tightening up like hypovolemic shock was setting in. The kid looked down at the gun heavy in his hand, hand resting in his lap. The offer of a weapon was starting to take a distinctly unpleasant turn. It left him with a bad taste in his mouth.

"Did he tell you about the Battle Royale?"

Andy's head turned back to Dean, a slow blink giving the answer before his mouth ever formed it. Dean sighed again, staring blankly out the front window like he wished he'd never asked. Then he launched into it. Told Andy all about what Azazel had planned for his 'special kids'. And that sinking weight in Andy's gut got so, so much worse.

"So you keep that on you at all times," Dean said, nodding his head towards the gun in Andy's hands. "And if…if you wake up somewhere you don't know surrounded by other kids like you, you do whatever it takes to get out of there, you hear me? You defend yourself, no matter what that means, and then you run. Sam and I'll come for you."

Andy swallowing the Sahara desert that was now his mouth was damn audible in the car. He stared down at the weapon with dread, wishing that tossing it out the car window meant taking its promise of a bloody future with it.

"You…want me to kill those kids?"

"I want you to survive. Hell, shoot 'em in the kneecaps." Dean's cavalier words almost, almost, had Andy choking on his own saliva. If he'd had any saliva left, he probably would have. "Just know, not all of those kids have powers like you. Some of them have a lot worse."

"My powers don't even work on other 'special kids'," Andy grumbled, still staring down at that gun like it might bite him as surely as it would also save his life.

"Doesn't mean theirs won't work on you." Dean's voice was tight, a warning not to underestimate the situation if he found himself in it. Andy curled his fingers around the edge of the metal to disguise the way they trembled ever so slightly. "Sam ran into plenty of those kids that could take him out. And none of his powers ever worked on them."

Andy stared at his lap and the quiet that filled the car was dark and weighted. "It doesn't seem fair."

"No, it sure as hell doesn't, kid." Dean glanced over at him, then back to the diner where they could see Sam's beanstalk frame sitting at the counter, fidgeting awkwardly while he waited for their order. The younger Winchester glanced over his shoulder at them and Dean nodded, though he doubted the kid could really see him through the reflections off the diner window. "Which is why you do whatever it takes. You hear me?"

Andy stared at the reflective curve of the gun's grip. He wrapped his hand around it, feeling the metal start to warm. "Yeah. I hear you."

The resident Jedi leaned forward to tuck the weapon into his waistband, as he'd seen the Winchesters – and every TV character ever – do a million times before. They'd later get him a hip holster, considering the gun slipped free the first time he climbed out of the car, fell down the length of his pants and out of his ankle while he did a 'shit, that's cold!' wiggle dance to get it free.

Thank Christ he'd given it to the kid with the safety on, the older Winchester had later muttered under his breath as he watched the jiggle dance and resisted burying his face in his palm.

-o-o-o-

- Now -

Memory fresh in his mind, Andy stared at the three other kids he had so far found in this creepy ghost town. He regarded each in turn, wondering what powers they might possess. Amanda's was fairly obvious in retrospect, but Scott and Johnathon were still mysteries. Not that the Extra-From-Dawn-Of-The-Dead or Mr. Excuse-Me-It's-Jonathon hadn't already had Andy at least on edge, but now he was eyeing them each a little more nervously.

He wished he'd asked Dean to go into a little more detail about those kids that Sam had run into. He also wish he still had that gun.

But he didn't and there was no use dwelling on it.

So, time for plan B. Okay. Yes. Sure. Yes. This was- this was fine. They were fine. All fine. Making friends, even. There was no need for them to start killing each other.

"What?" Amanda practically screeched, breaking the otherwise low thrum of conversation the three had awkwardly struck up as Andy's mind went other places.

"What what?" Andy spun to face Amanda in panic, still expecting a ghost attack at any moment, but he just ended up blinking at the girl as absolutely nothing else happened. Then he realized what he'd just been thinking.

Gah!

Andy raised his hands, fingers spread in little frantic waves. "It's not what it sounds like-"

"What are you talking about?" Scott hedged a little nervously, body already turned partially away from them like he could shield himself from all this if he just turned around, stuck his fingers in his ears, and sang loud enough until he couldn't hear them anymore. That, or run for it. Andy would put his money on the running.

"What what sounds like?" Jonathon snapped, his posture getting, if anything, even stiffer. The dude was the literal representation of a live wire.

Oh, god, Andy hoped that wasn't his power.

"What are you talking about?" Amanda shrieked and Andy winced.

"No one's talking about anything!" Scott half yelled, getting a tad hysterical himself. He threw his hands in Andy's general direction. "He didn't say anything!"

Andy waved at Amanda with one hand, the other still raised placatingly. "She can read minds, okay, and my thoughts were, uh, not really pleasant a second ago."

"You said we were all going to start killing each other!" Amanda yelled, the freak-out currently over-ruling her surprise at Andy not only aware of her ability, but also seemingly okay with it. Like it was normal. But, really, there were more pressing things to be panicking about, so the relief of not being found a freak was taking a back seat at the moment.

Jonathon's tension-rigid body physically moved him with a jolt, fists curling where they rested against his arms, but Andy didn't notice. He was busy waving his hands like a drowning man at the almost-panicking college girl.

"No, no," he insisted, well, insistently. "I said there was no reason for us to do that."

"Why would we do that to start with?"

Okay, touché, college girl.

"What are you two talking about, no one said anything!" Poor Scott really did sound on the brink of a mental breakdown. He kept edging further and further from them, one little shuffled heel back at a time. He was hugging himself like the comfort might actually help and Andy spared him a sympathetic, apologetic glance.

"What do you mean, she reads minds?" Jonathon spoke, voice icy in a way that made Amanda flinch. Andy didn't like it.

"We all have powers," he offered as some sort of cool down. Lord knew they needed a bit of calm right now. He turned to each of them, hands still up but less frantic now as he went from instigator to mediator. Andy wished he'd started with the mediator. "I can make people do anything I want just by telling them to. I'm pretty sure Amanda reads minds, considering she told me she hates cats, and I definitely didn't say that shirt looks like a glorified cat toy. Well, at least, not out loud."

Scott just stared at them, shoulders hunched up around his ears. "You're insane. You're all insane!"

Amanda crossed her arms defensively over her chest, shoulders pulled back and attitude slapped back in place like a shield. It was definitely a defense mechanism to hide how scared she was, Andy realized.

"You don't have powers?" His question back at Scott silenced him immediately. The poor kid shriveled up like a raisin, mouth pinched so tight it practically puckered. Andy almost felt bad about it. He was clearly pretty troubled, and Andy wondered what his powers were that he was so damn nervous to even admit he had them.

Of course, maybe he was just nervous to be around a mind reader and a Jedi. That was plenty of cause.

"They didn't start about a year ago?" Andy continued, taking a more gentle tone as he tried to get back into the mediator feel. He'd never been great at playing referee. "When you turned twenty-three, right? And your mom, she probably died in a house fire when you were super young?"

Scott dropped his arms, eyes wide, and Andy took it as a victory that his shoulders didn't stay up around his ears. "How did you know that?"

At the same time, friggin' Jonathon just scoffed loudly. "My mother never died in any fire."

"My mom lives in Phoenix," Amanda said in the silence that followed, voice hesitant with new concern as she glanced between the four of them. "Is she- she's alright, right? I just talked to her yesterday-"

"She's fine," Andy interrupted, trying hard not to get frustrated with how difficult this was proving to be. Like herding cats. All he wanted to do was get them to listen to him, agree they shouldn't start killing each other, and get the hell out of here. Was that really so much to ask? "Some of us with powers, our moms died in a house fire when we were six months old. Mine was my adopted mom. Never, uh…never met my biological mother."

Andy's offered smile, pitying as it was, completely faltered at the memory of his own home and family. A mother he'd never met, murdered by a brother he'd known for all of ten minutes before he'd had to kill him.

He practically felt more than saw Amanda go still again, and shook his head to physically shake his mind from thoughts she didn't deserve to be burdened with. So instead he turned to Jonathon, trying to give the utter jerk a little leeway. Everyone reacted to waking up in the middle of a ghost town differently, right?

"It sounds like it didn't happen that way for everyone. But we're all still connected."

And he'd put money on Scott Carey having powers too, even if the poor kid didn't want to own up to them.

Jonathon crossed his arms once more. "By what."

"The yellow-eyed man."

This dick of a kid had never, for a second, been relaxed since joining their little group, but any sort of tension they'd eased out of him over the last three and a half minutes snapped back into his spine like one of those bracelets from the nineties. Andy could practically hear the snap, and he certainly saw the jerk.

Hell, the kid twitched so hard at the exact same time Andy blinked, it almost looked like his whole body flickered, kinda like ghosts did. But Andy had made physical contact with the kid when he slapped him on the back, so he knew he wasn't a ghost. Just an optical illusion and weird timing.

"No way," Scott whispered on a low, trembling exhale. Distracted, Andy turned to him, not entirely surprised but also not having expected their fourth and most skittish member out of all of them to have been visited by Azazel.

"You've seen him?" The Jedi asked, trying to keep the words, thick in his throat, gentle and encouraging and not at all the shaking mess of trembling terror they really were. Because Andy really, really never wanted to see that messed-up, creep of a dude ever again. His chest ached just at the thought, and he found himself absently patting his t-shirt down, once more expecting blood and torn flesh. When he found nothing, he tried to shake off the fear and focus on Scott, and getting his new friends out of Cold Oak. "Let me guess. Bad dreams?"

Scott looked truly shaken, but he never took his eyes off Andy. He folded his arms around himself again, fingers fidgeting with the cuffs of his jacket self-consciously. "He…he tells me to hurt things. Hurt people. But I don't want to!"

He'd killed his neighbor's cat. He'd electrocuted Mr. Tinkles just by touching him. Fried his insides like a hamburger.

Scott started to shake.

He'd buried him. Dug a hole in Mrs. Davidson's garden, in the back where she wouldn't notice, and buried her cat there. He'd never meant to hurt anyone or anything. He'd just…the yellow eyed man had told him he had to test it. Told him he'd never know if he didn't try.

Scott had thrown up all over Mrs. Davidson's geraniums.

"That's great!" Andy exclaimed, completely ignorant to the poor, shaking kid's internal trauma. His smile brightened, gaze sliding over to Amanda. "See, I told you, we don't have to start killing each other."

"Again, why would we?" she barked back, voice still several pitches too high and hand wrapped very possessively around the handle of her skillet.

"What do you mean by that?" Jonathon talked over her, eyes locked on Andy in a way that made the Jedi feel kind of like a frog pinned to an autopsy tray. His eyes snapped from Andy to Amanda, causing the girl's breath to hitch in a little gasp. She clearly didn't think much of Jonathon either. "Can you read all our minds?"

Rude, Andy thought, not particularly liking the way he'd said it like an accusation. It wasn't like it was Amanda's fault. These powers weren't any of their faults. None of them had asked for this.

"N-No," she replied, body language bouncing between faked confidence and cowering away. "I…um…. You guys are all…muffled." Her gaze dropped, and she unconsciously picked at a fleck of rust on the iron pan. "Usually, it's so loud. I can't block it out. I-I don't even go out anymore. I can't even go to class. Everyone, all the thoughts, it's just so loud." Amanda's breath hitched again, but with a deep breath she physically gathered herself back together. "With you guys, I don't know, it's just…muffled. I can only hear your thoughts if I focus really hard on you. Like…I was doing with Andy."

She spared him a sheepish smile, but he just shrugged. Not like he could take offense to her scanning his thoughts to make sure he wasn't a murdering psychopath who'd dragged her here himself. Dude, if his powers actually worked on them, he'd have done the same thing and demanded she tell him who she was and how she – and he – had gotten there. If he hadn't already known why they were there, that is.

Across from them, Jonathon seemed to relax a little more.

"So what's your power?" Andy asked Scott, going for another bright smile as he tried to pull Scott out of his nervous shell and maybe lower the tension between everyone to more a reasonable level.

"Did the yellow-eyed man tell you anything, then?" Jonathon interrupted his attempts once again, and it took everything Andy had in him not to glare at the asshole. He turned to him, sucking on the inside of his cheek in a ten count that he repeated in German just because he could. It didn't do much to help.

He really wanted to punch this kid. If his powers just worked on other special kids, he'd have already told the jerk to give himself the most painful wedgie physically possible. Andy had used that one before; there was a lot of grey area in 'physically possible' it turned out.

"Not much," he answered slowly instead, lifting his shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. He was seriously starting to think they'd be better letting Jonathon go on his way. The three of them could find a way out without him, Andy was more than sure of that. "I found a way to block him out. But I know he's a demon and he's got plans for us."

"A demon?" Scott echoed, that hint of 'you're all insane' back in his voice as he glanced between Amanda and Jonathon for backup.

"He wants us to fight to the death, and we're not the only ones. There's a bunch of us." Andy met each of their worried, hesitant, and suspicious gazes in turn. He knew what he was saying probably sounded crazy, but it was the truth. And he really needed them to see that before shit started hitting the fan. "But we don't have to do it. We don't have to play his game. If we work together, we can all get out of here. Alive."

With speech imparted on his fellow man (and woman), Andy turned to look down the last thoroughfare they'd yet to check. There could still be a road out of this place, since he didn't feel much like taking Jonathon at his word. They should start with that. Maybe a little travel would help improve the mood and build a little group trust. Or, at a minimum, comradery. And, if not, they could at least put some distance between them and this town while they argued.

It occurred to Andy far too late that he shouldn't have turned his back on them.

There was a presence behind him that he felt more than saw. It was way too close, way too quickly, but Andy didn't think enough about it, not in time. He never saw the hit coming. The side of his head exploded in pain, and his vision whited out at the same time his body hit the dirt.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

A/N: Special thanks to superlc529 for mentioning devil-trapped bullets in a review and therefore reminding me those are a thing! Despite having already used them once in this story, I totally let their existence fall through the cracks. With a beast this size, it definitely happens at times, so please keep flagging things you see that are either missing, wrong, or possibilities you can't tell if I've just forgotten or actually have a good reason for not using XD

Special Kids: If you are busy trying to figure out who's who and which episode they're from, Jonathon and Amanda are cobbled together OCs for the sake of originality (since we only met a handful of special kids on the show), but Scott Carey, his therapist, and Mr. Tinkles the cat are actually from the show :D

Reviews: I know the longer wait between chapters is rough, but I would really appreciate all the encouragement and good feels you guys can send my way. I am utterly struggling in real life right now – I think I'm fast approaching the time for a major change and that scares the crap outta me – so any of the good feels you can send my way would be amazing right now.

Up Next: What can I say about the next chapter…hmm, I'll keep it succinct: Andy does not have a good time in Cold Oak. Yes. Yes, that about sums it up.

I am not sure if the next chapter will be up in one week or two, but I have been successfully stockpiling chapters once more, which bodes well for future updates. I'll try to keep you guys in the loop on that as we go. For now, I really appreciate your patience and for sticking with me through all the delays and tough times.