Supernatural: House of Cards 9/?
Title: House of Cards
Author: Ada
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: AU where anything's game.
Characters: Sam/Jess, Dean, John, and more
Disclaimer: I don't own 'Supernatural' or Dean or Sam... too bad.
Note: My Marty Guenther is modeled after 'Mr. Guenther' who co-owned the garage with John and was shown in the episode 'Home'. This story was partially inspired by the cut scene with the longer conversation between the boys and Mr. Guenther.
Summary: AU. John had been declared mentally incompetent by the state, his boys split up and raised by two different families. Now, 20 years later, John sends Dean to his naive little brother, to tell him that the demon is coming for him.
One misstep and everything they'd built could collapse like a house of cards.
Chapters: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight
House of Cards
Chapter 9
‘Not safe. Not safe. She’s not safe.’
The voice repeated the same words over and over in Sam’s head, each syllable punctuated by an agonizing throb to his temple. Sam was still in the bathroom, sitting on the cool tile, his back up against the wall next to the shower. Legs drawn up against his chest and arms hugging them protectively, he tried to block out the voice, because it didn’t sound like him, and though he had heard it before - when the migraines were really bad - he knew he really shouldn’t be hearing anyone else’s voice like that.
‘She’s gonna burn.’
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Sam whispered. A flare of pain lanced through his head and he reflexively clutched his head in his hands. White danced across his vision, his eyes slid shut and behind them was Jessica pinned to the ceiling. She stared at him in horror and something that might have been accusation before the flames blossomed from behind her and she disappeared behind the smoke and the fire, ash raining down on him where he lay stunned against a bed - his bed.
He gasped as his eyes finally obeyed his command to open and he was left staring at the dark wall of the bathroom, shaking and sweating, his head throbbing terribly. He leaned over the toilet and vomited again, the voice taunting him. ‘She’s gonna burn and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s all Dean’s fault though, isn’t it? Dean’s here and now Jessie’s gonna burn!’
-------------------------------------------
Dean hadn’t been able to sleep well that night, running his conversation with Sam over and over in his head, and finally noticing the deviations from what he would have considered normal responses, the moments where Sam’s reactions had seemed off. Like when he asked what their mom looked like, when he ripped the picture out of Dean’s hands and then tossed it, cowering in the corner. He had expected the refusal to believe Dean’s words, the ‘you’re crazy!’ accusations, maybe even the running out of the hotel room, but not in the manner which Sam did it. He wasn’t expecting the fear, the flicker of something like belief in Sam’s eyes, the way his accusations and denials seemed shaky, not strong enough.
Sam hadn’t completely believed what Dean told him, but it was clear that some of it he had believed; had maybe even known. And it scared him, Dean knew that much, he just needed to work out why.
It was still early in the morning around 2am when he heard the rumble of an engine just outside his motel room, the glare of headlights through the thin curtains blinding him for a minute. Someone hurried through the parking lot, he could hear their footsteps on the wet pavement and then there was an insistent knocking on his door.
Dean could barely believe it, and scrambled from the bed to the door, pulling it open to reveal his shaking and scared little brother. There was pain in the eyes that gazed at Dean, and it cut him to the core, he pulled Sam into the room, peering into the parking lot for a moment, searching for who might have frightened Sam so, and then slamming it shut and locking it.
“What happened?” he asked Sam who seemed to be lost in his own thoughts, eyes gazing at the floor and clouded. “Sam!” Dean said insistently, leading him to the bed and forcing him to sit down before grasping his chin and forcing Sam to look at him.
“Tell me it isn’t true,” Sam whispered.
“What?” Dean questioned, frightened himself now by the way Sam was acting. What could possibly have happened to him in the hours they were apart? He knew he should have tried to track him down after he ran from the hotel, he should have found him, made sure he was okay, made sure he got home okay… if something happened to him because Dean was too upset to follow him then he would never forgive himself…
“Tell me it isn’t true!” Sam shouted this time, pushing Dean away from him and standing. He paced in the corner, eyes darting back and forth, as if seeing things that Dean could not.
“Tell you what isn’t true? Sam? What are you talking about?”
“She couldn’t have died like that Dean. She couldn’t have!”
“Are you talking about Mom?” Dean asked.
“You’re a liar. I don’t know who told you about the nightmares, but whoever it is… I’m going to make them pay, I swear to God. And how dare you come into my life and try to make me believe this shit! It isn’t real, Dean, it never has been. So why the hell would you come here and try to make me thing it is, try to make me go crazy?”
“Nightmares? Sam, I don’t understand what you’re talking about! Nobody told me anything, I’m not trying to make you think you’re crazy. Just please - calm down and tell me what’s happening!” Dean approached Sam slowly, his brother’s actions reminding him of a wounded animal, any sudden movement could set him off running again, and Dean needed to keep him here, needed to find out what the hell happened, what made that self-assured guy who he met turn into this lunatic. His hand hovered, just about to rest on Sam’s shoulder when Sam shoved him away, knocking him backwards with more strength than Dean had expected.
“Are you even really my brother?” Sam sneered. “Or was that a lie too? I don’t know what you want; why you came here, but I know one thing - I want you gone. Now.” Jessica burning flashed in his mind again and he knew with conviction that Dean had to go, had to leave, because the dream had never been about her, not until now, not until Dean, and that meant Dean was a threat. He wouldn’t allow Dean or whatever Dean brought with him to threaten Jessica; to hurt her, and he would do whatever he could to protect her.
“God Sam what the hell has gotten into you?! Of course I’m really your brother, and I’m here to help you, so would you calm down for one goddamn second and tell me what the hell is going on in that freaky head of yours?!” Nothing was making sense to Dean, and he felt like he’d walked into a scene towards the end of a long movie, completely unaware of all of the plot twists that occurred and what the plot was now.
Calming down did not seem high on Sam’s priority list, but his energy did appear to be waning. The shaking had subsided to trembling, and his forehead glistened with sweat. He winced, and brought a hand up to his head, the same motion he made the day before when a migraine had manifested. Instead of curling into himself however, Sam just pulled his hand away angrily and focused bloodshot eyes on Dean, glaring at him with all he had. “Stay out of my life,” he hissed before turning and leaving the room.
Dean stood dumbstruck as the door remained open and Sam took off in his sport’s car, the lights fading into the distance. The rain had ended already, and as Dean walked over to close the door the sky lit up suddenly with lightning; and that storm lasted well into the morning.
---------------------------------------
He was driving back to the apartment when it hit him, how incredibly stupid he had been. Confronting Dean had seemed like the right thing, the best thing, but he had left Jess alone. How could he have left Jess alone? He tried to think of the dream, where had it taken place? He was pretty sure he had been on a bed, right? His bed? The apartment? Did he leave Jess alone in the apartment where he dreamed of her burning on the ceiling?
‘Not safe, not safe,’ a voice whispered in his head, and a lance of pain ripped through his skull. It was the same, the same male voice he heard after the nightmare. The one that reminded him that Dean started all of this, that Dean was a threat. It had spoken to him in the motel, it told him the truth.
Maybe if his head wasn’t throbbing so badly and the image of Jess burning alive wasn’t filling his vision he would have realized that listening to a voice in his head was crazy, was ridiculous. But all he could see was Jess and all he could feel was fear; fear of Dean, fear for Jess, fear for himself.
The rest of the drive took place at breakneck speeds, and he slammed on the breaks when he turned into the parking garage. Long legs carried him up the stairs, two at a time, as he ran to the apartment. Be okay, be okay, Sam thought over and over as he threw the door open and raced in. “Jess!” he shouted. “Jess where are you?!”
“Sam?” Jess muttered, standing bleary-eyed in the doorway to the bedroom. Sam let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding when he saw here standing there, whole and alive and annoyed at waking up to an empty bed. “Where did you go?” she asked.
“We have to go!” he said hastily, pushing past her into the bedroom. He grabbed a suitcase from the closet and began filling it with clothes and medicine bottles and anything they would need for a short trip away.
“Sam what is going on?” Jess demanded, and she didn’t sound tired and drowsy now. She sounded awake and worried and irritated. “Did something happen?” she asked, trying to follow him as he flitted around the room tossing things into the suitcase.
“Get dressed! We have to go!” he shouted, throwing the clothes she had left folded in the corner at her.
She caught them but did not remove her eyes from Sam’s face, staring at him with fear. “Sam, what happened? Why do we have to leave?” she asked, swallowing hard.
Sam paused, stared back at her, tried not to see her features twisting into a pained expression, tried not to see flames sprout from behind her, and responded evenly, “I can’t explain it right now. But we have to leave, we aren’t safe here.”
Something like terror flashed in Jess’ eyes, and Sam did not have time to think on that, to figure out what was terrifying her, because he was already packing the last of their things, and Jess was standing there, fully dressed, eyes trained on him and he hoped that if he just kept her close no one could hurt her.
--------------------------------------------
Sam’s hands shook uncontrollably, the key missing the lock again and again as he tried in vain to open the door. Light feminine fingers wrapped around his large hand and took the key from him, sliding it effortlessly into the lock and opening the door. Sam stumbled in, eyes latched on Jessica’s frightened face as he closed the door behind him. He hadn’t been able to think of anywhere else to go; couldn’t decide if he should go for a hotel room or leave California altogether, but the continuing migraine had convinced him that he had to stop before he crashed the car and Jessica got hurt. So, for the second time in one week, he found himself at his parents’ house.
It was early yet, and he wasn’t sure if they had heard him come in.
-------------------------------------------------
Dan Jacobs heard the whine of the hinges as the front door slid open. Glancing at the clock - 3:50 am, not exactly a time for visitors - he listened closely for more sounds. Under the sound of his wife’s quiet snores, two sets of footsteps walked slowly through the foyer. Whoever had broken in did a good job of it, Dan didn’t hear any breaking glass, maybe they picked the lock. He reached silently for the rifle he kept under his bed, one he used for deer hunting with his brother in the on-season. The bullets were in the nightstand, but he didn’t grab them, knowing that more people were actually killed by their own gun than anything. The people in his house seemed hesitant, maybe just some stupid neighborhood kids, he could probably just scare them away.
Slipping from the bedroom, he padded into the dark hallway and down the stairs, seeing two indistinct forms coming towards him. “Stop!” he shouted, reaching for the light switch and flicking it quickly, bathing the whole area in an electric glow.
Dan blinked away the spots in his vision and finally realized who was standing there. “Sam?” Dan said in relief as he spotted his only child standing in the entryway, Jessica at his side. He lowered the rifle in his hands immediately. “What are you doing here?”
“Needed to go someplace safe,” Sam muttered, not quite meeting his father’s eye.
‘He’s not going to believe you,’ the voice hissed.
“Safe? Sam, what’s going on, are you alright, son?” Dan asked with concern, gray hair mussed from sleep as he approached Sam. Sam shrank back from him.
“Yeah… yeah I’m okay… I just… I’m just going to go upstairs okay? Go back to sleep, Dad,” Sam said, his voice shaking slightly. Dan cast a worried glance at Jessica who shrugged subtly, and laid a hand on Sam’s shoulder, squeezing slightly.
Dan stepped aside, watching them walk up the stairs and hoping Sam would be in the mood to explain himself in the morning.
--------------------------------------------------
Jessica was the first to descend the stairs in the morning, meeting Dan and Patty’s twin gazes of worry as she entered the kitchen. They didn’t even give her a chance to reach for the full coffee pot before asking questions.
“Jess honey, what’s wrong with Sam, why are you two here?” Patty questioned immediately.
“I honestly don’t know,” Jess said, her voice quavering. Sam had been up half the night mumbling to himself in the dark and had dropped into a fitful sleep a few hours ago. He had never behaved that way and she was terrified. She tried to reassure herself, think that once Sam had some sleep he’d feel better, that maybe Dean was into drugs and gave Sam something and that was why he was behaving so oddly.
“He said he needed to come someplace safe, do you know what he meant?” Dan asked.
“I have no idea. He was totally fine until last night, he came home and he was clearly freaking out. We went to bed and then he slipped out at some point and left, I woke up to find him gone and then he came home and started raving about how we needed to pack up and leave the apartment immediately,” Jessica explained.
“Where was he before he came home the first time?” Patty pounced on that bit of information.
“He was out with Dean,” Jessica said. A moment later she was reconsidering her words. Sam had asked her to keep Dean a secret, but with him acting so strangely, perhaps his parents deserved to know exactly what was going on. She was pretty sure she couldn’t handle all of this on her own anyway.
“Dean who?” Dan asked, looking up sharply.
“Uh… his brother… Dean Winchester.”
They both exchanged frightened glances, and Jessica poured herself a cup of coffee, knowing that it was going to be a long morning.
----------------------------------------------
“…cow mutilation and most notably, electrical storms have all been leading towards Palo Alto,” John said, tacking a weather pattern map to the hotel room wall. Dean sat behind him, leaning back in the desk chair and studying the papers John had put up. The oldest Winchester had indeed arrived in the afternoon, meeting an exhausted and disheveled Dean at the hotel. After renting a room for himself (the one right next to Dean’s) he brought his son in with him and then went over the signs that showed that the demon could be on its way to California; to Sam.
“Electrical storms?” Dean asked, looking up from the data.
“Yeah, why?”
“You know last night there was this weird thunder and lightning thing, and then the rain stopped but the lightning kept on going for at least an hour after that.”
“It could be closer than I thought then,” John sighed. “You have Sam’s address, right? I think I should pay him a visit.”
“Dad… it didn’t go over real well with Sam last night. He completely flipped out, told me he wanted me to get out of his life, and he stormed out of here twice,” Dean sighed.
“Not really unexpected though, was it?” John said clinically, not even looking at Dean, not even sounding interested in what he was saying. “We’ll just have to explain it to him again, make him see that it’s the truth.”
“And how are you planning on doing that? You going to kidnap him and toss him in front of a ghost or something to convince him?” Dean asked with irritation. “Are you even listening to me? Sam totally flipped out! We’ll be lucky if he lets me within 100 feet of him, let alone welcoming me into his home for a little chat. He thinks I’m nuts, and I’m beginning to think that maybe he’s right!”
“Nonsense, crazy people never realize they’re crazy, that’s how you can set them apart,” John said gruffly.
“Oh funny joke, Dad. Don’t you even care? Doesn’t it even bother you to think of Sam out there - unprotected and unaware - not knowing the truth; not able to grasp the truth, while this demon is coming?”
“Of course it bothers me, Dean,” John said gruffly, back turned from Dean, staring out the motel room window at the California landscape. So many of his own mistakes had led them to this point; to a place where Sam and Dean weren’t brothers, and his own son could not be expected to greet him with anything other than suspicion and contempt. He probably deserved it, but in his defense, Sam did not know why he did what he did, so he could not possibly understand any of it.
And now… well now he wasn’t so sure that feeling some sort of distance from Sam was necessarily a bad thing. The demon had plans for Sam, that much John knew. He also had a good idea of what those ‘plans’ entailed, and there was no way he would let the demon use Sam or anyone to complete his agenda. And if Sam went along with it, if he helped that thing that killed Mary, then John would stop him, permanently.
“Come on Dean, let’s go pay your brother a visit.”
Author: Ada
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: AU where anything's game.
Characters: Sam/Jess, Dean, John, and more
Disclaimer: I don't own 'Supernatural' or Dean or Sam... too bad.
Note: My Marty Guenther is modeled after 'Mr. Guenther' who co-owned the garage with John and was shown in the episode 'Home'. This story was partially inspired by the cut scene with the longer conversation between the boys and Mr. Guenther.
Summary: AU. John had been declared mentally incompetent by the state, his boys split up and raised by two different families. Now, 20 years later, John sends Dean to his naive little brother, to tell him that the demon is coming for him.
One misstep and everything they'd built could collapse like a house of cards.
Chapters: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight
House of Cards
Chapter 9
‘Not safe. Not safe. She’s not safe.’
The voice repeated the same words over and over in Sam’s head, each syllable punctuated by an agonizing throb to his temple. Sam was still in the bathroom, sitting on the cool tile, his back up against the wall next to the shower. Legs drawn up against his chest and arms hugging them protectively, he tried to block out the voice, because it didn’t sound like him, and though he had heard it before - when the migraines were really bad - he knew he really shouldn’t be hearing anyone else’s voice like that.
‘She’s gonna burn.’
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Sam whispered. A flare of pain lanced through his head and he reflexively clutched his head in his hands. White danced across his vision, his eyes slid shut and behind them was Jessica pinned to the ceiling. She stared at him in horror and something that might have been accusation before the flames blossomed from behind her and she disappeared behind the smoke and the fire, ash raining down on him where he lay stunned against a bed - his bed.
He gasped as his eyes finally obeyed his command to open and he was left staring at the dark wall of the bathroom, shaking and sweating, his head throbbing terribly. He leaned over the toilet and vomited again, the voice taunting him. ‘She’s gonna burn and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s all Dean’s fault though, isn’t it? Dean’s here and now Jessie’s gonna burn!’
-------------------------------------------
Dean hadn’t been able to sleep well that night, running his conversation with Sam over and over in his head, and finally noticing the deviations from what he would have considered normal responses, the moments where Sam’s reactions had seemed off. Like when he asked what their mom looked like, when he ripped the picture out of Dean’s hands and then tossed it, cowering in the corner. He had expected the refusal to believe Dean’s words, the ‘you’re crazy!’ accusations, maybe even the running out of the hotel room, but not in the manner which Sam did it. He wasn’t expecting the fear, the flicker of something like belief in Sam’s eyes, the way his accusations and denials seemed shaky, not strong enough.
Sam hadn’t completely believed what Dean told him, but it was clear that some of it he had believed; had maybe even known. And it scared him, Dean knew that much, he just needed to work out why.
It was still early in the morning around 2am when he heard the rumble of an engine just outside his motel room, the glare of headlights through the thin curtains blinding him for a minute. Someone hurried through the parking lot, he could hear their footsteps on the wet pavement and then there was an insistent knocking on his door.
Dean could barely believe it, and scrambled from the bed to the door, pulling it open to reveal his shaking and scared little brother. There was pain in the eyes that gazed at Dean, and it cut him to the core, he pulled Sam into the room, peering into the parking lot for a moment, searching for who might have frightened Sam so, and then slamming it shut and locking it.
“What happened?” he asked Sam who seemed to be lost in his own thoughts, eyes gazing at the floor and clouded. “Sam!” Dean said insistently, leading him to the bed and forcing him to sit down before grasping his chin and forcing Sam to look at him.
“Tell me it isn’t true,” Sam whispered.
“What?” Dean questioned, frightened himself now by the way Sam was acting. What could possibly have happened to him in the hours they were apart? He knew he should have tried to track him down after he ran from the hotel, he should have found him, made sure he was okay, made sure he got home okay… if something happened to him because Dean was too upset to follow him then he would never forgive himself…
“Tell me it isn’t true!” Sam shouted this time, pushing Dean away from him and standing. He paced in the corner, eyes darting back and forth, as if seeing things that Dean could not.
“Tell you what isn’t true? Sam? What are you talking about?”
“She couldn’t have died like that Dean. She couldn’t have!”
“Are you talking about Mom?” Dean asked.
“You’re a liar. I don’t know who told you about the nightmares, but whoever it is… I’m going to make them pay, I swear to God. And how dare you come into my life and try to make me believe this shit! It isn’t real, Dean, it never has been. So why the hell would you come here and try to make me thing it is, try to make me go crazy?”
“Nightmares? Sam, I don’t understand what you’re talking about! Nobody told me anything, I’m not trying to make you think you’re crazy. Just please - calm down and tell me what’s happening!” Dean approached Sam slowly, his brother’s actions reminding him of a wounded animal, any sudden movement could set him off running again, and Dean needed to keep him here, needed to find out what the hell happened, what made that self-assured guy who he met turn into this lunatic. His hand hovered, just about to rest on Sam’s shoulder when Sam shoved him away, knocking him backwards with more strength than Dean had expected.
“Are you even really my brother?” Sam sneered. “Or was that a lie too? I don’t know what you want; why you came here, but I know one thing - I want you gone. Now.” Jessica burning flashed in his mind again and he knew with conviction that Dean had to go, had to leave, because the dream had never been about her, not until now, not until Dean, and that meant Dean was a threat. He wouldn’t allow Dean or whatever Dean brought with him to threaten Jessica; to hurt her, and he would do whatever he could to protect her.
“God Sam what the hell has gotten into you?! Of course I’m really your brother, and I’m here to help you, so would you calm down for one goddamn second and tell me what the hell is going on in that freaky head of yours?!” Nothing was making sense to Dean, and he felt like he’d walked into a scene towards the end of a long movie, completely unaware of all of the plot twists that occurred and what the plot was now.
Calming down did not seem high on Sam’s priority list, but his energy did appear to be waning. The shaking had subsided to trembling, and his forehead glistened with sweat. He winced, and brought a hand up to his head, the same motion he made the day before when a migraine had manifested. Instead of curling into himself however, Sam just pulled his hand away angrily and focused bloodshot eyes on Dean, glaring at him with all he had. “Stay out of my life,” he hissed before turning and leaving the room.
Dean stood dumbstruck as the door remained open and Sam took off in his sport’s car, the lights fading into the distance. The rain had ended already, and as Dean walked over to close the door the sky lit up suddenly with lightning; and that storm lasted well into the morning.
---------------------------------------
He was driving back to the apartment when it hit him, how incredibly stupid he had been. Confronting Dean had seemed like the right thing, the best thing, but he had left Jess alone. How could he have left Jess alone? He tried to think of the dream, where had it taken place? He was pretty sure he had been on a bed, right? His bed? The apartment? Did he leave Jess alone in the apartment where he dreamed of her burning on the ceiling?
‘Not safe, not safe,’ a voice whispered in his head, and a lance of pain ripped through his skull. It was the same, the same male voice he heard after the nightmare. The one that reminded him that Dean started all of this, that Dean was a threat. It had spoken to him in the motel, it told him the truth.
Maybe if his head wasn’t throbbing so badly and the image of Jess burning alive wasn’t filling his vision he would have realized that listening to a voice in his head was crazy, was ridiculous. But all he could see was Jess and all he could feel was fear; fear of Dean, fear for Jess, fear for himself.
The rest of the drive took place at breakneck speeds, and he slammed on the breaks when he turned into the parking garage. Long legs carried him up the stairs, two at a time, as he ran to the apartment. Be okay, be okay, Sam thought over and over as he threw the door open and raced in. “Jess!” he shouted. “Jess where are you?!”
“Sam?” Jess muttered, standing bleary-eyed in the doorway to the bedroom. Sam let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding when he saw here standing there, whole and alive and annoyed at waking up to an empty bed. “Where did you go?” she asked.
“We have to go!” he said hastily, pushing past her into the bedroom. He grabbed a suitcase from the closet and began filling it with clothes and medicine bottles and anything they would need for a short trip away.
“Sam what is going on?” Jess demanded, and she didn’t sound tired and drowsy now. She sounded awake and worried and irritated. “Did something happen?” she asked, trying to follow him as he flitted around the room tossing things into the suitcase.
“Get dressed! We have to go!” he shouted, throwing the clothes she had left folded in the corner at her.
She caught them but did not remove her eyes from Sam’s face, staring at him with fear. “Sam, what happened? Why do we have to leave?” she asked, swallowing hard.
Sam paused, stared back at her, tried not to see her features twisting into a pained expression, tried not to see flames sprout from behind her, and responded evenly, “I can’t explain it right now. But we have to leave, we aren’t safe here.”
Something like terror flashed in Jess’ eyes, and Sam did not have time to think on that, to figure out what was terrifying her, because he was already packing the last of their things, and Jess was standing there, fully dressed, eyes trained on him and he hoped that if he just kept her close no one could hurt her.
--------------------------------------------
Sam’s hands shook uncontrollably, the key missing the lock again and again as he tried in vain to open the door. Light feminine fingers wrapped around his large hand and took the key from him, sliding it effortlessly into the lock and opening the door. Sam stumbled in, eyes latched on Jessica’s frightened face as he closed the door behind him. He hadn’t been able to think of anywhere else to go; couldn’t decide if he should go for a hotel room or leave California altogether, but the continuing migraine had convinced him that he had to stop before he crashed the car and Jessica got hurt. So, for the second time in one week, he found himself at his parents’ house.
It was early yet, and he wasn’t sure if they had heard him come in.
-------------------------------------------------
Dan Jacobs heard the whine of the hinges as the front door slid open. Glancing at the clock - 3:50 am, not exactly a time for visitors - he listened closely for more sounds. Under the sound of his wife’s quiet snores, two sets of footsteps walked slowly through the foyer. Whoever had broken in did a good job of it, Dan didn’t hear any breaking glass, maybe they picked the lock. He reached silently for the rifle he kept under his bed, one he used for deer hunting with his brother in the on-season. The bullets were in the nightstand, but he didn’t grab them, knowing that more people were actually killed by their own gun than anything. The people in his house seemed hesitant, maybe just some stupid neighborhood kids, he could probably just scare them away.
Slipping from the bedroom, he padded into the dark hallway and down the stairs, seeing two indistinct forms coming towards him. “Stop!” he shouted, reaching for the light switch and flicking it quickly, bathing the whole area in an electric glow.
Dan blinked away the spots in his vision and finally realized who was standing there. “Sam?” Dan said in relief as he spotted his only child standing in the entryway, Jessica at his side. He lowered the rifle in his hands immediately. “What are you doing here?”
“Needed to go someplace safe,” Sam muttered, not quite meeting his father’s eye.
‘He’s not going to believe you,’ the voice hissed.
“Safe? Sam, what’s going on, are you alright, son?” Dan asked with concern, gray hair mussed from sleep as he approached Sam. Sam shrank back from him.
“Yeah… yeah I’m okay… I just… I’m just going to go upstairs okay? Go back to sleep, Dad,” Sam said, his voice shaking slightly. Dan cast a worried glance at Jessica who shrugged subtly, and laid a hand on Sam’s shoulder, squeezing slightly.
Dan stepped aside, watching them walk up the stairs and hoping Sam would be in the mood to explain himself in the morning.
--------------------------------------------------
Jessica was the first to descend the stairs in the morning, meeting Dan and Patty’s twin gazes of worry as she entered the kitchen. They didn’t even give her a chance to reach for the full coffee pot before asking questions.
“Jess honey, what’s wrong with Sam, why are you two here?” Patty questioned immediately.
“I honestly don’t know,” Jess said, her voice quavering. Sam had been up half the night mumbling to himself in the dark and had dropped into a fitful sleep a few hours ago. He had never behaved that way and she was terrified. She tried to reassure herself, think that once Sam had some sleep he’d feel better, that maybe Dean was into drugs and gave Sam something and that was why he was behaving so oddly.
“He said he needed to come someplace safe, do you know what he meant?” Dan asked.
“I have no idea. He was totally fine until last night, he came home and he was clearly freaking out. We went to bed and then he slipped out at some point and left, I woke up to find him gone and then he came home and started raving about how we needed to pack up and leave the apartment immediately,” Jessica explained.
“Where was he before he came home the first time?” Patty pounced on that bit of information.
“He was out with Dean,” Jessica said. A moment later she was reconsidering her words. Sam had asked her to keep Dean a secret, but with him acting so strangely, perhaps his parents deserved to know exactly what was going on. She was pretty sure she couldn’t handle all of this on her own anyway.
“Dean who?” Dan asked, looking up sharply.
“Uh… his brother… Dean Winchester.”
They both exchanged frightened glances, and Jessica poured herself a cup of coffee, knowing that it was going to be a long morning.
----------------------------------------------
“…cow mutilation and most notably, electrical storms have all been leading towards Palo Alto,” John said, tacking a weather pattern map to the hotel room wall. Dean sat behind him, leaning back in the desk chair and studying the papers John had put up. The oldest Winchester had indeed arrived in the afternoon, meeting an exhausted and disheveled Dean at the hotel. After renting a room for himself (the one right next to Dean’s) he brought his son in with him and then went over the signs that showed that the demon could be on its way to California; to Sam.
“Electrical storms?” Dean asked, looking up from the data.
“Yeah, why?”
“You know last night there was this weird thunder and lightning thing, and then the rain stopped but the lightning kept on going for at least an hour after that.”
“It could be closer than I thought then,” John sighed. “You have Sam’s address, right? I think I should pay him a visit.”
“Dad… it didn’t go over real well with Sam last night. He completely flipped out, told me he wanted me to get out of his life, and he stormed out of here twice,” Dean sighed.
“Not really unexpected though, was it?” John said clinically, not even looking at Dean, not even sounding interested in what he was saying. “We’ll just have to explain it to him again, make him see that it’s the truth.”
“And how are you planning on doing that? You going to kidnap him and toss him in front of a ghost or something to convince him?” Dean asked with irritation. “Are you even listening to me? Sam totally flipped out! We’ll be lucky if he lets me within 100 feet of him, let alone welcoming me into his home for a little chat. He thinks I’m nuts, and I’m beginning to think that maybe he’s right!”
“Nonsense, crazy people never realize they’re crazy, that’s how you can set them apart,” John said gruffly.
“Oh funny joke, Dad. Don’t you even care? Doesn’t it even bother you to think of Sam out there - unprotected and unaware - not knowing the truth; not able to grasp the truth, while this demon is coming?”
“Of course it bothers me, Dean,” John said gruffly, back turned from Dean, staring out the motel room window at the California landscape. So many of his own mistakes had led them to this point; to a place where Sam and Dean weren’t brothers, and his own son could not be expected to greet him with anything other than suspicion and contempt. He probably deserved it, but in his defense, Sam did not know why he did what he did, so he could not possibly understand any of it.
And now… well now he wasn’t so sure that feeling some sort of distance from Sam was necessarily a bad thing. The demon had plans for Sam, that much John knew. He also had a good idea of what those ‘plans’ entailed, and there was no way he would let the demon use Sam or anyone to complete his agenda. And if Sam went along with it, if he helped that thing that killed Mary, then John would stop him, permanently.
“Come on Dean, let’s go pay your brother a visit.”