Part 1 Part 2
By the time they drove into Guthrie Sam's headache had finally begun to fade, although he felt like a wrung-out dishcloth. Dean was right: whatever was going on with the visions, it was getting worse exponentially. The first nightmares had been bad enough, and then the pain had started when they'd happened while he was awake, but now they were all but crippling, and he could feel the aftereffects for hours, leaving him limp and all but useless. The nosebleed was new, but then the pain had been a lot worse this time, and the vision not nearly as clear. If things continued like this... well, it wasn't something he enjoyed contemplating. Blinding pain, confusion and death. Such cheerful companions. Through the heavy rain that had begun to fall, Sam caught a glimpse of the clock tower in the centre of Guthrie, reading 12:20.
He scrubbed at his face with one hand, wondering if it would be too much to ask of Dean for them to find a place to sleep for what was left of the night. First, though, they had to meet up with Andy, find out just what the hell was going on in these parts. Dean was looking pretty much how Sam felt: like death warmed over. He'd been coughing and sneezing intermittently ever since they'd left the diner, growling like an old dog whenever Sam so much as tried to mention anything about it. Andy had given them a street address to find, and Dean was cursing under his breath, trying to find his way in the dark and the pouring rain.
“Son of a bitch... couldn't give us a place we al-alrea... HGGFFHH!” he raised his elbow in front of his face, eyes watering.
“Sixteen.”
“What?” Dean turned to glare blearily at him, then tapped the brake pedal as another sneeze welled up. “HAPTSCHUH!”
“Seventeen.”
Dean sniffled, cuffed at his nose with his wrist. “Dude, are you counting how many times I've sneezed? That's taking the OCD a little far, don't you think?”
“I figured a little empirical evidence might go a long way to convincing you that you're maybe not as not sick as you claim.”
“I'm fine. Or I will be, as soon as we f-find this da- hiih... damned... HEISTCH-uh! damned address Andy gave us. Why couldn't he just meet us? He's got wheels of his own.”
Sam shrugged. “It's past midnight. Makes sense he'd want to meet somewhere sheltered. Besides, I don't know if you noticed, but it's pissing rain.”
“That your keen sense of deduction at work again, genius?”
“Damn straight.”
“Huh... HHKSCHH!” Dean almost knocked his forehead against the steering wheel, then directed a glare at Sam. “Not. A. Word.”
Sam raised his hands in an I-didn't-say-a-thing gesture, scanned the area. “There,” he pointed. “Next on your right.”
Dean swerved, and for a moment Sam thought the Impala would lose all traction on the road and fishtail, crashing them all into the nearest phone pole, but that was him not reckoning with Dean's driving skills and his bizarre mind-meld with his precious baby. The car cornered beautifully, and a few moments later they cruised to the side of the road. Dean threw the car into park, sneezed into his cupped hands. Sam dug a napkin out of his pocket -he'd stocked up at the diner- and his brother took it without a word, blew his nose, elbows on the steering wheel.
They were soaked to the skin seconds after getting out of the car, but at least the house to which Andy had directed them looked pretty nice. The street was mostly dark -it was a residential neighbourhood after midnight- but the porch light was on, and a couple of lamps had been left lit in the living room, glowing warmly behind what looked like yellow curtains.
“Grab the gear or leave it?” he asked. God only knew what Andy had in mind, and it was useless to bring their stuff with them if they'd only have to go back out in search of a motel.
Dean pulled his jacket closer to him, and shook his head, reminding Sam a bit of a wet dog. “Nah, leave it. We'll come back for it if we have to,” he echoed Sam's thoughts. “Come on, let's go before we drown standing up!”
Sam trotted up the stairs to the front porch, made sure Dean was right behind him, then rang the doorbell. They waited a few minutes while the rain hammered down around them, though the porch roof was keeping them as dry as they were going to get at this point. A moment later the door opened a fraction, and a pair of anxious eyes peered out at them. Then the gap in the door widened, and Andy was standing there, looking much as he had four months earlier, a bit dishevelled, wearing jeans and a denim jacket, and in need of a shave and a good amount of shampoo. His delighted grin was unfeigned, though, and to Sam's surprise he suddenly found himself on the receiving end of a bone-crushing hug.
“Uh, Andy, hey... oof!” he managed, as Andy almost head-butted him in the solar plexus, effectively cutting off anything else he had to say.
“I'm so glad you're here!” Andy cried, his voice a little muffled from having his face buried in Sam's shirt.
Dean doubled over with another ear-popping sneeze. “HEPKSCHUH! You going to let us in, or are we going to stand out here all night?” he asked petulantly.
“Oh, uh, right.” Andy pulled away from Sam, gave Dean a doubtful glance. “I take it you're not the hugging type?”
Dean gave him a wry look. “Not so much, no. How 'bout a manly handshake and back-pat?”
Andy grinned. “Sure.”
Formalities dispensed with, he led them into the house. Dean whistled appreciatively. “Nice house, dude. You've moved up in the world. What happened to your wheels?”
“Oh, I've still got the van,” Andy assured him. “I, uh, still spend most of my time there. Truth is, being here... in this house... it makes me a little uncomfortable.”
The décor certainly didn't fit with with what Sam knew of his psychic counterpart. Andy was a really bright kid (and it was funny that he thought of Andy as a kid, when they were almost exactly the same age). Scarily bright, really, when it came down to it. Sam had gone into pre-law at Stanford, but by contrast Andy was entirely self-taught, and had a predilection for reading really really difficult philosophy books. Sam had meant to ask him about Kant, in particular, but somehow between the mind-control, the evil twins, and the multiple forced suicides, there had just never seemed to be a good time to bring it up. Go figure. Still, the house was a comfortable suburban thing, decorated all in pastels and bright colours, with quaint lamps and picture frames on the walls. There were also photographs that very obviously weren't Andy's interspersed with some of his.
“Uh... how did you come by the house?” he asked diffidently, feeling a knot starting to form in his stomach.
Andy stiffened. “I didn't Jedi mind-trick anyone into giving it to me, if that's what you're asking.”
Sam raised both hands in a peace gesture. “I'm just wondering, is all.”
Andy looked embarrassed. “Sorry. It's just... my mother left it to me. My birth mother, I mean.”
“Holly Beckett?” Sam felt his eyes widen.
“Yeah,” Andy shrugged, uncomfortable. “Well, she left it to both of us -my brother and me. Only Webber... or Ansem, or whatever the hell his name is -was- isn't exactly around to share. She didn't have any family, you know. I thought that was kind of sad, that she died not ever knowing that her kids were okay. Well, that I was okay. Uh... you guys want a beer or something?”
“God, please.” Dean peeled off his jacket, pressed the back of his wrist to his nose, his face crumpling. “HPTSCHUH!”
“You okay?” Andy was rummaging in the fridge.
They answered at the same time, though predictably Dean's answer was “Yes,” while Sam's was “No.” Dean glared, and Sam shrugged.
“What? It's true. Admit you've got a cold, already.”
“Sam, last I checked, you were studying pre-law at Stanford, not pre-med. Enough with the Doogie Howser act, okay?”
Sam rolled his eyes, went back to the original subject. “It was nice of your... biological mother to give you her house.”
Andy set out the beers on the round wooden table in the kitchen, motioned to them to sit. Dean flipped his chair around and straddled it, arms crossed over the back, chin resting on his forearms, holding his beer bottle by the neck between his thumb and index finger.
“Yeah, it was real nice,” Andy agreed. “Weird, but nice. Having a home all of a sudden... it kind of made me re-think some stuff. I'm thinking of getting a degree, maybe trying for an actual career instead of just impressing the chicks with my rudimentary understanding of philosophy.”
Sam smirked. “Very kantian of you.”
Andy laughed outright at that. “Shit, when do you even find the time to read?”
“Sometimes I don't sleep well,” Sam shrugged, glancing away, at the kitchen clock, anywhere.
Dean broke the awkward silence a moment later, his breath hitching. “Hih... sniff... son of a -HEPTSCHUH!” he kept a death-grip on the beer bottle, which impressed Sam. Trust his brother to keep his priorities straight. He dared Sam to say anything with a quelling look, turned to Andy. “So, dude, not that we don't like you and all, but how about giving us an idea of why you called us out of the blue at night and in the pissing rain?”
“Oh, uh, right. Yeah.” Andy got up, chair scraping against the blue and white tiles of the kitchen floor. He started pacing, seemingly unaware that he was doing it. “I wouldn't have called, you know, if I didn't think it was important. I mean, I know you guys are busy, and that there are bad things -really bad things- out there, and...”
“Dude, spit it out already,” Dean snapped, his temper already frayed by the hour, the fact that he was wet, and by his steadily worsening cold.
Andy made an effort to pull himself together. “You said we were connected, right?” he said to Sam. “Because of this yellow-eyed demon. The one that set fire to my house. You said the demon had plans for us, right?”
“Yeah, that's right.” Sam nodded, encouraging him to continue.
“And you said that there were more people out there like us, right? People our age, with abilities, right?”
“Dude.” Dean made an impatient 'hurry-up' gesture with one hand.
Andy raked a hand through his hair. “I think I've found more of us.”
Sam sat bolt upright in his chair. “You have?”
He nodded, looking pale and uncertain all of a sudden. “Sam... I think something bad is coming.”
Part 3