Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

"Well yeah.  If you're a superhero then it's totally okay.  But the chest armor with nipples just looks stupid."

At some point in the not so distant past, John had considered himself a master of the repress and deny method of not dealing with shit.  That'd been before he'd met Dean. 

They can spend the rest of the trip talking about superheroes and stupid costumes without actually saying anything at all.  He thinks maybe that's okay for now, until he can come up with the right combination of words that excuses the way he actually wants everything the demon had tried to take.

"So what's the deal with this one?"

Dean has been remarkably patient, really.  They'd hit the road minutes after everything went down at the cabin, driving halfway across the state to check in with one of John's contacts and then seven more hours on the road up to Michigan without an explanation.

"Kid killed his father and his uncle and then ran for it.  According to the kid's stepmother, a priest fitting Sam's description helped him get away.  They caught him a couple days later."

"And he went with the crazycakes defense?"

"He went with the 'years of horrible abuse' defense and his lawyer got him checked in here for counseling instead of thrown in prison."

"You really think Sam helped him escape?" 

Dean cranes his neck to look up at the building across the street.  It looks bland and institutional, cold and hard with bars on the windows.  John knows a few guys who've ended up in places like this; got back from the war or a bad hunt and their worlds just fell apart on them.  It doesn't look like a place people go to get better, it looks like a place people go to live out their lives in a safe cage until they die.

"I think the stepmom has some holes in her story big enough to drive a truck though, which is why we're talking to the kid and not her."  He pulls a messy stack of papers from under his seat and passes them over to Dean.  Copies of police reports and transcripts from the trial that Rob had pulled together at the last minute.  "Should only take an hour or so, why don't you see what you can make of that."

"You're going in alone?"

John doesn't answer, just grabs a badge out of the glove box and clips it to the front of his jacket.  Dean's still too young to pass for a Federal Marshal anyway.

Max is twitchy and thin; John doesn't usually give in to bouts of pity but he takes a moment to be thankful the kid didn't end up in general lockdown - he'd be eaten alive.  He's Sam's age but doesn't look it; big eyes and hunched shoulders making him look younger and smaller.

"What do you want?"  He looks up at John suspiciously, but strangely enough he doesn't look scared.

"I just need to ask you a few questions, son."

"You're not my father."  The good 'ol boy routine usually works better than this, but considering the kid's real father sounds like a monster John supposes the distinction is a good thing.

"My apologies, Mr. Miller.  My name is John, I'm with the Federal Marshals.  Can I call you Max?"

Max stares at him.  "You're here about that guy, Sam."

"Do you know where he is?  Where he might have gone after you saw him?"

"No.  And if I did, I wouldn't help you.  He tried to stop me - he's not bad."  Max's gaze drops down to the table for a second, head cocked like he's listening to something John can't hear.  He waits.  "You can't stop it, we're not supposed to.  He's a soldier."  Max looks up.  "He has a mission and you can't stop it."

"Stop what?"  John's knuckles go white on his pen and notepad.  "Max, stop what?"

"Tide's changing."  Max doesn't sound like himself anymore, voice deep and sure instead of cracked and wavering.  "We're soldiers.  Everything's about to change."  His eyes are wide and unfocused, staring off into the corner of the room and lips twitching slightly with half formed words. 

He gets nothing else out of Max.  Fifteen minutes of catching the random words falling from his mouth and John can't make them make sense, when the orderly comes in to lead him away.  Max stops in the doorway just as John is packing up his briefcase, he turns back and looks right at John.

"He could do it too, you know."

The only thing that stops John from screaming back what? is the choking pressure of what feels like a rock lodged in his throat.

Dean is laying across the front seat with the printouts stacked on his stomach and holding a couple of pages up over his face.  John knocks on the window and watches him start and then peer up from under the paper.  He reaches over his head and unlocks the door upside-down, then rolls up to sit.

"You know it's considered child abuse to leave a kid alone in a locked car?"

"You're twenty-four."

"I could've died of hypothermia." 

"Dean, we have a case to work on right now.  Focus."  John yanks the door shut and cranks the engine on.  This bullshit is fine when they're killing time on the road, but they've got bigger things to deal with right now.

"Oh what, you mean this stack of crap I've been going over for the past hour?  And here I thought I was just reading these for the fun of it."

"Dean."

Dean presses his lips together and glares at the dashboard.  "Fine.  These deaths sound shady to me.  How does a kid that weighs like a hundred and forty pounds dripping wet manage to lock a full grown man in his car and keep him there long enough to die of carbon monoxide poisoning without getting poisoned himself?  Or slam a window shut hard enough to decapitate a guy?  It doesn't add up."

"Unless the kid's got powers."

"And?  You see anything?"

"Nope.  Kid's a nutcase.  He saw Sam back in May but I doubt we're gonna get anything else out of him."  He could do it too, you know.  John doesn't mention that part, some things Dean doesn't need to know.

"Are we talking yellow-eyed demon kind of nuts or I killed my daddy for kicks kind of nuts?"

"Probably both."

"Awesome."  Dean shuffles the pages back into a mostly neat stack and shoves them under his seat.  "So what's next on the list?"

"Gotta go at it like any other case.  We'll start in Palo Alto and talk to his friends and neighbors.  Figure out if maybe he's kept in touch with anyone there that'll give us a clue."  Neither of them says Sam's name.

They're almost an hour out of Michigan when John gets the call from Missouri.

"John Winchester I could smack you.  Your boy's been here and he looks like death warmed over.  You drive straight down here right now and I'll have breakfast waitin' for you and Dean."

"Hello to you too, Missouri."  He doesn't bother asking how she knows about Dean.  "You saw Sam?  When?"

"Just a little while ago.  You get down here now and I'll tell you all you want to know."

No use arguing, John knows from experience Missouri can kick his ass six ways from Sunday without so much as waving her wooden spoon.  "We'll be there in about nine hours," he says.

"I know.  And for god's sake let Dean lay down in the back seat, can't you tell that boy's back is bothering him?"

John glances over at Dean, who's twisted up in the seat again and drumming his fingers on the top of his thighs.  His face is blank but it's easy enough to tell the attitude is affected.  John swears under his breath, remembers the phone a moment too late and tries to hold it away from his face.

Which does exactly nothing.  "Keep talking like that and I'm gonna feed you a bar of soap when you get here instead of pancakes."

"My apologies, Ma'am. We'll be there soon as we can."

He hangs up to her grumbling about getting called ma'am.  He looks over at Dean again, notices the twist of his shoulders and the way his fingers hitch in their rhythm every once in a while.  Goddammit, the bruising must've been worse than he thought and who knows what kind of damage the demon had done on top of that.

"How's your back?"  John asks, not expecting a straight answer.

"Hurts like a bitch.  Good thing two straight days in the car is exactly what the doctor ordered, eh?"

Shit.  He pulls over to the side of the road and pops the glove compartment, chucks the bottle of acetaminophen into Dean's lap.  "And you thought hiding this from me was a good idea because-?"

Dean shrugs one shoulder.  "We gotta find Sammy, right?"

"Just take those and get in the damn backseat so you can lay down.  And next time you think about hiding an injury from me?  Don't."

Dean doesn't argue, and John winces as he watches Dean open the door and climb slowly into the back.  He can already tell he's going to catch hell from Missouri when Dean comes limping in; probably chide him that the kid's too skinny; nevermind that Dean is built solid through. 

He doesn't talk to Missouri all that often, but some days there's just no pleasing her and John really wishes he could quash whatever impulse it was that made him feel bad about it.  None of that really matters though, minutes ago he'd thought they had zilch on Sam and now he knows Missouri saw him just days ago and fuck if that isn't some awesome timing.

"John Winchester, you look like something dragged in outta the dumpster.  Get in here and stop looking at me like a damn fool puppy."  John can hear Dean behind him, trying not to snicker and failing miserably.  He steps out of the way and it isn't long before she starts in on Dean too.  "And you'll wipe your feet before you come in my house, boy."  Missouri points a stern finger down at the mat and glares at Dean until he obeys.

Everything in the room is soft and homey, small touches of nostalgia littered throughout and Dean looks about ready to bolt.  He pats down the back of his jeans before he sits and John realizes he has no clue when was the last time they made a pit stop for laundry.  One more thing that can wait, but probably not for much longer he thinks as he notices the dried mud cracking on the hem of his jeans.

John shifts in his seat, folds his hands in front of him.  "You said you saw him."

"Not in person, no.  But when I stood by that grave, hoo-boy, I could see him alright.  Your boy is teetering on the edge of something bad, John.  I can't pin it down, but it's powerful."

"Was anyone with him?"

She doesn't have to ask to know he means demons.  "He was alone, far as I could tell.  But there's a dark energy following him, it's small for now but it's growing." 

They end up crashing in a motel in Lawrence, three days with little to no sleep and no new leads to chase finally catching up with John, as loathe as he is to admit it. 

Dean hits the bathroom for a shower without a word, probably hoping to soak out some of the soreness.  John's eyes are gritty and dry, a headache building from the base of his skull and threatening to take hold.  Tired as he is, he can't quite sleep, not yet.  John paces the room, stretching his legs  and letting his thoughts flip through the scant leads they had yet to run down.

Missouri couldn't find a trace to hint at where Sam had headed next, but that didn't mean there weren't clues around town.  He'd questioned the motel clerk on the way in, flashed a photo of Sam that was at least seven years out of date.  There are a bunch of other motels in town, but only a few John knows Sam is likely to actually stay in.  But that's assuming he's staying in motels at all, god knows they've both spent their share of nights twisted up sleeping in the car.

Dean walks out of the bathroom thirty minutes later in a cloud of steam.

"You leave any hot water?"

"Nope," he says without a hint of apology and falls face first into bed.

"How bad is it?"

"Water pressure sucks, but there wasn't anything growing in the sink so I count it a win."  Dean's face is smushed into the pillow, words slurred and lazy.

"That's not what I was asking."

"Uh huh."

Fuck it, he thinks, Dean is supposed to know better than to hide serious injuries.  He sits down on the opposite bed and leans across the narrow space, pulls up the hem of Dean's shirt carefully but quickly.  Dean makes an irritated noise and flails an arm back to slap him away, but John backs off before he can make contact, caught up looking over Dean's lower back and taking in the damage.  The skin is mottled black and blue, concentrated on his left side and worse than John had assumed.

"Jesus," he breathes out.

Dean snorts.  "Pretty sure it wasn't Jesus."

It's too quiet in the motel room, even with the afternoon noise from the street filtering in from outside.  John stands, double checks the salt line and tucks a revolver in the back of his jeans as he heads out the door, ignoring Dean's half formed question. He paces outside for a minute, pissed at himself for walking out without any idea where he was headed.  They've got no leads on Sam, no leads on the hunt, and it's too damn dangerous to pull a hustle or go out for a drink right now.  Not when the demon might still be tailing them.

He forces himself to stand still, fingering the hex bag stuck in his pocket.  Missouri had handed them off just as they'd left, no explanation but a stern glare and 'keep these on you, don't you lose them now.'  He has no idea how effective they'll be; trusts  gun and salt and things he can see, only falling back on the witchcraft when there's no other choice.  There's an extra one for Sam tucked in the very back of the glove compartment. 

Fat lot of good it'll do him there.

He grabs a hot/cold pack from the first aid kit in the trunk and heads back inside.  Dean is still sprawled out on the bed, but flipped around with the tv on and news clippings spread out in front of him.  He looks up when John comes in but doesn't say anything.  John plunks the heat pack in room's tiny microwave and waits for it to heat up.

John clears his throat.  "Find anything good?"

"Not sure yet.  You have all these reports of electrical storms either right before or right after the kids' six month birthdays, but it's too general to track.  There are hundreds of thunder storms all over the country every year, maybe thousands.  There's no way to narrow it down."

"Look closer.  All of the storms were localized, the kids' houses were always dead center.  The timing changes a little but nothing else does."  The microwave dings and John takes out the pack, swapping it from hand to hand to make sure it isn't too hot.

"So what, we start scanning the weather channel twenty-four seven?"

John shrugs.  "If we have to.  If this thing is tracking Sam and the storms are tracking it, then it's best thing we've got right now."  There's got to be another way, but after twenty years he hasn't found it.  He carefully lays the heat pack on Dean's back.  Dean hisses as the heat sinks in, closes his eyes and shifts against the bed in a way that makes John realize he's still got his hand on top of the pack. 

"Better?"

"Mm," is all he says.

January 2007

The world tilts off it's axis, or that's how it feels, how it looks.  The ceiling flashes and blurs; fades away in shudders and jolts to a bird's eye view of the grimy bathroom sink.  Sam gags on it, the sudden shock of the shotgun blast replaced with a grinding headache.  He splashes water on his face and neck, swallows a few handfuls and stares at himself in the mirror until he's sure he can actually keep it down. 

Small town, bus stop, he thinks.  And a lake on the poster, where was it? 

He stumbles back out to the truck and downs a couple aspirin dry for all the good they'll do.  He spends a good ten minutes with stolen pad of motel paper and a pen, messily tracing over and over the lines making up the logo on the bus before his vision has cleared enough to actually drive.  His head is still pounding; he could be better off, but he could also definitely be worse. 

He needs to get back to the motel and on his computer if he has any hope of figuring out where the fuck he was headed next.

Nearly twelve hours later he gets in just in time to see the EMTs wrapping up the body of the man from his vision.

"What happened?" He asks one of the gawkers, not really wanting confirmation but needing it anyway. Always too little too late.

"It was Doctor Jennings.  He just walked right into the store and blew his own head off," the woman says, stunned.  "He delivered both of my kids, I just can't believe he could do this."

"Yeah."  Sam mutters something about never really knowing people and slips to the back of the crowd to take a better look at the area. 

Thirty minutes and one stolen wifi connection later, Sam has the name and last known employer of a guy just like Max and him; mother dead in a fire at six months and a sketchy as hell lack of information on his whereabouts for the past year and a half.  It's dark as hell, this picture that he's getting of what he's going to become.

"So you get visions of people about to die?"

"Why'd you do it, Andy?"

"I didn't kill anyone!  Why would I want to kill Dr. Jennings?  But seriously, death visions?  Dude,"  Andy stares at Sam like he's a sideshow freak, somehow less concerned about the murder accusation than he is about Sam's visions.

"I don't know how you're doing it, but I know it's you.  And whatever it is that's happened, whatever Dr. Jennings did - it's gotta stop, man.  Or I'll have to stop you."  He doesn't really know if he means that, doesn't know if he could actually kill the guy.  Gray area shit like this is just how Max ended up in prison - killing the human monsters instead of sticking to the cut-and-dry cases, but maybe prison is the best place for all of them.  Locked away to keep everyone else safe from whatever it is they're turning into. 

And maybe this is the first step.  Start killing human brings for good reasons and see how long it takes to start killing to any reason at all.

"Listen, I don't know what you think I did but maybe - "

Andy's voice fades to the background as pain flares in Sam's skull.  He stumbles off the sidewalk onto the lawn and sits down, barely aware of where he is anymore as the world around him flashes to something completely different.  Gas station.  Well-off woman on a cell phone.

Going up in flames.

"Whatever just happened, I didn't do it.  Oh shit, are you dying?  Please don't die."

Sam is pretty sure he isn't dying but it feels like maybe he should be.  It feels like his head is splitting open with the pressure, worse than before and amplified by the ache that had never really faded from yesterday.  He rolls back onto his feet clumsily and presses the heels of his hands against his temples as hard as he can.  It doesn't help.

He opens his eyes reluctantly and sees Andy's face hovering over him looking worried.  "A woman.  A woman burning," he says without knowing what he's trying to get across.  "Why?"

"That was a vision?"

"I saw a woman burning herself alive at a gas station."  Sam breathes out slowly and looks at Andy, putting every inch of his height to good use.  "How are you doing it?"

"I'm not doing it!  I'm not, I don't even know what you're talking about."

Sam hears the opening wail of fire engine in the background and they both stop and look around to try and figure out where it's coming from.

"It wasn't me.  I was here the whole time, you saw me.  I haven't done anything, I swear."

Sam stalls a minute, he can't leave Andy alone but he's willing to bet the sirens were heading for the gas station he'd just seen.  Something is wrong here, whatever these visions are, he usually has more warning than this.

"Get in the truck, we're going to see what happened."

"I don't really know if that's such a good idea.  Should you be driving right now?  Maybe you should sit down for a bit and uh, I'll go get help."  Yeah right, like he's gonna let that happen.  "Seriously, man.  Sit down and relax for a bit."

Sam just stares at him and there's a flash of surprise in Andy's eyes.

"Leave me alone.  Forget about your crazy murder theories, go take a nice long nap and then leave town and never come back."

"Get in the truck."

Twenty-four hours later and Ansem is dead from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head, Tracy is shaking and giving a very hazy report to the police and Andy looks more spaced out than any illegal substance could hope to achieve.

"You ever have those moments when you can't believe this is really your life?"

Sam snorts.  "All the time."

"Yeah.  I have an evil twin," Andy says, trying the words out for size.  He pauses a second and then corrects.  "Had.  I had an evil twin."

They both wince. 

"She's afraid of me now.  I never...I mean, not before tonight.  I never used it on her.  She won't even look at me."  Andy nods towards Tracy, sitting hunched in the back of an ambulance in the middle of the bustle of police and EMTs.

"I'm sorry,"  Sam says and doesn't specify for what exactly.  The town is a dead end, any leads on the demon died with Ansem and Sam's gotta get moving.  "Listen, I hate to do this to you but I've gotta go.  You've got my number, just, call me if anything comes up alright?"

"Yeah."  Andy still looks lost, but Sam figures he's the last person to be giving relationship advice.  Andy's a smart guy; he'll figure it out, or he won't.  Sam has bigger problems to deal with.

February 2007

Four weeks and upwards of four thousand miles of dead ends later they're standing in the middle of Rivergrove, Oregon with fuck-all to show for it.  There's literally nothing in the town; no people, no traces of sulfur, and the only thing that vaguely hints at Sam is the medical center, which is stocked to the gills with home made explosives and a shitton of rock salt.  It could very well have been some other hunter, but there's no way to know for sure; not with all potential witnesses MIA.

"Seriously, where the fuck could they have gone?  It's not like they friggin' melted," Dean says as he flips over a stray hubcap with the tip of his bowie.  There's a splotch of blood staining the asphalt underneath, like all the other traces of violence they've found around town with no clear explanation for any of them.  "Storm came through here, what, four weeks ago?"

"Yeah."

"And not one person got out?"

"Apparently the town was quarantined for a couple of days right after the storm hit.  By the time the quarantine was lifted - "  John waves a hand at the empty street.  "There's a doc up in Sidewinder who's been raising a stink, trying to get the CDC involved.  But without any bodies she's not having much luck.  Only people interested are the crazies."

"Lemme guess, E.T. phoned home and the entire town got beamed up by the mothership?"

"Makes about as much sense as anything else does.  Popular theory is some kind of suicide cult and the bodies are hidden away somewhere no one's been able to find yet."

"Maybe it's just me, but I kinda think a couple hundred dead bodies would be difficult to hide."

For all that it's a gruesome thought, it is right on the mark.  No way the combined task force of Feds and local law enforcement searched the area for weeks and missed a heaping pile of corpses, they'd be able to smell it from miles away if nothing else.  It's possible they self-immolated, but even then the smoke and the pile of ash and bone would be an easy mark. 

For whatever reason, everyone in the town vanished without a trace, including Sam, if he was here.  John has never hoped so much to be wrong.

Dean stands up slowly, eyes still scanning the perimeter like there's any chance they'll catch something alive and moving.  They've spent the past three days sweeping every building, backyard and mom-and-pop shop in the area and found diddly squat.

"The doc might know something."

If Sam was ever here, he only thing John knows is that he isn't anymore.  But a hunter definitely was, and if they'd left ordinance behind it meant they'd either been captured or left in a hurry and couldn't carry it with them.  Both possibilities leave him cold. 

"Yeah, let's check out the doc."

Five miles down the road to Sidewinder there's an abandoned pickup truck on the side of the road with blood smeared over the driver's seat and steering wheel and a dusting of sulfur covering the dash and clouding the windows.

Dean wrinkles his nose and reaches inside to pop the glove compartment while John checks the back for a weapons compartment.  He finds nothing, and Dean comes up with a stack of run of the mill toll receipts and insurance cards.  No fake IDs, no salt, no weapons; it's not the hunter's truck and it's definitely not Sammy's.  Last he'd heard, Sam'd been driving a black Ford pickup and they hadn't found anything matching that description in the town. 

Amanda Lee is living in a hole in the wall tiny apartment on the outskirts of Sidewinder, in an outdated building with narrow hallways and cracked linoleum floors.  She opens the door with the chain still attached and raises an eyebrow at their Federal Marshalls badges.

"I've heard that one before."  She looks them over with a critical expression.  "Are you here about Rivergrove?"

"Yes ma'am," Dean answers as earnestly as he can.  To John it doesn't look very earnest at all, but Amanda must buy it because she closes the door and slips off the chain.

"Come on in.  Can I get you something to drink?"

It's obvious right away why she's stuck in a rundown building like this; books, paper and various documents are piled up everywhere, from the couch cushions to cardboard boxes that have clearly been left unpacked.  John knows he's obsessed, but it's always a surprise to see your own mania reflected back at you so clearly.  As far as he knows, everything this woman knew as home disappeared with no explanation in the space of a few days.  It's understandable.

John shoves his hands into his pockets and looks around for a place to sit.  Amanda notices his hesitation and shoves a few piles of paper off of the couch. 

"Sorry about the mess," she says without much feeling behind it. "Coffee, tea?"

John waves her off and lacking something to do, she sits down uneasily on top of one of the large boxes with her hands folded in her lap.

"So."

"So, Ms. Lee.  Can you tell us what happened in Rivergrove?"

"If you've read the reports -"

"We have," Dean interrupts.  "We'd just like to hear it from you, in your own words.  A first hand account can be very helpful in situations like this."

"Well," she takes a deep breath.  "Everyone in town just went mad.  It seemed to spread like a blood borne contagion, but not like one I've ever seen.  Some diseases have been know to cause dementia but - nothing like this.  And then they just disappeared.  No trace, nothing left behind; they just vanished.  Look, I know what the news has been saying and I know that's the story that makes the most sense but that's not what happened."

"I know this must be difficult, but can you tell us how you managed to get out?"

"I didn't.  Not until after everyone else was gone.  There was a man," she stops and eyes them for a minute, considering.  "A stranger that came to town the day everything happened.  Said he was a Federal Marshall too.  He looked very young for the job," she says with a pointed look at Dean.

John clears his throat, time to steer the conversation a bit.  "And this man, he helped you get out?"

"He- He was infected.  It's the reason Mark and Duane and I left without him, left him behind."  John's vision pinholes at that, hyperfocused on a tiny crack in the wall behind Amanda's left shoulder.  "We left him locked in the medical center, but when we saw that everyone had disappeared we went right back and he was gone.  But,"

John forces himself to meet her eyes, doesn't want to hear the next part but can't stop himself hoping.

"- his truck was gone too.  It was parked right outside the center and when we came back it was gone and so was he.  I um, I heard Mark and Duane were never found.  As far as I know we're the only ones that got out."

"You said it was like a virus, what does the CDC have to say about it?"

Thank god Dean's there to make this look vaguely legitimate and keep asking questions even though they've got everything they wanted.  Or not what they wanted, but as much information about Sam as this woman seems to have.  It may not be the best news, but it's better than anything they have so far.  All of the other victims had left everything behind - the police that had combed the town had found everyone's cars still parked in the driveways and streets.  If Sammy's truck was gone, then maybe that meant he'd driven himself out of there on his own steam.

He was infected, John thinks.  In what state he'd driven out of there was another question altogether.  John tunes back into the conversation just in time to hear Dean ask, "Would he have been able to drive if he'd been infected?"

She shakes her head.  "It depends on how far along it was.  I mean, until they presented with obvious symptoms there was no way to tell who was infected and who wasn't.  And even then, someone behaving completely normally could snap at any second."

"If you couldn't tell who was infected how did you know Sam was?"

Amanda's eyes widen a bit at that, but she answers like she didn't notice his slip.  "He had direct blood to blood contact.  There was just no way he wasn't exposed."

"Thank you for your time," Dean fills in while John tries to process.  Awkward handshakes are exchanged and she catches John's eye just as she's about to close the door behind them.

"I hope you find him," she says, serious and honest.  John nods and accepts it without bothering to ask how she made them, wondering just how obvious they'd been with their questions.

 
"Sulfuric residue in the blood," Dean whistles through his teeth.  "I don't remember much biology but that sounds a little unhealthy.  But seriously, what the hell?  You ever heard of a demonic plague?"

"No.  I have heard of something similar though.  Roanoke."

"What's that?"

"You pay any attention in school?"  John swipes a hand through his hair and gives Dean a rundown of the basics.

"So this happened once before that we know of.  You think 'croatoan' is the name of a demon?"

"I think it might be.  Or the name of the disease, who the fuck knows.  Only person who might have a better idea what happened in that town is Sam."

Leads on Sam start popping up like weeds in early March.  As if all the previous months chasing second and third-hand echoes of Sam were the calm before the storm and now there's a supercell forming that's visible from miles away.  Police reports of petty thefts, APBs out on suspects fitting Sam's description spanning three states, and murmurs loud enough among hunters that even John, isolated as he is, can't help but overhear. 

Everything they're saying is bullshit, of course, and he'll keep repeating it until it's proved true.  Either that or he witnesses with his own two eyes some incontrovertible goddamn proof that his boy is anything but one-hundred percent pure human.

Dean keeps stealing glances over at him whenever he thinks John isn't paying attention, which is ridiculous because John is always paying attention and it pisses him off a little.  He's not distracted; he's never been more focused in his life.

Sam's last suspected location is two days ago at a roadside diner just outside of Des Moines, Iowa.   They're 400 miles away, racing down Rt. 76 at eighty miles an hour.  He floors it.