Bad Company

Nothing was going their way. Sam’s laptop was on the fritz and all their research had to be done in the stuffy local library with a hawk-life librarian peering at them every minute or so. Even after trawling through newspapers dating back to the 80's, they found barely a scrap of anything interesting.

Then there had been the realization that the Impala was in need of an oil change. Dean had been kicking himself all morning; between the goings-on with the angels and the apocalypse, he hadn’t had time to just work on the simple things in his life.

And then Dean’s order was mixed up at the diner they were at for lunch, and he’d bitten into the sloppy veggie burger without thinking. It was the absence of meat and cheese and delicious fucking goodness that made him spit out his mouthful.

“Dude,” Sam said, his voice climbing an octave in righteous disgust, and he eyed Dean like his brother had just whipped out his junk at the table.

“Damnit,” Dean grunted. He picked up his traitorous burger and waved it in Sam’s face for a moment. “I’ve been poisoned.”

Sam leaned away from the offending sandwich and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. When was the last time they’d gotten a time out from each others company? He didn’t even know, but he was sick of Dean’s complaining, and he hated sleeping in the car while his brother drove. He’d been doing it since he was a kid, since his dad had let him throw his hated booster seat out, but that didn’t stop the annoying permanent crick in Sam’s back from giving him grief.

“They’re called vegetables,” Sam told his brother who had dropped the ‘burger’ on his plate and was glaring at it like it was the reason for every bad piece of luck they’d been cursed with. “The only thing they could hurt is that beer gut you’re working on.”

Dean lifted his eyes up to Sam and looked affronted. “I’m in peak physical condition,” he said but couldn’t help the self-conscious glance down at himself.

Sam rolled his eyes and reached for the stack of papers he’d copied from newspapers at the library. He read through some of the grainy articles for a moment before finding something that might have been in their sphere of influence.

Dean grumbled under his breath when Sam reached across the table and gave his arm a nudge to get his attention. “What?” Dean asked moodily.

“Read this,” Sam replied, passing over a sheet of paper from a newspaper in Washington. It was called the Forks Forum, and for all intents and purposes it was just some Podunk little paper running puff pieces about duck hunting.

“Bear attacks?” Dean read, and Sam nodded. “You want to go hunt Yogi?”

“Dean,” Sam said, and his brother offered a smirk. “How often are reports of grizzlies really just black dogs? Or Wendigos. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about Wendigos.”

“Fine,” Dean mumbled, pushing his plate away but then reaching for a French fry, suddenly changing his mind about his appetite being ruined. “Where is this? Forks? Where the hell is that?”

“Washington,” Sam replied, and not for the first time in the past few days wished he could take out his laptop and just Google to his hearts content. But there was some nasty kind of malware on his computer now, probably due to Dean's hunt for porn.

Dean rapped his knuckles against the table, shoved a fry into his mouth then scrubbed his hands together. “That’s about a day’s drive away,” he said, making quick calculations in his head. If he changed the Impala’s oil that afternoon they could be in Forks by sunset the next day, if they left as soon as possible and didn’t stop.

They’d been avoiding motels since Lucifer popped out like a jack-in-a-box. Both Winchesters felt like sitting ducks when they weren’t on the move, even with salt lines at every possible entrance and those handy Enochian sigils on their ribs. The world had been going down the toilet and monsters and spirits just wouldn’t stop surfacing from the supernatural lagoon, so stopping to smell the roses just wasn’t an option.

When his brother stood up and turned his back, Sam dropped a few dollar bills on the table for the waitress, as thanks for mixing up Dean’s heart-attack in a bun for something infinitely healthier. Dean was rattling off a list of things to do before they hit the road again, and Sam followed his brother out of the diner, half-listening.

They’d driven to Nevada on wind of a case Bobby had got them onto; it had been a simple gig. Just a routine salt ‘n’ burn, and they’d tramped back to their motel with grave dirt under their fingernails and in their boots.

West Wendover was just another pit stop of a town to the Winchesters.

They walked back to the motel and Dean stopped in the parking lot to give the Impala a much needed check-up. Sam went inside to pack their bags, ready to be tossed into the trunk.

When Sam was done, he dropped the duffels by the door and loaded a few magazines for his pistol with silver rounds. He tucked his gun into the back of his jeans and slipped one of the magazines into his pocket, the others going into his bag.

While he waited for Dean to finish with the car, he looked over the article from the Forks Forum. He frowned, reading through it carefully a few times. Sightings of huge, wild animals in the woods and mangled human remains never boded well in Sam’s experience.

_________________________________•••

The drive to Washington didn’t take as long as expected. The weather was fine and the roads were clear enough so that Dean could break the speed limit. Sam slept in the front seat again, and when he woke he was in a grim mood. The night was inky black outside the windows of the Impala, and inside the car the silence was oppressing.

Sam scrubbed the heel of his palm into his eye socket to grind away the sleep, and then he fixed a stern look on his brother. Dean was gripping the steering wheel tightly, and his back and shoulders were rigid. He hadn’t gotten any shut-eye; that much was obvious.

“I can drive for a while,” Sam grudgingly offered, and Dean snorted.

“That’s alright, Princess. You just go back to your nap.”

“Dean, you’re exhausted!” Sam said, annoyed. “You’ll take us off the road if you’re not careful.”

“I will not,” Dean snapped back. “Just quit your whining, and I’ll get us there in one piece, like I always do.”

Dean leveled a quick glare at Sam, who then rolled his eyes and cupped his forehead in his large hand, exasperated. “Fine,” he finally muttered. He reached into the backseat and tugged the case file he’d been compiling out of his open duffel bag.

He kept going over and over it, as though to find something he’d missed the first twenty times. Every time he read to the end of the brief obit, nothing new popped out at him, and he’d sigh and knead his fingers into his forehead and between his furrowed eyebrows.

By the time they passed the road sign welcoming them into Washington, Sam could probably recite the article off by heart.