Chapter Text
Episode 1: “Pilot”
Lawrence, Kansas
22 years ago
The limbs of a leafless tree stretch towards the moonlit sky, casting a menacing shadow on the white, green-shuttered house behind it. The light of an upstairs bedroom shines through white lace curtains. The branches creak, one of them shifting, and the movement is visible in its shadow on the house, the dark line crossing the brick chimney.
A woman enters a doorway within the house, her shadow outlined in the dark hallway. “Come on, let’s say goodnight to your brother,” she says. She flips a light switch to her right, and the bulb set into the ceiling fan comes to life. A young, beautiful woman is revealed, wearing a short sleeved white nightgown with lace at its fringes. A young boy is in her arms, his blond hair shaggy and his green pajama shirt striped with intersecting lines of white. The woman glances ahead of her, looking towards a baby boy shifting in his cradle, swaddled in a light blue blanket. He is laying on top of a quilt, and a small stuffed bear keeps him company inside the dark, wooden bed. A mobile hangs above the crib. The woman sets the boy in her arms on the ground. Her long blond hair, which matches her son’s, falls over her shoulders.
The young boy approaches the crib. He steps up onto the bar that crosses between the crib’s legs and leans down. “Night, Sam,” he says to the small boy in the crib. He places a light kiss on the dark-haired baby’s forehead. The baby smiles. The woman joins the older boy next to the crib. “Goodnight, love,” she coos lovingly to the child in the bed, stroking his hair. The baby’s smile widens and he squeaks happily. He raises his hands towards the woman as she kisses his forehead.
Behind them, a dark-haired man steps into the room, grinning. “Hey, Dean,” he says, greeting the older boy. He wears a green shirt emblazoned with the letters USMC in white.
“Daddy!” the boy exclaims, running across the room towards his father. His hair streams out behind him as he runs. He hops into his father’s arms, and the man scoops him up to his chest.
“Hey, buddy. So what do you think? You think Sammy’s ready to toss around a football yet?” the father asks, looking towards the crib across the room.
The boy in his arms shakes his head vigorously. “No, Daddy,” he says, giggling.
“No,” the man says in amused agreement, smiling fondly at his son.
The woman, presumably the man’s wife, crosses the room. She rubs a hand across her son’s back. “You got him?” she asks the man with a smile.
“I got him,” the man replies, looking about the room contentedly. He pulls his son tighter into his body, and the boy wraps his arms around his father’s neck in a hug. The man pats his son’s back, looking towards his other son in the crib. “Sweet dreams, Sam,” he whispers across the room. The boy in the crib looks back at him. The man nods and carries his older son out of the room, flipping the light off on his way out. The baby’s gaze follows him out of the room. He smiles and lifts his legs, his eyes flickering to the mobile, which is baseball themed. The mobile’s arms hold two baseballs, a baseball bat, and a catching mitt. The mobile begins to spin, and the machine plays a chiming tune.
The clock ticks loudly in the background, and the baby watches as a plane carved out of wood swings rapidly between the eleven and twelve o’clock markers of a round clock before the clock stops ticking and the plane halts in between the two hours. A crescent moon shaped nightlight in the corner of the room casts a warm glow over a shelf cluttered with stuffed animals. The light flickers frantically before going out.
The baby’s parents lay in bed, asleep. The baby monitor at their bedside crackles with static under the sound of a baby’s cry, the red bar fluctuating in length to demonstrate the volume of the audio input. Visible in the moonlight, the woman in the white nightgown shifts, her silver ring glinting in the moonlight. She reaches into the lampshade and turns on the lamp. “John,” she murmurs groggily, turning to the other side of the bed. It is empty.
A picture stands next to the baby monitor on the nightstand. It shows the woman standing with her husband. Her hand lays on his chest, and the two stand pressed against one another. They are in front of a car, which stands in front of a row of houses.
The woman walks through a darkened doorway, sighing from exhaustion and holding a hand to her temple. She enters the baby’s room to find a man already stood next to his crib. The light in the room is turned off. The man wears a cloak, the collar covering the entire back of his neck and his lower face. The entire room is perfectly still- the man does not move. The mobile is still, and the baby does not cry. “John? Is he hungry?” the woman calls softly to the man. The man’s head turns slowly to the side, his eyelashes hardly visible above his collar. His shadowy back shifts slightly, outlined in the softly lit curtains. He shushes her.
“Okay,” the woman says dismissively, and she turns out of the room with a sigh. The glow of a lamp lights her face, her hand still pressed to the side of her forehead. A flickering light bulb at the end of the hallway catches her attention, and she looks towards it groggily as her hand falls from her head.
The woman squints as she approaches the flickering ceiling light, which hangs above a black and white photograph mounted on the wall in a wooden frame. She taps the lampshade, her nails clicking on the ruffled glass. The flickering stops. She hums and her hand drops to her side. She turns back towards her and her husband’s shared bedroom. She pauses and cants her head to the side. There is a constant, muffled sound coming from downstairs.
She glides down the steps, the floorboards creaking slightly. She brushes a hand across the railing as she turns onto the landing and a final set of stairs. She reaches the bottom and looks past the wall into a room with a television. The television is on and depicts anguished soldiers lying on their stomachs in a row, guns under their shoulders. A man lies in front of the television in a chair, snoring lightly.
The woman stares at the man. She recognizes him. She is sure that he is her husband. “Oh my god,” the woman murmurs in horror, immediately dashing back up the stairs. “Sam!” she gasps into the darkness, more to herself than to the boy in the bedroom upstairs. “Sammy!” she calls as she arrives at the top of the stairs, this time speaking loudly enough to be heard in the bedroom. She stumbles through the hallway, lurching into the doorway and placing her hands on either side of the doorframe to stop herself from entering the room. The room is empty, the cloaked man nowhere to be seen. She barely pauses before jogging into the room, her face a perfect illustration of confusion and fear. She lets out a terrified breath.
The husband wakes downstairs to the sound of feminine screaming. “Mary?” he yells, turning his head towards the stairway. There is no response. “Mary!” he yells again, leaping from his chair and pounding up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He barrels through the hallway and into the baby’s bedroom. “Mary,” he says as he twists the doorknob and pushes the door open. The door hits the wall with a bang. He runs into the room.
He halts at the room’s center. He doesn’t see his wife. He glances about the room, first left, then right. His son is giggling in his crib. The man steps towards him in relief. The mobile wafts a cheerful melody through the moonlit room.“Hey, Sammy,” the man says fondly, resting his hands in the edge of the crib. The baby looks at him, the moon lighting his grin. His tongue flicks out to lick his lips as he wiggles playfully on the blankets. “Hey,” the man says again with a small smile. The baby looks down at his feet, still smiling. The man reaches a hand into the crib to caress his son’s face.
A small dot of red appears on the blanket a few inches to the right of the baby’s head. The man notices it, his smile falling. The man diverts his hand from its path, instead reaching to touch the spot of red. The baby’s smile disappears with his father’s. The baby looks up. Two additional dots of red fall in the same on the back of the man’s hand. The dots are dark, wet, and thick enough that they hold the shape of a circle instead of running down the man’s hand. Another dot falls on the man’s hand, just falling on his third finger, grazing its side before dripping down onto the quilt inside the cradle. The man’s face contorts with confusion, his brow furrowing and his lips parting. He pulls his hand closer to him, turning his head to the side to face the ceiling. His mouth drops open in horror and shock.
His wife lays on the ceiling. She is suspended there, her hair forming a golden mane around her head. Her face is pale and her eyebrows are furrowed, her mouth open as if frozen in mid-scream, her eyes wide. Her arms are thrown out to her sides, and her fingertips are pressed into the white ceiling. Her legs are twisted to the left at an uncomfortable angle, her knees bent. The stomach of her nightgown is no longer white but red, stained like a napkin soaked with cherry juice. She breathes erratically, her entire abdomen heaving shallowly with every intake of air.
The man falls back onto the carpet, fear, disbelief, and grief painted across his face and blending into the tragic image of a heartbroken lover. His mouth hangs open. “No! Mary!” he cries helplessly.
With a growl, flames spurt from his wife’s sides, spreading across the ceiling in a mere second. The man cries out. He stares in horror at his wife’s burning body, her facial expression and position unchanged. The inferno is reflected in the man’s eyes. Flames billow around his wife, eating away at her nightgown and hair. The baby turns his face away, squealing, then bawling, in fear.
The man grits his teeth, pulling himself up and pawing at the crib, grabbing the baby and darting out of the burning bedroom. “Daddy!” his other son exclaims, already standing in the hallway. The man bends and hands him the baby.
“Take your brother outside as fast as you can; don’t look back!” the man orders, his eyes filling with tears. “Now, Dean, go!” he yells, and his son runs away, cradling the baby in his arms. The man looks back to the doorway of the bedroom. His son reaches the top of the stairway and begins to jog down the steps. The man runs into the bedroom, shielding his face from the heat and bright light with his hands. “Mary!” he cries, his face falling as his wife nowhere in sight amongst the flames. He cries out, seeing a lump of flesh protruding from the flames. That is all that remains of the woman in white. The inferno explodes, enveloping her husband.
Her son sprints out of the house. He looks back at the window, the flames illuminating the pane of glass through the intact curtains. “It’s okay, Sammy,” he says to the baby in his arms. The crackling of the fire is audible from outside. He stares up into the window, his lower lip pouted and his eyes wide.
His father barrels out of the house, swooping the boy up in his arms and carrying him, still running, away from the house. They make it ten feet before windows on two sides of the house explode, glass streaking through the air with a crash. Fire swirls out from the empty windowpanes.
The fire department arrives, red trucks with the words “Lawrence Fire Department” painted on their sides lining the street. Flashing lights reflect in their glossily painted surfaces. A man in a dirty yellow suit and a much cleaner yellow helmet jumps out of the cab of one truck, bracing his hands on the top of the door. He stumbles as his feet hit the ground, then continues over to a control panel, sending the other firefighter there away to take a hose, joining those scattered manning hoses on the front lawn. Water cascades across the grass and shoots into the windows. The flames roar on.
The father and his sons sit outside, their faces red in the lights of emergency vehicles. The father’s lips brush across the baby’s forehead. The baby does not smile. Yelling is audible in the background, but none of them bother to listen to it. An ambulance arrives, and two men open the doors. Another, a police officer, stops a couple approaching the burning house. “Hey! Stay back! You have to stay back, come on...” he says, pushing them away from the building. They pass the father and his sons, huddled together on the hood of a black car. The baby writhes, his brother sits in sullen silence. The father looks up from the baby. His eyes are bloodshot and his gaze exhausted. He looks straight forward, and hateful resolve glosses his stare.
Stanford University
Present Day
“Sam! Get a move on, would ya? We were supposed to be there like fifteen minutes ago,” said Jess, clomping through the doorway in red stiletto heels that popped off a background of white stockings that stopped just above her knee. A red fringe covered the top of her thighs, the white dress the fringe belonged to accented with red stripes and crosses that matched the color of her lips. She pinned her hair away from her face and walked past the dresser, on which is only photo of Sam’s mother was displayed. It depicted her and his dad, John, in front of their house. Before it was burnt to the ground, at least. “Sam! You comin’ or what?”
Sam stuck his head through the doorway. “Do I have to?” he asked, although he still smiled at her.
“Yes. It’ll be fun,” the mock nurse said, grinning back.
Sam didn’t respond, but stepped through the doorway anyways, breaking eye contact to look upwards, a gesture of giving in. “And where’s your costume?” his girlfriend asked teasingly. Sam let out a breathy laugh on response, shaking his head. Apparently his jean jacket, blue button up, and gray t-shirt weren’t good enough.
“You know how I feel about Halloween,” he said firmly. The nurse shrugged.
The club was filled with the smell of beer, the pulse of some upbeat track Sam didn’t know, and gaggles of college students clustered around tables. Sam sat at one such table, his girlfriend, Jess, dressed as a nurse, and a friend, Luis, dressed as some vividly gory zombie-like creature standing beside him.“So here’s to Sam and his awesome L-SAT victory,” Jess started, raising her glass.
“All right, all right, it’s not that big a deal,” Sam stopped her, although he clinked the rim of his glass hers.
“He acts so humble, but he scored a 174,” she returned, smiling.
“Mmm!” Luis said, gulping down a shot. “Is that good?”
“Scary good,” the nurse answered, bringing her own glass to her lips. She said this as if she could hardly believe his score. It really wasn’t that big of a deal. Sam downed his own shot, his lips pulling back to show his teeth as he tilted back his head and squinted his eyes at the burn of the alcohol.
The zombie responded with a laugh. “So, there you go, you’re our first round draft pick,” he said, moving to the other side of Sam. The dim light of the club now shone perfectly on his painted face, the fake congealed blood and bluish speckled skin tone shining in the glow. “You can go to any law school you want!”
“Actually, I got an interview here- Monday,” Sam returned, looking down. “If it goes okay, I think I’ve got a shot at a full ride next year,” he said, looking back to Luis.
“Hey, it’s gonna go great,” Jess reassured, laying a hand on his, smiling, and raising her eyebrows encouragingly.
Sam smiled helplessly back at her in an attempt to hide his nervousness. He glanced away, then looked back at her.. “It better,” he said.
“How does it feel to be the golden boy in your family?” Luis asked.
“Oh, they don’t know,” said Sam. There was no way he could tell his father and brother about wanting to go to college.
“Oh, no, I would be gloating!” cried the zombie, raising an arm to shoulder level. “Why not?” he continued, lowering the arm.
“Cuz we’re not exactly the Bradys,” mused Sam half-heartedly, throwing an arm down on his lap. Best to play it off lightly; this club was no place for a heart-to-heart with his zombie friend.
“I’m not exactly the Huxtables. More shots?” the zombie asked joyously.
“No,” Sam and Jess said quickly in unison. “No. No!” Sam repeated, turning as Luis headed to the bar anyways. Damn it. He didn’t want to get drunk tonight.
“Okay, seriously, I’m proud of you,” said Jess. Sam turned back to face her. “And you’re gonna knock ‘em dead on Monday, and you’re gonna get that full ride. I know it,” she finished reassuringly, smiling at him.
Sam grinned gently back at her, but only barely. He shook his head a bit. “What would I do without you?” he asked. There was no way he could have done any of this without her constant reassurance to make up for his less than subpar confidence.
“Crash and burn,” Jess sighed, laughing. She leaned in and reached for his neck, and Sam mirrored her actions, meeting her in the middle for a kiss. He placed a hand on her cheek, kissing her thoroughly yet softly.
Sam woke up to a bump from downstairs. He listened for a moment- there it was again, but quieter. He immediately got up, careful not to wake Jess, and stepped down the stairs, floorboards creaking beneath his feet. He mentally ran through his options- whatever it was was probably material; it couldn’t get into their room easily, so the front door was its best option-
Or not.
The downstairs window was open, the handle of its shade still swaying from being moved out of the way. The door into the entrance hallway was hanging open as well- the intruder clearly wasn’t clever enough to cover its tracks but was still small enough to fit through the gap between the window and its frame, which was maybe nine inches tall, probably less.
Floorboards creaked from behind the half-closed door. Sam peered suspiciously through the opening, and- there. A shadow crossed the doorway rapidly in the reflected moonlight, Sam made out a tall, two-legged form. Could it be human? Perhaps he had rushed to conclusions. Maybe he should have kept a baseball bat handy instead of salt. His father had made more of an impact on him than he liked to admit.
Sam stepped quickly yet quietly across the hall to stand pressed against the wall next to the open door. A moment later, the door pushed open, a figure stalking agitatedly into the hall, claiming it with its assertive step. The shadow passed him, and when its back was almost to him, Sam stepped silently forward.
Sam threw a hand down on the intruder’s shoulder. The body turned under his hand immediately to face him, their shadowy forms colliding in the hazy room. The next thing Sam felt was his own arm being twisted behind his back, the next thing he heard his own groan. He immediately pulled away, grasping blindly at the arm holding him and spinning, pulling his opponent along with him until he was thrown back into a doorway. He steadied himself. Taking in the shadow rushing towards him, he kicked out, only to be blocked and sent back with a harder kick into a room- he wasn’t concerned with which one it was in the moment. He faked a punch towards the intruder, the moonlight through the window now providing better lighting to view his enemy. His opponent struck out with alternating fists, and Sam blocked every punch. It was if he had fought the intruder before. They predicted each other’s moves effortlessly, creating the perfect stalemate. Sam kicked out again. The moonlit figure jumped back at the last moment. As Sam brought his leg back down, he found himself on the floor, a fresh pain in his neck and a half-lit face staring down at him.
“Woah, easy tiger,” the intruder said, grinning down at him. Sam stared back at him, breathing hard. He knew that voice. He knew that face.
“Dean?”
The other man chuckled infuriatingly, his smile widening obnoxiously.
“You scared the crap out of me!”
“That’s cuz you’re out of practice,” Dean shot back, critical as always.
That was it. He was done. Sam wet his lips and reared back, kicking his brother to the side. Dean just laughed. Sam sat up, placing a restraining hand on his brother’s chest. “Or not,” Dean admitted. “Get off me,” he continued. Sam pulled him up by the collar of his jacket until the brothers stood, facing each other. He was still pissed. Who the hell breaks into their brother’s house in the middle of the night?
“Dean, what the hell are you doing here?” he asked angrily.
“Well, I was looking for a beer,” Dean replied casually, grabbing Sam by the shoulders. Sam was pretty sure he was joking, but he could never be sure.
“Sam?” A light came on, and Sam turned to the door to see Jess standing in the doorway. Great. Dean was here, and now, he was going to meet Sam’s girlfriend. Wonderful.
“Jess. Hey,” he started awkwardly, turning to Dean to find him staring at Jess and- geez. Could he even be in the same room with a woman without thinking about-
“Dean, this is my girlfriend, Jessica.” Dean nodded shallowly yet enthusiastically, still grinning.
“Wait, your brother, Dean?” Jessica asked, returning the smile.
“I love the Smurfs,” Dean said, gesturing to Jess’s nightshirt- off topic as always- God damn it Dean. Surely, even he’d know not to flirt with his brother’s girlfriend. Oh, but no, no he didn’t!
“You know, I gotta tell you. You- are completely out of my brother’s league,” Dean said, sauntering closer until he stood just in front of the blond.
She nodded dismissively. “Just- let me put something on,” Jess said. All she had on was her Smurfs shirt and a pair of pink striped boyshorts.
“No, no, no, I wouldn’t dream of it. Seriously,” Dean insisted as Sam tried to impale his brother’s heart through his spine with his eyes. Dean’s behavior around women bordered on that of a sexual predator, as always.
Jess smiled tightly, glancing back to Sam. Dean walked to stand by his brother, although his face and eyes stayed turned to Jess the whole way. “Anyway, I gotta borrow your boyfriend here to talk about some private family business, but, uh, nice meeting you,” he said, pointing to her. He was creepy, and now he was even awkward- no wonder he was single.
Jess smiled again weakly, and Sam looked back at her, almost saying something before giving up. There was nothing he could do about his brother’s raging hormones and lack of self control, but he could do something about his lack of respect. “No,” he said to Dean decisively. “No, whatever you want to say, you can say it in front of her.” He crossed the room to stand by Jess’ side, placing his hands on his hips.
“Okay,” Dean returned, calm as ever. “Um, Dad hasn’t been home in a few days.”
“So he’s working overtime on a Miller Time shift? He’ll stumble back in sooner or later,” Sam shot back effortlessly. He knew it was a low blow, but considering the events of the night, he figured he had a free pass.
Dean nodded slightly, dropping his chin down to his chest. Sam hoped he was hiding hurt caused by his cruel joke about their father. Dean looked back up. “Dad’s on a hunting trip,” he clarified, looking at Sam, widening his eyes and pursing his lips challengingly. “And he hasn’t been home in a few days,” he repeated.
Sam did his best to keep his expression still, though he flooded with mixed emotion at the news. Should he be worried? Would he ever escape the life his father had forced him into? Whatever was going on, he needed the whole story, and he needed to talk to Dean. He wasn’t going to jump wholeheartedly into hunting again because Dad failed to come home again. If anything, he needed to give Dean a piece of his mind. “Jess, excuse us,” he said distractedly, not looking away from his brother.
“I mean, come on, you can’t just break in in the middle of the night and expect me to just hit the road with you,” Sam argued, although he followed his brother down the stairs.
“You don’t hear me, Sammy. Dad’s missing. I need you to help me find him,” Dean said, gesturing with an arm.
“Remember the poltergeist in Amhurst or the Devil’s Gates in Clifton? He was missing then, too. He’s always missing, and he’s always fine,” Sam ranted, doing his best to sound angry while staying quiet.
Dean stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned around to face him. “Not for this long. Now, you gonna come with me or not?” he asked, his forehead wrinkling as he stared back at Sam intensely.
“I’m not,” Sam stated immediately.
“Why not?”
“I swore I was done hunting- for good.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Come on, it wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t that bad,” he said, already walking towards the door.
“Yeah?” Sam replied, following him through the dark hallway. “When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45.”
“Well, what was he supposed to do?”
“I was nine years old!” Sam raged. “He was supposed to say ‘don’t be afraid of the dark!’”
“Don’t be afraid of the dark? What, are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what’s out there,” Dean cried back. His loyalty to their father would always be revealed in the ridiculous things he said to justify the way they were brought up. Sam did have to concede that he was perfectly justified in being afraid, though.
“Yeah, I know, but still, the way we grew up after Mom was killed- and Dad’s obsession to find the thing that killed her, but we still haven’t found the damned thing,” Sam said. He paused. “So we kill everything we can find.”
“We save a lot of people doing it, too,” Dean added. Always so self-righteous.
Sam huffed. He looked at his brother, whose face was once again darkened in the shadow cast on him by the door they now argued in front of, iron bars between panes of glass blackening stripes of his face. They stood there for a moment, staring at each other Dean’s iconic confident, unfaltering gaze was still present, a product of years of following orders without question until he believed them to be the best course of action. “You think Mom would’ve wanted this for us?” Sam asked, almost whispering, his voice still fueled with anger.
Dean slammed a hand on the door, pushing it open without touching the handle and stepped out into the parking garage. Sam followed him. “The weapons training and melting the silver into bullets? Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors.”
“So what are you gonna do? You just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it?” Dean asked, sounding exhausted. The pair passed a parked car. Dean turned around and faced Sam just behind it. They stopped walking.
“No, not normal,” Sam argued. “Safe.”
“And that’s why you ran away,” Dean said, a statement, not a question. He stared at Sam. He let out a breath of disbelief, as if Sam were an idiot for wanting to live without ganking monsters.
“I was just going to college,” Sam reasoned. “It was Dad who said if I was going to go I should stay gone,” He tilted his head and gave Dean a small, matter-of-fact smile, then said, “and that’s what I’m doing.”
“Yeah, well Dad’s in real trouble right now,” Dean said. “If he’s not dead already. I can feel it,” he finished.
Sam stared back at him coolly, trying not to show the battle going on in his mind on his face. Go with Dean and risk everything, or stay back and take the chance that he’s abandoning his family?
Dean stared back at him. He bit his lip in frustration, shaking his head slightly. “I can’t do this alone,” he admitted.
Sam squinted back at him. “Yes, you can,” he said simply. All Sam had ever been was the underdog, the inconvenience, the one that needed looking after. Dean didn’t need him.
Dean looked down. “Yeah,” he started. “Well, I don’t want to,” he spat out reluctantly. He didn’t look back at Sam.
Sam still stared at him. He didn’t want to leave Jess and Stanford, but he couldn’t leave Dean to do this alone, could he? Especially when his brother outright admitted he didn’t want to do it alone. It was a rare occasion that Dean admitted much of anything, especially something so personal, something that made him seem so… weak? That wasn’t the word for it. Sam supposed that he could always help Dean find Dad and be back in a few days. He breathed in deeply, holding the air in his lungs, attempting to make up his mind. He sighed a breath out through his nose, tilting his head down towards the ground. He finally looked up at Dean, pressing his lips together. He took a another breath in.
“What was he hunting?”