R | SPN | Stranger Things Have Happened 1/2
Sam woke with a start, still having the same dream of watching those shadows overtake his brother, like he dreamed about most nights. He couldn’t get over the way he felt so helpless in not finding Dean and in not knowing what was going on. The clock told him it was early afternoon and he remembered being out late last night, scoping out leads in the City, crawling into bed just before the sun came back up, and being completely knocked out to sleep. He was groggy and yet uptight, thinking about Dean and what kind of trouble he had gotten into. But that feeling didn’t last long, because he heard a hard thumping coming from within the house, and he was suddenly anxious and worried, on edge. He rose from bed and crept down the hallway, a gun in his hand. The thumping stopped, but then he heard some metal on metal scraping noises, doors sliding open and closed, and then the thumping started up again. As he got closer, the radio came through, pushing Van Morrison’s gruff voice through the air. Andie listened to that a lot in the kitchen, he knew that.
He was picturing her in the kitchen, doing her own thing before something took over and attacked her. The shadows? Zachariah? Some other being? He slowly wound himself around the corner, waiting to see the billowy figures, to see Andie unprotected. The pounding grew louder, more intense, like a power tool.
Instead, he saw her at the counter, moving her arms a little vigorously and her head nodding along to the fast beat of “Baby Please Don’t Go” coming from the CD player. He sighed, thankful to see her okay.
She turned quickly at his noise, looking about ten kinds of scared. Her face relaxed a bit when she saw Sam, but then the gun was in view and her eyes bugged out. “What’s wrong?”
He pulled the gun out of sight and tucked it into the back of his pants. His voice was nonchalant. “Nothing. What’re you doing?”
Her eyes had watched his hands for that entire movement. “What’re you doing?”
“Nothing. I thought ... What is this?” he asked strangely, seeing the spatula still in her hand and quite a mess at the counter.
Her voice went sheepish, hearing his annoyance. “Happy birthday?”
Okay, so yeah, Sam had been crashing at Andie’s for the last two months while he researched the hell out of the incident at the Latino Cultural Center. While she went to work, he did, too, scoping out the neighborhood, asking residents and workers what they saw in the days he was locked up. And maybe he had lost track of all time, and maybe with the last five years on the road with Dean plus the many, many dysfunctional years travelling with his father, he’d kind of forgotten what to do on his birthday. On the rare occasions they did celebrate it, Dean usually dropped a six pack in his lap and offered to pay for a night of motel porn before leaving Sam alone to ‘celebrate with himself.’ Sometimes it was best to just forget it.
Sam looked again at everything, realizing the thumping was the mixer against a bowl, the metal scraping was likely the oven (which was on at the moment), and when he looked outside, he saw smoke billowing from the grill. He sighed with a sad smile and moved closer. She still looked a little nervous, or embarrassed, he wasn’t sure.
“Do you want the spatula?” she asked, motioning to the cake mix stuck to the rubber.
Sam laughed lightly and came even closer, swiping a finger across the batter and licking his finger. “What is that?”
“Banana.”
“Banana cake?”
“Yeah,” she said a little quiet, still embarrassed.
“What else is there?” He glanced to the grill outside. “Are you barbequing?”
“Yeah. Chicken and corn.”
Even though it was still strange to him, he had to smile. Andie wasn’t quite a homebody, but she liked - and most importantly knew how - to cook. She didn’t ever dream up complicated, extravagant meals, but she consistently put together a pretty good homemade meal that made him wish he could have that normal kind of life. Where the end of his workday was coming home - possibly to her, he did like being with her - and having real food on the table and someone to ask how things were going. Instead, for five years, the end of his day was packing up the same dozen pieces of clothing into two bags and driving off to another dingy motel and another crazy phantom terror.
Her voice broke through his thoughts. “You okay?”
He smiled, though it didn’t reach very far. It was awkward, but he definitely was touched by her effort. “Yeah,” and he leaned down to kiss her.
She smiled and turned back to the cake mix, scooping it into a baking pan. “You got in late this morning.”
Sam sat at the kitchen table, pulling a notebook closer to him and going through his notes like he did every day. “Yeah, I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
“No. It’s just … you weren’t there then suddenly you were.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. So many nights went just like that, and he felt awful for not really being around much while she let him into her house, into her life, and tried to help him the best she could.
After she placed the cake into the oven, she rested a hand at his head. “Hey. It’s okay.” Her face was drawn down, feeling so bad for him. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to be in his position. To be lost without his brother, searching endlessly for him and constantly worried. She was by proxy, but it wasn’t the same. “Did you find anything?”
“No. Nothing new.”
She heard the clip in his voice. “Sam,” she tried with comfort.
He tapped a pen at the paper, trying to not answer her. But he just couldn’t keep it in any longer. “What if I don’t find him?” He saw her bite the inside of her lip. “What?”
So many times, she told herself it was better to let Sam deal with Dean being gone. One day she tried to explain to him what happened that day at the hospital. How he was awkward in saying goodbye to her and then walked off. Without a word, and she had the hard feelings of him deserting Sam. But he turned on her the instant she tried to imply that Dean was doing his own thing right then. Sam obviously didn’t want to hear that there wasn’t something behind Dean’s disappearance, and he wouldn’t stop looking until he knew exactly where Dean was and that he was okay. She was pretty sure it was him fighting the rejection of Dean leaving.
A few times she lied to him, that she saw him hanging out at sleazy bars, hitting on easy girls, and basically living out the better “tourist” activities of being on the road. Just so Sam would relax. It hurt her because in reality, she had begged the angels to take away her ability to see the future, so there was nothing left to predict. She lied to him over that, and also Dean, and it never got easier.
Instead she tried to be encouraging, assuring. “We’ll find something.”
But it hardly ever worked. He laughed there in her kitchen, short and angry, despite the warm and sweet smells in the air. Sam looked down to the notebook again. “Right, we.”
“What? I can help.”
“You gonna come hunt with me?”
“Why not?” He didn’t answer, but she saw the face that said he thought she was crazy. “I survived two hunts with you two. Came out pretty well the last time. I think I’ll do okay.”
“Andie, you couldn’t even come close to understanding the kinds of things we see.”
“Really? Because I’ve been watching you for a year now. I’ve seen a lot of your shit.”
He looked at her, hard at first but then kind of easy. Because it wasn’t what he expected her to say. She’d never said how long - or how much - she watched him. It was a little surprising. And flattering, really. “A year?”
“Yeah, whatever,” she tried to excuse away. “You want to go on the road? We go. And we find things.”
“I can’t do that to you.”
“What are the options? You wanna leave? Or you just gonna stay and live this screwed up life?”
Now he was on his feet and getting angry. “No, of course I don’t. But there’s no way you’ll survive out there.”
Her hands went to her hips. “How do you survive?”
His voice had a total ‘duh’ quality to it. “Uh, my father was a marine. I learned a few tricks.”
“I’ve been in kickboxing for five years and running most my life. Try me.”
Sam looked down on her and while she wasn’t exactly petite, she was slim and kind of lanky. He couldn’t imagine her having much coordination for anything that wasn’t running. But then his head tipped to the side remembering how she outran him that first time they saw each other. So maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. He chuckled anyway. “Andie, I’m sorry. But a gym class isn’t quite the same.”
“Afraid I’ll kick your ass?”
“No.”
With a cocky smile, she backed out of the kitchen and to the living room. “Let’s go, Losechester.”
He didn’t come right away, but when he did, he pulled the gun from the back of his pants. She raised her hands in mock defense and he chuckled, making a show of putting it on the table. Once he was within her space, she kicked his hip without warning. He was able to grab her ankle on the way down, but he was already hit. And it actually really hurt, but he wouldn’t say that out loud. With her ankle taken, she grabbed onto his upper arms for support and flipped her other foot around to kick his knee. “Ow! Seriously?” he complained, letting go of her and backing off a bit. “We’re not doing this.”
Andie fell into a stance, one foot in front of the other, popping back and forth on the balls of her feet. “Let’s go.”
His lips quirked and he hated admitting that this was kind of approaching the possibility of being fun. He hadn’t smiled in quite some time, and while it felt fuzzy and awkward, he kind of liked it. Sam stepped forward to swing, but was already planning on easing up on the speed and keeping his hands in a light fist. He pegged her a few times and she aimed a knee near his stomach, which he caught. He laughed a little, holding under her knee and making her skip to keep her balance. But that stopped when she soundly pushed her foot down onto his leg for leverage and swung around to jump on his back, her arms clenching around his neck and her legs tucked around his waist. She squeezed around his throat, not too much but enough to make an impact. With her rocking on his back and making him unsteady, he went to his knees. And she refused to release him because she was not losing this fight. So they basically toppled to the ground together, Andie still on his back and not letting go. Though she did loosen her grip because she kind of felt like she’d made her point.
“Okay, okay,” he whined and tried to roll away from her. She laughed and finally released her arms and legs. He turned to his stomach and elbows, and watched her. They were both breathing a little heavy, but all around in one piece. “You really want to?”
“Yeah, why not?”
He couldn’t believe he was doing this. But he couldn’t sit around anymore. And he didn’t exactly want to leave her. “It’s going to be hard.”
“Yeah,” she nodded with a gentle voice.
“You’ll have to finish things off. Someone asks you to let go, you can’t. You have to choke them harder and hit harder.”
Her hand tweaked his chin. “I didn’t want to ruin the packaging.”
Sam felt about 10% better about them going for this together, but he was still leery. Not so much because it was her. But because it wasn’t Dean.
*
Andie wasn’t a daredevil by any means, but she had come to realize she was actually really freaking good at being on the road with Sam. In addition to being able to put up with craphole motels, late nights, and being in a car for nearly all their waking hours, she could lie like it was her job - which it kind of was at one time, seeing as she worked for a major sales and marketing company. And Sam was kind of amazed by it, instantly smiling more often, looking a little more satisfied with his days and with how she responded to most everything and everyone they passed. Which in turn made her love the whole thing about ten times more than she had ever imagined.
She would admit that she wasn’t totally awesome at putting all the clues together or anywhere close to being the endless pit of information and lore that Sam was. But she could mine people’s brains and memories and knew so freaking much about the City that everyone they interviewed seemed to instantly relax around her. Because she effortlessly schmoozed them and Sam was really impressed.
So much so that when a nurse at the hospital had a major breakthrough with Andie - she used girlspeak and talked about how good looking Dean was and how he just emoted with wet eyelashes the entire time Sam was there, and the woman finally relented ‘oh yes, him’ like she was about to fan herself - and gave up some details about hearing Dean on a phone call outside the hospital just before he left, that Sam didn’t bother questioning Andie’s want to follow, or question if she could handle them leaving the City. He just assumed, and she just went, dropping work, and committing herself 125 percent to the whole thing.
So the nurse had mentioned Ellen and Sam sparked like ‘oh yeah, why didn’t I check that before.’ Andie reminded him that he was wallowing in a bath of self-pity and cried to emo songs every day. And he just smiled, because it was funny, it was true, and it kind of reminded him of Dean. It felt good to be on the road and trying.
They headed to Minnesota without much thought, because Ellen’s phone was disconnected and Bobby said she had a new bar. Andie put everything into the GPS, which kind of amazed him because he and Dean never once considered getting one and did everything the good ol’ fashioned way of using maps and landmarks and other people’s directions. So it felt weird to use the technology, but it worked, so he was sold.
And while it was weird sitting shotgun to her in her Impala, as opposed to Dean in the beauty that’d been a Winchester for forty years, he was kind of jazzed up by it all because it was exciting to be back on the road and tracking. All the decisions were suddenly his because Dean wasn’t there bossing him around anymore (though sometimes Andie knocked him down a peg or two and it felt like Dean was right there). They still listened to classic rock, but there was a CD player and a shit load of discs of people Dean always overlooked or just didn’t care enough about. He got his fair share of Clapton and Springsteen and the Stones, not to mention newer stuff like Pearl Jam and Foo Fighters. And he kind of loved it because it all seemed like it was the same but shinier, fresh and clean. And he had his laptop. He got to do research. Research. It was going so much better than he had expected it to.
*
Ellen reported she saw Dean briefly in the first week after he left Chicago, but wasn’t sure on what his plan was. But hey, while they’re there, can he look into something she heard about an angry spirit and a missing guy at a local apartment building? She was speaking lowly and in flimsy codes, trying to not look at Andie too much, because she really wondered what the girl was doing there. Because Sam really had an awful track record with girls who were involved with his work, so Ellen was convinced this girl was either going to get herself killed any second now or she was going to try to kill Sam. Either way, Ellen didn’t like it and it was obvious, so Andie stayed a few steps away, drinking her bottled beer and pretending that the décor was really that interesting that she would rather stare at it than pay attention.
“Sam, you know what you’re doing?” Ellen asked, glancing quickly at Andie.
He looked over his shoulder then back to Ellen. “Yeah, it’s fine. She’s fine.”
Once they were out of the bar, Andie snorted. “Well, she is my new best friend.”
“She’s just skeptical. She doesn’t know who you are.”
“You really screwed up in the past, didn’t you?”
Sam hadn’t ever bothered telling Andie about the last five years and how many stupid mistakes he’d made. But he was pretty sure she once mentioned that she had seen him drink from Ruby, and considering he let Lucifer out, it was a given that he had a long list of bad acts.
Andie let it go. “So, what’s the plan, Stan?”
“She doesn’t have any read on Dean. You wanna check out this case?”
She really liked - like really liked - that Sam was back to being free and easy about things. She could hear it in his voice so clearly and he wasn’t moping on anything, so she just smiled and was all ‘yes, fuck yes, please, let’s do that’ kind of feeling and finally just said “Sure,” in reply.
*
The one thing she’d come to learn about the whole thing … hunting fucking pumps adrenaline. She got a little punchy, but reserved it. She felt confident but not too cocky. And she just got warm and tingly, like it was the coolest thing in the world. The life of a fugitive certainly had its perks.
So when the door swung open and Andie eyed the gruff landlord on the other side, she easily slipped in a pleasant, pretty easy smile. Sam gestured between them. “Hi, we saw your ‘for rent’ sign out front?”
“Yeah?
“It still available?”
“Yeah. Someone ran out a few days ago.”
Her eyes went wide. “Oh, wow. Um, bad for you, good for us?”
He chuckled easily, because she just had that effect on people when she was pretending. And Sam was trying to fight his own laugh, because she really did do this a little too well. “When you kids looking to move?”
She was a little playful. “Whenever. The idiots who lived next to us had cockroaches and we had to run. He hates bugs. Terrified. Screamed like a girl.” Sam shot her a look that she smiled at. “Can we check it out?”
“I dunno,” he grumbled. “We haven’t fully cleaned it out. Hate for you to not see it at its best.”
Again, she was going for fun. “Seriously? Did you not hear me say cockroaches? It can’t get much worse.”
He eyed them both and finally relented to Andie’s open face and fairly genuine smile. He showed them through the tiny space, but really played up the dark wood flooring. Sam eyed the walls, looking for a sign of anything that Ellen had mentioned. “So the last people just up and left? Didn’t say anything?”
“Nah, not even a note.”
“Well, that’s rude,” she responded casually, not even realizing it was a true response. Sam eyed her with a careful smile because he wasn’t sure if it was her playing or being real. But he was kind of amused by it.
“Were there any problems?” Sam asked. “Like electrical wiring or heating issues?”
“No,” the guy answered in a haughty voice. “This place is just fine.”
“I’m sure it is. But anyone else ever say they saw anything in the building?”
“No one, no.”
Andie noticed Sam milling around one edge of the kitchen more than anywhere else. So she turned to the other man and smiled sweetly. “Can we get a minute or two to talk about it?”
He saw Sam and Andie share a nice, innocent glance then smile again. They could see his hesitation.
“Two minutes?” she asked nicely.
“Yeah, I’ll be down the hall. Let me know when you’re done.”
When he was gone, Sam spoke up. “What is with the Jedi mind tricks? He couldn’t say no to you.”
“What? I’m just nice.”
“When?”
“Right now.” Andie moved next to him. “What is that?”
His fingers tapped at black sludge dried at the very bottom of the light switch above the counter. “Ectoplasm.”
She stared at him. “What?”
“Ectoplasm. Really angry spirits leave it behind.”
“And Slimer.”
“I’m serious.”
“Yeah, me, too, Venkman. Is it okay to touch? Because in the sequel that pink stuff made people murderously angry.” He tried to not smirk, but it was becoming too easy right then. She was cocky and sarcastic, but she was also fun and pretty, and smelled a lot better than Dean ever did. “You ever see this before?”
“Yeah, in an apartment in Philadelphia.”
“Is this just an apartment thing?”
“No. A school in Indiana, too.”
She clapped her hands once with nervous energy. “Okay, so James Spencer disappears with no word, no sign of anything except a few piles of blood. And we’ve got the sludge of the black lagoon hanging out.” Sam eyed her, because it so felt like something Dean should be saying - something he would be saying. “What?”
“Nothing. But yeah, he’s gone and this is it. So there’s something here.”
“In the apartment or the building?”
“Well, I’ve never seen it stuck in just one room. It usually goes through the walls and between floors. So it’s likely attached to the building itself.”
A knock at the doorway signaled the landlord who looked skeptical. “You kids good? It’s been a few minutes.”
“Yeah. We’ll take it,” Sam answered.
*
“Okay, I get that we need to be on ground zero, but the motel’s paid for and already shady enough for my tastes. We really have to stay in the haunted apartment?”
Sam motioned for her to continue walking up the long driveway for the Spencer’s house. He spoke gently as they waited for someone to answer the door. “We’ll get a refund on the room. It’s not a big deal.”
“Haunted.”
He looked down with a slightly annoyed look and pushed his shoulders out. “You wanted to do this. We can leave whenever.”
“All I’m asking for is a little safety mixed in with the insanity.”
Andie’s face immediately fell into a sad smile when Mrs. Spencer answered the door. Sam looked much the same. “Hi,” he started softly, carefully. “I’m Sam and this is Andie. We’re friends of James’ and we wanted to share our condolences.”
Mrs. Spencer frowned but let them in. “Please, come in.” She slowly asked, “Did you know him from the bar?”
Andie immediately nodded. “Yeah. We used to hang out there.”
As they travelled from the foyer into the living room, Andie eyed a few pictures of James and family members. It felt hard, harder than lying to the landlord, harder than using a fake credit card. Lying to a childless mother was not high on her list of things to do. This time, Andie kept mostly quiet while Sam did his best at being Sam and comforting the woman while plucking pieces of information.
Even so, she couldn’t keep her eyes off the grieving woman. Torn by her emotional smiles and shaky voice. “James didn’t talk much about friends, but he said he had a few at the bar that he was close with. Especially after Steve.”
“Steve?” Sam asked.
“Yes, his roommate. He died about a year ago.”
Andie and Sam shared a look while their faces changed. “Do you know what happened?”
She shook her head. “James said it was an intruder. I never heard anything else.”
“Was James doing okay?”
“Well, you would know that more than me, right? I only got a weekly phone call to tell me he was still working and clean.”
“Clean?” Sam asked, and eyed Andie’s silence. Not that he expected her to be as talkative as she was in the apartment, but it was rather unnerving that she’d barely said a thing.
“Yeah, the gambling,” she replied with an obvious tone. “I figured everyone at the bar knew about that.”
He saw how Andie’s face dropped even further into sadness and he finally decided to end the conversation, escorting her to the front door with a thank you to the mother.
Outside, he kept his hand at her back. “Hey, you okay?”
She looked back at the house quickly. “How can you talk to the parents? I couldn’t think of one legitimate thing to say in there without offending her.”
His hand slipped to her shoulder and squeezed. “It’s not easy. But it gets less hard.”
With a sigh, “We should check out Steve, huh?”
“Yeah. It might be the same thing, on a yearly cycle.”
*
They sat on stools against the bar where James worked. Sam took to his laptop, researching through Steve’s death and other incidents at the apartment building. Andie did what she did best. Talk.
She leaned up on bent elbows, shifting a little away from Sam to make it seem like she just happened to be sitting next to him. As she sipped on her beer, she asked the bartender a series of questions about James and his life and his job and basically anything that could lead anywhere. Sam was fighting to look at her, because he heard a tiny lilt in her voice, flirtation, and it was bordering between being fun to listen in on and aggravating. Because he felt a little jealous that the bartender was responding so well to her.
Sam huffed a little and stood up, gathering his things. He shot her a quick look that seemed annoyed, and he moved to a table across the room. She watched him, but then turned back to the bartender with a smile.
Thirty minutes later, she sat next to him with two fresh beers. “James and Steve were boyfriends.”
“What?”
“Yeah. And word has it that Steve was cheating on him. They think it was one of the other bartenders.”
Sam’s eyes widened and he watched her. He couldn’t believe this was the kind of gossip she got. She was way better than he had imagined.
“Oh, and? That guy is pretty sure there was no intruder. He thinks James walked in on Steve and the new guy in their house together. He says James has been kind of loopy and crazy ever since.”
“No one else said that.”
“I don’t know. I guess the police couldn’t prove it.”
“Wait.” Sam sat up, fully interested. “So, James killed Steve?”
She shrugged with a sip from her beer.
“That would explain why there’s nothing else in the building.”
*
Andie wasn’t completely comfortable in the cemetery at night, but she dealt with it because seeing Sam in action the last few days totally solidified her trust in him. He knew what he was doing. And she even kept her smart comments to a minimum as she held the flashlight to illuminate the space where he dug and eventually torched Steve Douglas’s corpse.
Immediately after, they went back to the apartment for the night, just to make sure it was safe. They settled into the left-behind couch with the TV on in the background. She stretched, fighting a yawn and he watched her. “You can sleep if you want.”
“What? And miss all the fun?” He snorted, but didn’t say much more. Just kept his eyes to the TV. After some silence and boredom, she lolled her head over to look at him. “What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen?”
His voice was flat. “You mean besides the Devil himself?”
“I’m talking messed up, silly, ridiculously mangled. What’s the worst? Don’t disappoint me.”
He looked at the ceiling and actually thought about it. Because he knew he’d seen some awful things in this career. It’d be nice to remember the fun times. “Dean had a ghost illness that made him scared of everything. He screamed at a cat in a locker.”
She smiled. “How’d he get that?”
“The ghost was targeting dicks.” She snorted, which eased him up and he wanted to tell more. “A shapeshifter was changing into movie monsters. Complete with ridiculous mummy bandages and Dracula accent. Oh, and a trickster made a frat kid slow dance with an alien”
She nodded and pursed her lips. “Impressive.”
“That might be one of my favorites.”
Another nod, and she burrowed deeper into the cushions, trying to get comfortable because it’d already been a few hours and they ran out of things to talk about that weren’t about the job. And she was just really getting tired from the long days. Sam checked on her from the corner of his eye from time to time and finally saw when she nodded off. He let her sleep, figuring at the very worst, he would last through the night and keep an eye out for anything.
*
He had to admit it was the easiest thing he’d ever gone after. One, two, and done. It seemed impossible, but they both saw where the ectoplasm had disappeared, no trace it was ever there.
She felt good about it, though maybe not as good as she felt the day before, pumped up with playing pretend and lying through her teeth to the bartender and the landlord. That part was fun. Not so much dealing with Mrs. Spencer and having to realize that this all happened because James shot his boyfriend in cold blood, and in the end got the same justice.
With it resolved and a quick check in with Ellen, they prepared to hit the road again for Bobby’s to get a better light on Dean and his whereabouts. Sam watched Andie approach the car, tossing a bag into the back seat. “Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“You did good yesterday.”
She smiled and leaned across the top of the car. “Is it hurting you to say that?”
Sam looked a cross between embarrassed and nervous to say more. He pushed his hands at the top of the car and watched his fingers tap at the metal. “Nah, you were. I was kind of surprised with the stuff at the bar.”
“You looked pissed.”
“No,” he shook his head and smiled slightly. “It was good. A little too good maybe, but good.”
“You were jealous.”
His fingers rubbed above his eye. “You stuck on driving all the time?”
“Are you going to make me sit bitch every day?”
“Not every one.”
She smiled and tossed the keys over the car.
*
“Sam,” Bobby said with feeling and a smile. But then he withdrew for a second when he saw Andie. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, how’s it going, Bobby?” Sam leaned in for a quick hug, realizing it’d been since Sam was discharged from that Chicago hospital months ago that they last saw each other.
She tried to smile through the awkwardness and just shook his hand instead. He led them in before disappearing to the kitchen. “What brings you here?” he called from the other room.
Sam and Andie stood in the space between the living and dining rooms. She took in all the worn walls and the extensive book collection along the shelves while he responded. “We’re looking for Dean.”
Bobby reappeared with two bottles of beer for them. Sam took it with a tiny smile, knowing Bobby would lace it with holy water. He sipped quickly just to prove the point.
Andie just smiled. “Oh, no thanks. I’m good.”
He wouldn’t move the bottle away from her and stared. “It’s okay,” Sam insisted.
She looked to Sam, totally confused. But she finally took it and drank. Sam smiled at Bobby being so intent to watch her. She winced a little and Sam stopped, wondering why she did and his heart stopped. She put it on the edge of the desk and watched them both. “What?”
“How about another sip?” Bobby asked.
Andie couldn’t ignore Sam’s horrified look and how stoic Bobby was. And neither would stop staring at her. “Thanks, I’m good.”
“Andie,” Sam said carefully.
“What?”
“Just take another sip.”
She continued to look from Bobby to Sam, kind of becoming terrified. Because in what world does a girl listen to a guy insist she keep drinking unless there is something in there? But it was Sam insisting and she’d already determined that she had kind of given her life over to him, what with running off on this whole escapade. So if she was going to be poisoned or killed or something by Sam and Bobby, it would happen eventually and she wasn’t so sure she would get away from them. Though she did suddenly remember outrunning him in Union Station over a year ago. “What’s going on?” was what she finally decided on saying.
“Andie, please.” And then he was pleading and she couldn’t turn it down. She took a minor sip, because really, the warm beer kind of burned and it was cheap on top of that, so yeah. She didn’t like it, but she did it. Sam physically sighed, his broad shoulders rising and falling so obviously. “There was holy water in there. Bobby was just testing us.”
She eyed them both critically. “Really?”
“Yeah, unfortunately it’s been needed in the past,” Bobby says, stealing a look to Sam.
“Just when this world couldn’t get any more fucked up.”
“Don’t I know it?”
She laughed lightly at Bobby, who finally turned to Sam and asked again. “What brings you out here?”
“Well, Dean, for one, like I said,” he replies.
“I haven’t heard anything. You know I’d tell you if something came up.”
“Yeah, but you know I have to ask.”
“What’s two?”
“We need some supplies.”
“We?”
“I. I need some supplies.”
“Sam, what’re you two doing?”
Andie flipped between each guy, as they stayed quiet and stared at each other. Finally Sam broke. “We’re looking for Dean.”
“Both of you?”
“She’s helping a bit. It’s fine, Bobby. Just a few things to complete the set.”
Bobby’s look was long and a bit judgmental. Because the last time he saw Sam, he was bordering on a broken face thanks to the angels and a broken heart because Dean was gone. But there he was, with a smile and an open attitude. “You know I’d love to help. Just tell me what you’ve got cooking.”
“Well, nothing yet. But we’re looking. And if anything comes along, I want to make sure we’re prepared.”
*
Bobby told Sam about a few cases he knew about, thinking maybe Dean would be working them himself and they could run into him. So Sam and Andie went through the information at Bobby’s desk, determining what was closest, easiest, and yet most like Dean to follow. Which didn’t leave anything, because as Sam knew it, Dean did nothing easy, so it would have to be something more involved. Sam took the newspaper clippings about some unusual murders in Montana covering a few farms that all bordered one another.
They spent the day on the road to cover as many miles as possible. When they first arrived, Sam scoped out the few local motels for Dean, but found nothing. They drove through the farm country, then made it to a nearby town and looked for the Winchester Impala, but again, came up empty. As they talked more about the case, Sam was feeling himself sucked into the mystery and casually mentioned working it while still keeping an eye for Dean. She shrugged and smiled, “Sure.”
So they visited the farms, Sam taking the ones who had lost family members (knowing it wasn’t easy for her to handle) and Andie questioning their neighbors. He found her once again sweet talking an older gentleman, who couldn’t stop talking about his crops dying out sooner than he’d ever seen before. It didn’t matter how many times he fertilized, watered, or sprayed for bugs, they just wouldn’t cooperate.
Sam smirked at her as she finished up the conversation, and all the while back to her car. Because she still amazed him with how easily she did it. “Is it something with the ground?” she asked once in the passenger seat.
“I think so. The Webers to the south had a patch just like his.”
“But, I mean, is this like our kind of thing with the ground?”
And he smirked again because she was hooked and he knew it.
*
Like he had so many times with Dean, Sam slowly drank his beer while he combed through police reports in a bar with a loud jukebox and lots of drunken strangers around him. This time, however, Andie was next to him, on a beer garden of a Main Street-type bar somewhere outside of Billings, Montana, and they’d had some semi-decent food. Because Andie had standards and refused to eat in diners for every single meal, she insisted they go to at least one decent place for food every few days. She offered to pay with her own real money (instead of his fake credit cards, because while this was a fun adventure for her, prison was not). It’s worth it. And he realized she was right. After years of living off gas station food, greasy diner breakfasts, and cheap beer, spending time to order a meal that may come with something more than grease-dripping French fries and splurging just once on a decent beer was pretty nice.
She leaned back further into her seat, tucking her feet between his chair and his thigh. She looked up at the sky because it was beautiful and black and full of tiny twinkling lights. He wouldn’t tear his eyes from the pages, but soon enough, his hand was reaching down and resting on her leg. Without looking at him, her mouth curled and her eyes slipped closed. Because it was a moment and she loved it and wouldn’t wish it away for anything. Because it was more of a moment than they had in the weeks he was at her house. Even when they slept together, it just didn’t feel as comfortable as that one minute did. Because it was nice and easy, and natural. And that’s all she needed to tell herself.
Back at the hotel, her hands tapped out an unknown melody at his back as they entered the room. He turned and put his hands to her face and kissed her. They didn’t go too fast or crazy about it, but Andie could tell that there was more emotion behind it than any time they were together before, and she just went with it because it was good and her stomach burned with the passion. And then they were on the bed and he took her shirt off, so yeah, it was going well.
In the middle of it, Sam tried to roll them over, bringing her to top, but her hands had been pressed into the headboard to get leverage on him and so it didn’t go all that smoothly because her arms flew out and almost hit him. They both laughed, so she thought that was pretty good. Because she loved that Sam was laughing and smiling and most of all, she loved that they were enjoying sex that much, and she didn’t want it to end.
He sat up with her, still rocking her back and forth over him, and then his mouth was at her ear and talking, and she was getting even more turned on because it was things about how sexy she was when she was in action and being a ‘conniving little liar.’ Or how dirty it was in that motel and he was going to fuck her in every one they visit, just so she could tell him how good the headboards are. Or how bad the ceilings look while she’s on her back. And she was so shocked by his words, because it’s Sam. But then again, she thought he’s about the best thing in her life at that moment, and they’re already laughing over sex, so it’s really going well.
*
And so that was how it went for a few months. Sam and Andie tackled other cases, just like he and Dean always had. But the underlying motive was to hopefully run into Dean at some point. They were nowhere near finding anything new about him, but they were out and working and Sam was freaking delighted at the whole situation (aside from Dean still being gone, of course). Because it meant he was back out there and saving people, doing good deeds. But he was also doing them alongside Andie, who he was pretty sure he loved. For so many reasons. But one of the big ones that surprised him was how well she fit into the life. He always had to take the lead on any dangerous situation, and he had to look over his shoulder more often to make sure nothing happens to her (because he realized it would be equivalent to him not being able to save Dean from hell), but overall? She was an amazing conman and didn’t seem all too shaken by the things they would run into. She was a little freaked by the werewolf who got incredibly close to mauling her in West Virginia, but she handled it well enough. It wasn’t until the endorphins drifted away from her fight response when she realized she was nearly seriously injured or worse, and she teared up a bit, but did her best to be strong. She outran a bunch of mad junkyard dogs when they were following a tulpa. And there was a ghost that tried to choke her out, but she later laughed that she was definitely a pro at dealing with that kind of thing.
He knew it was quite perverse that for so long he wanted a normal life, but the most normal he felt was hunting with Andie. She threw a mean punch and easily picked up on some of the tricks Sam taught her. Her kickboxing classes actually were pretty badass and paid off the few times she’d gotten in the line of fire, like with a demon in Missouri that tackled her to the ground; but in the end, it was restrained from behind - much like she did to Sam that day she proved she could fight - and stabbed by Sam. She seemed to sense when it was okay to joke and when it wasn't. She was sarcastic and filled the dead air with laughter. She smiled a fair amount of the time, and it made him smile in return. And he really liked the sex. So there was that, too.
Overall, it was working surprisingly well and there were days that floated by where they were knee-deep in a case and she progressed so well in it all that he didn’t have to tell her a single thing to get the exact response or action he wanted out of her, and he kind of forgot it all started because he was looking for his brother.
Next
He was picturing her in the kitchen, doing her own thing before something took over and attacked her. The shadows? Zachariah? Some other being? He slowly wound himself around the corner, waiting to see the billowy figures, to see Andie unprotected. The pounding grew louder, more intense, like a power tool.
Instead, he saw her at the counter, moving her arms a little vigorously and her head nodding along to the fast beat of “Baby Please Don’t Go” coming from the CD player. He sighed, thankful to see her okay.
She turned quickly at his noise, looking about ten kinds of scared. Her face relaxed a bit when she saw Sam, but then the gun was in view and her eyes bugged out. “What’s wrong?”
He pulled the gun out of sight and tucked it into the back of his pants. His voice was nonchalant. “Nothing. What’re you doing?”
Her eyes had watched his hands for that entire movement. “What’re you doing?”
“Nothing. I thought ... What is this?” he asked strangely, seeing the spatula still in her hand and quite a mess at the counter.
Her voice went sheepish, hearing his annoyance. “Happy birthday?”
Okay, so yeah, Sam had been crashing at Andie’s for the last two months while he researched the hell out of the incident at the Latino Cultural Center. While she went to work, he did, too, scoping out the neighborhood, asking residents and workers what they saw in the days he was locked up. And maybe he had lost track of all time, and maybe with the last five years on the road with Dean plus the many, many dysfunctional years travelling with his father, he’d kind of forgotten what to do on his birthday. On the rare occasions they did celebrate it, Dean usually dropped a six pack in his lap and offered to pay for a night of motel porn before leaving Sam alone to ‘celebrate with himself.’ Sometimes it was best to just forget it.
Sam looked again at everything, realizing the thumping was the mixer against a bowl, the metal scraping was likely the oven (which was on at the moment), and when he looked outside, he saw smoke billowing from the grill. He sighed with a sad smile and moved closer. She still looked a little nervous, or embarrassed, he wasn’t sure.
“Do you want the spatula?” she asked, motioning to the cake mix stuck to the rubber.
Sam laughed lightly and came even closer, swiping a finger across the batter and licking his finger. “What is that?”
“Banana.”
“Banana cake?”
“Yeah,” she said a little quiet, still embarrassed.
“What else is there?” He glanced to the grill outside. “Are you barbequing?”
“Yeah. Chicken and corn.”
Even though it was still strange to him, he had to smile. Andie wasn’t quite a homebody, but she liked - and most importantly knew how - to cook. She didn’t ever dream up complicated, extravagant meals, but she consistently put together a pretty good homemade meal that made him wish he could have that normal kind of life. Where the end of his workday was coming home - possibly to her, he did like being with her - and having real food on the table and someone to ask how things were going. Instead, for five years, the end of his day was packing up the same dozen pieces of clothing into two bags and driving off to another dingy motel and another crazy phantom terror.
Her voice broke through his thoughts. “You okay?”
He smiled, though it didn’t reach very far. It was awkward, but he definitely was touched by her effort. “Yeah,” and he leaned down to kiss her.
She smiled and turned back to the cake mix, scooping it into a baking pan. “You got in late this morning.”
Sam sat at the kitchen table, pulling a notebook closer to him and going through his notes like he did every day. “Yeah, I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
“No. It’s just … you weren’t there then suddenly you were.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. So many nights went just like that, and he felt awful for not really being around much while she let him into her house, into her life, and tried to help him the best she could.
After she placed the cake into the oven, she rested a hand at his head. “Hey. It’s okay.” Her face was drawn down, feeling so bad for him. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to be in his position. To be lost without his brother, searching endlessly for him and constantly worried. She was by proxy, but it wasn’t the same. “Did you find anything?”
“No. Nothing new.”
She heard the clip in his voice. “Sam,” she tried with comfort.
He tapped a pen at the paper, trying to not answer her. But he just couldn’t keep it in any longer. “What if I don’t find him?” He saw her bite the inside of her lip. “What?”
So many times, she told herself it was better to let Sam deal with Dean being gone. One day she tried to explain to him what happened that day at the hospital. How he was awkward in saying goodbye to her and then walked off. Without a word, and she had the hard feelings of him deserting Sam. But he turned on her the instant she tried to imply that Dean was doing his own thing right then. Sam obviously didn’t want to hear that there wasn’t something behind Dean’s disappearance, and he wouldn’t stop looking until he knew exactly where Dean was and that he was okay. She was pretty sure it was him fighting the rejection of Dean leaving.
A few times she lied to him, that she saw him hanging out at sleazy bars, hitting on easy girls, and basically living out the better “tourist” activities of being on the road. Just so Sam would relax. It hurt her because in reality, she had begged the angels to take away her ability to see the future, so there was nothing left to predict. She lied to him over that, and also Dean, and it never got easier.
Instead she tried to be encouraging, assuring. “We’ll find something.”
But it hardly ever worked. He laughed there in her kitchen, short and angry, despite the warm and sweet smells in the air. Sam looked down to the notebook again. “Right, we.”
“What? I can help.”
“You gonna come hunt with me?”
“Why not?” He didn’t answer, but she saw the face that said he thought she was crazy. “I survived two hunts with you two. Came out pretty well the last time. I think I’ll do okay.”
“Andie, you couldn’t even come close to understanding the kinds of things we see.”
“Really? Because I’ve been watching you for a year now. I’ve seen a lot of your shit.”
He looked at her, hard at first but then kind of easy. Because it wasn’t what he expected her to say. She’d never said how long - or how much - she watched him. It was a little surprising. And flattering, really. “A year?”
“Yeah, whatever,” she tried to excuse away. “You want to go on the road? We go. And we find things.”
“I can’t do that to you.”
“What are the options? You wanna leave? Or you just gonna stay and live this screwed up life?”
Now he was on his feet and getting angry. “No, of course I don’t. But there’s no way you’ll survive out there.”
Her hands went to her hips. “How do you survive?”
His voice had a total ‘duh’ quality to it. “Uh, my father was a marine. I learned a few tricks.”
“I’ve been in kickboxing for five years and running most my life. Try me.”
Sam looked down on her and while she wasn’t exactly petite, she was slim and kind of lanky. He couldn’t imagine her having much coordination for anything that wasn’t running. But then his head tipped to the side remembering how she outran him that first time they saw each other. So maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. He chuckled anyway. “Andie, I’m sorry. But a gym class isn’t quite the same.”
“Afraid I’ll kick your ass?”
“No.”
With a cocky smile, she backed out of the kitchen and to the living room. “Let’s go, Losechester.”
He didn’t come right away, but when he did, he pulled the gun from the back of his pants. She raised her hands in mock defense and he chuckled, making a show of putting it on the table. Once he was within her space, she kicked his hip without warning. He was able to grab her ankle on the way down, but he was already hit. And it actually really hurt, but he wouldn’t say that out loud. With her ankle taken, she grabbed onto his upper arms for support and flipped her other foot around to kick his knee. “Ow! Seriously?” he complained, letting go of her and backing off a bit. “We’re not doing this.”
Andie fell into a stance, one foot in front of the other, popping back and forth on the balls of her feet. “Let’s go.”
His lips quirked and he hated admitting that this was kind of approaching the possibility of being fun. He hadn’t smiled in quite some time, and while it felt fuzzy and awkward, he kind of liked it. Sam stepped forward to swing, but was already planning on easing up on the speed and keeping his hands in a light fist. He pegged her a few times and she aimed a knee near his stomach, which he caught. He laughed a little, holding under her knee and making her skip to keep her balance. But that stopped when she soundly pushed her foot down onto his leg for leverage and swung around to jump on his back, her arms clenching around his neck and her legs tucked around his waist. She squeezed around his throat, not too much but enough to make an impact. With her rocking on his back and making him unsteady, he went to his knees. And she refused to release him because she was not losing this fight. So they basically toppled to the ground together, Andie still on his back and not letting go. Though she did loosen her grip because she kind of felt like she’d made her point.
“Okay, okay,” he whined and tried to roll away from her. She laughed and finally released her arms and legs. He turned to his stomach and elbows, and watched her. They were both breathing a little heavy, but all around in one piece. “You really want to?”
“Yeah, why not?”
He couldn’t believe he was doing this. But he couldn’t sit around anymore. And he didn’t exactly want to leave her. “It’s going to be hard.”
“Yeah,” she nodded with a gentle voice.
“You’ll have to finish things off. Someone asks you to let go, you can’t. You have to choke them harder and hit harder.”
Her hand tweaked his chin. “I didn’t want to ruin the packaging.”
Sam felt about 10% better about them going for this together, but he was still leery. Not so much because it was her. But because it wasn’t Dean.
*
Andie wasn’t a daredevil by any means, but she had come to realize she was actually really freaking good at being on the road with Sam. In addition to being able to put up with craphole motels, late nights, and being in a car for nearly all their waking hours, she could lie like it was her job - which it kind of was at one time, seeing as she worked for a major sales and marketing company. And Sam was kind of amazed by it, instantly smiling more often, looking a little more satisfied with his days and with how she responded to most everything and everyone they passed. Which in turn made her love the whole thing about ten times more than she had ever imagined.
She would admit that she wasn’t totally awesome at putting all the clues together or anywhere close to being the endless pit of information and lore that Sam was. But she could mine people’s brains and memories and knew so freaking much about the City that everyone they interviewed seemed to instantly relax around her. Because she effortlessly schmoozed them and Sam was really impressed.
So much so that when a nurse at the hospital had a major breakthrough with Andie - she used girlspeak and talked about how good looking Dean was and how he just emoted with wet eyelashes the entire time Sam was there, and the woman finally relented ‘oh yes, him’ like she was about to fan herself - and gave up some details about hearing Dean on a phone call outside the hospital just before he left, that Sam didn’t bother questioning Andie’s want to follow, or question if she could handle them leaving the City. He just assumed, and she just went, dropping work, and committing herself 125 percent to the whole thing.
So the nurse had mentioned Ellen and Sam sparked like ‘oh yeah, why didn’t I check that before.’ Andie reminded him that he was wallowing in a bath of self-pity and cried to emo songs every day. And he just smiled, because it was funny, it was true, and it kind of reminded him of Dean. It felt good to be on the road and trying.
They headed to Minnesota without much thought, because Ellen’s phone was disconnected and Bobby said she had a new bar. Andie put everything into the GPS, which kind of amazed him because he and Dean never once considered getting one and did everything the good ol’ fashioned way of using maps and landmarks and other people’s directions. So it felt weird to use the technology, but it worked, so he was sold.
And while it was weird sitting shotgun to her in her Impala, as opposed to Dean in the beauty that’d been a Winchester for forty years, he was kind of jazzed up by it all because it was exciting to be back on the road and tracking. All the decisions were suddenly his because Dean wasn’t there bossing him around anymore (though sometimes Andie knocked him down a peg or two and it felt like Dean was right there). They still listened to classic rock, but there was a CD player and a shit load of discs of people Dean always overlooked or just didn’t care enough about. He got his fair share of Clapton and Springsteen and the Stones, not to mention newer stuff like Pearl Jam and Foo Fighters. And he kind of loved it because it all seemed like it was the same but shinier, fresh and clean. And he had his laptop. He got to do research. Research. It was going so much better than he had expected it to.
*
Ellen reported she saw Dean briefly in the first week after he left Chicago, but wasn’t sure on what his plan was. But hey, while they’re there, can he look into something she heard about an angry spirit and a missing guy at a local apartment building? She was speaking lowly and in flimsy codes, trying to not look at Andie too much, because she really wondered what the girl was doing there. Because Sam really had an awful track record with girls who were involved with his work, so Ellen was convinced this girl was either going to get herself killed any second now or she was going to try to kill Sam. Either way, Ellen didn’t like it and it was obvious, so Andie stayed a few steps away, drinking her bottled beer and pretending that the décor was really that interesting that she would rather stare at it than pay attention.
“Sam, you know what you’re doing?” Ellen asked, glancing quickly at Andie.
He looked over his shoulder then back to Ellen. “Yeah, it’s fine. She’s fine.”
Once they were out of the bar, Andie snorted. “Well, she is my new best friend.”
“She’s just skeptical. She doesn’t know who you are.”
“You really screwed up in the past, didn’t you?”
Sam hadn’t ever bothered telling Andie about the last five years and how many stupid mistakes he’d made. But he was pretty sure she once mentioned that she had seen him drink from Ruby, and considering he let Lucifer out, it was a given that he had a long list of bad acts.
Andie let it go. “So, what’s the plan, Stan?”
“She doesn’t have any read on Dean. You wanna check out this case?”
She really liked - like really liked - that Sam was back to being free and easy about things. She could hear it in his voice so clearly and he wasn’t moping on anything, so she just smiled and was all ‘yes, fuck yes, please, let’s do that’ kind of feeling and finally just said “Sure,” in reply.
*
The one thing she’d come to learn about the whole thing … hunting fucking pumps adrenaline. She got a little punchy, but reserved it. She felt confident but not too cocky. And she just got warm and tingly, like it was the coolest thing in the world. The life of a fugitive certainly had its perks.
So when the door swung open and Andie eyed the gruff landlord on the other side, she easily slipped in a pleasant, pretty easy smile. Sam gestured between them. “Hi, we saw your ‘for rent’ sign out front?”
“Yeah?
“It still available?”
“Yeah. Someone ran out a few days ago.”
Her eyes went wide. “Oh, wow. Um, bad for you, good for us?”
He chuckled easily, because she just had that effect on people when she was pretending. And Sam was trying to fight his own laugh, because she really did do this a little too well. “When you kids looking to move?”
She was a little playful. “Whenever. The idiots who lived next to us had cockroaches and we had to run. He hates bugs. Terrified. Screamed like a girl.” Sam shot her a look that she smiled at. “Can we check it out?”
“I dunno,” he grumbled. “We haven’t fully cleaned it out. Hate for you to not see it at its best.”
Again, she was going for fun. “Seriously? Did you not hear me say cockroaches? It can’t get much worse.”
He eyed them both and finally relented to Andie’s open face and fairly genuine smile. He showed them through the tiny space, but really played up the dark wood flooring. Sam eyed the walls, looking for a sign of anything that Ellen had mentioned. “So the last people just up and left? Didn’t say anything?”
“Nah, not even a note.”
“Well, that’s rude,” she responded casually, not even realizing it was a true response. Sam eyed her with a careful smile because he wasn’t sure if it was her playing or being real. But he was kind of amused by it.
“Were there any problems?” Sam asked. “Like electrical wiring or heating issues?”
“No,” the guy answered in a haughty voice. “This place is just fine.”
“I’m sure it is. But anyone else ever say they saw anything in the building?”
“No one, no.”
Andie noticed Sam milling around one edge of the kitchen more than anywhere else. So she turned to the other man and smiled sweetly. “Can we get a minute or two to talk about it?”
He saw Sam and Andie share a nice, innocent glance then smile again. They could see his hesitation.
“Two minutes?” she asked nicely.
“Yeah, I’ll be down the hall. Let me know when you’re done.”
When he was gone, Sam spoke up. “What is with the Jedi mind tricks? He couldn’t say no to you.”
“What? I’m just nice.”
“When?”
“Right now.” Andie moved next to him. “What is that?”
His fingers tapped at black sludge dried at the very bottom of the light switch above the counter. “Ectoplasm.”
She stared at him. “What?”
“Ectoplasm. Really angry spirits leave it behind.”
“And Slimer.”
“I’m serious.”
“Yeah, me, too, Venkman. Is it okay to touch? Because in the sequel that pink stuff made people murderously angry.” He tried to not smirk, but it was becoming too easy right then. She was cocky and sarcastic, but she was also fun and pretty, and smelled a lot better than Dean ever did. “You ever see this before?”
“Yeah, in an apartment in Philadelphia.”
“Is this just an apartment thing?”
“No. A school in Indiana, too.”
She clapped her hands once with nervous energy. “Okay, so James Spencer disappears with no word, no sign of anything except a few piles of blood. And we’ve got the sludge of the black lagoon hanging out.” Sam eyed her, because it so felt like something Dean should be saying - something he would be saying. “What?”
“Nothing. But yeah, he’s gone and this is it. So there’s something here.”
“In the apartment or the building?”
“Well, I’ve never seen it stuck in just one room. It usually goes through the walls and between floors. So it’s likely attached to the building itself.”
A knock at the doorway signaled the landlord who looked skeptical. “You kids good? It’s been a few minutes.”
“Yeah. We’ll take it,” Sam answered.
*
“Okay, I get that we need to be on ground zero, but the motel’s paid for and already shady enough for my tastes. We really have to stay in the haunted apartment?”
Sam motioned for her to continue walking up the long driveway for the Spencer’s house. He spoke gently as they waited for someone to answer the door. “We’ll get a refund on the room. It’s not a big deal.”
“Haunted.”
He looked down with a slightly annoyed look and pushed his shoulders out. “You wanted to do this. We can leave whenever.”
“All I’m asking for is a little safety mixed in with the insanity.”
Andie’s face immediately fell into a sad smile when Mrs. Spencer answered the door. Sam looked much the same. “Hi,” he started softly, carefully. “I’m Sam and this is Andie. We’re friends of James’ and we wanted to share our condolences.”
Mrs. Spencer frowned but let them in. “Please, come in.” She slowly asked, “Did you know him from the bar?”
Andie immediately nodded. “Yeah. We used to hang out there.”
As they travelled from the foyer into the living room, Andie eyed a few pictures of James and family members. It felt hard, harder than lying to the landlord, harder than using a fake credit card. Lying to a childless mother was not high on her list of things to do. This time, Andie kept mostly quiet while Sam did his best at being Sam and comforting the woman while plucking pieces of information.
Even so, she couldn’t keep her eyes off the grieving woman. Torn by her emotional smiles and shaky voice. “James didn’t talk much about friends, but he said he had a few at the bar that he was close with. Especially after Steve.”
“Steve?” Sam asked.
“Yes, his roommate. He died about a year ago.”
Andie and Sam shared a look while their faces changed. “Do you know what happened?”
She shook her head. “James said it was an intruder. I never heard anything else.”
“Was James doing okay?”
“Well, you would know that more than me, right? I only got a weekly phone call to tell me he was still working and clean.”
“Clean?” Sam asked, and eyed Andie’s silence. Not that he expected her to be as talkative as she was in the apartment, but it was rather unnerving that she’d barely said a thing.
“Yeah, the gambling,” she replied with an obvious tone. “I figured everyone at the bar knew about that.”
He saw how Andie’s face dropped even further into sadness and he finally decided to end the conversation, escorting her to the front door with a thank you to the mother.
Outside, he kept his hand at her back. “Hey, you okay?”
She looked back at the house quickly. “How can you talk to the parents? I couldn’t think of one legitimate thing to say in there without offending her.”
His hand slipped to her shoulder and squeezed. “It’s not easy. But it gets less hard.”
With a sigh, “We should check out Steve, huh?”
“Yeah. It might be the same thing, on a yearly cycle.”
*
They sat on stools against the bar where James worked. Sam took to his laptop, researching through Steve’s death and other incidents at the apartment building. Andie did what she did best. Talk.
She leaned up on bent elbows, shifting a little away from Sam to make it seem like she just happened to be sitting next to him. As she sipped on her beer, she asked the bartender a series of questions about James and his life and his job and basically anything that could lead anywhere. Sam was fighting to look at her, because he heard a tiny lilt in her voice, flirtation, and it was bordering between being fun to listen in on and aggravating. Because he felt a little jealous that the bartender was responding so well to her.
Sam huffed a little and stood up, gathering his things. He shot her a quick look that seemed annoyed, and he moved to a table across the room. She watched him, but then turned back to the bartender with a smile.
Thirty minutes later, she sat next to him with two fresh beers. “James and Steve were boyfriends.”
“What?”
“Yeah. And word has it that Steve was cheating on him. They think it was one of the other bartenders.”
Sam’s eyes widened and he watched her. He couldn’t believe this was the kind of gossip she got. She was way better than he had imagined.
“Oh, and? That guy is pretty sure there was no intruder. He thinks James walked in on Steve and the new guy in their house together. He says James has been kind of loopy and crazy ever since.”
“No one else said that.”
“I don’t know. I guess the police couldn’t prove it.”
“Wait.” Sam sat up, fully interested. “So, James killed Steve?”
She shrugged with a sip from her beer.
“That would explain why there’s nothing else in the building.”
*
Andie wasn’t completely comfortable in the cemetery at night, but she dealt with it because seeing Sam in action the last few days totally solidified her trust in him. He knew what he was doing. And she even kept her smart comments to a minimum as she held the flashlight to illuminate the space where he dug and eventually torched Steve Douglas’s corpse.
Immediately after, they went back to the apartment for the night, just to make sure it was safe. They settled into the left-behind couch with the TV on in the background. She stretched, fighting a yawn and he watched her. “You can sleep if you want.”
“What? And miss all the fun?” He snorted, but didn’t say much more. Just kept his eyes to the TV. After some silence and boredom, she lolled her head over to look at him. “What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen?”
His voice was flat. “You mean besides the Devil himself?”
“I’m talking messed up, silly, ridiculously mangled. What’s the worst? Don’t disappoint me.”
He looked at the ceiling and actually thought about it. Because he knew he’d seen some awful things in this career. It’d be nice to remember the fun times. “Dean had a ghost illness that made him scared of everything. He screamed at a cat in a locker.”
She smiled. “How’d he get that?”
“The ghost was targeting dicks.” She snorted, which eased him up and he wanted to tell more. “A shapeshifter was changing into movie monsters. Complete with ridiculous mummy bandages and Dracula accent. Oh, and a trickster made a frat kid slow dance with an alien”
She nodded and pursed her lips. “Impressive.”
“That might be one of my favorites.”
Another nod, and she burrowed deeper into the cushions, trying to get comfortable because it’d already been a few hours and they ran out of things to talk about that weren’t about the job. And she was just really getting tired from the long days. Sam checked on her from the corner of his eye from time to time and finally saw when she nodded off. He let her sleep, figuring at the very worst, he would last through the night and keep an eye out for anything.
*
He had to admit it was the easiest thing he’d ever gone after. One, two, and done. It seemed impossible, but they both saw where the ectoplasm had disappeared, no trace it was ever there.
She felt good about it, though maybe not as good as she felt the day before, pumped up with playing pretend and lying through her teeth to the bartender and the landlord. That part was fun. Not so much dealing with Mrs. Spencer and having to realize that this all happened because James shot his boyfriend in cold blood, and in the end got the same justice.
With it resolved and a quick check in with Ellen, they prepared to hit the road again for Bobby’s to get a better light on Dean and his whereabouts. Sam watched Andie approach the car, tossing a bag into the back seat. “Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“You did good yesterday.”
She smiled and leaned across the top of the car. “Is it hurting you to say that?”
Sam looked a cross between embarrassed and nervous to say more. He pushed his hands at the top of the car and watched his fingers tap at the metal. “Nah, you were. I was kind of surprised with the stuff at the bar.”
“You looked pissed.”
“No,” he shook his head and smiled slightly. “It was good. A little too good maybe, but good.”
“You were jealous.”
His fingers rubbed above his eye. “You stuck on driving all the time?”
“Are you going to make me sit bitch every day?”
“Not every one.”
She smiled and tossed the keys over the car.
*
“Sam,” Bobby said with feeling and a smile. But then he withdrew for a second when he saw Andie. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, how’s it going, Bobby?” Sam leaned in for a quick hug, realizing it’d been since Sam was discharged from that Chicago hospital months ago that they last saw each other.
She tried to smile through the awkwardness and just shook his hand instead. He led them in before disappearing to the kitchen. “What brings you here?” he called from the other room.
Sam and Andie stood in the space between the living and dining rooms. She took in all the worn walls and the extensive book collection along the shelves while he responded. “We’re looking for Dean.”
Bobby reappeared with two bottles of beer for them. Sam took it with a tiny smile, knowing Bobby would lace it with holy water. He sipped quickly just to prove the point.
Andie just smiled. “Oh, no thanks. I’m good.”
He wouldn’t move the bottle away from her and stared. “It’s okay,” Sam insisted.
She looked to Sam, totally confused. But she finally took it and drank. Sam smiled at Bobby being so intent to watch her. She winced a little and Sam stopped, wondering why she did and his heart stopped. She put it on the edge of the desk and watched them both. “What?”
“How about another sip?” Bobby asked.
Andie couldn’t ignore Sam’s horrified look and how stoic Bobby was. And neither would stop staring at her. “Thanks, I’m good.”
“Andie,” Sam said carefully.
“What?”
“Just take another sip.”
She continued to look from Bobby to Sam, kind of becoming terrified. Because in what world does a girl listen to a guy insist she keep drinking unless there is something in there? But it was Sam insisting and she’d already determined that she had kind of given her life over to him, what with running off on this whole escapade. So if she was going to be poisoned or killed or something by Sam and Bobby, it would happen eventually and she wasn’t so sure she would get away from them. Though she did suddenly remember outrunning him in Union Station over a year ago. “What’s going on?” was what she finally decided on saying.
“Andie, please.” And then he was pleading and she couldn’t turn it down. She took a minor sip, because really, the warm beer kind of burned and it was cheap on top of that, so yeah. She didn’t like it, but she did it. Sam physically sighed, his broad shoulders rising and falling so obviously. “There was holy water in there. Bobby was just testing us.”
She eyed them both critically. “Really?”
“Yeah, unfortunately it’s been needed in the past,” Bobby says, stealing a look to Sam.
“Just when this world couldn’t get any more fucked up.”
“Don’t I know it?”
She laughed lightly at Bobby, who finally turned to Sam and asked again. “What brings you out here?”
“Well, Dean, for one, like I said,” he replies.
“I haven’t heard anything. You know I’d tell you if something came up.”
“Yeah, but you know I have to ask.”
“What’s two?”
“We need some supplies.”
“We?”
“I. I need some supplies.”
“Sam, what’re you two doing?”
Andie flipped between each guy, as they stayed quiet and stared at each other. Finally Sam broke. “We’re looking for Dean.”
“Both of you?”
“She’s helping a bit. It’s fine, Bobby. Just a few things to complete the set.”
Bobby’s look was long and a bit judgmental. Because the last time he saw Sam, he was bordering on a broken face thanks to the angels and a broken heart because Dean was gone. But there he was, with a smile and an open attitude. “You know I’d love to help. Just tell me what you’ve got cooking.”
“Well, nothing yet. But we’re looking. And if anything comes along, I want to make sure we’re prepared.”
*
Bobby told Sam about a few cases he knew about, thinking maybe Dean would be working them himself and they could run into him. So Sam and Andie went through the information at Bobby’s desk, determining what was closest, easiest, and yet most like Dean to follow. Which didn’t leave anything, because as Sam knew it, Dean did nothing easy, so it would have to be something more involved. Sam took the newspaper clippings about some unusual murders in Montana covering a few farms that all bordered one another.
They spent the day on the road to cover as many miles as possible. When they first arrived, Sam scoped out the few local motels for Dean, but found nothing. They drove through the farm country, then made it to a nearby town and looked for the Winchester Impala, but again, came up empty. As they talked more about the case, Sam was feeling himself sucked into the mystery and casually mentioned working it while still keeping an eye for Dean. She shrugged and smiled, “Sure.”
So they visited the farms, Sam taking the ones who had lost family members (knowing it wasn’t easy for her to handle) and Andie questioning their neighbors. He found her once again sweet talking an older gentleman, who couldn’t stop talking about his crops dying out sooner than he’d ever seen before. It didn’t matter how many times he fertilized, watered, or sprayed for bugs, they just wouldn’t cooperate.
Sam smirked at her as she finished up the conversation, and all the while back to her car. Because she still amazed him with how easily she did it. “Is it something with the ground?” she asked once in the passenger seat.
“I think so. The Webers to the south had a patch just like his.”
“But, I mean, is this like our kind of thing with the ground?”
And he smirked again because she was hooked and he knew it.
*
Like he had so many times with Dean, Sam slowly drank his beer while he combed through police reports in a bar with a loud jukebox and lots of drunken strangers around him. This time, however, Andie was next to him, on a beer garden of a Main Street-type bar somewhere outside of Billings, Montana, and they’d had some semi-decent food. Because Andie had standards and refused to eat in diners for every single meal, she insisted they go to at least one decent place for food every few days. She offered to pay with her own real money (instead of his fake credit cards, because while this was a fun adventure for her, prison was not). It’s worth it. And he realized she was right. After years of living off gas station food, greasy diner breakfasts, and cheap beer, spending time to order a meal that may come with something more than grease-dripping French fries and splurging just once on a decent beer was pretty nice.
She leaned back further into her seat, tucking her feet between his chair and his thigh. She looked up at the sky because it was beautiful and black and full of tiny twinkling lights. He wouldn’t tear his eyes from the pages, but soon enough, his hand was reaching down and resting on her leg. Without looking at him, her mouth curled and her eyes slipped closed. Because it was a moment and she loved it and wouldn’t wish it away for anything. Because it was more of a moment than they had in the weeks he was at her house. Even when they slept together, it just didn’t feel as comfortable as that one minute did. Because it was nice and easy, and natural. And that’s all she needed to tell herself.
Back at the hotel, her hands tapped out an unknown melody at his back as they entered the room. He turned and put his hands to her face and kissed her. They didn’t go too fast or crazy about it, but Andie could tell that there was more emotion behind it than any time they were together before, and she just went with it because it was good and her stomach burned with the passion. And then they were on the bed and he took her shirt off, so yeah, it was going well.
In the middle of it, Sam tried to roll them over, bringing her to top, but her hands had been pressed into the headboard to get leverage on him and so it didn’t go all that smoothly because her arms flew out and almost hit him. They both laughed, so she thought that was pretty good. Because she loved that Sam was laughing and smiling and most of all, she loved that they were enjoying sex that much, and she didn’t want it to end.
He sat up with her, still rocking her back and forth over him, and then his mouth was at her ear and talking, and she was getting even more turned on because it was things about how sexy she was when she was in action and being a ‘conniving little liar.’ Or how dirty it was in that motel and he was going to fuck her in every one they visit, just so she could tell him how good the headboards are. Or how bad the ceilings look while she’s on her back. And she was so shocked by his words, because it’s Sam. But then again, she thought he’s about the best thing in her life at that moment, and they’re already laughing over sex, so it’s really going well.
*
And so that was how it went for a few months. Sam and Andie tackled other cases, just like he and Dean always had. But the underlying motive was to hopefully run into Dean at some point. They were nowhere near finding anything new about him, but they were out and working and Sam was freaking delighted at the whole situation (aside from Dean still being gone, of course). Because it meant he was back out there and saving people, doing good deeds. But he was also doing them alongside Andie, who he was pretty sure he loved. For so many reasons. But one of the big ones that surprised him was how well she fit into the life. He always had to take the lead on any dangerous situation, and he had to look over his shoulder more often to make sure nothing happens to her (because he realized it would be equivalent to him not being able to save Dean from hell), but overall? She was an amazing conman and didn’t seem all too shaken by the things they would run into. She was a little freaked by the werewolf who got incredibly close to mauling her in West Virginia, but she handled it well enough. It wasn’t until the endorphins drifted away from her fight response when she realized she was nearly seriously injured or worse, and she teared up a bit, but did her best to be strong. She outran a bunch of mad junkyard dogs when they were following a tulpa. And there was a ghost that tried to choke her out, but she later laughed that she was definitely a pro at dealing with that kind of thing.
He knew it was quite perverse that for so long he wanted a normal life, but the most normal he felt was hunting with Andie. She threw a mean punch and easily picked up on some of the tricks Sam taught her. Her kickboxing classes actually were pretty badass and paid off the few times she’d gotten in the line of fire, like with a demon in Missouri that tackled her to the ground; but in the end, it was restrained from behind - much like she did to Sam that day she proved she could fight - and stabbed by Sam. She seemed to sense when it was okay to joke and when it wasn't. She was sarcastic and filled the dead air with laughter. She smiled a fair amount of the time, and it made him smile in return. And he really liked the sex. So there was that, too.
Overall, it was working surprisingly well and there were days that floated by where they were knee-deep in a case and she progressed so well in it all that he didn’t have to tell her a single thing to get the exact response or action he wanted out of her, and he kind of forgot it all started because he was looking for his brother.
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