Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The young woman was driving down the dark and rainy highway, squinting through her windshield to try and see through the torrential downpour that was currently pummeling the California Coast. Short, mousy hair framed a heart shaped face that was currently furrowed in concentration. She'd never been one for driving through thunderstorms like this and she expected it to get worse as the night progressed. Every so often she glanced downwards towards the high beams now splaying light across the path ahead, as though afraid they were turned off.

She shivered as unpleasant memories came back to her. Her petite hands gripped the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles turned white. The same feeling of guilt that always flooded through her whenever she though about that incident seemed to momentarily seize her like a vice and she closed her eyes, praying for the feeling to be over. The loud blaring of a horn caused her eyes to snap open and she veered to the right, having gone over the line and nearly slammed head on to the SUV that now sped passed her.

Her nerves on end, she pressed a button on her stereo and tuned into the Stanford University Radio Station, the nearest signal she could find way out here on the highway.

"You're listening to Up Late with Sasha," said a husky female voice, "and we're on the line with...Lisa. What juicy secrets have you got for me, hun?"

The girl rolled her eyes and switched to her CD player before she could hear any of the lurid tales the caller would undoubtedly spill. She'd heard tell of the kinds of things people called into midnight sex shows with and she was in no mood to listen to any kind of botched attempt at sex tonight. The lilting, familiar opening piano chords caused a smile to play across her lips and she unconsciously found herself singing in her off key, off tempo voice.

"Every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you're never comin' round."

As she sped along through the slick streets, she saw the orange glow of a gas station through the rainfall. A glance at her fuel gauge told her that this was a lucky break as she was nearly out of gas. Strange. She could've sworn she'd left with a full tank. Sighing inwardly at the minor delay, she pulled into the gas station and shut the stereo off, not really keen on having a late night gas station attendant snickering at her taste in music.

There weren't any other cars at the gas station. There were barely any other vehicles on the road this late. The station itself was large, and doubled as some kind of repair garage. The two gas pumps were almost as ancient as the building itself and she suddenly felt apprehensive about who would be working here at this time of night. But, any port in a storm. She glanced out the window trying to see if anyone was in the office when a tap on her window caused her to jump and let out a small scream.

She turned in her seat and saw a grubby, tall and lanky man with a length of stringy hair peering in at her. He was wearing mechanic's overalls which bore the name of the gas station and seemed to be waiting for her to roll down her window. She obliged, but felt inwardly nervous. This was not the kind of scenario she wanted to find herself in. Especially after what had happened all those months ago.

"C-c-can I h-h-help you?" the man asked with a stutter that immediately made her heart sink. This was getting better and better. She dug in her purse and pulled out a credit card which she handed to the man.

"Umm...full serve, please." she said, trying her best not to sound bossy.

The man took a long look at her credit card and then nodded. She rolled up her window and looked out the windshield, anything to get away from the creepy thin attendant. She did not notice the man stop mid-turn and look intently through the back passenger window. If she had she would have noticed his eyes widen with fear. The next second, however, he disappeared into the small gas office. The young woman continued staring forward, wanting nothing more than to get out of here.

To her relief the man came out not thirty seconds later, hunched against the rain and the wind. She rolled her window down and reached to take her credit card, but he did not give it.

"Is there a problem?" she asked.

"Th-th-th-the c-cr-credit card c-c-company. On the ph-phone. Your c-c-c-card has b-been denied."

She felt her heart sink. This was definitely not going well. Her credit card couldn't have been denied. She worked damn hard to make sure she never maxed it out. However, she did not want to enrage the man by a flat refusal, so she nodded and, when his back was turned, dug in her purse for a small can of pepper spray which she hid up the sleeve of her jacket.

Sprinting through the storm, she made it into the gas office, which was cramped and lead right into the massive garage. It smelled of gasoline, rubber tires and stale beer. The man was standing next to an old fashioned rotary phone. The receiver was off the hook and the man gestured nervously to it before looking out the window at her car again. Gripping the pepper spray tighter in her hand, she picked up the receiver...only to hear the dial tone.

She turned to the man who suddenly moved forward with such speed that she shrieked in fright and held the can in front of her.

"DON"T TOUCH ME!!!" she cried, spraying him in the eyes. He cried out in pain and fell to the ground. Stopping only to pick up her credit card, the young woman turned but found the door locked. She pivoted, avoiding the man who was know on the ground clutching at his face, and picked up the telephone, hurling it through the window.

"WAIT!" the man cried out as she hopped over the window sill and rushed back out into the storm. But she did not listen. She ran to her car, wrenched the door open and jammed the key in the ignition. She was about to drive away when the attendant slammed against the hood, causing her to scream.

"WAIT!" he yelled again. She put the car in drive and stepped on the gas. The man jumped out of the way in time to avoid being run over. As she drove off into the night, she did not hear him scream, "THERE'S SOMEONE IN THE BACK SEAT!!!"

She felt the tears mix with the rain water as she sped as fast as she could away from the gas station. Her heart was racing and her mind was still trying to catch up with what had happened. Trying not to think what that man might have done to her, she pressed play on the stereo again and felt herself calming down. As the song played, she felt herself calm down and was soon singing along.

"Turn around bright eyes."

It was only after she sang this that her own bright eyes happened to catch a movement from the back seat in the rear view mirror. She glanced up in time to see the hulking dark figure behind her seat. She gasped and slammed on the breaks in enough time for the figure, who wore a dark fur lined parka pulled over their face, to raise a two bladed axe and swing. The axe connected with her neck, drowning any attempt at a scream. The blade tore through flesh and bone and smashed through the driver side window, sending glass and blood everywhere. Her head went flying off her shoulder, through the window and landed with a thud on the slick road next to her car, her eyes staring ahead in surprise.

Sam Winchester's own bright eyes fluttered open. Lying on his double bed, he glanced to his left and right, trying hard to get his mind straight. He felt his heart beating a thousand miles and could still hear the scream and sound of shattered glass. That dream...that nightmare had been so real he felt as though he'd been sitting in the passenger seat with that poor woman.

Sitting up, the eighteen year old looked around his dorm room. It was dark and he could hear the rain pounding against the windows. Low rumbles of thunder and the odd flash of lightning almost made him feel like he was still in the dream. He raised a hand unconsciously to the back of his neck and rubbed it, almost afraid that he'd feel an axe stuck there. But all was normal. Sighing, he got to his feet and switched the lamp on.

The dorm room he shared with his roommate Paul Gardener was as neat as the two young men tried to keep it. Sam's side of the room was messier than studious Paul's, but that was to be expected. Growing up with demon hunters had somehow affected his sense of organization. Some of his shirts were lying on the floor and he noticed that his books had fallen out of his bag. He got up to right them and noticed one in particular. The cover of which had an illustration of a young woman looking in the rear view mirror of her car and seeing a shadowy figure in the with an axe in the back seat.

Sam ran a hand through his untidy brown hair and sighed. Of course he'd had that dream. His folklore professor had told the class to read this book, An Encyclopedia of Urban Legends, to gain some background knowledge before they began their new topic the next day. Not that many of the students needed it. Most of the people on campus had heard the urban legends listed in the book. Sighing again, Sam tucked the book into his book bag and turned to head back to bed. It was nearly eleven at night and he had to get up early to meet his friends in the lounge.

Sam turned back to his bed and was about to crawl back under his sheets when a flash of lightning illuminated the room. In that brief moment, Sam saw that Paul's bed was empty. He frowned at this. It wasn't unusual for his roommate to disappear at odd hours. Paul was a leading reporter for the Stanford Student Newspaper, and was more than likely out following some kind of hot lead. Well...hot for a university. Most of Paul's articles tended to deal with mundane things that were of no real importance. Sam felt bad for him. Paul was enthusiastic about his work. Maybe a little too enthusiastic. Yet he never seemed to show what he was really made of.

Taking a deep breath, Sam crawled into bed and stared at the ceiling for a few moments, the lamp still casting an orange light over everything. He'd been at Stanford for over a semester now and was having a generally good time. He'd made himself more friends than he'd ever had during any year of his basic education. He'd gotten close to a few of them. Very close to one especially. Of course that had ended a little more sourly than he'd intended. But still...he was having a great time and was actually happy, which was pretty good for someone who had run away from his only remaining family to be at Stanford in the first place.

Sam didn't like to think back to the event that had made him run. Granted, growing up having to live with your father and older brother always running off to fight demons when you needed help with your homework wasn't what he'd call a stellar childhood. He'd learned a lot from his dad and from Dean and was grateful for that. But now that he tasted normalcy, he wasn't keen on going back.

Especially not after what had happened between himself and Dean. Thinking about it, even now, only caused a tight feeling of pain to form in the pit of Sam's stomach. It had all started so perfectly too. It was easy when they'd first started nearly four years ago. He and Dean had always been closer than close, having only one another to rely on most of the times. Sam had looked up to Dean, had gone to him for protection even when their father was around. While it wasn't exactly natural for things between them to have developed the way they had, he had found it incredibly easy. They'd had to hide it from those few people they knew, especially their father. But Dean had always said that once they were out on their own...then things would be easy. They wouldn't have to worry so much.

And in the naive idealism of youth, Sam had believed him. To Sam, Dean was always able to make things happen. He'd never counted on Dean being too chicken shit to actually leave dear old Dad's side when Sam had finally asked him if they could finally get out on their own together.

Rolling onto his side, Sam looked at the small silver picture on his night side table. The one of him and Dean at the beach. The one that had been taken only a few days before all he'd thought they'd had had gone to hell in a proverbial hand basket. He and Dean were smiling brightly in the picture, Dean jump-hugging him from behind, his soft green eyes shining with mirth. Sam's smile was more subdued, but his own eyes were on Dean.

His eyes had only ever been on Dean. But that wasn't good enough. It never had been. Not when Daddy was around. Sam still couldn't understand why Dean had chosen him over Sam. All his life, Sam had been instructed on the dangers of the world in which they operated. He'd had to see things not child should see and the whole time was expected to just deal with it. He knew how to use guns and knives and had an extensive knowledge of the arcane. What most people called child raising John Winchester called training, and Sam hated his father for it and would always hate him for it. And when Dean had done what he had done, he'd made it perfectly clear to Sam just who he thought was more important.

Sam felt the slough of emotions welling up in him like a geyser ready to burst. Hurt, anger and sorrow, all of these threatened to overtake him and he took a deep, long breath to calm himself down. He couldn't let the dam burst. The one he'd been building ever since he'd come here. It nearly had once or twice and he didn't want to risk his new friendships for anything.

He shut the lamp off, rolled over and closed his eyes. Whatever had happened in the past was the past and that's where he preferred it to be. He had a huge new vista of opportunity at Stanford and the fact that he'd made friends, real friends, was enough to let him know that he'd made the right choice by coming here. He'd forgotten about that dream now, and attributed it to coincidence, something he'd started believing in again when he'd first come here. Just before he dozed off though, he did wonder a little bit. He didn't worry. He just wondered if maybe it were possible for that dream to have been something more. After all, just because urban legends had never really happened didn't mean they never could. He shook that thought off and in a moment was lulled to sleep by the sounds of the storm.

He was sound asleep when his roommate Paul snuck quietly into the room around dawn and stuffed his dark green, fur lined parka into the back of the closet they shared before quietly getting into his own bed.

ooo

Sam forgot about the dream when he woke up the next morning. When he finally shut off his alarm clock and sat up in bed, he was aware the Paul was up and getting things ready for his first class. A good looking guy with a sharp, thin face and cropped black hair, Paul had a look about him that screamed ambition. Just the way he moved was enough to tell you that this was someone who would do whatever it took to get to where he wanted too.

"Hey." Sam said.

Paul grinned. "Good morning sunshine." he said, his brilliant blue eyes crinkling. "Have a nice sleep?"

Sam shrugged as he went to the closet to pick out some clean clothes for the day.

"I guess."

"That god damn storm woke me up." Paul grumbled, packing a small camera into his bag.

Sam, who had just selected his school sweater and a pair of jeans suddenly remembered waking up last night. He looked over his shoulder at Paul, not noticing the fur lined parka in the back of the closet.

"Where did you go last night?" Sam asked.

Paul paused for the briefest moment and shrugged nonchalantly.

"Stanley Hall." he said.

"Seriously?" Sam asked incredulously. Stanley Hall was an abandoned dormitory house that had been shut down twenty five years ago after a brutal murder that had been committed. Some people claimed it was haunted. Sam, with his knowledge of all things dark and eldritch knew better than that. Still, the place was pretty damn creepy sitting all alone on the edge of campus with boarded windows.

Paul shrugged again, brushing passed Sam and taking a black jacket out of the closet.

"Yeah. I wanted to do a piece on the anniversary of the massacre for the paper. I got a few shots that I think might make it a little more exciting then it actually sounds. That lightning has a way of adding atmosphere."

"See any demon pigs?" Sam asked, pulling his sweater over his head. Again he was joking. Most people knew the Amityville Horror was a big fat hoax. He knew it wasn't. Just a standard hallucinatory demon making an upper middle class family see things. That's what his dad had told him.

"Nope." Paul replied. "Well, unless you count Damon."

Sam stopped in the middle of pulling on his jeans.

"What the hell was he doing there?" Sam asked, trying not to sound interested in the slightest. He doubted Paul knew anything about his history with the campus practical joker who was know a certified asshole fraternity brother.

Paul shrugged once more and hoisted his book bag over his shoulder.

"Probably fucking a raccoon for all I know." He paused before heading out the door. "That would make a good human interest piece. Local Frat Boy Caught in Bestiality Scandal. Priceless."

Sam chuckled nervously and then picked up his own book bag.

"Going to the lounge?" he asked Paul as they headed out into the hallway.

Paul shook his head. "Can't. I need to get these photos developed."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Paul, it's the twenty first century. What the hell are you using a dark room for?"

"Atmosphere." Paul said with a chuckle. "Besides I like the red glow."

The two of them rounded the corner and went down a flight of stairs and finally made it to the doors outside. Once they were outside, Sam breathed the clean smell of spring rain. The pavement was still wet despite there not being a dark cloud in sight. The rain must have stopped only a few hours ago. Students were out and about, sitting on the banisters of stairs and hanging out before the daily grind began. He smiled to himself. This was normal. This was what he wanted.

Sam headed off towards the student lounge which was at the other end of the quad. He noticed Paul was following him.

"What about those photos?" Sam asked with a cheeky grin. "All alone and undeveloped."

"They'll survive for a while." Paul said, his eyes glued to the nearby parking lot. Sam followed his gaze and saw that two police cars were parked there and several officers were talking with the dean and members of campus security. Sam could almost see the reporter instincts in Paul spring into action.

"I'll catch up." he said and hurried off towards the parking lot. Sam rolled his eyes and continued on towards the student lounge. He'd have a little time before his first class to hang out with his friends, maybe even get a cup of coffee and a bagel.

The lounge was full of students, some of them sitting down to breakfast and chatting, others doing some last minute studying. It being late April, they were preparing for the final exams which were weeks away. When Sam entered, his eyes went right to the seats by the fireplace where he could see several people gathered. A petite girl with bushy brown hair smiled brightly at him and gestured for him to sit. Sam held up a hand and jerked his head to the cafe. She nodded and went back to talking with the others.

Sam ordered a cup of coffee and, after a particularly loud gurgle from his stomach, added a cinnamon roll to his order. After paying, he turned and was about to go and join the others by the fireside when he heard a report on the nearby radio.

"...once more, police are investigating the grisly and bizarre death of Michelle Mancini, a nineteen year old woman who was traveling to Stanford University late last night when she was apparently murdered in her car. Police have reason to believe that the assailant was hiding in the backseat in wait for Ms. Mancini who was seen by gas station attendant Michael McDonnell minutes before her death. Ms. Mancini's decapitated corpse was found..."

Sam felt the coffee cup slip from his hand and shatter on the floor, spilling hot coffee everywhere and sending ceramic purple shards in all directions on the linoleum. People in the nearby area stared at him, some whispering to each other, but Sam didn't notice them. That radio report...it matched his dream perfectly.