When in Rhome

With undying gratitude to JaniceC678: Beta, editor, sounding board, and co-creator. Thanks.

To readers wary of reading WIPs: This story is completely written. I don't post until I've typed the end. It will be uploaded chapter by chapter every few days, because I'm not a very nice person.

Set post Season 12, and I swear it's not AU!

-1-

Mars watched his son for a short eternity as these things are measured by gods. The boy lay staring toward Earth, unmoving save one foot which tapped with distracting lack of rhythm. The god sighed, perhaps more dramatically than necessary - he was a god, after all - and froze his son's foot with a force of will. Romulus looked up, startled.

"What could you possibly be watching so intensely?" asked the god in the tones of all fathers everywhere.

"This…" Romulus sounded half wistful and half dismissive, "These two humans. Down there." He gestured.

Mars' eyes followed the movement. "Oh," he replied, his cosmic eyes rolling with enough emphasis that the ground rumbled under Los Angeles, "them." The pair – well known to all gods in all pantheons – was arguing again. Something about another apocalypse. Mars grunted in minor annoyance. The aftershock, again centered in Los Angeles, could be felt all the way to San Francisco. "What about them?"

"Do you think they realize how…" the demigod began.

"Petty?" prompted his father.

"…lucky," continued Romulus. "Do they realize how lucky they are to have each other?"

Mars sighed. A skirmish in a small, inconsequential village somewhere expanded into full-blown war which threatened the stability of the Philippines. The boy had developed an unnatural affinity for brother pairs ever since he'd killed his own brother a few thousand years before. He seemed to adopt the hardest-luck siblings he could find in any given century as some type of special project. It was annoying, but what could you do about kids' fancies?

"Maybe I should show them," suggested the kid in question.

Mars grunted noncommittally. "Whatever. Just make sure you're at your grandfather's ceremony by quarter till three thousand." He moved off, looking for a snack or perhaps a vestal virgin.

ooooOOOOoooo

Sam Winchester woke as the ground beneath him trembled ominously. It reminded him of his days in college, before he'd given up on childhood fancies to join his father in the family business. He groaned and rolled over. It had been a long night. His arms ached from digging and the room smelled of the smoke that had embedded itself into his faded jeans. He'd planned on doing little more than laundry today, and that after a LONG morning's rest, but if he knew Southern California, aftershocks would soon – the earth rolled and bucked – yeah, very soon, wake him back up anyway. The motel room's lights flickered and died, as did the room's ancient heater. Power's out; so much for doing laundry.

Instead, Sam opened his laptop to peruse the candidates he'd been considering for his next case. Somewhere warm, but with solid ground beneath his feet, he decided. There was something down in Texas. He flipped to the relevant tab on his browser.

ooooOOOOoooo

The third round of rolling, roiling ground finally shook Dean awake. He noted the sun coming through the room's windows and squinted toward his brother's bed. The younger Winchester wasn't in it. Probably going for one of his stupid jogs. Dean's head dropped back to his pillow with a 'thump.'

ooooOOOOoooo

An hour later, Sam was bored and ready to move on. He had pulled up all of the information he could find about the case he'd chosen to pursue, the battery on his laptop was about to die, and the temperature in the room was steadily dropping. He may as well be on the road. Sam grabbed what few items he had pulled out over the past week and stuffed them back into his duffel, gave the meager room a last look, and left without a backward glance. In the parking lot, he dropped the duffel beside the rest of his worldly possessions in the back of his old black car. The creak of the driver's door reminded him, as it always did, of his dad. The Impala had been the old man's baby, and it was still in good shape despite its age. John Winchester would have haunted Sam if he'd let it deteriorate, so he made sure to keep it in repair even with the often high cost of garage services. It was worth the price. He cranked the heater up to fight off the November chill, plugged his iPod into the jack, and swung the sleek beast out onto the highway, heading toward the small town of Rhome, Texas.

ooooOOOOoooo

Dean startled awake to the sound of Baby's engine roaring out of the motel parking lot. Where's he going?

He decided it was unimportant and rolled over, pulling his covers up to his chin.

Later, when the sun streaming in the dirty motel windows and the chilly air in the still darkened room would no longer allow him to sleep at all, Dean still found the room Sam-free. He fumbled for his cellphone and hit speed dial 1 even as he pried his eyes open. The device rang twice before it was answered.

"Howdy doody, Dean-o!"

Dean wasn't quite with it yet. It took a second before he placed the voice. "Garth?"

"Yeah…" he chuckled, "You butt-dial me, man?"

"Um… yeah. Musta…" He looked at his phone with confusion. "Musta misdialed. Sorry." Pressing the disconnect button, he carefully pressed and held the '1' to redial his brother.

"Howdy doody again, Dean-o!"

What in the hell? "Garth, I'm sorry. I think Sam must have screwed with my speed dial settings. I'll clock the pain in the ass for you, I promise."

"Sam?" Garth sounded a bit confused. "You mean Sam Allen? Or," and the man's voice turned cocky and teasing in the manner of a 15-year-old making fun of his brother, "did you find a lady named Samantha this time, you old dog?"

"What? Sam Winchester. Why would you…" He stopped, shaking his head in amusement as he realized who he was talking to. Garth was…different. Good guy, but a sandwich short of a picnic. "Never mind. I'll talk to you later, Garth."

"OK, man." There was a pause, and Garth's voice turned serious on the other end of the phone. He continued, "Listen. I know it's none of my business, and I don't know what kinda baddie you're after that you're hanging out with Sam Winchester, but just… be careful, OK? You know what they say about that guy. I mean, I know he's good. EVERYONE knows he's good, but…" another pause, "just… be careful, OK?" Dean heard a ringing on the other end of the line. "Damn. Sorry Dean-o. Gotta go. I'll talk to you later." And before Dean could wrap his head around what had just been said, the line went dead.

ooooOOOOoooo

Tricia Yearwood's voice rose above the rumbling of the Impala's engine as Sam made his way swiftly south and east. The roads out here were well maintained and basically empty, just the way Sam liked it. The drive would be plenty long enough for Sam to work the stiffness out of his arms. Despite more than twenty years of practice, digging a grave was guaranteed to leave him sore come morning. Three feet down, it always occurred to him that he should find a partner – an apprentice like his dad had in Sam himself – if for no other reason than to do some of the heavy lifting.

His phone rang. He hit pause on the iPod and tapped the answer button on his phone. "hello?"

"Sam! Where the hell are you?"

Sam didn't recognize the voice, but that didn't mean much. In his line of work, he met a lot of people who tended to remember him better than he remembered them. "California. Who's this?"

"California?" The voice sounded frustrated. "I know you're in freaking California. You left the motel like three hours ago. Where are you? And when did you change your number? I had to ask Garth for it."

Sam was fully on alert. This person, whoever it was, was watching him. Sam thought he'd heard the voice before but couldn't place it. The guy knew Garth, which made him a hunter. Sam reached toward the glove compartment, flipping a switch to scramble his cell signal, routing his call through towers all over the southwest before it bounced to wherever this hunter was. No way for the other guy to get a fix on his location from his phone now. "You looking for me for a reason?"

"What?" came the voice, sounding confused and annoyed.

Again the sound tickled the back of Sam's mind. The roadhouse maybe? That didn't help much. A lot of hunters went through that place, and too many of them knew about Sam. Way too many.

Back at the motel, Dean pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off the migraine which only formed when Sam was being especially obtuse. "Sam, come on. Of course I'm looking for you. If this is about that thing last night…" It couldn't have been. They'd fought over more important things a thousand times with never a word said the next day. Sam wouldn't have taken off – sure as hell wouldn't have taken Baby – over the little spat the night before. "Whatever, Sam. Just, bring back the car without a scratch or I'm gonna take it out of your hide. And bring breakfast. Pancakes. I'm taking a shower. See you later."

The line broke off. See you later. Was that a threat? Did the guy know where he was? Should he go back to the motel, see what he could find? No. If the guy knew where Sam was, he'd be less likely to find Sam if he kept on toward Texas. If he didn't already know, going back would only give him information that the guy didn't have right now. Sam would keep going, but he'd keep an eye out for a possible ambush along the way. For now? The guy had said he'd gotten Sam's number from Garth. Sam hit '6' on his speed dial.

oooOOOooo

Fifteen minutes later, after a shower long enough to use up every bit of hot water available, Dean found a missed call on his phone. He checked the number, rolled his eyes, and dialed. "Hey, Garth."

"Um… hey, man." Garth sounded wrong. That serious voice was back. "How you doing, my friend?"

"Garth, we just talked."

"Yeah. Um… Did you…call…Sam Winchester?"

"You know I did. I asked you for his number." And why he'd had to call Garth of all people for that number he'd never know.

"Yeah. And then he called me." Garth felt out of his depth. Dean Wynt was a sarcastic SOB, but he'd always been reliably straightforward. He cleared his throat and started again, "Sam said you threatened him?"

"What?" Dean's voice rose instinctively, well before his brain could process such a statement. "Threatened Sam? I'd never… OK, so we had some words last night, but you know me, Garth. I would never threaten my brother. I just told him to bring back my car and some pancakes." What the hell would he even threaten Sam about? OK, so he took Baby…

"You have a brother? Man, see? I'm learning more about you -" Garth started, and then paused. "Wait. Sam Winchester stole your car?"

There was a moment of silence as Dean sat dumbfounded. What the fuck? "Garth," Dean took a breath. "Sam - Sam is my brother."

"WHAT? REALLY?"

"What do you mean, really? Really. You know that... Wait," Garth had sounded truly confused. "You don't know that." He was silent for a full minute as he thought this through. "Garth. What kind of thing could make someone forget someone's someone's brother?"

"Forget someone's someone's brother? Is that a riddle?"

"GARTH. Focus."

"Riiight. OK. So. Forget someone's someone's brother." The silence stretched again as Garth struggled to answer, not because he didn't know of any supernatural entities which could make somebody forget a family member, but because he knew of so many. "How 'bout I email you a list?"