AN:

This is a season 1 AU, but several characters from later seasons will make an appearance. There will be spoilers for up to season 7. I don't even know how to explain the idea behind this, so I won't, but time travel is involved.

Going back and trying to get a hang of the characters season 1 voices was surprisingly difficult and I'm not sure how well I did. (They are all so different now!) Hopefully I did okay.

Anyway, enjoy-

Blackbird

Chapter 1

Rescue Mission

Dean winced as he pulled the large piece of shattered glass out of his forearm. He placed the piece of glass as quietly as he could on the concrete floor below him and risked a second glance over the ledge. No sign of the Jersey Devils. At least not yet, his brain unhelpfully commented. He was so screwed. It would have been one thing if there had been just one of the creatures, one he could handle. Two, maybe. But four? He needed help. But Dad had vanished seemingly into thin air and Sam was off at Stanford, so here he was, all on his lonesome, facing off against a pack of Jersey Devils.

I can't believe that I'm not even going to get killed by one of the cool monsters.

He shook the thought out of his head. He could do this, he had already killed one of the things, and so long as the rest of them didn't attack all at once he should be fine. He stilled his breathing. He could hear scuttling in the next room. He peeked over the ledge and saw one sniffing through some boxes. And damn it, no matter how many times he saw them he couldn't get over how ridiculous the things looked. If there was ever irrevocable proof of the non-existence of God, it was the Jersey Devil. Any deity that would create a creature with a goats head, bat wings and tiny T-Rex like claws did not deserve to be worshiped.

He gripped the iron rod tighter, reading himself. In one smooth motion he leaped over the ledge and drove the rod into the Jersey Devils chest.

Don't scream, don't scream, don't scream.

The thing started to scream.

That was another thing that he hated about the Jersey Devils. Their screams could be heard for miles and had the unfortunate effect of drawing any other Jersey Devil in the area to your exact location. Dean cursed, drawing the rod out of the creature as it died.

Two down, two to go.

The other two appeared quickly, drawn by the screams of their fallen comrade. They attacked as one and Dean lost himself in a frenzied battle with the things. The little buggers were fast and he was struggling to keep up, exhausted and injured from his previous battles. The one on his left rammed him, and Dean felt the definite crack of one, maybe two ribs breaking. He jammed his weapon through the creatures' neck, killing it instantly.

The final Jersey Devil screamed in rage, charging him. Dean barely had time to pull the iron rod out of the fallen Jersey devils neck before the thing was on him, biting and scratching at him with its little T-Rex arms.

"Get off of me!" Dean shouted, driving the rod through the creatures' chest. The Jersey Devil gave one last blood-curdling scream- right in my freaking ear- and died.

Dean stood up, ears still ringing. He looked down at the dead, ridiculous looking creatures and then at himself- he was covered in monster blood, had at least two broken ribs, there was still shattered glass in his left forearm and he thinks that his eardrums might have shattered.

"Today sucks." He grumbled, shuffling off to the Impala. Yesterday had sucked too. In fact, pretty much every day had sucked since his dad had decided to up and disappear without so much as an explanation. Scratch that, every day had sucked since Sam had walked out on them for Stanford years ago. But it hadn't been so bad when Dad was there too. It was still the family business when there were two members of the family hunting together. Dean wasn't sure what it was now. Nothing good, though.

He collapses into his motel room, putting his bloodied cloths into a pile. He'll have to throw them away later. Now he needs to sleep, or maybe watch something on TV- something relaxing to distract himself from the fact that he almost just got killed by the one of the most ridiculous looking monsters ever and that his already small family was falling apart. But, of course, nothing good was on and even though he was exhausted as all hell he couldn't seem to get to sleep.

He pulled out his phone.

He stared at it for a long time, running an all too familiar argument through his head. I should call Sam, one part of him would say, It's been years since we've talked and I need to check up on him. And then the rational part of him would shut the idea down, remind him that Sam wanted nothing to do with him or with hunting, and that he had gone off to live a normal life and he wasn't coming back. And then he would always put the phone away and pretend that the mental battle had never happened.

Except that he didn't this time.

Because damn it, Dad was gone now too, and it had been days without so much as an explanation or anything, and Dean was apparently not very good at being on his own.

He decided to try calling his Dad. He needed to at least talk to the one person left in his family who still wanted to talk to him.

Except that he didn't pick up.

Dean didn't leave a message, just hung up and told himself that he was just on a hunt, that he would call back.

As if on cue, his phone started to ring. Dean answered it almost instantly.

"Dad?"

"What?" The confused sounding voice of a stranger answered.

Dean hit his head against the headboard of the bed. "Sorry. Thought you were someone else. Who is this?"
"Look, I… this is probably a big mistake. I- I can't believe that I actually called, you probably think that I'm insane, but is there any chance that… Is there a Dean Winchester there?"
"Yes, this is Dean Winchester. Who are you?"
"No." The strangers voice whispered. "That's… that's not possible." Dean heard what sounded like broken laughter followed by the always reassuring words- "Oh my God, I'm going insane."

Dean glared at his phone, really not in the mood to deal with this stranger and his obvious mental health issues. "How did you get this number?"

"The voice… There was this voice, it kept telling me that I had to call this number specifically and warn Dean Winchester about the 'dangers to come' or something. But there's no way you're really real, is there? I'm probably really just talking to static or something and this is all in my head, right?"

Dean narrowed his eyes, suddenly on alert. "What kind of voice?"

"Don't you already know? I mean, you're just as much a figment of my imagination as it is, aren't you? Oh, God, I need help."
"No." Dean said, all business. "I'm real, and whatever was talking to you knew my name and my phone number, which means that it's real too. Now I need to know what it is and what it said."

The man on the other end of the phone gave a frightened sounding whimper and Dean really wished that Sam was there- he was always much better at talking with civilians.

Suddenly, there was this strange ringing static like sound over the line and the man gave a painful sounding cry.

"What was that? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine- The voice was just talking. It says that there isn't much time… danger…" Dean winced as static roared in his ear.

"I didn't catch that, what did you just say?"

"It says that someone named Sam is in danger. Demons are coming after him."

Dean nearly dropped the phone.

Dean tried calling his Dad again as soon as he hung up and got his voicemail again. "Dad, listen. I think Sam's in trouble. Call me when you get this message and I can explain."

After he hung up he dialed Sam for the first time in what felt like forever. He drummed his fingers nervously along the steering wheel as he listened to the phone ring. Sam wasn't picking up. Dean pressed down on the accelerator and drove.

It was two days and over thirty unanswered calls to Sam before Dean finally arrived at Stanford. It was no understatement to say that by this point Deans nerves were shot to Hell. He had barely slept or ate since receiving that mysterious call, and he had just driving through six states with nothing but nightmare scenarios of what could have happened to Sam running though his head.

He walks up to Sams apartment, knocks on the door.

"Coming!" A females voice calls out from inside, and the door opens to reveal a pretty blond woman behind it.

"Uh, I'm sorry- I'm looking for Sam."

She smiled. "Well you've come to the right place. I'm his girlfriend Jessica- he just stepped out to go to the store a little while ago."
"I kind of needed to talk to him now, and he hasn't been answering my calls."

"Yeah." The girl said, not sounding too concerned about it. "His phone kind of… exploded two days ago, and he hasn't gotten a new one yet. He should be back any minute if you want to wait?"
"That would be great." Dean said, breathing a silent sigh of relief at the knowledge that Sam hadn't been horrifically murdered on his drive to Palo Alto.

"What did you say your name was?"
"It's Dean."
The girl froze. "You're Sam's brother?" She exclaimed, and Dean was suddenly hit with the fear that Sam had told his girlfriend that he did not want to be contacted by his crazy, monster-hunting family. The fear was quickly alleviated, however, when Jessica broke into a big smile, and opened the door of the apartment wider. "Come on in, wait inside, I've got so many questions for you."

She sat him down on a cheap looking but comfortable couch and brought out a plate of cookies.

"Sam never tells me anything about his childhood. You have to tell me some stories."

"I'm not sure if…"
"Please! I need blackmail material, here!"

Dean choked back a laugh. Despite himself, he was starting to like this girl- it looked like Sam had done all right. "Fine. But in exchange, you have to tell me what he's been up to these past four years."

"Deal."

"Did you know that he's terrified of clowns?"

"What, no way! He never told me that."
"Probably just embarrassed. I mean, I can see why- of all the things he could have been afraid of, he had to pick the most ridiculous."
"Well, every fear is a little silly if you think about it long enough. What are you afraid of?"
"Howler monkeys." Dean lied smoothly.

"And you don't think that's a little ridiculous?"
"Are you kidding me? Have you seen one of those things?" Dean said. "Freaking terrifying."

"You know what I'm afraid of?"
"What?"
"The inevitable heat death of the universe."
Dean blinked. Jessica stared at him solemnly for a solid minute before suddenly breaking into a smile.

"I'm kidding, geeze. It's actually sharks."
"Sharks?"

"Look, I saw Jaws when I was a kid and it kind of traumatized me. It's a lot less weird then being afraid of howler monkeys."

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of shuffling at the front door as Sam entered.

"Hey, Jess, they didn't have any Twizzlers at the convenience store…" He froze mid sentence as he caught sight of Dean sitting on his sofa. "Dean?" He asked, stunned. "What are you doing here?"

"Can we talk? It's important."

A few minutes later, the two of them were sitting on a park bench outside the apartment. Dean wasn't sure what to make of Sams expression- he definitely didn't look mad, just kind of confused and more then a little concerned.

As he should be.

"Look, Sam, I know that this is going to sound crazy, but I got this call a couple of days ago from some guy- I'd never met him before but he knew my number and my name and he knew about you. And he said that you were in danger, that demons were coming after you or something."

Sam raised an eyebrow and for the first time Dean realized just how ridiculous the story sounded.

"Some guy told you demons were after me and you just… believed him?"
"Look, I kind of flipped out when you weren't answering your phone."

Sam winced. "Yeah, the thing kind of - exploded. I was picking pieces of it out of the apartment for hours."
"Wait, it literally exploded? When was this?"

"Uh- Thursday."

Dean narrowed his eyes. "That's the same day I got the call saying you were in danger. Don't you think that's a little too weird to be a coincidence?"
Sam frowned. "You're right, that does seem pretty weird." He looked up. "You think that something supernatural is going on, don't you?"

"I definitely think that something supernatural is going on."

"Do you really think that it's demons? I mean, do you really trust phone guy?"

Dean frowned. Against all reason he actually did trust phone guy- the dude had seemed to be just the right blend of desperate skepticism and fearful confusion to be an innocent messenger of some unexplained supernatural voice. But that didn't mean that he trusted whatever entity that was speaking to or through him. "I don't think that we should eliminate the possibility. Or any possibility. Not until we figure out what's going on. Have you noticed anything else weird going on these past couple of days?"

"Yeah. There was this really weird campus-wide black out about a week ago- all the lights blew out at once. They said that it was an electrical shortage, but I'm not so sure anymore."

"Anything else?"
"Not that I know of, no."

"Okay. Then I'll investigate and see if there are any other clues, try and figure out what's going on."
"I'll help." Sam declared.

"Really?" Dean asked. "I thought that you had quit for good."
"Jess and my friends are here, Dean. If there is some kind of monster here then I have to protect them from it."

Dean grinned, unable to keep his excitement at the process of going on a hunt with his younger brother off of his face. He clapped his hands together excitedly. "Awesome. Let's do this!"