Stanford College, California: Haven't seen you in a while

"Are you sure you're okay?" Sam said to Jess.

"I'm fine, Sam." replied Jess, probably smiling at the other end. "Just take care of yourself."

Sam hung up the phone and got in the car without a word to Dean, who he was even more annoyed at now for trying to cut him off from Jessica. He decided to go back to researching.

Dean rolled his eyes, and got in the car after Sam, "You're like a hormonal teenager," he said, as his brother pointedly ignored him. Well, this was going to be a fun ride...

"You're not going to get an internet connection in here..." he pointed out, as he turned the key in the ignition, "and I doubt there'll be any more leads on there."

Right after Dean pointed that out Sam clicked on another link and found something. It was just a comment on the page. "I saw a woman with fire red hair running through the forest and then she just disappeared. When I got home there was a police car outside the neighbours house. Apparently someone went missing, but they found blood, and lots of it." he read aloud.

"Whatever this thing is, it looks like it just goes wherever the hell it wants."

Dean drove them out of the motels car park, so they were back on the road of what now appeared to be a sparsely populated town, now that the sun was coming up. Shortly after he spoke Sam appeared to have found something. As Sam continued it sounded more and more like a lead.

"It could be unrelated to what he found earlier," Dean mused, leaning back into the leather of his seat, features creased in thought as he mulled it over, "Sounds a bit like a wendigo. Did they find the body?"

"No. It looks like they're trying to cover it up themselves - but when there's the deaths, they're getting caught in the act." said Sam, looking at some more comments. "It's always the red haired woman - sometimes with two others, but no one knows what they look like. They're too fast, but they definitely look like people."

He tried to go onto something else, but groaned. "Lost the connection." he muttered, shutting the laptop. "There might be a coffee shop with free wi-fi around here?"

Dean shook his head, "In a town this size? I don't think so. We'd be better off looking into it when we get there, anyway," he glanced over at Sam, who had shut the laptop. There really wasn't much point doing the research now, seeing as it would mean stopping for maybe a couple of hours, and it was going to be at least another 12 hours till they got there, depending on how fast he drove. If dad was in trouble, then he wanted to get back there as fast as possible, not dither around doing research.

He looked back to the road, turned on the stereo. Static started playing, the previous cassette had ended. "Could you grab a tape from down there?" Dean asked, motioning with his hand towards the glovebox.

Sam knew that Dean wanted to hurry up and get there, but at the same time he knew that he didn't really want to think about the kind of stuff that might have happened to their dad. What if that red haired "woman" had done something... but it wasn't right. He would have killed "her" for sure. Their dad didn't just do that kind of thing...

Sam pulled out a box full of tapes. "Metallica?" he asked, pulling out a tape. "You really need to update your tapes... and the fact that they are tapes."

Dean scowled defensively, and swiped the tape from Sam's hand, shoving it into the player. Metallica started playing loudly through the speakers. They had both pretty much grown up on this type of music, their dad had constantly played the same sort of tapes as they had drove from place to place in the impala when they were kids. He had never really stopped listening to the same sort of thing - AC/DC, Metallica, Led Zeppelin. Though it had been clear even when they were kids that Sam had hated it.

"It's good music," Dean said, his eyes firmly on the road, the side of his mouth twitching into a smirk, "and theres nothing wrong with tapes. What have you been listening to lately, college boy?"

"Modern music." said Sam, exasperated. "The very few good ones, that are actually on CDs."

He shook his head. When would Dean stop living in the past? He probably knew the answer to that - when Dean stopped hunting with their dad, then he would stop. And yeah, sure that was going to happen any time.

Of course. Modern music. Typical Sammy. Music had after all been another way of his at rebelling against their dad in their youth. He had bought a walkman at some stage in his mid teens, and had made a point of listening to whatever it was he listened to in the back of the car, earphones in, to annoy their dad. This had of course lead to more arguments, which he was usually in the middle of. Not that any of that mattered now.

Dean shook his head disdainfully, "I'm disappointed in you Sammy, it seems that college has done nothing to improve your taste in music."

Sam sighed. "It's good music. You should listen to something good once in a while..." He glanced out the window, wondering if they were going to pass somewhere that sold food that wasn't a McDonalds - although the sound of coffee sounded good right about now.

"There. Can we just drive though and get a coffee or something?" said Sam, motioning towards an upcoming fast food restaurant.

Dean glanced over to where Sam was gesturing towards. It was a McDonalds, big yellow 'M' towering above them, a beacon drawing in passers by from the road. Dean frowned. This wasn't the sort of place that Sam would usually be willing to go to. Maybe college had changed that. If so, then that was certainly not a bad thing. Though when he heard the word coffee he understood. Of course there would be an ulterior motive.

"Sure thing, Sam," Dean said, pulling over into the drive thru. There weren't many cars in front of them, despite this being a busy road. Mostly truck drivers getting their breakfast, and people on their way to work, "What are you having?"

"Just two regular coffees. No way am I having any food from there... god knows what they cook with." he frowned in disgust at the thought of eating anything from there.

He really wanted to have about three, but the third would probably be cold by the time he got to it. Might as well just wait until they passes somewhere else when he got drowsy again.

Knowing Dean, he would probably get a full breakfast. He could already smell the food from there.

"Two coffees? Jeeze, Sam. That's a bit excessive," Dean said, raising an eyebrow, as he pulled in to order, winding down the Impala's window.

"Can I get a salad, two decaff coffees, and a big mac and fries," Dean asked the man at the other side of the counter, who wrote down his order. He payed, and looked over at Sam, smirking as he drove on to collect the order.

Handing Sam the coffees and salad to Sam with one hand on the steering wheel, Dean drove out of the McDonalds. He unwrapped the burger with his spare hand, and took a big biteful, looking over to grin at Sam through his mouthful.

Sam glared at Dean as he handed him the decaff coffees. The whole point in getting them was so that he could stay awake - not so that he could get a waste of coffees. Was there anything that Dean did that didn't annoy him anymore?

"What's next Dean?" he asked. "Gunna get out a tranquilliser gun?"

Dean bit back laughter at Sam's face, which was looking extremely pissed off, if looks could kill... Dean swallowed down the rest of his burger as Sam spoke, and toned down the grin, keeping the smirk down to a minimum.

Dean tilted his head, considering, trying to reign in his amused smile, "That would probably work better," he mused, "and it would save me the bitching. I'll keep that in mind for next time."

"Yeah, I think I'm going to take a mental note not to let you get me a drink." said Sam, drinking some of the coffee anyway, even though it wouldn't have any effects on him to help him stay awake. He should have asked for tea instead, or hot chocolate.

Dean probably would do something like put a sleeping pill in there if he refused to go to sleep any longer, which was kind of fair enough, since he was only showing concern for Sam.

"Hows that," he hesitated, not sure how to describe the food. "crap?"

Dean gave Sam a slightly malicious smile. Sam probably didn't think that drugging him would be below Dean. Not that he would do that... probably. Then again, that way he could listen to his music in peace, without Sam bitching about the lack of a CD player, and his 'crappy' taste in music. Drugging Sam didn't sound like such a bad idea after all... not that he would do it.

"It's good!" Dean grinned through a mouthful of fries and burger, as Sam asked about the food, "I can always turn back and get you some if you like." He eyed the salad that he had got Sam with morbid curiousity, "Are you going to eat that?" he asked, "It doesn't look so good. It's all green..."

Sam scoffed. "Of course it's green - it's called being healthy. Not that you've ever heard of that." He pushed it towards Dean. "And no. Not from that place."

He finished one of the coffee's quickly, a bit thirsty from not drinking in a while and started on the second, taking out his laptop again. They were likely to be getting so more signals here, since there were increasing amounts of fast food restaurants which surely had wi-fi connections. And also, he wanted to listen to some better music through earphones.

Dean eyed the green stuff with disdain. This is what Sam called food? It sure as hell didn't look like it.

"I don't want it," Dean said, pushing the salad back towards Sam, "I only got it cause that's the only thing from there you'd eat. Where you always this fussy?"

Dean took another chunk out of the burger, which was nearly gone, and reached down to turn Metallica right up, heavy metal blasting out of the car. He honestly was not doing it to annoy Sam. Not at all.

Sam sighed and pulled out the ear phones, knowing that even at full volume he'd ruin his hearing and still not be able to hear it anyway. Instead, he opened up his email and started talking to Jess, who was awake now, and wasn't happy with him. He also, thought that he should try and work on that paper that was meant to be handed in in less than a few hours. He would have to email it or something... when he was done.

He didn't speak to Dean, and wasn't planning to for a while.

Dean glanced over at Sam, who was on his laptop, being a little bit antisocial. He seemed to toy with his headphones, but wisely decided against it. If he had gone for the headphones then Dean would have only turned the volume up louder, to drown out whatever the crap that Sam was listening to was.

"You having fun there?" Dean asked, watching Sam out of the corner of his eye, a little bit of sarcasm colouring his voice, "Sure looks that way."

Dean glanced at his watch. It was barely eight. He sincerely hoped that the rest of the ride would not go anything like this. He was already bored out of his mind.

Sam was typing like crazy. "Need to finish this before nine." he muttered. He was no way, going to stop just because they were going on some trip to find their dad. It wasn't an excuse to put it off. They had a goodness knows how many hours ride, so he might as well do it.

"God, I don't even know what to tell Jess." he rubbed his forehead at an upcoming headache.

"Before 9?!" Dean asked, more than a little confused at why it needed to be handed in so early, reaching out to turn the music down a little, "Don't bother with it." At the mention of Jess, Dean frowned, "I thought you already explained to her. Just tell her dads gone missing and we're out looking for him."

Dean leaned over Sam to grab the bag of cassettes, with one hand hazerdously on the steering wheel. Luckily the road ahead of them was clear of cars, and went on in a straight line, meaning that there was very little to crash into. Dean shuffled through them, and settled on Led Zeppelin. Ejecting the Metallica and putting on Zeppelin, 'Stairway to heaven' started playing, a little more downbeat then before.

Sam tried to drown out the horrible music, unfortunately knowing that it would be going on until they got to Washington.

"It's not that simple. She wants to know where we're going... She wants to know... well, lots of stuff." he frowned, not mentioning why he had never told her he had a brother before and that she wanted to know why he hadn't. It looked like he'd have to do some explaining to Dean as well, and that would be awkward.