Right then, welcome to my next little tale. This is set Pre-Series, before Sam leaves for college. Dean is 21 and Sam 17, so if at some point during this fic you think that Dean maybe sounds a bit of a wussy, you have to remember that he's still pretty young and hasn't yet become the hardened, battle weary soul that we all know and love.

Anyway, this is pure angsty, hurty, Dean whumpage… No reason for it other that I wanted Dean all hot and sweaty and delirious. It's a sickness, I know, but I just can't help myself.

Actually, there is some other reason. I wanted to try out a different style to my normal way of writing. This story is broken into sets of three scenes… Three different times and three different viewpoints to carry the story forward. Dean's, Sam's and the back story that set the brothers on the path that they are on. I hope it works.

This story is as depressing as hell, but what can I do? I have no control over what spills out of my head and through my fingers. Blame the muse!

As usual, I own nothing but the way that the words are arranged – unfortunately all characters and anything else you might recognize do not belong to me. (sighs)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. Please review… It makes me very happy.

Supernoodle - 8th August 2007

Mad Dogs

By Supernoodle

-o-

One

-o-

Heat haze shimmered as the midday sun beat down on the big black car that was sat silent and unmoving in the middle of the dusty road. The windshield was smashed and smeared with dried on blood, the fender crumpled and bonnet caved in. The carcass of the big mule deer buck that had bolted out onto the road lay a few feet away, its eyes already lost to the predatory birds that circled the sky and a crow sat on the car's roof, peering down through the glass of the passenger window, wondering with its tiny, clever brain if there were any choice pickings to be had inside as well.

Suddenly the sharp ring of a cell phone broke the silence and the crow cawed loudly and took to flight, but there was no movement inside the wrecked car. The young man whose phone it was remained motionless; eyes closed and slumped on his side across the front seats.

Little nuggets of shattered glass nestled in the boy's mousy, sun streaked hair, glistening in the sunlight like deadly gemstones - and the blood that trickled thickly down the side of his pale face from the deep cut on his forehead had begun to pool on the ancient leather seat under his cheek, sticky and clotting in the blistering heat.

-o-

"I need you to find this man." John Winchester had told his oldest son, handing him a picture and an address on a scrap of motel notepaper as he began packing his stuff into his duffle bag. It wasn't a very big bag; the man didn't have many things to pack. Travel light, he always said. Be ready to haul ass at a moment's notice. "He has something we need - a map."

"Okay?..." Dean had replied, slightly confused. One minute they were heading off to New Orleans, then one phone call later and everything had changed and all without a moment's explanation. Not that Dean expected an explanation; he didn't need one - he'd do anything his Dad asked him to without question, but Sam was not so accepting, not anymore anyway – but then the youngest Winchester had always asked too many questions and had never been satisfied with any reply that Dean or John had given him, and deep down, if Dean was really honest with himself, he was losing patience with his father's never-ending Commander-In-Chief routine. But it wasn't going to be a problem - Dean was never really honest with anyone anymore, especially himself. Life just seemed to be easier that way.

The Winchesters were currently holed up in a cheap cowboy themed motel somewhere deep in Arizona, had been for the past week and a half. John had been restless, waiting for something, some piece of information, which he had obviously just managed to get. Sam had spent the time studying and Dean, having nothing else to do, spent the time sunbathing, swimming in the suspiciously heavily chlorinated motel pool, and tinkering with his car. As his Dad frequently told him, there was always something that needed adjusting on classics like the Impala, and he wasn't lying. Owning such a high-maintenance gas-guzzler in their line of work was impractical to say the least, but Dean would no sooner part with his baby than he would part with Sam. The Impala was a cool, fine looking piece of old Detroit muscle, but that wasn't all of it; that car was the only thing Dean truly owned, the only thing that was his alone – and it was the only home he'd known in the last 17 years.

"Where are you going, Dad?" Sam asked, not really expecting much of an answer and not really getting one.

"I gotta go and see someone… They have some information for me."

"Great!" The youngest Winchester replied, flopping down in the chair by the little TV in the corner of the motel room, folding his arms in sulky annoyance. "What about me?"

Dean had looked apprehensively from his little brother to his Dad, hoping desperately that this wasn't going to be the start of another fight. The older Sam got, the more like their Dad he became - obstinate, stubborn, pig-headed. The two of them just seemed to rub each other up the wrong way lately and it was getting worse, had been getting a lot worse since Sam turned seventeen.

Dean had been trying desperately to ignore the tension between them, pretend it wasn't happening, but more and more he was being dragged into the middle of their fights and it hurt. The two people he loved most in the world were so caught up in trying to prove the other wrong that neither of them noticed what it was doing to him.

Dean was diplomatic by nature, had become a master of making peace over the years, and he would rather have bitten his own tongue off and choke on it than tell them how he felt. If he let slip to Sam or his Dad how much they upset him by putting him in the middle, it would only cause more resentment between them, and they would only blame each other and use the knowledge as ammo in the next fight. So as usual, Dean kept it all to himself, like all the other hurts, and hoped that all that bottled up emotion wasn't going to give him a brain aneurism one day.

"You are going to stay here, Sam. You have school work to do." John had told his youngest son, and Sam had pouted and replied with a "Yeah, whatever'".

Then he turned to Dean and gave him the same stern look. "As soon as you get that map, Dean. You need to call me… You think you can manage that?"

"Yes sir." Dean replied obediently. Slightly hurt by his Dad's irritated tone. He hadn't done anything wrong, and sighing heavily, he began to gather a few bits together ready for the journey out into the desert, wishing to hell that things could go back to the way they used to be before the two of them began seriously locking horns.

-o-

Sam paced the small hotel room, his long legs eating up the space in about three strides. He had the cell phone to his ear and it was ringing, but his brother wasn't picking up.

"Goddamit, Dean." He muttered under his breath and when it went through to voicemail for the twentieth time, Sam gave up trying to call him brother and dialled his father's number instead.

"He's not answering, Dad." Sam yelled down the phone. The line was noisy and it sounded like his Dad was driving. "Did you try to call him?"

"No, not yet."

Sam shook his head and sighed. "It's not switched off – his phone is ringing but he isn't answering. It's not like him, Dad. He always picks up, even when he's driving."

Listen, Sam. I can't really speak right now." His father's voice replied down the crackling line. "Give it an hour or so and call me back if you don't hear from him."

Typical, Sam thought to himself. Whatever Dad was doing was far more important than his Son's wellbeing. "Fine!" He yelled and he snapped the phone shut and threw it on the bed in frustration.

The errand, job - whatever it had been, was only supposed to take Dean a couple of hours, three at the most. Drive to some town, find some guy, get some map, and drive right back. Nothing to it, right?

Dean had left at just gone eight that morning and now it was midday. He should have been back at the motel by half-ten, eleven am at the latest. Sam had begun calling him at quarter to eleven and an hour later, he was still only getting the five rings then the voicemail. It was so unlike his brother. When he was out on a job Dean kept in almost constant contact, as much to make sure Sam wasn't in any trouble as to let Sam know that he was okay.

Dean had called him at around nine to tell him that he'd just seen a really cool cow skull half buried in the desert sand, and then nothing - no contact at all since then.

Something was wrong, Sam knew it.

Now all he had to do was convince his Dad, and as always, that was going to be easier said than done.

-o-