Chapter Text
"Hello? Sam Winchester speaking." the young man said groggily.
" Winchester, I've got a case that might interest you. "
"Huh? It's my day off, Ronald. Can't this wait till tomorrow?" Liz snuggled closer to Sam's neck and hummed in morning annoyence as her boyfriend kept talking into his phone. Sam wrapped an arm around her and softly trailed his fingers along the back of her neck, soothing her back into a slumber.
"Look, Winchester, I know I owe you one for last time, and I wouldn't be diturbing you on a Sunday morning if I didn't think it was worth it. So trust me when I tell you I have a case you will likely be interested in."
Sam sighed and turned his phone away from him, kissing his girlfriend softly on the top of her golden-blonde hair, and carefully sitting up in bed as to not disturb her anymore. He swang his long legs over the edge of the bed and heavily got up, but stopped short as Liz made an protesting sound behind her closed lips, longing for the warmth and weight that was beside her a few seconds ago. "Lizzie, baby, I'm going to make breakfast, okay?" He whispered to her and quietly left the room just as Lizzie sat up in the bed languidly, making more tired noises.
Pressing his phone back against his ear and rubbing his face triedly with his free hand, he sighed, "Alright, fine, what d' you have?"
"There are some people waiting to go into trial that need representing-"
"I bet they're waiting." Sam's sarcasam interrupted quietly as he entered the bathroom to wash his face.
"-AND as I was saying, a lawyer has yet to take their case, so I was wondering if you'd be interested. If so, you better come quick before someone else takes it before you."
"Uh huh." Sam closed to the tap and dried his face with a towel, then left the bathroom and headed downstaris. "And what exactly makes this case any different from the others?"
There was a chuckling sound at the other end of the line. "Guess you better come quick and find out for yourself, Winchester boy."
"Where?"
"Meet me at the coffee shop I know you usually got to in forty minutes, and hurry up if you want this case. I don't usually do this, but I want to get rid of the favour I owe you as soon as possible."
"Making you a favour doesn't mean you owe me one in return, but thanks anyway. I'll be there." he said and hanged up. He quickly checked the time on his phone- 09:56 A.M. - and walked towards the kitchen kettle.
About fifeteen minutes later, there were two steaming cups of coffee in Sam's hands, two dishes with a pair of toasts in each of them on the kitchen table, and two bowls of cereal on the counter.
Lizzie groggily stumbled into the kitchen, and Sam chuckled sofly upon seeing the mess that was his girlfriend's short hair; her golden-blonde strands sticking out in different directions and across her forhead. "Well how did you sleep, sunshine?" he asked eyeing her hair, unable to keep the teasing tone and smug smile off his face.
"Oh shuddup." She answered half-heartedly, in a low tone drained of energy, and a small smile tugging her lips upwards.
Sam smiled, content enough with the answer, and headed towards her, silently passing her a cup of coffee which she took and wrapped her hands around the top of the ceramic -where it was hot enough to warm her hands but not burn them- then brought it up to her nose and smelled it contently, granting the hot steam to hit her face. She allowed her boyfriend to brush his fingers through her hair and down to where it reached her shoulders, then starting back up again, straightening it down and untangling as many loose knots along the way. Then he moved his hand up to her scalp and rubbed it soothingly, to which she responded by dropping her head against his shoulder and burying her face into him.
They both took a sip of their coffee simultaniously and and sighed contently. Looking up at Sam, who had closed his eyes, she broke the tranquil silience and murmured, "I love you."
"I love you too." Sam smiled and rubbed a thumb across her cheek, but Lizzie had other ideas as she reached up and kissed him lovingly, full of delight. He kissed her back without breaking contact as they absorbed into the blissfulness of the moment, and savoured each other's coffee flavoured lips.
"Ew." And just like that the peacefulness of their kiss banished, along with the privacy of their company.
The couple broke their lips apart, but not their body contact, as they turned towards the entrence of the kitchen. The two toddlers standing next to each other giggled upon being discovered by the two adults; the little girl was supporting her small body against her twin brother's shoulder, as he supported himself and his sister's weight by slumping and grabbing the edge of the door frame, opposite to where the door was attached and wide open. "I think 'ss cute" The tiny girl said smugly, a wide grin streching accross her face. But the little boy scrunched up his face, unable to keep a smile off his face, and shook his head violently.
Sam chuckled and smiled fondly at the toddlers in front of him, shaking his head.
"Well good morning to you too, sweeties." Lizzie teased sofly, earning her wanted response as the kids smiled -the girl smiling shyly and the boy rubbing his tiny fist over his eyes.
"Good mo'ning mummy, good mo'ning daddy."
"Good morning daddy, an' good morning mummy!"
Both toddlers replied simultaneously, and giggled as they stumbled their way into the kitchen.
"Food pwease!" the brunet youngster jumped exictedly, his wide blue-green eyes looking up at the adults. His blonde sister, on the other hand, streched her hands towards Sam, pulling her puppy blue-green eyes, that both twins inherted from their father. "Daddy up!"
Sam bent down and picked both children in his amrs, earning a squeal from them, and set his son down on his high chair, at one edge of the table, and kept his daughter in his arms; meanwhile, Lizzie brought the bowls of cereal from the counter and placed each of them in the platform each toddler-high-chair supported.
"Jayden, careful with the spoon-" Liz warned her son as he sluppily picked up the small-sized spoon and failed to hold it correctly. She poured the milk she picked up from the fridge on the way back and poured a reasonable amount in both bowls, then helped him hold the spoon correctly before he made a mess.
"Alex, sweety," Sam murmured as he brought his face closer to his daughter's and kissed her cheek, "do you want to eat something? Hmm baby?"
Alex nodded her head and pressed her face against her father's chest. Sam rocked her gently up and down and then sat her in her seat. Liz and Sam sat as well in their corresponding seats, facing each other, and began eating their toasts, having a mindless morning conversation, while helping the twins beside each of them eat their breakfast -in Sam's case it was Alex, and in Lizzie's it was Jay.
As Sam drove along the highway about twenty minutes later, he thought back to the earlier converstaion he had with his girlfriend after breakfast:
When Sam had come back to the kitchen after switching on the TV in the living room to entretain his kids, he wrapped his arms behind Lizzie as she placed the dishes in the dish-washer.
"Hey baby..."
"Sam, what was that call about this morning?" She set the dirty dishes down and turned to face him. The question was asked in a soft and curious tone, but hesitantly, nevertheless. Sam bit the inside of his cheek and distracted himself by picking up a strand on his lover's hair and played with it mindlessly. "Um... it was Ronald."
He waited for her reaction so far, and seeing her eyebrow shoot up, he took it as his queue to keep talking. "He has a case for me, said that it'll interest me. He seemed pretty sure if it, so I'm just going to go check it out."
Lizzie's face fell and she frowned up at him, disappointment and sadness clear in her bright blue eyes. "But it's you day off. You don't have to go to work today... I though we were going to spend the day all of us together." she was quick to say.
"Lizzie, baby," he let go of the strand of hair and smiled down at her reassuringly, "I'm just going to go check out what he has for me, we're meeting up in the coffee shop we always go to, that's all. I'm not going to actually work. And if it interests me, then I might go speak to the person I'll be representing for a bit. I promise I'll be back in a few hours at most. I'll get back by lunchtime, kay?" he craddled her face in his palm. She nodded and smiled a bit. "I promise."
"Okay then." she reached up and kissed Sam momentarily, then let go. "You better get going then. I'm also planning to at least finish the current chapter I'm writting by lunchtime, so we can all spend the evening together." She smiled up at him.
"That's great, sweety." he kissed her one more time and went upstairs to get dressed.
As Sam approached the place he was meeting up with Ronald, called 'COFFIE & STARBUCKS' he parked in a free space outside of the shop, and got out of the car. As soon as he oppened the entrance door to the shop, he was hit with a warm setting and with a smell a mixture of coffie and starbucks. The volume and amount of chatter around the room was almost homey, and he glanced at the couches -which were facing each other- at the far corner of the room near a big glass window, a round coffee table in between and beanbags surrounding it; it was the spot that Lizzie, him and their friends always took when they came to this cafe, but it was occupied at the moment. He didn't order anything as he had just had breakfast, so he insted he surveyed the cafe shop until he spoted Ronald sitting in the opposite side of the room, and trailed towards him.
He took the cushion seat opposite the other lawyer, upon recieving a nod from him in acceptance, and waited for the other to set the file in his hand in front of him. Ronald moved his coffee cup to the side of the table and oppened the file, taking papers out of it and looking at Sam.
"So?" Sam asked, "What do you have for me?"
Ronald smiled and went into serious mode. "There have been multiple dissappearances in south San Francisco for the past few months, and the victims haven't been found until a few days ago. The victims were all found in an underground tunnel, all of them dead." Ronald explained. Sam frowned, interested in where this was going, and nodded his head to urge the lawyer in front of him to continue. "A few days before that, before the victims were found, two men were caught on camera killing a middle-aged woman; thing is, this murder was committed in the victim's house, a completly different place form where the original murderers hid the rest bodies. They had been so careful as to not get caught these past few months, and they hadn't outright murdered anyone; they kidnapped all the victims first and took them underground. So why, all of a sudden, did they choose to cold murder someone, in a different place from where they've been doing it for months, when an obvious house camera was filming? They would have known they would get caught, surely." Ronald questioned Sam rhetorically.
Sam frowned, looking down. The system was out of place. Killers tend to follow their own rules. Make their own system. So why change it so drastically that one time? "You think they're two different cases, don't you? And that the killers they've caught aren't guilty for the former kidnappings, just the one murder of the woman."
"Exactly." Ronald grinned, "But it gets better. You see, that last victim was found in her house about two days after she was murdered, along with the camera footage. The police instantly began looking for the killers, tracking them down, Surely they wouldn't have been stupid enough to stay in town after that, right? Wrong! They were caught shortly after, upon getting out of and underground tunnel in the same town, and holding weapons -silver weapons, but that's unimportant- and that's how the police caught them. Not long after they were taken to the town's prison, did the police find the rest of the bodies that had been kidnapped over the past few months. They were all dead, but not killed. They died from hypothermia, lack of food and dehydration. They must've just been kidnapped and left there to die of natural causes. They were all tied up. The police must've connected these two killers with the kidnapping case as well, just because they were found just outside the crime scene, with bloody weapons.
Now, I don't know really know what the hell is going on here, Winchester, but you're a damn good and smart lawyer, so I have faith that you'll figure it out. At first sight, this this looks like a single case, but a some stuff here ain't making sense, so it's probably two different cases. The kidnappings, and the murder."
Sam stayed silent for a long minute, processing all of this inforation. What really struck him wasn't the mass murders, but the fact that Ronald had mentioned that they were holding silver weapons, as they left the underground tunnels. And the case itself's got some loopholes too. This might just be a supernatural case. Which means, he's going to have to represent hunters. Finally! One of the main reasons he decided to take a law course was in case he ever had to represent a hunter, in a misunderstood situation. One misundertood to the public eye. When he was a teenager, his father and brother got into a similar situation once, and Sam knew a bit about law, so he managed to negotiate hard and ended up convincing the police to let his family go. That was the moment that inspired Sam to get people who didn't deserve it or had a misunderstanding situation (like hunters) freedom.
"But Winchester," Ronald interrupted Sam's trail of thought, "that they aren't guilty of the numerous kidnappings, does not mean they aren't guilty of the murder they made in that house. The judge will give them punishment for both acts, but if the former act wasn't really their fault, then you need to make sure they're only punished for their corresponding act. Not more, not less."
Sam nodded in understanding, but if these people were really hunters, then he doubted they hadn't had a good reason for the murder they caused.
"Where are they being held until court?" Sam suddlenly asked, gaining the attention once again of the lawyer in front of him.
"They were moved from San Francisco to here, Eureka, California. No lawyers have wanted to take their case yet."
"And, um, not to be rude, but why haven't you?" Sam asked curiously.
"Can't, kiddo, I'm already taking a case."
"But, Ronald, I'm still in law school, and I know I've been allowed to take some cases, but isn't this a bit too big?"
Ronald arched an eyebrow at that. "Winchester, you are allowed to take whichever case you want. I just though you'd like a bit of a challenge. And, I still haven't showed you something that'll take your full interest."
Now Sam was the one arching an eyebrow. "And what's that?"
Ronald smirked at him and handed him the papers he had in the file. Sam took it somewhat hesitatingly and looked at the front paper.
His eyes widened and he paled significantly.
Because in the front page, there were two pictures -one below the other- whose faces he would recognise anywhere, with their names written in bold ink on top of their corresponding photos:
Dean Winchester
John Winchester
Sam was absolutley struck by this. All he could think was shit shit shit shit!
Son of a bitch!!
"I knew that'd get your interest quickly." Ronald chuckled. "Winchester. I wasn't 100% sure if they were your family, but that reaction told me all I needed to know." He finished his coffee and basket-ball-ed it to the nearest bin, and scored. But Sam wasn't paying attention to that, or to him, as he tried to get his interanl self back under control.
Oh crap.
"I'll take the case. Where are they?" Sam asked before he could change his mind.
Ronald smirked. "I'll take you there."