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For someone who had cobbled together a high school education in at least three different states and probably retained very little of it, Dean sure was excited about a potential haunting that would take them to a high school reunion. They were crouched in a narrow library aisle, staring down fifty years of yearbooks from Lancaster High.
Sam ran his finger along the spines of the yearbooks, coming away with more than a little dust, until he found 1996. The graduating class had been around a hundred and fifty; there had to be a couple of guys in here they could pass for who wouldn’t to show up. Lancaster was the kind of town people moved from, not to.
Flipping through the pages, it was difficult not to feel nostalgic for something Sam never had. He’d graduated high school, obviously, but never stuck around in one place long enough to shake off new kid status. High school had been a means to the end of college, an escape from his family, and not much more. And he’d never ordered a yearbook, anyway.
There were photos of sports teams and after-school clubs, a musical and a class picnic. There was even a note before the individual pictures announcing that two thirds of the graduating class had been together since kindergarten. Sam sighed. He was going to have a normal life when this was all over, and someday his kids would smile up at him from a yearbook like this one—he needed to believe this. But sometimes it was hard to be patient. And it was hard not to mourn for his own teenage years.
He turned to the class of 1996 and felt Dean’s eyes on him. He didn’t blame Dean for any of this—it was Sam’s choice to be hunting again, Sam’s alone—and Dean knew that, but sometimes Sam got the feeling Dean blamed himself for it, anyway.
“Hey, you got a pen? I think those math club dweebs from a couple pages back would really benefit from some Hitler mustaches.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Defacing a historical document before lunch? I’ll pass.”
“Historical document, huh? What’s being preserved here, bad haircuts and acne? I don’t get all the fuss, anyway.”
“Even if it wasn’t all good, people like to remember. And we’re lucky it’s here,” Sam said, although he was smiling. He could be aware of Dean’s manipulating him and still feel its intended effect. “It’ll be a lot easier to get into this high school reunion if there’s someone in here we can pass for.”
“I still don’t know about this, dude. Who’s gonna believe I’m twenty-eight?” Dean grinned wolfishly.
“You’re a lot closer than I am,” Sam said, beginning to skim the senior photos for anyone who looked remotely like them. There was Alan Donovan, with a blue bowtie and Sam’s hairline; Roger Robine, pouting at the camera like Dean would never admit to doing; Jeremy Tisinger, who had light brown hair that fell around his ears to frame a shy smile. All told, at least ten guys who bore a passing resemblance, who could have conceivably grown up to be Sam or Dean.
Dean managed to find fault with nearly all of the ones Sam picked out for him. “Total dweeb,” he said, and “This guy did not get any in high school, look at his eyebrows,” and “Chess club, Sam? Seriously?” He only had eyes for the quarterback, Daniel Thorne. “Now this guy is cool.”
Daniel Thorne did look a lot like Dean, and he did look cool, but he was the exact type of guy Sam felt sure would show up at his high school reunion. A guy like that had no reason to move away from a town that loved him—and a cheerleader high school sweetheart who loved him, if a photograph of them together at a football game was anything to go by. Maybe he’d even married her, and they had a white picket fence and two kids enrolled at the very same elementary school they’d gone to. It was almost claustrophobic to think about, now that Sam did. Spending your whole life in one small town. But wasn’t that what people did?
Sam shook his head and uncapped his pen. “We have to pick a few guys, improve our chances of a no-show.” He wrote down the names and any club, sports team, or activity photo the guys appeared in. Sam would probably do some more research online before the reunion, but this was a good starting point.
“Chess club kid better friggin’ show,” Dean muttered, but he started making notes too.
Sam had had his doubts about conning their way into a high school reunion, but now that they were here at the library it seemed doable enough, and better than any other plan he could come up with to get into the Lancaster High gymnasium. A local news article posted the day earlier had pinged all the classic signs of a vengeful spirit lurking around the place, and they wanted to get in as soon as possible, before it upped its game from snuffing out lights to snuffing out lives. Going to this high school reunion seemed like the best way to get into the building, and get close to the locals—everyone would be nostalgic, anyway, and hopefully it wouldn’t be too hard to get them talking about what could’ve created a vengeful spirit in the first place.
---
Turned out the reunion had a website, proudly maintained by the former president of the yearbook club. 10 Year Reunion This Weekend!!! bounced back and forth, a bright red marquee across the top of the screen. The website did have a list of RSVPs, but the fine print at the bottom told Sam it had last been updated two days ago. Daniel Thorne the quarterback had said he’d be there, alone with more than half the other guys on their list. It left them with a couple names each, but there was always the chance they’d RSVP’ed since the last update.
They’d have to take their chances. It was two hours before the reunion was due to start, and there was no time for a plan B.
---
They pulled into the parking lot half an hour late. It cut into their investigation time a little, but Sam figured it was worth it to avoid pretending to be someone who had just hit a traffic on the highway and would be there after all, wondering why their name tag was missing from the table.
They stood in the parking lot for a moment, reading over biographical notes one final time. Sam already had his memorized—depending on what name tag was left on the table, he’d either be Jesse Valentine, former high school wide receiver turned Wall Street banker, or Paul Sherblom, who’d played cello in the pit band and now did so for a small orchestra in Salt Lake City. They both lived far away enough that Sam thought they might not make the trip. Dean was focused intently on the piece of notebook paper in his hand, mouthing the words as he read over his cramped handwriting. He was so absorbed that Sam watched unabashedly, more entranced than impatient. As much as Dean might complain about becoming a former nerd for the night, he would throw himself into it, Sam knew. Whatever was necessary for the case, Dean would do it—there was never any question about that.
He looked away before Dean finished reading. Sam wasn’t doing anything wrong, but he still felt the vague fear of being caught. “Shall we?”
The gymnasium was smaller than it looked from the outside, or maybe all the cheesy decorations just made it feel that way. Pink and blue crepe paper hung from the rafters, snaking around large, industrial light fixtures, only half of which were turned on. Sam wondered for a moment if the vengeful spirit had gotten into the electricals, but it seemed more like an attempt at mood lighting than anything else. A large banner hung from the far wall: Welcome Back Class of 1996!, under which there was a refreshments table with cheese and crackers, cookies, and an honest-to-God bowl of punch. At least Sam and Dean had guessed right on how to dress for the occasion: most of the men looked like they did, in suit pants and button-down shirts; there were only a few sport jackets and ties visible in the crowd.
There was a table set up at the entrance, and they approached it. Only a few name tags were left, and Sam squinted to read the names. Sure enough, Jesse Valentine hadn’t shown up, and Sam was willing to bet at this point in the evening that he wouldn’t—but none of the other names he and Dean had memorized seemed to be there. Not even anyone from the chess club. He turned to Dean, but it was too late; the woman at the table was already smiling at him.
“Name, please?” she said. “I know we all know each other, but I’d rather ask than guess wrong.” She smiled brightly, sounding like she’d been saying that all night. Her own name tag said Andrea Summers.
“Jesse Valentine,” Sam said. “And, uh—”
Andrea held up a finger and scanned the guest list in front of her. “Jesse Valentine and a plus one. You can take a blank name tag, sir,” she added to Dean, holding out a permanent marker. Dean took it. “Husband?”
Sam tried not to look as completely shocked as he felt. He met Dean’s eyes apologetically, trying to silently convey that they didn’t have to do this. Sam could explain to Andrea that there must have been some kind of mistake, and he didn’t have a plus one at all. It would be better that way. Sam didn’t have any issue with being seen as gay, but he wasn’t sure Dean could handle it for an entire evening. In fact, he was impressed that Dean had been able to hold back a laugh so far. Not to mention that they’d have to spend the whole reunion acting like a couple. Sam was confident he could remain professional about it, but it wouldn’t be fair to Dean. He was sure Dean would understand all this, and that he would take the out.
But Dean didn’t show any signs of backing down. He just looked back at Sam until enough time had gone by for it to be awkward.
Andrea looked apologetic herself, shuffling through her papers again. “I’m sorry, I could have sworn that’s what your RSVP said—”
Dean cleared his throat. “No mistake,” he said, smiling tightly at Andrea. “Just new, is all. We’re not used to hearing it.” He clapped Sam on the back and didn’t just leave his hand there but let it slide down Sam’s back, lower than what he might ordinarily think of as brotherly. He stiffened for a moment, then leaned into the touch.
“Well, congratulations!” Andrea said, taking off her reading glasses. “When did you tie the knot?”
“Uh, last month,” Sam said. He hoped she wouldn’t ask any more questions. One of Sam’s pre-law classes at Stanford had covered some of the case law on same-sex marriage, but he didn’t remember much beyond it being legal in a state or two—Massachusetts must have been one of them. And he didn’t even have a ring! What had Dean gotten them into?
“Good for you. Robbie and I are planning our wedding for this March.”
They were saved from having to comment too much on Andrea’s rock of an engagement ring by the arrival of another latecomer behind them. “Name, please?” Sam heard, before they headed into the reunion and the rest of Andrea’s conversation was muffled by chatter and 90s hits, because in case there wasn’t enough nostalgia hanging heavy in the room, they had decided to pipe it in through the speakers. Dean removed his hand from Sam’s back pretty much as soon as they walked into the gym, and they settled against the far wall to take it all in.
Sam felt he should say something about the whole thing, but he had no idea what. It was funny, it was Dean’s fault that they were in this situation, and Sam felt like he should be the one apologizing. Even if he wasn’t going to apologize, they should talk about it, get their story straight, at least. But Sam couldn’t bring himself to say anything.
Dean had the EMF meter out under his coat and was fiddling with its dials. “He didn’t look gay in the yearbook photo,” he muttered.
“Guess he forgot the rainbow tie-dye that day.” Sam rolled his eyes. “Come on, Dean, seriously? How are you gonna pull off this cover if you can’t even cut it out with that for five minutes?”
“Jeez, Sammy, it was just a joke.”
Sam sighed. He felt, still, like he should be apologizing. There must have been something else they could’ve told Andrea. Or a better plan to get in here, even if this one had worked mostly alright. Sam felt sure Dean was thinking the same thing. But really, there was no better way to find out about this vengeful spirit than to insinuate themselves in the class of 1996, and the plan as it was had allowed them to do just that. They were inside, with a solid cover and a good reason to be asking questions for the next few hours, so why did it feel like such a failure?
“Pretty high readings,” Dean said finally. “Definitely a vengeful spirit.” Then he looked at Sam from the corner of his eye. “And sure, I can cut it out. Excuse me for being a little less than excited about having to pretend to be married to my brother all night.”
Sam wasn’t exactly thrilled about it either. “Look, now that we’re in here, maybe you don’t have to be my husband. Andrea might not say anything, and you could be, I don’t know—”
“What, the guy literally nobody remembers? Not in a small town like this.” Dean shook his head. “If we want to find out what this vengeful spirit wants, we need to get people talking. Don’t think I’m letting you have all the fun.” He pocketed the EMF meter. “Now, I need a drink.”
---
The punch was not bad, especially after it had been spiked liberally from Dean’s flask. Dean brought back some cheese and crackers, too, and they ate while they scanned the room. Trying to map the people dancing and talking in circles all over the gym to high school cliques was like some fucked-up kind of archeology.
He wondered where he’d be standing at his own high school reunion. He’d spent too much time in the library to be a jock, too little time playing Magic: the Gathering to fit in with the geeks. Most lunch periods had found Sam alone with his sandwich and a book; it figured that he would spend this high school reunion alone too, leaning up against the wall with a glass of punch.
But he wasn’t alone. He hadn’t been in high school, anyway, not really. Not on weekends and afternoons and occasionally in the halls, when he would run into Dean on his way to chemistry lab. There had always been exactly one person who knew what he was going through, and he was still here now, complaining about the cheesy decor and wondering aloud who was still single and might be persuaded to leave with him if they wrapped up the case early.
Dean leaned back against the wall, evidently finished with his appraisal of the room. “Alright, tell me about our ghostly lady.”
“I found an article about her disappearance from ten years ago. Ella Walz, went missing on the night of her prom, never seen again.”
“Something tells me she didn’t elope.”
“Right. She showed up stag, no mention of a boyfriend or anything. Seems like the reporter from the local paper tried to sugarcoat it a bit, but the article I read made it sound like she had no friends in this town.” There had been a photo of Ella too, printed in black and white. He couldn’t forget her wide smile around braces secured with pink rubber bands, the butterfly clips at sea in her curly hair, wire-frame glasses pushed high on her nose. She looked so happy in that picture-day photo that Sam couldn’t imagine her coming back to haunt anyone, but he knew better. It made him angry, all of a sudden, that someone in this gym had done something to deserve the vengeance of such a sweet-looking girl.
“There were a couple more articles about the search after that, but they never found her,” Sam said. “The trail went cold.”
Dean began to survey the gym again, this time looking grim. “My money’s on that trail never leaving town.”
Sam had to agree.
A group of three guys in sport coats walked up to them, clearly squinting to see their nametags. Sam squinted back. Danny Figueroa, Ethan Hudson, Jaime DeFilippis—football players, if he remembered correctly from the yearbook. All three of them had the former-football player look, anyway—broad-shouldered and tall, at least as tall as Sam—and wore too much hair gel.
He smiled politely, not knowing what kind of terms Jesse Valentine had left things on with these guys. But the three of them lit up when they got close enough to read his name tag.
“Hey, man!” Jaime DeFilippis said, clapping him on the shoulder. He really was a massive guy. “I can’t believe Jesse’s here! How’ve you been, man?”
“Good, great,” Sam said, shaking each of their hands. “Great to see you guys again.”
“You look so different, dude,” Ethan said.
Sam laughed awkwardly. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Hey, you did alright in high school.” Ethan nudged Danny, and they both laughed. “Linda Myers wasn’t complaining.” Their ribbing seemed friendly enough, but Sam wasn’t sure if he should join in. He glanced at Dean, who had watched the whole thing impassively so far.
Jaime was looking too, squinting at Dean’s name tag, where Dean had written just his first name in neat capitals. “Where are my manners?” Jaime said, holding out his hand to shake Dean’s. “Nice to see you too, Dean.” He frowned. “Uh, what’s your last name again?”
“No need to pretend like you remember me, man,” Dean said, amused. “I didn’t go to your high school.”
“You here with someone, then?”
Sam coughed. “He’s here with me. Dean is my husband,” he said, and then for good measure pulled Dean closer, putting his hand on Dean’s shoulder where it sloped to meet his neck. He looked at Jaime, keeping his gaze even. Sam tried to imagine what the real Jesse Valentine would be feeling right now, introducing his husband to his small town jock high school friends.
“Oh. Uh, nice to meet you, Dean,” Jaime said, and he shook Dean’s hand again. Ethan and Danny did too. Then they all put their hands in their pockets and turned their attention to something incredibly fascinating on the floor.
Sam was starting to wonder if this cover wasn’t going to work, after all, when Ethan looked up at him and said, not at all meanly, “Huh. I didn’t know you were gay in high school.”
“Neither did I,” he admitted. Sam smiled, feeling strangely relieved—not just about the case. It wasn’t like these were his actual friends, or his actual husband, but he was caught up in the rush of their acceptance anyway. “But then after college I met Dean, and my world zoomed way in. It took me a while to figure it out, but I realized I never, uh, I never wanted to be with anyone else. Meeting him changed my life, changed all my plans.” It was easy to talk about this, allow his voice to fill with the fondness of memory, but he felt Dean tense beside him. Sam cleared his throat. “Um. Are any of you married?”
Danny and Ethan were, and they heard some about their wives, an administrative assistant and a veterinarian, respectively. These guys were easy to talk to, even if Sam had to fake laugh at their inside jokes. Dean probably got along with them better than Sam did, after that initial awkwardness. They talked for a few minutes more before a woman across the gym caught Jaime’s eye, and he waved at her.
“Hey, Marisa’s here! I’m gonna go say hi to the cheer team,” Jaime said. “You coming?”
“Sure,” Danny said, and Ethan nodded.
“Yeah, alright,” Sam said. They could start with the cheerleaders and football players, and then work their way to the other cliques if that didn’t pan out.
“I gotta get some more crackers first, though,” Dean said, closing his fingers around Sam’s wrist. Sam frowned at him, wondering why he was turning down their first real opportunity to do some digging, but Dean didn’t respond to his attempts at silent communication.
“He can’t say no to free food,” Sam said apologetically, allowing Dean to pull him towards the refreshment table and promising to catch up with the others later.
When they were out of earshot, Sam whispered, “That went pretty well, right? Did you notice anything off about any of them?”
Dean turned to him, looking a lot less pleased than Sam felt. “Yeah, it went okay. Don’t think you had to go all Love Actually on them and make up our epic love story, though. They would’ve just taken our word for it.”
Sam scoffed. “I wasn’t making anything up. Everything I said is true.” He wasn’t responding to the epic love story part. Anyway, all he’d done was tell the truth, and now it was Dean who wanted to be weird about it. The story had been a little light on the monsters and rock salt, but he hadn’t added in anything made up.
Dean rolled his eyes. It was just like him to get them into this mess and blame Sam for it once he stopped finding the whole thing hilarious. That was no reason for Sam to act contrite, especially since Dean had just revealed a new button for Sam to push. Hoping to get a rise out of Dean, he knocked his shoulder against his brother’s and said, softly, “Nothing you didn’t know already.”
Dean huffed, but he didn’t let it get to him. “Alright, let’s go. You’re living up to your name, Valentine.”
“Uh, Dean. The guys are that way.”
“I wasn’t kidding about the crackers. Come on.”
---
Jaime and the others were gathered in a big circle near the double doors, talking animatedly. The huddle of football players and cheerleaders might once have been the object of the rest of the class’s envy, but now they were just people, laughing and reminiscing and becoming reacquainted for one night, before they went their separate ways again.
They looked so comfortable together that Sam almost didn’t want to approach. But then Jaime saw them coming and waved Sam over with a giant hand. He was talking to a group of three women who might have once worn their hair in high ponytails. “You remember Jesse,” he said, and then, mercifully, introduced the women to Sam and Dean. “Alana Pepdjonovic, Vicki Attis, and Marisa Martinez, if you can believe it.”
The three of them looked effortlessly sophisticated in shades of pink, wearing understated jewelry that glinted in the low light but otherwise practically seemed to be a part of them. Marisa’s dark hair fell in loose curls from a complicated-looking updo, but Alana and Vicki’s was straightened and parted on opposite sides, falling in a curtain on either side of Marisa. The combined effect left Sam confident he was talking to the former queen bees of Lancaster High.
“Wow,” Sam said, not sure if he should offer his hand to them. He settled for a smile, and Vicki swooped in to kiss him on the cheek. “Great that everyone could be here.” The scent of her perfume lingered, sharp and spicy, and her lip gloss left a sticky mark on his cheek. Sam fought the urge to wipe it away with his sleeve.
“Ah, well, not everyone,” Dean said cheerfully. “Ella Walz isn’t here.”
Sam elbowed him. He didn’t have to reach far, given that Dean was practically hanging off of him. Since they’d left the food table, Dean had been on him like a sloth, and Sam while didn’t exactly mind it, he might have wanted a little more distance if Dean was going to be this unsubtle about the case. It would be a lot harder to wring the story out of Jesse’s former classmates if they all thought his husband was some kind of tactless weirdo.
No one had much to say to that. Vicki smiled tightly and Marisa suddenly found her fingernails in need of attention. Alana was the most affected by Dean’s ill-advised comment, biting her lip and turning her tastefully-lined eyes downward.
“It’s the tenth anniversary of her death tonight, you know,” Alana said. “I think it’s awful how they scheduled the reunion.”
Marisa snapped her eyes back up. “It’s the tenth anniversary of our prom, Alana. That’s why they scheduled it tonight.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Do you remember that godawful dress Louisa Andrews wore?” Vicki said. “With all the yellow ribbons?”
Marisa lit up. “Oh my god, yes. What was she thinking?” And she and Vicki were off, rattling off their prom Hot or Not list like they’d just been at the dance yesterday. Marisa talked with her hands, her deep red acrylics landing on Vicki’s arm.
The ghost of a smile passed over Alana’s face, but she didn’t join in. Maybe she didn’t have the encyclopedic memory for fashion faux pas her friends did, but Sam would bet that she had no trouble remembering what had happened after the prom. There was something more than sadness in her eyes, something that Sam was beginning to identify as guilt. He raised his eyebrows at Dean, and Dean nodded in return. Hopefully that meant he’d found his tact again, or he was willing to let Sam do more of the talking.
“I don’t know how they remember so much about prom,” Sam said conspiratorially to Alana. “It’s all a blur to me.”
Alana looked at him for a moment, incredulous, before shaking her head. Years ago, that would have made Sam burn with jealousy. But now it seemed almost sad. Had nothing happened in the past ten years to eclipse prom night? Surely this was taking up prime real estate in the landscape of fond memories, there being only so much you could hold, crystal-clear in your mind.
“I remember it alright,” Alana mumbled. She shook her head again and spoke clearly. “It just feels wrong to talk about dresses and all that when Ella died that night. You know, she had just joined the cheer squad a week before prom. She’d been trying out all four years, and we thought since we were seniors and we were graduating and all, we might as well let her on the team. It’s not like there’s a lot for cheerleaders to do in the spring, anyway. Only real sports are baseball and lacrosse, and we never went to those games.”
Alana fiddled with a bracelet on her wrist and Sam tried to remember the cheer squad photo in the yearbook. He now recognized Alana as the girl who had been front and center with her high ponytail and pompoms. There had been no girl with curly hair and braces in the picture. It must have been taken in the fall, before Ella joined.
“You were the captain, right?”
“Well, co-captain,” Alana said. “With Vicki. As if you could ever forget, the way she used to throw herself at you after every football game. But you were always the perfect gentleman.” She glanced at Dean as if just remembering he existed. “I guess that makes sense now.”
“Right, uh.” Sam wiped his cheek. “You said Ella had tried out before?”
Alana nodded. “Vicki and Marisa didn’t want to let her on the team. Ella used to get teased really badly, and we all thought she would look awful in the uniform, it would only make it worse for her.” Alana broke eye contact, guilt settling over her features again. “But we couldn’t really say no. We were all graduating soon, no good reason not to let her join.”
“You did the right thing.” Sam put a hand on her shoulder, forgetting for a moment who he was supposed to be. “You let her be part of something, at least, before she, uh, died.”
“God.” Alana shivered, looking incredulous again, or maybe betrayed, before she crumpled in on herself, batting at Sam’s hand like it was poisonous and shaking her head over and over again. “She died and it’s all our— ” She choked a sob. “I just feel so awful thinking about Ella alone at prom, what happened after… I don’t understand, Jesse, how you can, how you can talk about her like—” Another sob wracked through her, and Vicki and Marisa rushed to her side.
“Oh, honey,” Marisa said. She tucked Alana under her arm, glaring at Sam as Alana buried her face in Vicki’s shoulder. Even angry, comforting her friend, Marisa had a magnetism about her, impossible to look away from. “You of all people, Jesse. You might be fooling everyone else with your haircut and your husband, but I can see right through it. You haven’t changed a bit,” she hissed, close enough that only Sam could hear.
Sam just stood there, open-mouthed, guilty but mostly perplexed, even after Marisa spun on her heel and led Alana away.
Dean shrugged at Marisa’s back, not having heard what she said, and then turned to Sam. “Nice going, dude. What’s your track record making girls cry on hunts? ‘Cause I’d love to see the box score on that one, no way you come out on top.”
“I don’t think that was—” Sam broke off, glancing around. No one was looking at them, but there were couples and groups of people close by, close enough to be listening. Sam didn’t want to be overheard. He pulled Dean out of the crowd, grabbing him by the hand, trying to convey how important this was in the intimacy of the gesture, or at least to shock Dean into compliance.
“Dude, what is it?” Dean said once they were leaned up against the gym’s padded wall.
Sam stood close to Dean, hoping this looked more like a casual conversation between lovers than the covert debrief between hunting partners that it was. “First of all, I didn’t make her cry,” Sam said. “You’re the one who brought up Ella in the first place.”
“Yeah, but crucially, when I stopped talking, the chick was not actively crying.”
“No, come on, it’s like an inherited runner. You put her in scoring position, not me, so it totally doesn’t affect my stats.” Not that Sam actually kept any such stats. He was pretty sure that would venture into the territory of the obsessive. “Anyway, my point is, did you hear what Marisa said? ‘You haven’t changed.’” That had been rattling around his brain since he’d heard it, and suddenly it made sense. “Do you think Jesse could’ve had something to do with it?”
“Or maybe he was just a jerk in high school,” Dean said. He seemed so unaffected by the whole thing—the case, Alana’s tears, Sam’s proximity, all of it—that Sam couldn’t stand it. He refused to spend this evening alone feeling surrogate guilt while Dean ate crackers and asked stupid questions. It was only fair that Sam drag Dean into discomfort with him, push Dean’s buttons a little more.
Sam scanned the room, not sure if he was hoping anyone or no one was looking, and took Dean’s chin in his hand. It wasn’t so different from the times he would tilt Dean’s face up to check for signs of a concussion after a blow to the head, hoping to see clarity in his eyes. Dean always squirmed under this inspection like no other, claiming he was fine and looking away, even refusing to open his eyes if he was feeling particularly difficult. But Dean wasn’t looking away now.
He stared up at Sam and Sam couldn’t possibly understand what that look meant, just that it felt too intimate for this crowded room. Except maybe it was good that they were in public, necessary even, because if this kind of look from Dean could make Sam feel like they were the only ones in the room, he couldn’t imagine how it would make him feel if it really were just the two of them. He couldn’t imagine it, but it hit Sam that he really wanted to know.
Sam looked away first. He dropped his hand and cleared his throat. It was maddening that he’d expected Dean to bat away his hand, but he’d ended up being the one to call it off. He waited for Dean to say something like, what the hell was that for? so they could just laugh it off, but he never did. It hadn’t really felt laughable, anyway.
Sam cleared his throat again. “How about Alana? Do you think she had something to do with Ella’s death?”
Dean jerked his head a little and looked confused, more than about the vengeful spirit. “I don’t not think it.”
“The timing in her story is pretty suspicious. Prom night must’ve been not long after Ella got let on the cheerleading team. She could definitely be out for revenge against whoever killed her.”
Dean nodded. “It would explain the hiccups leading up to the reunion, too. I heard Alana telling her girlfriends about coming here the past couple days to set up and feeling cold spots, seeing the lights flicker. It fits.”
“Alright,” Sam said, piecing together the narrative in his mind. “High school politics got a little out of hand, and Ella’s out for revenge now that the cheer squad is reassembled. Whatever happens, it’ll definitely happen tonight.”
“And then she’ll probably go dormant again ‘til their twenty-five year reunion.”
Before Sam could agree, a scream came from across the room. His hand flew to his gun, but Dean grabbed his wrist. Sam looked up and saw why.
It had been more of a shriek, really. They rushed over to the drinks table in time to see Marisa Martinez swallowed up by a throng of ex-cheerleaders, fretting over her and shielding her from the crowd, laughing as they did so, more amused than frantic.
Vicki stood apart from the commotion, laughing to herself.
“What happened?” Sam asked, trying to seem only casually interested.
“Marisa had a little wardrobe malfunction.”
“Damn,” Dean said. Sam elbowed him in the side for being so clearly sorry to have missed it.
Vicki shrugged, mistaking Dean’s disappointment for polite concern. “Hey, it’s nothing we all haven’t seen before,” she joked. Sam had the distinct impression she would have appreciated a high-five. Some friend to Marisa she was.
“Was she dancing really, uh, hard?” He been so wrapped up in Dean that he hadn’t even been paying attention to the music that had been playing, and he was embarrassed by that now. He hadn’t even noticed Marisa had been wearing a strapless dress. It paid to pay attention in their line of work.
“No, that was the weirdest thing,” Vicki said, sobering. “She was just standing there talking to me and Whitney when her dress fell down! If it had happened back in high school, I’d swear it was one of the boys, learning magic to perv on us girls with a phantom hand or something.”
Sam laughed awkwardly and brushed his hair out of his eyes, which he regretted immediately. He could practically feel Vicki’s eyes zeroing in on his hand and finding a distinct lack of a ring, or even a ring-shaped tan line.
“But you would never have done that.” Vicki twirled her hair at him. There was something about being in the presence of crepe paper and punch that was making everyone regress to their adolescent selves. “You were always the perfect gentleman.”
He wished Vicki would come out and ask him about the ring; he could give her some lie about having left it on the sink and he and Dean would laugh it off and that would be that. It was lucky that Dean had his—Sam didn’t like the idea of the doubt that neither of them wearing a ring might cast on their cover. Not that anyone other than Vicki seemed to be doubting them at all. Maybe Sam should have been a little more freaked out by the fact that the 150 or so members of the Lancaster High School class of 1996 had no trouble believing he might be married to his brother. He tried to conjure up shame or disgust, but could only find himself grateful that this cover had gone over so well.
Dean came to his rescue. “And, you know, not interested,” he said, sliding a proprietary arm around Sam’s waist. Sam clenched his abdominal muscles in response, Dean’s fingers warm even through his clothing, tighter than was strictly necessary. “Not then, sure as hell not now.”
“People change,” Vicki said. In Sam’s opinion, that didn’t really help her argument, but then her laser focus found the ring gleaming on Dean’s finger, and she sighed a little sigh that hopefully meant she would drop it.
The crowd around Marisa began to disperse, and the music changed. Sam recognized the song, Sinead O’Connor’s cover of "Nothing Compares 2 U." It had played at one of the few high school dances he’d ever attended, and he was losing some ground in the fight against nostalgia.
Vicki must have felt it too. “Wanna dance?” she said as couples began to pair up around them, heads already coming to rest on shoulders as the chords of the intro played. “I know you’re—” she gestured at Dean, who was exaggeratedly affronted at being referred to by a mere wave of her hands— “but just one dance, for old time’s sake.”
“Uh.” Sam didn’t know how to say no, but Dean saved him again.
“Hey, this is our song!” he said, and then he was dragging Sam onto the dance floor—well, into the center of the gym—and they were slow dancing. Sam expected Dean to jostle him, both of them to try to lead, but it wasn't the type of dancing where it mattered. He slid his arms around Dean’s waist and Dean had his hands clasped at the back of Sam’s neck, and they were maybe not as close and clearly in love as some of the couples around them, but just as close as others.
Sam had wrestled with Dean on the ground of upwards of half the continental US, shared a bed with him when they were kids and older when money was tight, dug bullets out of his flesh and sewn him up with dental floss. It wasn’t new information that Dean had tiny freckles across his cheeks, or tinier-still crow’s feet around his eyes, young as he was. Sam imagined he could smell the Carmex Dean had picked up at a gas station that winter and still used when the weather was dry.
It should have been weird. It should have been enough to contend with from where he was standing, but all Sam could think about was how this must look from the outside. He was accustomed to weird looks when he and Dean brought out the rock salt or asked about cold spots or traipsed into a motel room after midnight covered in grave dirt. But it was backwards. All that was normal, unexceptional to Sam; now that he was slow-dancing with his brother, now that they were finally doing something truly worthy of a weird look, nobody blinked an eye. To the onlookers, they were just another pair of young lovers dancing in the gym.
Dean cleared his throat around the chorus. “Definitely an Ella-induced wardrobe malfunction, right?”
“Vicki basically confirmed it,” Sam said. “Doesn’t get much clearer than phantom hand.”
“She wasn’t near freaked out enough to believe it was a ghost, though.” Dean glanced up at the dangling fluorescent light fixtures. “I mean, Ella, come on, that was bush league.”
“What, you want a vengeful spirit to start throwing people at walls?”
“Just a little something to spook these cheerleaders into talking. I don’t see you suggesting we go over there and drop the whole ‘ghosts are real, you better hurry up and confess to a murder you committed ten years ago so we can salt and burn the body before she—’” Dean broke off, eyes tracking something over Sam’s shoulder.
Sam craned his neck to see it. Gliding through the air, weaving through the dancers, was a dark shadow. It neared them, and Sam felt Dean tense up beneath his arms, but all that struck them was a chill and a sense of impending dread. He held his breath until the shadow meandered out of existence, dissipating completely before an orange-glowing exit sign. Ella was just getting warmed up.
It was more than enough to drag Sam back into reality. The cold had definitely been Ella’s doing, but he was starting to think he might’ve come by that impending dread honestly. They were on a case; this was no time to stop and feel the music in his bones and Dean’s sure hands around his neck. God, what had gotten into him? There was never a right time for that.
They kept dancing through the rest of the song, but it felt stilted, whatever ease there had been before lost. He kept darting glances at Dean, looking away before their eyes could meet, not sure if eye contact was what he feared or craved.
This cover was proving difficult for all the wrong reasons. It wasn’t that Dean couldn’t get into it, it was that Sam had fallen into it to the point of distraction. That was all it was, probably—pretending to be married to Dean was distracting him from the case, and being distracted in their line of work was particularly dangerous. Worse, the more time Dean spent with his hands on Sam, the more distracting it got. It had been building the whole evening, he realized, becoming progressively harder to ignore. What the hell was wrong with him? Screw their cover; he would be useless on the case anyway if this went on any longer. It was fear, then, of what he’d do if he met Dean’s eyes again. Sam had to put a stop to this before he did something he’d regret.
“Dean, I—”
For the second time that night, a scream echoed throughout the gym. Sam looked around in time to see Vicki collapse, her face twisted in agony. Ella had escalated things while Sam was distracted. He watched the ghost flit away into an air vent, a saccadic black cloud that could have been tittering with laughter. Surrounding dancers broke their embraces and crowded around Vicki.
“I should have just danced with her,” Sam muttered.
“Shut up, you didn’t know,” said Dean, and then he was raising his voice to part the crowd, Sam following in his wake. “I’m an EMT, let me look at her.”
Vicki’s ankle was broken, and Dean dispatched someone to call an ambulance and get her some ice. Sam crouched by Vicki and Dean as people wandered off, muttering about bad luck: first Marisa’s wardrobe malfunction and now this? They were cursed for sure.
Vicki was choked up, but she smiled through the pain. She put on a voice like a movie diva. “Do you think I’ll ever dance again, doc?”
“You’ll be back on your feet in a couple weeks,” Dean promised, holding a makeshift ice pack to her ankle.
Sam tried for a bracing smile before turning to Dean. “Definitely Ella’s handiwork, right?” he said in an undertone.
Dean nodded. “Look at this,” he said, shifting the ice on Vicki’s ankle and not bothering to keep his voice low. “That’s not the kind of break you’d get taking a bad two-step. I swear there’s a bone splinter in there, like she fell on the thing.”
“Marisa broke her ankle once doing a basket toss,” Vicki said thoughtfully. “One of the new girls was spotting and freaked out and dropped her. It was awful, Marisa was out for the rest of the season.”
“Really? When did that happen?” Sam asked.
“Don’t you remember? It was senior year, at homecoming.”
“Right…”
“You did get hit pretty hard in the head at the homecoming game, if memory serves.” Vicki took over applying the ice pack from Dean, shifting its position. “Anyway, Alana took her home and the rest of us stayed and finished the game.”
“Can’t have football without cheerleaders,” Dean said.
Vicki shrugged. “It’s what Marisa would’ve wanted. Say what you will about her, she was dedicated to the team.”
It wasn’t long before the real EMTs arrived, and Dean helped Vicki up and left her in their capable hands. He had been nothing short of solicitous throughout the whole thing, clearly glad to have something cut and dry to do with himself as opposed to the uncertainty of the case. He hadn’t quite looked Sam in the eye since their dance had been broken up.
Sam couldn’t blame him. Vicki’s fall had jolted them back to reality from the fantasy world they were living in where this was remotely okay, where they could afford to let their guard down on a case. Sam felt chastised, caught, like Dad had cuffed Sam on the back of the head for getting lost in a book. Dean had taken up the mantle after Dad’s death, having inherited the gene for tunnel vision that must’ve skipped Sam; most of the time, he could pull Sam back. But this time had been different. Maybe Sam was beginning to be a bad influence, because—and Sam was selfishly glad for this, inordinately pleased—Dean had slipped too. They’d both suffered a lapse in concentration, and Vicki had paid the price.
Ella was clearly ramping up to something; next time could be worse. They couldn’t allow there to be a next time.
“I’m sorry, Dean,” Sam said.
The music was loud enough for Dean to pretend he hadn’t heard, but the clench of muscles in his jaw betrayed him. Sam let it go. “Looks like Ella’s picking off the queen bees, one by one. I say we go talk to Alana before the pig’s blood starts flying.”
Dean was right, of course. They would finish this case, and then Sam would apologize or Dean would, or maybe the moment would pass without either of them saying anything, and they would never talk about it again. That was the only prospect Sam was truly dreading. Things left unsaid between them often became a wedge, pushing them apart like some kind of punishment for the hubris of thinking they could be ignored. But this line of thinking, too, was a distraction. Sam shook his head to clear it and followed Dean away from the crowd.
Alana stood against the far wall of the gym, cradling a glass of punch and looking a little wobbly around the edges. Without her friends, she looked awkward in her party dress, like a little girl playing dress-up. Sam felt like a giant in comparison, as if Alana’s distress weighed inward, making an already slight woman impossibly smaller.
Up close, Sam could see that her eye makeup was smudged, and she sniffled a little. Her dirty blond hair had been flat-ironed into submission, but it fought back where her head touched the wall, flyaways teased out of line by the static electricity.
Sam approached her slowly, like stalking a deer, wishing he knew what Jesse had done ten years ago so he could apologize for that. Instead he said, “I’m sorry about earlier.”
“It’s alright,” Alana said. “I’m sure tonight has been no picnic for you either.”
“Yeah, uh…”
Alana grabbed his arm, her grip surprisingly strong. “You have changed, Jesse. I, I can tell. That’s why I lost my cool. You moved on and moved away, and I’m still here in this town, letting myself be haunted by the ghosts of what I did that night.”
“The ghosts?” Sam prompted.
Alana let her arm fall to her side, deflated. She swallowed. “I know this sounds crazy, but I’ve been feeling Ella’s presence all week. It’s like I’m thinking about her, and I see this girl who looks like her in the reflection of a store window or something, but by the time I turn around, there’s no one there. And I had chills all week, every time I came to planning committee meetings in the gym. You must think I’m crazy.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy,” Sam said softly. “Alana, can you tell me what happened that night? After prom?”
“Jesse, what are you talking about?”
“What?”
Alana narrowed her eyes and lowered her voice. “You can put on an act in front of everyone else, but not to me, okay? Not to me. Don’t prove Marisa right about you after all.”
Sam flinched. Somehow, that was the worst thing she could say. Impersonating Jesse was like walking across a minefield: one minute he was the perfect gentleman, high school heartthrob grown up into a charming adult; the next he was two-faced and had something to hide. He wasn’t the person Alana was really mad at, but it was hard not to take it personally.
“Alana, I…” Sam threw a frantic glance to Dean, not sure how this interrogation had fallen so far off the rails. He couldn’t convincingly refute any of what Alana said. There was no way to maintain his credibility other than by being honest.
Sam took a deep breath and put his hands in his pockets. He said, “You’re right that I’m putting on an act, and I’m sorry I had to lie to you like that.” It seemed like all Sam could do tonight was apologize. Alana smoothed down her dress and waited expectantly.
“I’m not the real Jesse Valentine. My name’s Sam, and this is my br— this is Dean. We, uh, we do this kind of thing all the time. Not crashing high school reunions, keeping people safe from ghosts like Ella. That’s why we came here tonight, to stop her.”
“Um, okay.” Alana tapped a finger on her lip, coming away with beige lipstick on the tip of her acrylic nail. She looked off into the crowd for a moment, then back at Sam and Dean, nervousness replaced with the annoyance. “Sure you did. Look, if you’re not Jesse, I’m calling security, this is—”
“Hey,” Dean said. “Listen to us, alright? You said yourself you’ve been seeing Ella’s ghost all week.”
Alana toyed with the strap of her purse. “Yeah, but that was just… I must’ve been imagining it. Ghosts aren’t real.”
Dean pressed on. “Even if you haven’t been seeing Ella all week. What happened to Marisa and Vicki tonight? Just a coincidence that the girls who wouldn’t let Ella on the cheer squad got their nights ruined?”
“Maybe. It could be a coincidence,” Alana said, not even sounding like she had convinced herself.
Sam put a hand on her shoulder. “Alana, if this is Ella’s ghost, you’re in danger. You have to tell us what happened that night so we can keep you safe.”
“Alright.” Alana finished her drink. “Alright, I’ll tell you.
“It was supposed to be a joke. Just some, you know, just a little hazing since we finally let her on the team. I got Jesse to come up to her after school one day, tell her to meet him at the lake after prom. He kinda made it sound like he had a crush on her or something. So, uh. Me and Jesse waited for her down at the lake, and when she stepped out on the dock, we pushed her in. It was just supposed to be a joke… I didn’t know she couldn’t swim. She was, uh, she started splashing and flailing around right away, but by the time we realized she was serious… I tried CPR and everything, I knew what to do from this babysitting course I took at the library, but obviously I had never done it before for real, and it didn’t work, she, she wouldn’t start breathing again.” Alana turned her eyes down, face cold. “We buried her body near the lake and swore never to tell anyone about it. Jesse and I made a pact, though, ten years from that night we were going to go down to the lake and pay our respects to Ella’s memory. But he never showed.”
“Guess he couldn’t make it,” Dean said.
Alana bit her lip. “Jesse wouldn’t miss this. I know it was important to him.”
“He must be down at the lake,” Sam realized. “Where Ella’s buried. Can you take us there?”
---
They were almost too late. Sam tossed a flashlight to Alana before running onto the dock, just in time to hear a splash.
“Help!” they heard, before Ella’s ghost sent him under the water again. Dean shot at her, on the mark, and she disappeared long enough for Sam to crouch down on the edge of the dock and grab Jesse by the arm. He pulled Jesse out of the lake, sopping wet in his suit. He really did look like Sam, tall and with light brown hair plastered across his forehead and neck. He was coughing and spluttering, and Sam clapped him on the back, trying to force the water out of his lungs.
“What happened?” Jesse asked when he could breathe again. “Was that a—”
Ella’s ghost cut him off, emerging once again from the dark, churning water. Dean shot at her, making contact with his second bullet. He reloaded, saying, “I can’t hold her off all night.”
Sam helped Jesse up, and he and Alana showed him where they had buried Ella, beneath an oak tree that bore initials inside a carved heart, weathered by decades of wind and rain. He made sure the two of them got to their cars alright, and then got a shovel from the Impala and set about digging up Ella’s bones. The ghost reappeared a few more times before Sam could dig up the shallow grave, and each time Dean shot at her, until finally her bones went up in flame.
Sam was panting by the time he let the shovel fall to the ground, and not just from the physical exertion. They had done this more times than he could count, nearly had it down to a science, but there was still a moment of pure terror in the appearance of a ghost. It was as much a marvel as life itself, this spectral imitation that managed, against all odds, to exist. It never failed to catapult his heart into his throat, send adrenaline soaring through his veins.
He sat down against a tree, waiting for his breath to even out, leftover electrical impulses pinging through his tired muscles. Dean clicked on the safety of the shotgun and sat on the other side of the clearing, facing him. His head was up, leaning back against a tree, but it was too dark to tell if he was looking at Sam.
Burning Ella’s bones had freed up enough real estate in Sam’s mind that the distraction from earlier bloomed into a kind of focus. Inappropriate thoughts were like a gas, expanding to fill the now-vacated space in Sam’s mind.
He repeated this to himself so often that the words had begun to sound hollow: I want a normal life. After this is over, I’m going to have a normal life. How long had it been since that had been true? Nothing had come close to threatening that illusion until now, so it was hard to tell. It was easy to placate the part of himself that still needed to believe he’d get his life back on track by promising only one more case, just another week on the road with Dean and he’d see about getting back to California, finishing his degree. All that was incompatible with what he wanted now.
There must be something in him that had been permanently bent out of shape by a claustrophobic childhood, those formative years spent in the backseat with Dean, because Sam couldn’t seem to leave. Dad’s death had contracted his world further still, making the prospect of leaving Dean increasingly unfathomable, and somehow he wasn’t bothered by it, not one bit.
Sam couldn’t decide if it would be giving up or letting go. Surrendering to his circumstances or rebelling against them.
After a while, Dean began to shovel dirt back into Ella’s grave. It was still too dark to see him properly. There wasn’t much light around this part of the lake, no buildings save for an abandoned boathouse; there was just the highway at the lip of the valley across the lake and the crescent moon above them, unobstructed by clouds. He didn’t really need much light to stare at Dean, though. He sat back against the tree and watched, unabashedly, like he had when he was a kid, in between when Sam realized his older brother was the coolest guy in the world and when he figured out even the coolest guy in the world would lean over and flick you on the ear for staring too long.
“I’m sorry about before,” Sam said, surprised to hear his own voice over the sounds of the night, crickets and the rumbling of cars in the distance. “I don’t know what came over me.”
Dean hesitated before digging his shovel into the loose earth. “Don’t do that,” he said, back turned to Sam.
“Okay.” Don’t try and talk about it? Don’t stare at Dean sightlessly through the dark? Don’t even think about him? “Okay,” he said again. He found a stone in the grass, flat and smooth enough to skip over the lake, small enough to hold in his palm.
Sam kept waiting for Dean to crack a joke or change the subject or anything. He’d been waiting all night, but Dean never did. He never even tried.
Sam sighed. “We are gonna talk about it, though.”
“I never said we weren’t. I just said quit apologizing.”
If he wasn’t allowed to apologize, Sam didn’t know what there was to say. Every one of his arguments dissolved like cotton candy on the tip of his tongue, sure to prove insubstantial the moment they would be put to the test.
“I’m telling you, Sam, that you don’t have anything to apologize for. You didn’t do anything tonight that I didn’t, uh, welcome. Not even close. So if you have to apologize, I do, too.”
Sam shook his head. He said, in case it was too dark, “No. Nothing unwelcome.”
“So then, uh,” Dean said gruffly, tamping down the dirt on the freshly re-filled grave, “I don’t see the problem here.”
“It’s not that simple. There’s a lot of… I can’t think of myself as the kind of person who would...”
“Fuck your brother?”
Sam nodded.
Dean leaned on the shovel, pushing it a couple of inches into the earth. “Did you think Jesse Valentine was the type of person who would drown a girl in this lake? No. He had a glowing reputation. Football player, gentleman, real American guy. So— so who the hell cares about reputation, anyway?”
Sam had no answer to that, just let it hang between them. He got the impression Dean had said it to convince himself as much as Sam.
He lay back on the grass, feeling untethered. There were so few people in his life in relation to whom his existence was defined. The US government knew who he was, but they also thought Dean was a serial killer, so that hardly counted. There was a handful of hunters and of course Bobby, who was like family, and definitely did count. But there was no one else he saw more than a dozen times a year, no one he needed to be able to look in the eye every day. No one but Dean.
There was a rustling as Dean lowered himself next to Sam, leaning back on his elbows. “It’s all—”
“Dean, stop.”
The quiet of the night was thick again, uninterrupted even by their breathing. Dean broke it all at once, clearly making an effort to keep his voice strong. “Okay. Alright, if you really want me to, I’ll stop. I won’t ever bring it up again.”
Sam shook his head. “No, not that… This is ridiculous. You’re trying to convince me of something I believe.”
“What are we arguing for, then?”
“Dean, we don’t know a lot of people. I rely on you—I’m relying on you to stop me from doing stupid things. This must be the mother of all stupid things.”
“Hey, don’t bring mothers into this. That’s a little more incestuous than I signed up for.”
“Don’t say it like that.” Sam winced.
Dean scoffed. “So that’s where you draw the line.”
“I guess.” Sam snapped a twig in half. “If it’s just another thing you and I do, I can pretend it’s okay to want… okay to feel how I do. But when you say it like that it sounds, I don’t know, criminal.”
“Criminal? You’re talking to a wanted man,” Dean said. “Unless they bring back the death penalty in Massachusetts, I don’t think they can add much to life without parole, not even for some pretty sick offenses.”
Sam nodded. He was doing it again, arguing against the thing he, somewhat desperately now, wanted. But he was glad air his doubts, anyway; Dean’s voice was a lot more effective at soothing them than his own.
There weren’t so many doubts left now. The grass was cool beneath him and he was pleasantly tired from digging, wrung out. He’d done this enough times to know he’d be sore in the morning, but now he lay back on the grass next to Dean, searching for stars in the gaps between the leaves above them.
“What if you change your mind?” Sam asked, voice quiet like beckoning Dean closer. Dean lay down beside him, rustling close to Sam. Sam closed his eyes.
“Not gonna happen.” Dean’s voice rumbled low near Sam’s ear.
Sam closed his eyes tighter and clenched his fists, needing to hold off a moment longer. He had been thorough, and if they were going to do this—if they were going to have the rest of their lives to do this—he could wait just a little longer, even if Dean was making it difficult just by breathing next to him, the night so quiet it roared in Sam’s ears.
“What if,” he said, opening his eyes and reaching for Dean, “what if I change my mind?”
Not gonna happen, Sam thought in answer to his own question, but Dean didn’t say that. He stopped, fingers tentative and rough on Sam’s jaw, and waited for Sam to meet his eyes.
“We’d figure it out, Sammy. We’d get over it.”
Sam nodded so slightly only someone holding his chin in their hand would be able to feel it. Dean smelled of earth and sweat and sweet grass and Sam kissed him, closed the last, infinitesimal distance between them, and hoped this wasn’t something they’d ever have to get over.