Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“It burns.”

“You're okay, you're okay. It'll only hurt for a minute.”

The first aid kit sits open, the hard plastic juddering as Sam bounces his leg impatiently, hand held out as Dean gently pours disinfectant on the jagged cut and presses into it with a cloth. It’s still bleeding, but not as badly as it had been when Dean had dragged Sam back from his little nighttime adventure by the scruff of his flannel. He had spent half the night chasing after Sam, calling out for him and praying to God something hadn't taken him, only to find him at a nearby playground, crying over a skinned knee and scraped hands.

Dean eyes the dark stain on the carpet, relieved that at least he won't have to explain it to Dad when he gets back; it'll blend with the forest of the filth on the motel room floor. The lights are off, the curtains closed, Dad had been insistent on it. In case something follows him back, he had said, but he’s been gone since Monday, and it’s Thursday now. Dean's eyes have long since adjusted to the faint light, and he dabs at Sam's cut with the disinfectant-soaked cloth again, eliciting a hiss of pain.

Good, Dean thinks vindictively, he deserves it for what he's put me through tonight.

Still, it's difficult to hold the worst heat of his anger as he holds Sam's tiny hand, his relief overwhelming. Anything could have happened to Sam tonight, he's just a little kid.

Dean rifles through the first aid kit, searching for the bandaids.

“Why'd you run off?” asks Dean. “I turned my back for one minute…”

“I was bored,” whines Sam. “We haven’t been outside in forever.”

“Yeah, well, it's dangerous outside. You could have a lot worse than skinned knees and cut up hands,” Dean snaps.

Sam sniffles, threatening to break into tears again, and Dean sighs, abandoning his bandaid search. He scoots closer to Sam to pat him on the shoulder.

“Hey, none of that. That's why I'm here. I won't let anything happen, dummy,” he says with more conviction than he feels. “I'll always be around to protect you.”

“You will?” asks Sam.

“Yeah. Look,” Dean takes his pocketknife out and cuts into his own hand. Blood trickles down his thumb. “Its a real promise if you shake on it in blood.”

It's not true. He had come up with it on the spot, something to take the tears out of Sam's eyes. Sam always looks so damn sad.

Sam nods thoughtfully, a serious expression on his chubby face, and holds out his bloody hand expectantly.

Dean pulls back. “But you have to promise me something too.”

“What?”

“Never run off like that again. You gotta stick with me, capiche?”

Sam pouts. “If you came too, it would be safer. We could bring a stick with a sack on it with food in there and run away.”

“No.”

“But–”

“No, and that’s final.”

“Why?” Sam asks, outrage evident in his high-pitched voice.

“Because,” Dean says, “I’m the oldest. Just promise, okay?”

Sam hesitates, and after a beat, reaches out to clasp Dean's hand to shake. The blood smears across their hands, mingling, stinging. The A/C kicks on, sending a low vibration through the space. In the dark blue of the room their silhouettes fade into each other like a body shaking its own hand, a creature with two syncopated hearts.

The moment lingers, and Dean thinks they might sit there forever.

The house looms at Dean’s back, its flat shadow creeping across the sidewalk to envelop it. The sun drags across the sky, leaving clouds in bleeding lines as the afternoon wastes away to nothing. Dean walks quickly, breathing in little crescendos, the thick, humid air like some great stone to push uphill. His knuckles clutch white on the flipphone, the plastic digs into the flesh of his hand as he turns for the third time in five minutes, neck craned back toward that winding sidewalk up the hill and the house in cracked-white paint.

“Texas chainsaw looking motherfucker,” Dean mutters to himself.

For a moment he just stands there, taking in the big boarded up windows, overgrown with honeysuckle and ivy. The place has that early American architecture look, little ornate details that vanish the further away you walk. Waiting, maybe for Sammy to come after him, call him back over and apologize. Dean kicks at the dirt at the sidewalk's edge, dislodging a clump of grass to tip on its side, roots up. He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s waiting around for. Sam made it pretty clear they weren’t gonna be together on this one.

He remembers that he had taken the dead girl’s diary. He can read that, just for a minute, while he waits for Sam to come out after him. And then he’ll pretend to think about it, and say yeah, and then they can get back to business as usual. So, he reads a couple pages, but it’s mostly teenage angst, nothing that points to the circumstances of her death. He shuts the thing and taps his foot. Any second now.

A faint breeze rustles through the honeysuckle, carrying a sickly sweet scent that some might call pleasant, but that Dean only associates with rot in all its various contexts. The inside had smelled like that too, a heavy sweet decay deep in the walls, the center of the structure sagging, a building just biding its time, waiting to fall. Not as sturdy as it looks from the outside. Dean spits on the ground. Good riddance to the creepy murder house. With any luck, he’ll figure this one out at the address dad gave on the phone, kill whatever this thing is, and he can pick Sam up and gloat about how he does all the work around here.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity of stalling, he calls it. Time to go. Whatever, Sam.

The Impala waits for him, parked on the empty street. Dean steps in and slams the door. He roots through his little box of cassettes quickly. AC/DC. Zeppelin. Blue Öyster Cult. Dean makes a face when he comes across the one Sam had taped over, labeled “Best of NPR” in Sam’s Sharpie scrawl. Such a loser. Dean turns to the passenger seat, quip on his tongue, and falls short at the empty space beside him.

It’s a good thing we’re separated, he thinks. Time to cool off a little. Sammy will be alright on his own for a single hunt. Hell, it's seeming a lot like this will be a simple salt and burn.

“Sure,” mocks the empty passenger seat. “Sammy will.”

Dean pushes the NPR cassette roughly back between the other cases, plastic scraping violently.

Van Halen, that’s what he wants right now. Balance.

Dad had gotten that particular tape for him on his birthday when he was twenty. On a stakeout, Dean had offhandedly complained about being unable to find the Japanese bonus track from the album, Crossing Over. He didn’t even think Dad was listening when he said it. The old man had always had this way of surprising him.

“24 West Parish,” Dad had said. No, the thing that was pretending to be Dad, Dean reminds himself. Don't get your hopes up.

24 West Parish. Nice neighborhood, if he remembers right, it’s in the suburbs of Alexandria. Dean’s only a little ways from the address, maybe an hour. He could cut it in half, probably, if he speeds. These streets aren’t foreign to him, hell, he doesn’t even need a map. It isn’t Deans’ first time in Nachitoches, far from it. Louisiana draws them in often to hunt.

It’s not like he doesn’t know it’s probably a trap. Sam must take him for some kind of idiot, of course he knows. Dad's dead, there's no way that was him calling Dean's phone, before. But if there’s some thing out there pretending to be their dad, trying to taunt them or trick them into some deal, Dean’s gonna show up and fuck the thing up so bad it’ll wish it had stayed wherever it came from. Maybe it’ll do him a little good. Sam’s always talking about “emotional release” or whatever, maybe ganking something with his dead dad’s face will feel good, give him something to think about John besides the look on his face when he told him to kill his brother.

And Sam hadn’t actually heard the call, the confusion in Dad’s voice when he’d picked up. If there’s even the smallest chance it was really dad on the other end of that line…

Dean turns the key and drives.

It had begun two days earlier, in a 45-dollar motel room with dark stains on the pillowcases. Sam and Dean had finished a job near Little Rock and were looking to lay low for awhile somewhere no one would look twice at them. They settled on Pine Bluff, a real shithole, to hole up for a while.

Neither of them were in any hurry to get out and see the sights, still feeling the deep bruises from the previous hunt. Dean had been flipping through the channels for the past hour, lavishing in boredom as he ate takeout on the bed. Normally Sam would be bitching his head off about food on the beds, even though every time Dean protests that these sheets have seen much worse, but Sam sat quietly on the other bed, hunched over his laptop with steel focus as he tapped away on the keyboard.

It takes Dean back to another time, the three of them in a motel not unlike this one, watching soaps that Dad would swear he didn't care about.

“I thought maybe we could poke some holes in the evidence but ultimately, we have no defense,” says the lawyer on screen.

If there's one thing he took away from the past year, from the djinn and dad dying and everything they've seen, it's that he needs to get real. There's no “after this.” He's not naive enough to believe in heaven, or some waiting reward for all this. There's just the hunt, the mission, saving as many people as he can until it burns him up. His only rewards are the stops for sex, and fried food, and above all, his memories of better times, hoarded in his mind.

It's not something he can tell Sam. He wouldn't understand it. Sam doesn't like to talk about the past. And there's so much of it he doesn't even know, and can never know, the kind of stuff that Dean carries just in his head.

His memories seem to mildew in the corners of his brain, and he attempts to put them out of his mind, to fixate on the show on the television.

It’s a legal show they catch on ABC once in a while, it's got that Spader guy. He's hot, even somebody as straight as Dean can admit that. Dean loves it, especially how it sends Sam into fits over how inaccurate the courtroom scenes are. It's no Dr. Sexy, M.D., but it keeps him occupied.

“Brotherly love, like he said.”

“...That's not a defense.”

“Make it one. Are we not our brother's keeper?”

Dean snorts, and Sam looks up for a second, then gets back to whatever he’s looking at.

“Cain and Abel. Read the Bible, man.”

“Cain killed Abel.”

“Whatever.”

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of infomercials crossing the television screen, Sam turns to face him.

“Check this out,” says Sam. “Guy posted this on that urban explorer forum I was telling you about.”

Dean looks at the laptop screen and winces.

“Gruesome,” he says.

It’s a photo of a corpse, mummified, lying in a bathtub. Probably a woman, based on the nightgown, golden jewelry, and long, curly hair, though her features were long gone by now. She’s been dead a long time, a few years at least.

“What makes you think it's our kind of gig?” asks Dean, genuinely curious.

“Guy says his friend was exploring an abandoned house with him and found a body, and then he went missing. He’s asking for advice.”

“Worth checking out.”

Sam hums in agreement, face glowing in the computer screen as he clicks around the guys page, hunting for something. “Found the address. It's in the Natchitoches area.”

“That’s only about four hours out,” says Dean.

“Yeah. He put his number on the post, too.”

“What are we waiting for, then?”

They check out of the motel, leaving their keys in the front box. Dean gets in the car. He jumps out of his skin as the radio kicks on, blasting Prisoner of the Highway at roughly the decibel level of a plane engine. Sam shoots him a dirty look and turns it down, phone already to his ear.

“Hello, this is Deputy Carmichael of the Natchitoches police department. I was calling to ask a few questions about Cooper Morris, who is a missing person.” Sam pauses, listening to whoever’s on the other end as Dean puts the car in reverse. “No, you're not under suspicion of any kind, and no one is taking legal action regarding the trespassing– no. Yes, that's correct. We just found a new lead and we wanted some clarification on what you saw the night he disappeared.”

Dean pulls out onto the road and motions for him to put it on speaker. Sam obliges, setting the phone between them on the console.

“--were at the murder house,” says the voice on the other end, staticky and nervous.

“The murder house?” asks Sam.

“Yeah, a family got killed there awhile back, only the daughter lived. Are you new or something? Everybody knows about this.”

“My records indicate that you found a body in the house, is that correct?”

“What? Woah, hey… uh, how'd you… how'd you know about the body?”

“My… records, sir,” says Sam.

“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t report the body to you guys. I'm not in trouble, am I?” the voice says, funny and nervous.

“No, we just need some information. Did you see anything unusual that day?”

“Other than the dead body? No, just the usual stuff, uh, not that I trespass, you know, often, especially not anymore, but, I mean what I assume is usual for, uh, trespassers–”

“Any detail could help,” says Sam.

“There was this smell, like… mothballs. And dust.”

“Okay,” says Sam, taking notes. He had mastered the art of writing in a moving car years ago, a talent Dean had never quite managed. “Were you and Cooper close?”

“No, we weren't, really. We both just liked going urban exploring, and we both needed a buddy. He was weird. Loner type, I think his wife Lisa died or something, he was always so morose, so we didn't talk much.”

“Did he say or do anything strange that you think might be related to his disappearance? Anything to indicate something was going on with him, anything strange in the house?”

“No, I mean, we went inside and were looking around, then he had to take a phone call and went upstairs. I heard this weird music–”

“Music?”

“Like somebody else was in there singing. So I went to check it out. That's when I found the body, and honestly, I freaked. I yelled for him to come back but he didn't, and after a while I went up after him but he wasn't there. No one's seen him since then. I didn't want anyone to know I was the last person he saw, I knew it would seem suspicious.” The voice on the other end pauses. “Do I need to get a lawyer or something?”

“No, that's all we need from you for now,” says Sam. “Thank you. We’ll look into it, and we’ll contact you if any further information is needed.”

Sam hangs up.

“More forthcoming than some people, at least,” Sam mutters.

“Maybe it's the guilt eating him up. If I went missing and my friend waited to report it, I’d be pissed,” says Dean.

“We don't have any friends to miss us,” Sam scoffs, opening his laptop.

Sam graciously doesn't point out that they've seen many people go missing and die and have virtually never reported any of it to the police.

Dean whistles along to the stereo, Van Halen’s Jump playing, mood high. The horizon is just starting to lighten, but the gray gloom of pre-dawn hangs, suspending the world in a timeless place where the music is good and the horizon seems to stretch endlessly forward. It's quiet, no honking traffic, no birdsong, just the quiet music, the rattling of the Impala like chainmail armor holding the two of them safe, and the tapping of Sam's fingers on the keyboard. Just them.

“A family did die there,” says Sam. “The Bankole’s. A couple and their three kids lived there, two five year olds, and a nineteen year old. The parents were Peter Bankole and Ava Bankole, and the kids were Wes, Andrew and Eleanor Bankole. They were killed in a home invasion in 1999. Only one member of the family lived– Eleanor Bankole, the daughter, because she was out of town at the time. Only found out afterwards.”

“Jesus,” Dean says. “You find any contact info on her?”

“No, nothing. There’s been a string of missing persons in the area in the years since, though,” Sam says. “Dave Wallace, Megha Murali, Tayana Keirston…”

They've been driving for two hours at this point, the Arkansas Delta giving way to Louisiana, the dead trees towering over soft wetland. A blanket of fog has settled over the early morning. Sam leans toward the window, taking in the flat landscape.

“Could just mean it’s a bad neighborhood,” Dean remarks. “Then again, the house sounds like a haunting if I ever heard one.”

“Yeah,” Sam says. He types, and squints at the computer. “That’s interesting. If you narrow it down to only the ones reported missing in the areas directly surrounding the neighborhood, the missing reports all take place within about a week of today.”

“Today’s… what? June 22nd?”

“It’s the 23rd, actually, now that we’re,” Sam yawns, “past midnight.”

“Huh,” says Dean. The date scratches some faint memory, but he can't put his finger on it. “You thinking ghost?”

Sam shrugs. “It would make sense. Only thing is, they haven’t found any of the bodies, which makes me think they’re either being disposed of really cleanly, or eaten. That’s not common for ghosts, as far as I know.” Sam types something into the computer. “Granted, there is a pretty big wooded area by the house according to ArcGIS, so lots of places to hide them, the bodies could be close to the house and never be found. Could be a lot of things.”

“Maybe a young vampire, hadn’t got control of itself yet, kills a family, and then sticks around in the area and gets sneakier with it.”

“But then why kill only for a brief period every year? You would starve.”

“I don’t know, witch stuff? Demon ritual? Weirdo serial killer who knows he’ll get away with it? Heh, remember that hunt where it turned out to be a squirrel in the attic?”

“Don’t remind me,” Sam groans.

“Whatever this is, I’m sure it’ll be a piece of cake. We deserve a break for once,” says Dean.

Today finds Dean in a far less optimistic mood.

“‘Don’t go, Dean,’” Dean mocks in Sam’s high pitched voice. “Shut up, Sam, what do you even know? Ugh!”

Dean speeds through neighborhoods shaded by magnolias, houses blurring past in white and grey, his only focus ahead. He turns a corner, slowing as he gets closer to his destination. It would piss him off if some neighborhood watch Barney Fife type called the cops just before he reached the place, and cops in Louisiana do not fuck around.

It seems to be a nice area. A mother walks with a baby stroller and waves to him as he passes. He puts on his best grin and waves back. It’s the kind of neighborhood that draws out something in him, seeing all the hedges and smelling the fresh cut grass. The kind of place he’d lived, in the djinn dream. The numbers pass him. 21, 22, 23…

There it is. 24 West Parish. Dean doesn’t pull straight up to the address and park. He circles the block first casually, slows to a roll to case it out. It’s a cute little place, a small vegetable garden out front, a green, mowed lawn. So, definitely inhabited by someone. The house is unremarkable, like the others along the way. The door hosts a bright yellow NO SOLICITING sign. The windows are barred. Not ideal; that will make it a bitch and a half to break in, and if the occasion calls for it, to escape. There are curtains inside, drawn tightly shut. Again, not great. He can’t get a good sense of the security system or the locks on the door from the Impala. He’s broken into places through doggy doors and vents before, but only when he was much smaller. He’ll likely need to jimmy the lock and go in the front.

He drives around the block again and pulls off onto a side street, weighing his options. He doesn’t know who or what will meet him at that door, which makes all the disguises he and Sam keep on hand a gamble, and he only gets one shot at this. If a demon has dad inside, he’s going to need firepower. He gets out and goes to the trunk to take a bag of salt, some clips, a Nalgene full of holy water, the works.

He parks the car a mile away, on a more secluded road, shaded by trees. It’s too recognizable, and the tags are flagged in some states.

“Be back soon, Baby,” he promises, rubbing a hand down the car’s sleek side. He walks back toward the house, mentally preparing for whatever he’ll find inside.

Someone coughs behind him, and Dean turns to see a white man who is really more red than anything, wearing a polo Dean would call “metrosexual pink” and khakis, carrying an expensive looking golf club holster on his back. He’s got that kind of respectable look to him that always raises Dean's hackles.

Dean pastes on a smile. “Hey, you from around here?”

“I live down the road.”

“You know who lives here?” he gestures to the house. “When is the owner getting back?”

Golf guy's eyes flicker down, sizing him up, and Dean feels the exact moment he sees the gun sticking out of his jeans.

“I don’t go around giving out my neighbors business,” says the Golf guy.

“Woah, woah, hey. It’s all good, I’m his son.”

“Are you really,” says the golf guy flatly. “Because the only son of his I know of is that Sam kid who keeps coming by.”

Dean opens his mouth to respond something, anything that will get this guy off his back, but someone beats him to it.

“Leave him be, Jerry. He’s my son,” calls a familiar voice behind him. Dean turns, and there stands John Winchester in the doorway of that little house, alive as the last day Dean saw him.

“Oh,” says golf guy - Jerry - shouldering his bag again. “Sorry, John, just trying to keep the neighborhood safe.”

“You’re doing a great job,” says John, nodding in approval. “Dean, why don’t you come in?”

“Yes, sir,” says Dean. The hairs on his arms raise, and he fights the urge to shiver. Something isn’t right about this. Actually, no, nothing is right about this.

He follows dad inside and shuts the door.

“Lock it behind you,” instructs dad, but Dean is already halfway through, securing the assortment of locks along the inside of the doorframe, clearly custom installed. Classic dad, he thinks, suppressing a smile. So the old man really is living here, then, in this neighborhood where people golf and wear polo shirts and mow their lawns. Something is really, really up.

He hears only the faintest swish of moving clothing behind him, but it’s all he needs. He ducks before the blade meets his throat, and kicks wildly, dropping the-thing-that-looks-like-dad with a pained grunt. Dean grabs a fistful of shirt roughly with a hand and draws his .45.

“What are you?” Dean snarls. “What do you want with me, huh? Wanna make another deal, is that it?”

Dad is silent, staring at him with that unreadable gaze that’s always infuriated Sam, the calculating eyes that always made Dean squirm, feeling like he was being assessed, judged.

“Answer me, dammit!”

Dad knocks the gun from his grasp instantly, as if he had been waiting to do it, and he tosses it across the floor. He stumbles to his feet and backs away limping, still stanced defensively as he leans into the wall, and Dean follows, drawing his silver blade in anticipation.

A lock on the door clicks, and then the next, and the next, and the door opens.

Sam walks inside, carrying bags of groceries, harried. He looks healthy in a way that’s foreign, filled out and tanned. The image sits in sharp contrast to the Sam Dean knows, always pale and bag-eyed from poor sleep, clothes rumpled from endless nights living out of suitcases.

“I got what you asked for, I know you didn't want spinach but I got some anyway because you need to eat less red… meat…” Sam trails off as he sees Dean.

“It's him,” says Dad. “You know anything about this, Sam?”

“What? No!” says Sam, voice going high and defensive.

“I thought you were staying behind,” snaps Dean. Come to think of it, he'd taken the car, how did Sam even follow him?”

“Get his legs,” says Dad, and for some reason, Sam actually does.

“Wh- Sam!” Dean protests, kicking at him, panic rising in his chest. “Shit, what is this?”

“Dean,” says dad, something strange in his voice.

“What?”

Sam nods at the ceiling behind him, and Dean looks up for the first time at the coffered ceiling. Etched into the wood between beams is a complex web of enmeshed lines and swirling circles that to the untrained eye would appear to be a design choice. It’s a Devil's Trap.

Dean steps out from under it with ease.

“See?” he says. “Now you.”

John steps over the edge of the trap, and Dean breathes a sigh of relief.

They stare at each other for a long moment, and Dean keeps almost opening his mouth,but it’s loaded with too many things he wants to ask, and he can’t seem to settle on one.

John stands and leaves the room, returning moments later with a silver blade and a vial. Dean drinks from the vial and cuts his hand lightly with the blade. He passes them back to Dad, who does the same.

“So,” says Dean, “we’re really us.”

“It seems like it,” says Dad.

“What the hell is going on here?” asks Dean. “I haven’t seen you in months, and you call all of a sudden?”

Sam and Dad stare at him.

“I don't think he knows,” says Dad.

“Know what?” Dean snaps.

Sam grimaces, a complicated series of emotions crossing his face. “You… there's really no good way to put this, you died six months ago.”

“No, I was in a coma, I didn't actually–”

“We buried you, Dean,” Dad cuts him off. “Took every measure to make sure you were actually gone. Buried the ashes in a ditch in Kansas.”

He chuckles nervously, trying to take in what Dad is saying.

“That’s funny, ‘cos the way I remember it, you were the one we buried,” says Dean.

“Come again?” asks Dad levelly.

“Yeah,” says Dean, eyes flickering between the two of them, “Dad died after we fought the yellow-eyed demon, and it's been me and Sam since then. We were on a job about an hour from here and I got a call from Dad's number. Who was dead. I knew something was up, obviously.”

“And you showed up anyway,” says Dad, a faint strain of judgement in his voice.

“I figured it was something wearing your skin that I needed to kill, maybe even yellow eyes. We were looking into a death, breaking into this abandoned house. I left Sam back there.”

“I'm sorry Dean, but I don't remember any of the stuff you're talking about,” says Sam. “The way I remember it, you went into a coma and died a few days later.”

“Huh,” says Dean, processing. Him, dead.

Sam sets the groceries on the floor. “The whole thing made me think a lot about… a lot of stuff. I realized I wasn’t always the best to you guys. So I’m trying to make up for it now. I never thought I’d see you again.”

“We’ve been trying to…” Dad makes an unpleasant face, “get along.”

“Its what you would have wanted,” says Sam. “Right?”

Dean never thought he’d see the day Sam and Dad would get along. It’s unthinkable. In fact, the whole thing is impossible.

All of them alive, all of them together in one place again. The scene suddenly seems all too familiar.

“Okay,” says Dean. “Okay, back up, both of you.”

He pulls his silver blade, turning the blade toward himself.

“I know your tricks. I'll kill myself again in a heartbeat,” he threatens.

“What are you talking about?” asks Sam, backing away. Dad breathes a world weary sigh.

“Dean, this is real. It's not a djinn,” says Dad.

“Yeah, right,” Dean sneers. He holds the blade to his throat, and blood trickles out. Still, the two of them have no change in expression, and a wave of doubt comes over him.

“Think about it,” says Dad. “There are tells, when it’s a djinn. You got caught by one, didn’t you?”

Dean nods cautiously.

“Then you know. Think back to when it had you. Everything looks softer and smoother, in there.”

“Yeah,” Dean breathes. It’s true.

“Look at me, son.”

Dean looks up. Dad’s all edges, his face worn and haggard. There’s a sweat stain on his shirt, and his eyes carry deep bags.

“It’s real. Put the knife down,” says Dad.

Dean does so slowly, unsure if what he feels is relief.

“So,” says Dean, “if this is real… what do we do now?”

“We need to send you back to wherever you came from,” says Dad.

“What?” says Sam. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“People don't come back from the dead intact with false memories, something's going on. We need to find out what's behind this,” says Dad.

“If something bad happens because of it, we can deal with it then, but–”

“You're an idiot if you think we'll be prepared if something happens–”

“Maybe you should hug him or something before you start strategizing over his death!”

“He’s right. I'm obviously not supposed to be here,” says Dean, attempting to mediate.

Sam ignores him entirely, focused on Dad. “So what, your son comes back and your first reaction is to find a way to get rid of him. You just want an excuse to go back to hunting immediately, you're itching for it.”

“What do you mean, ‘back to hunting’?” Dean asks cautiously. “So, what, you’re retired? Did you kill yellow eyes?”

Sam sighs.

“We stopped. Dad had a heart attack about three months ago, so I stayed in the area to help him recover.”

“Its not a retirement,” says John. “I'll be back out soon.”

Sam smiles tightly. All the air in the room seems to have been sucked out. Some things never change, thinks Dean bitterly. Sam breaks the silence.

“You guys wanna start dinner?”

Unimpressive bowls of luke-warm CarbSmart Chili Mac lined the table, limp and wilted from the microwave, an oniony perfume of faint starch and wet pasta wafting across the dining room.

“--And then,” Dean says through a mouthful of food, “Deuce sort of saves everybody, but he accidentally blows the place up anyway because his trophy is pressing into the button on the bomb. Get it? You should have gone to see the movie with us, Dad.”

“What was that called again?” asks Dad, stirring his chili mac.

"Deuce Bigalow male gigolo 2: Gigolo in Europe"

“How could you let me miss it,” Dad says dryly.

“I know, right?” Dean exclaims, throwing up his hands. He swallows.“Wait– are you being sarcastic?”

Dad sighs. “Yes, son.”

“I think we all wish we had missed that one,” Sam mutters.

“Traitors, all of you,” Dean says, throwing up his hands.

Dad and Sam both have those hidden smiles they get when it's funny but they won't let themselves laugh. Dean counts it as a win.

Maybe this really can be like old times, but better. Maybe this time he can get the answers he wants from Dad, actually communicate for once. Hunt with a version of Sam who actually appreciates family, and wants him around. He needs to get back home, Sam's investigating that haunted house on his own. But some part of him just wants to stick around here for a while. This could be, like, a vacation of sorts.

It’s the kind of dinner Dean had always dreamed of as a kid, an actual table to sit at and everyone happy to see each other. They talk and talk, and time passes by in waves.

“...Then me and Sam went up against a goddamn haunted airplane. We really never got to tell you about that, huh?”

“No, never,” says Dad.

“Huh. Well, we should have,” says Dean.

They sit in companionable silence, empty plates stacked on the tables corner.

“Its getting late,” says Sam, “Maybe we can continue this conversation in the morning. Dean, I’m staying down the road, you can–”

“He can stay with me,” says John.

“You only have one bedroom, and I know you would spend the whole night prodding him with silver and dead man's blood,” Sam says with his typical raised brow of condemnation.

“It’s fine,” says Dean, sensing a fight stirring again, “I don’t mind.”

“I don’t care,” says Sam. “You’re coming with me.”

Sam manhandles him by the shoulder with one hand and picks up the dishes with the other to deposit them in the sink. Dad walks them to the door and they step out into the warm, balmy night air.

John follows them out wordlessly, and watches as they go out to the street. Dean gives a wave and a smile, and settles into step with Sam. In a way, he is relieved not to be spending the night with Dad, even if he’s totally psyched that he’s alive. He’s so used to spending every night with Sam at this point. Maybe it’s something he can settle into over time.

When the two get to the street, there's a white minivan parked there, and Dean's stomach sinks as Sam lifts his key to its door. This is his car? God help them all.

“Cool car,” Dean ribs.

Sam snorts. “Don’t start.”

“No, no, paint some flames on the side and you’ve got a winner here. I mean, way cooler than the Impala, you ladykiller, you,” Dean bumps his side playfully.

They step in, Dean wrongfooted on the passenger side of an unfamiliar vehicle. Books and magazines sit in stacks in the back, and Dean chuckles at the sight of a tote bag emblazoned with the name of the local library system, because that is so Sammy. Idly, he wonders how long they’ve been living around Alexandria.

“Where is the Impala, anyways?”

“At Bobby's,” says Sam.

They're silent for a moment. The streets pass them by, little streaks on the window covering them like cracks on a television, and Dean feels like a kid again, all giddy for the next episode.

“I'm really glad you're back,” says Sam.

Dean wants to laugh at that. If he’d heard the fight the two of them were having just hours before, he might not be saying that.

“Dad and I don't usually fight like that anymore. I try not to get him worked up, his blood pressure…”

“It's crazy to think of the old man having a heart attack. He’s in shape, been fighting monsters for years with no issues with cardio.”

“I think it was the stress. The last few months… it was hard on him. Me, too.”

“Aww, you missed me?” Dean asks with a shit-eating grin.

“I’m serious. How do you think it feels to watch your brother try to go somewhere you can't follow him?”

Dean scoffs. “You don't think I know how that feels?”

“Law school isn't the same as dying,” Sam says.

Dean shrugs.

They pull into a little driveway, another one of those identical houses along the row. The outside is mowed, not a weed in sight.

“So, uh, this is where I’m staying. It’s close enough so I can keep an eye on Dad and still have a little space.”

“You have girls over here a lot, with all that private space?” asks Dean, waggling his brows.

“I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” Sam says, but he’s smiling, so Dean counts the win.

They go inside. There aren’t a million locks like dad’s place, but this time, Dean looks up at the ceiling right away, noting the devils trap right over the door. The room is nice, the walls dark wood and a white carpet floor. Bold move with the white, Dean thinks. After all, he doesn’t really believe Sam has quit hunting for good. Sooner or later he’ll be in here with bloody feet and ruin the carpet beyond repair.

Sam walks ahead of him, picking up clothes from the floor and couch as he goes.

“Sorry for the mess, I wasn’t really expecting visitors,” Sam says, shoving a stack of papers into a drawer hastily.

“You know I don’t care, I’m ten times the slob you are,” says Dean, slapping him on the back. “Nice digs.”

“Thanks. Beats anything we’ve had before,” says Sam, pride in his voice. “I’m trying to get some, like, tasteful art to put up.”

“That’s cool, man. What will you do with it when you guys, y’know,” Dean throws a thumb over his shoulder, “get back at it?”

“Goodwill, I guess,” Sam says, a hint of something slipping into his expression, for a moment, before his smile is back. “But you can see what I’ve got yourself. Want a beer?”

Dean groans. “God, yeah.”

An hour later finds them both three beers deep in the kitchen, Sam drunkenly telling a story from his kitchen table while Dean sits on the counter.

“Remember the time,” Sam’s laughing so hard he looks like he’s about to piss himself, “With– with– the thing–”

“The thing?” asks Dean, taking a sip of his beer.

“The thing we thought was a fucking–”

“Oh my god, the thing!” Dean bursts out laughing. They don’t need to say anything more, the inside joke reverberating between the two of them, spiraling them into fits of laughter. Every time Dean looks up he meets Sam’s eye and they start laughing again until they’re shaking with it. “Dude, I totally forgot about the damn thing.”

“You want another?” asks Sam, wiping tears from his eyes and standing.

“Hey, I won’t turn that down.” Dean grins, “you’ve been pouring some out on my grave once in a while, right? Dead Dean probably wants some too.”

Dean can feel Sam’s good mood vanish.

“Don’t joke about that,” says Sam.

“Okay,” Dean says, hands up in surrender.

Sam clears his throat awkwardly. “Actually, we should probably get some sleep. It’s late. The shower’s in there. And you can sleep in the guest room.”

“Okay. Nice,” says Dean, feeling wrongfooted.

“Cool.”

“Good.”

Dean and Sam stand awkwardly for a long moment, and Dean breaks the awkwardness by getting up to go into the guest room. He showers quickly, the day running down his skin in rivulets to swirl down the drain. When he steps out, the room is encased in fog, blurred in his vision like a dream. He realizes then that he hadn’t asked for any clothes to change into. He shrugs and steps back into his dirty jeans; it wouldn’t be the first time he’s slept in them, and far from the worst circumstances.

The guest room is cozy but bare, the walls devoid of personality. Dean wonders idly if the same goes for Sam’s room, or if he’s decorated it. He had never gotten to see Sam’s dorm room at Stanford. The two of them had never stayed anywhere long enough to decorate anywhere else.

Long after Sam’s light turns off across the hall, Dean is wide awake.

“Guess this is the place. Looks haunted enough,” says Dean as they pull up at the Natchitoches house. It’s a beautiful house, or at least, it probably was once.

They get out of the car, looking out over the walkway. There’s no neighbors, the land is a large plot that stands on its own, the house on a big empty hill covered in swaying weeds.

“God it’s humid,” Dean complains, lifting his popped jacket collar to fan his damp skin.

“Take that off. It's summer, there is literally no reason to be wearing leather,” Sam chastises.

Dean makes a noise of mock offense. “So what, it looks badass,” he says.

Dad’s coat is oversized on him, he had never quite filled out to Dad's size. But it’s still a cool coat. Even if the Louisiana summer is making him sweat like a pig– an animal which, as Sam had told him, apparently don’t actually have sweat glands, because Sam knows everything apparently.

“You’re gonna get heatstroke if you’re in that all day. We’re at the longest few days of the literal whole year.”

Dean pretends not to hear him, and begins the trek up the walkway towards the house. The longest day of the year ain’t nothing to a guy like him. Does Sam think two guys who fight demons and ghosts are gonna get got by a little heatstroke? The solstice ain’t nothing.

Dean stops in place, the obvious hitting him in the forehead.

“You said the missing people all went within a few days of each other, June 19th, June 22nd, June 23rd,” he says.”

“Yeah?” says Sam.

“It’s the solstice. June 23rd… Summer Christmas!” Dean grins.

Summer Christmas, more often called Saint Johns Eve, is a holiday celebrating Saint John, a tradition they'd seen carried by other Catholics.

“Remember the fire jumping? Where it was supposed to protect us from spirits or whatever?” asked Dean, elbowing Sam in the ribs. Sam rolls his eyes.

“Yeah,” Sam says, subdued. “I remember.”

“Oh my god, remember that Baton Rouge job with the mermaids where we ended up on the Feet Mississippi thing–”

“Fête-Dieu du Mississippi.”

“Yeah, and our boat started sinking?”

“Much funnier in hindsight,” says Sam, and he kicks the back door in.

When they had gone inside the old house, the dust in the hot air had been stifling. Both of them put their shirts up over their mouths to protect from the dust and smells as they carefully stepped across the floor.

Cobwebs hang over the furniture, and the wallpaper peels like skin to reveal dead plaster beneath. Dust sits on the boarded-up windows and hangs in the air. The ceiling sags in the middle, pregnant with rotten time. There’s a couch with a guitar sitting on it, and a boarded up fireplace.

Frames on the wall hold old photos of a smiling family: there’s an older, round-faced black woman and a white man beside her, holding identical babies on their laps and smiling big. Dean’s always wished he had a family photo like that to hang onto; all he’s got is a few candids he keeps in his wallet and a really old one of mom.

“This must be Ava and Peter and the kids,” says Sam.

“Where’s the daughter?”

Sam picks up a smaller photo from above the fireplace. He barks a laugh.

“Apparently she didn’t like pictures,” Sam says, tipping the photo so Dean can see.

There’s a photo of a teen girl, hand half-covering her braces. There’s a little label in neat pen - “Our Eleanor says “NO MORE PHOTOS!”

The living room walls are similarly covered in photos and art. There’s a cross over the doorway with a Bible verse inscription.

“John 14:2-3,” Dean says. “That the one about getting pulled up from a slimy pit?”

“No, why do you always say that?”

“Only part I remember, other than the part where they gank Jesus,” says Dean. He actually remembers a lot of the Bible stuff they learned at Pastor Jim’s, he just likes getting a rise out of Sam over it. Sam’s one of those weirdos who can quote the thing front and back. Dean isn’t sure if that’s down to him being especially religious, though, or if it's a symptom of being a nerd.

“It’s a verse about heaven,” says Sam, predictably. “In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?”

Dean knows the rest.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

Cute. Real cute. Thought provoking stuff, in that old Bible.

“Hey, if there was a heaven we’d be out of a job, huh?” Dean says cheekily.

“Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it couldn’t exist,” Sam reminds him, a debate they've had countless times.

A guitar lies on the couch, and Dean runs a finger across it, gathering dust. Somebody's a musician.

“I’m just saying, we’ve been doing this job a long time and I’ve never seen any evidence,” says Dean.

Sam shines a flashlight along the shelves of books, flipping between them distractedly.

“Nobody knows where ghosts go once we salt and burn them. It’s not impossible to think there’s something waiting after we’re gone.”

Privately, Dean thinks it’s all crap to make people feel better.

“Agree to disagree,” says Dean, shrugging and turning his flashlight around, to avoid accidentally blinding Sam. “You take downstairs, I’ll go up?”

“Got it.”

The stairs are curved upward, the wooden railing expensive looking and smooth, covered in deep brown varnish. There's no sign of the murders that had occurred here, except maybe the stains in the wooden floors. Though it has been some years since then, and supposedly someone was living here in the time since, so it would make sense that it's been cleaned up.

There's a bedroom at the top of the stairs to the left, the door wide open, and Dean steps inside, shining his light around the room.

The bedroom is clearly that of a girl. The bed is covered in a thick duvet, the pillows yellowed with age. There’s a large window over the bed that looks out over the forest. Beside the bed is a wooden dresser, drawers slightly ajar. A mirror sits atop it, and stacks of books. Sheesh, the girl has a big bookshelf. Ted Joans, Katherine Mary Dunham, Arna Bontemps… nerd like Sam, then.

And her CD collection. Aaliyah, Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys…

“Hey, Jerry Lee Lewis,” Dean laughs to himself. “ So it's not all just girly crap, then. This chick’s got good taste. Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire. You a Top Gun fan, ghost?” he calls out to no one. “No?”

“Did you say something?” Sam calls from downstairs.

“No,” Dean calls back.

Gloria Bailey. Russ Columbo. Manno et Marco. Django Reinhardt. She must have been the guitarist, then. Might not be Dean’s style, but he knows the names.

He rifles through her CD’s some more. Not to take anything, obviously he’s a decent enough guy not to steal from the dead, and besides, he's seen what kind of hauntings you get from that kind of shit.

“Hendrix, yeah!” he crows. “If I don't meet you no more in this world then uh, I'll meet ya on the next one… And don't be late, don't be late…”

Dean begins opening drawers. Normally he would be more careful, maybe glove up, but this place is abandoned, no one’s gonna be checking for fingerprints.

Clothes, and more clothes, no shocker there. Some jewelry, some knick knacks, a little stuffed tiger. A high school diploma for Eleanor Bankole, tucked away under post it notes and paperclips.

He opens the bottom drawer and finally, there’s something useful. There's a diary, a little brown one with flowers along the edges. He opens it, and the inner cover is covered in neat handwriting. Property of Eleanor Bankole, it reads. He flips through it quickly, looking for any mention of whatever happened here.

Diary,

I want to travel somewhere far away. I hate it here.

He snorts. Reminds him of Sammy when he was younger. Yeah, he'd snuck peeks at the kids' diary, sue him. Anyone would do the same.

I was looking at a picture of the pillars of creation, a star cluster. Thinking about how we are in the middle of something we don't understand. I could hear dad playing that song on the electric guitar downstairs,a peaceful tune he wrote. Dad plays me jazz music of all kinds. I’m well versed, and everyone tells me I’m a natural. It seems to me that all it takes is to place yourself in the song and bring something to it that only you can bring. That’s your voice. To quote Miles Davis, "Don't play what's there, play what's not there." I hit the notes in between.

He flips forward, to the pages toward the end. He's not expecting much, but sometimes there's info in people’s private stuff that can go a long way to explaining a haunting.

Day by day living in this rotting house. I try to keep my grocery runs short, and I don't talk to anyone. I know it's silly. But I can't go anywhere now. It would feel like a betrayal, somehow, to their memory. I can't leave the house alone. I've been on the floor for a day now. I'm hungry, but I just can't get myself up to eat a thing. They’re dead, and I can’t help but feel it was my fault for leaving. I should have at least been here to die with the rest. I should be with them. How could I have left them in the first place?

“Dean,” Sam calls from the other room, “I found her.”

Dean closes the diary and pockets it. He hurries toward the stairs, and his feet drum fast on the wooden steps on the way down.

He passes the paintings on the wall, the surrealist mountains of color, and the photos of the smiling Bankole family, Eleanor’s white teeth seeming to gleam from the photos.

Her body is in the bathtub, like the photograph, except her jewelry has been taken. Pricks. There’s a faint smell of lavender to the room, curdling into the rest of the wet odors, and making Dean cough as he enters the small bathroom.

He deflates, when he sees her. It’s not the body, or the smell of the place that gets to Dean. It’s the little things. Her socks are mismatched, one red with little hearts and the other yellow, and there’s expensive looking soap and leave-in conditioner still sitting on the edge of the tub. It feels private, like they're intruding on something vulnerable. Dean forces himself not to look away. Respect for the dead won't help them do their job.

“Suicide?” Dean asks, crouching beside Sam, who is already examining the body.

“I didn't see any other bodies around,” says Sam.

There’s a cabinet to the side, the door ajar. Dean reaches out and opens it. He shines a flashlight on the contents.

“Look at this,” Dean says.

He points to the floor of the cabinet. There’s a symbol there, a crosslike diamond figure that extends outward into symbols, like some sort of sigil, but not one Dean is familiar with. It's written in some kind of powder. Beside it is an empty milk carton and a broken bottle of what looks like perfume.

Dean snaps a quick picture on his flip phone.

“What's that powder?” asks Sam.

Dean leans down and sticks a finger in the powder to bring it to his lips.

“Dude,” says Sam.

“Corn meal. Huh. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“You think it’s a demon thing? Human sacrifice?”

“I don’t know, man.”

A sudden buzzing makes them both startle, Dean nearly dropping his flashlight. It’s his phone.

“Telemarketers, probably,” he grumbles. He looks at the caller ID and freezes.

“What?” asks Sam.

“It’s Dad,” says Dean. “Someone’s calling from Dad’s phone.”

“But… we have Dad’s phone,” says Sam slowly. “It’s in the trunk.”

The phone buzzes again and both their eyes dart to it as if pulled by a magnet.

“Don’t pick up,” says Sam. “Dead people calling? The same thing that happened to that missing kid might be happening to us.”

Dean glances at him, and lifts the phone to his ear in slow defiance. He answers.

“Hello?” Dean rasps.

There’s a long silence on the other end, so long Dean thinks there might have been a mistake after all, maybe something got mixed up.

“Hello? Who is this?” asks Dean.

“Dean?” asks a gruff voice, confusion laced in his tone.

“Who the hell is this?” Dean snarls, losing his patience.

“Depends who's asking.”

That… really sounds like Dad. It’s disturbing how much it does.

“It's Dean,” he says in a rush. “Are you okay? Where are you? I’ll come to you.”

There's another long silence, and Dean is about to repeat the question when Dad finally answers.

“I’m at 124 West Parish, Alexandria. If this is really you… meet me there.”

The caller hangs up, and Dean brings the phone slowly away from his ear in disbelief.

“He gave me an address,” says Dean, numb with disbelief. “He’s… actually in Louisiana, believe it or not.”

Sam stares at Dean, unimpressed. “it's obvious it's a trap.”

“I'm going,” says Dean.

Sam sighs. “Dean–”

“He's our dad, what else am I gonna do?”

“Really.” Sam crosses his arms, ready for a fight.

“Come with me,” says Dean.

“We’re kind of in the middle of something here,” Sam gestures to the body. “Are you really gonna go after something pretending to be our dad when you know it’s a trap? Are you that dense?”

“What if it’s him? We could have him back,” Deans begging now, shamelessly. “Don't you wanna be a family again, you know, be happy like we used to be?”

“We’re never gonna be some… happy family again. I mean, come on. Were we ever?”

“What's that supposed to mean?” asks Dean, hurt.

“Like…” Sam seems to wrestle with himself in silence, and at once makes the decision to speak. “Okay, the fire jumping, for example. You remember that as this fun thing. That's not how I remember it. I remember trying to study for a math test the next day and Dad forcing us into the car at midnight to do a ritual we didn't understand. I remember saying I didn't want to do it, and you guys making me do it anyway, and then getting a burn.”

“What? No, it was fun.” Dean remembers the fire flickering high, and the way it glinted off everybody's eyes, the way Dad had been smiling lazily. “You were joking around afterwards like it was nothing.”

“Yeah, because I was a kid and I wanted to seem tough in front of my Dad and brother. Ever since the djinn, I feel like you can't even focus, you're so into the ‘good old days’ you can’t live in the now!”

“I'm the one who's not present enough? That's rich. If it weren't for Jessica and your demonic headaches, you'd be out the door, bye bye Dean, please don't call again. Hell, you could be hunting on your own if you really wanted to, so why don’t you?”

“Yeah, well sometimes I think I’d be better off if–” Sam cuts himself off mid sentence.

“What, Sammy? Say it,” Dean says, heart thumping in his chest, waiting on the blow.

Sam sighs. “Please don’t go after him.”

“You're not my keeper,” Dean snipes.

He stalks off, phone still in hand, leaving Sam in the bathroom with the dead girl. He stalks through the house, a faint sound following him, and he pauses to listen. It’s a humming, a soft and mournful tune. There’s something familiar about the sound, like he’s heard it before. It’s almost definitely a ghost. But he doesn’t have time for that right now. Sam’s not a baby, he can do a simple salt and burn on his own since he thinks he knows everything now, and Dean will deal with the bigger issue, as per always.

He leaves through the back door leading out to the forest again and hurries toward the sidewalk. His jacket drags at him, seeming to weigh twice it's size in the unrelenting heat, and he walks below the awning for the cooler shade.

The house looms at Dean’s back, its flat shadow creeping across the sidewalk to envelop it. The sun drags across the sky, leaving clouds in bleeding lines as the afternoon wastes away to nothing. Dean walks quickly, breathing in little crescendos, the thick, humid air like some great stone to push uphill. His knuckles clutch white on the flipphone, the plastic digs into the flesh of his hand as he turns for the third time in five minutes, neck craned back toward that winding sidewalk up the hill and the house in cracked-white paint.

“Texas chainsaw looking motherfucker,” Dean mutters to himself.

He stands there, taking in the big boarded up windows, overgrown with honeysuckle and ivy. The place has that early American architecture look, little ornate details that vanish the further away you walk. Waiting, maybe for Sammy to come after him, call him back over and apologize. Dean kicks at the dirt at the sidewalk's edge, dislodging a clump of grass to tip on its side, roots up. He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s waiting around for. Sam made it pretty clear they weren’t gonna be together on this one.

He remembers that he had taken the dead girl’s diary. He can read that, for a minute, while he waits for Sam to come out after him. And then he’ll pretend to think about it, and say yeah, and then they can get back to business as usual.

June 13, 1999

Diary,

At the wake, Monsignor Cory told me that mom and dad and Andrew and Wes are all up in a better place now, looking down on me and hearing my prayers. Thing is, when I do pray I don’t hear a thing back. Maybe heaven isn’t always open. Could be it inhales your prayers and spits it right back out again, or there’s different heavens, and not everybody goes to the same one. In church they act like you’ll meet again someday, because if you’re around forever you’ll have to see each other again eventually, right? But what if it’s like parallel lines, where you and me could run next to each other forever and never intersect?

When I babysat Wes and Andrew when they were little, my big fear was that I’d end up screwing it up somehow and let them choke to their death on some toy, or drown in the tub by accident. Now that I see the dark spots on the floor every day where they couldn’t quite wash out the blood, I think a little differently. I wasn’t afraid of y’all dying, really.

I was scared of parallel lines.

Chapter Text

September 1998

Diary,

I’ve been sitting around playing my guitar, singing. I tutor students now, and mom and dad want me to keep it up, but I don’t want to stick around here. I want to go to NOLA. I think I could be somebody big. I’m good and I know it. They don’t see it. Still, I want to be here, too, with everybody I know. Everyone else is happy where they are. Mom loves her state job, Dad’s enjoying retirement. My friends are all in school or working. Sometimes it feels like I’m the only in-between.

December 1996.

Diary,

We had an assignment at school today, asking, if you could meet anyone from any time, who would it be? I said I would meet Buddy Bolden, the King of Jazz. You see, Diary, he was the Jazz King, and his sound on the cornet was something special, they say, with his way of blending styles and playing free and wild. Everybody wanted to be him, everyone who knows Jazz has listened to his successors. Except, none of his cylinders survived. He’s famous as can be, but nobody on this earth knows what King Bolden himself sounded like. My teacher Mrs. Tharpe thought it was a funny answer, she called me an old soul. I really only like music. And Jazz is the greatest music there is.

April, 2000.

Diary,

Blue notes draw me into myself, in between. Blue devils sit in my spirit these days. One minute I am reading and the next my family is dead, one minute I am on a walk and the next my family is dead. How do you miss someone when it doesn't even feel like they're really gone? I sit in the house, singing and playing and reading, and I wait to hear the door open and the noise to come back in. It’s so quiet now. And I’m just blue all day long.

May 2001.

Diary,

I had a dream last night of a rainbow serpent who carried the sky. It told me it would guide me back to my family, and show me the way to guide others. It says it has always walked with me, and told me what to do.

The light under Sam’s door had gone out a half hour ago. Dean’s been watching the bottom of it from the bed, his own door cracked slightly as he reads the diary with the lamplight on.

Dean stands, testing the floor with socked feet for creaks, and pads carefully to the door. When Sam’s light doesn’t come on. He slips out of the room and down the hall.

He’s not snooping. He’s just getting up to pee. And then walking around the house to look around a little, get in other-world-where-Dean-is-dead-Sam’s business a little. Sue him. Besides, he needs to find Sam’s computer, see if he can do a little research on this predicament he’s in.

The house isn’t big, there’s the small front hall that breaks off into the living room and kitchen, and then there’s the bedrooms.

Dean continues to tiptoe around the house. Sam’s fridge is, predictably, filled with health foods and exactly two beers. He takes one and goes to the computer sat on the table, guessing Sam’s password immediately. After some entry-level checking out of Sam’s files, just to see what he’s got going on here, he heads to the web and searches up the victims names.

Dave Wallace, Megha Murali, Tayana Keirston, and Cooper Morris.

None of them are missing here. But they all have something in common. They’ve all had deaths in their immediate circles.

Local Volunteer Coordinator Sasha Morris Passes Away in Tragic Accident, the headline reads.

It’s Cooper’s wife, Lisa Morris. His Facebook has a photo of the two of them, people express their condolences, and he doesn't respond to any of it.

Meghan Murali’s child had passed away as a baby, and Dave Wallace’s kid had died at twenty from an overdose. Tayana Kierston’s is harder to find, but some digging shows that her girlfriend had died from unknown causes. Still, they're all seemingly around. No articles about them being missing. Hell, Cooper had posted on Facebook just yesterday.

Guess it makes sense that some things would be different here, thinks Dean. Though it's gonna make it much harder to figure this thing out. He wonders idly if Sam has any notes laying around that he could flip through. Dad's journal is probably at his place, but Sam might have some weapons or something laying around.

Dean moves on to the living room, starting at the bookshelf against the back wall. He still doesn’t see any weapons around. He must have hidden them well, even dad’s stuff was in a more obvious spot than his. Stupid Sam, thinks Dean, how will he get to the weapons when he needs them?

There's a book open on the top of the bookshelf, like it had been set down and forgotten. He tips it up to look at the cover.

“Things to Know Before You Go to Law School” stares him in the face like a slap, the bright yellow cover mocking him to his face.

A lump forms in Dean's throat as the momentum sinks in. Sam doesn’t have any hunting gear hidden somewhere. He doesn’t have a second laptop to use for hunting so the weird search history stays on the “work computer” and the blue movies on the other computer. He doesn't need a car with a big trunk to hold weaponry and still be able to fit a body.

Sam isn't planning on going back to hunting. He's getting his future in order.

Dean goes to the front hall to the hall table and starts digging around in the drawer there. Sam would be so pissed if he caught him doing this. Then again, it’s far from the first time, and hey, maybe Sam’ll forgive him a little easier since he’s now apparently back from the dead.

There’s a medical bill.

“Ha, quit hunting, my ass,” Dean snorts. Probably got scraped up bad by some ghost and didn't say anything. He scans down to the diagnosis section, looking for the CD-9-CM. There was this hunt in ‘05 vampire that had gotten into a hospital in Morgantown, West Virginia, and he’d had to pose as an attending to try and track it down. Lying really only gets you so far undercover, so he’d studied his ass off for the role. Memorized a bunch of CD-9-CM codes, for one thing.

309.81, it says.

Dean frowns. He knows that code. It’s the code for PTSD. Dean chuckles to himself. Sam doesn’t have–

“We’re never gonna be some… happy family again. I mean, come on. Were we ever?”

Dean steps back and sighs deeply.

“Dammit,” he says under his breath. “Fuck.”

He had always thought of himself as Sam’s guardian, maybe even more than Dad ever was, but maybe he had only ever been an obstacle keeping him from going anywhere, keeping him in a life that kept hitting him and traumatizing him over and over. And now Dean’s back, and Dad wants to drag them all back into it again just when Sam had gotten out, again.

Dean puts it back where he found it and goes to sit on Sam’s kitchen chair, the legs scraping the wood floor with a quiet screech, like a ghost in a faraway room. He needs to think, so he does. Just sits there and thinks for a long, long time while the clock on the wall ticks by in minutes and the room stands perfectly, perfectly still. Part of him wishes he were still, too.

Sam in this world has things outside Dean. He can see it now, the way that without hunting the two would drift apart, Sam chasing after his dreams and Dean rotting away in retirement. Maybe Sam thinks it would be different since he’s lost his Dean, that the joy of having him back wouldn’t wear into resentment over time, constant reminders of the past that Dean wears on him like a blanket.

Since the case with the djinn, every time Dean sees Sam on that computer he thinks of him studying for law school. He sees the way Sam eyes the houses they pass with families inside, eating supper with no knowledge of all the things in the dark to fear.

At last, Dean stands, pushing back the kitchen chair further with its signature screech, and picking up his phone.

He’s not sure why he does it. Maybe what he does next is resentment about all of this, being thrust into this place where he clearly doesn’t belong, where Sam is actually gonna be able to move on because Dean is dead, finally, the biggest thing holding him back is gone.

Maybe he’s doing what he always does, and protecting Sammy, even if it’s from himself.

He dials the number. Even after countless burner phones, this number has always been the one for the phone they use to contact home base between the three of them, the surefire number to get help.

It rings once, and halfway through the second, Dad picks up.

“Dean,” Dad says. His voice isn’t raspy or heavy with sleep. He must have already been up. Maybe even waiting on this very call.

“Hey Dad,” Dean says. “Uh, look, I know Sam doesn't want us looking into this, but I'm with you on this one. I’m not supposed to be here. We need to go check out that house and find out how to send me home.”

“Sam–?” Dad asks, the question apparent before he even finishes formulating it.

“No,” says Dean firmly. “He’s asleep.”

“Impala is at Bobby's,” says Dad, huffing in irritation. “Most of the weapons, too.”

“Warden Sam got you down?” Dean smiles at his Dad’s expense. It would be hard to keep him out of the field to heal up if he had his weapons, it’s a smart move, really. “You sure you’re up to this? And don’t bullshit me.”

“I am,” Dad says firmly. “But the weapons… It’d take us too long to drive to Bobby’s, we’ll need to work with what we have here.”

“Actually,” says Dean, “I brought the Impala with me. It’s parked down your street.”
Dad barks out a surprised laugh. His laughter always comes out that way, spilled like something that was never expected to escape him.

“That’s my boy,” he says.

“It’ll be like old times,” Dean grins, and nods, though he knows Dad can’t see him.

When Dean was maybe ten, Dad had taken him with on a hunt. Dean hadn't killed anything then, not for years after that. Dad told him to lay down in the car and keep out of sight, but Dean grew impatient, and looked out the car window, watching as his father beheaded a vampire in the parking lot of some apartment building and dragged the body up into the trunk.

Dad had stepped back into the driver's side calmly and had driven them away, and Dean’s heart had slammed against his chest thinking about the body in the trunk. He didn’t say what he had done, but maybe Dad had known, seeing the subtle shaking of his son's hands.

The pair had walked up to the 24-hour gas station at three AM and bought hot Nachitoches meat pies, and ate like pigs, grease dripping off their hands. Dean had insisted they bring one back for Sammy too, wanting to share Dad with him too.

But Sam had been too picky at that age; when they got back, he wouldn’t even eat it, the little prick.

The Impala roars down Highway 6, the flat landscape cross-cut with road like a slit throat. Dean is inordinately aware of Dad sitting in the passenger seat in the blur of his peripheral. It takes him back to the days just after Sam had first run away to go to Stanford, when it was only Dean and Dad in the car, in the motel, in the hunt. The silent empty nothing in the backseat forming into a being. The nothing forming a shape in itself, a bladeless knife with no handle.

“Going without your brother,” says Dad, “Not your usual style. You really my boy?”

“You know, it really is me. You can cut me with silver as many times as you need to to verify.”

“I know. I suspected it was really you when you pulled your Colt. You left the safety on, like a sentimental idiot.”

“Yeah, well, the John I know would have killed me right by the door and not asked questions. Maybe we’re both going soft.”

They both share a little secret smile between them.

His phone buzzes.

“Shit, Sams’s calling. Hello?”

“Where are you?”

“Went out for a walk.”

“At three AM.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re on a case.”

“No, I’m–”

“You used my computer and didn’t delete your search history. Who’s Cooper Morris?”

“I didn’t wanna drag you into it.”

“Put Dad on the phone.”

“Dad’s not here.”

“Dean.”

He sighs, and hands the phone over. “For you.”

Dad picks up and Dean can hear the garbled sounds of a Sam bitch-fest over the line. Dad takes it in stride, patiently waiting for the end of the tirade.

“We got it from here,” says Dad. “No. No need.”

He hands the phone back over.

“What he say?” asks Dean.

“Sam doesn't want me straining myself. But people like us need to be out there, saving people, hunting things.”

“The family business,” Dean agrees.

“I know Sam's more of a Christian than you or me, but I do believe in a plan for us. And ours hasn't been fulfilled yet. We can't stop now. I'm proud that you've kept it going when I was gone. What we do here matters more than what we want.”

“Yes sir.”

“You might be the only one who can convince him.”

“What, you want me to–”

“If you stay, we can get back to business as usual.” Dad looks at him and Dean focuses on the road ahead of them, not meeting his eye.

“I can't make Sam go back to hunting,” Dean laughs nervously. “I couldn't stop him from leaving the first time, what makes you think I can now?”

“Because you died. You were always the only thing holding the three of us together. I think we both wished it had been me instead.”

Dad had always loved Sam more. It was one thing they had in common.

“In my world,” Dean starts, hesitant, “before you died, you uh, told me something. About Sam.”

“Hmm,” says Dad, face still unreadable.

“You said I was gonna have to save him. What did you mean by that?”

Dean wants to ask why he didn't name the deal to save Dean in this world. If he didn't love him as much here, or if other things were different here that changed the threads of everything. It was the cruelest thing he ever said to him.

“I don't know.”

Dean watches him, scrutinizing for the slightest hint of a lie, but as always, he finds nothing at all.

Dad turns up the stereo. It's always been the way they filled the space, with the badass music that was always more theirs than Sam's.

They pull up to the house after an eternity. Moonlight trickles down through the forest behind the house, filtering over the roof in little dapples, and Dean stifles a yawn. Three in the freaking A.M. and the crusty old thing doesn’t look any better than it did the first time. Vines crawl up the sides to strangle the windows, and the street is silent as the dead.

Well. Bad metaphor, in their line of work.

“Run down,” Dad comments.

“Surprised it hasn't been seized over property taxes yet,” Dean remarks.

“Oh, shit,” Dean groans. Just his luck.

Parked up the street is a busted up white minivan.

“How the hell did he beat us here?” Dean mutters.

There’s a knock at the window, and Dean grudgingly rolls it down. Sam leans over and smiles toothily, eyes furious.

“Why’d you follow us?” asks Dean.

“To drag you back home. Come on.”

“No way, Jose.” Dean opens the car door and pushes past Sam. Sam grabs him, and they grapple, Dean straining toward the house. “I ain’t leavin’.”

“I don't have the patience for this right now.”

“Neither do I. Nobody asked you to come here.”

“Why would you sneak out–”

“What are you, my mother? I'm a grown man, it's not sneaking–”

“I woke up and you were gone again!”

“Since when do you care where I go?”

“Of course I care!” Sam says, nearly shouting.

“Boys,” Dad barks, “You'll wake the whole street up if you keep carrying on like that.”

Sam finally loosens his vice grip on Dean's arms, and the two glare at each other through the dark.

“If you’re gonna do this, whatever it is,” says Sam, “I’m helping. Like it or not.”

Dean nods subtly, though he's not sure Sam can actually see it. “Flashlights, silver, probably some salt and gasoline. Let's get at it.”

The house is an abstraction on the inside, where thin lines of moonlight streak through the depths, carrying dust in their wake. The walls are barren, the floor covered in bits of wood and glass that crack beneath Dean’s feet as he walks. In some ways, the house is as it was before, still old, damp and rotted, but the floors look like they’ve been redone, and the place is almost clean. Now that he thinks of it, the outside wasn’t as weedy as he remembers, either, like someone had been coming by to mow on occasion.

“Something's different,” says Dean. “It wasn't this empty before. There was furniture and stuff.”

He kicks at the floor, the faint outline of scrapes there in four places where the legs of a table had rested and burrowed in.

“It looks like someone really cleaned the place out,” Sam remarks at the blank walls.

Sam shines his light around, and Dean flinches as his eyes burn with the light. He quickly covers his face, and Sam turns the light away, apologetic.

“The body’s in the bathroom,” says Dean, “I’m gonna see if there’s anything in the kitchen, since that’s where the parents died. The kids were upstairs, died in the crib, I guess they could be here, too. We only found the one body before, but we didn't look in every room.”

“I’ll take upstairs,” says Dad, and begins making his way to the stairs.

Dean walks through to the kitchen. It's a sort of glamorous type place, olive green tile on the floor and walls, those crystal knobs on the sink he had always associated with luxury. There's even a fancy chandelier on the ceiling. Dean had always kinda wanted one of those.

“How’s it coming with the body?” Dean yells.

“I don’t see a body in here,” Sam calls back.

“It’s in the bathroom,” says Dean. “The mummified body to the left, can’t… miss it...”

He trails off.

There’s a soft voice singing from the other side, and he walks closer to the sound, drawn in, like when someone whispers so quietly that you have to lean forward and strain to make out the words.

He walks around the room, but it never grows any louder, no matter what direction he walks. It's coming from all around him equally, it seems, this lazy, soft sound, murmured is someone's low, feminine voice.

God, the song, he swears he's heard it somewhere before. But it’s a jazzy, slow song, not something he would have ever listened to, so why the fuck does it sound so familiar?

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” asks Sam.

“That music,” says Dean. “I heard it the last time, too. Somebody singing.”

“I don’t hear anything,” says Sam.

“There’s a spike on the emf meter. Stay on the lookout,” calls John from the stairs.

The song grows louder, just a half-humming, like someone would sing to themselves in the shower, or in the car on a long road trip alone, or–

Oh, thinks Dean, That’s where I know it from.

The song continues, and he clears his throat, glad Sam isn’t in the room with him to witness this chick-flick bullshit he’s about to attempt. He catches the melody and joins.

“Almost blue,” Dean sings along, wincing at the rasp of his own voice. “Almost…”

The chandelier shakes, shimmering light raining from the crystals onto the walls.

“...doing things we used to do...” Dean continues, voice cracking on the low notes.

He turns, and a ghost stands in the kitchen, her deep umber skin glowing like moonlight. Dean should probably call for the others now, but something stops him. Maybe it's the fact that he sort of knows this girl, now, having read her diary, but he has the feeling she's not just some violent poltergeist.

“Hey,” says Dean. “Hey, Eleanor, right?”

Dean had only seen her decayed face, features gone, but he she’s wearing the same clothes she’d had on in the bathtub, the nightgown and mismatched socks. Her face is unreadable, and she stares, silent.

“You were singing that song last time. Chet Baker, huh? West Coast jazz scene, you, uh, big on that stuff?”

She doesn’t respond, just stares at him like he’s some insect on the wall. Dean clears his throat and tries again.

“You said in your diary there was some snake that came to you in a dream. Did it tell you to bring me here?” he asks.

If she did some kind of demon sacrifice, it won't be ideal, but they'll at least have a direction to go in.

“I’ve brought many people across,” she says, mouth not moving even when she speaks. “With the veve.”

Okay, this chick is creepy, but Dean can work with it. At this point, insanity is his baseline. She begins to walk straight toward him, and he backs up toward the door separating the kitchen and living room. She continues walking even as he backs away, her feet steady on the floor.

“Across… what, exactly?” he prods, still backing up.

Eleanor stands still for a moment that seems to stretch into eternity, and Dean almost doesn’t expect her to answer. Finally, she opens her mouth, and a low note comes out, bending notes into a tune he hasn't heard before, heavy and mysterious. Dean's eyelids grow heavy, and a dizziness comes over him, vertigo rollercoastering through him as he sways to catch his balance.

He blinks and the room is different. The furniture is back, but covered in sheets. The paintings from the walls are on the floor, covered in packing paper as if they're getting ready to be sold.

Eleanor's soft song goes higher, and the room once again warps, this time with entirely different furniture, the walls deep red and the floor carpeted. A man sits reading a newspaper on the couch, and there's a crib in the corner with a little mobile on it bearing a sun and a moon.

She begins to sing faster, then, and he finds himself looking out into swaying green, the forest behind the house visible through the walls. But there are no walls, Dean realizes, looking up, there are only timber pillars. The house is gone entirely, only the bones of its structure still standing, blackened against the blue sky.

“What are you?” Dean yells, “What is this?”

The song stops at once, and there is only the sound of birds and the mellow screeching of cicadas in the distance.

“I can move across worlds, any world I want,” Eleanor says.

Eleanor steps toward him, and Dean staggers backward, holding up his iron blade in warning, half certain that even if he could kill her with just silver he would just end up stuck here in this “other world” or whatever the fuck, so he can’t kill her now, but he needs to get the hell out of here pronto.

“I can move across all of time, future and past,” Eleanor continues.

She takes another step forward, measured and impassive. Dean goes to run, but in his haste he trips on the doorframe and falls ass-first onto the dusty ground just outside the house. He braces himself for the attack, but none comes.

Eleanor simply stands just inside the doorframe, unmoving.

“But,” she says sadly.

“You can't leave the house,” Dean says in realization.

“No,” she says. “Not even when they tear it down.”

“You bring people across,” Dean says. That must have been what she meant. “Why– I mean, why me?”

“You were missing someone. Your brother, and your daddy.”

She's got it confused, Dean thinks. Sam had been with him that whole time.

“But… why?” he asks again, unsure what he's even asking.

She looks out into the woods, something longing in her dark, hooded eyes, springy curls wafting like little vines on her shoulders, reaching out for the sunlight that’s just begun to peek over the trees.

“You sang for me,” she says.

“Wh– wait, what?”

“The house is so quiet now. I… I liked it. Even if you think my taste is girly crap.”

“You heard that, huh?” he rubs the back of his neck. “Hey, uh–”

She opens her mouth again and sings, and the vertigo comes over him again. He blinks and they're back, the house restored to its previous state, the Impala visible on the road. The back door is open, and Eleanor still stands just inside, socked feet inches from the edge like a perched bird.

Dean stands slowly, brushing dust off his jeans.

“Eleanor, we can help you,” says Dean. “Let me–”

Something moves behind her, and a heavy object swings through her opaque form. She flickers and vanishes, leaving Dean looking at Dad, who stands holding a silver blade.

“Fucking– guh,” Dean articulates, running a hand down his face.

“Where did you go?” asks Dad sternly. “We were calling for you.”

Dean breathes deeply, attempting to push down the frustration, because he was getting somewhere, god dammit, but Dad couldn’t have known that, all he saw was a ghost looming over his son, so Dean can’t be mad at him. Shove it down, his familiar mantra calls to him.

“It’s Eleanor,” says Dean. “She took me somewhere. She's powerful, man, I’ve never seen something like this before, but I don’t think she’s actually hurting anyone, she’s just…” Dean rolls it over in his mind, still reeling over what he had just seen, “Honestly, I don’t know what she’s doing, she’s magicking people around like she’s got ruby slippers!”

He winces at himself. Wizard of Oz reference, dude, what could be gayer than that?

“Regardless of her power, she is a spirit, so a salt and burn should handle her,” says Dad.

“I told you, there’s not a body,” Sam says urgently, “I checked every bathroom, there's nothing. The house has been totally cleaned out; even if there was something there, it’s gone now.”

“God dammit,” says Dean. “Nothing’s ever just simple.”

“If the body isn’t here, we’re going to have to figure out where it is, or what else she could be tied to,” says Dad.

“Yeah,” says Dean. “But first… I'm starving. Breakfast?”

The gas station has fresh sausage patties and bacon cheese croissants and all that stuff. Dean grabs a few of those and some regional flavor you can't get just anywhere, a couple boudin for the road.

“Boom,” says Dean, throwing the wrapped food at Dad and Sam. Bacon egg and cheese and some sour gummies on the side for Sam, Boudin for himself and Dad.

Sam reads the little sticker label and frowns, face twisting in disgust.

“What? These are your favorite,” says Dean. I've literally seen you make yourself sick on ‘em.”

Sam sucks those things down like air, Dean swears it.

Sam levels him with an unimpressed stare.

“No way.”

Dean just can't believe this shit. He remembers Sam asking for these at every gas station, and stealing them if he said ‘no.’

“I used to always get ‘em for you after school,” he protests.

It's a sweet memory. Sam would plead and turn on the puppy eyes. Dean would hem and haw, pretending he wasn't gonna cave, and would invariably stop at the Gas-N-Go to grab a couple packs of glorified sugar for Sam to make himself hyper on. Just thinking about it brings Dean a warmth, broken when Sam tossed them aside.

“Not anymore,” says Sam casually. “They make me feel sick. I'm too old for all that sugar.”

“And I'm not supposed to eat anything fatty,” Dad grunts, tossing aside the Boudin.

Dean blinks at the sour gummies in the car seat and shrugs. It's nothing. But something about it puts him off somewhere else, like he'd missed some step in a dance he wasn't aware he was in.

Sam starts eating his sandwich, and Dean unwraps his own slowly, peeling back the petals of the wrapper to look at the cheesy, bready goodness. Suddenly he's not that hungry. Sam doesn't like sour candy anymore. Dad eats healthy now. It's just one thread of Sam and Dad that Dean isn't privy to now, a little change that had happened without his say-so.

Don't be such a drama queen, Dean thinks to himself. So what?

“Okay,” says Dean, tearing open the paper packaging on his food with his teeth, suddenly desperate to change the subject, “More for me. So uh. The body. Or lack thereof.”

“If there's no body, we might need to burn something else that was significant to her. The library might have some record of artifacts that might have gotten passed along to family members.”

“Her whole family died in a burglary,” says Dean.

“Still, there could be distant relatives who inherited something she’s tied to, or it could be something in the house.”

“So…”

Dean already knows what he's going to say.

“Let's head to the library,” Sam says.

Dean grins to himself. Some things never change.

The library is an old brick building with long windows. It’s charming, probably, to someone like his brother, but the place gives Dean the creeps. He’s not big on libraries. You can’t snack there, you can’t drink there, there’s no strippers, and everybody is always shushing you. It’s one of those things he only does out of necessity. Like letting Sam drive Baby, or choking down lettuce. The floor creaks with his every step, like the library itself is laughing at him.

“The librarian is totally staring at me,” Dean says to the room at large, and is summarily ignored.

Dad searches through records while Sam taps away on his ever-present laptop. Dean tries to make himself useful looking through old newspapers, trying to find anything weird about the house. They’d never gotten the chance to look through records of the haunting before all thai crap happened, or even to find the details of the murder.

Dean gets bored a half-hour into this, and starts flicking little balls of paper toward the librarian, trying to catch her attention.

“In that case, we should go back through the other stuff you’ve told us and make sure it still adds up here.”

“Mhm,” says Dean, and flicks another ball of paper.

“Dean.”

“What? I haven’t found a damn thing about the house and we’ve been at this for–” he yawns. “For like, ever.”

Sam fixes him with a Look.

“Okay, professor, I’m coming.”

Sam focuses back on the screen.

Dean lets it go for five minutes.

Dad returns from the drawers of records, then, with stacks of papers in his hands.

“You said her family died in a break in?” Dad asks.

“Yeah. You were the one that told me that.”

“That can't be right. They live down the street.”

“What are we waiting for? Let’s check it out,” Dean says enthusiastically, abandoning the newspapers immediately.

The place looks like it came straight out of a painting. Front porch with rocking chairs, old school shutters. It’s a soft pastel green, kind of a cottage vibe, for mooks who believe in that kind of cutesy living. It's absolutely fucking adorable, frankly, but you wouldn't catch Dean dead saying so aloud.

Dean, Sam and Dad had all agreed on business casual for this one, suits too formal for their roles, but their usual clothes too ragged. They’d had to make a quick stop upon realizing they didn’t own any business casual clothes. Thank God for JCPenny.

They knock on the door with the adorable golden knocker, and it opens, revealing a round-faced black woman, the same one from the photos in the house. Her deep golden skin is offset by her multicolored T-shirt for a local 5k. Her jeans are slightly twisted as if they’ve been tugged on, and she has the disheveled appearance of a mother, little spots of fingerpaint on the calves of her jeans. She looks to be in her 40’s, but there’s not a gray hair in sight, just pure, unadulterated life radiating from her face. This must be Ava. Behind her, children can be heard playing in the other room, and the faint scent of brussel sprouts wafts from inside.

“Oh,” she says, taking them in, “we aren't interested in buying anything, thank you.”

“We're actually with the university,” Sam says, foot in the door. “We’re making a documentary about historical houses in the area, and we were interested in the one down the street, which we were told used to belong to you all.”

“Oh, yes. The house is ancestral.”

“Would you mind if we asked a few questions about it? If it’s a bad time we can come back later.”

“No, no, now it's fine. It’s not too often people take an interest in the history of the area. Y’all from around?”

“From Kansas originally. Just interested in the history,” says Dean.

The key to these kinds of lies is to keep your story straight, which means keeping it as close to the truth as possible.

“How rude of us, we didn't introduce ourselves. I'm Sam and this is Dean. This is our professor, John.”

“I'm Ava, which I guess you know,” says Ava. “My husband Peter is inside. Peter, honey, there’s some students here asking about the old house!”

Dean scans the room. Sam watches the two kids play, a soft smile on his face. The man, Peter, is also clearly the same one from the photos,

They all go to sit out on the porch and talk, Dean drinking a sweet tea and Sam having a water, at Peter and Ava’s insistence. Dean attempts to rock the porch swing as Sam attempts to hold it in place, and John sits on a separate rocking chair, taking notes as they talk.

“The house goes back in Ava’s family for generations. I moved up from New Orleans, myself, after my retirement. Things are a little quieter around here,” says Peter.

Ava nods. “As for background on the house, you probably know, but, well, Natchitoches has suffered. Through the last century much of the population left and the towns businesses declined. Farms, businesses, and homes were boarded up. In the ‘70s there had been a revival effort to attract tourists, slapping paint on the old buildings to draw in the new.”

“A lot of people are unhappy with that,” says Sam.

“Yeah,” Peter says, “But you can’t turn back time. It is what it is, it’s done now.”

“Does that specific house have any interesting history? Anything unusual?” asks Dad.

When they do these things they try to avoid leading questions like “was there a haunting here,” but sometimes you have to get awfully fucking close.

“It’s got… bousillage,” Ava offers.

“Which is–?” Dean starts.

“--Interesting,” says Sam, nudging Dean. “We know that’s a common one here, was it a French-built house, then?”

“Creole-style French architecture, yes. But we aren’t… experts, like y’all are,” says Peter. “So you probably could teach us a thing or two. I’m sorry we can’t be more helpful.”

“That’s perfectly okay,” Dean says with a reassuring smile. “We can get all the technical architectural details and historical stuff out of databases. We’re here for the human element. This was your home, right? For a long time? I mean, what’s your personal story with this house, because our paper is gonna have a whole section on that.”

Dad nods at him in approval, and Dean preens internally.

“My family has lived there for three generations,” says Ava. “My grandmother and great-grandmother grew up, raised families and eventually died there. I had thought I would do the same.”

“What made you move out of the house?” asks Sam. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Oh, we didn't exactly want to move, but it needs repairs really badly. Eleanor– our daughter– sends money, but not enough to cover all that. I mean, it would take a fortune at this point, it’s been so neglected.”

Sam and Dean meet each other's eyes, mutual confusion reflected there in silent conversation.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” says Dad.

“It’s partly our fault,” Ava admits. “The problems just got worse and worse, lead paint everywhere, roof messed up, ceiling messed up, it just kept going on and on, you know, and with babies as young as Wes and Andrew… You never find the time to start fixing it.”

“Besides that, there was a burglary awhile back,” Peter says.

“That’s right,” says Ava. “We were out, thank God, but we just never felt safe in the house after that. We’re getting it ready to sell. Whoever gets it next will probably just tear it down. It’s too bad. I loved that place to death, but sometimes it’s best to just start fresh somewhere new.”

Dad takes notes, and Sam and Dean speak silently in their brother-language of eyes, deciding who’s going to be the one to ask. They silently, speechlessly nose goes for it in a way they’d developed on other hunts where they couldn’t speak freely, where whoever twitches their nose last is the one to go. Dean loses, and squints accusingly at Sam. Sam shrugs subtly. Dean purses his lip in a silent “fuck you” gesture.

“Your daughter, Eleanor. Does she still live around here?” Dean asks, aiming for casual. “We might want to ask her about her time in the house, too.”

“She went off on down to NOLA. She’s down there now, making a name in the music scene, we're very proud,” says Patricia. “

“Now, what else did you want to know about the house?”

“I think we’ve got all we need for now,” says Dad, standing.

They get in the car. Dad drives, hands remarkably steady on the wheel, eyes always forward.

“So, she’s alive. And her family is alive. Who the hell is that ghost?” asks Sam.

“It’s her,” says Dean. “Swear to god.”

“There’s not a body. Because she’s alive,” Sam says slowly, like Dean’s stupid or something.

“I’m telling you it’s her, okay? I saw her, it’s the same person. And I have her diary. Need I remind you that I’m dead but I’m sitting right here too? Dad, what do you think?”

“Could be a lot of things,” says Dad, cryptic as ever.

“Great. Thank you for that insight,” says Sam, rolling his eyes.

“Hey, not like you know any better, dude,” says Dean. “Okay, I’ve been flipping through your journal and I have found nothing that matches with this sigil. I don’t think it’s a demon thing. We got nothing.”

“You have her diary,” says Dad.

Dean nods. Somehow he hadn't thought of that.

“Pull over, let's burn it now,” he says. “See if that sends me back.”

“Its worth a shot,” says Dad.

They pull over. Dean takes the diary out. He’ll miss the thing. He and that Eleanor chick actually have a lot in common, he's pretty sure. Not that he would ever say that out loud.

“If this is it, I just wanna say… you know. Cheesy shit. Let's skip it, actually.”

“Dean,” Sam says.

“Okay, fine here it is. Sam, I'm proud of you, always will be. And Dad…” he reaches out his hand to shake, and Dad takes it firmly, pulling him into a hug.

“You'll always be my boy,” says Dad.

“Pour one out for me once in a while,” says Dean.

He hugs Sam, and hugs Dad.

Dad pours gas over the diary, and Dean drops a lit match on it.

And… nothing happens.

They get back in the car, an air of disappointed awkwardness about them now that Dean isn't dead.

“Okay, so now we really have nothing,” says Dean.

“Let's go over what we do know,” says Dad. “Anything you remember could be relevant.”

“All we know is that you called me somehow, which– why were you calling me?”

“You said there was singing after that,” says John, totally ignoring the question at hand.

“Yeah,” says Dean. “The ghost could move across different, like… realities, and it seemed like she was using her voice to do it. She called it… veve, or something like that.”

“Veve? That's the exact word she used?” Dad asks sharply.

“That mean something to you?”

“It’s a Vodou term,” says Dad.

“Voodoo? Seriously? Where's that section in the journal?” asks Dean.

“The specifics of the practices aren’t something you can find offhand. Trust me, I've tried,” Dad sighs. “But I know someone who may be able to help us.”

“Who?” Sam asks cautiously. “You friends with a lot of Vodou priests?”

“An old friend,” says Dad. Cryptic as always.

They pull up to a little tourist shop a few hours south, firmly in Acadiana, past Baton Rouge. It's along a strip of similar shops, advertising “authentic cuisine”, “heritage,” and the like.

This one is on the end of the row, just a white shack, the porch top painted blue. Bottle trees stand on the outside, and a sign hangs over the door that reads “Gifts & More.”

As they come inside, a bell rings over the door. The store is small, racks of T-shirts against the walls, and tacky figurines along the shelves.

“Just a second, I’ll be right with you,” calls a woman’s voice from somewhere behind the cash register.

“Uh, Dad, I don't wanna burst any bubbles, but I don’t know if we’re gonna find what we need here,” says Dean, picking up a bag of Zapp’s Voodoo Chips with a raised brow.

“Demon flight,” Sam remarks, pointing at the plant hung on the door. “St. John's wort.”

“Always the gibberish with you,” says Dean.

“No, it’s a plant for warding off evil. That, and the stuff outside… I think this place is more legit than it pretends to be,” says Sam.

“What stuff outside?” asks Dean, flipping through T-shirts.

“The haint blue. It’s supposed to confuse spirits, they see it and think it's sky or water, and they can't get inside.”

“Huh.”

Dean leans on the counter, eyeing the postcards with half-interest. The woman whose voice they had heard comes from the back, a young black woman with plaited hair. Tattoos cover her arms, partially hidden by the sleeves of her pink blouse, and she smells strongly of cigarette smoke. She’s carrying a box of inventory.

“Can I help you?” she asks, sounding slightly out of breath. “Sorry, I was just getting some, uh, inventory and lost track of time.”

“We’re not in a rush,” Dean says, leaning impossibly further on the counter with his most winning smile.

The box falls to the floor, dumping postcards across the tile.

“Here, let me help you,” says Dean. He leans down, and pretends not to notice her staring at the arms he’s very, very deliberately flexing.

“No!” she blurts. He stops and turns around. “I mean, I’m not supposed to let customers help. Me.”

“Got it,” says Dean, looking her up and down appraisingly. “You look like you can handle yourself.”

She giggles. Dean can feel Sam’s long-suffering face even without looking back.

John clears his throat, and Dean’s smile drops.

“Sorry, sir,” Dean coughs.

Dad looks between the two, and his gaze settles on her name tag.

“Etienne Hipolyte,” Dad says, question in his voice.

“Yeah?” she breathes, nails tapping nervously on the counter. “That's me.”

“Is your mom here?” asks John.

“Yeah,” she says. “Uh, hold on.”

She runs off to the back, and is gone for several minutes. She returns with an older woman, small and thick-set, glasses set high upon her wide nose.

“Damn it, Etienne, slacking again to smoke?” the old woman shouts.

“I wasn’t–”

“You are fooling no one! I will deal with you later,” she says, and turns to John. “Winchester. I heard you had retired,” she says, sounding none too pleased to see him.

Now that Dean thinks about it, he's not sure if he's ever met someone that was pleased to see his Dad, other than Bobby, and that was still only around half the time.

“I’m not done yet,” says John. “Haven’t done what I set out to do.”

The old woman grunts, gesturing to Sam and Dean.

“Are these your lackeys, then?”

“These are my boys, Sam and Dean.”

“Ah. Destiné Hipolyte,” she says.

“Pleasure,” says Dean.

“How’s it going,” Sam says, half-waving.

“N’ap boule,” Destiné says, squinting at them through her glasses. “And I thought Etienne looked like me. Spitting image of their mother.”

“You knew our mom?” asks Dean.

“Eh,” she pinches her fingers together. “Heard the name, saw the picture. What brings you down south this time?”

“We need some information on Vodou rituals,” says Dad, getting straight to the point.

“That is closed practice, I’m afraid,” Destiné tuts. “Not available for outsiders, so you can get on out of here now. Or buy a postcard or two, hm?”

“Its a little late for closed practice, we’re already involved,” snaps Dean. “Somebody voodooed me into another reality and now we’re trying to banish a ghost of a girl who isn’t even dead. She left this.”

Dean holds out the phone, showing the photo of the symbol, the two snakes drawn in cornmeal.

“Just… we really need help. Please,” says Dean.

“I know this symbol.” Destine tilts her head. “Come on. Let’s talk in the back. You all are bad for business, I don't want any customers to see hunters in my store. Besides, you smell.”

‘The back’ is more of a storage compartment than any kind of room. There's a screen door that opens out to a back porch. A little shrine to a scarred woman with the name Èrzulie Dantòr pasted on sits on the shelf beside brochures and boxes of inventory. Destiné pushes aside a mop and a bag of garbage to welcome them into the small room, where they crowd around.

“What you saw was a veve symbol– It’s used to call to an lwa.”

“Lwa?”

“The spirits. Vodou rituals use songs to open the gates between the human world and the Lwa.”

“So you guys use that to gank them, or…?” asks Dean, genuinely curious.

“I am not a hunter,” she snaps. “Not all spirits are bad spirits.”

“Yeah, well, from what I’ve seen–” Sam elbows him, and Dean shuts up.

“We serve the spirits. A ritual called ‘nine night' is performed to sever the soul from the body, to keep the spirit from wandering the earth and bringing misfortune. The spirit stays in the dark waters for a year and a day, and then a rite of reclamation is performed so the soul comes back and can be stored in a govi until it is destroyed in a ritual that sends it to the spirit world, where all the ancestors are. This symbol is for Ayida Weddo, the rainbow serpent, and Damnalla Weddo, two halves of a twin spirit.”

“So what do we do?”

“Such a hurry. Typical tourist. This town was real, once. Now it's just for tourists like you.”

“We are actually interested,” Sam defends. “We aren’t here window shopping for trinkets.”

“No, but you want me to bundle it into neat advice so you can be on your way, yes? What I've learned is a result of many years of practice. You hunters just want a quick result, no one wants to really learn…” she grumbles. “What do you know about today? The feast day for Saint John the Baptist?”

“Its a Catholic feast day,” says Sam. “People do baptisms and carry torches and jump the bonfire, we’re familiar.”

“It is more than that, for Voudisants. Around the solstice time, the veil grows thinner, and spirits can pass through between worlds. We can reach them through the dans. If you want the help of a spirit, you should bring an offering. But it should be soon, before the veil closes again until next year.” She stops, thinking. “What do you know of your ancestry?”

“Uh… my grandfather’s name was Henry.”

“Your grandmother?”

“Uh…” he shrugs.

“You two really don't know the rest of your family tree,” she says incredulously. Her eyes flicker to John.

“My father abandoned me,” says John. “I can't say I'm too concerned about teaching them my family tree.”

“It's the water you aren't afraid of that carries you off,” she says with a shrug. “I ask for a reason. Dean, you may struggle to reach out to the spirit world if you don’t know your family’s tradition or the spirits connected with it. We don’t serve spirits that aren’t concerned with us, and they often attach to our lineage or our homes. That is not to say the lwa can’t reach you. But spirits pass hands through lineage and place. Spirits will be attached to places. Even in death, they would find their way back through the memory and the song.”

Destiné stands and walks to the doorway, digging through boxes by the door. She reaches into a box of postcards and pulls out a hidden carton of cigarettes, and she takes one to her lips.

“We pass things down to our children. For better,” she says, lighting the cigarette, “and for worse.”

She stands there smoking in silence, in some silent conversation with Dad.

“Do you have any… reading material?” asks Sam. “We are kind of in a hurry. It would be nice to learn more about Vodou so we can be as prepared as we can for this.”

“Yes,” says Destiné thoughtfully. “I will give my most sacred tome, just for you.”

“I can't believe the old hag charged you full price for this crap,” says Dean, flipping through the phony looking paperback she had sent them with, entitled VOODOO FOR DUMMIES. It's even got a little sewn up gris-gris doll on the front cover.

“Its the best we've got,” says Sam. “Its got the basics, at least.”

“She said it was a closed practice, of course she's not gonna hand us a real friggin’ handbook. Fourteen ninety nine, dude, not cheap!” Dean sighs. “At least I got Ettiene’s number. Not that I can even use it, if all this goes well, I’ll have to pick up chicks back in my own world again.”

“Your life is so hard,” Sam deadpans.

“Bite me.” Dean taps his fingers on the car seat. “Dad, what did she mean about our family, anyway? What was all that stuff about what we pass down?”

“I don't know,” Dad says.

“Bull,” says Dean before he can think better of it.

“What did you say?” Dad turns slowly, danger in his expression.

Dean doesn't back down. It's been sitting on his mind ever since Dad said it, and he wants answers.

“I said bull. You do know, you just aren't saying. This is what you always do, and we have let you get away with it for way too long. Why did some Vodou lady in bumfuck Louisiana know mom? What's going on with Sam? What’s this bigger plan you always talk about? If I'm old enough to die, I'm old enough to know what's going on.”

“You weren't old enough to die,” says Dad. “This is why I keep things from you that you don't need to know. If I had been able to keep you out of it you would never have–”

“Guys,” says Sam from the back.

Dean laughs. “I'm out of it now. Buried in a ditch in Kansas, right? Or did you guys spring for a nice headstone?”

“That’s enough,” Dad warns.

“You tell me what we want isn’t as important as the job, and now you wanna tell me to stay out of it when it suits you?”

“Hey! Not the time!” says Sam. “Don’t get his blood pressure up, it’s bad for him. He’s recovering from a heart attack, Dean.”

“Fine, let’s just let him keep his secrets!” Dean throws up his hands.

“Listen to this,” says Sam. “According to the book, different Iwa need different offerings. The lwa Papa Legba, guardian of the crossroads, likes offerings of tobacco, coins, rum, candy… Baron Samedi enjoys black coffee, rum, and–”

“Let's take the spirits to a bar, then.”

“Weddo, the rainbow snake,” Sam continues, “enjoys white offerings, like eggs, flour, rice, and lotion pompeia.”

“What about for a human spirit? Anything on that?”

“Uh,” Sam flips through the book and settles on a page. “Sweet black coffee, peanuts and corn, “Paquet congos, which are said to ‘heat’ the lwa or activate them. I don’t know if we have the expertise to make something like these, though, it has to be done by a Vodou priest or priestess… But this page says offerings for human spirits can be candles or personal items. Do we know anything personal to get, though…? I mean, we don’t know her, really.”

Dean thinks back to all he read in her diary, and to the brief interactions he’s had with Eleanor over the past two days. She had said the house was quiet.

“Actually,” Dean says, “I think I do have something.”

August 3, 2002.

“Sam, hey, I just wanna talk, can you–”

"The mailbox you are trying to reach is full".

Dean hits the ‘end call’ button and shoves his phone in his jeans pocket, beginning the walk back to the motel room.

Dean’s been calling every day. The first few times it was from his own phone, but when Sam never picked up or called back, he switched to payphones in hopes that Sam might pick up thinking it’s one of his friends, or his school calling about tuition or some shit. But Sam’s smart. Might have even changed his number by now.

When he gets back, Dad’s exactly where he’d left him. He’s been leaned over his journal for hours, maps spread out around him with red marker to find their next hunt, deeper in his work than Dean’s ever seen him.

“You should call,” says Dean.

It’s the first time he's mentioned Sam in days.

Dad flips to another page of his journal, covered in sigils, and he scribbles something out on his map, holding so tight on the pencil that his knuckles are white, all the blood gathering just outside the grip. He keeps writing as if he hadn't heard, beginning to map a route along the East Coast, a long, continuous line in pen, curving along Interstate 95.

“Dad,” says Dean.

Dad finishes the long, curving line and lifts the pen.

“He made his decision,” says Dad with finality. He lowers the pen to the map again, and begins to draw another line, moving the other direction now, pressing into the paper so hard it could tear from the pressure.

So that’s it, then. Dean takes the keys from the nightstand and shoves them into his pocket.

“I’m going for a drive,” Dean says, jaw tensed. “Don’t wait up.”

Dad doesn’t even look up. Dean closes the door behind him with a quiet snk, the flickering motel sign bathing him in red as he stalks across the parking lot to fumble the key into the lock. He slams the car door behind him and then feels the irrational need to apologize to the car. After all, Baby didn't fuck up, it was everybody else. Screw ‘em, he thinks. Fuck you, Sam, I didn't need your whiny ass here anyway.

He takes his box of cassettes and roots through it until his finger brushes the one cassette with the tape over the corners. He hesitates, and picks it up gently, cradling it in his hands.

Dean presses it into the slot, and gentle trumpet begins to play as he pulls out of the lot. He drives, going nowhere, just speeding down the road toward anywhere but here.

“You're listening to “All Things Considered” from NPR. I’m Bob Boilen.

This is a song of reaching out for a remembered love, the longing for something that’s slipped through your fingers. “Almost Blue,” originally written by Elvis Costello, was brought to life by the controversial trumpet player Chet Baker, known musically for his interpretive solos despite a lack of theoretical knowledge. Larry Bunker, former player with the Bill Evans Trio and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, had this to say: “Sometimes he would come into work with his mouth all cut from having been in a fistfight during the day, but that was Chet.”

“The paradox was that he could be incredibly sensitive in his playing. He was a more linear player than Gerry, probably because of his lack of technical knowledge about what he was doing; so much of it was a magical, intuitive thing. Even without piano harmony to guide him he could sail across the changes when they were merely implied.”

When Chet Baker sings ”Almost Blue,” it sounds like a confessional, like someone conversing with a memory.

“Almost blue,

Almost doing things we used to do…”

After Baker’s rise in the 1950’s West Coast Jazz Scene, his talents were apparent… as were his downfalls. He led a tumultuous life, underscored by addiction. After the infamous beating in 1966 that led to the eventual loss of his teeth, his embouchure was affected and he was forced to relearn the trumpet. He had a career comeback in the 1980’s, recording ”You Can’t Go Home Again,” "As Time Goes By,” “Live in Paris,” “Diane,” and others.

Dean turns left on a red, tires skidding at the force of the turn. A pedestrian swears, and he doesn't even bother to flip him the bird, just speeds down the road. He dares anyone to pull him over, his rage burning hot and fast as brush in a forest fire, spreading until he's numb all over, nothing tethering him to the world but his hand on the steering wheel.

“Bob Whitlock of Derek and the Dominos stated that “Chet was one of those rare birds who learned to read music but never had any real training in harmony.”

“Most of us play by ear, assisted by some knowledge of harmony and counterpoint, but since he didn't have the benefit of those tools, he was forced to do it all by ear, and therein lies his genius.”

Always,

All the things that you promised with your eyes,

I see in hers too,

“Baker recorded the song in 1987, just months before his tragic death in 1988. Much of his music was inspired by heartache. But in Almost Blue, you hear more than pain– There is a presence in the song that draws the listener into a reverie.”

Now your eyes are red from crying

Almost you,

Almost me,

Almost blue.

Dean sits on the leather seat, a hand on the wheel as his eyes grow wet. He blinks several times, fighting it, but the quiet music seems to drag something out of the trenches of him, and it begins to spill over.

“Baker’s style isn’t overly dramatic, it doesn’t sell itself, it simply is. His voice is weathered, a heavy life lived.”

The street blurs in his vision, and he pulls off on the gravel roadside. The cars speed by, shaking the interior with their momentum. Dean weeps quietly into his hands.

“Damn it, Sam,” he sobs. “You promised.”

“The song is an intimate love slipping away, piece by piece. And that’s what makes it unforgettable.”

“For NPR News, I’m Felix Contreras.”

Chapter Text

The fire is high.

“Most feast days mark the death of a Catholic Saint. Saint John’s Day is the only feast day that marks a saint's birth,” the drunk man explains. He’s been talking to Sam and Dean for some time now, and Dean has half tuned it out, sat on the grass of some church lawn for the festivities.

The bonfire jumping is supposed to be a new way to inoculate themselves against evil spirits, Dad had said. All they have to do is jump across. But Dad went off somewhere, and Dean’s half-sure he’s not coming back tonight; that this whole ‘we’re going to a fun holiday event’ thing was just another hunt, and Dean’s gonna have to find them a spot to stay the night.

“Saint John was there to show us, uh, that Jesus was coming, like something, uh, better was coming. Because heaven is coming. For us. That big ole heavenly sky, all for us, y’know?” the guy slurs. “Y’know what I mean?”

Sam and Dean exchange a glance.

“Uh,” says Dean. “Yeah.”

“And I'm telling you, man, it's only gonna get better from here. I bet you can't wait to be grown up, huh?”

“Yes sir,” says Dean wearily.

“Okay, your turn, go on then. Jump time.” The man stands and demonstrates, hopping over the fire with the fumbling, accidental grace of an intoxicated antelope, long legs extending over the fire easily to land in the grass on the other side.

“That's what we're here for,” says Sam, yawning. “Let’s just get it over with and get out of here.”

“Yeah,” says Dean, his grin wide, flashing in the lowlight. “Easy peasy.”

Dean stands, bending his knees, tensing himself to move. Just a little jump, that’s all, and he’ll be across. It’s for his own good, and everyone’s watching. The flames lick at the humid air, smoke twisting in violent pillars that seep up into the sky.

“You've got this,” someone calls out.

Dean nods, but he can't quite make himself do it, legs locking up every time he tries to move.

The group, drunk and cheerful, shouts at him, cheering him on.

Dean is about to jump. Any moment, he will.

But the fire is so high.

Something touches his hand, and he flinches. It's only Sam, and his cheeks heat. It’s one thing, all these strangers seeing him freeze up, but it’s another thing entirely being caught afraid in front of Sam.

“I'll go if you do,” Sam says quietly.

Dean nods, stepping forward on the grass, the heat growing closer. He glances at Sam, whose face glows red with flame, eyes dark and serious.

“On the count of three,” says Sam. “One, two…”

The three of them crash at a Motel 6.

Dean had bought some lucky charms and milk while they’d been at the store for the offering, and he shoves them in his mouth now, Dr.Sexy playing on cable. For once, Dad doesn’t complain about it, lets him crunch loudly while he eats on the bed. Sam smiles, calling him a pig and settling in on the bed beside him.

It’s like old times, Dean thinks. Just like back then. But the smell of mold is strong here. The curtains are drawn tight and constricting, and the lucky charms sit heavy in his stomach. He can't eat the way he did as a kid, it makes his stomach hurt nowadays. He can't sit criss-cross applesauce without his hips hurting. He abruptly feels like one of those dogs that gets too big but insists on sitting on your lap like it's small. Maybe this is just a part of life. It's this little light that grows further and further away until you're not sure if you ever saw it at all.

”You left me for Doctor Phillip! How could you!” Dr. Sexy yells from the screen.

Dr. Sheila shakes her head. “I left because I couldn’t stand it anymore! These games you play with my heart!”

“I’m a cardiologist, Sheila. You should have known.”

“I can’t talk about this now,” Sheila says, watery eyes cutting downward to the patient laying on the table.

“You’re right. If he loses any more blood, we’ll be cleaning up more than the remains of this relationship.”

Dad falls asleep first, on top of the sheets.

“He’s out,” says Dean, lowering his voice.

Sam is on his laptop, reading.

“Weddo is the lwa of rainbows, fire, thunder, snakes…”

“She said she saw snakes. Heh, remember Porkey’s 2 when the–”

“Yes, I remember,” Sam says.

“This Iwa holds up the earth and the heavens… teaches connection between body and spirit, fluidity. It’s said that Ayida-Weddo crossed the ocean with Damballa to bring the traditions of Vodou from Africa to the Caribbean, and they reunited in Haiti. Apparently got syncretized with the Virgin Mary. Hey, Ti Jean Danto was syncretized too, apparently he’s not the same as Papa Legba but can be–”

“As interesting as this is,” Dean cuts him off, “this is the part where Dr. Sexy is about to get the girl, so give it a rest for a minute.”

“I want us to be as informed as we can be. If this goes wrong, who knows what will happen?”

“I know. Just chill for a minute,” says Dean. “At this point, whatever happens is gonna happen. We ain’t getting any more ready than this.”

Sam closes the book. “You’re right. Do we have to watch Dr. Sexy, M.D., though? Can we watch–”

“If you suggest History channel I’ll cut you.”

“You got me there,” Sam laughs, leaning in to rest his head on Dean's shoulder.

“You know, they did a spinoff show called Nurse Sexy,” says Dean.

“You're kidding.”

“What, you think I would kid about something that important?”

They sit in relaxed silence, the only light in the room from the flickering television, Sam’s warm cheek pressing into his shoulder.

“Doctor Sexy, you brought the patient back against orders three times, broke into two houses, and had sex with Dr. Hilson in the elevator. All in the span of a week.”

“I had to do it, goddammit,” Dr. Sexy says, turning on his heel. “I’d do it all again.”

“Damn it Doctor,” the Board Chairwoman sighs. “I don’t know whether to fire you… or give you a promotion.”

“Look, Sam, I know you're going back to school. I think it's great. Really. Uh, if your Dean was here I think he'd think so too. I know I didn’t always do the right thing for you, and I’m goddamn sorry, okay?”

“Dean–”

“No, listen. You gotta leave us behind. This won't be the last one. He’ll find a way to keep going. You won't be able to stop it. He’ll say it's to avenge me, and mom, but if he does kill yellow eyes he'll find something else. There's always gonna be something coming after you. Whatever this is in my head, it's not gonna stop until it's dealt with, but once you figure it out I want you to retire for good. Leave dad behind.”

“We're family,” says Sam.

“That’s why I'm telling you this. Because I love you. So I'm telling you– get out of here.”

Dad snores loudly.

“I guess that’s our cue,” Dean says quietly. “Gonna shower and then sleep too.”

“Dean,” says Sam.

Dean turns, raising his eyebrows in question. Sam sits on the edge of the bed, hands clasped between his knees as if in prayer, and doesn’t meet his eye.

“Don’t go back to the house for the ritual. Stay here. Quit hunting, live a little.”

Dean scoffs. “I can’t.”

“Why can't you?”

“I can't just stop hunting.”

“There are other ways to save lives, you could go to med school, or be a firefighter, or–”

“No, I couldn’t. You don’t get it, Sam. I’m not built for an apple pie life. This,” he gestures vaguely at the room, “is all I know how to do.”

“What about when you’re older, and all those years of injuries start to catch up? Don’t you want a plan for the future?”

“I always figured I’d die before I had to figure that out.”

”Next week on Dr. Sexy, M.D.,” the TV blares, a slamming sound effect playing loudly over footage from the next episode.

“Are you saying… I’m the father?”

“We need to swap his blood type. Right now.”

“Dr. Sexy… was found dead.”

“I always felt so trapped into our life,” says Sam. “I had dreams, and I studied for them. I would think to myself, I can't keep watching Dean destroy his life because he doesn't believe he can be more than this. Only four people came to your funeral. All hunters. I guess I just always wished you had a dream for yourself.”

“All I ever wanted was for us to be a family again.”

“Then why can’t you be happy here?”

Dean opens his mouth to respond, but finds that he can’t quite articulate what he wants to say, all the ways this isn’t right.

This place hadn’t been right since he had gotten here. This isn’t home.

Some naive part of him had thought it would be. Somewhere in his mind, he had expected it all to still be there, in his memory, the part of him that had believed in forever, that he could get some new version of Dad who would actually talk to him, a version of Sam who wants to stick around, but it’s all wrong. Everything’s different, now, and Dean feels like toothpaste trying to climb back inside the tube, or

When he thinks about it, really thinks, he’s pretty sure home burned down with their mother, and he's never been there since.

His phone buzzes from across the room, and he stands to retrieve it. By the time he picks it up, he’s missed the call.

SAMMY, the caller ID says.

“Did you call me?” Dean asks, confused.

“No,” says Sam. “I've been right here the whole time, dude.”

Dean picks up the phone and hits redial. He holds it to his ear, and waits. Sam’s phone begins to ring.

“Its going to me,” Sam says.

Dean tries again, hitting redial. Dean's stomach sinks with dread as the phone rings and rings.

It occurs to Dean, somehow for the first time since he's been here, that for Dean to get a call from Dad, Dad would have had to call him in the first place. He imagines Dad calling his dead son's phone, maybe listening for his voice mail. It's not the kind of thing he pictures Dad doing. That's more like Dean, yelling at Dad for years, begging, with no answers.

Serves him right, thinks Dean, hating himself for the thought.

Dean figures he ought to get to sleep for at least a few hours. He’s seriously pooped, since he’d gotten probably 6 hours sleep total within the past two or three days. His eyes shut faster than a slammed door, and he’s out like a light.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

“Dean.”

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

“Dean.”

Dean blinks awake. A white serpent slithers, writhing coils moving through the air like it’s water. It’s moving straight toward him, and he can’t move to run, suspended like he’s in some weird jelly.

Where am I? Dean asks, but his voice is underwater. Something is different here, and he realizes at once that he isn’t breathing, that his lungs carry no air.

“I am only half of a whole,” says the serpent. “We hold together the earth and the sky, and all that is in between.”

Dean could scoff. I don’t believe–

“I see through all of time and space, and I know what is to come. For you, too,” the serpent says. “We have allowed the girl to save you, if only you decide to be saved. See how it can be. Look upon it.”

The serpent twists, leading him into a kitchen lit in warm yellow light.

“Come on, baby, dance with me,” says a man with a long face, smiling big as he embraces a woman from behind. It’s Cooper, the missing man, and the woman…

That’s Lisa, Dean thinks. From Facebook.

“Cooper,” laughs Lisa. “What’s all this about, anyway? You trying to make up for something?”

“I just missed you, that’s all.” He plants a flurry of kisses on her neck.

“I’ve only been out for an hour.”

“God, it feels like longer. It felt like forever,” says Cooper.

“Honey, are you alright?” asks Lisa, turning her head to try and see him.

“I am now,” Cooper says, tearfully smiling.

Lisa turns, and reaches over to the CD player and hits play, and they dance in the kitchen, foreheads leaned together.

The white serpent slithers over Dean’s shoulder and he attempts to jolt away, but finds he can’t move, still suspended as he was when he first woke.

“Avè w m ap mache, Dean Winchester. Even when you don’t see,” the serpent says. “There are guardians who walk with you always.”

The snake comes close, and Dean feels like he’s going to freak out as it wraps its coils around him and around and around, and squeezes tighter. He’s going to die here, and he can’t move, can’t speak, can’t even breathe to call for help.

The squeezing gets tighter and tighter, and he can feel the moment it gets so tight that the snake and his own flesh begin to blend, the in-between horizon blurring into one, and he becomes all things and all things become him. He can see Dean sleeping in the bed, and wonders how he could have ever been in such a small, fragile body. How he could have seen time and space as something that moves only forward. It feels wonderful in the snake's embrace, but the snake is not a snake, it is pure light, and he is pure at last.

Dean sits up with a jolt, heart beating fast. The sheets are tangled around his legs, and he’s soaked the sheets through with sweat.

“Jesus,” he mumbles, running a hand through his sweaty hair.

It’s early, the sky the gray of pre-dawn. Dean slowly, carefully makes his way out of bed.

“You're leaving, aren't you?” says Sam's quiet voice, startling him.

Dean nods.

“Kind of a drive back to the house, so.”

Sam sighs.

“I'll drive,” Sam says. “Don't even argue.”

Sam pushes past him out the motel door.

Dean looks at Dads sleeping figure. He should wake him, say goodbye. He can imagine it, terse but tearful. Maybe Dad would ask him to stay here, convince Sam to keep hunting, and tell him everything he had always been burning to know, all the stuff Dad had never told them.

But it’s just a fantasy.

“Bye Dad,” says Dean, and he slips out the door, locking it behind him.

They pull up to the house just before sunrise.

“Stay in the car,” Dean instructs. “The last thing we want is for you to somehow go across the veil. I need to salt and burn her body on the other end to free her. I need you to wait until I leave and then torch the house, too. I'll do the same on the other side, so maybe it'll close for good, and nobody can come through the gap anymore.”

“Right. For good.” Sam's giving him a puppy dog look that he really doesn't like.

“You have to do this for me. If not for me then for that girl who deserves to pass on. Do not keep this shit open. Move on. And I’ll try to do the same.” Dean exhales deeply. “Youve grown up so much, Sammy. You don't need me anymore.”

“Of course I do. I'm always gonna need you. Please promise me- when you get back- do the selfish thing. Quit hunting before it kills you. Tell me we're taking a vacation and then just never go back to it.”

“I…”

“Promise me,” Sam says sharply.

“I promise,” Dean breathes, meeting his eye solemnly in the faint light. And in that moment, he lives in the memory one last time.

Dean makes his way up the stairs, and into Eleanor’s bedroom. It’s nothing like he remembered, the room gutted of all its personality, all the books and CD’s and instruments and furniture moved away as if they’d never been there at all, leaving only boxed in walls and a window facing out to the back of the house, and the forest beyond.

“Eleanor?” Dean asks in what he hopes is a calming tone. “I brought you something.”

He lays the offerings down gently. He lights the white candle with the lighter he had picked up from the gas station on the way, takes the NPR tape wrapped seven times from his pocket.

He blinks, and she appears in front of him, radiant. She picks up the tape, tilting her head in question.

“It’s got the song on it,” he explains. “The one you were singing before.”

She says nothing.

“I…” he chokes, then, heart beating faster than he’d like to admit. “I brought sort of another offering. I read your diary. I know that was probably not cool, but I did, so. I know you haven’t gotten to talk to anyone in awhile, and I want to… talk. I know we don’t have a lot in common, but if you wanna talk, uh… I’m here.”

He sounds so stupid. She’s staring at him, and he can feel his cheeks growing warm at the piercing stare.

Then she sits down beside him.

“I’ve never had anyone to tell the story to,” Eleanor admits. “Where to begin… I prayed that I could find a way to see my family. And the snakes answered.”

“The… the Vodou snakes,” Dean prompts.

“The serpents gave me the ability to move across worlds when the veil is thin, so that I could go to the places where they still lived, and had never died. Each year when the veil thinned I walked across, and I could even bring others with me, to their own loved ones.”

She pauses, deep in thought.

“The next year I came across, and the house was empty. So, I went to another world, where they remained in the house, but my family still grew older, while I stayed unchanged. And they couldn’t see me. Couldn’t hear me. I was there, but I was all alone.”

She stands then, eyes still glazed over as she turns to the peeling wall, as if looking somewhere far away.

“No matter where I go, they leave.”

“You know they're alive out there somewhere,” says Dean. “They’re happy.”

“What does that help me?,” she asks. “I was just… I was… I…”

“You were trying to get home,” says Dean quietly. “I know.”

“But it’s gone now. And I’m here, still.” She makes a strange noise, a sigh with no breath. “The dead stay dead. The living go away.”

A breeze flows through the house, and Dean shivers. The weeds outside the window flutter gently.

“If you take me back across,” says Dean, “I’ll help you. I can let you pass on, but you have to bring me to your body to do it.”

“Where will I go then?” Eleanor asks, still facing the wall.

Dean hesitates. He wants to tell her there's a heaven, some place she can go, to give her some kind of comfort. But he can’t. He sighs and stands to walk to her, feet displacing dust as he goes.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “But you won’t be here.”

Eleanor is silent for so long he begins to worry she hadn’t heard him, but finally, she turns, offering a hand. He reaches out and takes it.

The two of them walk forward, through the walls of the house, visiting each room in turn. A soft humming vibrates through the air, growing louder and louder, like radio static. Hands brush his sides, guiding him forward. The sound rises, a chorus of voices over a drumming. Sweat drips down Dean's back as they make their way through the empty bedrooms, the empty stairway, the empty kitchen.

Dean feels a sharp pain and realizes he hasn't breathed in nearly a minute.

“It burns,” Dean gasps, panic beginning to set in.

“It's alright,” says Eleanor. Her hand reaches out to stroke his face. “It will only hurt for a moment.”

The breeze grows stronger, cold sinking into his flesh. The music grows louder, stronger, the drum beating in sync with his heart.

She begins to move to the quiet rhythms, and Dean follows her.

An old man stands there leaning on a crutch, two dogs beside him on either side. There's a light, and two intertwining snakes. A rainbow moves across them to the drum beat. A well-dressed man in a black riding coat.

Three drums. A rattle and a slow, steady beat.

There’s a mellow sound, playing a swinging melody. What’s that, a… a trumpet?

“Cornet,” Eleanor says quietly.

Spirits hold him gently, passing him along, and he sees memories move past like flickering lights. His bones are walking, he thinks nonsensically. He's a newborn, and he feels the harsh air hit his skin, foreign and screaming.

Dean blinks. He sits in the Impala. Balance playing over the speakers, like he had never left.

He steps out of the car and walks up toward the house, quickly breaking into a run.

Sam stands by the doorway, safe and sound. Dean rushes forward to grasp him in a tight hug.

“Sam,” he says into his chest. Sam hugs back, patting Deans back in confusion.

“There you are,” says Sam, “I've been calling you, I thought–”

“Sorry, Sammy, my phone got fucked up.” Dean steps out of the hug, rolling his shoulders.

“God, you couldn't have found a payphone or something? I thought you were dead!”

“I'm sorry,” says Dean. “It was all Porky’s 2: the Next Day style, I was a zombie–”

“Don't bring up Porky's right now–”

“It was crazy,” he finishes.

“What really happened?” asks Sam. He stands, arms still crossed, jaw tense. “Was it Dad?”

Dean shrugs. “Nah. You were right, there was nothing there. Just something out there fucking with us.”

Sam sighs. “Hey, I'm sorry. I wanted to believe it too.”

“Nah, it’s. I think… it was good that I went.”

“About what I said before, I didn’t–”

“Don't,” says Dean. “You were right. He's gone, it's time I accepted it.”

They stand in silence for a long moment.

“The most recent missing guy, Cooper… I didn't find anything on him. No family left, nothing to go off of.”

“He's probably in a better place,” says Dean. “We can look into it, but I don't think we're gonna find anything. He's probably dead. Best we can do is keep it from happening again. Salt and burn.”

“Actually,” says Dean, “Let's burn the whole thing down.”

They begin the familiar process, taking the gasoline from the trunk and bringing it around to the side of the house. The thick scent of gasoline clogs his nostrils and he pours from the canister along the edge of the house.

He lifts the match and lights it, staring into the flame for a moment before dropping it. The fire spreads quickly. The house was ready to go up. The flame rises, licking up the sides. Dean imagines the insides going up, every room swallowed in heat. Eleanor, he thinks, must be walking up the stairs as her body is consumed by it, going towards the sound of cornet.

Dean is lighter, now, like something's been taken away from him, a weight he had carried for as long as he's been alive. This is after.

“Hey, Sam.”

”Yeah?”

“I was thinking…”

He could tell Sam right now, hey, you know, maybe you should get out here and go follow your dreams, and leave this all behind again. I'm ready to let it all go.

But Sam had told him to do the selfish thing. And there's still one thing he can't put down.

“...Maybe we should hit up that Natchitoches meat pie spot before we head out,” says Dean.

Sam rolls his eyes fondly. “Of course that's where your heads at.”

They begin the walk back towards the car.

“What can I say, man’s gotta eat. You could stand to gain a little weight, maybe we better get a pound of crawfish too.”

“We are not eating crawfish in the car.”

“What? No way are we eating in the car, I just got the upholstery cleaned. We would stop, you animal. Eat crawfish in the Impala. I should leave you right here on the curb.”

“Dude, I'm agreeing with you.”

“Bitch.”

“Jerk,” Sam's voice is irritated, but his mouth twitches upward.

Dean protects Sam. It's who he is. In another life maybe he would have been somebody else, but not in this one.

Dean steps out of the house's shadow. They reach the Impala, sun glinting off her black exterior. Inside, the heat of the summer comes off the seats in waves. Dean roots through the box of cassettes, half of them Dad’s old stuff, the other half Dean’s, but he just can't find what he's looking for to fit his mood right now.

“You know what,” Dean says, “how about we listen to the radio for once?”

Sam laughs like he's joking. Dean presses the button to turn on the stereo, switching to FM, and the sounds of some bubbly pop song fill the space between them. The car rumbles as the engine turns over, the sound joining the crackling fire in cacophony. Sam must know the song, because he starts to hum along, tapping his fingers on the center console.

It's something like heaven, Dean thinks, the blue sky above and the road ahead, the flat horizon spread out for miles.

Dean drives, and he doesn't let the rearview catch him.