Fic: Morgantown (1)
Title: Morgantown (1/6)
Author: ignipes
Written for: gekizetsu
Rating: This chapter, PG-13. Overall, R for violence.
Disclaimer: The show and the boys, alas, do not belong to me, and I ain't making anything from the posting of this story.
Notes: For the spn_gen ficathon. This story seems to have gotten a bit out of hand. (Not my fault! I'm just the author!) It's six chapters total. Thanks to jebbypal for the beta work!
Summary: The boys learn that they have been making quite a name for themselves in the hunting world, and what looks like an ordinary job turns out to be anything but routine when they encounter old friends, old enemies, and unfinished business from the past.
Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
~
Sam awoke to the patter of rain on the roof and the sound of the windshield wipers flicking rhythmically across the glass.
"Where are we?" he asked. He yawned and stretched, working the stiffness out of his neck and shoulders. They were driving down a quiet street, past old buildings with boarded-up windows. There were a few cars parked along the curb, ancient Plymouths and Olds, and neon beer signs glowed weakly in the window of a bar. Beyond the buildings, Sam could see dark hills around the town, mostly hidden by clouds and fog.
"West Virginia, mountain momma, take me home," Dean said dryly. He was driving one-handed, fingers tapping on the steering wheel to unheard music; the other arm was stretched across the back of the seat.
Sam snorted. "I know you don't have a John Denver tape in that box."
Dean glanced at him sideways. "Don't judge me, Sammy. I'm a man of many tastes."
"Uh-huh, right. If you had a John Denver tape your Black Sabbath tapes would beat it up."
"That's harsh, man."
"They would give it wedgies."
"They're not bad tapes. They just come from rough homes."
"Flush its head down the toilet."
"You reliving some traumatic high school experience you want to talk about?"
"Put dead animals in its locker."
"'Cause, really, if you -- yeah. Actually, yeah." Dean nodded thoughtfully. "The Black Sabbath cassettes would totally do the dead-animals-in-the-locker thing."
Sam laughed. "So, what are we doing here? I thought we were going to Morgantown."
"We are. Tomorrow." Dean slowed the car to a stop at an intersection, glanced both ways, and turned left.
"So...what are we doing here?"
"We've got a place to stay outside of town. Figured we could stop for the night."
The day was overcast and dark, but Sam guessed that it wasn't yet mid-afternoon, and this didn’t look like the kind of place that had much in the way of cheap accommodations. The town was only a couple of blocks wide, tucked into a narrow valley. The car rumbled over some railroad tracks, and the road wound past the buildings and started to climb.
"What kind of place?" Sam asked.
"Jim and Molly."
"Pastor Jim?" Sam looked at Dean in surprise.
"That's the man."
"I thought they were still out in Wyoming." Sam remembered a white clapboard church on a dry, brown prairie, hot wind and high choir voices, a black-haired woman in a yellow dress. He felt a twinge of guilt for not asking what Jim and Molly were up to when he had spoken to them a few months ago, but it hadn't occurred to him that they wouldn't be where they had always been. "What are they doing here?"
"Well, you know." Dean lifted his hand off the seat back dismissively. "People just love to hear their preacher talking about demons, but only if they can go home still believing the demons aren't real."
Sam wasn't sure he wanted to hear the whole story, so he simply asked, "Do they know we're coming?"
"Called 'em while you were sleeping."
"It'll be good to see them again."
"Yeah." Dean spoke the word through a yawn and rubbed his hand over his face. They were both exhausted, run rough and ragged the last few weeks with one bad-luck hunt after another, and Sam figured it was probably better they were stopping sooner rather than later. Morgantown and its ghosts could wait another day.
The potholed pavement gave way to mud streaming with rivulets of rainwater. They passed a few run-down houses and trailers tucked into the trees. There were cars and bikes in the driveways, and through the windows Sam could see the flickering of television screens, but there were no people about.
The road made a sharp turn at a small church, switch-backing up the hill. A sign in front of the church said, "Matthew 7:12 Sunday 10 AM," and the postage-stamp graveyard behind the building was filled with rain puddles.
"What?"
Sam jumped. He hadn't realized he was staring until Dean spoke. "Nothing," he said quickly. But he frowned and twisted in his seat, watching the church through the window.
"Nothing?" That was Dean's don't-believe-it-but-not-sure-I-want-to-know voice.
Sam sighed. "Maybe. I don't know. I think I've seen that church before."
"In a dream." It wasn't a question.
"Yeah. Maybe. Or maybe not. It's hard to tell. Little white churches all kind of look alike. It was a long time ago, anyway." A few months, actually, back when they were in southern California, but in terms of nightmares and visions, it might have been a lifetime. Sam sighed again and leaned back against the seat.
"It's probably someplace else," Dean said.
"Probably."
Another fifteen minutes passed before they reached the house. It was an old Victorian with peeling blue paint and white shutters, surrounded by a cluster of massive weeping willows. There were a couple of old cars up on blocks by the side of the house, and through the trees Sam could see a Dutch barn that looked like a stiff wind would knock it over.
Dean stopped the car in front of the house and climbed out. Sam followed, flinching as the rain hit his face, and together they splashed through the mud and up the porch steps. The front door swung open just as Dean reached to knock.
"Well!" The voice boomed out from the shadowed entry way. "There you are!"
Dean smiled and shook the man's hand. "Yes, sir, here we are. How's it going, Jim?"
Sam had been sixteen the last time he'd seen Jim Munroe, and he was shocked to see how the man had changed. Jim's broad shoulders were now stooped, his hair was completely white, and he leaned on a cane.
His bright blue eyes peering through thick glasses, Jim pointed the cane at Sam. "Well, look at you. Little Sammy's all grown up. Molly! The boys are here!" He turned back into the house and said over his shoulder, "Well, come in, come in. Molly's got lunch on."
Dean gestured toward the door. "After you, little Sammy."
Sam shoved Dean aside and went through the door.
~
Molly Munroe still wore her hair in a long, thick braid, but there was more gray in it now than black. In the warm kitchen at the back of the house, she exclaimed over Sam's apparent grown-up status, scolded both of them for their fresh bruises and cuts, directed them into chairs and promptly placed bowls of chicken soup before them.
"I don't even want to know when you last had a decent meal," Molly said. Her lilting Irish accent was somewhat tempered by half a lifetime in Wyoming, but hers was still the most beautiful voice Sam had ever heard. She went on, sniffing daintily, "Men. You never do know how to feed yourselves properly."
"Leave the boys alone," Jim grumbled, sitting on a ladder-back chair at the head of the table. "They look plenty healthy to me."
"Well, to you." Molly waved her ladle and rolled her eyes. "You would eat pie every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if you could get away with it."
"Damn straight," Jim said, winking at Sam. "Nothing wrong with pie."
Sam met Dean's eyes across the table, and they both smiled into their soup bowls. Wyoming or West Virginia, some things never changed.
Molly set a basket of rolls in the center of the table and sat down, folding a napkin primly across her lap. "So tell us, lads, what have you been up to?"
"Heard you've been keeping busy lately," Jim said.
"Yeah, well, we've been--" Dean broke off and looked at Jim in confusion. "You heard? From who?"
"Man I met down in Charleston," Jim said. "You remember Chuck Holiday?"
"Gun dealer, sure," Dean replied. "We haven't been by his place in years, though."
"It wasn't him. It was one of his customers. Fellow named..." Jim frowned. "Can't seem to recollect his name. Michael, Matthew, something Biblical. Young guy, seemed like he was new to the game. You know the type, eager to chase evil from the world forever."
Sam gave Dean a meaningful look; Dean simply raised an eyebrow in response. Sam asked, "What did he say?"
Jim sat back in his chair and tapped his spoon thoughtfully on his soul bowl until Molly glared at him to stop. "He mentioned something about a big deal out in Utah, down by Kanab."
"Ah." Dean smiled crookedly. "That was us, alright. You know, there are more zombies in Utah than in any other state?"
Molly hid a smile behind her napkin.
"It's the dry heat, keeps 'em from rotting too much and falling apart," Jim explained. "I thought it sounded like your work. This guy said the explosion could be heard for miles."
"That was all Sam. He missed using the old-fashioned dynamite, so I let him handle it." Dean grinned at him across the table, and Sam made a face. He would rather face a horde of zombies on his own than admit that setting and firing those charges had actually been pretty fun.
"And the ghost bear up in Glacier?"
"She was a nasty one. Must've been ten feet tall."
"And angry," Sam added, reaching across the table for a roll. That phantom bear had given him a scar on his butt he hoped he would never have to explain to anyone.
"Some pagan deal in Indiana?"
Sam set his spoon down. "Wow. I guess word really does get around."
"Necromancers in Santa Barbara?"
Dean's smile vanished. He glanced from Sam to Jim. "This guy sure knew a lot about us."
"Yes, sir, he did," Jim agreed. "Now, I've been out of the game for a while, but I like to keep an iron in the fire, just to stay informed. And it seems to me like folks have noticed that you boys have taken up your daddy's work."
"Oh," Sam said uncertainly. It wasn't really a surprise; he just hadn't realized how effective the grapevine was in the monster-hunting world.
"Nah, it's nothing to worry about," Jim said. "I think you got yourselves a fan in this guy, that's all."
"That's...a little disturbing." Dean frowned and slouched down in his chair, then straightened up immediately under Molly's disapproving glare and gave her a brilliant smile. "This soup is amazing, Molly," he said. "I sure have missed your cooking."
"Oh, it's nothing much," she protested, but she returned the smile. "You haven't said -- what brings you to this part of the world? I wish we had better weather for you." She gestured toward the window and the gray, murky afternoon outside. "It's like it's gearing up for winter but not quite ready to get there."
Dean explained, "Got a tip from Walter Pickton -- you remember him? We ran into him down in Little Rock."
Jim nodded. "I remember. Didn't he get caught, sent to prison?"
"Well, he's out now. Being locked up sure didn't improve his personality any." Dean shrugged. "He mentioned an old house up in Morgantown that's had a few too many mysterious deaths in the past few decades."
"Poltergeist?" Jim asked. "I have buddies in Morgantown. Maybe I can call around, see if anybody knows anything."
"That'd be great. It's some kind of angry spirit, that's for sure." Dean sat forward, adopting what Sam recognized as his shop-talk expression. "Owners have been in and out for years, nobody stays long. See, what it sounds like..."
Jim and Dean settled comfortably into talking about the strange habits of ghosts, and Sam tuned them out as he finished his lunch. Molly's teasing had been dead on; it had been far too long since they'd had a decent meal. Greasy breakfasts in cheap diners, bad coffee and gas station sandwiches, it seemed like forever since he'd eaten something that wasn't stale or fried or both. Or, he thought with relish, crunching on a cooked-just-enough carrot, anything with vegetables.
He noticed Molly watching him and smiled sheepishly.
"Have some more," she said, whisking his bowl away to fill it again. Sam didn't protest.
The conversation turned, predictably, from ghosts to cars, and Jim announced that he was going to show Dean the '69 Mustang he was rebuilding out in the barn. They escaped through the back door, ignoring Molly's insistence that they take an umbrella, and the storm door slapped shut behind them.
Molly stood up, and Sam jumped to his feet and started clearing the table.
"Oh, love, don't worry about that," Molly said, taking the bowls from his hands. "Why don't you go out and bring your things in? I have the guest room made up for you. Do you have washing to do? The laundry room is just through there."
Sam did as he was told and retrieved their duffel bags from the car. The rain was still coming down, and the temperature had dropped. It wasn't cold enough to snow, but he hurried back inside nonetheless. He walked through the house slowly, peering into the rooms off the main hall. There was a dark dining room, curtains drawn and lights out, with the same heavy old table and chairs he remembered from Jim and Molly's house in Wyoming. Next to the dining room there was a study, the clutter of books and papers also familiar. Sam remembered Jim sitting behind his big oak desk, paging carefully through an ancient book and talking to Dad about all manner of things while Sam and Dean played with wooden blocks by the hearth.
This study had no fireplace, and it was cold and dark, like Jim didn't use it much anymore. Sam walked by quickly. He examined the things on the walls of the hallway: photographs and crosses, watercolors and cross-stitch samplers, peculiar black masks and some dusty, rough carvings that Sam recognized as protective amulets.
Near the end of the hall, just beside the doorway to the kitchen, an eight-by-ten black-and-white photograph made him pause. A beautiful young woman, with her dark hair done up in an elaborate mess atop her head and dressed in a stunning pale gown, was standing on a stage. Her arms were spread wide, her mouth open, her eyes closed.
"Is this you?" Sam asked, leaning around the doorframe to speak to Molly.
She turned away from the sink and wiped her hands on her apron. "That it is," she said, stepping into the hallway beside him. Sam thought he saw a bit of a blush on her cheeks.
"Where was it taken?"
"Vienna. Lovely city. And that was Turandot, one of my favorites."
Sam gaped. "You sang in Turandot at the Vienna Opera?"
Molly laughed. "You needn't be so surprised, dear. Though it was a very long time ago, to be sure."
Sam remembered Molly leading the choir at the church in Wyoming, herding a crowd of rowdy kids to the front of the congregation, raising her arms high as the piano player started. Dad never went to church, and Dean was always restless and annoyed when they were left with Jim and Molly and had to attend, but Sam had enjoyed it: the quiet of the building, white robes mottled by the light through the stained-glass windows, voices ringing out through the open windows onto the high summer prairie.
Molly brushed a bit of dust off the picture frame. "Ancient history."
"I never knew you sang professionally," Sam said.
"Oh, it was only for a couple of years. I traveled about, saw a bit of Europe, then I married Jim and -- well, there are no opera houses in Wyoming."
"You just gave it up?" Sam asked incredulously. "Just like that?"
"I never gave up singing," she said. "And all the rest...things change. That's the way of the world." She fell silent for several moments, then smiled brightly and reached up, traced her finger along the faint scars on his face, than patted his cheek. "It is so good to see you again, Sam. Your dad and brother missed you something awful while you were away. It's good that you're with him now."
Sam said quickly, "Just for a while. I'm going to finish school eventually."
"Oh. Eventually?"
Sam smiled awkwardly and said nothing.
With a little laugh, Molly smacked him on the arm. "Oh, now, don't be like that. I'm an old lady. It's my God-given right to say embarrassing things to handsome young men. Now back to the laundry room with you. Bloodstains are such difficult work to scrub out."
~
The twin beds in the guest room were the same beds Sam and Dean had slept in when they were kids staying with Jim and Molly while their dad hunted. Sam collapsed on the red-and-orange quilt and stretched out. His feet hung off the end of the bed.
"I outgrew this bed when I was fifteen," he said, sighing.
"Bitch, bitch, bitch." Dean was sitting on the other bed, studying a map in the warm yellow light from the lamp on the bedside table. "You can sleep on the floor if it bugs you."
"What'cha looking at? Don't you know how to get to Morgantown from here?"
"Just checking. We'll leave about nine?"
"Sure." Pot roast, potatoes, and apple pie for dinner, clean clothes and clean sheets to sleep in, and Sam wasn't in the mood to disagree. "Jim find out anything about the house we're going to check out?"
"Yeah, funny thing. It looks like the new owner is the same person who used to own it a long time ago. An old woman with a haunted sink."
Sam blinked. "Well, I guess it's better than a haunted toilet."
"You would know."
"Please," Sam groaned. "Don't remind me."
"Three weeks," Dean said cheerfully. "That's how long you were scared to use the toilet after that."
"It bit me! You would have been scared, too."
"I was too busy laughing my ass off to be scared of getting my ass bitten off."
"Yeah, yeah. So, seriously, haunted sink?"
Dean shrugged. "Problems in the plumbing, in the wiring, strange noises, the works."
"Could just be an old house."
"Footsteps in the attic, drawers opening themselves in the kitchen, voices in the cellar. In addition to the mysterious deaths, though there hasn't been one of those for some time."
"Or it could be haunted."
Dean tossed the map across the room onto Sam's chest and stood up. "No wonder they call you the smart one. I'm going to shower now."
Waving toward the pile of clothes at the foot of the bed, Sam said, "I did your laundry for you."
"I can tell. You're the only dude in the world who folds his underwear. You're such a girl."
"Yeah, whatever. Be careful of the toilet. Sometimes they bite."
When Dean was gone, Sam closed his eyes and folded his hands behind his head. It was still raining outside, and the branches of one of the willows slapped the window intermittently. It wasn't much like the house in Wyoming, where the wind had blown constantly into the empty prairie, rattling the windows and whistling down the chimneys, but it still felt like Jim and Molly. Felt like it could have been home, almost. Sam had begged his dad once, when he was about nine, to let him stay with the Munroes all the time, to stop moving and changing schools and sleeping in strange places and moving again. Dad had flat-out refused, of course, so Sam had asked Molly directly. She had just smiled sadly and said that his father would be sad without him around. "He has Dean," Sam had pointed out, his nine-year-old self convinced that the logic was foolproof. "He doesn't need me, too."
Sam opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling. "No wonder they call me the smart one," he muttered. The ceiling was different here, too. In Wyoming the ceilings had been plain wooden planks; this one had an ornate design etched into the white plaster.
It was a bit chilly in the room, so Sam sat up, tossed the map back to Dean's bed, and quickly changed. He pulled the blankets down and crawled into bed, curled up on his side so he could at least pretend he fit, and closed his eyes.
He was asleep before Dean came back from the shower.
~
He is on the beach again.
The moon overhead is full and bright, hiding the stars, and he can see footprints weaving across the damp sand where the ocean meets the land. A motion catches his eye and he turns.
A woman is walking along the sand, a blonde woman in a flowing white dress, luminescent in the moonlight. His breath catches in his throat and he steps toward her, reaching out, but she raises her head and looks at him, and she has the wrong face.
She smiles, her lips a bright red slash, and then she is right before him, cool and warm all at once, and she smells of fire.
He backs away, stumbling over something on the sand, and looks down. An arm, a leg, a twisted neck, a tangle of smoldering, smoking bodies at his feet, sinking into the sand. Bewildered, panicking, he looks around. To one side the ocean roils and crashes blood-red against the shore; to the other side there is a massive building, a huge blank façade that hides the horizon, broken windows like eyes and smokestacks silhouetted against the sky, a pair of tall blood-red doors slowly opening as he stares.
He turns back to the woman, and her smile vanishes. There is a gunshot, close behind him, deafening. Her chest explodes in a shower of red. Another shot, and her face is gone.
She falls slowly, crimson folding into white, and by the time she reaches the ground she isn't herself anymore. The body crumpled on the sand is his brother's, shattered to a pulp, unrecognizable except for the familiar leather jacket and the silver ring on his right hand.
He begins to scream and he runs forward, but hands grab him from behind and pull him back. He struggles, tries to break free, to crawl forward, reaching for the single unbloodied hand with the silver ring, but the hands tug at his clothes and burrow into his skin, pulling him backward, backward, away.
His hands leave deep gouges into the sand as he is dragged away, screaming--
"Sam! Sammy, goddamnit, wake up."
Sam woke, gasping. Dean was leaning over him, shaking his shoulders. He stopped when Sam opened his eyes, but he didn't move away. Instead, he sat on the edge of Sam's bed and reached out to right the knocked-over beside lamp and switch it on.
Sam blinked several times in the sudden light, wincing at the sharp pain behind his eyes. He looked at the lamp's crooked shade and asked hoarsely, "Did I do that?"
"With your arm, not your brain." Dean paused. "So. Bad dream?"
Sam exhaled a short laugh. "Yeah. You could say that."
"Was it...you know." Dean gestured vaguely.
Sam pressed his hands to his temples and closed his eyes. "No," he said. "Just a regular nightmare."
"How do you know?" Dean's question was stuck somewhere between skeptical and curious.
"Because it was something that's already happened." More or less. He could still see the bloody, broken body at his feet. He opened his eyes again and looked up at Dean, who was frowning worriedly down at him. "Really," he said with as much certainty as he could muster. "Just a regular nightmare."
Dean was unconvinced. "What was it?"
"It was...that beach in Santa Barbara."
Dean was very, very still for a moment.
Then he stood up. "Right. Okay." He began to absently adjust the blankets Sam's thrashing had shoved aside. "Well, that was enough fun for one night, don't you think? You and your stupid brain--"
"Dude, you don't have to tuck me in."
Dean stopped abruptly and stepped back, a slight smile tugging on his lips. "Don't be so ungrateful, fucker. I draw the line at a goodnight kiss."
"Thank god."
"You going to be able to sleep now?"
"Yeah. I'm fine." His head was still throbbing, but his heart rate had almost returned to normal.
Dean switched off the light and lay down on his own bed. "You sure?"
Sam sighed. "Yes, Dean, I'm sure. God, you're annoying."
There was a quiet chuckle from the other bed. "Ungrateful brat."
Sam smiled and closed his eyes, but it was a long time before he slept again.
~
Go to Chapter 2
Author: ignipes
Written for: gekizetsu
Rating: This chapter, PG-13. Overall, R for violence.
Disclaimer: The show and the boys, alas, do not belong to me, and I ain't making anything from the posting of this story.
Notes: For the spn_gen ficathon. This story seems to have gotten a bit out of hand. (Not my fault! I'm just the author!) It's six chapters total. Thanks to jebbypal for the beta work!
Summary: The boys learn that they have been making quite a name for themselves in the hunting world, and what looks like an ordinary job turns out to be anything but routine when they encounter old friends, old enemies, and unfinished business from the past.
Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
~
Sam awoke to the patter of rain on the roof and the sound of the windshield wipers flicking rhythmically across the glass.
"Where are we?" he asked. He yawned and stretched, working the stiffness out of his neck and shoulders. They were driving down a quiet street, past old buildings with boarded-up windows. There were a few cars parked along the curb, ancient Plymouths and Olds, and neon beer signs glowed weakly in the window of a bar. Beyond the buildings, Sam could see dark hills around the town, mostly hidden by clouds and fog.
"West Virginia, mountain momma, take me home," Dean said dryly. He was driving one-handed, fingers tapping on the steering wheel to unheard music; the other arm was stretched across the back of the seat.
Sam snorted. "I know you don't have a John Denver tape in that box."
Dean glanced at him sideways. "Don't judge me, Sammy. I'm a man of many tastes."
"Uh-huh, right. If you had a John Denver tape your Black Sabbath tapes would beat it up."
"That's harsh, man."
"They would give it wedgies."
"They're not bad tapes. They just come from rough homes."
"Flush its head down the toilet."
"You reliving some traumatic high school experience you want to talk about?"
"Put dead animals in its locker."
"'Cause, really, if you -- yeah. Actually, yeah." Dean nodded thoughtfully. "The Black Sabbath cassettes would totally do the dead-animals-in-the-locker thing."
Sam laughed. "So, what are we doing here? I thought we were going to Morgantown."
"We are. Tomorrow." Dean slowed the car to a stop at an intersection, glanced both ways, and turned left.
"So...what are we doing here?"
"We've got a place to stay outside of town. Figured we could stop for the night."
The day was overcast and dark, but Sam guessed that it wasn't yet mid-afternoon, and this didn’t look like the kind of place that had much in the way of cheap accommodations. The town was only a couple of blocks wide, tucked into a narrow valley. The car rumbled over some railroad tracks, and the road wound past the buildings and started to climb.
"What kind of place?" Sam asked.
"Jim and Molly."
"Pastor Jim?" Sam looked at Dean in surprise.
"That's the man."
"I thought they were still out in Wyoming." Sam remembered a white clapboard church on a dry, brown prairie, hot wind and high choir voices, a black-haired woman in a yellow dress. He felt a twinge of guilt for not asking what Jim and Molly were up to when he had spoken to them a few months ago, but it hadn't occurred to him that they wouldn't be where they had always been. "What are they doing here?"
"Well, you know." Dean lifted his hand off the seat back dismissively. "People just love to hear their preacher talking about demons, but only if they can go home still believing the demons aren't real."
Sam wasn't sure he wanted to hear the whole story, so he simply asked, "Do they know we're coming?"
"Called 'em while you were sleeping."
"It'll be good to see them again."
"Yeah." Dean spoke the word through a yawn and rubbed his hand over his face. They were both exhausted, run rough and ragged the last few weeks with one bad-luck hunt after another, and Sam figured it was probably better they were stopping sooner rather than later. Morgantown and its ghosts could wait another day.
The potholed pavement gave way to mud streaming with rivulets of rainwater. They passed a few run-down houses and trailers tucked into the trees. There were cars and bikes in the driveways, and through the windows Sam could see the flickering of television screens, but there were no people about.
The road made a sharp turn at a small church, switch-backing up the hill. A sign in front of the church said, "Matthew 7:12 Sunday 10 AM," and the postage-stamp graveyard behind the building was filled with rain puddles.
"What?"
Sam jumped. He hadn't realized he was staring until Dean spoke. "Nothing," he said quickly. But he frowned and twisted in his seat, watching the church through the window.
"Nothing?" That was Dean's don't-believe-it-but-not-sure-I-want-to-know voice.
Sam sighed. "Maybe. I don't know. I think I've seen that church before."
"In a dream." It wasn't a question.
"Yeah. Maybe. Or maybe not. It's hard to tell. Little white churches all kind of look alike. It was a long time ago, anyway." A few months, actually, back when they were in southern California, but in terms of nightmares and visions, it might have been a lifetime. Sam sighed again and leaned back against the seat.
"It's probably someplace else," Dean said.
"Probably."
Another fifteen minutes passed before they reached the house. It was an old Victorian with peeling blue paint and white shutters, surrounded by a cluster of massive weeping willows. There were a couple of old cars up on blocks by the side of the house, and through the trees Sam could see a Dutch barn that looked like a stiff wind would knock it over.
Dean stopped the car in front of the house and climbed out. Sam followed, flinching as the rain hit his face, and together they splashed through the mud and up the porch steps. The front door swung open just as Dean reached to knock.
"Well!" The voice boomed out from the shadowed entry way. "There you are!"
Dean smiled and shook the man's hand. "Yes, sir, here we are. How's it going, Jim?"
Sam had been sixteen the last time he'd seen Jim Munroe, and he was shocked to see how the man had changed. Jim's broad shoulders were now stooped, his hair was completely white, and he leaned on a cane.
His bright blue eyes peering through thick glasses, Jim pointed the cane at Sam. "Well, look at you. Little Sammy's all grown up. Molly! The boys are here!" He turned back into the house and said over his shoulder, "Well, come in, come in. Molly's got lunch on."
Dean gestured toward the door. "After you, little Sammy."
Sam shoved Dean aside and went through the door.
~
Molly Munroe still wore her hair in a long, thick braid, but there was more gray in it now than black. In the warm kitchen at the back of the house, she exclaimed over Sam's apparent grown-up status, scolded both of them for their fresh bruises and cuts, directed them into chairs and promptly placed bowls of chicken soup before them.
"I don't even want to know when you last had a decent meal," Molly said. Her lilting Irish accent was somewhat tempered by half a lifetime in Wyoming, but hers was still the most beautiful voice Sam had ever heard. She went on, sniffing daintily, "Men. You never do know how to feed yourselves properly."
"Leave the boys alone," Jim grumbled, sitting on a ladder-back chair at the head of the table. "They look plenty healthy to me."
"Well, to you." Molly waved her ladle and rolled her eyes. "You would eat pie every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if you could get away with it."
"Damn straight," Jim said, winking at Sam. "Nothing wrong with pie."
Sam met Dean's eyes across the table, and they both smiled into their soup bowls. Wyoming or West Virginia, some things never changed.
Molly set a basket of rolls in the center of the table and sat down, folding a napkin primly across her lap. "So tell us, lads, what have you been up to?"
"Heard you've been keeping busy lately," Jim said.
"Yeah, well, we've been--" Dean broke off and looked at Jim in confusion. "You heard? From who?"
"Man I met down in Charleston," Jim said. "You remember Chuck Holiday?"
"Gun dealer, sure," Dean replied. "We haven't been by his place in years, though."
"It wasn't him. It was one of his customers. Fellow named..." Jim frowned. "Can't seem to recollect his name. Michael, Matthew, something Biblical. Young guy, seemed like he was new to the game. You know the type, eager to chase evil from the world forever."
Sam gave Dean a meaningful look; Dean simply raised an eyebrow in response. Sam asked, "What did he say?"
Jim sat back in his chair and tapped his spoon thoughtfully on his soul bowl until Molly glared at him to stop. "He mentioned something about a big deal out in Utah, down by Kanab."
"Ah." Dean smiled crookedly. "That was us, alright. You know, there are more zombies in Utah than in any other state?"
Molly hid a smile behind her napkin.
"It's the dry heat, keeps 'em from rotting too much and falling apart," Jim explained. "I thought it sounded like your work. This guy said the explosion could be heard for miles."
"That was all Sam. He missed using the old-fashioned dynamite, so I let him handle it." Dean grinned at him across the table, and Sam made a face. He would rather face a horde of zombies on his own than admit that setting and firing those charges had actually been pretty fun.
"And the ghost bear up in Glacier?"
"She was a nasty one. Must've been ten feet tall."
"And angry," Sam added, reaching across the table for a roll. That phantom bear had given him a scar on his butt he hoped he would never have to explain to anyone.
"Some pagan deal in Indiana?"
Sam set his spoon down. "Wow. I guess word really does get around."
"Necromancers in Santa Barbara?"
Dean's smile vanished. He glanced from Sam to Jim. "This guy sure knew a lot about us."
"Yes, sir, he did," Jim agreed. "Now, I've been out of the game for a while, but I like to keep an iron in the fire, just to stay informed. And it seems to me like folks have noticed that you boys have taken up your daddy's work."
"Oh," Sam said uncertainly. It wasn't really a surprise; he just hadn't realized how effective the grapevine was in the monster-hunting world.
"Nah, it's nothing to worry about," Jim said. "I think you got yourselves a fan in this guy, that's all."
"That's...a little disturbing." Dean frowned and slouched down in his chair, then straightened up immediately under Molly's disapproving glare and gave her a brilliant smile. "This soup is amazing, Molly," he said. "I sure have missed your cooking."
"Oh, it's nothing much," she protested, but she returned the smile. "You haven't said -- what brings you to this part of the world? I wish we had better weather for you." She gestured toward the window and the gray, murky afternoon outside. "It's like it's gearing up for winter but not quite ready to get there."
Dean explained, "Got a tip from Walter Pickton -- you remember him? We ran into him down in Little Rock."
Jim nodded. "I remember. Didn't he get caught, sent to prison?"
"Well, he's out now. Being locked up sure didn't improve his personality any." Dean shrugged. "He mentioned an old house up in Morgantown that's had a few too many mysterious deaths in the past few decades."
"Poltergeist?" Jim asked. "I have buddies in Morgantown. Maybe I can call around, see if anybody knows anything."
"That'd be great. It's some kind of angry spirit, that's for sure." Dean sat forward, adopting what Sam recognized as his shop-talk expression. "Owners have been in and out for years, nobody stays long. See, what it sounds like..."
Jim and Dean settled comfortably into talking about the strange habits of ghosts, and Sam tuned them out as he finished his lunch. Molly's teasing had been dead on; it had been far too long since they'd had a decent meal. Greasy breakfasts in cheap diners, bad coffee and gas station sandwiches, it seemed like forever since he'd eaten something that wasn't stale or fried or both. Or, he thought with relish, crunching on a cooked-just-enough carrot, anything with vegetables.
He noticed Molly watching him and smiled sheepishly.
"Have some more," she said, whisking his bowl away to fill it again. Sam didn't protest.
The conversation turned, predictably, from ghosts to cars, and Jim announced that he was going to show Dean the '69 Mustang he was rebuilding out in the barn. They escaped through the back door, ignoring Molly's insistence that they take an umbrella, and the storm door slapped shut behind them.
Molly stood up, and Sam jumped to his feet and started clearing the table.
"Oh, love, don't worry about that," Molly said, taking the bowls from his hands. "Why don't you go out and bring your things in? I have the guest room made up for you. Do you have washing to do? The laundry room is just through there."
Sam did as he was told and retrieved their duffel bags from the car. The rain was still coming down, and the temperature had dropped. It wasn't cold enough to snow, but he hurried back inside nonetheless. He walked through the house slowly, peering into the rooms off the main hall. There was a dark dining room, curtains drawn and lights out, with the same heavy old table and chairs he remembered from Jim and Molly's house in Wyoming. Next to the dining room there was a study, the clutter of books and papers also familiar. Sam remembered Jim sitting behind his big oak desk, paging carefully through an ancient book and talking to Dad about all manner of things while Sam and Dean played with wooden blocks by the hearth.
This study had no fireplace, and it was cold and dark, like Jim didn't use it much anymore. Sam walked by quickly. He examined the things on the walls of the hallway: photographs and crosses, watercolors and cross-stitch samplers, peculiar black masks and some dusty, rough carvings that Sam recognized as protective amulets.
Near the end of the hall, just beside the doorway to the kitchen, an eight-by-ten black-and-white photograph made him pause. A beautiful young woman, with her dark hair done up in an elaborate mess atop her head and dressed in a stunning pale gown, was standing on a stage. Her arms were spread wide, her mouth open, her eyes closed.
"Is this you?" Sam asked, leaning around the doorframe to speak to Molly.
She turned away from the sink and wiped her hands on her apron. "That it is," she said, stepping into the hallway beside him. Sam thought he saw a bit of a blush on her cheeks.
"Where was it taken?"
"Vienna. Lovely city. And that was Turandot, one of my favorites."
Sam gaped. "You sang in Turandot at the Vienna Opera?"
Molly laughed. "You needn't be so surprised, dear. Though it was a very long time ago, to be sure."
Sam remembered Molly leading the choir at the church in Wyoming, herding a crowd of rowdy kids to the front of the congregation, raising her arms high as the piano player started. Dad never went to church, and Dean was always restless and annoyed when they were left with Jim and Molly and had to attend, but Sam had enjoyed it: the quiet of the building, white robes mottled by the light through the stained-glass windows, voices ringing out through the open windows onto the high summer prairie.
Molly brushed a bit of dust off the picture frame. "Ancient history."
"I never knew you sang professionally," Sam said.
"Oh, it was only for a couple of years. I traveled about, saw a bit of Europe, then I married Jim and -- well, there are no opera houses in Wyoming."
"You just gave it up?" Sam asked incredulously. "Just like that?"
"I never gave up singing," she said. "And all the rest...things change. That's the way of the world." She fell silent for several moments, then smiled brightly and reached up, traced her finger along the faint scars on his face, than patted his cheek. "It is so good to see you again, Sam. Your dad and brother missed you something awful while you were away. It's good that you're with him now."
Sam said quickly, "Just for a while. I'm going to finish school eventually."
"Oh. Eventually?"
Sam smiled awkwardly and said nothing.
With a little laugh, Molly smacked him on the arm. "Oh, now, don't be like that. I'm an old lady. It's my God-given right to say embarrassing things to handsome young men. Now back to the laundry room with you. Bloodstains are such difficult work to scrub out."
~
The twin beds in the guest room were the same beds Sam and Dean had slept in when they were kids staying with Jim and Molly while their dad hunted. Sam collapsed on the red-and-orange quilt and stretched out. His feet hung off the end of the bed.
"I outgrew this bed when I was fifteen," he said, sighing.
"Bitch, bitch, bitch." Dean was sitting on the other bed, studying a map in the warm yellow light from the lamp on the bedside table. "You can sleep on the floor if it bugs you."
"What'cha looking at? Don't you know how to get to Morgantown from here?"
"Just checking. We'll leave about nine?"
"Sure." Pot roast, potatoes, and apple pie for dinner, clean clothes and clean sheets to sleep in, and Sam wasn't in the mood to disagree. "Jim find out anything about the house we're going to check out?"
"Yeah, funny thing. It looks like the new owner is the same person who used to own it a long time ago. An old woman with a haunted sink."
Sam blinked. "Well, I guess it's better than a haunted toilet."
"You would know."
"Please," Sam groaned. "Don't remind me."
"Three weeks," Dean said cheerfully. "That's how long you were scared to use the toilet after that."
"It bit me! You would have been scared, too."
"I was too busy laughing my ass off to be scared of getting my ass bitten off."
"Yeah, yeah. So, seriously, haunted sink?"
Dean shrugged. "Problems in the plumbing, in the wiring, strange noises, the works."
"Could just be an old house."
"Footsteps in the attic, drawers opening themselves in the kitchen, voices in the cellar. In addition to the mysterious deaths, though there hasn't been one of those for some time."
"Or it could be haunted."
Dean tossed the map across the room onto Sam's chest and stood up. "No wonder they call you the smart one. I'm going to shower now."
Waving toward the pile of clothes at the foot of the bed, Sam said, "I did your laundry for you."
"I can tell. You're the only dude in the world who folds his underwear. You're such a girl."
"Yeah, whatever. Be careful of the toilet. Sometimes they bite."
When Dean was gone, Sam closed his eyes and folded his hands behind his head. It was still raining outside, and the branches of one of the willows slapped the window intermittently. It wasn't much like the house in Wyoming, where the wind had blown constantly into the empty prairie, rattling the windows and whistling down the chimneys, but it still felt like Jim and Molly. Felt like it could have been home, almost. Sam had begged his dad once, when he was about nine, to let him stay with the Munroes all the time, to stop moving and changing schools and sleeping in strange places and moving again. Dad had flat-out refused, of course, so Sam had asked Molly directly. She had just smiled sadly and said that his father would be sad without him around. "He has Dean," Sam had pointed out, his nine-year-old self convinced that the logic was foolproof. "He doesn't need me, too."
Sam opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling. "No wonder they call me the smart one," he muttered. The ceiling was different here, too. In Wyoming the ceilings had been plain wooden planks; this one had an ornate design etched into the white plaster.
It was a bit chilly in the room, so Sam sat up, tossed the map back to Dean's bed, and quickly changed. He pulled the blankets down and crawled into bed, curled up on his side so he could at least pretend he fit, and closed his eyes.
He was asleep before Dean came back from the shower.
~
He is on the beach again.
The moon overhead is full and bright, hiding the stars, and he can see footprints weaving across the damp sand where the ocean meets the land. A motion catches his eye and he turns.
A woman is walking along the sand, a blonde woman in a flowing white dress, luminescent in the moonlight. His breath catches in his throat and he steps toward her, reaching out, but she raises her head and looks at him, and she has the wrong face.
She smiles, her lips a bright red slash, and then she is right before him, cool and warm all at once, and she smells of fire.
He backs away, stumbling over something on the sand, and looks down. An arm, a leg, a twisted neck, a tangle of smoldering, smoking bodies at his feet, sinking into the sand. Bewildered, panicking, he looks around. To one side the ocean roils and crashes blood-red against the shore; to the other side there is a massive building, a huge blank façade that hides the horizon, broken windows like eyes and smokestacks silhouetted against the sky, a pair of tall blood-red doors slowly opening as he stares.
He turns back to the woman, and her smile vanishes. There is a gunshot, close behind him, deafening. Her chest explodes in a shower of red. Another shot, and her face is gone.
She falls slowly, crimson folding into white, and by the time she reaches the ground she isn't herself anymore. The body crumpled on the sand is his brother's, shattered to a pulp, unrecognizable except for the familiar leather jacket and the silver ring on his right hand.
He begins to scream and he runs forward, but hands grab him from behind and pull him back. He struggles, tries to break free, to crawl forward, reaching for the single unbloodied hand with the silver ring, but the hands tug at his clothes and burrow into his skin, pulling him backward, backward, away.
His hands leave deep gouges into the sand as he is dragged away, screaming--
"Sam! Sammy, goddamnit, wake up."
Sam woke, gasping. Dean was leaning over him, shaking his shoulders. He stopped when Sam opened his eyes, but he didn't move away. Instead, he sat on the edge of Sam's bed and reached out to right the knocked-over beside lamp and switch it on.
Sam blinked several times in the sudden light, wincing at the sharp pain behind his eyes. He looked at the lamp's crooked shade and asked hoarsely, "Did I do that?"
"With your arm, not your brain." Dean paused. "So. Bad dream?"
Sam exhaled a short laugh. "Yeah. You could say that."
"Was it...you know." Dean gestured vaguely.
Sam pressed his hands to his temples and closed his eyes. "No," he said. "Just a regular nightmare."
"How do you know?" Dean's question was stuck somewhere between skeptical and curious.
"Because it was something that's already happened." More or less. He could still see the bloody, broken body at his feet. He opened his eyes again and looked up at Dean, who was frowning worriedly down at him. "Really," he said with as much certainty as he could muster. "Just a regular nightmare."
Dean was unconvinced. "What was it?"
"It was...that beach in Santa Barbara."
Dean was very, very still for a moment.
Then he stood up. "Right. Okay." He began to absently adjust the blankets Sam's thrashing had shoved aside. "Well, that was enough fun for one night, don't you think? You and your stupid brain--"
"Dude, you don't have to tuck me in."
Dean stopped abruptly and stepped back, a slight smile tugging on his lips. "Don't be so ungrateful, fucker. I draw the line at a goodnight kiss."
"Thank god."
"You going to be able to sleep now?"
"Yeah. I'm fine." His head was still throbbing, but his heart rate had almost returned to normal.
Dean switched off the light and lay down on his own bed. "You sure?"
Sam sighed. "Yes, Dean, I'm sure. God, you're annoying."
There was a quiet chuckle from the other bed. "Ungrateful brat."
Sam smiled and closed his eyes, but it was a long time before he slept again.
~
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