She picks up their trail in Toledo.

The wind off the lake is still warm, and it orients her, keeps her balanced. Days fall to the wayside, hours passing in measured beats.

Nobody calls her anymore, so she's learned to breathe through her mouth, searching for that tell-tale taste in the air. Usually it's a bitterness that nips at the sides of her tongue. A blend of ripe and rot, like raw cacao, at hospitals, morgues, crime scenes, highways. She’s grown used to stooping to pass under barrier tape, or climbing down embankments, moonlight interrupted only by the occasional blare of headlights.

She misses deathbeds, the newly deceased surrounded by family, their eyes grateful and watchful like sun on her pale skin. She looks down at the skin on the inside of her forearms. She’s practically transparent now.

She’s been sleeping twelve hours at a time, and, in the weeks before they come, she catches herself holding her breath, suffocating, but one night she wakes up in a cold sweat, mouth watering: Iron and sulfur and hard cider like a punch to the gut and she staggers after it.

She pulls on a workman's jacket that's heavy and stiff at the joints--the only nod to the chill of the city at night--but the wind comes blowing off the lake and past it, up her nightgown. It was a mistake to wear it tonight. It's an indulgence really, a fluttery, pretty thing that helps her to pretend she has someone to dress up for, but when thin cotton flies between her thighs and molds against her she feels self-pity, hard and small.

She almost walks right by it. Estate Antiques is a small storefront with overcompensating lettering. Three a.m. and the city's heavy with sleep, a haze spreading down streets like river beds dark and dry, street lights crowned with nimbuses of artificial light. It's silent, and her ring is cold on her finger.

Quiet crashes in a chain of breaking glass. She sits under an awning across the street and waits, swallowing every few seconds.

They come out with eyes tearing blood, pooling in dark blotches under their eyelids and exposed to the air. Her mouth waters. The shorter one goes to wipe at his companion's cheek, but the other brushes his hand away irritably and swipes it off with his own sleeve, and she thinks, 'Brothers.'

Her tongue flits out, laps at her lip, and it's like pouring a shaker's worth of salt directly onto her tongue, so strong she almost cries out. Her eyes water, and it's enough. 'Sam. Dean.' Two boys, efficiently built; not a bone out of place, every muscle corded and essential, and as she watches they fit themselves back together. A flip of the collar, a jacket zipped, in a silence that warms her even from a distance.

Dean doesn't bother to wipe his own face off, blood drying there in brown-red rivulets. Two cursory glances, across Sam's body then his own, and he nods, satisfied that they're in one piece. They move as if tethered together, every action inspiring an equal reaction, the two a closed system. 'Hunters.'

The muscles in her thighs clench in an automatic flight response. She knows better than to get mixed up with their kind. They have their uses, but hunting is a monumental job made tolerable only by narrowing your world view, and she's never been one to deal in black and white.

It's enough to send her home. Back to her bed where she dreams about Winchester men, the generations of them, and tastes them, so ripe for the plucking, on her tongue.

It’s not right. The living are supposed to be reflections in a crowded mirror, occupying a world of glass without smell, without savor. There are rules and ramifications and Sam and Dean are too dangerous to taste; too much to ignore.

When they leave town, she does too, but in the opposite direction, to the west. Craving deep inside, but she'll whet her appetite with their crumbs; and the girl all in white, dress and hair flying artfully like only the dead's do, smells of Sam.

 ****

Moon waning as tires lick up asphalt, but it’s just gonna get full again.

Sam hasn't prayed since that night.

 ****

"Massachusetts."

"Dude, easy. Five. No, eight." Dean leers to himself, thrusts down on the gas and listens to the Impala purr in approval. Doesn’t have to take his eyes off the road to know Sam’s lip is curling.

"Yeah, five and eight are real easy to confuse, the two being right next to each other and all."

"Shut up, dickwad. Wasn't sure if threesomes count as one or two." Dean pastes a shit-eating grin on his face as he looks over at Sam in the passenger's seat. "It's two. I'm feelin' generous."

Sam rolls his eyes, before tossing out wearily, "Delaware."

"Sammy, c'mon, you were there. That chick with the poltergeist in the trunk of her car?" Dean chuckles, hand absentmindedly stroking the side of the steering wheel. "Really, really grateful."

Sam groans. "Dean, seriously, this is a stupid game--"

"--Dude, it's an awesome game--"

"--look, excuse me for not wanting play-by-plays on the Dean stud service."

Dean shrugs. "Still not seeing the problem."

Nothing but silence in response, and it’s got the full force of Sam’s willpower behind it, sullen and heavy.

Leaves Dean grinding his teeth. Patience isn’t exactly Dean’s greatest virtue, even--or especially--when it comes to Sam. Sam’s brooding’s verging on catatonia and Dean’s gut instinct is to poke and prod, guerilla warfare fueled by jokes and innuendo. "C’mon, Sam. You know you want to ask me about Florida. Involves baby oil. Bikinis. Key Lime Pie.” Sam huffs, this bitchy little breath of air that crawls under Dean's skin, and Dean switches tactics. "Fine, we'll do you, killjoy. Oklahoma."

Sam hunches closer to his door. Takes his sweet time, but finally gives in, says, "Nope. Not in Oklahoma."

"Wisconsin."

"No."

"What?" Dean shoves at Sam's shoulder. "What about that blonde with the pigtails you were eyeing at that Oktoberfest?"

"Dude, are you talking about the Nibelungen?"

Dean purses his lips. "So what? Dwarves need lovin' too."

Sam returns Dean’s shove, puts his back into it. "No. Not in Wisconsin."

"Idaho."

"No."

"Missouri. The state, not the psychic," Dean clarifies, before cocking his head. "Actually, or the psychic."

"Dean." Sam spits his name out like it's something dirty. "No."

"Georgia."

"No."

And at this point, Dean's bored as hell and just about as fed-up. He tosses out, "California," then winces almost immediately, watching Sam go 2-D. Dean chews on the side of his tongue, taking quick little glances at Sam out the corner of his eye.

"Stop freaking out, Dean." Sam sighs, deflated. He rolls down the window, and the wind dives into his hair, sending it into tangles. Air rushes down his throat, making him gasp for breath, and he closes his eyes, jaw working. "Two."

Impala slows, like a half ton of baggage’s been dumped into the backseat. Dean stares down the highway, no exit in sight. "You look tired, Sam." He switches on the radio, settles on a station playing Coldplay or some other bullshit. “Go to sleep.”

 ****

Cemeteries get quiet at night.

During the day, though, there's a constant thrum: murmured eulogies, the staccato gear-rhythm of backhoe tractors, tires crunching on gravel as cars thread through hills covered in grass bred unnaturally green. It's spring now, and the air is piped in crisp and clear, and when she peers up, she thinks she could push up against the sky, a dome of blue glass overlying rows and rows of marbled tombstones.

She waits, because there's nothing else to do. Sits under the shade of a tree, bark indenting her back, and she can feel ants skittering across the nape of her neck, along her fingers where her hand is planted in dirt.

A breeze stirs her hair, and she watches a funeral from a distance. There's a little boy there, standing in front of his mother, and she can see the impatience in him as he kicks at the ground. He's prodded up to sprinkle a fistful of dirt into the grave, and she wonders who the deceased was to him. They couldn't have been close; he's letting the dirt fall through his fingers like he's making a mud pie, looking like it's the most fun he's had all day.

She can't help but wish, the taste of bitter melon on her tongue, when he flicks the last few crumbs of sand off his hand with an endearing flourish. He looks up, catches her staring and her gaze repels from his, settling on a stray blade of grass. Doesn’t feel right, to see eyes that naïve. Ruth’s childhood was an indoctrination of the inevitability of life and the solemnity of death, and she wonders what it would be like to be young, and ignorant, and free.

The mourning party leaves before night falls. Dusk, and the air goes heavy with fading light, golden and thick. The breeze blows stronger, and goosebumps rise on her skin, the smell of freshly turned dirt and wet grass tinged with the salt of the Bay's wetlands that lie miles away.

She stands and walks purposefully. She knows exactly where she's going, and when she gets to the grave, she waits until the night watchman she paid off turns out the light in the main office.

Jessica Moore. There's a photo on the stone, and she studies it. Up close she can see that Jessica was pretty, and she's not sure why it surprises her. She shakes it off, pulling on her surgical mask--grave dirt carries bacteria, and, besides, it helps with the smell. Halfway down, she finds a layer of salt two inches deep and she can taste grief on it, sharp and astringent. A few feet below that and she finds an iron cross, and her arms throb deep when she heaves it out of the grave.

The digging takes hours to finish; breaking into the coffin takes almost as long. Steel coffins are a pain in the ass, and she spends a good forty minutes knocking the hinge pins out with a metal spike and the heel of her flat-bottomed shoe, tossing up a quick thanks that the casket hasn't been gasket-sealed.

By the time she gets the door up and off, her arms ache down to the bone. She takes a break, looks up at the earthen frame of stars and sky above her, then leans over Jessica's charred corpse. She puts her hand over where Jessica's heart would be, and picks a smooth white stone from between exposed ribs gone black and chalky.

It's a live one, glowing with a soft pulse and throb and she waits for Jessica to come. It doesn't take long. She closes the casket door and sits on it, looking up to see Jessica peer over the hole.

She doesn't think she'll ever get used to the flicker of ghosts. Like a skipping frequency, sharp edges holding together a shape that's bleeding together.

Jess opens her mouth, and her first word is, "Sam?"

"No." She pulls hard at her lip. "Ruth."

Jess sits on the lip of the hole, legs dangling. She twinkles in and out of focus, and Ruth can see the stars blink in time behind her.

She lets the silence stretch taut before snapping it. "It's not so bad, the other side."

Jess laughs. "Considering how I died." She shrugs.

"So you know?"

Jess nods.

"What's keeping you?" and it's a casual reproof between friends.

Jess chews at her lower lip, but it stays pale and cold. "He's easy to love."

"You didn't know him. Not all of him. And he has his brother, now."

"His brother." Jess laughs. "Who doesn't know that Sam slept through most of his lectures but spent hours in his professor's offices. Or that Sam ran a paper-writing business out of his dorm room for the extra cash, that he claims he had the idea for Wikipedia ten years ago, that he was the kind of Stanford football fan who never missed a game and painted his face red and white." Her smile is wistful. "Who doesn't know that Sam went to Mass every Sunday and left two candles burning." Jess leans back on her arms. "Don't need to know everything to love him. Dean knows that."

Ruth sighs because she knows it's true, and she twists at the band on her ring finger, whispering words.

Jess listens for a while, head cocked, until Ruth raises the stone to her lips, and Jess stands, shaking her head. "No. Please don't." She flickers. "I have to keep him--"

"But he’s not for keeps, you know?" Ruth thinks of Dean, and loosening grips. "Besides. He’s got so many claims on him, already. Someone called dibs when he was just a baby. Everyone else settles for their moments."

Jessica’s throat ripples. "Please."
 
Ruth swallows the stone, a heavy slip that sticks in her throat, pulling cartilage and muscle out of shape, and she feels it melt into sera, into fluid. She tastes baby carrots, and Sam's in the bite of it, the earthy sweetness. Jess's image snaps shut, immediate and quick, like the audible click of a radio dial turned off.

She stays sated for weeks.

 ****

Dean watches Sam wake up as the car slows to a stop. Sam’s eyes are swollen, heavy with ragged sleep, and he automatically rolls out, reaching to flip open the fuel door.

"Hey, Rip van Idiot, open your eyes." Dean watches for a swat, a quick little gauge of Sam’s mood, and when Sam’s arm comes swinging over the roof of the car, he dodges it easily, feels relieved.

Sam rubs at his eyes, opening 'em enough to look around, and furrows his brow. "Where are we?"

Dean waggles his brows. "San Jose, Sam. Home to the Winchester Mystery House."

"Why?"

Dean frowns. "Why not?"

"Uh, because haunted houses are always total tourist traps?"

"You love haunted houses."

Amused disbelief colors Sam's face. "Not since I was eight."

Dean rolls his eyes. "Still singing the same old fucking song. We had to spend the night there, okay? Even Dad couldn't waste La Malhora during broad daylight, Sammy."

Sam crosses his arms across the top of the car, rests his chin on top of them. Eyes drifting closed under the hot breeze, clearly settling in for the long haul. Dean flexes his fingers. Such a pain in the ass.

"C'mon." Dean spreads his arms wide. "I need a break."

Sam’s got too keen of a nose for Dean’s particular brand of bullshit, so Dean isn't exactly surprised when Sam scoffs. "You’re the one who needs a break? So, this isn't you walking on fucking eggshells--"

"Don't be a bitch."

Sam gets that look on his face, like he's struggling to hold his tongue, talking himself into being the 'better man' and other assorted bullshit and that's fine by Dean. As long as the end result is Sam agreeing to shut up.

"Let's do this." Dean rubs his hands together, nodding his head at Sam. "Family history, Sammy, it'll be good for you."

"Dude, we're not related to Susan Winchester. You think Dad was secretly a trust fund baby gone incredibly wrong?"

Dean shrugs. "Why not?"

"Dean, 'why not' isn't an automatic win to an argument."

"'Cept that it is, Sammy. Let's go already, we gotta hop the fence before the security guard makes another round."

"We're not paying?" protests Sam.

"Dude."

Sam blushes. "Yeah, alright."

 ****

The chain-link fence is a joke; Sam was cartwheeling over ones like this when he was eight--the Winchester family version of a jungle gym--but Dean's been favoring his left side, and the fence clatters under his hands. Sam wouldn't be surprised if the security guard was just pretending not see them, too lazy to get up off his ass.

When Dean lands, he winces and has to put a hand down to find his balance. The idiot's obviously hurt. Sam thinks he's probably got a bruised rib at the very least--were-beasts in general tend to throw people around like toys--but Dean doesn't say anything which means Sam isn't allowed to say anything. It's their code, with potentially fatal injuries as the sole exception and even then only just.

The house is sprawling, turrets plopped down on every available surface. Four stories and it bleeds onto the grounds at the edges. They stroll into the lobby like paying customers, and Dean grabs a handful of guide pamphlets and slaps them against Sam's chest.

It's not like Dean to even notice pamphlets, and Sam glares, puts 'em all back except for one. "What the hell?"

Dean puts on an encouraging face. "C'mon, Sammy, pick up some useless information. Throw it in my face down the line when it turns out to be stupidly important."

"Man," Sam's initial sneer turns into a smirk. "You can count on it."

A guide jumps on them as soon as they walk deeper into the house, but they ditch the kid the minute they can; Sam feels bad for a split second when he hears the teenager calling 'hello' down the hallway he and Dean just disappeared down, but it can't be helped. They've never been much for guides.

'Sides, Sam's got the pamphlet in hand, and really, that's all he needs. The print's too small for this dim light, and he stops to squint at it. The house was built by Susan Winchester, who was heiress to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, which produced the 1892 Winchester rifle. Bold text trumpets its legacy as the gun that won the West, and Sam can almost hear his dad’s voice in his ear. World’s not tame, Sam. We know that more than most, and it’s not something you can hide from, understand, son?

He’d sat Sam down, told him in excruciating detail about how guns kill--the shattering of the hollow-points they used like a miniature explosion of shrapnel contained in someone's torso, the bleeding, the splintering of bone. Where to fire to trigger an immediate, painless death, and where to shoot to draw it out.

Winchester name done tied up with guns, and he can still feel the weight in his hand. His stomach rolls all over again.

Sam looks up, searching for Dean,but he’s turned the corner and Sam hustles after him. The house is so still that Dean's left a trail in the air, disturbing dust motes suspended in air like amber. The place smells like aging wood, a must that lingers in Sam's nose, and he feels preserved, held in place.

"Man, this chick was disturbed."

He turns the corner to see Dean looking up at a chandelier, hands shoved in his pockets and teetering back on his heels like a kid,  and for a second Sam feels the full weight of a fierce loyalty, a pull as constant as gravity. He swallows hard, walks over, tilting his head back to see what Dean's seeing. "What're you talking about?"

Dean points up, counting off the candle-stems under his breath before declaring, "Thirteen." His hand sweeps around the room. "There's thirteen everything. Thirteen clothes hooks, thirteen windows, thirteen lamps. It's not even subtle."

Sam levels Dean with a look.

"What? I can't appreciate subtle?"

Sam's laugh is disbelieving, but he's taking note of everything Dean mentioned, and damn, Dean's got a faster eye than Sam remembers to give him credit for. One-upping him, Sam adds, "Spider-webs as a recurring motif, too."

"Your ass is a recurring motif."

Sam's mouth twists, amused despite himself. "Real nice."

A stained-glass window catches Sam's eye, dark lead frame splintering off into spirals that outline smoky yellow glass, and when he looks through it the world outside is sepia-toned, more still-life than view. Thirteen clocks, but none of them are ticking. Sam holds his breath.

A hard thunk, then “Motherfucker!” A static of pain underlining Dean’s curse and Sam’s reverie’s broken on the floor, ears and eyes at attention. Dean’s not in the immediate room and adrenaline pumps automatically, sends Sam running in the direction of Dean's voice. Up a staircase, wood polished so dark it swallows light, and Sam trips twice over steps he can't see.

Halfway up, he spots Dean, sitting on a step near the top, rubbing at his head, and relief floods through him, fueling a last minute burst of speed. It's too bad the staircase doesn't go anywhere because Sam hits his head hard against the ceiling.

"Damn it!"

Dean snickers. "Dead end, Sam."

"Yeah, a little late on the heads up."

Dean shakes his head, snickering as Sam rubs at a skull bump. "Naw. Perfect timing. It's one of my trademarks."

Sam scowls at Dean's smug laugh. They head back down the stairs, and Sam makes sure to keep stooping long after Dean straightens. Gets punched in the arm, but it's worth it.

They wander into the master bedroom, ornate with brocades and jewel-toned carpets. It's oppressive and ugly despite or because of the obvious grandeur, and the only thing that catches Sam's eye is two little photographs in a hinged frame of wrought silver. Photos of the deceased, a man and an infant, and the glass over their faces is smudged and worn down smooth. Oil on your fingertips and it does that, over time. They're both dressed in the dead's best but the print's faded, leaving them mostly dark edges and the smudge of closed eyes: eyelashes on waxen cheeks.

He turns to show Dean, but Dean's jiggling a doorknob on the opposite side of the bedroom. Sam opens his mouth to call Dean's name, just as Dean butts at the door hard with his shoulder, shoving it open onto blue skies and a steep drop.

Dean catches his balance, keeping from falling right off the fourth floor. His eyes are just this side of wild. "What the fuck! What is this lady's deal?"

Sam's grip goes white on the frame in hand. He stares out the door that leads to empty space, remembers dead end staircases, yellowed windows, closed eyes. "She was hiding."

"From what?" Dean slams the door closed.

Sam's mouth tightens. "What do you think, genius?" He sighs, puts the frame back on the nightstand where he found it, and he feels every bruise on his body, every ache. "From ghosts."

 ****

She doesn't stay in St. Louis long. Winter means a river-cold that leaves her skin brittle, her tongue flat. Besides, there's only one reason she's here.

There is no funeral for Dean Winchester. He's been filed away into a slot in a refrigerated wall, awaiting his turn to be cremated.

Mortuaries depress her. They're a sign of changing times, death polished to a high chrome sheen; the dead's peace thrown to the wayside in the pursuit of neatness. Hunters are busier than ever, and Ruth thinks that maybe this could be why. She beats them to the spirits, most times. This time.

She pulls him out of his keeping place and the boy wearing Dean Winchester's face stains the air with the scent of a banana gone sickly sweet. It's fitting, she thinks, that the smell of him pervades her senses so completely, and she lets it settle into the pockmarks in her bones.

She cups his cheek, palm down over his chest, and plucks the stone from his heart. It's dark, the texture of clay. When she swallows it, Dean is the hard-coating--regret and fear and longing so blind it sears her throat--but the core tastes like nothing and everything, like an unhulled grain.

She kisses his cheek before she goes. He is--was--a sad thing and her ring catches the fluorescent lights.

Later, she thinks it was a lucky break for Dean, really. Not many people get to kill the demon with their face and when Ruth licks her lips she tastes Dean's fierce satisfaction, the mantra running through his head (No regrets, no regret, no regrets), like the soap of a glycerin bubble popped. Abandonment, betrayal, jealousy lying like a shed skin and it crackles at the back of her mouth.

In the undercurrents, she finally gets a sense of Dean unburdened and it's loam in spring.

 ****

Sam's done with the Winchester Mystery House after an hour. Dead ends and surprise drops are all well and good, but they smack of desperation, a plea. Don't find me.

It's got Sam feeling like he's carrying sacks of feed around his neck and he can't seem to lower his shoulders down from where they are up near his ears. He's itching to go, only Dean keeps dragging him into room after room, playing the world's stupidest game of I Spy.

"Thirteen wall moldings," grunts Dean, and that's the fucking last straw.

"Jesus, Dean, put me out of my misery, please."

Dean's eyes go defiant and trapped for a second, but Sam doesn't have time to regret his phrasing before it passes and Dean groans in relief. "You wanna get out of here?"

"Yes."

"Thank God, man." He rubs at his face with both hands, before shoving Sam into the wall. "Shoulda said something earlier."

Sam jabs at Dean's bruised left side with two fingers and Dean hisses. It's a low blow, but that's what Dean gets. "You could've said something. Got a mouth; it's what it's for."

Dean shrugs, ignoring the barb. "Figured you got off on this boring ass shit." His tone goes deliberately glib and he might as well set up a neon sign signaling an uncomfortable show of emotion. "Thought you could use a day. For you, or whatever."

Sam doesn't reply, but his lungs feel too big for his chest and he exhales slowly. He's walking behind Dean, and when they exit the house into flat skies and harsh sun, Sam doesn't have to squint because Dean's shadow falls across his face like shade. It adds up to so goddamn much and Sam watches the set of Dean's shoulders, tries to find somewhere to start.

Dean turns around, blinking. "Dude, don't stare. It's rude."

Sam's mouth drops, but he recovers quickly. "Oh, but whistling at chicks on a street corner's real polite?"

"I don't do that." Dean shifts uncomfortably under Sam's unconvinced gaze. He mutters under his breath, "Unless I really mean it."

Sam laughs.

Dean shrugs, smirking along, and jerks his head towards the theater that's set up shop next door. "Wanna watch a movie?" Sam opens his mouth, but Dean steamrolls over him, "And no, you priss-ass, we won't be paying for that either."

Sam bites the inside of his cheek. "Actually, I was gonna say we don't have the time."

"Dude." Dean slides into the car and revs the engine. "You got someplace to be? All we've got is time."

And that's wrong, so goddamn wrong, but Dean wants it to be right, and that makes it easy for Sam to slip into the passenger's seat.

 ****

They hang around the parking lot behind the movie theater for what's got to be at least twenty minutes, waiting at the back entrance. It's ridiculously hot for the front end of spring, so they're standing in the shadow of the building and Sam stares off into space, eyes locked onto the shimmer of air simmering over hot asphalt. Every breath is deliberate and Sam lets them filter between his ribs.

Dean lets him be quiet. Every once in a while someone walks by, on their way to their car or from it, and Dean'll start talking loudly, something like, "Damnit, where are they? Fucking Jimboy shoulda been here half an hour ago," or bend down to start tying his shoe. It's his half-assed attempt to not look suspicious, and it feels so much like high school that Sam grins, equal parts affection and awe at Dean's weird-ass agelessness.

Door finally opens, and they move against the current of people flowing outside. The air-conditioning leaves patches of cold where sweat used to be, at Sam's temples, his nape.

Dean heads straight for the concessions stand, ignoring Sam's protests about money and buys a tub of popcorn as big around as his waist and a soda he could probably take a bath in.

"What, no candy?" Sam asks as they head towards the nearest screen. "Red Vines never hurt anyone."

Dean throws a handful of popcorn in Sam's general direction. "Bitch, bitch, bitch."

They spend most of the day there, hopping from theater to theater. Dean can't watch anything for longer than thirty minutes. He's got a fucking sixth sense about movies, predicts every goddamn plot twist twenty minutes in and then only sticks around long enough to crow over being right before shouldering his way out, expecting Sam to be right behind him.

Sam stays, once, to watch the rest of the latest Will Ferrell movie, and Dean comes back five minutes later.

"Sam, move your ass, man. One of the Jessica chicks is getting naked in six."

"I'm watching a movie."

Dean's still half standing, and he glances towards the screen. "We've seen this one."

Sam snaps impatiently, "Dean."

Dean falls back into his seat but he's not happy and he makes that pretty goddamn clear. Starts muttering about how he would take out every character that comes on screen--whether a jab to the nose bridge would be enough to do the job or a couple punches to the solar plexus would be required before Dean could knock a few teeth loose with his elbow. It's obnoxious when they watch Die Hard, but this is supposed to be a fucking romantic comedy.

The fourth time the girl in front of them turns around to glare, Sam digs his knuckles into Dean's thigh, and hisses, "Shut up, asshole. I wanna watch, okay?"

He braces himself for a snort, a jab, a flick; anything but the silence that follows. When he looks over in surprise, Dean's got his head against his fist, resigned, elbow propped up on the left armrest, and Sam feels swaddled up tight. So fucking familiar, constrictive, obnoxious. Comforting as hell.

"I know what you're doing."

Dean groans. He pulls a package of Sour Patch Kids out from under his jacket and throws it at Sam's face. "Fucking bloodhound."

Sam laughs, but he's not watching the movie anymore. He feels full to the brim, a molecule-width away from overflowing, surface tension scraped over every inch of his skin. "That's not what I'm talking about."

Dean groans. "Dude, would you shut up? Girl naked on screen. Show some respect."

 ****

Mary doesn't live here anymore, but she died here twice and that's enough. Lawrence is bordered by two rivers, currents fast-flowing and they cleanse this city in the heart of a country strong and young. Ruth keeps her distance from their banks, and can almost hear Mary.

Two sons, two sons, and her boy is obedient and her baby is sweet.

Inside the house that John built, the echoes of Mary taste of smelted ore and Ruth's tongue tangs with mineral. Mary's youth an aftertaste like grape juice: sweet and dark, and just a flicker of fermentation because something's wrong and Mary knows it.

Ruth creeps up to the closet and presses herself into the corner. Fresher layers here, like an onion skin purple and bold. Mary's worry is less than a taste, more a scent at the back of Ruth's mouth. Sam is Mary's blood, but Dean is her body and they split her fate evenly. Sam a trial by fire, and Dean, his 28 stacked up so closely to her 29, full of rage and will, spit in his palms and not much else, a bulwark for her baby boy.

Ruth read about a Samuel once, given up by his mother, and who heard the voice of God. Contrary Mary ran away with her boys and surrounded them with water, but they taste of bread and wine anyway: the blood and body, but not of any god and the earth is rock and seas and inexorable gravity.

Ruth unravels the thread fraying at the hem of her skirt, thinks of namesakes and how quickly they come apart.

 ****

They don't do much of anything for the next few days. Dean gets a few calls; after the third one he puts his phone on silent and lets them go to voicemail.

They don’t do too well with the downtime. Keep stumbling over each other. They leave the TV on as a last resort, the flicker and noise a mediating presence, but there’s nothing on but talk shows and soaps in the peak of afternoon.

Dean trips over Sam’s laundry bag once, turns it onto its side and he can see the splotch of blood that’s seeped through. Bites his tongue, but declares later that afternoon that it’s laundry time. Sam goes along with it, doesn’t even remind him ‘bout that time Dean threw out half his wardrobe just to avoid washers and dryers.

Takes 'em forever to get their clothes clean, because Dean gets them run out of three laundromats in a row, jimmying the machines so he can use the same quarter over and over again. Every time he gets caught, they dash out, shirts, jeans, and underwear heaped up in their arms, both of them laughing too goddamn hard.

Once Dean decides he's bored of breaking into washing machine coin deposits and starts using the filed-down washers like he's supposed to, Sam sits down to wait, pulls out the little motel sewing kit in his pocket. Sam's been sewing up the rips and patches in their clothes since he was old enough to hold a needle and thread, and it’s been providing Dean with plenty of ammunition ever since.

Sam’s stitches are wide and messy, but he tries to pull 'em tighter for Dean's shirts, runs across and over the thread until there's a hard callus of embroidery where fraying used to be. It’s one of those things that hits Dean where he lives whenever he takes the time to notice and he clears his throat roughly, calls Sam Betsy Ross and 'the missus' for the next hour. Goes so far as to duck into a girl's bathroom and come back out with a tampon he chucks at Sam's bent head.

Routine, and Dean revels in it, ignores the way Sam’s hands shake.

 ****

Week goes by like nothing, and Sam can't stop thinking about that one and only time they'd innertubed down the Kaw.

It was the week after Sam got his first kill. Couldn't have been more than eleven, and his dad had taken one look at him, blood and gore dripping down his cheek, and said, "We're going home."

Dean had let Sam pick the radio stations the whole drive back to Lawrence. Sam knew what he was doing.

That first night he hadn’t been able to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, all he could think about was that they were still open really; paper-thin skin a meager shutter against the world. He could almost make out capillaries, feel the blood pulsing down them and he listened to his daddy muttering advice to Dean. Give your brother room to breathe. Men need to wrestle with some issues on their own.

The day after they got home, Dad had woken them up bright and early and taken them to the riverbank. Sam didn't ask where Dad had gotten the innertubes, too distracted by the summer air like burnt sugar, sticky and sweet, the overhanging branches dappling the water, and later, in the river, Dean crowing in front of him, spinning his way down eddies.

Sam wonders, not for the first time, if it’s hard, for Dean, clearing the way. Still floating in Dean’s wake, but Sam’s got an itch climbing restlessly up his legs.

 ****

On Easter Sunday, Sam makes them go to church. He pulls on the blazer they use when pretending to be federal agents, and doubles the sleeves over at the wrist, tucking them in. Makes the jacket look too short on him, but it also hides the fact that it's coming apart at the seams. Dean refuses to dress up, but he pulls on a clean flannel shirt and Sam's too tired to argue.

Dean grumbles the whole way there and Sam lets him, interrupting only to tell him to turn left or right. When they stop in front of the Stanford Chapel, Dean just looks at him for a long while, and they sit in the car, minutes ticking by.

"You sure?"

Sun presses heavy against the stained glass above the entrance. Refracted light grows, every color of the spectrum converging into a white glow that pulses around the church, steeple and sanctuary magnified until they loom. It's the only place Sam's ever felt small.

He unlocks, nodding, and pushes open the door. His stride's purposeful until he gets to the threshold. He hesitates, and he's not sure what he's expecting--Pastor Jim's murder is pretty much solid proof that holy ground doesn't exactly leave a lasting impression on those from way down under, but Sam feels hot and apprehensive all over.

"Dude, you stop, we all stop," says Dean from behind him.

Sam looks back at Dean,  "I just--give me a minute."

Dean searches Sam's eyes, his own narrowing at the low-grade panic he sees there. "I'm not in the fucking mood, Sam. Don't be stupid," he snaps before shoving Sam inside.

Relief at the distinct lack of burning flesh leaves Sam's hands trembling. It's short-lived though: he waits for the reverent hush to settle over him but it doesn't come, just a buzzing buzzing buzzing like gnats in his ears.

The church is crowded with doffed hats and uncomfortable-looking people, Dean being chief among 'em. Dean's strutting, which means he's painfully aware of the fact that he sticks out like a sore thumb amidst tailored suits and bird-shaped brooches. Neither of them belong here, Sam thinks.

Dean muscles his way down a pew and Sam follows, flashing a tight smile and handing out apologies like candy.

They get to the end of the pew, and Dean hitches up his jeans, takes a seat, and leans over to bite out of the corner of his mouth, "Don't fucking apologize for me, jackass."

Sam jumps at the distraction, nabs it easily. His smirk is weak at the corners. He folds his hands, looks up and says quietly, "Forgive him, Lord. Knows not what he says."

Dean's got his arm pulled back, ready to knock his little brother down a peg, but Sam leans close to the little old lady next to him. She smells of powdered lilacs and Sam smiles brightly. "Excuse me, ma'am."

She turns, and he sees the annoyance at being disturbed by a stranger melt into an almost girlish appreciation of the charm he's shoveling into his grin. "Yes?"

Sam sees Dean lower his arm, frustrated, out of the corner of his eye and his smile goes bigger. "Ma'am, I just wanted to say Happy Easter. And to ask if you wouldn't mind passing me a hymnal?"

The woman smiles, bird-like arm reaching out as she snags him a blue-covered book from the back of the pew. When she hands it to him, she lays her other hand over his, and it feels dry and smooth, like the paper of his dad's journal. "You're a nice boy."

It's a throwaway reassurance, but it sinks like an anchor, plumbing depths, and something that's been off-kilter for days settles in Sam's stomach. The chatter of the congregation goes muted, slipping into a steady current, and his eyes water, an embarrassed chuckle coloring his voice gruff. "Thank you, ma'am."

She lets him go, and he sits back, pulling his shoulders in to take up less room. Dean mutters, "If she only knew," but it's just another pebble tossed into a pool, and when the choir starts, he sings along from memory and lets the ripples wash over him.

 ****

Dean lets Sam hustle him back to the car after the service ends. Figures he got caught scoping out the church for virgin territory. Doesn’t matter much anyway. Not a promising selection.

Soon as they get in, Dean unbuttons the top button of his flannel shirt and mutters, "Such bullshit."

"What're you talking about?" Sam works his way out of the blazer, tossing it into the backseat.

Dean starts the car, peeling out with a squeal that's got the whole congregation turning their heads as one. Dean waves with a chipper smile before continuing, "I don't know man. Look, I'm just saying, God rising from the dead's supposed to impress me? Seems to me that everything rises from the goddamn dead."

Sam purses his lips, cracking his knuckles as force of habit.

Dean glances over at Sam's silence, tone dropping. "Look, Sammy, I'm not saying that faith or whatever--it's got its place. Just feel like if God stopped wasting his time on parlor tricks and maybe got off his ass so a few less things go bump in the night...for me? That's just got more heft to it. What kind of fucking world needs people like us, hunters?"

Sam searches his face, and Dean fights to keep from fidgeting uncomfortably. Finally, Sam says, "Man, I can't believe you took communion today."

Dean looks at him like he's the one who's crazy. "Free booze."

 ****

Sam hasn't been sleeping much. Mostly because when he does it's dreamless, and that spooks him. His subconscious has never shied away from pouring on the self-flagellation, lashing images of blood and pain and doubt. When nothing comes after Madison--no replayed loops of her down-turned face, the tears that drew a sheen down her face, the purpling of skin where he'd bitten her--it feels like he's been pulled right out of rhythm.

Insomnia gives him more time to think--he can practically hear Dean saying that that's the last thing Sam needs--and he's rolling Dean's words around in his head, handling them until they break apart into digestible pieces, Sam's fingerprints on every one.

It's strange. Sometimes the name Winchester feels so goddamn all-encompassing that he feels like one half of a whole, and others, like now, he couldn't feel more self-contained. Like everything he is is separate, yet somehow not, because even then it’s like he’s negative space, defined by what he doesn’t do. Through the years and that list just accumulates: he doesn’t think hunting is a three-man job, doesn’t have a perfect attendance record to the Winchester school of hunting, doesn’t put any real thought into what the hell it is to be a psychic, doesn’t watch All My Children.

Seems to him that Dean thinks that the existence of something good and true is one big joke, because at the end of the day, hunters like him have to exist. It makes sense, but only after translation.

Thing is, it's pretty much the only reason Sam clings to his faith, that people like Dean, like Dean, breathe and fight.

He hopes it's enough, but he's got a sneaking suspicion.

 ****

Nebraska is good to her. It comes into focus as a whole: cities and towns like so many pixels in an expanse of hills like cresting waves. Things grow here, green and gold, sprouting from the dust-clay powdered by God and fed by water guided by man and invention. She goes barefoot in Nebraska, and plants her toes in warm earth.

Marshall is easy to find and easier to swallow. He was a growing thing too, fed by sun and wheat, and he goes down like a tomato plucked from the vine. He's all tangled up with Dean, but they separate easily. This taste of Dean is ashy and stale, toeing an expiration date and resigned to it, almost willing.

Marshall bursts on her tongue, juice and bite, and her eyes go foggy. She spends days, afterwards, thinking of Marshall, imagining what he could have been: a record-breaking athlete, a husband, a father. It's a constant motion picture reel and she indulges herself, inserts herself into every frame.

They leave a trail, the Winchester boys. It's dotted with men and women, dead and alive, but it's the ones who lie silent and cold that catch Ruth's eye--a fleck, a moving thing printed on the underside of her eyelids.

Layla is still alive, sweet as an otter pop, but Ruth goes to see her anyway. The hospital room buzzes, this reverberation in the air that has the hair on Ruth's forearms standing on end. Someone's hung curtains on the window, a print striped pink and yellow. There are pictures, and the flowers are strategically scattered around the room, stripped of their cards. The room feels as if it's been settled in for weeks, for months, and there's a readiness, a steady anticipation. She licks her lips and Dean echoes on her tastebuds.

She sits at Layla's bedside, smoothing her hands across the hand-knit quilt that's thrown over the hospital-issued blanket. She can't resist taking Layla's hand between hers. She sits, soaking in the press of flesh against flesh, little bones under skin the texture of hand-rolled pasta and forces herself not to cry.

She feels it when Layla wakes, a quickening of blood in Layla's hand. "Mom?"

The dead, the dying, they always ask after the ones they clutch close, a little noose, and hearing that emotion misdirected towards her stings every time. She hides behind her hair, hunching and the pre-morning dark works in her favor. "Yes."

"Oh. You're here early. Late?" She looks up at the clock. "Early."

Ruth taps Layla's fingernails, straining to make out the shade of meticulously applied polish. The question comes out before she can censor it. "What do you miss?"

Layla goes still; silence except for the heart monitor blipping, the clock ticking down the hours. "Mom, what are you--"

"Please." Ruth squeezes Layla's hand. "Please. Just answer the question."

"Nothing." Layla sounds taken aback, and nervous. Through the window, Ruth can see a hot wind blowing. "I don't miss anything. I have you, Mom."

"That's sweet." She kisses Layla's hand. "Now, tell the truth."

"What else is there to miss," says Layla, matter-of-fact.

Ruth's heart races--somewhere a stopper's been pulled and her words climb up and over each other. "God, so many things. There's so much to miss in the world when you're one step removed. You won't ever have a husband. A child. You won't ever succeed, really succeed at something. You won't ever get to wake up and wonder what you're going to do today, because it's this, there's no question to it, you're stuck here, with nothing but the dying around you."

Layla pulls her hand back and Ruth feels cold, a shiver passing through her. "Mom, don't do this," in a voice so collected it brings tears to Ruth's eyes, that familiar watering that never seems to spill over onto her cheeks.

"I'm sorry."

"I just--" Ruth can almost hear the snap in patience, a crack clear as day. "You think that this is yours, but after I'm gone, you'll still be here." It's cruel, like a knife under fingernails and she can hear Layla's relish. "You'll mourn, I'm sure, but you'll be here and I'll be under dirt, being eaten away by bugs and maggots, like every nightmare--There are rewards in heaven, I know, but sometimes--it just doesn't seem to mean much, does it?" She breaks off, panting, and Ruth counts the squares on the quilt until Layla's breathing slows. "It's the waiting, Mom. So much time, and still it’s not enough--" Maybe just “I have nightmares. About being buried and eaten. Do you?”

Ruth speaks to the floor. "I could find the boy. If it would help."

"Dean?" The name is still on the tip of Layla's tongue and Ruth shelters a small smile. This boy and the wreckage in his wake, futile hope dropping off him like mines.

"Yes."

"No." Layla takes Ruth's hand then, hesitantly. "No. Dean's a missed chance."

If there's a more apt description of the Winchester boy, Ruth hasn't heard it yet. It's too much to bear and she stands, fluffs the decorative pillow next to Layla's head and smiles at her, tucking her hair behind her ears. Layla's eyes go wide and confused, and Ruth thinks working in an animal shelter would be like this, hundreds of abandoned creatures with small lives, not knowing what kind faces and soothing voices precede.

Layla opens her mouth but before she can speak, Ruth takes the pillow and suffocates her with it. It doesn't take long, and Ruth likes to think that Layla is grateful, in the end. She was trapped in her own broken life, and Ruth sprang the lock.

Layla lies still, and Ruth goes to open the window, letting in the air, a hot exhalation from sun-baked earth. The curtains flutter.

She presses a hand to Layla's heart, whispers words. "I give easement and rest to thee, dear one."

She drops the pillow onto the floor, and draws her fingers through Layla's snarled hair. "Come not down the lanes or in our meadows."

She kisses Layla, soft and full. "And for thy peace I pawn my own soul."

Water on her cheeks, and it's a moment before Ruth realizes she's crying.

//Part 2//