spn fic: Rest in Pieces

[xylodemon]

Title: Rest in Pieces
Pairing: Castiel/Dean
Rating: NC17
Words: ~22,000
Summary: "Goddamned ghosts," Dean snaps, stabbing his shovel into the dirt. "Goddamned Heaven."
Notes: This is a post-Season 13 story about the ghost apocalypse. I wish I was joking.


[AO3]


Rest in Pieces

Dean is barely on his second cup of coffee when Sam walks into the kitchen and shoves their tablet in his face.

"Lexington, Kentucky." Sam braces his hip on the counter and dodges Dean's attempts to wave him away. "The Moreland House is crawling with ghosts."

"Bummer."

Sam jabs the tablet into Dean's arm a couple of times. "Like... a lot of ghosts."

It's too early for this shit, but Dean takes the tablet and scans what turns out to be an article in the Lexington Herald-Leader. Blandly, it tells him that James Wesley Moreland built the Moreland House in 1814. It was restored in 1955 and now operates as a museum. It offers guided tours four days a week. Many visitors have reported seeing Moreland's ghost wandering the halls.

"So, this dude's family home gets flipped into a boring museum and now he's haunting it?" Dean snorts into his coffee. "Yeah, that's super original."

"Dean —"

"C'mon. They're charging... what —? Ten bucks a head? Fifteen?" Dean sets the tablet on the counter and reaches for the Pop-Tart waiting for him in the toaster. "They gotta get people through the door somehow."

Huffing, Sam says, "You didn't read page two. Stories about Moreland have been around since he died in 1849, but he's always been alone."

"And now he's got a friend?"

"Five friends."

"What?" Dean sputters. Pop-Tart crumbs spill down the front of his shirt. "You — six spooks? In the same house?"

"Uh-huh."

They just got back from a hunt that dragged on for two weeks and left Dean more than a little bruised. He's tired and sore. His plans for the day included drinking beer, marathoning Iron Chef, napping, and maybe jacking off. But — six. Six God damn ghosts.

He heaves out a sigh and says, "Yeah, alright. We'll head out in about an hour."


+


"I don't get it," Michelle says slowly. She's a college kid with hazel eyes and a long, crooked nose. She's wearing her Moreland House docent costume, a frilly dress that's a dull and dusty yellow. "Are you guys like Ghostfacers or something?"

"Or something," Dean mutters. They're at the Biggerson's off Route 4 because Michelle had preferred meeting somewhere public. The breakfast rush is in full swing; Dean leans across the booth so he doesn't have to shout over the noise. "Just tell us what you saw."

After an awkward pause, Michelle bites her lip and looks away. "I — I, uh — I'm."

Sam says, "Hey, it's okay," and offers her a smile. "We've heard it all before. Cold spots, weird sounds, people walking through walls, floating in the air. You name it."

"I just —" she bites her lip again and stab-stirs her soda with her straw. "When I took the job, they warned me that some people'd had —" she makes air quotes "— paranormal experiences. But it didn't scare me. I never believed in that crap. Not until I — I, um —"

"You saw something," Sam presses. "Was it Moreland?"

Michelle nods. "A few times. I kinda ignored it at first. I mean, it's an old house. It's got weird shadows sometimes, and it — it makes funny noises. But last week, there was a guy standing on the porch after hours. Like... way after hours. I went out to tell him we were closed, and he — it was Moreland." The booth creaks as she shifts and fiddles with the buttons marching down the front of her dress. "He was as solid as you are, until he disappeared."

Their waitress stops by to refill Dean's coffee. Once she's gone, he asks, "Anyone else?"

"Yeah. Yesterday, I saw Moreland's wife in the kitchen."

"Moreland's wife?"

"Catherine, yeah. There's a portrait of her in the parlor." Michelle pauses to sip her soda before continuing, "And then later, I saw another woman upstairs."

"Not Catherine?" Dean asks. Dishes clatter in the server station behind them. "You sure?"

Michelle nods again. "Her dress was different. And her hair. She — Moreland had two daughters. I figure it was one of them."

"Okay," Sam says, writing the names on his notepad. "Moreland, and his wife, and one of his daughters. Anyone else?"

The service bell rings in the kitchen. Michelle fusses with her sleeves for a moment before saying, "Couple days ago, one of the other girls saw a man — outside, around back. She didn't really see his face, but she thinks it was Moreland's grandson."

Dean huffs. "If she didn't see his face —"

"He was wearing a military uniform. Moreland's grandson died in the Civil War." Michelle glances out the window; on the side of her neck, the edge of a tattoo peeks above the starched collar of her dress. "She also saw an older guy."

"Older?"

"Yeah, older. He had white hair. Walked with a cane." Michelle takes another sip of soda, then pushes the glass aside and starts sliding out of the booth. "Look, I gotta get going. I've got a tour scheduled right when we open."

Dean says, "Wait," but Sam elbows him in the side and signals for the check.


+


Lexington Cemetery is a historic chunk of real estate in the dead-center of town. It sprawls along a narrow stretch of US 421 the locals call Main Street, across from a lumber mill and a small, secluded, Catholic churchyard. The area around it is mostly industrial; the few houses nearby are slouched with decay and guarded by gnarled magnolias that hide them from the road. A dusty truckyard lurks at the cemetery's rear. A mile away, a jumbled warren of railroad tracks lead west toward Louisville and north toward Cincinnati and south toward Nashville and Charlotte.

Visiting hours end at five and the mortuary staff clears out by six, but Sam and Dean don't hop the fence lining the cemetery's southeast side until a full hour after dark. It's a warm and humid night, the air thicker than soup and uncomfortably still. Dean's collar is sweat-stuck to the back of his neck by the time they find the Moreland family plot. It's about two hundred yards from the main gate, halfway between a hulking, gothic cathedral of a front office and a pair of man-made lakes that are overrun with swans.

Like most old boneyards, the headstones are clumped together rather than laid out in neat rows. The grass around them is brittle and dry from the summer sun, more yellow-brown than green and overgrown with weeds. A pair of deer are cropping at it anyway — a doe and her white-spotted fawn. They startle as Sam and Dean step off the gravel path looping the plot, freezing for a few seconds before bounding toward a shadowy thicket of brush.

"Alright." Dean drops his bag and spears their shovels into the sunken patch above Edward Hunt, Moreland's maternal uncle. Hunt lived well into his eighties; Sam thinks he's the geezer Michelle's buddy saw. "How're we gonna do this? We only got two solid names." He nudges Hunt's headstone with the toe of his boot. "Maybe three."

Sam says, "Okay," and points to two large, wedge-shaped markers set side-by-side. "So, Moreland and his wife, for sure."

"And Uncle Fester," Dean says, nudging Hunt's headstone again. "What about the daughters?"

"Over here." Sam walks toward four old-school, point-topped headstones, laid out in a crooked line. "Looks like they're with their husbands."

Dean starts, "So, are we gonna flip a coin, or —?" but Sam shoots him a no-bullshit look that stops him dead in his tracks. He swallows a sigh before admitting defeat. "Alright, alright. We — we'll torch 'em both."

"And the grandson."

Muttering, "Yeah," Dean shines his flashlight at a weathered statue whose head is tangled in the branches of a stooping magnolia. There's no name on the pedestal, but the guy's wearing a military uniform and holding a saber. "That's gotta be him."

"Probably."

Dean waves at a small, squat marker right beside Sam's foot. A heavy crack across the face has nearly split it in half. "Who's that?"

Water splashes somewhere behind them — the fucking swans. Sam glances in that direction, then turns back and frowns at the headstone. He tells Dean, "Moreland's sister, Elizabeth. She died young, like nineteen or twenty. She — she, uh —"

"Sammy," Dean warns. "Don't say it."

Grimacing, Sam pushes on. "Michelle could've seen her. I mean, she thought it was one of Moreland's daughters, but she —"

"Yeah, okay." Dean sighs again and rubs his sweaty face. "We'll do her too."

"And the husbands."

"What —? No. You — c'mon."

"Just in case. If we miss something... do you really want to come back here next week?"

Which — no. Dean doesn't want to come back here next week, now that Sam mentions it. But he doesn't want to dig up three extra graves, either. "Look, we —"

"Dean."

"Fine," Dean grunts. His back is going to ache for a month. "Fine." He yanks one of the shovels free and tosses it in Sam's direction. "Get moving."


+


Unsurprisingly, salting and burning nine graves takes the whole Goddamned night. It also hurts like a sonofabitch; Dean practically limps to the car, and he drives away from the cemetery with an ache spreading between his shoulders and an angry throb gnawing at the base of his spine. He's covered in dirt and soaked with sweat and ready to crawl in bed and sleep for a solid week. He's debating how many laundry quarters he can spare on Magic Fingers when he spots a state trooper cruising past their motel.

Sam offers a quiet, "Probably not about us," but Dean decides not to risk it. He stays on Newton Pike until it hits I-64, then swings west like he's going to tackle the whole twelve-hour haul head on.

He only makes it another eighty miles, finally pulling off just over the Indiana line in New Albany. The cheapest flop in town is a few blocks north of the interstate and crouched behind a Save-A-Lot like it's embarrassed to be there. It's a drab, early-sixties shoebox with patchy rock roofing and cracks in its sun-bleached green stucco. The check-in clerk doesn't mention the dirt streaking Dean's face, and he only grumbles a little about him showing up at four-fifteen in the morning.

The room is typical for a seventy-dollar double: balding, brown carpet; ugly red and orange bedspreads; floral wallpaper grayed by years and years of cigarette smoke. The kitchenette has a fridge that rumbles like a jet engine and a table that belongs on a patio and leans drunkenly to one side. Dean sits on the edge of the bed and stares down at his boots. He ends up zoning out so long that Sam scoops him on the first shower.

Dean barks, "Traitor," as Sam ducks into the bathroom, but Sam just firmly closes the door. A minute or two later, the plumbing creaks and thumps behind the walls. Sighing, Dean props himself against the headboard and stretches his legs on the bed. The TV remote is over on the dresser, so he digs his phone out of his pocket and calls Cas.

Cas picks up on the second ring and asks, "Dean?" in a rough voice. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah. I'm — yeah. I'm just waiting for Sam to get out of the shower."

"At four-forty in the morning?"

Dean tips his head back and blinks up at the water-stained ceiling. The ache in his shoulders is starting to spread up to his neck. "Yeah. I — long story. You driving?"

"Yes. I'm in Indiana, south of Lafayette."

That puts them close — close enough that Cas could be in New Albany by check-out time — but he has shit to do and Dean told himself he'd let him do it. He asks, "Any luck finding those wingnuts?"

"I located two of the four, but neither were interested in returning to Heaven." Before Dean can say he can't blame them, Cas continues, "Rumors suggest Ophaiel is in Terre Haute, but I — " He lets out a quiet, tired sigh. "Driving has given me time to think, and I — I've realized this pursuit is pointless. I'm heading home, to the bunker."

Home. Dean clears his throat — once, twice. "Great. That — that's great. Me and Sam are a coupla hours south of you. We're heading home too."

After a pause, Cas asks, "How are Jack and your mother?"

An engine coughs to life in the motel's parking lot. Dean replies, "They're cleaning out a vamp nest somewhere in Delaware. I called 'em before we took this job, since it was six ghosts, but they were still neck-deep."

"Six ghosts? That's... highly unusual."

Dean snorts. "Tell me about it. I've been digging all damn night."

"You should rest."

"Yeah." Dean really wants to take a shower first, but he's having a hard time keeping his eyes open. His head feels too heavy for his neck. "Yeah. Maybe I — maybe I'll —" His voice cracks around a yawn.

"Go to sleep, Dean."

"Alright, alright. Night."

"Good night."

Dean yawns again and sets his phone on the nightstand. He rolls his stiff, aching shoulders a few times, then rubs at his eyes. Closing them was a mistake. He only opens them again because strange chill crawls up the back of his neck.

Slowly, a ghost twists into shape above the foot of his bed. Before he can move away, she spits a huge gob of ectoplasm right in his face.


+


Sam's shower-wet hair is dripping on his shirt. He bats it out of his face as he insists, "Hey, I never said I didn't believe you. I just —" the kitchen table wobbles sharply. Sam rescues his laptop before it hits the floor and rests it on his knees. "What did she look like?"

"She, uh — kinda eighties."

"You — eighties?"

Dean grunts, "Yeah," and rubs his sticky face with a motel towel. He's got ectoplasm in his fucking ears. "Madonna eighties. Big hair, loud dress, lotsa chunky necklaces. And —" he draws his finger underneath his chin "— her throat was cut. Like... ear-to-ear cut."

"Anything else?"

The towel feels like sandpaper and reeks of industrial-strength bleach. Dean scrubs it through his hair a couple of times, then balls it up and lobs it toward the bathroom. "Yeah. She wasn't wearing shoes."

Sam just stares at him for a second. "Shoes?"

A knife-like chill slices through the room, cold enough that Dean's breath fogs front of his face. He turns back to the bed just as the ghost reappears, right in the same spot. He snaps, "See, I told you," and swings a crowbar at her head.

Wide-eyed, Sam watches her dissolve into ash. He fish-mouths at the empty air for a second, then mumbles, "Shoes," under his breath and types something on his laptop. "Shoes."

"Okay —? What about the shoes?"

"Walter Merriweather," Sam says. He angles his laptop toward Dean, but all Dean can see is glare. "He was a serial killer in the late eighties and early nineties. He murdered eleven women along Interstate 65. Cut their throats."

"Trucker?"

Sam nods. "Yeah. He had a steady gig between Indianapolis and Birmingham. His victims were mostly hookers and runaways; he picked them up truck stops." Pausing, he drums his fingers on the table. "This is a little off his usual path, but it's close. And it's the right highway. She could be an early victim. Maybe he killed her before he bought his rig."

"Or before he picked up that route." Another chill sweeps through the room, colder than the last. Dean swats the ghost with his crowbar before she's fully formed. Once she's gone, he adds, "Sure. But what's that gotta do with the shoes?"

"Merriweather took them as trophies. He kept them in a box in the back of his rig."

Something shimmers at the corner of Dean's eye. He hefts the crowbar again, but Sam jumps up and catches his arm.

"Wait."

The ghost takes shape slowly. She has dark eyes and curly, reddish hair. Her dress is pink and black, and her fishnet stockings are torn above her left knee. The wound on her throat is so ragged and raw that looking at it makes Dean suck in a breath on reflex. The room is freezing. Dean tightens his grip on the crowbar, but the ghost doesn't attack. She just watches them. Her bare feet hover about six inches above the bed.

"What's your name?" Sam asks carefully. When she doesn't reply, he continues, "We might be able to help you."

Her mouth moves, but no sound comes out.

"She can't talk," Dean realizes. He — fuck. He thinks he might puke. "Sick sonofabitch cut her too deep."

"Right. Okay." Sam pauses, swallowing hard. He looks a little white around the mouth. "We can —"

The ghost flings her arms to the side — a wide, sweeping gesture that knocks Dean and Sam back two or three steps and tosses the mattress off its box frame. The walls shake. Cold air prickles at the back of Dean's neck. The ghost makes a wet, horrible, wheezing sound. Then she points at the floor and disappears.

The box frame is missing half its slats. Dean says, "There's gotta be something here," and heaves it up on its side. The carpet underneath is darker than the rest of the room, less bald. It's dusty and littered with junk — Kleenex, bobby pins, old pennies, condom wrappers.

"Yeah," Sam says, clearing trash away with the curve of the crowbar. It catches on a flap cut into the carpet about a foot away from the wall. "Under here."

"Don't be a body," Dean mutters, as Sam crouches and pries up the floorboard. "Please don't be a body."

The floorboard lifts up with a pained, horror-movie creak. Sam says, "Well, it's not a body," and holds up a grimy pair of black pumps.


+


They stop for gas in a Missouri podunk called Boonville right as the sun is kissing the horizon. The station isn't much, just two pumps rusting on an uneven stretch of tarmac and a small, sagging, clapboard shed passing itself off as a store. A sun-worn blue tarp covers its only window, and old license plates and hubcaps have been nailed over the termite damage in its walls. This close to the junction of I-70 and US 40, the air rumbles with the flow of evening traffic. Dean leans against the Impala's trunk as he waits for her to finish her drink and breathes in road dust and diesel fumes.

Bells jingle; Sam walks out of the store carrying a pair of plastic bags. About two hours ago, they grabbed an early dinner outside St. Louis, but Dean can always eat, and their cooler is running low on bottled water. Sam blots his sweaty face with his sleeve as he walks toward the car. Gravel crunches under his boots. Behind him, the sky is an angry, fiery orange.

Dean asks, "What'd you get me?"

"Beef jerky and those little powdered donuts."

"Nice."

Sam hands Dean a bottle of Mountain Dew and puts the bags inside the Impala. He tells Dean, "Be right back," and turns back toward the shed.

"Where you going?"

"The head."

"Does this rat-trap even got one?"

Shrugging, Sam shuffles away. And — right. He's probably just going to water the bushes at the edge of the tarmac. Dean snorts and opens his Mountain Dew. It's cold enough to burn the back of his throat, but he still chugs about a third of it in one go.

The gas nozzle clunks. Dean hangs it back on the pump and glances at the interstate. The top of a semi-trailer streaks above the buckeye bristling along the shoulder. Dean leans against the Impala's trunk again, sipping the rest of his Mountain Dew as he considers the four hundred miles left to Lebanon. He'd rather not drop another seventy dollars on a shitty room in Kansas City or Topeka, but pushing straight through would put them at the bunker around midnight, and that's a long haul after the weird night they had.

Before he can decide, he hears a shout and a clatter. A beat or two later, Sam jumps out of the bushes and runs toward the Impala. His jeans are buttoned, but his fly is unzipped. He has blood on his hands and a long, jagged cut on his forehead.

Dean reaches for the gun tucked in his jeans. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Ghost," Sam pants. Blood is dripping down his temple. "He just popped up in my face and clocked me with a two-by-four."

"Where?"

A horn blares on the interstate. Sam sucks in a breath and waves at a large and moldy pile of wood rotting near the bushes — maybe an older shed that collapsed and was never cleared away. "Over there."

"What'd he look like?"

"Short," Sam says, gesturing for the keys. As Dean tosses them over, he adds, "Fat. Walrus mustache."

The trunk opens with a creak. Dean says, "Alright. You get cleaned up. I'll be right back," and heads for the store.

A hand-painted sign over the door advertises FOOD and FUEL. Bells jingle again as Dean lets himself inside. The air is sweltering, trapped beneath the low-slung ceiling and thick enough to chew. At the register, a kid in his late teens or early twenties is drooping into a magazine. Dean grabs another Mountain Dew from an ancient, wheezing cooler and sets it on the counter.

As the kid is ringing it up, Dean asks, "You live around here?"

"Nah," the kid says, deadpan. His limp, dishwater hair is hanging over one eye. "I commute to this piece of paradise every day."

Dean humors him with a smile. "I'm asking 'cause — well, I'm on a road-trip with my brother. His girlfriend dumped him, and he's kinda down about it."

"Cool story."

"Yeah. Anyway, I'm trying to cheer him up, and he — he's really into ghosts. You know if there's anything haunted around here?"

The kid snorts. "Yep. This gas station, for starters."

"Really?" Dean smiles again. "Any idea who?"

"Yeah," the kid says. He pushes his hair out of his face and leans his elbows on the counter. "The guy who built this dump." His shoulder bumps a rack of plastic cigarette lighters. "Few years back, the old water tower fell over and killed him."

Dean asks, "Oh, yeah?" and jerks his thumb over his shoulder. "That big mess out back?"

The kid nods. His hair flops back over his eye. "Dude's cousin got the place, and he didn't wanna pay to have it hauled away. He kept hoping the locals would steal it for firewood, but —" he shrugs. "The weird thing is, I only started seeing him the last coupla days."

"Huh. You been here long?"

"'Bout three years."

The register display reads $1.49. Dean tosses two bucks on the counter and says, "Cool story."

Outside, the sun has slipped low and the sky has faded to a dull, dusky gray. Sam is wearing a clean shirt and dabbing the cut on his forehead with a wet shop-rag. He pauses when he sees Dean walking toward the Impala.

"You get anything?"

Dean says, "Yeah," and sets his new Mountain Dew on the Impala's roof. "Previous owner died messy on the property."

"Great." Sam lobs the shop-rag at the trash can, giving Dean a quick whiff of cheap vodka. "Did you get his name?"

"No. But I think I know what he wants."

A truck rumbles up to the other pump, a seventies shitkicker that's patched with Bondo and rust. Sam asks, "So, what's the plan?"

"Well, we gotta distract the kid in there long enough to torch that pile of wood."


+


At two in the morning, Lebanon is pitch-black and still. The last thing Dean expects is a chick standing in the middle of the road.

She pops up just before the dirt stretch of School Avenue crosses Bb Lane. It takes Dean a second to figure out what he's looking at; then, he barks, "Oh, shit," and jerks the steering wheel and slams on the brakes. The Impala shudders, and her tires spit gravel. She fishtails before screeching to a halt with her rear-end in the strip of prairie grass that passes for a soft shoulder at the far edge of town.

Sam jolts awake with a grunt. "What —? What happened?"

Dean clears his throat before saying, "A woman." He — fuck. Fuck. He hadn't stopped in time; she should be splattered on the hood. "There was a woman."

Yawning, Sam shifts around and glances out the rear window. "You, uh — where?"

"There," Dean says, pointing. His hand is fucking shaking. "She — she was right there."

"Okay."

"You don't believe me?"

After a pause, Sam says, "Dude, you're exhausted. You've driven twelve hours today with almost zero sleep. Of course you're —" His voice cracks around another yawn. Then, "I mean, think about it. Who would be out walking so late in this town?"

Sam has a point; livestock outnumber the people in Lebanon, and both groups usually call it a night at sundown. Nobody around here would take a stroll at two in the morning. Unless: "Coulda been a ghost."

"No way," Sam says, shaking his head. His cheek is creased from the jacket he was using as a pillow. "We've lived here... what—? Six years? If it was haunted, we would've noticed by now."

Dean wants to argue with that — it's not like they ever really go into town — but Sam is yawning again, and the bunker is just a quarter-mile away. His bed is just a quarter-mile away. He takes a deep breath, and another. Then he switches on the Impala's high-beams and eases back onto the road.


+


"Hey," Sam says, his voice echoing around the garage. When Dean looks over, he points at the cooler in the Impala's backseat. "Are you going to help me with this?"

Dean's back is killing him, so — fuck that. "Just leave it." There's nothing in it except two bottles of water, a can of beer, and a banana that's legally dead.

"Dude —"

Dean just waves him off. He grunts, "We'll get it tomorrow," and heads for the stairs. Climbing up makes his knees creak. He pauses in the doorway because the war room's lights are on and shouldn't be. He drops his bag on the ground and reaches for his gun, but he also calls out, "Cas? That you?"

"I'm in the library."

He's at the center table, reading a book so old it looks ready to crumble to dust. Another dozen books are stacked around him, and an empty coffee mug is waiting near his elbow. His tie is loose and the sleeves of his dress shirt are rolled up. He looks tired in the dim, yellowish glow from the lamps.

Dean asks, "What're you reading?"

Cas closes the book and taps his fingers on the cover. "Intent and the Limits of Celestial Architecture. It's a treatise on the mechanics and physics of Heaven."

"Sounds dull," Dean says. Honestly, he'd rather go to the dentist. "You looking for something, or just browsing?"

Cas hesitates. Before he can answer, Sam walks in and tosses Dean's bag on the table. The crap inside rattles and clanks.

He tells Dean, "I nearly tripped over that," then turns to Cas and claps him on the shoulder. "Hey, it's good to see you, man. When did you get here?"

"Earlier this evening." Cas narrows his eyes at the blotchy, purple bruise on Sam's forehead. "You look terrible."

Sam's mouth twitches. "Thanks."

Standing, Cas says, "Here, let me —" and zaps Sam's bruise with a quick tap to the temple. As the glow fades from his eyes, he adds, "You should rest."

"Yeah. I'm pretty beat."

Dean should call it a night too, but he — he's missed having Cas around. They haven't seen much of each other since getting back from that other world; Dean spent close to six weeks as Michael's meatpuppet, and right after that, Cas took off to track down some angels hiding from Heaven on earth. He's been on the road about two months — time Dean and Sam have used to catch up on all the hunts they put off while they were dealing with apocalyptic bullshit.

He just looks at Cas for a moment — the curve of his mouth, the line of his jaw. Then he clears his throat and asks, "You want a beer?"

"No," Cas says, shaking his head. He frowns slightly. "Tell me about the ghosts."

Dean snorts. "Which ghosts? We've been up to our neck in ghosts for the last two days."

"How many?"

"Together? Eight." Dean grabs the chair across from Cas and slouches into it with a groan. "We torched six fuckers at this old mansion out in Kentucky, and then another one popped up at our motel. And then —" he yawns "— then we bumped into one at some shithole gas station."

Cas considers that for a moment before asking, "New hauntings or old?"

"Both," Dean says. He folds his arms on the table so he can use them as a pillow. "Witness at the gas station said he'd only been there a coupla days. But the chick at the motel — she died in the eighties, and she mighta been tied to the place. Her killer hid a pair of her shoes under the floor."

"What about the mansion?"

Dean says, "Both," again and closes his eyes. "One guy'd been hanging around since the beginning, but a few days ago, his whole damn family showed up."

"Dean." Cas' chair creaks as he leans over and switches off one of the lamps. "You should go to bed."

"Yeah." Going to bed sounds awesome. But he needs to tell Cas about the woman standing in the road. If he even really saw her. Maybe he — he doesn't know. "Okay."

"Dean."

"In a minute."

Cas switches off the other lamp.


+


Dean wakes up with an aching back and the first hints of a headache humming at his temples. His mouth is dry, and he's fully dressed, including his boots. His collar is scratching the side of his neck. He rolls over, grunting as his wallet prods him in the ass. After rubbing his eyes a few times, he realizes his desk lamp is on. Cas is sitting there, reading another book.

Dean leans up on his elbow and croaks, "Hey," in a voice like a bullfrog. He clears his throat and tries again. "You — what time is it?"

"Almost eleven."

That's way later than Dean usually sleeps, but — whatever. He's earned it. He doesn't even remember going to bed, which means he was so exhausted that he conked out in the library. That means Cas carried him in here, but that isn't a train of thought he feels like boarding before breakfast. Or before a full six-pack. Or ever, really.

Instead, he asks, "What're you reading now?"

Cas closes the book around his finger and frowns at the spine. "The Metaphysics of Celestial Existence."

Dean sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed. "So, are you looking for something, or just browsing?" His feet are angry and sore from being trapped in his boots all night; he can feel his heartbeat in his heels. "You never answered me."

Cas makes a quiet noise and looks away.

"Alright," Dean says, getting to his feet. He walks over to the desk and leans against it. "What aren't you telling me?"

After a pause, Cas says, "A few months ago, I returned to Heaven. Before Rowena tracked down Gabriel, I asked the angels if they would do it. Do you remember?"

"Yeah. You said they blew you off."

"I never told you why."

And Dean never asked. Cas can be touchy about Heaven, especially when things go belly-up, and between Mary and Jack and Michael and Lucifer, they'd had a ton of other shit going on right then. "So, they weren't just being dicks?"

Cas says, "No," and sets the book aside. "They refused because they lacked the manpower. The Host is severely depleted."

"Okay." As far as Dean's concerned, the less angels the better, but he isn't going to say that to Cas' face. Because — yeah. Touchy. "How many of you guys are left? Coupla thousand?"

"Less."

"Coupla hundred?"

Cas sighs. A curl of hair is sticking up behind his ear. "A dozen."

"I'm — did you say a dozen?" When Cas nods, Dean continues, "How's that even possible?"

The chair squeaks as Cas turns in Dean's direction. His knee bumps Dean's leg. "Many angels died when we laid siege to Hell. Many more died when Metatron forced them to fall. And I —" He looks away again. "I killed hundreds myself."

Dean doesn't know how many angels he's ganked. A good fifty, easy. He can't make himself feel bad about it, either — not when they'd all been gunning for him or Sam or Cas. "Okay."

"Without a sufficient number of angels, Heaven will die."

"Oh," Dean says, his gut lurching. "Shit. Is that — you — are you —" He stops and makes himself breathe. "You're not gonna —"

"I'll be fine," Cas insists. His knee bumps Dean's leg again. "My grace is a manifestation of God's will. His... intent. Nothing can change that. But Heaven failing could be catastrophic for humanity. It houses the souls of those who've passed on."

It takes Dean a second. Once he gets it, he mumbles, "Oh, fuck. The ghosts."


+


"Okay, wait," Sam says. He's red-faced and sweaty; Dean and Cas ambushed him as he was coming in from a run. "Explain it to me again. Explain it to me like I'm five."

Dean says, "Heaven's dying."

"Yeah, I got that part. What I don't get is how. It's a place, not — not a fern God forgot to water."

The fridge kicks on with a hum. Cas says, "Heaven is a living thing, in some ways. It grows and changes as new souls ascend and old souls seek new memories to relive. And it's powered by the grace of its angels. In the last few years, the Host has dwindled considerably." He looks down at his hands as he continues, "The few angels who remain aren't strong enough to sustain it."

"Right."

"And when it... dies, the souls there will return to earth as ghosts."

Sam opens a bottle of water and chugs about half of it. Once he's finished, he says, "And there's no way to stop it." It isn't really a question.

"No," Cas says, shaking his head. "Naomi hoped things might stabilize if Gabriel returned, but —"

"Naomi?" Anger flares in Dean's gut. He can still hear her blithely calling Cas damaged and unstable like she hadn't scrambled his eggs in the first place. "I thought she was dead."

Cas' mouth thins. "So did I."

"Well, Gabriel is dead," Sam points out. He leans back and taps his bottle of water on his knee. "Did Naomi have a Plan B?"

"Short of God coming back? No."

Sighing, Dean stands up and walks over to the fridge. He needs a beer, and he doesn't give a shit that it isn't noon yet. As he pops the cap, he asks, "What about those angels slumming it down here? If they went back upstairs, would that help patch things up?"

"Possibly. But I —" Cas shakes his head again. "Naomi gave me four names. Ecanus and Leaoc have already refused. Ophaiel sided with Bartholomew after the fall, so I doubt he'd be interested in anything I have to say. And Anael —"

"Wait." Dean nearly chokes on his beer. "Anael? Like... Sister Jo, Anael? Lucifer's buddy, Anael?"

"Yes."

"Great. That's —"

"Alright," Sam cuts in. His hair has sweat-dried against his temples in limp waves. "If the angels who are already upstairs are it, where does that leave us?"

"Screwed," Dean says.

"Dean's right." Cas' shoulder's slump slightly. "He told me about the house in Kentucky; five new hauntings at a single location suggests Heaven's structure has begun to weaken. When it fails, we will be inundated. Heaven holds every soul not marked for Hell. Every incorrupt soul, all the way back to Adam and Eve."

Sam just stares at Cas for a second. He opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again. Before he can say anything, his phone rings.

"Is that Mom?" Dean asks.

"Jack." Standing, Sam chucks his empty water bottle in the recycling bin and puts the his phone to his ear. He says, "Hey, Jack. What's going on?" and walks out of the kitchen.


+


When Sam comes back in, he's out of his running clothes and dressed for a hunt. He's wearing his yellow and blue shirt — the one Dean's pretty sure was a picnic tablecloth in a past life. His bag clanks against his hip as he heads over to the fridge. He tugs the door open and grabs a few bottles of water.

Dean's washing down his beer with a bacon sandwich; he stops chewing long enough to ask, "You going somewhere, champ?"

"Wheeling, West Virginia. Mom and Jack stopped for a motel last night and bumped into a bunch of ghosts."

"Really?"

"Yeah." One of the water bottles tries to escape; Sam juggles them for a second before setting them on the counter. "Back in the twenties, part of a glass factory collapsed after a furnace explosion. Forty-seven workers died, and —"

"And now they've come home to roost. Awesome." Dean sighs, then pushes his plate away and wipes his greasy mouth with the back of his hand. "Gimme fifteen minutes. I'll —"

Sam waves him off. "Mom and Jack and I can handle it."

"You sure?"

Before Sam can reply, Cas says, "Dean," in a gruff voice. He's standing beside the old, restaurant-sized percolator, drumming his fingers on the counter while he waits for a pot of coffee to finish brewing. "Time is short. Perhaps you and I should look into other recent hauntings."

"Yeah." Dean brushes sandwich crumbs off his fingers. "I'm just — is this the plan? Chasing ghost stories and hoping we catch enough of them before the dam breaks?"

Shrugging, Sam says, "I guess." He opens a drawer and pulls out a handful of those twigs-and-berries power bars he likes. "It's pretty much our only option. That, or just digging up every cemetery in the country."

"Impossible," Cas argues. The percolator gurgles. "There are hundreds of cemeteries in the United States, and some have thousands of bodies. Not to mention unmarked burial sites like battlefields, sacred grounds, potter's fields, cholera —"

"Alright, alright." Dean sighs again and looks at Sam. "You give Jody a heads up?"

"Yeah."

As Sam reaches the door, Dean says, "Hey, wait. What're you doing for wheels?"

"I , uh —" Sam flashes some teeth. "I was going to steal something."

"You can use mine," Cas says, tossing Sam his keys. "It's parked at the very end of the road, past the retaining wall."

Sam shoulders his bag. "Thanks, Cas."

Once he's gone, Cas asks Dean, "Would you like some coffee?"

"Yeah, actually. That'd be great." Dean's feet are still killing him, but he makes himself stand up. "Lemme get my laptop, and then we can get this show on the road."

Cas opens the cabinet above the percolator and grabs two mugs. "We should probably start with the young woman haunting the north end of this town."


+


"Okay." Dean sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. His back aches. He's about one cup of coffee away from crawling out of his skin. "You sure you saw this chick?"

Cas huffs out, "Yes," without looking up from Sam's tablet.

"You sure she was a ghost?"

"For the fourth time: yes." Cas pokes at the tablet's screen once or twice before adding, "Why are you questioning this? You said you saw her as well."

"Yeah, but —" Dean sighs again. He's not so sure anymore. They've been digging for three hours and they haven't found anything. "Maybe. I mean, it was late, and I — I'd been up for a coupla days. Sam thought I was just seeing shit."

Cas finally looks up. The lamp between them casts his face in shadows and sharp angles. "I encountered her in the early evening. And I don't just —" he makes air quotes "— see shit."

"Alright, alright." Dean leans back in his chair and scratches his jaw. "So, she just popped up right in front of your car?"

"Yes," Cas says. He splits a glance between the tablet and Dean. "She disappeared before I could stop. I reversed several hundred feet and drove down the road again. She reappeared in the same spot. This time, I stopped before driving through her. She stood there for several minutes."

"Right."

"I got out of the car, but she fled before I could speak with her."

"Wait. You — what?" Cas didn't mention that before. "You talked to her?"

"I tried."

Dean needs a beer; he pushes his laptop away and heaves himself to his feet. As he walks to the mini-fridge, he says, "That's kinda weird. Ghosts don't usually spook so easy."

After a long, tense pause, Cas says, "In Heaven, angels function as shepherds. They keep souls contained in their designated areas. I don't think she realized she was on earth. She may have thought I was there to punish her for wandering."

Dean freezes with his beer halfway to his mouth. For a split-second, he's running from Zachariah again — he hears Ash asking if Jo and Ellen went down fighting, smells the moss and wood-rot of a dark forest and the dew-damp asphalt of the road. Fireworks explode over his head, lighting up the starless sky as Sam tugs on his sleeve. His mother tells him he's a burden. She stares at him with cold, yellow eyes.

He shakes himself out of it and says, "Well, we still got nothing."

"We'll just have to keep looking."

And — yeah. They've been looking. And at this point, Dean isn't willing to bet large on them coming up with anything. Lebanon doesn't have a historical society, and its tiny library doesn't have a website. It only had its own newspaper for a few years in the early 1900s, and the newspapers in larger cities don't bother reporting what happens out in the sticks. Cas has spent most of the last three hours searching an obituary archive so sketchy it's probably giving the tablet a virus. Dean couldn't hack the Department of Health and Environment, so he resorted to looking at death certificates on Ancestry.com.

Cas hunches over the tablet again. He loosens his tie, pulls it off, and tosses it on the table. Dean studies the line of his throat for a few moments, then sits down and grabs his laptop. He takes a long swallow of beer and squints at a death certificate for a Clara Hutchinson. She died of natural causes at the age of eighty-four.

Grace Shoemaker: influenza, age eight. Edith Shoemaker: tuberculosis, age thirty-six. Sarah Johnson: hemorrhage after childbirth, age twenty-three. Bertha Marlowe: natural causes, age sixty-seven. Lillian Smith: measles, age eleven.

Suddenly, Cas says, "I think I found something." His chair creaks as he reaches over to hand Dean the tablet.

"Thank God," Dean mutters. His eyes burn from staring at his laptop for so long. After rubbing them a little, he looks at the tablet. It's open to a webpage with a black background that's titled Paranormal Pit-Stop in a green, horror-movie font. "Dude, this is a message board for bullshit ghost hunters."

Cas barely hesitates. "In one message, a man relays a family legend he heard from a cousin who lives in Lebanon. His great-great-aunt, Ida McGehee, died here in 1894. She was trampled by a horse near the northeast corner of town. She was nineteen years old."

Dean chews his lip for a second. The ghost popped in and out, and she was nearly all mist from the waist down; he didn't see her well enough to pinpoint her age or the era of her clothes. But School Avenue and Bb Lane are pretty much Lebanon's northern and eastern boundaries. And Ida was killed by a horse, not a car. That explains why she didn't try to hitch a ride like most roadside spooks.

Cas continues, "I know it isn't much —" but Dean just waves him off.

"You're right, it ain't much. But it's the best lead we've had all day."


+


A genealogy webpage sketchier than the obituary archive tells them that Ida McGehee is buried in a family graveyard conveniently named McGehee Cemetery. After some coaxing, Google Maps reluctantly admits that it's a few miles northwest of Jewell — halfway between J Road and K Road, on an unnamed dirt track Dean really doesn't want to take the Impala down after dark. But gravedigging isn't exactly a dawn-to-dusk kind of gig. They head out a little after eight — after Dean's showered and eaten another bacon sandwich and cat-napped on one of the recliners in the den.

This late, Lebanon is already buttoned up for the night; the one house they pass on their way up Bb Lane is shuttered and dark. Cutting through town to catch the highway feels too risky, so Dean takes the backroads route, swinging east on School Avenue instead of west. Just as the Impala rounds the corner, something shimmers and twists in the rear-view mirror. Whatever it is, it doesn't quite take shape. Dean ignores it. He leans on the gas until they hit Cc Road.

The Impala catches a pothole coming out of the turn, and she jolts to one side so hard that Dean has to yank on the wheel to straighten her out. Cc Road is a narrow and bumpy stretch of hard-packed gravel ribboning between two farms; the prairie grass growing along the shoulder whispers against the Impala's doors, and the smell of old hay and manure sours the air whipping through the driver's-side window. After clipping another pothole, Dean flips on the high-beams and eases from forty to thirty. A line of telephone poles leads them south. The intersection with US 36 is marked by the rusted-out husk of a tractor.

Once they're on the highway, Dean switches on the stereo. The radio is just static — station signals are weak between Smith Center and Mankato — so Dean starts up whatever is in the cassette player. It turns out to be Zeppelin, about midway through Latter Days. As the night-dark prairie rolls by, Dean hums along to "Ten Years Gone" and "Achilles Last Stand" and "Nobody's Fault But Mine."

During "All My Love," Dean realizes that Cas is silently mouthing the words — Ours is the fire / All the warmth he can find / He is a feather in the wind. And Dean — fuck. Heat crowds up underneath his jaw. "All My Love" was the last song he put on the mixtape. His hands had shook as he set it up to record; including it was close enough to a confession to freak him the hell out. He only went through with it because he figured Cas wouldn't listen all the way to the end. Or that he'd play it once and then let it rot in his glove compartment.

"All of my love," Cas murmurs. His voice is a dull burr that barely crests the rumble of the Impala's engine. "All of my love. All of my love to you."

Dean's cheeks burn. He's afraid of what he'll see if he looks at Cas, so he keeps his eyes on the road. He tunnel-visions on the cracked asphalt up ahead until Cas carefully touches his arm.

"Dean, you need to turn here."

His fingers curl in Dean's sleeve as Dean taps the brakes and tugs on the wheel.


+


Dean says, "I guess this is it," and swings his flashlight in a slow arc.

There isn't much to see, just eight graves crowded between a commercial wheat field and the road. Back in the day, the graveyard probably marked the far boundary of the McGehee homestead. Dean figures the current owners are too superstitious to have the bodies moved. Two of the headstones have toppled over, and three have sunk so deeply into the ground that only their rounded tops are peeking above the dirt. The grass around them is overgrown, shin-high and crawling with creepers and weeds.

Cas crouches beside a stone carved with S. McGehee — 1894. "I believe this is her."

"Yeah. I —"

Dean cuts off as a soft, white mist forms over Cas' shoulder. It puffs and churns for a moment, like it wants to take shape but doesn't have the strength. Dean eases his shotgun from his bag, just in case.

"Dean?"

"Behind you."

The mist flutters. Slowly, Cas stands and steps back. Tipping his head to the side, he says, "It's one of the others. He must be in a part of Heaven that's weakened but not yet fully compromised."

"Great." Just what Dean wanted: another all-night salt and burn. "Looks like we're torching everybody."


+


Dean wakes up rough; his shoulders are stiff and his back feels like it's been tied into a knot. It's a little after seven — early enough that he should just close his eyes and doze for another hour. He rolls over and buries his face in his pillow, but he can't settle. His blanket gets tangled with his feet, and the ache in his back starts crawling up toward his neck. On the nightstand, his clock ticks and ticks and ticks.

Eventually, he gives up and climbs out of bed. He gets to his feet with an old-man grunt and a dull throb in his knees. He's down to his boxer-briefs, so he throws on yesterday's jeans and the first t-shirt he can find. The warm-bright smell of coffee brewing greets him in the hallway. Yawning, he follows it into the kitchen.

Cas is there, lurking in his usual spot beside the percolator. He's wearing his trenchcoat and tie and glaring murderously at a Pop-Tart.

Dean yawns again before asking, "Are you... eating?"

"Not exactly. I —" Cas wrinkles his nose. "I wanted to know what 'blue raspberry' tastes like."

"Like sugar and blue food dye."

"It's disgusting."

Dean says, "Yeah, kinda," but he takes it when Cas hands it to him, and he crams about half of it into his mouth before realizing that might be weird. At that point it's too late, so he just eats the rest of it. The plasticky flavor of fake berries sticks to his teeth like glue. He washes it down with some coffee.

He pours a cup for Cas too. They just stand there for a few minutes — side-by-side, silently nursing their morning joe like they're normal people. Like they didn't dig up eight bodies last night; like Dean didn't shower at three in the morning so he wouldn't have to sleep covered in crabgrass and graveyard mud. Like Heaven isn't self-destructing. Like they're — like they're —

Clearing his throat, Dean asks, "So, what's the plan?"

"I have a list of recent hauntings I found on the internet." Cas' lip curls like Google has done him a personal wrong. He taps a yellow steno pad sitting on the counter and continues, "Fort Wayne, Indiana: a man murdered twenty years ago has been seen in the parking lot of a bar. Pueblo, Colorado: a woman reported seeing her grandparents at her home. Vernal, Utah: a man claims to have been visited by his long-dead father."

"Okay."

Cas just keeps going. "North Platte, Nebraska: a man is haunting the hospital he died in. Brainerd, Minnesota: a white figure has been seen at Evergreen Cemetery. Douglas, Wyoming: a woman appears and disappears along a certain section of Interstate 25. Bozeman, Montana: a historic movie theater is —"

Dean grunts, "Okay, okay," and grabs the steno pad. He flips through it; the first five or six pages are covered in Cas' tiny, worse-than-a-doctor's scrawl. "You do all of this last night?"

Shrugging, Cas says, "I don't sleep."

"Right."

Dean refills his coffee cup and tries to work it all out. Sam, Mary, and Jack are closer to Indiana; he'll call them about Fort Wayne. If she isn't busy with sheriff stuff, Donna can check out the cemetery spook in Brainerd. Dean and Cas can handle the rest.

"North Platte's just a coupla hours from here." After that, they can tackle the jobs in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and Montana. Dean could pass the last two onto Walt — he's been bunking in a single-wide in Idaho since Roy died — but he'd rather gnaw off his own foot than make that call. "I'll get my gear."

"Dean, wait." Cas stops him with a soft touch to the shoulder. "Your back hurts. I can tell by the way you're standing."

"It's — I'm alright." Dean hip-checks the counter as he shuffle-steps to the side. "Coupla aspirin and I'll —"

Cas' voice dips. "Dean, we have a lot of work ahead of us. It would be best if you were healthy."

And — yeah. Cas is right. It's just that he — fuck. Fuck. "Okay."

Moving in close, Cas carefully cups Dean's cheek. Grace sweeps through Dean's body in icy-hot pulses that make his toes curl. He grits his teeth and tries not to lean into Cas' hand. Cas' thumb brushes the corner of Dean's mouth; if he turned his head, he could kiss it, suck it in, curl his tongue around it. He could —

Cas pulls away. "I'm — is that better?"

Dean can't get any words out. He just nods and hurries out of the kitchen.


+


Three-quarters of a Pop-Tart doesn't really count as a meal, so their first stop in North Platte is the Denny's at the junction of I-80 and State Route 56. It's part of a sprawling Flying J Travel Center, where it shares a squat and soulless cinder block building with a gas station and a mini-mart. Its deep, olive-drab roof shades a wall of picture-windows plastered with ads for seasonal pancake specials. The sidewalk leading to the front door is wet, thanks to a pair of rainbird sprinklers that are mostly missing the hedges.

It's too late for lunch and too early for dinner, so they pretty much have the place to themselves. Smiling, Dean coaxes the host into giving them a booth near the back, where they won't be overheard by the old guy at the counter and the three truckers lounging at a table large enough for eight. Their waiter is a tall, scrawny kid with hair that looks like it was cut with garden shears. Dean orders a coffee and a country-fried steak breakfast with everything; Cas orders a coffee and an english muffin he'll probably end up ignoring.

The complimentary wi-fi is clunky as hell; it takes Dean a few minutes to pull up the article Cas found about the haunting. Once he's skimmed it, he Googles the dead guy and digs up some general information about the hospital.

"Alright," he says finally. "Victor Suarez, age fifty-two. Ten years ago, he checked into White Memorial with severe abdominal pain. Ended up having a — a, uh... cholecystectomy, whatever that is."

Cas looks at Dean over his coffee cup. "His gallbladder was removed."

"Whatever," Dean says again. "That went fine, but he picked up a staph infection that went septic and died. His family won a malpractice case, but it was overturned on appeal."

"That —" Their waiter comes with their food; once he's gone, Cas finishes, "That's cause enough to be vengeful. The article said he attacked a nurse."

Dean says, "Yeah," and spoons some gravy on his hashbrowns. "You find out where he's planted?"

"He's buried in a mausoleum in North Platte Cemetery."

"A private deal?" Dean asks hopefully. If it is, they might be able to wrap this up before lunchtime.

Cas shakes his head. "No. He's in —" he pokes Sam's tablet awake and squints at the screen "— the Terrace of Slumber section of the public crypt."

"Damn," Dean says, chewing. They don't need full darkness for a crypt job, but they'll at least have to wait until the staff calls it a night. Still, torching a mausoleum stiff is easier than digging up a grave. They just have to pry the plate off the drawer and smash a hole in the coffin. "Well, after this we'll grab a motel and look into some of those other jobs you found."

"What about the hospital?"

Dean shrugs. Hospitals are a nightmare to investigate; they never close, and doctors and nurses are nosy. They're better off just salting and burning the guy and hoping for the best.

Before Dean can explain that, Cas holds up his hand. He tips his head to the side like he's turning up the volume on his creeper angel hearing. Dean shrugs again and puts some country-fried steak into his mouth. At the register, the restaurant's telephone rings. Two more truckers walk through the front door. A woman at a window booth calls out to her children, who are squabbling as they feed money into the claw machine.

Finally, Cas murmurs, "Those waitresses." He gestures to the server station, where two women in Denny's uniforms are whispering as they clean. "The taller one attended a party last night. She and several friends went to an abandoned house to drink."

"And?"

"And, they were chased out by a ghost."

Dean sips his coffee before saying, "Great. Another double-header. They say where this place is?"

"No. And now they're —" Cas huffs "— now they're complaining about how much silverware they have to roll." After a quick glance around, he moves his untouched english muffin to Dean's nearly-empty plate. "She referred to the ghost as 'Old Man Miller.'"

Dean shovels the last of his hashbrowns into his mouth and reaches for his laptop. He Googles "North Platte" and "Miller" with combinations of "ghost" and "haunting" until he strikes gold. He ends up on the same message board Cas used to identify Ida McGehee, but he decides not to look it in the mouth.

"Okay, I got an address. North end of Buffalo Bill Avenue, near the state park."


+


"Alright," Dean says, straightening his tie. He changed into his fed suit in the Denny's restroom. "If anyone asks, we're real estate investors. We're thinking of buying this dump and flipping it."

Cas nods. He says, "I've got it," and climbs out of the Impala.

Dean pockets his keys and a short piece of iron pipe and follows Cas down the scrubby gravel path that leads to the porch. The house is really just a collapsing shack with a warped, wooden frame and a saltbox roof. Under the lower eave, a red-twig dogwood is sprouting from a rusty corpse of a car — some kind of late-fifties or early-sixties sedan. The place is obviously a local partying spot; the dying yard is littered with beer cans, liquor bottles, fast-food bags, and empty cigarette packs. An orange cat watches Dean and Cas from its perch on the porch railing as they climb the splintered front steps.

The door is dangling on one hinge; it wobbles sharply before creaking open. Inside, the house is cluttered with broken furniture and garbage, and a heavy, musty smell hangs in the air. A deflated air mattress is slouched beneath the back window — a homeless person probably crashed here before the roof started caving in. An old pot-bellied stove sits in the center of the room. It's covered in a thick layer of dust.

Dean pulls the pipe out of his pocket and takes a long look around. Quietly, he asks, "You think Miller's home?"

After a pause, Cas says, "Yes."

"You know," Dean says, kicking a Big Mac box aside, "I'm thinking of torching him either way. Even if he ain't here now... if he died as messy as the nerds on that message board say, he'll be vengeful as fuck when Heaven finally spits him out."

Cas makes a soft, toneless noise and walks closer to the stove. Its exhaust pipe is missing, leaving a gaping hole in the roof. Cas turns in a slow circle, then steps into the broad shaft of sunlight streaming inside. It flares over him, around him, bright and white, and Dean — Christ. He can't breathe.

For the most part, Michael kept him buried pretty deep; he spent nearly all of that six weeks living inside a dream. But the first time Cas tried to rescue him, hearing Cas scream his name was enough to drag him to the surface. Michael crushed him back down almost immediately, but for a strange, unreal moment, he saw Cas through Michael's eyes. He saw Castiel — not Jimmy Novak's meatsuit, but the angel who raised him from Hell.

He saw the full sweep of Cas' existence — the size of it, the constantly reaching and pulsing shape of it. He saw Cas' wings — not the shadows Cas showed in him that barn, but an endless, gorgeous curve and fall of feathers, impossibly black and chased with silver and gray. Animal heads had shifted above them, a blur of fangs and tusks and fur and that Dean hadn't really understood. And Cas had had a hundred eyes — eyes Dean could feel watching him, boring into him. But what Dean remembers most was the light. He remembers the sheer brilliance of it, and the powerful, electric hum in the air. Cas — Castiel — had arced and burned with righteous fury and might.

"Dean?"

Dean makes himself look away. "Yeah. I —"

"Dean!"

Dean whirls and hefts his pipe. Before he can swing it, a white figure rears up in his face and throws him across the room.


+


"Goddamned ghosts," Dean snaps, rolling his shoulder. Cas healed it already, but it's the fucking principle of the thing. "Goddamned Heaven." He slams the Impala's trunk so hard it rebounds and smacks his hand.

"Dean," Cas hisses sharply. "Stop."

Dean rounds on him, bristling with anger and ready to fire back, but then a police car screams down the street and Dean remembers they're in public. They're in a nearly-full motel parking lot, and Dean's acting like a nutjob beside a car full of knives and guns. The Impala is parked right across from the front office. A dude three rooms down from theirs is watching them as he smokes a cigarette in his doorway.

"Alright. I'm coming, I'm coming."

The room is a dump, but it's less of a dump than Dean expected from a place down a side street and on the same block as a topless joint, a pool hall, and two bars. The bathroom is cleanish, the carpet has been vacuumed in recent memory, and the fridge doesn't sound like a semi grinding its gears. It has two beds. Dean wasted an extra twenty bucks on something Cas isn't going to use because he panicked when the check-in chick asked him if he wanted a single or a double.

He tosses his bag on the dresser, then shrugs out of his jacket and yanks on his tie. When he looks over at Cas, Cas is doing the same. He hangs his jacket and trenchcoat over a kitchen chair and loosens the knot in his tie. His hair is rumpled. Dean watches as he unbuttons his cuffs and rolls up his sleeves.

Cas catches him staring and asks, "Is something wrong?"

"No." Dean shakes his head. "I'm — you getting comfortable?"

"We have some time." Cas sits at the table and opens Dean's laptop. "The cemetery doesn't close until six."

Dean toes off his fed loafers and kicks them away. "Staff won't clear out until six-thirty or seven. I figure we can head over about eight. We'll get Suarez cracked open, and then —" He sighs heavily. He really doesn't want to dig up another grave. "Man, there's gotta be a better way to do this."

"I'm open to suggestions."

Dean sighs again and sits on his bed. After stewing for a few minutes, he grabs his phone and calls Bobby.

Bobby picks up on the fourth ring. He isn't this world's Bobby — isn't the same Bobby Dean leaned on most of his life — but there's still something comforting about hearing that gruff, familiar voice ask, "What is it, son?"

"Hey, Bobby. You at the bunker?"

"I'm in Smith Center, helping Maggie and Ryan set up their new place. What'd'ya need?"

The headboard bumps the wall as Dean leans back. "I need you to take a look at our books. See if you can find anything about punting ghosts to the other side."

"Sounds ominous. What's the story?"

Cas grumbles in Enochian and stabs at the laptop's keyboard with one finger. Dean says, "Alright. You know how your side had too many angels? Well, ours doesn't have enough. Heaven's dying 'cause the few we got left don't have the juice to keep the lights on. So, souls are crashing back down to earth as ghosts."

After a long pause, Bobby says, "You boys really have a knack for finding trouble."

Dean mutters, "Tell me about it," and rubs his face. He needs a beer, but now that he's sitting down, he can't make himself get back up. "Normally with restless spirits, we salt and burn the bones. But we ain't gonna get ahead of this thing by playing body-snatchers every night. I'm thinking some kinda spell — something that'll move them on, or at least bind them to their graves."

Bobby snorts. "I'll see what I can do."


+


"Goddamned ghosts," Dean snaps, stabbing his shovel into the dirt. "Goddamned Heaven."

An owl hoots overhead. Cas stops digging long enough to say, "We're almost done."

Dean snorts, because — yeah. That's a big, fat, smelly lie. They've bared cracked two feet. They've still got four feet to go, and Dean's already covered in sweat. His knees and back have been begging for mercy for the last thirty minutes.

After tossing more dirt over his shoulder, Cas adds, "We'll be done faster if you help me."

Rolling his eyes, Dean grabs his shovel. Pain blooms in his thumb; he smashed it while prying the plate off Suarez's drawer. He hasn't mentioned it because getting healed three times in the same day would be three times too many.

He leans in and hauls up some more dirt — again, and again, and again. The ache in his back deepens and spreads up into his shoulders, but he keeps working until he finally finds a rhythm. They put away another half a foot, and then another. Then another. Sweat pools behind Dean's ears and prickles the back of his neck.

When they're a good four feet down, he says, "Maybe we're looking at this all wrong."

Cas wipes his forehead with his sleeve. His face is flushed; graveyard mud is streaked across his cheek. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, maybe we should figure out a way to fix Heaven. Instead of —" Dean waves at the hole they're digging. "You know. Mopping up the mess."

"Dean," Cas says. Something sad tugs at his mouth. "Heaven can't be fixed. Not unless God returns and creates more angels."

"You know that ain't gonna happen."

"No, it isn't."

"So, that's it? We're just gonna let Heaven die?"

Cas looks up at the sky for a moment. Then, tonelessly, he says, "Everything ends, Dean," and pushes his shovel into the dirt.


+


They leave for Pueblo about an hour after sunrise, grabbing a Fuel & Go breakfast before heading west on US 30. It's a cool, gray morning; dew gathers on the Impala's windshield, and the sky bruises behind a heavy bank of clouds. Cas is silent — has been since they got back from the cemetery last night. Dean leans on the gas and nurses a cup of coffee that smells and tastes like tar. His cassettes are in the trunk, and he doesn't trust himself with the Zeppelin in the tape deck. The FM stations are in their second hour of obnoxious morning zoos, so he spins the AM dial until he finds a farm report.

Beyond the outskirts of North Platte, the highway cuts through open prairie dotted with farms. It shadows the South Platte River; the brightness of moving water dampens the smell of road dust and diesel exhaust. The clouds finally burn off about nine, letting the sun paint the wheat fields and buffalo grass in yellows and golds. They pass a freighter chugging down the railroad tracks hugging the shoulder. The farm report eventually blurs into static; Dean switches off the radio and zones in on the road.

As they're rolling through a crossroads town called Brule, Dean notices Cas flipping through his steno pad. He asks, "You find us some more jobs?"

"Yes. Twenty of them."

"Twenty?"

Cas taps his fingers on the steno pad. "Five are closer to your brother. I already called him."

"So, only fifteen left for us?" When Cas doesn't catch the joke, Dean continues, "Is this what you did all night? You surfed the internet, looking for spooks?"

"The TV was broken," Cas says, shrugging. "And this is important. We need — I need —" He swallows hard and looks out the window.

"Hey," Dean says. Before he can stop himself, he reaches out and touches Cas' knee. "C'mon. Talk to me."

"I need to fix this."

"Last night, you said it wasn't fixable."

Cas looks out the window again. A battered, dusty sign notes that they're traveling the historic Lincoln Highway. "Heaven is beyond repair. But the ghosts... I have to, Dean. I have to."

"This ain't your fault."

"Fifty more angels could stabilize Heaven. Fifty." Cas closes his eyes as he whispers, "I killed hundreds."

Dean eases into the hammer-lane to pass a semi doing fifty-five. He says, "That — don't do this, Cas. Don't beat yourself up."

"Dean —"

Dean doesn't give him the chance. "Yeah, sure, you've killed some angels. Hell, so have I. So has Sam." His hand is still on Cas' knee. "And what about Metatron? That sonofabitch screwed everything up when he kicked the angels out of Heaven. I mean — shit. They turned on each other as soon as they hit the ground."

"I should've helped them," Cas says quietly. "After the fall, I should've helped them."

"Dude, you tried." You tried, but then you gave up your army, just to keep my stupid-ass in one piece. "They wouldn't let you."

Cas' fingers brush Dean's wrist. "If I can't... mop up the mess down here, then I need to return to Heaven and lend my strength to the Host.

Deans already knows the answer, but he makes himself ask, "What's gonna happen? If you, uh — if you go back upstairs, what's gonna happen to you?"

"I'll burn out."

Everything ends, Dean.

Dean pulls his hand away and white-knuckles the wheel.


+


About a hundred miles into Colorado, they make a pit-stop in a flyspeck called Brush. The Impala needs a few gallons of gas, and — more importantly — Dean needs to get out and stretch his legs. Ten years ago, he could drive twelve or fifteen hours in a day, and some nights he stayed in the cockpit until dawn because he didn't want to wake up Sam. Now, anything over eight hours is pushing it. And if he doesn't stop three or four times along the way, he crawls out of the car feeling like a corpse.

He swings into a Cenex-Eagle on the I-76 Business Loop. The Impala bumps and jerks over a pair of rusty-sounding driveway bells. The only open spot is behind an blue and green Cheech and Chong van with a dragging muffler and bald tires. The pump's credit card reader is busted, so Dean heads across the oil-stained tarmac and into the mini-mart. Elevator music is blasting over the speakers; Dean hums along with "The Girl from Ipanema" as he pours two cups of coffee and searches the chip rack for a bag of Cheetos that aren't Flamin' Hot.

He gets in line behind a woman buying bagged ice and a guy in dirty overalls who argues with the cashier about the price of chewing tobacco. While he waits, Dean flips through the stack of newspapers sitting on a milk crate near the register. The Denver Post and Boulder Weekly just waste his time. On page three of the Aurora Sentinel, he finds an article about a ghost sighting at a cemetery in Greeley.

"Hey, buddy." The cashier raps his knuckles on the counter. "This ain't the library."

Dean says, "Yeah, yeah," and hands him his credit card. "I need twenty on pump four."

Outside, Cas is standing beside the Impala with his hands in his pockets. His tie dances with the wind as he watches the slowly darkening sky. Clouds are moving back in, gray like an oncoming storm and pressing close to the mini-mart's violently red roof. Dean sets the coffees and the Cheetos on the Impala's trunk. He folds the newspaper open to the article and hands it to Cas.

Cas reads the headline out loud: "Cemetery Maintenance Worker Frightened by Apparition." After skimming the article for a second, he looks up at Dean. "Do you want to look into this first?"

Dean says, "Sounds like it's close by," and pulls out his phone. Once Google Maps loads, he adds, "It — yeah. Greeley's only an hour from here." They could get this knocked out overnight and head down to Pueblo in the morning. "And — " He shrugs. "Dude's haunting his own grave. He shouldn't be too hard to find."


+


"I believe you... jinxed us," Cas says sourly.

"When?"

"When you said this ghost would be easy to find."

Dean huffs under his breath. A ghost haunting his own grave should be easy to find. The problem is, they don't know the fucker's name. The Aurora Sentinel article didn't mention it, and Linn Grove Cemetery's funeral director refused to discuss it when Dean called pretending to be a reporter writing a follow-up. Cas tracked down the maintenance worker, but the ghost scared her so badly that she took off running without looking at the headstone. All she could tell them was that he appeared near the front entrance. She saw him while she was closing the gates for the night.

Since they've got nothing to work with, they're on the third hour of what's turning out to be a cold, miserable stakeout. Greeley is about five thousand feet up, high enough that the temperature dropped like a brick the second the sun went down. The rain started a little after eight. It's light and kind of unsure of itself — only drizzling for a few minutes at a time — but if it doesn't stop soon, digging up this grave is going to be worse than a mud-wrestling match.

On top of all that: "Man, I can't see a fucking thing." Cedar Avenue is a narrow ribbon of road without shoulders, so they're parked in the loading bay of a warehouse a half-block from the cemetery's front gate.

"We need to get closer," Cas says.

Dean replies, "Give it another hour," because they're deep inside a mostly residential neighborhood. The cemetery is surrounded by houses, and about half of them still have lights in their windows. "If he doesn't show by then, we'll go in."

Sighing, Cas says, "If we're going to be here for another hour, you really should take my coat." It's already waiting in his lap; this is the fourth time he's offered it up. "You're cold."

"I'm alright," Dean insists. He's freezing, but — no. There's no way he can sit here smelling like Cas for an hour without completely losing his shit.

"Dean —"

Dean doesn't want to have this argument again, so he starts the Impala and cranks up her heater. At first, all it does is stink like burnt dust, but eventually, warm air begins whistling through the vents. Dean sticks his hands out and flexes his frozen fingers, swallowing a groan once they start to thaw out. Leather creaks as Cas shifts in his seat. He stares at Dean for a second, then grumbles something under his breath.

Dean's Enochian is pretty shitty, but he gets the point. He says, "Dude. That wasn't polite."

Cas gives him another long, narrow look. Then he reaches over and switches on the radio. The first station he finds is in the middle of a commercial block; they listen to a guy scream about a mattress sale for a beat or two before Cas spins the dial again. He pauses on some oldies, then some pop stuff, and then a couple of talk segments. The next thing he hits is a loud, jangly commercial for used cars. He grumbles again and presses play on the tape deck.

There's nothing in it; Dean removed Latter Days for his own sanity and never replaced it. Cas presses play again, and again. Before Dean can bat his hand away, he starts digging around in his trenchcoat. Something rattles, and then — fuck. Fuck. It's the mixtape.

Clearing his throat, Dean says, "I, uh — I didn't think you still had that."

Cas slips it into the tape deck. He says, "You gave it to me," as it picks up at the tail-end of "Kashmir."

"I figured it was still in that truck."

"I had it with me when I — when I went to the Empty."

Dean's voice dips. "You — did you listen to it much?"

"I listened to it every day."

Heat rushes to Dean's face. He opens his mouth, then closes it, then scratches his jaw and looks out the window.

Cas says, "Dean," in a tone that means they're both going to regret whatever comes next. "You — oh." He cuts off and points at the cemetery. "Look."

Dean clears his throat again and squints at the wet shadows twisting around the gates. "Where?"

"Kashmir" fades out. The next song is "Fool in the Rain," and it — it's another fucking confession. Well there's a light in your eyes that keeps shining, like a star that can't wait for night. Dean takes a deep breath. He rubs the back of his neck and pretends his blood isn't pounding in his ears.

He says, "I don't see anything."

Cas leans closer, bracing his hand on the seat. His trenchcoat slides into the footwell. "There." He points again. His mouth is too close to Dean's jaw. "To the left. Something is moving behind that large cross."

The moon is hidden behind the clouds, so the cemetery is almost pitch-black. Dean doesn't see anything close to a cross. And I'm shaking so much, really yearning. Why don't you show up and make it alright? "You — if you say so, buddy. You're the one with x-ray vision."

"It's right —" Cas huffs out a noise. His hand bumps Dean's thigh. "Nevermind. It's only a deer."

Dean takes another breath. His hand shakes as he kills the Impala's engine. "Might as well head over there." Their hour isn't up, but the rain has finally stopped, and Dean needs to get the hell out of the car. He needs some space. Some fresh air. He needs —

You swore that you never would leave me, baby. Whatever happened to you?

Cas ducks his head a little. Softly, he says, "Dean, I only ever left because I had to. I never wanted to."

And Dean — Dean kisses him. He turns his head and grabs a handful of Cas' shirt and lets his lips skim the line of Cas' jaw. Their mouths meet, and Cas makes a soft, surprised sound in the back of his throat. Leaning closer, he palms Dean's cheek. His other hand fists in Dean's sleeve.

They kiss and kiss and kiss. "Fool in the Rain" hums in the background; Dean touches the hollow of Cas' throat and teases his tongue into Cas' mouth. Cas makes another noise, something low and deep and gorgeous — something that digs underneath Dean's skin. Shivering, he murmurs' Cas name. Cas brushes his fingers through Dean's hair, then settles his hand at the back of Dean's neck.

And the storm that I thought would blow over, clouds the light of the love that I found. Cas tugs like he wants Dean closer. Dean tries to shift; his hip bangs the steering wheel and the Impala dips and creaks. There isn't much room, so they end up sprawled across the seat with Cas crowded up against the passenger-side door. For a split-second, Dean thinks about dragging Cas into the back. But then Cas tips Dean's head up and sucks a mark into the skin below his ear. He hooks a leg around Dean's and rolls his hips. His dick rides against Dean's, and arousal arcs through Dean's body like lightning.

He's had this dream a hundred times: the two of them fooling around in Impala while Zeppelin plays on the radio. But now that he's finally living it, he's clumsy as hell. Sweat is beading on his forehead and dripping off his nose, and his knee won't stop slipping off the seats. He shoves at Cas' shirt until it's bunched up under his armpits because his fingers keep tripping over the buttons. Cas' skin is burning hot, like all the power and might inside him is thrumming just beneath the surface. Dean runs his hand down Cas' sides and up the center of his chest. He thumbs at Cas' nipples until Cas is wide-eyed and breathless and arching up off the seat.

"Dean." Cas touches Dean's mouth and jaw. "Dean."

The seat whines as Dean sits up on his knees. He nearly slips again; he braces one hand on the dashboard and uses the other to wrestle with their flies. Once their dicks are out, he grips them together and strokes. His hips snap forward, and a moan punches out of his throat. Cas shudders all over, then curls his huge, warm hand around Dean's and fucks up against him. The Impala rocks and squeaks. Cas lets out a noise with Dean's name hidden in it. Silver-white light sparks behind his eyes.

"God," Dean hisses. He's so close — so close. "Cas — fuck."

Cas pulls him down for a kiss. He nearly loses his balance again, but Cas wraps an arm around him, holding him. They move together like that, panting and desperate, Dean working his hand over their dicks as Cas mouths at Dean's jaw and throat. When Cas' teeth graze his skin, the tension in his gut finally snaps. He comes hard, gasping as he spills all over Cas' dick. Cas follows him over the edge a moment later, his breath catching and his eyes flaring so bright that Dean almost has to look away.


+


It takes all of five minutes for Dean to start second-guessing himself, which is probably some kind of personal record. But — Christ. They should not have done that, not when Cas has been talking about going back to Heaven. Watching Cas leave would hurt like hell no matter what, but now — now that he's touched Cas, kissed Cas, seen Cas' eyes glint as he falls apart — it's going to feel like a knife to the throat.

He's still slumped against Cas' chest. His mouth is pressed to the curve of Cas' neck, and Cas' fingers are slowly sifting through his hair. He breathes Cas in one last time, then tells himself that he needs to sit up. There's still a ghost out there. He needs to zip his jeans and wipe the come off his hand and get back to work.

Cas must feel him tense, because he says, "Dean." And — great. There's that tone again.

"Cas, don't."

After a pause, Cas says, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have —" He swallows a sigh and looks out the window. His hair is a disaster, and a hickey is fading on the side of his neck. "I had hoped that, after all these years, you no longer feared me."

The mixtape is still playing; Dean lowers the volume because the last thing he needs right now is "The Lemon Song." He says, "Dude, that's not — I'm not —"

"Michael told me." Cas darts a glance at Dean, then reaches down to grab his trenchcoat from the footwell. He fusses with it as he continues, "He took perverse pleasure in mocking me for all of my... failings. For all the mistakes I'd made, and all the opportunities I'd missed. He told me you loved me." His voice breaks. "But he also told me that you witnessed my true form, and that it frightened you."

Dean is frightened, but not for the reasons Cas thinks. Before he can stop himself, he blurts, "It was incredible." The naked honesty makes his face heat, but now that he's said it, he's not going to take it back. "You were so big, and so —"

He can't make himself say beautiful, even though it's true. He also can't explain how seeing Cas like that had made him feel. Tiny. Insignificant. Unworthy. Cas is bigger than him, brighter. He deserves everything in the world, not some dipshit hunter who lives with one foot in the grave and steps in one apocalyptic mess after another.

"Dean, you —"

Someone knocks on the window.

Dean yelps, "Fuck," and sits up so fast he smacks his head against the Impala's roof. His heart pounds as he scrambles to straighten his shirts and zip his jeans. He's expecting a cop or a nosy neighbor, but it's —

It's a fucking ghost.

The guy is pretty solid; the street lamp behind him is just visible through his neck and shoulder. His clothing says he died in the 1920s. He's wearing a dark suit, a loud scarf tie, and a shirt with a standing collar. The brim of his derby is slanted over his left eye.

He says, "Pardon me. I hate to interrupt. But if you're finished with —" He makes a vague, awkward gesture. "Right. If you're finished, I could use some assistance."

Dean just stares at him until Cas nudges his arm. Then he shakes himself a little and says, "Okay. What — what kind of assistance?"

The guy hesitates. "Oh, dear. I'm afraid this will sound terribly unusual. I need you to exhume my body and salt and burn my bones."

Dean rubs his eyes, but — no. Dude's still there. And he's asking to be torched. Either Dean hit his head harder than he thought, or that LSD tab he dropped at nineteen is still in his system somehow.

Cas nudges his again. Dean says, "Okay," and reaches for the shotgun in the back seat. He opens the door and looks the guy up and down. "We're coming out, but don't try anything funny."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

Compared to the sex-fug inside the Impala, the air outside is crisp and cold. Dean shivers, freezing now that his blood isn't pumping a mile a minute. He leans his ass against the Impala's fender and settles his shotgun in the crook of his arm. The sharp, coppery smell of damp pavement fills his nose.

Up close, the ghost is taller than Dean and broader across the shoulders. The angle of his hat hides a thin scar that cuts across his eyebrow before curving down toward his cheek.

Dean asks him, "What's your name, pal?"

"Horace Templeton." He frowns at Dean's clothes for a moment, then turns to Cas and holds up his hands. Warily, he says, "Forgive me, seraph. I know you dislike it when we roam. Believe me when I tell you I am not here by choice."

"I know," Cas says, his voice tired and gruff. The hickey on his neck is just about gone. "You're here because Heaven is in a state of collapse."

Headlights flare in the distance — a car driving down an adjacent street. Dean says, "C'mon," and jerks his head toward the cemetery. "It's time to move this party somewhere more private."


+


Dean's had some truly weird experiences in his life, but digging up a grave while its owner sits on his headstone and watches is definitely up there.

"I do wish I could help you," Templeton says. He actually sounds like he means it. "I'm afraid my ability to touch the mortal plane is rather hit or miss."

Dean wishes Templeton could help too; his knees are throbbing, and his back is ready to file for divorce. Sadly, the shovel Cas offered him earlier passed right through his hands. "How long've you been down here?"

"Only a few days." Wind gusts through the cemetery, and the flashlight perched beside Templeton wobbles. "I do appreciate this. Everyone else I approached fell into hysterics."

Cas pushes his shovel into the dirt. "That's a common human reaction to ghosts."

"Not in my day. Spiritualism was all the rage. Many people sought encounters with the unknown." Scoffing, Templeton adds, "Fools. All their meddling with incantations and spirit boards created a dreadful amount of work. I had poltergeists at every turn."

Dean should've known when the guy asked to be salted and burned. "You were a hunter."

"I was, yes. Until a wraith got the better of me. My wife and I took up the cause together, after we —" Templeton cuts off and frowns at his hands.

"You lost a family member," Cas finishes.

"A demon possessed our youngest son. We brought in a doctor at first, and then a man from the church. We — you must understand, we didn't know." Templeton fusses with his tie before continuing, "The doctor was no help, of course, and prayers just made the creature angry. By the time a hunter found us — well. You know how these things end."

Dean mutters, "Yeah," and heaves some dirt out of the hole. It's just wet enough to make digging a pain in the ass. "We know."

A train whistle blares in the distance. Templeton says, "It was my wife's idea, hunting. I thought she was mad at first — raving mad. But she had a knack for it. She outlived me by twenty-seven years."

"Was she killed by a monster?" Cas asks.

"Indeed," Templeton says. "Felled by a werwolf, bless her soul." Wind rustles the trees behind them. "She ascended into my Heaven, which was quite the relief. I'd loved her dearly, and I'd fought at her side for fifteen years. I'd been terribly bored without her."

Dean straightens and knuckles the base of his spine. "No good memories?"

"Oh, plenty. But I knew they were just that, so they failed to keep my attention." Templeton stands and rests his hand on the headstone beside his. "A consequence of my line of work, I suppose. No rest for the weary, and all that." Pausing, he gives Dean a long, narrow look. "What did you say your name was?"

"Winchester. Dean Winchester."

"Yes. Winchester. You caused a fearful ruckus in Paradise several years ago. Souls are prohibited from wandering, of course, but —" Templeton frowns at Cas "— one does hear things from time to time. I do hope it all worked out."

Dean snorts under his breath. "More or less."

Cas spears his shovel into the dirt and wipes his forehead with his sleeve. He asks Templeton, "Why didn't you have a hunter's funeral?"

"I'd have preferred it, honestly, but the town knew me as a lawyer. If I'd simply vanished, people would've asked questions Louisa couldn't answer."

Dean's shovel cracks against something solid. He taps it a couple of times, then says, "Okay, buddy. Looks like this is it. You ready to shove off?"

Templeton hesitates. "I am, rather. But I — it's my wife." He gestures to the other headstone. "If Heaven is collapsing as you say, her soul will return eventually, and she'll be down here alone. I hate to think of it."

The last thing Dean wants is another two-for, but he sighs and says, "Yeah, alright."


+


They make it back to their motel just before three. The Glenwood Arms is a beige and brown two-story dump on a stretch of Ninth Street that doubles as the US 34 Business Route. It faces a taco joint and an all-night laundromat across a parking lot that has been painted and repainted so many times that the lines don't really mean anything. This late, the only light around comes from the laundromat's front windows and the motel's battered, neon sign. Together, they wash the wet tarmac in a mix of sickly reds and yellows.

Once they're inside, Dean heads straight for the bathroom and climbs into the dingy matchbox of a shower. The rain moved back in when they were about three feet into Louisa Templeton's grave; Dean has mud caked on his hands and face. It feels gritty and thick underneath his fingernails and in the creases of his elbows. His jeans and flannel deserve a hunter's funeral. He cranks the water up until it's steaming, then stands under the spray until mud stops swirling into the drain.

When he gets out, Cas is in the tiny kitchenette, popping the caps on a pair of beers. Wordlessly, he walks over and hands one to Dean. They stare at each other for a second; Cas runs a hand through his hopeless hair, and Dean drips water on the carpet. And — yeah. They need to talk. But before Dean can find the nerve, Cas turns away and grabs the laptop out of Dean's bag. They have two beds again, this time because that's all the motel had. Cas sits on the one closest to the door. He leans his back against the headboard and balances the laptop on his thighs.

Dean just looks at him — at the throat he touched, the mouth he kissed. Then he climbs into bed and pulls the ugly, floral bedspread up to his shoulders and mumbles, "Night, Cas," into his pillow.


+


Bobby calls early, right as Dean is coming back from the motel's office with a plate of so-called continental breakfast. It's the usual crap — stale bagels, melons soft enough for the garbage can, orange juice from concentrate, and chicory root pretending to be coffee. Dean doesn't really want it, but going to Biggerson's costs money and things are starting to get tight. He should do something about that before they hit Utah; he won't have much luck hustling poker or pool in a town full of Mormons.

Pain gnaws at Dean's shoulders and back. He sits at the kitchen table with a grunt and puts his phone to his ear. "Tell me you got something."

Bobby says, "Good morning to you too, son," and slurps so loudly that Dean winces. Sonofabitch is probably drinking a real cup of coffee. "I got good news and bad news."

"Great." Dean pokes at a slimy-looking piece of cantaloupe; he's not sure he can do it. "Gimme the good news first. We had a rough night."

"Well, Charlie's back. She didn't get eaten by Louisiana swamp monsters, or whatever you were worried about."

"Rougarous, Bobby. Louisiana has rougarous. What about Rowena?"

"No clue. She dropped Charlie off and drove away."

Dean says, "I don't like the sound of that," and spreads cream cheese on an everything bagel with almost no onions but enough poppy seeds to confuse a drug test.

"Yeah, well. I figure witches keep their own schedules." After slurping in Dean's ear again, Bobby continues, "Anyway, Charlie helped me go through your books. We looked at anything that even mentioned ghosts."

"And?"

"And, no dice. Salting and burning these folks is pretty much the only trick up your sleeve."

Chewing, Dean asks, "Pretty much?"

Bobby hesitates before admitting, "Well, there was one thing, about sending restless spirits to Purgatory. The spell was mumbo-jumbo to me, but I guess it opens a portal —"

"Nope. No way." This Bobby wouldn't understand; he wasn't around for that whole mess. But it's not a chance Dean's willing to take. He'd rather dig up every stiff in the country than accidentally let some Leviathan loose because he drilled a hole in the matrix. "Anything else?"

"I don't think you're gonna like this one any better, but —" Dean hears papers shuffle on that end of the line. Then, "Charlie found something that said a reaper can move a restless spirit along."

The door slowly creaks open. A beat later, Cas walks in looking damp and windswept and kind of irritable. He's carrying two cups of — thank fuck — Gas & Sip coffee. He hands one to Dean as Dean tells Bobby, "Go on. I'm listening."

Sighing, Bobby says, "There ain't much to tell. Reapers have the juice to wrangle a lost soul, but they don't usually bother. All they care about is offering that first ride to the other side. They figure anything that happens after that ain't their business."

"Great."

"The other thing is, you gotta get ahold of one. I know you boys get around, but I don't suppose you got the Grim Reaper on speed-dial."

Dean pushes his plate away. He licks the cream cheese off his fingers and looks over at Cas. Cas is sitting on his bed, sipping his coffee and flipping through the motel's handful of channels with the volume at a buzz. He's down to his dress shirt and slacks. His shoes are off; his navy blue socks have gold seams across the toes.

There's one more dose of Dr. Robert's flatline cocktail in Dean's bag, but he's not going to make Cas babysit his corpse for three minutes. Not after everything Cas went through to get him away from Michael in one piece; not after Cas hopped in his mind to find him slicing up souls on a rack. For the first couple of weeks, Michael kept Dean in a dream where they all lived in a house by the beach — where Sam played fetch with a dog in the surf, where Cas read books under the shade of a tree, where Dean got up early on Sundays to fish, where he and Cas shared a bed that squeaked and groaned so much that Sam threatened to move out. But after the third or fourth time Dean tried to take control of the wheel, Michael trapped him in a nightmare that looped through his worst and grisliest memories of Hell. Everything had reeked of sulfur and ash, and blood had run down his hands.

Cas dragged him out of the Pit again.

"You still there, son?"

"Yeah, I —" Dean clears his throat. "I gotta go. Thanks, Bobby."

Cas says, "Bobby's right about reapers. They can dispell restless spirits, but they're generally reluctant to do so."

"Yeah." Dean gets up and shuffles over to his bed. Sitting feels like getting stabbed in the spine. "And we'd have to find one."

"Didn't you say one had been following you around?"

Dean hasn't seen or heard from Jessica since letting Michael in. Most people don't walk away from something like that; she probably figured he was a lost cause. "I think she got herself a more interesting gig."

Cas sets his coffee on the nightstand and gets to his feet. He says, "We should go," and points to the TV, where a dude with Ken Doll hair and an expensive smile is pointing at a traffic map covered in red arrows and yellow dots. "There's a construction delay south of Denver."

"Alright."

Dean rubs his eyes and tries to find the energy to stand up. It doesn't happen; instead, he spends about five minutes nursing his coffee and staring at the floor, then another five minutes nursing his coffee and blinking at the TV without really seeing it. He rolls his shoulders a little, but that just makes a stiff, sullen ache flare up into his neck. He swallows a grunt and rubs his eyes again.

"Dean." Cas tugs the coffee cup out of Dean's hands and moves to stand between Dean's legs. His fingers brush Dean's cheek. "Your back hurts."

Hunting has never been easy on the body, but being hunched over for five or six hours every night is turning Dean into an old man. "Yeah."

Cas reaches up and cradles Dean's jaw. Dean feels a bright, electric snap in the air, and then Cas' grace starts pulsing through his body. Even though he's expecting it, the chilly-hot shock of it makes him grit his teeth. He sucks in a breath and closes his eyes. Cas' other hand strokes through his hair.

When it's over, Cas doesn't pull away. Dean leans into his palm, turning his head until his lips bump the inside of Cas' wrist. Cas murmurs, "Dean," in a soft, throaty voice and slides the hand in Dean's hair down to Dean's face. His fingers trace the shell of Dean's ear, then skim down his temple and across his cheek. They pause at the corner of Dean's mouth before trailing over his lips. Shivering, Dean opens up and sucks them in — first one, then two, then three.

And — fuck. Dean wasn't going to do this again — at least, not until he and Cas talked some stuff out. But heat is already building in his gut, just from hearing Cas' breath hitch and watching his eyes go wide and dark. Cas tastes like skin and salt and a little like coffee — he probably spilled some on himself while he was pouring it out. Dean tilts his head back so he can curl his tongue around Cas' fingertips, then draws them back in as deep as he can. They're fucking huge. Spit runs down Cas' knuckles, slicking his palm.

Cas makes a low, thin noise and closes his eyes. His wet fingers drag past Dean's lips and press against Dean's tongue. Dean grabs him by the hips and pulls him closer. Things are going to be awkward later — when they're trapped in the car during the three-hour haul to Pueblo, when Dean's trying to forget he just had Cas' dick in his mouth and there's nothing to distract him but a highway cutting through the Colorado badlands. But he wants it — Jesus Christ, he wants it. Cas wants it too; his dick is hard and curving against the front of his slacks.

Dean strokes him through the fabric, just soft pressure from the heel of his hand. He smiles around Cas' fingers as Cas moans. He runs his thumb up under the flap of Cas' fly, right along the zipper. As Dean is pulling it down, the air in the room takes a cold, sharp turn. Ozone crowds into Dean's nose. Then something slams into his side and knocks him off the bed.


+


Dean mutters, "I don't fucking believe this," because — yeah. He doesn't fucking believe this.

Across the table, Cas makes a tight, irritable noise and holds Sam's tablet up like he thinks the motel's shitty wi-fi will be better closer to the door. His face is still flushed from almost getting his dick sucked. A weird mix of embarrassment and arousal prickles over Dean's skin; he glares at the ghost that interrupted them and tries to ignore the frustrated ache between his legs.

A lopsided salt circle is keeping the ghost in the kitchenette. Cas asked him his name, but all he did was snarl and throw himself against the trap. Now, he's pacing the inside of the circle like a caged tiger. He's fiftyish, shorter than Dean, and paunchy in a way that says he drank a six-pack every night but didn't work it off during the day. According to his mutton chops and ugly, Disco Inferno clothes, he died sometime in the 1970s.

Sighing, Dean turns back to his laptop. His eyes are burning from staring at plat maps and property deeds for the last hour. It's almost nine-thirty, and check-out time is at noon. If they don't get this wrapped up before then, Dean will have to shell out seventy bucks for another night in the room. His wallet's thin enough that he doesn't want to do that, but he doesn't want to leave an angry ghost behind either. The sonofabitch could attack the maids or the next guests while Dean and Cas are sitting at a diner, still looking for his name.

"Well," Dean says, rubbing his eyes. "This rat-trap was built in 1981, but I can't figure out what was here before that."

"A tavern called Laverne's Place." Cas pokes at the tablet's screen a couple of times before handing it to Dean. "It closed in 1978 after losing its liquor license. It had a number of business and safety violations, but a major contributing factor was a stabbing death on the premises. The victim was a drifter named Reggie Martin."

An icy wind whips through the room. The ghost growls and thrashes at the edge of the salt circle.

Dean says, "Yahtzee," and looks at the tablet. It's open to a blurry scan of a Denver Post article from December 1977. It tells Dean that Martin was found dead in the tavern's bathroom shortly before closing time. The police suspect that the motive was a hustle gone sideways. Earlier in the evening, Martin was seen arguing with two men near one of the pool tables.

Standing, Cas says, "The time-frame is right." He grabs the salt canister off the kitchenette counter and strengthens the circle. The walls rattle and creak; Martin throws back his head and howls. "And he suffered a violent death."

"Yeah." Dean swipes to the next photo — a follow-up article from January 1978 that's harder to read than the original. It says that the case is still unsolved and asks that anyone with information contact the Greeley PD. It also notes that the Weld County Coroner's office disposed of Martin's body because no one claimed it within thirty days of his death. "Well, shit. He was cremated."

Martin takes a swipe at Cas, his hand slamming to a stop a few inches from Cas' face. The walls rattle again. Cas frowns at him for a second, then looks back at Dean. "We'll have to figure out what's holding him here."

"I wonder —" Dean trades the tablet for his laptop and types Martin's name and "Greeley murder 1977" into Google. According to the first three hits, the case is still unsolved. He says, "I have an idea," and stands. "Get suited up. We're going to the police station."


+


Greeley's police station is an ugly hunk of brickwork on a section of Tenth Street that also serves as the town's fast-food alley. It has giant double doors flanked by pair of floor-to-ceiling windows, and all three are topped with huge, overwrought, half-moon skylights. The parking lot out front has video surveillance, so Dean stashes the Impala two blocks north on Twenty-Eighth Avenue. A brisk wind nips at them on the walk over — something strong enough to tug at Dean's coat but too weak to chase away the greasy haze coming from the McDonald's and KFC across the street.

Being around a lot of cops always puts Dean's nerves on edge, and it would be better if they weren't seen by too many people. Instead of busting in through the main entrance, they scout the rear of the building until they find a door that's probably used for sneaking cigarettes on the clock. Cas touches the handle, and the lock turns over with a soft click. Inside, the station smells like stale coffee and furniture polish. It buzzes with office noise — voices, telephones, keyboard clacks, photocopiers, fax machines.

The evidence locker is in the basement, in a large room guarded by a uniformed brunette and an oversized Dutch door. She gives them a quick, disinterested once-over as they approach. Her name-tag says "Officer Cardoza."

Dean flashes his fed badge and says, "Hi. I'm Agent Page, and this is Agent Plant. We need to look at the evidence for one of your cold cases. We think it might be connected to something we're working on."

"Sure thing," Cardoza says flatly. "I need a chain of custody form, and —" she shoves a clipboard a Cas "— you both have to sign."

Cas takes the clipboard and makes a show of checking his pockets. "I don't — may I borrow your pen?"

His fingers brush hers as she passes it over. Her shoulders jerk. Her mouth falls open and her eyes go glassy. She blinks a few times, then asks, "How can I help you?" in a voice like old plywood.

Dean says, "We need everything you've got on Reggie Martin. It's an unsolved murder from 1977."

Cardoza nods stiffly and walks away. Dean hears a few thumps, then the squeaky rattle of a rolling ladder. A few minutes later, she comes back with a banker's box that's dusty and yellow from rotting on a shelf for decades. "Martin '77" is scrawled on the side, along with a case number and the names of the original detectives.

Walking out with it feels too risky, so Dean herds Cas into a supply closet a few doors down. A horseshoe of wire shelving takes up most of the space, leaving a narrow strip of floor that's just large enough for them to work. The reek of industrial-strength cleaners and air fresheners slaps Dean in the face; he coughs so hard that his eyes start watering. The taste of artificial pine trees itches the back of his throat.

Rubbing his nose, he asks, "How long's that hoodoo gonna last?"

"About twenty minutes."

Dean sets the box on the floor and crouches down beside it. The lid has been on so long that he has to wrestle it off. Inside, he finds some blood-stained clothes — brown, polyester pants; a silk shirt in an obnoxious, paisley print; a pair of white loafers that are jaundiced with age. There isn't much in Martin's wallet, just an Ohio driver's license, twenty-six dollars in fives and ones, and an honorable discharge from the Navy that dates back to the Korean War. A small Ziploc bag at the bottom of the box holds a plastic St. Christopher medal strung with black twine.

Dean looks at the medal for a second, then snorts and tosses it back in the box. "Lotta good that did him."

Cas asks, "Are we burning it?"

That was the plan, but — Dean isn't so sure anymore. Looking at Martin's shit is giving him second thoughts. "I don't know. If we do, the case'll never get solved."

"True. But if —" Cas cuts off as someone walks past the door. He flexes his hand like he's cooking up something with his grace, and he stays like that until they're gone. Then he says, "If we don't, Martin won't move on."

"Yeah." Dean pulls a bottle of butane out of his coat and starts dousing the stuff in the box. "If we get him outta here, he won't care. 'Sides, it's been so long, the fuckers who snuffed him are probably dead too."

His lighter sparks on the second click.


+


South of Denver, Cas sucks in a sharp breath. He says, "Dean," in a rough, pained voice.

They're on I-25, cutting through the high desert that rolls out from the foot of the Rockies like a blanket. This far outside Colorado Springs, unbroken scrubland stretches for miles in either direction and thickets of brush butt right against the shoulder. Railroad tracks shadow the highway on a gravel berm to the west; the freighter pacing them glints brightly in the afternoon sun.

"Houses of the Holy" is playing on the stereo. Dean turns it down a little as he asks, "What's up?"

"Angel radio."

"I thought you said it was just static."

"It has been for months. But —" An unhappy line tugs at Cas' mouth. "It's Naomi."

Dean grits his teeth. There's an angel on my shoulder, in my hand a sword of gold. "What's she want?"

"She's ordered me to return to Heaven."


+


The first flop Dean spots in Pueblo is a motor court, the kind of joint where the rooms are individual, matchbox bungalows. They're dingy white with blue trim that's faded from too many summers, and each one has an sagging, aluminum-roofed carport tacked on to its side. Dean asks for a single because he can't spare the extra twenty bucks for a second bed. That, and he doesn't give a shit anymore. Cas heading back upstairs is going to hurt either way; Dean might as well make these last few hours count.

As soon as they're inside, Dean grabs Cas by the coat and crowds him back against the wall. He cradles Cas' face with one hand, then kisses him hard, all spit and tongue and teeth. He gets his other hand between them and untucks Cas' shirt. He hooks his finger in Cas' belt and tugs until the buckle gives.

"Dean —? What —"

"Don't," Dean says. His knees are too old for this shit, but — fuck it. He gets Cas' slacks open and shoves them down past his thighs. "Just — just let me."

Cas says, "Dean," again, but it's different this time — lower, darker, rougher. He pushes his hand into Dean's hair and tugs hard enough to make Dean moan.

Dean hides the noise in Cas' skin; he mouths a wet trail across Cas' hip and noses at the wiry hair arrowing away from Cas' navel. He presses a soft, open kiss to the base of Cas' dick. Cas slides his hand down to the back of Dean's neck and digs his thumb into the dip behind Dean's ear. He's only half-hard when Dean sucks him in, but it just takes a few pulls of Dean's mouth before he's filling, pushing against Dean's tongue.

It's been awhile since Dean's done this, but he remembers the rhythm of it — how to bob his head, how to relax his jaw, how to draw back when the tip catches his lips so he can work his tongue over the slit. He sucks Cas in as deep as he can, hollowing his cheeks as he sinks down, wrapping his hand around the base when Cas starts arching away from the wall. He tucks his other hand between Cas' legs and teases the skin behind his balls. The noises Cas makes are incredible — needy, throaty, desperate things that dig into the searing-white heat coiling in Dean's gut.

Cas tugs Dean's hair again, and brings his other hand down to touch Dean's face. He brushes his thumb over the wet stretch of Dean's lips, then strokes it up and traces the shape of himself through Dean's cheek. He comes suddenly, his hips snapping as a shiver running through his body. Dean sucks him through it, soft and easy and slow, curling his tongue around Cas' dick until Cas chokes out his name and tugs at the collar of his shirt.

Dean's knees wobble when Cas helps him up; he leans against Cas' chest as he unzips his jeans and pushes them out of the way. He rubs himself against Cas' thigh — thrusting once, twice, three times — but then Cas' hand is there, huge and sweat-warm and perfect. He pulls Dean closer and presses his mouth to Dean's jaw.

"Dean, what do you want?"

A noise catches in Dean's throat; he's so close he can feel it everywhere — the palms of his hands, the soles of his feet, the backs of his thighs. He rolls his hips and pants, "This — I'm good."

Cas twists his wrist and skims his thumb over the head of Dean's dick. "I'd give you anything. Let me — tell me what you want."

Dean wants a lot of things: he wants to fuck Cas hard after licking him open, and he wants to finger himself while Cas watches and then ease himself down on Cas' dick. He wants there not to be monsters. He wants to not be chasing ghosts all across the country because Heaven is falling to shit. He wants the beach house he saw in Michael's dream — a place with a porch swing and a fire pit, a place so close to the water he heard the waves lapping at the shore as he and Cas drifted off to sleep.

He hides his face in the curve of Cas' neck. He mumbles, "I want you to stay," and comes all over Cas' hand and the tails of Cas' shirt.

They just stand there for a minute, breathing hard and slumped against the wall. Eventually, Cas cleans them up with a wave of his hand. Dean takes that as his cue; he steps back and yanks his jeans up over his ass.

Cas says, "Dean," but Dean waves him off before he can finish.

"Don't. Just — don't."

"Dean." This time, Cas catches Dean by the shoulder. He pulls Dean in and kisses him, hard, like he doesn't care that Dean's mouth is come-sticky and swollen. "Dean, I'm not going back to Heaven."

"You — what?"

Cas huffs under his breath and herds Dean back toward the bed. Dean's knees are still wobbly, so he gives into gravity and sits when his calves hit the mattress. Cas follows him down; he kneels between Dean's legs and rests his hands on Dean's thighs.

"I'm not going back to Heaven," he says again.

"I thought you said it was an order."

"It was, but —" Cas shrugs. "I've been told on more than one occasion that I'm not very good at following directions."

"You — they'll cut you off." Dean still has nightmares about the months Cas spent as a human — about all the mundane, human bullets he managed to dodge. How he could've caught pneumonia or been hit by a bus or been shot in a robbery at the Gas & Sip. "Won't they cut you off? They did it before."

Cas shakes his head. "I doubt it. Before — during the apocalypse — Michael cut me off. Michael, acting with God's authority. Naomi doesn't have that. She —" His mouth twists. "Naomi has eight angels who are likely already guttering like candles."

"Why?" Dean asks, because — yeah. He's seen Cas' wings, and the bright, gorgeous light blazing inside him. Cas is bigger than this room — bigger than Dean's whole life. "Don't get me wrong, here — I don't want you to go. But you — you're —"

"I love you," Cas says, easy as anything. He reaches up and cups Dean's jaw. "I love you, and that — that's — that's what matters."

"Cas, c'mon." Dean squeezes Cas' shoulder. A lump builds in his throat as he admits, "I, uh — I love you too." He makes himself breathe. "But if there's something else going on here, I need to know."

"It's not —" Cas pauses for a long time — long enough that Dean almost decides to leave it, at least for now. But then Cas sighs quietly and says, "When we went to that other world to rescue Jack and your mother, I met that version of myself." Before Dean can ask, he adds, "It was during the mission to retrieve Charlie and Ketch. I... encountered him outside. He was a cruel, twisted, and broken thing. Maimed both physically and mentally. His sole purpose in that universe was torturing and killing humans who flouted Heaven's will."

Dean feels sick. He says, "Hey," and palms the side of Cas' neck. "It wasn't you."

"I could see inside him, Dean. Everything he was, everything he'd been." Cas lets out another sigh, then stands and paces the length of the bed. His hands clench into fists. "When that Michael turned on humanity, I — he — tried to help them. For his disobedience, Heaven blinded him. They mutilated his wings. They programmed and reprogrammed his brain until there was virtually nothing left."

"It wasn't you," Dean says again. He — fuck. It's the best he can do.

"But he was me," Cas insists. His voice is thinner than a thread. "We carried the same grace. God created us on the same day, with the same intent. And when we broke ranks, Heaven tried to force us back in line." He swallows hard before continuing, "I rebelled before the apocalypse. I rebelled many times. But before Heaven could turn me into that, I met you. You — you, and your brother — you helped me. You gave me someplace else to land."

"Jesus," Dean says, standing. His heart is beating in his throat. "Jesus Christ. C'mere." He pulls Cas close and wraps him into a hug. "You killed him, didn't you?"

Cas just nods.

Dean says, "Hey, it's okay," and strokes his hand through Cas' hair. "We can't save everyone. A pretty smart guy told me that once."

Cas nods again. "I know."


+


Jack calls in the middle of a M*A*S*H episode — the one where Hawkeye tries to have American ribs and coleslaw airlifted to Korea. The woman being haunted by her grandparents wasn't home when Dean and Cas cruised her by place, so they've spent the afternoon watching reruns on the motor court's staticky boob tube. Half a meatlover's pizza is sitting on the floor by Dean's side of the bed.

"Hey, kid."

"Dean," Jack says brightly. "How are you and Castiel?"

"Good," Dean says, dropping a pizza crust in the box. He has pepperoni stuck between his teeth. "Tired. We're in Colorado tonight, and then we're headed to Utah." He still hasn't called Walt about those ghosts up north. "What about you? Your mojo still okay?"

"Yes. It's completely regenerated. Your mother broke her arm when we fought the vampires, but I was able to heal it."

Dean bites back a sigh. Mary's recklessness is enough to make his chest ache, but telling her to be careful is like pissing in the wind. "How's Sam?"

Jack hesitates. "That's why I called, Dean. Your brother left after we settled the ghosts in Fort Wayne. And he — he isn't answering his phone. We were hoping he was with you."

"No. He —" the bed creaks as Dean sits up "— he ain't here. Did he tell you where he was going?"

"No. He just said he 'had to take care of something.'"

"Something more important than helping you and Mom dig up graves?"

"Oh, we don't have to dig them up," Jack says. He sounds excited. "I can pull the coffins out of the ground."

Dean just blinks for a second; this kid is unbelievable. He doesn't know if he's terrified or proud. "Where're you guys now?"

"Lexington, Kentucky."

"We just did a job in Lexington."

Jack hesitates again. Dean hears road noise in the background — like they're at a gas station, or the parking lot of a diner. Then, "I know. That's the other reason I called. The ghosts you settled at the Moreland House have come back. Plus three more."

"What?"

"So have some of the ghosts in Wheeling — the ones from the factory fire. I don't understand it, Dean." Jack makes a quiet, frustrated noise. "Once we burn their bones, they're supposed to stay gone."

Sighing, Dean says, "Yeah, they are." The bed creaks again as Cas sits up behind him. He squeezes Dean's shoulder as Dean continues, "Look, you guys stay put." He might have to make that reaper phone call after all. He doesn't want to, but — fuck. Fuck. "We'll get back to you after we figure this out."

"Okay, Dean."

Cas touches the back of Dean's neck. "Dean, if you're thinking about doing what I think you're thinking about doing —"

"I don't know." Dean needs a beer, so he gets up and walks over to the cooler. He grabs two; the bottles are wet from sloshing around in ice. He hands one to Cas and says, "I'm just keeping my options open."

"It's not an option."

Dean mutters, "Okay, okay," and drains the neck of his beer. "Help me work this out. I always thought torching a guy just... ended him. Have we been sending these assholes back to Heaven? Throwing them at the wall and hoping they stick?"

"No," Cas says, shaking his head. "Burning the bones disrupts a soul's connection to God. They lose the privilege of Heaven. Or — if they're damned — the punishment of Hell. They go to the Empty."

"Okay," Dean says again. He rubs his face. "Then why aren't they staying there?"

A telephone rings next door. Cas says, "The entity there craves solace. Peace. Nothingness. A sudden influx of restless souls may have disturbed it."

"So, what —? It gave these spooks the boot outta spite?"

"Possibly." Cas' mouth quirks. "It sent me back after Jack woke me simply because I pestered it."

Anger stabs into Dean's gut. His next mouthful of beer tastes like ash. He's so tired of this shit. He's tired of busting his ass again and again and never really getting ahead.

He snarls, "Damn it," and kicks the pizza box across the room. It skids into the wall, sending crusts tumbling across the balding carpet. "Remember when all we had to do was kill werewolves? Remember when we weren't chasing Satan or crawling into alternate universes or mopping up one of Heaven's messes?"

"Dean —"

Dean snarls again and hurls his beer against the wall. The shattering glass just sets his teeth on edge. "Fuck."

"Dean."

It's a different voice — a voice that prickles Dean's skin and raises the hair at the back of his neck. Dean sucks in a breath before turning around. She's standing by the door, wearing a leather coat the color of graveyard shadows. The air around her is humming with power. Her scythe is propped against the wall.

"Billie." Dean's heart is pounding, but he sticks out his chin and puts some gravel in his voice. "You just in the neighborhood? Or did all that bacon finally catch up with me?"

"I thought it was time we had a chat." After pulling her gloves off, she glances at Cas. "Castiel. I never did thank you for the promotion."

Cas makes a rough, furious noise and steps closer to Dean. Dean touches his arm as he tells Billie, "If you're here about the ghosts, you're wasting your time. Apparently, the Empty's just spitting them back out."

"I know. But I thought I should check in before you do something —" her mouth twists "— stupid."

Dean lets that one go. He doesn't have much choice. "Can you help us?"

Billie tilts her head thoughtfully. "My people don't usually bother with restless spirits. We provide the dead with transportation to the other side — one-time only, no take-backs. But, given the gravity of this situation, I might be persuaded to intervene. If you had someplace to send them. But you don't. The Empty doesn't want them, and Heaven can't hold them."

Dean hates even considering it, but — fuck. Desperate times. He asks, "What about Purgatory?"

"Dean." Cas grabs his sleeve. "Dean, no."

Desperate times. "Billie, what about Purgatory?"

Billie lifts an eyebrow. "Are you sure you want to go down that path?" She glances at Cas again. "It didn't work out so well for some of you last time."

Dean's gut lurches. He remembers Cas walking into that lake, and he has to breathe for a second to keep his beer from coming back up. "What else are we gonna do?"

"You could always pray for a miracle."

"That isn't going to happen," Cas snaps.

Something sly tugs at Billie's mouth. "Normally, I'd agree with you. But —" She spreads her hands. Her nails are painted a black darker than her coat. "Let's just say, I know something you don't."

"So, that's it?" The anger drains out of Dean in a rush. Now he's just tired — so fucking tired. "We're just supposed to sit here and wait for Heaven to blow up?"

"A kitsune is working her way through Montana, if you're looking for something a little more your speed."

She reaches for her scythe. Dean asks, "Wait. My brother. Is he —?"

"He's alive. If he wasn't, I'd know."


+


Dean pushes his hand into Cas' hair and tugs until Cas gasps. He murmurs, "Yeah," against Cas' jaw, then nips the well of Cas' lower lip. Cas gasps again and slides his tongue into Dean's mouth. Dean runs his other hand down Cas' back before untucking his shirt and palming the warm skin at the dip of his spine.

His phone buzzes.

Cas leans up on his elbow. "Dean?"

Dean says, "Fuck 'em," and hitches Cas closer.

His phone buzzes again.

"Dean." Cas' mouth is red and wet. "It could be your brother."

Sighing, Dean reaches for the nightstand. It is Sam, because of course it is. Dean left him about five voicemails earlier, so of course he calls back right when Dean's trying to get laid.

He puts the phone to his ear and grunts, "Where the hell have you been?"

"I — uh. That's kind of a long story. Where are you?"

Cas kisses the hollow of Dean's throat. Tipping his head back, Dean says, "Colorado."

"Where in Colorado?"

"Pueblo."

Sam heaves out a sigh that rattles in Dean's ear. "Where in Pueblo? Give me an address."

Dean reaches for the nightstand again and gropes around until he finds the complimentary matchbox. "Uh... Breckenridge Motor Court. Route 50 and Club Manor Drive."

A flapping sound rips through the air. It's been so long since Dean's heard it that he doesn't understand what's happening until Sam and Gabriel are standing at the foot of the bed.

"Oh, man." Gabriel whistles through his teeth. "Are we interrupting something?" When Dean just stares at him, he elbows Sam and says, "You didn't tell me they finally started doing it," in a fake whisper.

Cas clears his throat. Dean shakes himself back to reality and scrambles up to sit against the headboard. "What — what the fuck? How are you alive?"

"Rowena," Gabriel says, smiling. "I guess she just missed me too much."

"Wait." Dean rubs his face and looks at Sam. "So, this is what you were doing? You tracked down Rowena — alone — and had her yank an archangel out of the Empty?"

"Yeah, I know. Sounds nuts. But —" Sam flashes some teeth. "It worked, didn't it?"

Before Dean can argue about it, Cas says, "Gabriel," in a gruff voice. A purple-red hickey is peeking above his collar. "Are you returning to Heaven?"

"That's the plan, bro."

An engine roars to life in the parking lot. Dean asks, "Can you fix it?"

Gabriel shakes his head. "No. Not if things are as bad as Sam says. But I can probably stop the bleeding a little, at least until we cook up some more angels."

"Wait." Dean rubs his face again. He feels like his head is going to explode. "You — can you do that?"

"I can't, but I'm pretty sure the kid can."

"Jack?"

"Yeah. He's definitely got the juice. We just got to find the spell Dad used. Sam told me the Angel Tablet's been junked, but —" Gabriel shrugs. "That was just the published copy. Dad left rough drafts all over the place. We'll figure it out."

Sam tells Gabriel, "Jack's in Indiana with my mom. You, uh — you mind dropping me off on the way?"

Gabriel says, "Sure thing, pal." He grabs Sam's arm, then winks at Dean and Cas. "Wouldn't want to interrupt the honeymoon."

Feathers rustle. A beat later, they blip out with a burst of wind that rattles the security chain on the door. Dean just stares at the empty space for a few seconds. He — Christ. It's been a hell of a week.

He says, "I guess that's our miracle. Fucking Gabriel."

Cas pulls Dean close. "Billie must have felt him return."

Dean says, "Yeah," before kissing Cas long and deep and slow. Then, "C'mon. Help me get pack up. I wanna get outta here."

"Are we going to Montana?"

"No." Dean will call Walt about the kitsune. "Back to the bunker." Lebanon is only a few hours away; he figures he can swing that in one stretch is Cas is there to heal him at the end of it. "We're gonna go home."

"Home?" Cas asks. The hopeful curl in his voice makes Dean's chest ache.

"Yeah, home."

Cas smiles. "I'd like that."