Archive of Our Own

[i.]

They've seen some unbelievable things. New England isn't one of them, and New England is one of them because the air is sharp with salt and magic. Deep, steeped in the ocean waters, like the water running under the land. The wind is cold coming off the waves, and the wind is cold with the feeling of dark possibility.

New England is like that. The water glitters like broken things, and Sam squints because the sky is heart-piercing blue, the kind that makes you draw a breath and the air is so cold, the sky is so cold, you feel it like a stone between your ribs.

The houses are white, clapboard saltboxes, no-nonsense in the country of salt and magic. Sam thinks there's a barrier in the wood, maybe the forests.

They've seen some unbelievable things. New England quietly isn't one of them, with its breezes and flags on porches, and it quietly is one of them because it defies all logic, how anything with so much salt in its heart could still be capable of ghosts and witches, incantations flaring like lighthouses and unsettled cemeteries.

[ii.]

The bathroom is green. Some shade not found in nature and if it is, then it shouldn't be there. Downright definition of unnatural and Dean doesn't remember how much he's had to drink.

He looks at the mirror, sees how he's leaning on the sink. The sink isn't beige as much as it needs to be cleaned. And his knuckles are red as his fingers curl on the porcelain, but at the moment, he can't remember why.

They've only been here a day, but already they've learned to let the faucet run for a few seconds before putting skin, fingers, hands, wounds under the water because it runs clear, runs rusty, then runs clear again.

Dean doesn't remember how much he's had to drink. It must've been a lot because he's let the water run for a while and he doesn't hear Sam come up behind him.

“Hey.”

He looks at the mirror. Those last three whiskeys were not a good idea, now all he can see is Sam behind him, he can't see his own reflection. The silver's taken up by Sam and he's not even standing that close.

“What, Sam.”

“You gonna get outta there anytime soon, Dean?”

“What's it to you?”

“Gotta take a piss.”

“Like that's ever stopped you before, Sammy.”

The Sam behind him and the Sam in the mirror push breath out between their teeth. The two Sams cross their arms and lean against the doorway. It's unfair that the Sam in the mirror acts the same way the Sam in real life does.

Dean splashes water over his face, so cold, like the faucet's pulling from the ocean.

There's a puddle of water when Dean turns to leave and he slips, almost cracks his head on the sink, but Sam catches him by the elbows.

And he doesn't remember how much he's had to drink or why it was such a good idea at the time or what that look is on Sam's face or what the shadows underneath his eyes mean.

He shakes himself loose from Sam. He doesn't know how much Sam's had to drink either, but he probably should. Sam's his little brother. He should know, but he doesn't ask. Sam nods before going into the unnatural green bathroom and closing the door, blocking out the light.

[iii.]

Dean dreams. Swimming light, as if he's underwater, but he's not, he's dry, standing on the side of the road.

There's clouds overhead and a mirror in the field, in the trapped underwater light.

Sam's there, the Sam his little brother and then the Sam in the mirror and then Dean's screaming.

Because the mirror's frame stretches obscenely and the Sam in the mirror steps out and slits his little brother's throat.

Because he smiles at Dean as he wipes the knife on his jeans and he throws it at the mirror, breaking it with one huge crack down the middle, and then he slides into the shotgun seat.

Because there's blood on the mirror and the other Sam is fitting his mouth to Dean's and breathing.

Breath like metal.

And the light shifts and folds and maybe Dean is drowning.

[iv.]

They pass a cemetery with a black wrought iron fence, plants growing up around and through the metal curlicues. When Dean looks over, Sam's holding his breath.

“It doesn't work, you know,” he says and then they're around the corner.

Sam exhales hard and coughs, says, “I know, but.”

“'s just a superstition, Sammy.”

He doesn't ask how many cemeteries over the years Sam's held his breath past. Especially when they're constantly going into the cemeteries.

“Think it's different if you're going into the cemetery?”

Hair in his eyes as Sam fishes about through some papers and he says, “What?”

“Well, holding your breath. It's gotta be worse if you're in the cemetery than just going by it,” Dean says, slowing for a red light.

Sam hums, like he's matching the idling engine. “Maybe the ground makes a difference?”

“Like hallowed ground versus not?”

“Yeah.” Sam tilts his head, shoots the cuffs of his jacket. “Maybe the dead can escape easier. If you're not on hallowed ground.”

Dean stares at the stoplight and the drifting clouds. “I think they'd escape any which way they could.”

“No more digging up graves then?”

He doesn't reply because Sam knows the answer to that. They'll always be digging up graves. Even here where the dead practically can't stay in the ground.

He thinks about it all the way to the morgue, as the medical examiner shows them the dead teenage girl who's got mint green nail polish on her toes and her torso sliced open and her heart missing.

She would've bled from the mouth, but on the coroner's table, she's clean, white-blue.

No one ever found her heart, but there's a slumber party of about six girls who now have bloodstained pajamas and a lifetime of nightmares, there's a widow who took off her wedding ring after two days, there's a mother who's living from sedative to sedative.

Third body. Third heart.

When the ME walks away for a minute, Dean leans over and says, “You should probably hold your breath here.”

Sam looks sad, for some unfathomable reason, something Dean never quite understands, his brother just going sad sometimes.

“I don't think I'll breathe in her spirit here.”

Dean says, “What makes this different from a cemetery?”

And Sam says, “They haven't found her heart,” and Dean doesn't know what that means.

They pass back by the cemetery on the way to the motel. Sam doesn't hold his breath.

[v.]

In the diner, Sam's still thinking about it, staring somewhere over Dean's shoulder.

Which is fine, it means that Dean gets to drink his coffee, though it's burnt, the waitress gave Sam his first and must've drained the pot with Dean's cup. Black dregs, and Sam's still thinking about it, and Dean's thinking that they'll go to New Orleans next, down south where the nights are darker and he can get chicory coffee, bitter like it should be up in the north.

Bitter enough to ward off the cold and the snapping taste to the air.

“She was sliced open, Dean,” Sam says, turning his fork over and over and over, and it catches the paltry sunlight, bright in Sam's fingers.

“Yeah, Doogie Howser, I saw.”

“The cut was too neat. I don't think it's a werewolf though. Even if they couldn't find her heart.”

And that's what Sam's stuck on, that's what's turning him inside out like the fork in his fingers.

It's not that Dean's cold-blooded or heartless, it's not that he's completely immune to suffering because fuck knows, the Winchester name is spelled in suffering, but he's always reacted different to the horrors they see, to the drip of blood and the irredeemable bodies.

Sam takes each one, each hunt and each scream in the night, he takes each one like a wound, stitched closed somewhere on him. Scars. Deep down to his bones.

The fork turns over and over and Sam sighs.

“We'll talk to the family next, okay,” Dean says and Sam nods, pushes his plate away.

He wants to say they'll fix it, they'll figure it out, because they don't leave things half-assed and undone, not when people are dying.

But he knows Sam. Stubborn like the day is long and his brother will never give up. On anything or anyone.

Though Dean thinks sometimes he's the exception to the rule.

When he looks out the window, he sees their reflections superimposed off-center on the Impala outside.

Sam in the reflection finishes his coffee and says, “Dean. You ready?”

And Dean says, “Yeah, as I'll ever be.”

[vi.]

The trees are thick and white, twining, as if they're the roots of the earth, pushed out of the dirt. The house is gray and there's a flag on the porch, a weathered courting bench, a swing hanging from white chains. The front door is heavy wood with the etched smoked glass window. The design looks like lilies.

Tragedy should never strike here. A bad report card, the gutters need cleaning, maybe a tree falls in a storm.

Not a toe tag around those carefully painted mint green toes.

Dean rings the doorbell, but Sam does all the talking. It is a tragedy, it is a deplorable loss, our deepest sympathies and we hate to bother you during this trying time, but.

It's not a speech, Sam never makes it a speech, he means it even though Dean can see the lines in his suit where his body's tense because he wants to get inside and see for himself where the girl died.

Communing with the dead is the only way of giving them some sort of peace. It doesn't take candles or seances, it doesn't take salt or rituals. Sometimes it's the floorboards under your feet, the baseball in the baseball glove, the pink plaid diary shoved between mattresses.

The missus nods, her eyes red, as if her grief has made her one of the spirits they hunt. She answers Sam's soft-spoken questions and the man of the house directs Dean up the stairs, saying, “Right now, the best I can hope for is to bury Hannah soon.”

Dean knows the feeling, the understanding that once things are put in their place, once things are put under the ground, you can take a step back and take a breath and rest.

Because death leaves a stain, like terror, and sleep disappears until you can get that stain clean. Sometimes it never goes away and you scrub at it, scrub your fingers to the bone and you never sleep.

The bathroom is blue. It's fitting and morbid and maybe the last thing Hannah saw was something that looked like the sky.

The tiles have been cleaned, so has the sink. There's blood on the mirror. Tiny dark spots.

Dean looks at the mirror, sees how he clutching the sink. And the clouds outside don't quite shift right across the mirror's surface.

Then Sam's behind him, stepping into the bathroom, nothing like the motel bathroom because they can both fit.

And this time, Dean can only see his reflection in the mirror, not Sam's, his brother standing off to the side a little and he says, “They had to throw away the bathmat.”

“I bet. If it took her heart, then.” Dean doesn't feel like finishing that sentence as Sam nods, hands in his pockets.

“You smell that?”

He's about to joke about diner food, but then Dean does smell it.

Burnt matches. Like after a salt-and-burn. Like how Dean's hands smell for days.

Sam's bending near the mirror, puts his fingers on it as if he's afraid of leaving smudges and Dean wants to say something about fingerprints and wanted felons posing as FBI agents, but Sam looks at him, his eyes wide in his urgent Dean way.

Then he says it, “Dean,” and Dean's forever compelled by that tone of his voice.

He rests his fingers near Sam's, like they're comparing their hands, and he can feel it.

Like putting his tongue to a battery, a summer day when Sam was nine, and they dared each other in the heavy humidity.

As they're leaving, Sam's phone rings and Dean's left to tell the worn-thin couple that they've been a big help, that him and Sam will do everything they can, and he doesn't tell them that their daughter is the third body, Hannah's heart is the third heart.

Sam meets him at the mailbox, fiddling with the red flag where the house numbers have been stenciled on in white paint.

There's another body. Fourth body. Fourth heart.

[vii.]

The ME shakes his head. “Sheriff says not to tell anybody we've got a serial killer on our hands.”

“So you think this is the same guy,” Dean says and the ME grips the table before pointing at the body.

“Ayuh. Obviously. I mean, slice right down the middle, woosh, then no heart. Except the heart isn't cut out. It's forcibly taken.”

Sam's shoulder is warm against Dean's, even through the layers of scrubs, jackets, shirts, and Dean knows all about taken hearts. Broken ones too.

The poor kid, because it's a kid, another teenager, he's still covered in blood and his eyes are open. Brown, and his hair's black with a blue streak in it, at the front. He used to bite his nails and he's tattooed himself on his wrist with ink, blue and black.

An ‘I’. And an ‘H’. And a jagged twisted heart with barbed wired and Dean thinks of the stylized Immaculate Heart, the Virgin's heart with the swords and flames, light everywhere and a ring of roses.

He thinks of New Orleans, lighting candles and going for chicory coffee with Sam, their pockets full of salt.

It's got to be better than New England with its cold sky and burnt coffee and the hearts that could be ending up in the ocean.

Sam's hair falls over his eyes as he examines the kid's hand-drawn ink work. “ ‘I’?” he asks and the ME nods.

“Ayuh, name’s Ian.”

“You know him?” Dean asks, surprised, because no one should see anyone they know laid out on a sterile metal table with a look of suicidal inevitability on their faces.

“Y’know the bar at the end of the boardwalk? The one with the plaster pelican out front? He's the owner's kid,” the ME says, stripping off his gloves. “Cleaned up after hours. Used to help the drunks find their way to the sidewalk.”

Dean's only ever done that with his father and Sam. He knows how hard it is to corral people who can only see and speak alcohol. He's one of them too and this kid didn't deserve to have his heart stolen from his chest cavity. Most people don't, but.

Sam's looking at Dean when he glances up, and his brother says without looking away, “What about the ‘H’, do you know the ‘H’?”

The ME shakes his head, puts on his glasses. “Nah, I don't know too many of the kids. Only know Ian since I've been one of those drunks. Sidewalk can be a rough patch of land when you've got whiskey sea legs.”

“Ain't that the truth,” Dean says, and there, Sam's gone sad again, damn him. But he stays professional, like he's a real FBI agent, the way he wears the jacket and holds the badge, like armor and bullets.

Dean's had the thought before, but he doesn't let it get to him, he's had the thought before that Sam shouldn't be playing dress-up here. He should be a real something, whatever he wants to be, not having to pretend all the time.

Death is as real as it gets, but it shouldn't be Sam's life.

[viii.]

The library is pretty grim. Pillars in the front, like someone got confused and put their antebellum plantation house on the wrong end of the country. Or they were just stubborn. Seems like that’s part of the lay of the land up here. All it does is make Dean want to drive south again, down into the swamps and bayous. He wants to feel heat again, sweat on his back.

Sam is pretty grim when he steps inside. The bad part is the prickle on Dean’s neck that means this will take a lot of research. The worst part is that Sam isn’t sure what they’re looking for.

He circles the tables, before he picks one and Dean holds back a half step to see, to wait him out and Sam’s fists curl, as if he’s putting on a show of being certain. Dean watches his brother’s hands, spreading out notes, pressing the paper against the wood of the table.

Maybe it’s a natural barrier, Dean can hear Sam say in the car on the highway as the wind shifted, whistling. Maybe it’s like a bubble. You mean like the cliffs, Dean said and Sam laughed, Yeah, completely, sure, like the cliffs, his tone sarcasm dry in the water-heavy air.

“So,” Sam says, in hushed preamble. “The slumber party.”

“Yeah, damn, I forgot the cupcakes and how do you want me to braid your hair,” Dean says, elbows on the table and Sam rolls his eyes before tapping a page. So Dean gives him an out. “Zero hour?”

“Could be.”

“What’d the sheriff say?”

“The girls were playing a game, a parlor trick of sorts and it got out of hand.”

“A parlor trick? That ‘got out of hand’? That’s like a tea party that decided to commit armed bank robbery and grand theft auto.”

Sam sighs, “I know. But.”

“But, what? ‘Oh, I know, after we paint each other’s toenails, let’s go rip Sherry’s heart out? It’ll be a gas!’” Dean intones, high and breathless.

“‘It’ll be a gas’? Who talks like that?”

Those hazel impossibilities, like Sam doesn’t know how Dean is his brother, how they even share parents or blood or space. But Sam’s still frustrated, so bitter and bitterly trying and Dean has to do something.

He kicks Sam under the table. “You know. Movies. Stuff.”

“Yeah, whatever. Says here that they got a mirror and lit a candle and left Sherry to see ‘her true love’s face.’”

“Her true love’s—what, in the mirror? Like, she’s in love with herself?”

“No, I’ve heard of this,” Sam says, reshuffling papers like a tarot deck, like maybe they really will tell the future.

“Of course you have. Only you know these things. Probably took Outdated Parlor Tricks 101 in California.”

“Dean.”

“What? I’m just saying.”

“Okay, so you’re supposed to do it at night.”

“Well, yeah, that’s when all of these things happen,” Dean says, leaning back in his chair, balancing and the chair squeaks in the dust mote grimness of the library hall.

Sam hunches forward. “You light a candle and brush your hair and your true love’s face appears in the mirror’s reflection.”

“Brush your hair?”

“It’s for maidens, Dean.”

Dean stares at him because honestly.

“Girls, Dean.”

“I know. And hell yeah, it’s for maidens. What guy brushes his hair in front of a mirror with a candle and waits for his true love’s face? Sounds like something you’d do, Sam.”

Another roll of the eyes and another shuffle of the papers, all telltale signs of the meaning of life. “Yeah, I try it all the time. Except that it’s only supposed to work on Halloween.”

“There’s a whole helluva lotta ‘supposing’ going on here.”

“And it isn’t Halloween,” Sam points out, and Dean nods because only Sam would pay attention to the calendar. As if it matters on the back roads and in the all-night diners and motel rooms that smell of cigarettes.

He slides papers around too, so Sam knows he’s paying attention. “So Sherry goes into the bedroom, closes the door and then what.”

“Screaming. Then the other girls run in.”

“Chest cut open? Heart taken?”

“Hole in one,” Sam says and then he grimaces and Dean’s kid brother really needs to ease up on himself. It’s Dean who should be carrying this around.

He watches his brother’s hands as Sam falls silent, as if he’s suddenly struck by the grimness of the library too.

Sam’s hair hides him as he shuffles and reshuffles and reshuffles. Always looking.

[ix.]

Sherry, fourteen. Lost her heart first. And almost took her friends with her. The ground at her grave is fresh, overturned. Dean held his breath out there for Sam.

Don, forty-seven. Lost his heart second. His wife found him in the bathroom, like Sherry, like Hannah and the walls of the bathroom were gray. Maybe he saw a fog. His wife saw almost all his blood.

Hannah, sixteen. Lost her heart third. Mint green, and blue. With braces on her teeth. And a gold anklet with matching bracelet to be buried with her once her body’s released and her mother comes out of her sedative haze.

Ian, seventeen. Lost his heart fourth. Blue streak in his hair, New England blueblood in his veins, and the salty courage of helping drunks way past their due date, centuries after his ancestors were patriots, their blood seeding the ground. His blood seeded the bar bathroom; maybe it will be prosperous next year.

That night, Sam does a shot for each one, then four more shots for good measure and bad judgment and Dean keeps a hand on his elbow, tries to keep him steady, talks constantly, jostles him.

But it’s like keeping a lighthouse from falling into the sea.

Dean thinks Sam’s crumbling stone by sea stone, and then near midnight, Sam pushes him against the wooden slats of the motel and says something into the wind.

He almost kisses Dean.

Breath like alcohol, like fire.

Dean might be dreaming, but he doesn’t think he is.

[x.]

The morning sunshine is watery, like they’re looking up at the surface of a lake, because the sky seems fluid and chalky.

Everything is muted and this includes Sam. He’s buttoned-down, buttoned-over and he draws his suit jacket around him. He messes with his tie and they have to pass the cemetery again, but it doesn’t bother either of them. Dean thinks Sam doesn’t even notice.

They’re off to another house, this one without a flag or a porch, just a porchlight still on and a widow who stares at them for a moment.

She pushes her hair back, rather resigned, like she’s as hung over as Sam and they’ll just accept the day as it hits them. And Dean doesn’t know how to make it better, especially since Sam’s the one who usually does the talking and right now, all his words have left him probably because the headache is taking up too much space. He hardly said anything to Dean at breakfast, though he ate like someone was going to take it away.

Dean isn’t quite so bad off, but nearly. Three cups of coffee and the world still has a glare to it everywhere, a sheen and he has to keep blinking. He really needs the taste of strong black coffee and ash. Sam fixes his tie again.

The widow was planning a divorce since he kept a mistress. Mild-mannered Don, who shined his shoes every weekend, let their divorced female neighbor borrow his tools and handyman advice, and has a motorized tie rack, as Dean discovers, kept a mistress, somewhere in another part of town. The widow doesn’t know the whore, and I never want to meet her, I don’t even want her at the funeral. No, I didn’t want him dead, but.

The bathroom is gray, smells like burnt matches and still has its bathmat, draped carefully over the tub. It’s spotless and even Dean’s depressed at it all, how one man is just wiped away by elbow grease and some Ajax, a swipe of Mr. Clean. Sam creeping inside himself, though his gaze is angry, everywhere he looks.

The mirror vibrates. “Dean, two for two,” Sam says, face close to the mirror and out of nowhere, Dean wants to snatch him away, like he’s a four-year-old reaching for the stove.

When they leave, the woman next door is out on the sidewalk, staring blankly at the lawn mower.

“Do you need any help, ma’am,” Sam asks, and she looks at them, gripping the mower handle.

“Ma’am?” Dean tries, because if Sam can’t get through to her, then something’s wrong; Dean’s seen it too many times for it to be a good thing, that blank doll-eye stare.

She visibly shakes herself, like she’s chilly because she’s barefoot, in red university sweats and she says, “Oh, no, thank you. It’s nice of you to offer.”

“If you’re sure,” Dean says, and she nods, so Sam says, “All right then, have a nice day.”

Sam looks like he’s got a destination in mind, weaving to the other side of the car, like he wants to drive and normally, Dean would just get him to talk it out. But when they’re on the East Coast, it’s like the rules change somehow, like all of the rocks are magnetic, calling compass needles and Dean gets turned around sometimes.

Like when his little brother pushes him against a wall and puts his teeth on Dean’s jaw. Like when his little brother stares at him, as if he’s about to try to kiss them both sober. And it’s midnight, fucking cold with the wind tearing at his bones and Sam pressing the hot coals of his body to Dean’s.

“Sammy,” he says, and tosses him the keys. Sam buttons his jacket, swallowing and then behind them, the woman says, “Wait, wait, I need to ask you something. Please, sirs?”

Grass clings to her feet, her shirt is blue and white, Indianapolis Colts, which Dean thinks probably got her enough trouble living out here, and her ponytail is askew, hair escaping as she rubs at her wrists.

“You here investigating Don’s death,” she asks without giving her name and they hesitate for a minute, all for show.

“Yes, ma’am, did you know Don well?” Sam asks.

And it’s easy to tell she isn’t from around here, hasn’t succumbed to the salt or the air. She tells them how Don was the sweetest man on the planet, did everything for her, and she has a hard time reaching things, 5’2” in her sock feet, sometimes the lawn mower wants to eat her or a Frisbee lands on her roof or the pipes back up and the plumber costs way too much on her salary.

She’s made almost completely of tears, and maybe she has succumbed.

It’s like New England’s heart was broken and it’s never been mended. Maybe the people just take the injury with them, little pieces of it.

Even people passing through, like them, because Sam’s sad, the way he tips his head down to hide his eyes. It has nothing to do with the hangover, Dean can tell, he’s been getting Sam drunk since either of them were in high school, and Dean is suddenly so fucking tired.

[xi.]

They go see the mistress, on the other side of town. There are neon signs and a turned-over dumpster and Dean’s got a knife in his boot.

She’s young, with dark brown hair, and fake colored contacts that make her eyes some sort of blue-green. She’s buttoning a cardigan when she answers the door, yeah, I can talk, but I gotta get offta work, so.

She does know Don’s dead and she’s sad, her yellow nails fluttering to her chest, matching her sweater, but Sam’s watching her like he used to watch the shadows on the walls at night. Like there might be rats or ghosts or something to shoot.

Dean thinks she’s a lousy actress too and poor Don, he never saw this, blinded by her tits and her waist and the short skirt.

She works in the same building as Don did, Don a lawyer, she’s a file clerk, and isn’t my necklace swell, Don bought it for me, poor bunny.

Sam sighs when she puts a hand on his arm, talking about how Don was good to her and that bitch of a wife of his won’t tell her when the funeral is, so she can pay her proper respects.

She pops a mint in her mouth, then offers them one, grabbing up her green leather purse, a birthday present a few weeks ago, from Don.

At least Sam’s burning up with anger, instead of the lately sad version of Sam, like a film negative or a slit-throat ghost, like something Dean has to put to rest.

The mistress is still talking, something about pistachios and Dean wants to shake her until her earrings fall off, say, You were using him, you took his heart just as much as that thing did.

But he doesn’t. It sounds too personal. Like he knows. Like he’s an expert.

They make it out of the apartment building, Dean’s hand on Sam’s back because the kid looks like he wants to fall down the stairs. At the car, Sam yanks his door open, loosens his tie and says, “I wanna check out a few things.”

[xii.]

Sherry’s parents are carting out carpet when Dean drives them up, slow to a stop along the curb. When they see the FBI badges, they don’t falter, they aren’t angry, they’re nothing but tired. The house smells of flowers, the dead cloying perfume of a mortuary and as she goes to pour them some tea, she dodges a trash bag full of crumpled flowering stems.

There isn’t much for them to tell that isn’t in the police report; besides, they were asleep when the girls decided to play their game.

“Musta been around three, three-thirty, we heard the screaming. Up ‘till then, we just heard them laughing and teasing each other.”

Their priest is helping them with their grief, and he comes into the kitchen in an old t-shirt and jeans. He laughs that he left his collar at the rectory, but yeah, he’s still a priest and Dean almost crosses himself because at least they didn’t dress up as priests this time, trying to comfort the grieving.

He’s never quite got the hang of that, as if life is nothing but grief and happiness is the thing that comes and goes, the thing maybe people need comforting for because soon it’ll be gone again.

Sam shakes his hand and then Dean, and Sherry’s mom offers to make them lunch. They’re taking a break; it was the priest’s suggestion to clean out Sherry’s room because shrines only harden things like diamond. And it’s difficult to scratch the surface of something like diamond, something like utter devotion and memory.

Shrines are tough anyway. Dean knows Sam sees the Impala that way, shining black, like a warrior’s obsidian coffin, one day we’ll be buried in it, dontcha think, Dean, after we die our glorious deaths. Shut up, Sam, shut up, and then Dean couldn’t look at him until he was good and sloppy drunk. Sam leaned against Dean, kept saying over and over I’m so sorry, Dean, I’m so sorry. I, I, I. I’m so sorry.

As if someone had died.

The priest takes them to Sherry’s room. Almost all the furniture is gone and the carpet’s been ripped up in strips, some still left to be taken up, a pair of gloves tossed down. There’s still pictures and a pair of bookshelves and white curtains with purple piping.

“The sheriff’s department released the scene,” the priest says, and Sam smiles at the jargon. “Yeah, I wanted to be a cop before I was called to the seminary, and now here I am, cleaning up a crime scene. Never thought it’d happen in my parish.”

There’s a mirror, square, ornate silver frame and it looks old, some of the corners darker as if it needs to be polished. It’s on the floor, propped against the wall, reflecting the ceiling and part of the window, throwing light into the air.

“Sherry was a good girl. Such a sweet person. Always helped with our bake sales.” The priest pauses, worrying a rosary he draws from his pocket. “Sorry I can’t be more help to you, gentlemen. I can understand if you want to ask Joe and Felicia some questions, but I hope you don’t stir anything up,” he continues, hands on his hips.

“No, no worries, padre, we just wanted to see if there was anything else. And we are really sorry to intrude,” Dean says, distracting the priest as Sam makes a beeline for the mirror.

The priest nods. “I just hope she wasn’t mixed up in witchcraft, you know, with the game, you know, the mirror, after all—“

Then Sam’s back at Dean’s side, saying, “Oh, I don’t think you have to worry about that, Father, it was just a game. Something else happened here.”

His voice is cutting, almost black and Dean flinches, but the priest just eyes them. “Are you a believer?”

“Depends on what you’re asking me to believe in,” Sam says.

Dean turns away. Sam’s always had ultimatums.

As they leave with careful goodbyes and condolences, Sam says, “We’ve got something here, Dean, three for three.”

He thinks, Mirrors for hearts. Three down, one to go.

And Dean remembers his dream as over in the shotgun seat, Sam’s fingers flex on his thighs and they drive away.

[xiii.]

“Dean.”

“What.”

Sam shakes his head.

“What, Sam. I know you’re hung over, but spit it out.”

Dean turns to look at him and his brother’s looking back.

It’s possible Dean can see it, what Sam wants to say. About manhandling Dean against a wall and shoving his hands up under Dean’s shirt. About how Dean answered Sam’s question, the one the wind took, answered with a drunk’s bravery and honesty, answered because he wanted it, but Sam just looked at him, like he’s looking now, with the eyes of an unbeliever, just like he told the priest.

Like he had a map once and now he’s lost it and Dean’s the only thing keeping him from wandering off.

It’s possible Dean can see it, because they did this once before, three thousand miles across the country, where it rains as if it can’t stop. The coffee’s different there; Dean traces the country by its coffee and Sam tasted like the heavy roasted coffee there where it’s nothing but things hidden by the trees and mountains and rain.

They did this once before, Sam tasting like the coffee, and Dean had opened for his brother, as if it’d been only weeks instead of never. But Sam stepped away, shocked, and wouldn’t talk to Dean for two days. Until the hunt was over, the small bodies at the small crosses resting since the curse had been lifted, burnt to ash. Until Dean had said Sam’s name over and over, a little like begging, and Sam said, Stop saying my name, stop it, stop saying my name.

“Dean.”

“What, Sammy.”

Sam looks out the window.

[xiv.]

“You boys on duty?”

“Yessir, we are,” Sam says, sliding onto a bar stool.

“Figured as much. Suits and it’s still daylight out?” the bartender says. “Either you’re fucked up already or you’re on duty.”

Dean smirks and Sam laughs because they are fucked up, in so many ways, even sideways, but they’ll say they’re on duty. The badges help with that.

“So, sir, you own the place?” Dean asks and the bartender nods, damp towel under his hands, wiping the bar. A real bar, all wood, looks like it’s heart of pine maybe, or oak, and Dean raps his knuckles on it, for good luck and natural barriers and all the alcohol ever spilled here.

“This’s my place. Owned it since my dad died in ‘86.” The bartender stops, twisting his fingers in his apron. “That was ‘afore Ian was born.” He clears his throat and goes back to wiping the bar.

“We’re very sorry for your loss,” Sam says.

“Ayuh, thank you for that. Much appreciated. One of the few times I’ll close this bar. Day of my son’s funeral. Though the wake’ll be.” He stops again, just wipes the bar.

“Sir, mind if we—“

“Name’s Eddie.”

“Sure,” Dean says, “Eddie. Mind if we ask you a few questions.”

“Ask away,” Eddie says, pulling out a bottle of scotch. “You don’t mind if I drink?”

Sam pushes his hair back. “No, not at all.”

“Here.” He pulls tumblers down and pours them each a generous portion too. “For when you’re off duty.” He laughs, takes a sip of his own and coughs through his laughter.

Eddie’s a proud father, though he looks a little like their own dad, and Dean wonders if his brother notices, the way Sam’s nestled the glass of scotch in between his palms without taking a drink.

Kid without a mother, but he wasn’t an orphan, not like them, she just up and left Eddie and the baby, went off with some tattooed motherfucker from the Navy, had to throw him outta the bar one night, he was hanging around here, stone cold drunk, crying in his beer, then the next day, they’re gone and Ian gets a postcard from his ma every once in a blue fucking moon.

Good kid, worked hard, didn’t slack off, spent a lot of his time drawing, grades were middle of the road, and Eddie was going to send him to college next year. Graphic design, comic book artist, something amazing, something not like tending a bar. The bottle’s moving fast as Eddie talks between drinks.

Sam just listens and waits for an opening, “Do you know someone Ian knew, someone’s name started with an ‘H’? Did he have a best friend or a girlfriend or.”

“Ian didn’t bring many friends around,” Eddie says, waving a hand at his empty tavern. “I know he had friends, talking about school projects and going to basketball games. ‘H’?”

They wait and Dean watches Sam in the wide mirror behind the bar. He’s staring down at the scotch while Eddie hmms and haws.

“There was a girl, I think. Mentioned her a few times. Younger’n him and I said, good for you, son, you go get ‘er. Hailey, Harriett, no, Hadley, Heather, she was in a few of his classes.”

“Hannah?” Dean asks.

“Yeah, that’d be the one. Hannah.” Eddie taps the bar. “Never caught her last name, but yeah, he was over the moon ‘bout ‘er. Kept drawing stuff, writing letters, though he’d always hide it from me.”

And then Sam takes a drink, one long swallow, and Dean’s watching his brother’s throat work around the liquor.

Eddie glances at him, surprised. “Guess you’re off duty.”

“Yeah, guess so,” Sam says.

The Sam in the mirror closes his eyes, takes another drink, while the Sam in real life does the same and Dean’s sober as fuck. He has to fix this. Somehow.

With finger-pointing and another pour of liquor for Sam, Eddie directs Dean to a separate bathroom, since that one’s still covered in tape, police won’t let me go in there, instead, they referred me to some company that made me pay an arm and a leg to clean it up, as if my son was a mess, some big fucking mess.

But Dean dodges the tape; it looks like it’s been taken down and put back up a few times. There are three small mirrors over the sinks. The middle one vibrates, that battery feeling on Dean’s fingertips.

He goes back out and downs his scotch and pats Sam on the chest, fingers splayed.

Sam nods and stares at his glass, so Dean moves to get Sam by the neck. Eddie fills their tumblers and Dean tugs on Sam, tells Eddie they’ll be in that booth over there.

They don’t talk, just finish what’s in their glasses, slow, legs pressed together.

They don’t stay for long, until Dean spills his drink and Sam sighs as the alcohol soaks into his shirt cuffs.

[xv.]

The church behind the library has a bell tower, chiming the hour on the hour every hour, breaking up the salt and sharpness with rounded knells. Dean counts in his head and Sam counts out loud. In an hour, the library will be closing its massive doors with the lions’ heads doorknobs and they’ll be shit out of luck until morning.

“Dude, you smell like you crawled into the bottle.”

Sam finger-combs his hair and says, “That wasn’t my fault. You’re such a lightweight.”

Dean says, “You’re the one who decided four o'clock here means five o’clock somewhere else. I think there’s a clean shirt in the car, Glenlivet.”

It’s hard for Dean to look at Sam as he tries to be discreet, unbuttoning his shirt out on the street, because they’re parked almost at the commons and his shoulders are like the library pillars, big and out of place here. So he fishes about for a shirt and comes up with one because they must have good luck, right here, right now as Sam actually smiles a little and their fingers brush.

The flags on the poles are rustling, the metallic rings clanging with a hollow sound as they walk up the steps and the library is still grim, still casting a shadow across the grass, like last time.

He thinks, Second time’s a charm, but it’s not true, things happen in threes and change in threes and break in threes. And they’ve got four bodies on their hands, without hearts, and Dean’s counting in his head again, what happens with five, if there’s a roll of a dice and it comes up six, will Sam leave him again, lucky number seven, eight miles to the hotel, nine is their room number and ten is only two hours to midnight.

Like last night. Second time’s a charm.

As soon as they’re through the front door, Sam’s using his best library tone, his best I need to see your archives please, smiling down at the tiny little librarian who’s thin as a whip, with a voice like one too, but she pats her white curls and smiles coquettishly as if Sam’s made her day. Knowing Sam, he probably perfected it at college, Dean wouldn’t be surprised.

His brother came back to Dean different and exactly the same and Dean’s not surprised anymore. He was sick of surprise, a rolling in his belly. Until he let it go one night on a hunt when Sam saved his ass, shooting the wraith about seven times, angry and afraid, with Dean shouting his name before he would calm down. Sam had slammed him against the crisscross side of the basement stairs and said, You asshole, you don’t get to die.

“Dean.”

When he looks up, Sam’s watching him, hands on the table like he’s been waiting for Dean to notice.

“What, Sam.”

“Come look through these,” Sam says, jerking his thumb at the room for the microfiche machines.

“What’re you gonna be doing?” Dean says because he hates microfiche as much as Sam loves it.

“Looking with you.”

Shared punishment, nothing new, all these years of sharing the brunt, sharing the pain, sharing the wounds and beat-downs and how many miles have they run together, Dean allows this is okay.

In the half-light, the machines only lit with their single bulbs, Sam’s face is in shadow, his hair cutting up his profile. They flip through newspapers as the librarians bustle around with patrons and one of the book carts has a squeaky wheel.

It’s Dean who finds something, just as the librarians are gathering around the doorway to whisper that they’re about to close. It’s something, but it might be nothing, since it’s twenty years old.

The tiny little librarian Sam met earlier escorts them out, talking with her hands as she says, “You boys better head home. Looks like there might be a nor’easter heading in. Not the season for it, but up here, that doesn’t matter. You don’t like the weather, wait thirty minutes. You boys head home and batten down the hatches. Might be one heck of a storm.” Her eyeglasses catch the sunlight and it slices across Dean’s eyes, so he blinks going down the steps, Sam’s shoulder next to him as his guide.

They leave clutching photocopies and print-outs and Sam doesn’t look grim this time.

The bells chime the hour. Dean counts in his head. Sam counts out loud. The shadows are long on the commons. And the wind is picking up, the flags snapping unfurled, and the rings clang metallic and hollow.

[xvi.]

It turns out to be one heck of a storm.

Dean used his Fed badge to get the Impala some housing and Sam rolled his eyes, as if his headache had gone away. They have takeout cartons scattered everywhere because Dean isn’t confined to eating at a table and Sam sometimes forgets he’s holding one when he crosses the room.

The TV’s reception is crap, the wind slipping fast by the window and they’re good until the power goes out.

It gets cold in the room, rain pounding down on the roof, pounding on the door, pounding on the window, and the thunder and lightning only make it seem colder, like this isn’t the weather for this temperature. Something’s gone wrong somewhere.

They have flashlights and new batteries and Dean’s sitting in bed, under the covers, his knees propped up to read the smeared photocopies in his own tiny circle of light. The rest of the world disappears in the black around him, except the storm when it rages, and Sam.

Then Sam climbs into the bed next to him, mattress tilting at a disturbing angle and Dean thinks he’s capsizing, papers sliding like water on a deck.

“Sorry,” Sam whispers, like the black of the storm and night can hear him and he doesn’t want them to.

They read. Dean’s looking at a photograph of a smiling woman and then her lifeless body in her bedroom and Sam says, “Dean.”

“What.”

Sam’s flashlight clicks off.

“Sam?”

“The other night. You said,” Sam says, sounding like he’s working up to something.

“I said what. I say a lot of things. I talk all the time.”

“You talk all the time ‘bout a lotta nothing.”

Dean shifts, angles to point his flashlight at Sam, but then Sam’s fingers are on his jaw.

Sam’s mouth on his, push of breath and alcohol. Dean’s breathing into the kiss, slow down slow down slow down, as Sam pushes him against the headboard.

And then Dean can’t breathe, can’t catch his breath because Sam is stealing it, along with everything else, boundaries and rules and all Dean knows, what he understands about his brother and how he loves Dean. Because this was supposed to be Dean, only Dean, his mishap and misunderstanding and hardwired mayhem, but somehow Sam is in on it, like a conspirator, like a reckless partner in crime. Which is what Sam is, what he’s always been, so Dean shouldn’t be surprised, he’s sick of surprise, he’s given up on surprise.

But. Sam’s talking against his shoulder, opening Dean’s jeans and Dean can only try to hold on, find Sam’s skin in return, put the edge of his teeth there, drag his tongue where he can and listen to the sounds Sam makes. And he hopes he won’t forget this, he’ll never forget this, the wind harsh outside and the window lighting up in the dread silence.

[xvii.]

The day is struck clean.

The coffee is burnt again and isn’t strong enough. Dean watches Sam sleep, spills coffee on the old newspaper photographs and shuffles papers because if Sam can see the present as clearly as he looks to the future, maybe Dean can learn something too.

He sees the smiling woman, then her crime scene, her body crumpled and he remembers, watches Sam breathe, the sheets rising and falling where he’s sprawled. He thinks he can read the lines of Sam’s back, the planes of his shoulder blades, the tripwire of his spine. He thinks of the proximity of need. He thinks of how fast matches burn.

Dean drinks his coffee, looks at the crime scene, watches Sam.

He thinks of the black streaks of ash when he scrubs his hands on his jeans. He thinks of blood under his fingernails, how it’s sometimes Sam’s.

“Wake up, sparky.”

“Dean?”

He shuffles the papers. He thinks of ghosts disappearing in a flash of flame.

“Is that coffee?” Sam says, blinking sleepily at Dean, pushing a hand into his hair, limbs long and naked in the sheets.

He thinks about how Sam hasn’t left yet, but it’s only until the next town, maybe the next shuffle of a deck of cards, maybe the next handful of coins on a diner table and Sam will be gone, walking away like he’s always meant to.

“Yeah, Sammy. I saved you some hot water.”

“For once.”

“All for you, princess. Next, you’ll be wanting a unicorn.”

Sam reaches for the coffee, says, “Only if it comes with its own rainbow.”

“You mean they don’t already?”

He spills coffee on his fingers.

[xviii.]

Sam’s shuffling papers, holding his breath, touching his mouth and it’s like every superstition Sam has comes out when he’s researching.

Dean tries not to think of how it’s almost like superstition, what he feels for Sam, the right and the wrong. Because superstitions work that way.

“So, her, this girl, you think she has something to do with this?” Sam asks, sipping his coffee without looking away from the article.

“Yeah. She died the same day Sherry did.”

“Twenty years ago, Dean.”

“Yeah, twenty years ago, it’s good to see you can still read.”

Sam shoots him a glare and Dean shoots him a smile back.

“Anyway, she died from blood loss. Maybe because she was cut open and her heart was taken,” Dean says, pushing a different stack of papers to Sam. “The newspaper was stupid enough to publish it, thought they’d get some leads on the killer. Help out the cops.”

Pushing his hair out of his eyes, Sam shakes his head.

Dean kicks his feet up onto a chair. “Yeah, they had to retract it because the girl’s family was ‘distraught.’ To see it in print. Because a photo of her bedroom isn’t bad enough.”

“Wow, crackerjack journalism.”

“You know it.”

There’s something burning in Dean’s pocket, pride or something like it, gloating or something close to it because Sam’s off his game, way behind on this one and Dean’s holding all the cards.

“So. Anyway. I got an idea.”

“Oh yeah, when did you get this idea?” Sam asks, crossing his arms. “Did it hurt?” he asks, because damn if he isn’t skeptical about anything and everything involving Dean. It makes Dean’s superstition that much easier.

“Maybe while you were passed out, sleeping the day away, unlike the only honest, hardworking member of this family.”

“Whatever. Just tell me, jerk.”

“I’m getting there, bitch.”

“Hurry it up, we don’t have all day, you honest, hardworking member of this family.”

Dean glares at him and Sam smiles back and when he moves, Dean can see teeth marks on Sam’s throat.

“So the girl had a tragic past. Her boyfriends kept leaving or dying mysteriously. They’d just pack up and disappear or they’d die: flu, railroad tracks, short drop and a sudden stop, whatever. She thinks she’s cursed.”

Sam’s uncrossed his arms, leaning on the table, as if Dean has always told him the best tales, never mind that when Dean told him the truth about all this the first time, the kid cried himself to sleep.

“Rumor has it she’s a witch anyway, so rumor falls on her for all the dirty deeds. So the girl,” Dean says, finding the main article, “uh, Millie, finally gets herself a fiancé and everyone’s hoping he sticks around because she’s about to go crackers or something.”

Across from him, Sam’s eyes don’t leave Dean’s mouth and he licks his lips, self-conscious, but he pushes ahead.

“Well, one night, it’s dark, new moon, whatever, and the kid’s driving too fast on back road, mostly gravel. Car rolls and he’s thrown in a ditch. Dies from swelling of the brain. Family can’t even get out of the hospital yet to plan his funeral and Millie goes home. Calls her friend and says she’s gonna play a game, see if she can see Charlie again. Says she’s gonna see her true love’s face.”

“Outdated Parlor Tricks 101?” Sam asks.

Dean shrugs and slides the page with the smiling photograph next to the crime scene. There’s a brown smudge from Dean’s weak coffee, but he points around it.

“You see that?”

And Sam breathes out. “It’s a mirror. So maybe it’s Millie.”

“Maybe it is.”

“But these people weren’t playing the game, Dean, why would she go after them?” Sam’s watching him, waiting for an answer, but he weights it, like he’s waiting for more and Dean has to get up, move away.

“I dunno, Sammy.”

Sam’s phone rings.

“You gonna answer that?” Dean asks because Sam is still watching him, something in his expression and finally, Sam reaches over for the phone.

Tipping his cup, Dean finishes the rest of his coffee and right now, he needs that bitterness, the slight taste of ash in his mouth, but he can’t get it here. It’ll have to wait until he’s on a southern highway and then Sam’s saying, “Dean, Dean.”

“What.”

“That was the morgue.”

[xix.]

She’s a mess of blood, pooling on her chest, streaking her hair, all over her arms. Eyes open, she’s resting on the metal table, like she’s fallen there. She’s not wearing her Colts t-shirt.

“Sorry to call you in again, boys,” the ME says. “Not that I don’t wanna see your shining faces, but I shouldn’t have another dead body on my table. Not like this.”

Sam nods and Dean can see his jaw tighten. “Yessir, we hear you.”

“Neighbor found her ‘bout an hour ago.”

“Neighbor?” Dean asks. “You mean, Don’s wife?” He’s trying to remember her name, glances at Sam who catches his eye.

“No, neighbor on the other side. Little old lady was bringing her zucchinis. Scared her and her dog almost to death.”

“I bet,” Sam says.

“EMTs say they had to break the door down,” the ME says, his fingers moving like he needs a cigarette. Dean recognizes the signs because he does things without realizing, addicted to driving, shooting, Sam.

“She was in the bathroom?” Sam asks, peering at the slash down her chest.

“Ayuh.” And that’s all the ME’s going to say, unless they keep asking.

Dean sighs, shifting his weight, hip bumping the table. “So how did the neighbor find her?”

“Spare key. Saw the blood coming out from under the door. Guess she was gonna take a bath, or had just taken one, or something. Not suicide,” the ME says, “obviously, no one slashes their chest open and rips out their own heart. Not even them Aztecs or Mayans or whatever.”

“Gotta keep the sun rising every day,” Sam murmurs and Dean kicks his ankle.

The ME tilts his head, squinting at Sam. “You boys find this sonuvabitch, okay?”

“Yessir, we’re getting close,” Sam says, with a reassuring nod, hair slipping over his forehead.

“Good. I don’t need this in my morgue.”

They’re about to leave and Sam says, low, “She never gave us her name.”

The metal table clicks as the ME moves it around and he says, “Joyce. Her name was Joyce.”

[xx.]

Sam is one big walking cacophony, slamming doors, stomping down stairs, stalking across the sidewalk, cursing under his breath and Dean thinks that’s appropriate at least, the cursing, like they’re cursed, as if Sam’s cursed Dean and Dean’s cursed Sam.

And this is what happens. They get distracted with each other. People die. Dean wonders if they’ll be next, eventually they’ll be next.

They’re climbing into the car and Sam sighs, says, “It’s not your fault, Dean.”

Dean just closes his door and starts the car, eases them onto the street before he says, “What?”

“I know you. This isn’t your fault.”

His brother does this to him, sees him somehow, like Sam is privy to shadows and secrets, not mind-reading, but close. Dean does think he’s cursed sometimes, cursed with Sam, the streaks of good luck and bad card tricks of Sam, who sees and knows and talks like Dean is his hustling mothertongue.

It unsettles him, every time, not because Sam knows him so well, but because Sam is the one who blackens all his edges and fills in all his lines.

“It’s not your fault either,” he finally says, since he needs to say something.

“Still,” Sam says. “She shouldn’t’ve died.”

“None of ‘em should’ve, Sam. Why else would we be here?”

In the shotgun seat, Sam slides his tie off. “Dean.”

“What.”

“Last night…”

“Yeah, last night?”

Sam’s facing the window again and when Dean glances over, he can see on the glass the sunlit reflection, the car, the seat, Sam’s jacket, Sam. He’s got his eyes closed, his image clear against the trees and buildings and sky.

“What do you think I want from you, Dean?” he says, slowly, enunciating.

Dean thinks, Adrenaline.

He thinks, Release.

He thinks of trust and familiarity and other skin you’ve known all your life.

He thinks of how fast matches burn.

He thinks of how to spot the exits when you walk into a room.

“A chauffeur? Someone to teach you proper music appreciation?”

Dean squeezes the steering wheel, takes the next corner too sharply and Sam’s head racks against the window.

But his brother doesn’t say anything else.

[xxi.]

On the night of her slumber party, Sherry decided to play a game. A mirror, a candle, these are some of the oldest tools in the book, any book, any culture anywhere.

And when you stare into the mirror, you’re putting yourself at risk because mirrors take and never give back quite right, they like to keep part of you. Like they take their toll in pieces of what you don’t want to pay.

Sherry opened a Pandora’s box with a silver-mirror lid. And she bled for it.

“Sam, this isn’t Bloody Mary,” Dean says. “This isn’t some twisted urban legend and some ghost who thinks she’ll make you pay for…whatever.”

They’re both vague on that, shedding blood around mirrors and what it means. What it says about them. Especially when they broke so many mirrors, though they had bad luck before that, so really, what’s the difference.

From his bed, stretched out on the twisted sheets, Sam huffs. “No, gee, you think?”

“You think.”

“Okay, so whatever Sherry did started it.”

“Well, she was the first, Sam, that’s usually how this stuff works.”

He’s across the room, head down, but Dean can still see his eyes roll. “Technically, this all started with Millie.”

“So maybe it’s Millie. Witch or not, whatever she did, it screwed something up in this town,” Dean says, crossing his arms.

“The fiancé dies, his body’s barely cold and she’s pulling a trick used on Halloween when the ‘veil is thin’ to see her true love again after he’s died? Sounds like wires got crossed somewhere.”

“No, gee, you think?” Dean mimics and Sam kicks papers at him.

[xxii.]

Lunch is way too quiet, Sam not looking at Dean, not touching him, pulling his chair back and he makes notes on the backs of the photocopies and Dean watches the parking lot, sparrows bouncing around on the broken asphalt.

They sit there for a while, listening to an irate driver lay on the horn outside, and the wind is picking up again. They head back to the motel and there’s salt in their faces, the cut of the air, and Sam’s frustration is sharp, like sunlight on snow.

Sam sighs, like he’s trying for Dean’s attention. “Okay, okay, okay. So the point is how are these people connected?”

“And how are they connected to Millie?”

“Right.”

A shedding of paper like feathers and Sam stands, pacing around. It’s making Dean antsy, like he should be nervous about something. Like he should’ve answered Sam’s question earlier in the car. The one Sam asked so cautiously.

When Sam gets in Dean’s radius, he reaches out, snags a belt loop. “Hey, Sammy, sit down.”

And Sam glances at him, surprised and failing to hide it. But he sits, their legs banging together.

Dean leans forward and Sam leans back.

“So Sherry was playing some stupid game to see her true love. Whatever, she was fourteen. Teenager,” Dean says, “always wanting to know the future.” He thinks Sam always wanted to know the future, always demanding someone tell him, and then when Dean and their dad couldn’t tell him, he went to find someone who could.

“Makes sense. So then what about Hannah?”

“She was just in front of the mirror?”

Sam waves a hand, “Fine, we’ll come back to her. What about Ian?”

“He had a crush on Hannah. And Don had his mistress.”

“And Joyce?”

A small noise from Sam and Dean says, “What.”

“She was in love with Don,” Sam says.

“How do you know?” Dean says.

“Didn’t you hear how she talked about him?” Sam says. “Like he was the greatest man to walk the earth. He changed her light bulbs, c’mon.”

Dean smirks, but Sam cuts him off, “No, Dean, it’s not a euphemism.”

“You take the fun out of life, Sam.”

“According to you, that’s my job.”

“Well, keep up the good work.”

“Where’s my raise? Regular vacations? Benefits packages?”

“You don’t need any of that bullshit. You get to hang out with me, Sam, you’ve got the best job in the world.”

And Sam’s grinning at him with Dean’s teeth marks on his neck and Dean’s got bruises from Sam’s fingers on his wrists and the world flares bright for a moment.

“So this is about love,” Dean says, “great,” and Sam sort of flinches, like he’s been hit, smile dwindling a little.

“No, I don’t think so,” he says.

“Whaddya mean? I bet if we talked to Hannah’s parents, she had a crush on someone too.”

“Ian?” Sam says, shrugging his shoulders.

Dean snorts. “No, not Ian.”

“Why not?”

“You’ve seen Hannah—“

“Sorta.”

“And you’ve seen Ian—“

“Sorta.”

“There’s no way Hannah knew he existed,” Dean says, tapping his fingers on the table and he remembers Eddie doing the same thing.

“Glad to see your teenage stereotypes are still intact.”

“I do not disappoint.”

And Sam’s eyes watch him for a minute, tracking Dean’s every move, as if Dean is telling him something.

[xxiii.]

His brother says something cryptic this isn’t completely about love and Dean almost says, So it’s about death then, huh. But Sam snakes his keys and is out the door before Dean can open his mouth.

That’s the thing Sam doesn’t see, that it’s not about love maybe, but it’s almost always about death, like maybe love is a precursor to death, like a harbinger, the horses riding before the storm. Sam doesn’t see it, tends to forget about the death part, the one constant, and maybe that’s why he carries these scars and roadside crosses, because death is always surprising him.

Dean doesn’t know he fell asleep until he wakes, breathless and his fingers curled aching, his heart fast in triphammer rhythm and he’s sweating in his clothes.

He stumbles to the bathroom. He doesn’t turn on a light, just goes to the sink and turns on the tap. Clear, rusty, clear and Dean shoves his hands into the stream, splashing it on his face, drinking it and it’s so cold, like melted freshwater glaciers.

He looks at the mirror. He doesn’t know how long he’s been standing there and he doesn’t remember the dream. But then suddenly, the silver’s taken up by Sam behind him, no room for his reflection, only Sam in the mirror.

“Dean?”

And he remembers: driving on the road, Sam in the shotgun seat, but it wasn’t Sam, it was the Sam in the mirror, the one who laughed and cut his brother’s throat, the one who had blood on his jeans and a smile on his face and he kept saying, Dean, you can see me, you can see me, that means you’re mine.

“Dean?”

Then Dean can see himself in the mirror, eyes wide and gone pale, like he’s lost all color and his knuckles are red and he’s leaning on the sink, stranded.

“You okay?” Sam says, moving closer, the reflection getting bigger and Dean thinks, Not Sam, please not Sam, I’m cursed.

Hand on his shoulder, hand on his neck and Sam saying, “Dean, look at me, look at me, what happened?”

His touch is warm and he’s real and the water’s still running. Water drips down Dean’s shirt and it’s starting to stick cold to him.

“Sam.”

His brother’s thumb pressing hard against his pulse and Sam nods. “Yeah.”

And maybe there’s barriers in names too, so Dean says, “Sam” again and then a third time just to cut the knot.

Sam’s hand slips to his chest and he thinks of Sam so long ago telling him stop it, stop saying my name.

[xxiv.]

The bathroom door is closed. They don’t need any more mirrors. Sam came back with Dean’s car and Dean’s keys and two mirrors.

“What’re these for?”

“One’s to use and one’s to sacrifice,” Sam says, pointing to the mirrors he’s laid on Dean’s bed.

Circling the mirrors, Dean says, “Sacrifice? Thanks, Marie Laveau.” And now he really wants New Orleans, humidity and ash mixed in his coffee instead of bottom-of-the-pot dregs, dark easy nights with Sam in the streetlights, stealing holy water from church fonts and burning through candles of the Virgin. He wants this and his hands shake. They’re like ikons blazing ahead of him, out of this area of the East Coast, and he’s never hated it here. It’s a nice place to visit, but he’s about to be split open, heart taken and salt poured in the wound and the land won’t care because it had its wounds opened long ago with salt to preserve the sting.

Sam’s staring at him expectantly, like he’s said something and he’s waiting for Dean to catch up.

“You want to bait this thing and then kill it,” Dean says, because that should’ve been Sam’s point if it wasn’t.

“Yeah,” Sam says.

“So what’s the sacrificial mirror for? To keep the sun rising?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna use it to cut out your heart, Dean, very classy.”

With his mouth and his eyes and his hands. Sam doesn’t need the mirror.

“So you want to what now?”

“Well, whatever this is, Millie or whatever, I was thinking we could kill it with silver,” Sam says, picking up one of the mirrors.

Dean frowns. “And what’s wrong with bullets?”

The mirror tips, showing Dean where he stands, as Sam looks it over, weighing it and peering at it. “It’s a mirror. I figured, might as well go to the source.”

“But the thing we’re hunting comes from the mirror.”

“And maybe that’s the best way to kill it.”

“It’s not immune from its home,” Dean says, and when Sam glances at him, brushing his hair back, shrugging with his best hopeful look, he thinks, No one is immune from their home.

“So how’re you—“

“I’m gonna smash it. We’ll use one of the pieces,” Sam says.

Dean wants to say something about weathering bad luck, seven minutes, seven hours, seven days, seven weeks, seven months, seven years, seven percent interest, maybe they’ll be able to foretell and dispel prophecy like the seventh son of a seventh son, because they’ve already had so much on them and this has to be some sort of preternatural phenomenon, broken mirrors and the Winchesters and their luck that changes like the smile of a pretty girl.

So he doesn’t say anything, just says, “If you think so, Sammy.”

Sam sort of shrugs one shoulder, glancing around before grabbing a shotgun, depositing the shells on the bed and then Dean’s standing back as Sam swings.

It’s a gun in Sam’s hands, not a knife like in Dean’s dream, not a knife like the Sam in the mirror had and then there’s the sound of breaking glass, which always sounds like violence and when Dean looks, the mirror’s cracked from side to side with a starburst pattern scattering out from the middle.

And Sam’s picking out a shard, a large wicked-edged tooth from the mouth of the frame, a hidden clip-point blade within the mirror and Dean thinks, Who knew.

[xxv.]

They’re waiting for nightfall, because dark is how they cover what they do and because Sam said this isn’t completely about love, so dark is the only thing for it.

They’re waiting, playing cards without talking, the mirrors still on the bed, one whole, the other still broken inside its frame and their guns nearby. They’re waiting, Sam hasn’t explained himself totally about the love remark and Dean isn’t sure he wants to hear it.

They’re waiting, though Dean thinks Sam is waiting for something else, maybe on himself, maybe on Dean and once the sun goes down, Sam’s shoulders relax and he sighs as if Dean can’t hear him.

They’ve already decided on a place. Investigating to see where Millie was buried, crossing through the cemetery with its rough-beaten tombstones, they found a tiny shack backed up to the property, almost lost to the trees and it should work fine.

The shack is made of wood and Dean raps his knuckles on it. If all else fails, they’ll use bullets and cut and run to Millie’s grave, one of the corner markers of the cemetery grounds.

“I’ll be bait,” Dean says as they’re packing up and Sam falters with the clip of silver bullets.

“No, wait, why you?”

“Why not.”

Sam’s eyes flicker like he knows something, but he has gone still, gone sad, an epitaph written across his brow as if he’s imagining one of them dead, or both, or of suicide pacts made in graveyards that mean nothing until something actually happens.

Dean’s selfish for doing this. Not to save Sam the trouble, the heartache of almost losing his heart for real, the danger of fighting off another greedy being that only wants to sink its fingers into a world that isn’t theirs anymore. Not just to save Sam.

But he thinks he knows now, and he doesn’t want to see who Sam would see in the mirror, who it would conjure if it’s not Millie. Because it’s not completely about love and very likely about loss and they know a lot about loss.

He thinks it’ll be Jess, with her dress of flames and her hair of smoke and Sam shouldn’t see that again and Dean knows that Sam would go then.

He’s selfish, he doesn’t want the risk and if it’s him as bait, it’ll be okay because it’s not completely about love and very likely about loss and loss has always made up Dean’s landscape.

“Why not,” he says again.

[xxvi.]

They walk to the cemetery, everything stowed in their backpacks, but they stay in the shadows, avoiding the streetlights because this is what they do.

They pick their way through the dark and the tombstones and Dean can sense Sam, so close behind him.

Inside the shack, they only have their flashlights and there are plants working into the cracks of the wooden planks.

“What do you think I want from you, Dean?” Sam says, propping the unbroken mirror on a makeshift table.

Wrapping the wide end of the shard in a torn pillowcase, Dean glances up and hands it to Sam, doesn’t look at Sam, doesn’t look at the mirror, settles for digging a candle out of one of the bags and searching around for the matches.

He goes for the truth, because Sam wants nothing and everything and Dean’s tried to give him space and the world, the copper pennies in his pockets and the blood in his veins.

“I dunno, Sammy, I suppose you just want the moment.”

Then he strikes the match and lights the candle.

[xxvii.]

Dean looks at the mirror. The candle gutters beside him, the weak light creating shadows on the dark silver, expanding and deepening.

He thinks about wanting to know the future, wanting to see if Sam will leave him, when Sam will leave him, because that’s how this game is played.

He thinks about how it’s not about love, it’s never been about love, it’s been about Sam, and that’s a different obscure definition.

He thinks about how they’re cursed brothers, wandering together, in search of something that’ll probably never be found and the only thing Dean knows how to find is his brother.

He thinks about how Sam tastes and how shifting hazel his eyes are, especially when Sam says ‘please.’

He thinks about the maps they’ve drawn and redrawn together.

He thinks about how their names might be bad luck spells and good luck charms.

He thinks about missing hearts and broken hearts; hearts pierced by swords or bullets, circled by roses or barbed wired or scrawled handwriting; stolen ones, lost ones, found ones.

Now all Dean can see is Sam behind him, he can't see his own reflection. The silver's taken up by Sam and he's not even—

“Sam?”

Sam smiles, a cruel slant to his mouth and in the candlelight, his edges shudder.

“Sammy.”

When Dean turns around, it’s not Sam at all.

Needle teeth, needle claws, glass slivers for eyes and a hiss like the strike of a match.

[xxviii.]

It moves like a shadow, moves like water and Dean hopes he’s a good enough target, backing up until he finds the mirror.

It’s tracking him, shifting with him like a good predator, patient for the opportune moment. So he gives it one, turning his back on it.

He feels the slice across his jacket, across his shoulder blades.

Then he breaks the mirror with his fist.

And it screams, a shatter like the glass, high and hard and cutting, like knife to bone.

A spray of liquid, warm and jetting, and as Dean looks, it falls to the ground with Sam standing behind it.

The shard is bright in his hands before he kneels and jams it into the thing’s neck, just below the open jaw of stabbing teeth.

He stands slow, wiping his palms on his jeans and there’s blood on the mirror and Dean’s knuckles are red.

The light swims like they’re underwater and Sam’s saying, Dean, Dean, hey, you okay.

Dean.

[xxix.]

Sam burns the body, just for extra precaution and Dean leaves the broken mirror, like an apology.

At the motel, Dean has cuts on his knuckles and the back of his hand and Sam cut his palm on the shard.

It’s slow going, but they clean their wounds, holding their breath and Sam whispers Latin and they might rub salt in their wounds, but not now.

Then Sam’s caught Dean as he’s bandaging his hand, pulling him closer, and he says something right before he kisses Dean.

Sam says, “Not just for the moment.”

And Dean kisses back, because he wants to say something, but he doesn’t know what and then Sam’s biting the words along his jaw and down his throat, not just for the moment, Dean, not just that.

[xxx.]

They leave at first light. Because it’s cold and the air is honed by the keen wind and they’re both starting to ache. There are dark circles under Sam’s eyes and Dean’s knuckles are swollen and the bells are chiming the hour. All they can taste is salt and smoke and something metallic like blood.

Sam finds the interstate on the map and his finger skims along it southbound, and then they’re a flash in the pan, shining black headed out of town, blowing past the speed limit signs.

And it’s in each mile they drive, frayed fabric unraveling, the ancient salt and magic in the land getting lighter and lighter, winding through the trees, and the sky is white when Sam says, “Pull over.”

They lean against the car and Dean remembers Sam saying, Depends on what you’re asking me to believe in, and he wants to ask, Are you a believer.

But Sam gets a hand in Dean’s pocket and says, “You saw me in the mirror. You thought I didn’t.” He stops, tilting his head back. “You thought I didn’t want this. You thought I wouldn’t stay.”

“Better I see you than you see—”

“See what? You?”

No, Dean shakes his head, no, he’s thinking, Jess, you would see Jess, but Sam’s pulled Dean sideways, pinning him to the car.

“It would’ve been you. No one else. You knew you would see me in the mirror. Who else could I’ve seen?” Sam says, before he pushes his face against Dean’s neck.

He’s saying, Just you, Dean, just you, voice low and red, and Dean slides his hands in Sam’s hair, then kisses him.

And Dean is talking into the kiss, saying, I know, I’m so sorry, I know.

The kiss turns deeper, darker and they brace themselves against the car, against each other and Dean’s thinking, Sammy, Sam, I know, it’s okay, I’m sorry, it was an honest mistake.