#1 Dean: Another Hunt

I paused on the stairs, one hand resting on the yellowed plastic of the weathered screen door.

Dammit. Get yourself together Dean.

I inhaled the moisture thick air through my nose and held it until it burned. Until the corpses of dead insects intermingling with the mesh of the screen door turned to blurs in my unfocused eyes.

The door to the Impala slammed and I let out my breath as Sam squished across the lawn behind me.

"Dean?" he said.

I shrugged off the hand he laid on my shoulder and simultaneously pressed the doorbell. I wouldn't look back at his face, that idiot face he made. When would he learn that those puppy dog eyes didn't work on me anymore.

The death trap of a screen door opened and a woman peered at me through the glass, her tiny eyes sweeping from my trenchcoat to my scruffy face. She fidgeted with her apron and adjusted her shirt over sagging breasts before meeting my eyes.

I smiled quickly and pulled out my newest ID.

"Ma'am we're with the FBI. We heard you've been having some...trouble lately."

Her eyes widened and the deep grooves around her mouth deepened. She nudged her glasses farther up her nose and seemed to take a deep breath herself as she opened the screen door.

"The FBI," she murmmured, standing back from the door to let us through. "Why I never thought...well it was strange but..."

"We're here to help," Sam said behind me.

We crossed the threshold and entered into the stale, dry air and thick perfume that was this old woman's house. My eyes passed over the cozies and piles of blankets. The black and white TV she'd probably been too stubborn to change squatting in the corner. No wonder her husband had left on a trip. You couldn't get good porn in black and white.

I sighed and plopped onto the couch, next to the round boy who hadn't closed his mouth after taking a bite of food.

I smiled at him too. Sam raised his eyebrows at me and reclined in a chair overflowing with doilies.