"I'll be gone for a while," Anna tells you and then shakes her head. "No, you don't understand."
Her hair is tickling against your naked shoulder. She's lying close to you in the back of the car, warm and soft, and you slide your hand up her side and ask her to still. You can feel the rise and fall of her breath. Maybe you're dozing off a little. Maybe you're dreaming.
"Time moves more than one way," she says.
The clanking of empty beer cans wakes you up. Sam's stumbling past the foot end of your bed towards the bathroom. "Sorry," he mutters. You turn over with a grunt.
It's got to be around noon. The drapes stand open just enough to allow in a ray of sunlight that lies across your face. Wild red dots start dancing behind your eyelids. They're dancing to the drum in your head. You've got a knife in your stomach and your mouth tastes of ash and there's something black and sluggish inside of you that won't let you move.
"You do the honours."
Dad tosses the box of matches across the grave. Your arms tremble when you catch it. The earth only knows one way to oppose your intrusion. The weight of soil, soaked with rain, almost wore you out.
After a breath, you strike three matches and drop them down into salt and gasoline. Three struck matches to kill evil and protect the living.
Then you grab the shovel and hurry after Dad. He's already halfway back to the car. Some days he won't look at the flames.
Of course it's never that simple. Spirits protect and monsters love and some men sure as hell deserve to die as far you're concerned. But it's not about you, is it? It's about the creed your dad drilled into you until you fit just right into his lines.
You keep a zippo in one and salt in the other pocket. More often than not, there's dirt under your nails. You dig for bones and with your own you build a frame around a home that always threatens to come down.
There's fire, there's always been fire. You've always lived with black soot in your lungs.
What you remember of your mum is a white hot flash that blinded you. For years your heard screaming in the flames.
What you remember is her hair coming down in cold licks and then she said your brother's name.
The Impala sputters. You turn the keys again and this time the engine roars up wild without your doing, the spark of the ignition burning gas away, and the car bucks and jumps forward.
You kill the engine and get out.
The Impala sits still in the parking lot, unmoved and unburning, the sun reflecting off her hood.
The first time you watch Sam pull black smoke out of a poor girl, he's reading from the leather bound journal and stumbling over the latin words. Oh, it'll be going so much smoother soon.
Alastair's had his way with you, and that means you aren't all there by the time Sam arrives in this ruin, in this cold hell. Some part under your sternum feels so light, like brushing against your throat, as Alastair burns out.
"It's salted caramel crisp. Here, try a piece."
"Salted chocolate?"
"Mhm. You'll love it, I promise."
Anna breaks off a piece and holds it out. You lean forward to pick it up with your lips. Your knees knocks against the bumper bar. She's sitting on the very edge of the hood.
In the dark, you can't tell if she's blushing, but there's a soft sound to her exhale when you kiss her fingertips. Her free hand comes up to trace the line of your neck.
"It's good, right?" she whispers.
It is, sweet and a little strange and you happily pick another piece from her hand.
All that red hair shakes out like embers into the night. Then Anna's body falls to ashes.
What you remember of your mum are tears in her eyes.
You're hunters, just like her.
You set a grave on fire, you set a man on fire, you set a house on fire. It's all in the name of fighting evil.
Some days you can't look away. Some days you imagine the flames devouring the whole world in their eternal hunger. There'd be no more people to save.
But the fire goes out and you still stand guard, deep in death's dominion, killing things that are already dead.
It's never made a difference what you want.
The dead crawl out of the earth, don an apron and start baking. You dig in. From the other side of the table, Sam's looking at you with his permanently scrunched eyebrows of concern.
"It's really good pie," you tell him.
Karen smiles. She appears all human, just like you.
You salt the remains, light a big fire, and put the dead back into the ground.
The fire's loud that day. It howls and groans and the searing wind bursts up and away through the branches. Red flames are dancing under the night sky.
Between the snaps of wood, you think you hear a whistling, almost like a voice. Something caresses your skin not with brutal heat but warmth, with insistency, with a familiarity that terrifies.
Alastair too smelled of ashes (and burnt flesh and hair and crisp skin).
We die. I've seen every star burn out, matter adrift in a formless void. The universe cools as it expands.
There'll be a time when I'll fall just like you, Dean. When I'll do things I'm ashamed to admit.
And I'll die and that's all right.
I'll find you. I'm coming back to you when you call.
You lock the door and close the drapes before you sit down on the bed. You take the zippo out of your pocket. You leave the salt where it is.
After a hiss and a spark, there's the flame, flickering and swaying. It could be Michael; you wouldn't be able to tell. It could be Alastair come back from the dead.
The flame beckons, dark and red.
All you remember of being pulled out of hell is the agony. Cas scorched you.
You take a deep breath.
You brace yourself for a pain that can't be borne.
You say a prayer. Let this be the right one to annihilate you.
"Yes."