She hates starting at a new school.
"It's only for a couple of months," her father reminds her. "Just until I clean out this vampire nest."
Kylie groans and packs up her backpack for yet another first day of school. "Couldn't we, just for once, stay somewhere where there isn't a case?"
"I've been chasing these vamps for months, Kylie," he says. "It's not my fault they decided to move across the country."
"Yeah, but you're the one who decided to follow them." She's grumpy about it, but really, Kylie does understand. Her dad is saving lives. She's not about to pitch a fit. And it's not like he can just let the vamps go.
He sets down the gun he's fieldstripping and comes over to inspect her backpack. "You've got your knife?"
"Yes, Dad."
"And your holy water?"
"Of course, Dad."
"Don't get into trouble, pay attention in class, you know the tricks. Be safe."
"I know, Dad."
He gives her a kiss on the head. "I know this is hard for you. You're the best daughter ever."
"And you're the best dad," she admits. It's true. It's hard to beat a dad who fights vampires and demons for a living, even if they do have to keep moving.
"I should be here when you get back. If I'm not, you call Tyra and Amy."
"Got it." She slings her backpack over her shoulder. "See you later."
And Kylie heads for her fourteenth high school.
Transferring into a school mid-year is the worst. Everyone's curious about Kylie, and for a hunter, attention is never a good thing. She slinks into the backs of her classrooms, takes studious notes, and doesn't make conversation.
Her classes aren't even half bad. It sucks that she has to take Religious Studies, but Latin's fun and she doesn't mind Physics. Kylie wishes there were a school for children of hunters – somewhere she could go to learn what really matters in life.
The Religious Studies teacher takes her completely by surprise. She expected a stuffy, hidebound old guy in a priest's outfit. Instead, Castiel – he insists that they call him by his first name – is open and honest, with wide blue eyes and scruffy brown hair. His clothing is conservative but his take on religion is not. Today's lecture is about the Book of Revelations, the accuracies and inaccuracies of God's words. He talks about the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse like they're vague acquaintances of his, rather than ethereal horrors. His approach isn't orthodox, but realistic.
The name Castiel seems familiar, but Kylie can't place it. Maybe she's just too used to her father's lectures on angels and demons. Castiel sounds like the name of an angel.
Her Latin class, too, is more interesting than expected. The teacher, Mr. Winchester, shows them an ancient, handwritten copy of a Latin book from the 15th century. It occurs to Kylie that most high school teachers don't have access to such rare books, but no one is questioning it, so she doesn't either. Maybe this is a regular occurrence for Mr. Winchester.
Both this Castiel guy and Mr. Winchester are rather attractive, and although Kylie never stays long enough at a school to develop teacher crushes, she could definitely see herself having a crush on either of them. Besides, Latin is a respectable subject to teach. Her dad uses Latin all the time in demon exorcisms.
It's only when Kylie gets to P.E. that she decides this school as an unusual percentage of attractive male teachers.
The P.E. teacher is, if anything, more attractive than both Castiel and Mr. Winchester. With green eyes and a chiseled jaw, he looks like a Calvin Klein model. Plus, as a P.E. teacher, he's in perfect shape. It occurs to Kylie that, in another life, he'd make a fine hunter.
When he introduces himself as Mr. Winchester, though, she gets thoroughly confused. She turns to the guy standing beside her and says, "I thought the Latin teacher was Mr. Winchester."
"They're brothers," he whispers back.
Well, that explains it. Man, that family has good genes.
Mr. Winchester – the P.E. teacher – barks orders at them like an army veteran, then sends them off to run laps. Kylie's father puts her through a strict training regimen seven days a week, so she's in excellent shape. She quickly takes the lead in the group and finishes ahead of most of the others.
"You're new, right?" asks Mr. Winchester as they wait for the rest of the kids to finish running.
"Yeah," she says, still out of breath from the run. "Just moved here."
"Mid-year. Sucks, doesn't it?" He smiles half-heartedly at her. "My brother and I used to move around a lot as kids. He hated it."
"I do too," she agrees. "But my dad's work… It's more important, I guess. Not much I can do."
He punches her lightly on the shoulder. "Hey, we really do have something in common. My dad was the one dragging us around too. Don't worry, you'll fit in well here."
"Have you worked here long?"
He shrugs one shoulder. "Coupla years. My brother really wanted to settle down."
She smirks. "What, are you two married to each other?"
"Nah, but where he goes, I go. I don't mind so much. Teaching is kind of fun." He grins maliciously. "Especially P.E. I get to inflict pain on kids like you."
She laughs uneasily, unsure if he's joking or not. By then most of the other kids have finished running, so Mr. Winchester moves away from her and back to the class.
So really, the school isn't so bad. And when Kylie gets home, her dad is at the table as promised, newspapers sprawled out in front of him. She drops her backpack on the floor, not even bothering with homework.
"So, what do we have?" She picks up the newspaper nearest to her.
"Nothing, so far. These vamps are hiding well. But don't worry, Kylie, we'll catch 'em. They've gotta make a mistake eventually."
"And when they do, we'll be there with our machetes. You want dinner?"
"Yeah, there's some soup on the counter."
The apartment isn't much, but it should last them for a few weeks, until the case is finished. She turns on the stove, which takes a few moments to sputter to life. She stirs the soup as it warms, humming to herself. Really, this part of the life isn't so bad.
"How was school?"
She makes a noncommittal noise and focuses on the soup.
"Details, Kylie. Anything good happen?"
"I've got some cool teachers. Religious Studies was actually interesting – who knew?"
"I don't know, Kylie, if you'd been fighting the Apocalypse ten years ago, you might have found the Bible interesting too."
She sighs, setting down a wooden spoon and going to find bowls. "Come on, Dad, you keep talking about this mysterious Apocalypse, but you won't really tell me what happened. I want to know. How did you guys stop it?"
He shakes his head. "You're still too young, Kylie. It was a dangerous world. I spent half my time protecting you, the other half fighting angels and demons."
"I know, I know. I just wish you'd tell me what happened. Tyra and Amy won't tell me either, and it's not like I can just ask anyone on the street."
Her dad looks uncomfortable with the subject. "Anyway, back to your Religious Studies class. What was so interesting?"
She shrugs a shoulder. "Religious Studies is usually, in my experience, homophobia with a side of thou-shalt-not-kill. The latter doesn't really work for me, considering the amount of killing I do on a weekly basis."
"So what was different about this class?"
"I don't know, he was telling the truth? He wasn't just spouting bullshit about Jesus and the Resurrection. He was talking about history."
"Language, Kylie." He looks at her sternly over the frames of his reading glasses.
"Whatever. Not like you can talk, Dad." She smirks and sets down a bowl of steaming soup in front of him. "Eat up."
"You're an angel," he says.
"I wish. They kick ass." She grins and tucks into her own meal.
"You've never even met one."
"Neither have you, but you talk about them like you have."
"Kylie, quit bringing everything back to the Apocalypse. I'm not going to talk about it."
She groans. "Fine, whatever. But I'm going to learn about it sooner or later."
The following day, Kylie almost looks forward to school. Not just because of her three cute teachers, but because the classes they teach are worth her time. Today, Castiel continues discussing the Apocalypse. Unfortunately, he's talking about the Biblical Apocalypse, not the one from her childhood, the secret Apocalypse. No one outside of the supernatural world knew that one even happened. Her Religious Studies teacher doesn't know a damn thing.
She raises one hand and asks, "So, what's Hell like?"
"Excuse me?" Castiel blinks once, slowly.
"You keep talking about Hell on Earth, but you haven't talked about Hell. If it's real, what is it like?" Of course, Kylie doesn't mean if. Hell really does exist. Demons have to come from somewhere, right?
Castiel stares at her, eyes cold and hard. "Bloody. Bloody and violent and messy. Endless war and pain."
His words strike her as honest. But that's impossible. Not even hunters know what Hell is like.
She shakes off the feeling and blinks away from that unsettling stare.
"You should ask Mr. Winchester about it. He's rather an expert on the subject," Castiel continues, with a small smile.
"Which brother?" she asks, returning the amused smile.
"Either. Religion is an interest of theirs as well, with a… particular focus on Hell and demons."
She's not sure what to make of that. Either the Winchester brothers are psychos, or they just have really weird hobbies.
Or, of course, they could be hunters. But no, she laughs the idea off. They're high school teachers.
Her next class is Latin, so after the class is finished she does approach the teacher.
"Excuse me, Mr. Winchester?"
"Yes?" He looks up, shaking back his long, brown hair. "You're the new student, right?"
"Yeah. Kylie."
He smiles kindly. "Dean told me about you."
"The other Mr. Winchester?"
He laughs. "Yeah. He said you're a fast runner."
"He told me about you too," she says. "He said you didn't like moving around as a kid."
"I didn't. He told you that?"
"I move around a lot too. I'm in your shoes." She shrugs a shoulder. "Um, actually, I'm here because of my Religious Studies teacher. I asked a question about Hell today and he directed me to you, said you knew something about the subject."
Sam snorts and rolls his eyes. "Did he now? Kylie, Castiel may not look like it, but he has a sense of humor. It was intended as a joke at my expense."
"I don't get it."
"An inside joke. And not a very funny one, I might add."
"So you don't know anything about Hell?"
"No, I do, it's just… Nevermind, it's complicated. Why is a teenage girl like you interested in something like that?"
What is she supposed to say? Oh, sorry, my dad hunts the supernatural for a living but stubbornly refuses to tell me anything about the Apocalypse, so I'm out to learn for myself. That won't go over well. Instead, she says, "No reason. Curiosity."
He frowns. "Kylie, Hell isn't something you want to be curious about. Trust me." When she says nothing else, he continues, "Ah, listen, if that's all you wanted to ask…"
"Thanks, Mr. Winchester," she says, and hightails it out of there, unsatisfied with the answer.
Of course, no one can really give her a straight answer. No one's gone to Hell and lived to tell the tale. That's impossible.
So why did it sound like Castiel had?
The weeks pass, her father making little progress on the hunt. Her teachers grow progressively weirder, especially Castiel. Mr. Winchester claimed he had a sense of humor, but it's utterly untrue. Pop culture references sail right over his head, and he gets bizarrely angry about the weirdest things.
Plus, she's starting to make the connection between Castiel and the two Winchesters. They always leave the school together in this black muscle car, and every day she sees them sitting together at the same lunch table. One day, when she passes by them, she swears she hears the P.E. teacher say something about demons.
But that's impossible. They're so mild-mannered, the three of them. Maybe they're just weird.
But she makes more of an effort to listen in on their conversations, and one day she hears her own name mentioned.
"It's obvious, innit?" the P.E. teacher – Dean - says. "Kid like her, moving around schools. You should see her in P.E., man. She knows self-defense."
"She also has a curious fascination with the Apocalypse," Castiel adds. "I can only assume-"
"But then why are they in town?" Sam interrupts. "We'd have seen in the newspapers if-"
"Just our luck," mutters Dean. "What did we expect? We're the freaking Winchesters. These fuglies flock to us like bees to a honeypot."
Kylie distances herself from them, unable to make sense of the conversation. Why did Dean point out his last name like it was something special?
She goes home, intent on asking her dad about it, but immediately forgets when he tells her they're going hunting.
"I finally figured out their location. You got your machete, kid?"
Kylie digs through her things to find her favorite knife. "Armed and ready, sir."
"Let's go vampire hunting." He grins, claps her on the back, and they head out the door.
This is a big hunt for them – usually her dad just faces down lower-level demons or monsters. Five or six vampires in one place are too much for him to handle alone. And he may not like risking his daughter's life on hunts, but he could use the backup.
Kylie lives for these hunts. She loves the adrenaline. She loves saving lives.
They make it to the vampire nest easily enough, and together they creep through the halls, clearing every room before they enter. This is dangerous stuff. Her father always goes ahead, while she watches his back.
As they go further and further into the abandoned warehouse, her ears pick up on faint noises.
"Dad!" She nods in the direction of the noises. "I think they're over there."
He nods and stalks in that direction. As they grow closer, the sounds become louder – sounds of killing, most certainly. She hears the snarl of a vampire and the clear snk! of a blade.
Her dad glances uncertainly back at her. Are there already hunters here?
He pushes open the door, and they enter pure chaos.
The nest had more vampires than they originally thought – more like ten or twelve. But half of them already lie beheaded on the floor. And fighting the survivors are-
"Mr. Winchester?" she asks, jaw dropping.
Both brothers turn, eyes wild, machetes flailing.
"Kylie! Nice of you to join the party!" says Dean, grinning maniacally. "I had a feeling you and your dad would show up. Now, if you don't mind giving us a hand-"
Before she can register the unfolding events, her father plunges into the melee, machete swinging.
She merely stands in the doorway as her father, Sam and Dean Winchester, and Castiel finish off the remaining vampires.
They stand amongst the corpses, covered in blood and grime, panting for air.
"What are you doing here?" she asks, unable to contain her incredulity any longer.
Sam straightens and wipes the blade of his bloody machete on his jeans. She takes a moment to reconcile this man with the man who assigned her three pages of Latin exercises yesterday.
"We're hunters, like you."
"Well, we used to be," Dean concedes. "We're in semi-retirement."
"You know these men?" Kylie's father asks.
She nods. "They teach at my school. He's the Religious Studies teacher I mentioned."
Castiel offers a hand to her father. Amidst the wreckage, he is mysteriously clean, not a speck of blood on him. And he's not carrying a machete.
"My name is Castiel."
Her father's jaw drops. "Excuse me?"
Castiel cocks his head to the side, the way he does in class when someone asks a question he doesn't understand. "You are excused, although I do not understand-"
"I'm Dean, and this is Sam," Dean interrupts. "Though we're both Mr. Winchester to your daughter."
For the first time, Kylie sees her father stunned into silence. Then, suddenly, he snaps back to life. "You're the Winchesters! The Winchesters! And Castiel! I can't believe- this is impossible- Kylie, these are your teachers? And you didn't tell me? You had the Winchesters for your teachers and-"
Dean laughs nervously. "We keep a low profile, sir."
"Oh, don't sir me! I'm the one who should be respecting you! You're the freaking Winchesters."
Kylie squints, trying to understand why her father's acting like a hormonal teenager. "Dad? Uh, what do you mean?"
Sam turns to Kylie while her father babbles on. "We're, uh, kind of celebrities in the hunting world. I was surprised, actually, that you didn't recognize us. Relieved, of course. We've been laying low."
"How are their celebrity hunters? We're not exactly a large population." She glances uncertainly between her father and her teachers, unable to see the connection.
Castiel, in his usual deadpan, says, "We stopped the Apocalypse together. It seems to have left an impression on the hunting community."
"Kylie," her father says, looking like a child on Christmas. "You don't understand how huge this is. They saved the world."
"You mean, they stopped the Apocalypse you never tell me about?"
"Exactly. Castiel, he's an angel."
What? Did she hear that correctly? Her Religious Studies teacher, the one who lectures on angels, is an angel himself? She can't get her head around it.
"You're trying to tell me my teachers saved the world."
"More or less," says Dean. "Sammy did the heavy lifting, really. Locked himself in Hell to save the world."
She turns to Sam, the words sinking in. "So when you said you were an expert on Hell- no, that's impossible. You're here now. You can't just walk out of Hell."
He shrugs and turns to Castiel. "You can when you have an angel on your shoulder."
Sam had told her the Hell incident was Castiel's idea of a joke. What have these men been through that makes Hell into a joke?
This is unbelievable. All this time, and she didn't realize they were hunters. She had her suspicions, but she never really thought they were true.
Dean wipes some vampire blood from his face. "Sorry we took over your hunt, sir. We didn't even realize the vamps were in town until today."
"My dad's been looking for them for months. How did you track them down in one day?" Kylie demands.
"Kylie," her father says, "these men are the best hunters the world has ever seen. For them, this is a minor case."
Finally, it all sinks in. These aren't ordinary high school teachers. They're the Winchesters. And to her father, that means something, something she can't even begin to grasp. Her mind swirls with all this new information, unable to make sense of it.
Sam kicks aside a severed head bashfully. "You flatter us, sir. We're not all that special."
"I heard you died and came back to life. Is that true?"
Dean nods. "Yeah, more than once. God Himself resurrected this guy three times." He jerks a thumb over his shoulder at Castiel. "Don't know why He bothered, of course. Waste of His time, if you ask me." He laughs at his own joke.
No. That can't be. Castiel is the guy who's never seen Star Wars, the guy who wears a suit and tie to school every day. Angels are heroes, bedtime stories she's heard since childhood. This man is completely and utterly average. He cannot be an angel.
"I am," says Castiel, and she flinches away. How did he know what she was thinking? "I am a warrior of God, albeit a retired one."
Kylie's father shakes his head. "You can't just leave the life. That's impossible, especially for you guys."
Dean snorts. "Like we don't know it. We're freaking supernatural magnets, we are."
"But we try to avoid it," says Sam. "We don't seek out hunts anymore, only fighting when we have to. We're undercover, living normal lives. Passing on our knowledge to the next generation the best way we can."
"Listen," says Castiel. "You musn't tell anyone where we are, or that you've met us. Most of the world thinks we're dead or missing. We prefer it that way."
"Of course," her father stutters. "I won't tell a soul."
"Good." Dean digs into his pocket for kerosene and a lighter. "Let's light these bastards up, then, and get the hell out of here."
Kylie follows her father out of the room. "How come he can swear, and I can't?"
"He's Dean Winchester, honey. He can do whatever he likes."