Jukebox Heroes

Summary: If there's a cursed object, you just know that one of them is going to touch it. Dean will regret that when an absolutely insane Muse decides that she'll only lift the curse if the Winchesters provide her with a little entertainment, and makes their lives a living musical (Hell) in the process.

Notes: Inspired by and written for the lovely Hana. I do not own Supernatural, et cetera et cetera. I'm fairly certain that there is no town called Falsewell, Kentucky. I also know nothing about guitars, so… If I've gotten anything horribly wrong, please let me know! Um… I'm bad at these notes.

Warnings: Mild language. PG rating. A bit of insanity. (This story really shouldn't be taken too seriously, it's all in good fun.) Dean is probably a bit out-of-character at times, I've never quite gotten the hang of writing him, please don't yell at me.

Jukebox Heroes

Falsewell, Kentucky

1987

She'd just finished applying her lipstick, a brilliant orange-red named Tomato Soup-er!, when Amy bounced through the bathroom door, all spiked blonde hair and shredded jeans. Amy grinned hugely, wrapped her arms around Kelsey, and, on a peppermint-scented exhale, said 'He came! He actually, like, showed up!' Kelsey could hear music coming from Amy's headphones (The Cure, maybe?) and she squeezed back briefly before disentangling herself from the hug. Amy thumped her guitar case down on the bathroom counter.

'You mean Mikey, right? That's great, Amy! Maybe once he hears you play-'

'He'll fall madly in love with me and whisk me off to foreign lands?' Amy interrupted, her green eyes sparkling with amusement. 'Gawd, I hope so. That would be totally bomb.' The sounds through the door, rumbling voices and clinking glasses, thumping bass from the club's audio system, faded as Amy pulled the door closed and locked it.

Kelsey laughed, and Amy reached out to yank on her ponytail. 'Don't laugh at me, Kels, I saw you staring at Kyle yesterday. He's, like, totally choice.' She giggled. 'Like, we're totally going to get them to, like, notice us. I even bought a new guitar for good luck!' She unsnapped the clasp on her guitar case and popped the lid. 'Isn't it, like, major radical?'

It was pretty rad, Kelsey had to admit, with a body all soft curves and dark shining wood. Not that she knew anything about guitars, that was all Amy's thing. But it sure looked nice. The shine of the fluorescent lighting overhead, reflecting off the polished wood, was almost… hypnotic in a way. It was a total head rush. There was a dark shivery feeling in the pit of her stomach as she reached out to run her fingers over the strings.

Amy was still talking away a mile a minute, something about the guitar being on sale-'the guy at the store, like, seemed totally desperate to, like, sell it or whatever, ya know?'- but Kelsey stopped listening. She pulled her eyes away from the guitar and turned back to the mirror, fixing a smudge of her blue eyeshadow. 'Look, Amy! We're the prettiest girls in here tonight!' Amy's reflection, blonde and pale and smiling, and Kelsey's reflection, long dark hair and eyes like coffee, looked back at them. 'Now stop spazzing and get ready! We're onstage in-' she glanced at her watch,'-eight minutes!'

The fire started twelve minutes later, the moment Amy's fingers played out the first note on the guitar. The screaming started before the note had a chance to fade from the air.

Falsewell, Kentucky

Present Day

Gravel crunched under the tires of the Impala as it pulled up to the burnt-out shell of what was, at one point, a rather popular nightclub. Dean cut the engine off as Sam opened his door, already talking before Dean was even out of the car. 'So the one thing all of the victims had in common was that they were in this building sometime in the week before they died.' Dean had to wonder why the Hell someone would want to spend any time in this falling-down deathtrap, but Sam answered that question with his next sentence. 'Apparently, local cops busted some sort of rave up here last weekend, and six of the eight victims were listed in the arrest reports.'

The story in the papers had caught their eye, eight suspicious deaths in one week's time. The men had all died differently- one from infection, another had gotten crushed by a car in the automotive shop that he worked at- but the body count was too high for it to be random coincidence. And sure enough, Sam had done some digging, and pulled up at least one suspicious death per year, starting in 1987.

'So what're we thinking? Ghost? Witches?' Broken glass crackled under Dean's boots as he moved towards the building, his gun a reassuring line of chilled metal at the base of his spine. He dangled a rock-salt loaded shotgun from one hand, grip loose on the butt of the weapon.

'Well,' Sam shrugged. 'I'm thinking… Maybe a cursed object? Something in here that they all touched. It would seem to fit the pattern. We need to look around, though, get some more information.' He stood in front of the doorway- there was no door- and peered into the gloom of the building. Outside, the sun burned hot and strong against the back of his neck, but the light had trouble shining through holes in the roof, as cloaked with ivy as they were. Dean and Sam flicked their flashlights on and stepped inside, Dean leading the way.

The interior of the building was cool and dark, much more spacious than it had looked from the outside. Dean could feel spiderwebs brushing across his face as he wandered deeper in.

'Hey, Sammy, why don't you get in front? You can clear out these cobwebs for me.'

Sam snorted. 'Don't think so. Just keep an eye out for… something suspicious.'

'This whole damn place is suspicious,' Dean mumbled. His foot caught a beer bottle, and it clattered across the floor, smashing against the far will with a tinkle of glass, the sound echoing through the room. Sam winced at the noise. If there was anything here, it almost definitely knew they were coming now.

'Yeah, I know, but just… Don't touch anything, Dean, okay?'

'C'mon, Sammy, I'm not that dumb.'

An hour later, they'd combed through nearly the entire building, and there was no sign of anyone or anything unusual. Just a scattering of cigarette filters, empty beer bottles, and a lingering smell of old piss. The only place they hadn't checked yet was the-

'Basement,' Dean said, motioning towards a door with his shotgun. 'If there's anything here, it's in the basement.' The door swung open, surprisingly silent despite the rusted hinges, and Dean tested the first step with his foot. 'Probably going to collapse and kill us,' he muttered.

There was absolutely no light in the basement, and their flashlights didn't illuminate much. Except. Sam's light had sparkled briefly off of something in the corner. Dean shifted his grip on the shotgun and crept- there was no other word for it- towards the flicker. Sam aimed his flashlight in the other direction. The basement was one large square room, nowhere for creatures to hide, and entirely empty, except for one overturned cardboard box full of smashed bottles of bourbon.

'Hey, Sammy, check this out!' The beam from Dean's flashlight lit up the guitar that was propped in the corner, with a body all soft curves and dark shining wood. 'How stoned do you have to be to leave something like this here? This is a freakin' old-school Les Paul!' He reached out his hand.

'Dean, don't-!'

Dean's fingers brushed the guitar, there was a faint vibration of the strings, and from somewhere overhead came the definite sound of a door slamming shut.

END Jukebox Heroes Part 1