This is the sequel to my "Jars in the Refrigerator" Fic. It is SLASH Dean/Castiel. It isn't necessary to read "Jars" first.

This is based on a short story I've previously written, with the same title.

The House that Vanished

Dean and Sam Winchester felt cold enough already when the icy rain started pelting down on them. Their thin jackets barely kept them warm, the rain soaked Dean's and Sam's jackets quickly, penetrated the flesh underneath, and clung to them like a woebegone spirit. This level of chill seemed – unreal. As if they'd dived into a lake that was covered with a sheet of ice.

Dean looked around – they were surrounded by black, leafless trees that reached up to touch the gray, ominous sky with their lifeless branches. It was a symphony of despair – cold, dead fingers reaching out infinitely to nothing at all.

The epoch of misery, Dean thought. Someone should snap a picture and put it in the dictionary. This place not only looked it, it felt it. Like hope had left this place a millennia ago and left nothing but empty, unfulfilled sadness.

"Does this place have a bad vibe to you, or is it just me?" Dean asked his brother.

"I've been to some depressing places before, but this one takes the cake. Several layers of cake."

"With icing made of frozen tears," Dean added.

"Well, maybe we can solve this mystery and turn it into something other than the place where death itself died."

Dean managed to smile. "Nice description." They walked closer to the bizarre scene that lay before them. A cement staircase with a rotten wood railing led up to a blank spot – there was nothing beyond it but a crumbling cement foundation.

They were in a heavily wooded area of Hamburg, Wisconsin, on a road that looked like it hadn't seen maintenance for twenty years. Or a living soul. Sam had read an article on the internet about a woman in a state mental institution that was convinced her father had disappeared into thin air and never returned, twenty years ago, by walking up these steps in the dark and standing on the foundation.

The weird thing was she wasn't in the hospital because she was delusional. She was there because the event had driven her insane. It had actually happened – according to her sister who wrote the article. They had both seen their father walk up into the darkness, beyond the light of the car's headlights, and never return. This was after he had told them repetitive stories about a house that vanished, according to the article:

"Dad would take us down that road occasionally to give us a scare. It usually worked. By the time he told the story and we arrived at the place where the house used to be, I was ready to close my eyes and begging him to take us home.

Dad wasn't mean; he just had a fascination with ghost stories. And he was good at telling the tale. There was once a house in the woods where a family decided to start a new life. They were tired of the city and wanted to be close to nature, so chose a property in the forest. The father built the house by hand with the help of his children and some friends. It was a large family with five children. It started with a cement truck coming to pour the foundation of the house. Cement steps were made to go up to the future front door. That night as the family stayed in tents nearby, two of the children decided to sneak out and play on the newly laid foundation.

The next morning, the children were nowhere to be found. The family thought they had run away, and searched for days in the woods. They were never found. The only trace of them was the footprints they left on the foundation, because it wasn't quite dry yet as the children played.

Eventually the family continued to build the house. Finished, it was two stories high and held enough bedrooms for all the children, even the missing two. One night after work the father came home and found the entire house had vanished. His heart wanted to stop in his chest, there wasn't a piece of rubble or ashes so it wasn't as if the house had burned down.

He wandered around the woods trying to find his family, tears in his eyes and sheer terror in his heart. This reminded him so much of the night two of his children vanished. He wondered if he must be going mad. There was a full moon and an ominous feeling in the air. He walked back to the foundation of that house, walked up the stairs, and later on, friends and relatives were extremely puzzled when they could find no trace of the house or the family."

The author of the article had done some research later as an adult. There really had been a family and a house that had disappeared. At least that's what some locals claimed. And she and her sister both felt a hole in their heart for their missing father, but had no idea what had happened to him. She was hoping someone could solve the mystery.

"My first question," Dean said, "is if those little footprints are really there." They got closer without actually walking up the stairs or climbing onto the foundation. There were two sets of footprints that were pointed in the opposite direction of the stairs, heading into the middle of the foundation of the house. They walked around to where the back of the house had been, and the footprints did not meet the other side. They must have stopped somewhere in the middle, and that's how it looked from where they could see. They wandered all the way around the perimeter, checking to see if the children could have walked to an edge and jumped off. There were none, save the ones next to the stairs that only went inward.

"I would say that this could still be a hoax," Sam said, "because the foundation may have been dry on the other end, and therefore showed no footprints as the children walked on it. But this place feels so bad, I am willing to believe that it's true."

"Yeah, me too. And until we know more about what happened, no walking up those stairs or going on the foundation. As a precaution," Dean said.

"Agreed." They took out their EMF readers and turned them on – and they lit up like Vegas immediately. "No doubt about it," Sam said, "There is something very unusual going on here."

They checked every crack on the side of the crumbling foundation for something – although they weren't sure what that something would be. Obviously when the foundation was first poured, it was solid. They found nothing suspicious in or around the foundation.

"I wonder if there is something underneath the foundation. That they didn't realize was there. For some reason, this family didn't create a basement," Sam said. "That's kind of unusual, since this is the Midwest and most people are concerned about possible tornadoes.

"Yeah, it would be worth it to look back into local lore. I say we go back to our warm, toasty motel room and look stuff up. We can come back here when it isn't raining."

Sam didn't need any convincing there. They climbed into the Impala and turned up the heater full force.

-

They took turns taking warm showers and both men felt they needed to blow dry their hair afterwards. Despite the warmth of the room, the wetness of their hair felt like ice on their scalps. As if the cold had followed them inside and perched on their shoulders. Or rather, on their heads.

"Please don't tell me this case is going to be about an ice cold ghost that haunts us till it's over," Dean said. "I can't even stand the thought of a beer right now. I be needin' a nice hot cup of hot chocolate right now."

Dean fixed them both a cup in the room microwave. Heads and bodies dry, warm liquid going down both their throats, they were both starting to feel better. The ominous feeling from the woods was gone, too.

"I'd love it if we never had to go back to that place again, but I feel really bad for those two sisters – cause – you know – losing their dad and all," Dean said sadly.

"Yeah. Don't we know that feeling," Sam said. There was an uncomfortable silence. "You know, I would have thought that their dad was messed up in the head and just walked off the foundation on the other side, because they couldn't see that far in the darkness – but, I don't know. The EMF and the general feel of the place, and the history of the missing house and family point to something really weird going on there."

"Yeah. We'll definitely have some stuff to check out tomorrow. I think there is something weird going on too. But I'm going to hit the hay for now." Dean pulled back his covers and smoothed out the clean white sheets with his hands, then lay down. One thing that was nice about staying at motels was there were always clean sheets, and you never had to make the bed.

Dean closed his eyes and the music came to his mind softly, at a very low volume at first, that gradually got to a comfortable level. Until Sam spoke.

"Dean, can I ask you something personal?" Sam asked.

"Sure." Dean shifted on the bed and looked around so he could see Sam.

"Have you – heard from or seen Castiel since we left Darkhorse? I'm just curious."

"No. And I wish the dude would contact me for once, I'm tired of missing him."

"Must be different for you, having someone you miss all the time," Sam said.

"Sam, I miss you every time you go to the bathroom."

Sam threw a pillow at him. "Shut up."

"And I miss you so bad when I go to sleep. And I'm going to sleep now, so goodnight." Dean took the new pillow and cuddled up with it, his back to Sam again.

Dean closed his eyes again and listened for the music. He decided he wasn't going to tell Sam about the music. It was just between him and Castiel.

At least, that is where Dean assumed the music came from. Every night since he last saw Castiel, the music met up with him in his mind. At first he thought Sam had the radio to some classical station, because it sounded like a mix of classical and Pink Floyd. So it was tasteful, not boring elevator music. And every night was a new song that he'd never heard before in his life.

Dean assumed it was Castiel's way of letting him know he was there, thinking of him, even though he couldn't show up all the time. He felt a little bit of their connection in that music too. Dean knew people usually had favorite songs that reminded them of someone they fell in love with. In this case, he really could feel that Castiel had woven elements of their relationship into the music. Emphasized, somehow, who Dean was, who Castiel was, and what their bonding sounded like, in a song. Well, that's what Dean felt, anyway. Maybe it was just being in love that made him think these things about the music. He wanted to hold onto his belief, with Castiel absent most of the time. It sure beat thinking his hot angel had abandoned him.