1 - Graceless

Dean wondered if Halloween had ever really been fun.

Well, he loved the horror movie marathons they usually put on, and the free candy, but the rest of it was pretty fucking cheesy, wasn't it? Especially if you knew actual monsters existed, and while some took advantage of the camouflage of humans in costumes, most of the time they took the night off.

He took Sammy out trick or treating once or twice, when he was younger and more innocent, and it had been kind of fun, even though he was only the chaperon. Of course, he never told Dad. Dad probably would have been mad at him about it. Disappointing the old man - Dean was sure he'd been inadvertently acing that category his whole life.

Dean ate another mini candy bar - fun size his ass - as he got off the bus and started walking back to the apartment they were currently staying in.

In all honesty, after that whole thing in Greenridge, where he ended up in the hospital for a bit, he was glad to be back on the East Coast, despite its weird humidity. And in New York City on Halloween! It was amazing. Okay, so the place they were staying in, a loan from a hunter currently out of the country, was a surprisingly small four room apartment, and Dean was crashing on the couch. But he didn't care. NYC! A big city for once in their godforsaken lives. Dean felt energized to be in a city where him and monsters weren't the only things up at three in the morning.

He wasn't sure how long this would last, though, which was kind of a bummer. Dad had said they wouldn't be here long, only a couple of weeks, and that was last week. And he and Sammy had seen him ... three times? One of those times, he got up to find Dad had come in sometime during the night, and was asleep. Dean never saw him conscious. They mostly communicated through notes on the fridge, or on the bathroom mirror. Dad said he was here trying to help a fellow hunter track down a haunted object ... but Dean knew it was a lie, right? Of course it was. He thought Dad was tight lipped before, but after Greenridge he had somehow retreated deeper into himself, which Dean had not thought possible. It was the mention of a demon being in town, wasn't it? Must have been. Or maybe Dad was disappointed in him almost bleeding to death rather than saving Sammy. Six of one, half dozen of the other. Choose your favorite.

He pulled out the folded up flyer he'd shoved in his coat pocket. Tonight, there was a punk show at this small club called The Armory, going until two in the morning, and Dean was determined to sneak out and see some of it. Assuming Dad didn't come home in the meantime, and Sammy was okay.

The weird thing? He would swear that every time they stayed in proximity to a big city, Sammy got sick. This week, he had a cold. He was miserable, but who wasn't with a cold? Dean was kind of surprised he hadn't gotten it, but in an apartment this small, it was only a matter of time. Dad wouldn't get it. He'd have to be home to be in any danger of that. Not that he was bitter.

Of course he was bitter. He was a nineteen year old in New York - he should be tearing it up, not taking care of a sick fifteen year old, and wondering if he should leave Dad some dinner, or just assume he'd grab some wherever the hell he was.

Oh god - he sounded like someone's mom. Or wife. Goddamn it! That's why he had to get out to the show tonight. Could he be normal for once? Was that too much to ask? He had a new fake ID that put him at twenty two, and he was eager to try it out. Getting shitfaced on Halloween was a teen rite of passage. Or it should be if it wasn't.

The landlord was adamant about no kids trick or treating in his building, which was fine by Dean, and really, probably didn't apply much to this place. Dean wasn't sure any kids actually dwelled here, It seemed to be mostly single guys and old ladies, which was a weird demographic collision, but whatever. In New York, space was at a premium, so you took whatever you could get.

When he entered the apartment, Sam was sitting on the couch, reading a book. For the first time this week, he wasn't wrapped up in a blanket. "Heads up" Dean said, and tossed him one of the candy bars he'd picked up today. Sam put the book down and caught it.

He looked at it with a frown. "Do I want to know how many of these you've eaten?"

"Nope." He sounded normal, not like some cursed snot monster, and he seemed almost back to his usual, annoying self. Except he was still flushed. When Sam got sick it seemed to emphasize his paleness. "How're you doing?"

"I'm fine. I think it's gone now."

Dean put a hand on his forehead, which Sam tried to smack away, but Dean managed to do it. "Still got a temperature."

"Not much of one. I'm fine. Being locked in here is driving me crazy. Take me with you tonight."

"Who says I'm going anywhere tonight?" Damn it.

"All the flyers up and down the block."

"I thought you were stuck in here," Dean replied, getting a soda out of the fridge. He desperately wanted a beer, but the last time Dad saw one in the fridge, he gave him hell for it.

"I can look out windows," Sam said, putting his book aside. "Come on. You know I'm just going to sneak out if you leave me here."

Dean narrowed his eyes at him. "Not if I tie you up."

Sam smirked back at him. If he could be a cocky little bastard he probably did feel better. "Do it. I'll meet you at the club."

"It has an age limit dude. You're too young."

"It's Halloween. I'll sneak in and wear a mask. As long as I don't order any booze, no one should know."

Dean rolled his eyes, and didn't acknowledge that maybe that could work. He would have doubted that Sam could sneak into a club without being noticed, but they were Winchesters and they were all really good at being where they weren't supposed to be. It was kind of their reason for existing.

Dean was wondering how he could keep an eye on Sam while getting wasted - and maybe hooking up with someone? That was probably really wishful thinking - when the phone rang. He answered it, sure it was someone calling Juan, who was still off in Canada. "Yeah?"

"Dean," his father said. There was a ton of static on the line, and it sounded like he was shouting at him from the end of a long tunnel. "Defcon one. Look at my top shelf and get Sam out of there. Meeting point one. ASAP. I need -" His voice died in static.

"Dad?" Dean replied, alarmed. He should be used to getting houses dropped on him from clear blue skies by now, but somehow he wasn't. Now Sam looked alarmed, staring at him from across the room. Dean tried to call him back, but all he got was his voice mail. That wasn't good.

"What is it?" Sam asked.

Dad loved his codes. Defcon one was an obvious one - they were in present and immediate danger. He had to arm up and be prepared to fight his way out. Meeting point one was an all night diner a few blocks away. The assumption there was no monsters would brazenly attack where there a ton of witnesses, and that was usually true. "We gotta get out of here," Dean said, letting his training take over. He could be worried about Dad later. Right now, he had a job to do. Tool up and get Sammy out of here.

He went to Dad's room, and retrieved the bag of weapons from under the bed. He took a semi-automatic, made sure it was loaded, and took a couple of extra clips. He also chose a smaller gun, as it was always good to have back up. He also took a hunting knife, and a silver knife, which he shoved in his boot. Dean went and checked the top shelf in Dad's closet, not sure why he added that, until he groped around blindly and felt velvet. He pulled down two small black velvet bags, which he opened up to find holly leaves, salt, sand, a couple of dried beans, and a coin with a hole in the middle. Not a hex bag - a protection bag? Of some kind. Dean had never seen them before, and assumed they were new.

Sam appeared in the doorway. "Dude, what's going on?"

"Defcon one," Dean said, tossing him one of the protection bags. Dean put the other in the front pocket of his jeans.

"What?" Sammy looked in the bag. "What the hell is this?"

"Don't know, don't care. Keep it on you." He went back to the bag, and pulled out a pistol and a knife for Sam, which he gave him while Sam was still taking in everything in shocked disbelief.

Seeing the gun and knife Dean was holding out to him seemed to shake him out of it. "Holy fuck, you're serious."

"Yep. We need to be out of here as of five minutes ago." Dean had some holy water in a flask, and figured that would have to do. He had no idea what was coming for them, or why it would get here before Dad. But he was as ready as he could ever be.

"If this is some Halloween prank, you got me," Sam said, trailing after him.

Dean grabbed Sam's coat from the closet and tossed it at him. Since he still hadn't put the gun and knife away, it landed on the floor in front of him. "Now Sammy. Let's go."

"Don't call me Sammy," he snapped. He finally tucked the knife away, and picked up his jacket, where he stowed the gun. "What's happened to Dad?"

"No idea," Dean admitted, carefully looking out the peephole and trying to see every possible angle before opening the door. The hallway looked empty, but he knew never to trust that. Honestly, you couldn't trust anything. Dean was surprised he ever did.

He had a gun hidden in his coat pocket and his finger was currently on the trigger. First threatening thing was getting shot in the face. The worst thing? Depending on what it was, it might not even notice.

Dean held a finger to his lips, signaling to Sammy they should be quiet, and he finally stowed his teenage bullshit and listened to him. They were only on the second floor, so it didn't take long to get out of the building, although his paranoia being on high alert made him tense up at ever creak on the stairs.

Outside, it was better and slightly worse. Sunset was coming soon, and more people were on the streets. Few in costumes ... for now. It would get worse the darker it got.

As they walked, Dean trying to keep an eye on everything - okay, here was where big cities sucked; so many people, so much traffic - Sam asked him what Dad said on the phone. He repeated it verbatim, as he knew Sam wouldn't let it drop if he didn't.

Sam seemed as confused as Dean did by the call, but waited to bring it up until they hit the diner. "What the hell? What was he after?"

The diner wasn't super busy, but it was warm and smelled good, like burgers and coffee. A tinny radio tuned to one of the local Spanish stations was barely audible over the ambient noise of the restaurant. Dean saw a booth in the back that still afforded them a view out the window, and headed for it. Sam followed, because he had no choice in the matter. "I dunno," Dean admitted, sliding into the booth. "All he told me was he and Rob were looking for a haunted object. That's it. You probably saw him last. He say anything to you?"

Sam slid into the seat opposite him, and grimaced down at the table when he saw it still had crumbs on it. He wiped them off with his sleeve, and it was such a prissy move, Dean almost laughed. "No, but he never tells me anything. You're usually the one with all the dirt."

"Not since Greenridge." Dean kept looking out the window, ready to identify any threat, or Dad. He was really hoping Dad got here first, because he had so many questions for him.

"What do you mean?"

"I think he doesn't trust me since I failed to save you."

Sam stared at him, hollow eyed and still flushed. Dean hoped everything wasn't aggravating his fever, but he had bigger problems to worry about. "Are you kidding me? We never would have made it out of that forest alive if not for you."

"Dad didn't see it that way."

Sam made a noise of disgust and shook his head. "What an asshole."

"Hey."

"You almost died trying to save us, and he sees that as a failure on your part? You should be fucking furious. Why aren't you?"

Truth was, Dean was kind of mad at his Dad. He did the best he could, especially since he didn't know he was walking into a situation, and had never faced that kind of baffling threat before. But he also knew getting mad at him would get him absolutely nowhere. He just had to promise Dad he would do better next time, and prove it. Dean simply hadn't expected that chance to come so soon.

Dean had no idea what to say to that, so he was glad the waitress came over and asked them what they wanted. Dean ordered a coffee, because he felt the caffeine might help him be hyper-alert. Sam stuck with water, which meant he must have been feeling better, because he was back on his usual bullshit.

He knew Sam might demand more answers, so he tried to call Dad one more time, and again got his voice mail. Dean reported they were at meeting point one, and hung up. He would only want relevant information.

He put the phone on the table, and realized he was eager for a call back. Damn it. He had to focus. What did he know about Rob? Widowed hunter, lived in the Bronx ... anything else?

Sam, proving he would never stop being a pain in his ass, asked, "So what's our next move?"

"Dad told us to wait here."

Sam widened his eyes slightly, enough to make a point. "That's not a plan. That's stupidity."

Dean counted off relevant details on his fingers. "Firstly, we have no idea what's coming for us, ergo we don't know how to fight it. Secondly, Dad clearly wants to meet up with us here. Thirdly, running around with no idea of who are opponents are or what they want to do to us is suicide."

"Using ergo doesn't make you sound smarter."

Dean slapped at Sam, deliberately hitting only his bangs. "Don't sass me. This is a crisis."

"Is it? How do we know this isn't some trap? Maybe a monster got our number, and was imitating Dad's voice. Maybe we've just played into their hands."

Wow, that was far fetched. Sam really liked playing devil's advocate, didn't he? Dean wondered how much of this was teenage insolence, and how much of this was genuine bedrock personality disorder.

The waitress brought his coffee, and when she was gone, Dean pushed his phone across the table. "Call Dad yourself. See what happens."

Sam looked at his phone like he was thinking of actually doing it, and Dean honestly wished he would. Although he didn't look forward to refereeing the fight Dad and Sam would probably have about this later. Lately, it seemed like they'd been arguing a lot more, and always about stupid shit. Dean wasn't sure why. Hormones?

"Is there any chance this could be a test?" Sam wondered.

Dean was immediately baffled by that. And mortified. "What?"

"Dad testing you. You said he hasn't trusted you since Greenridge. What if this is part of that?"

"He wouldn't be that cruel," Dean said, and then immediately wondered if he was lying to himself. He wouldn't be that cruel to Sam. But to Dean? Maybe.

Oh god, what if it was a test? But he'd passed it, right? He did what he said. This had to put him back in the good books. Possibly.

Something made Dean look across the street. He wasn't sure what or why, exactly. Movement caught his eye. He saw a balding guy in a cheap three piece suit, who looked like someone's accountant. He had a baseball bat and as Dean looked on, he started smashing the windshield of a parked car. Once he had completely shattered it he moved on to the next car.

Sam finally looked, and asked, "What the hell is that guy doing?"

"Working out some road rage?" Dean guessed, but there was something about his face that was disconcerting. The way he was grinning, it was hard to say if he was laughing or snarling. Saliva was now dripping from his mouth as he busted the windshield of a third car.

"Is this what Dad was afraid of, or just a New Yorker hitting his last nerve?" Sam asked.

Good question. Dean was starting to wonder that himself. But his gut was telling him this was bad.

A guy now came up to the man with a bat - one of the cars owners he bet - but before he could do more than yell a curse word, the man had turned the bat on him, and was bashing him as enthusiastically as he had the windshields. Dean bolted up, and ran for the door. Yeah, it was human on human violence, as far as he could tell, but he wasn't going to sit by and watch.

As soon as Dean pushed open the door and stood on the sidewalk, he heard a cacophony of screams and curses.

Looking down the street, the way they had come, he saw maybe a dozen fights. People grappling hand to hand, biting kicking, screaming incoherently at each other. An old lady had a large kitchen knife, and was repeatedly stabbing a man who could have been her husband. A large man was repeatedly throwing himself at the locked door of a brownstone, trying to break it in. Two kids who couldn't have been older than ten were attacking each other with skateboards and a metal pipe. While he watched, Dean saw a driver hit the gas and aim his car right onto the sidewalk, where he crushed a couple of grappling people. He was paralyzed with a need to stop all of the fights, and being unable to break into a dozen different people to do so.

Sam had followed him out, and gasped at seeing the carnage for himself. "What the fuck..?"

Yeah, that was Dean's feelings as well. What the hell was going on?