DISCLAIMER: Supernatural and those delicious Winchester Men don't belong to me. Aw, shucks.

A/N1: Most of the lore in this story is my interpretation of several things I learned in my Ancient Religion class, so if anyone is actually quite informed on these things, please don't yell at me. I just made them up.

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CHAPTER 2: DISGUISED

"We're sneaking into Layla's house?" asked Sam, his voice ringing with disbelief at the audacity of what they were about to do. He and Dean were casually strolling down the sidewalk, their hands stuffed deeply into their down feather jackets, puffs of mist blowing out of their mouths and noses.

Dean had picked Sam up two counties away from Webster, where he had ditched the stolen Ford. Now, the Impala was parked two blocks away from Layla's place.

"That's the plan," his brother replied with a casual shrug of his broad shoulders.

Sam grabbed the elbow of Dean's jacket to stop him. "Dude!" he protested. "Not only is that all kinds of illegal, we don't even have any evidence of anything supernatural happening yet!"

"Thank you, Officer Obvious," drawled Dean, as he paused from his walking, and glanced at him from the corner of his eyes. "Sam, don't you think I know all that? It's what we're going to Layla's house for—evidence."

Sam eyed his brother critically. He was dangerously on edge. There was a tension that hung around him that had nothing to do with the cold or fatigue. Dean yanked his elbow away from Sam's tight grip.

But Sam still refused to follow him, holding his ground, hands on his narrow hips. "Dean, what if you're looking too hard for something that may not even be there?" he asked, his voice soft, but carrying through the crisp morning air.

Dean stopped again, and this time turned around fully to look at Sam. "It's there. I know it. It's there."

Sam exhaled in defeat. When Dean started acting like this, there was no stopping his brother. He shook his head in a last ditch effort. "Won't Layla be home? It's barely eight in the morning."

"She's a teacher," replied Dean easily with a small shrug. "She's already in the school. The house is all ours, all day." He turned away again, walking in the direction of Layla's place.

"What if someone else lives with her?"

Dean threw his hands up in the air in frustration. "You know what, Sam, why don't you just go back to the motel and tinker with your new laptop. Will that make you happy?"

Sam swallowed hard. "No," he countered. "It's just that I'm—"

"Worried, I know!" finished Dean, his voice rising in irritation. He stalked towards Sam, shoving his face closer to his. "Look, Sammy, if I'm wrong, then I'm wrong…and we'll leave. No harm, no foul. But if I'm right…dude, what if I'm right?"

Sam took a deep breath and still hesitated.

Dean gave him a look. "We've checked out cases with even less probability of anything supernatural than this one, Sammy. I mean, c'mon, someone commits suicide and we're all over that shit. And then here's Layla who was completely cured without any possible way of explaining it scientifically, and then in the next instant, her mom's dead, again without any scientific or logical reason…and we're not gonna even look into it?"

Sam swallowed the lump of doubt in his throat, and nodded once. His brother had a point. "Okay," he agreed. Dean nodded once, in approval, too, and started stalking away. He pulled his beanie lower over his head and followed his brother down the road. "Okay. But this is still not right." he muttered.

"I heard that."

He stuck his tongue out at his brother's back.

"Don't think I don't know what you just did."

He snorted. "Let's just get this over with."

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"Hey, Sam!" whispered Dean from across the room.

Sam looked up from his own perusal of books in Mrs. Rourke's bedroom. "Why are you whispering? We're the only ones here."

Dean cocked a brow and pursed his lips thoughtfully, "Hm. Just seemed appropriate. I mean, we did break-in and entered illegally, doesn't whispering just seem logical?"

Sam rolled his eyes at his brother, but walked over to where he sat on the recliner by the fireplace. "You found something?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "Yeah, check this out: Making a Blood-Pact with a Tree."

Sam frowned at his brother, "Yeah. So? It's supposed to be age-old magic—it's a ritual that can be found in different cultures all over the world," he explained matter-of-factly.

Dean rolled his eyes and scoffed at his brother's scholarly tone. "I'm just saying, with a tree?" Then he gestured to the small stack of books he had found under a floorboard next to the recliner earlier in their search. "For someone who was so religious, she sure had a lot of other interests."

Sam ran a hand through his hair. "Maybe she just liked to read?"

Dean picked up a book, a mischievous smile on his face. He cleared his throat and intentionally deepened his voice, "Sacred Sex," he read out loud. Then he started flipping through pages, reading chapter titles in the same deep voice. "Tantra Yoga, Karezza, Sex Magic, and Sex Worship…," he chuckled. "You know, on second thought, this could be…educational nighttime reading."

"No, Dean, you're not keeping the book," Sam had to suppress his own exasperated grin. This search was proving to be a little more…revealing than he liked about the old woman he remembered only as Mrs. Rourke. "Like I said…maybe she just, uh…liked to…read."

"If she'd been hiding a stack of Harlequin Romance-Fabio-type-dirty-novels, I wouldn't be surprised. I mean it must've been tough for her to get laid. But c'mon!" Dean tossed down the copy of Sacred Sex, and picked up an ancient-looking, leather-bound one. "Some of these books are the real deal! You can't get Stregheria rituals and text of this caliber just off of e-Bay."

Sam licked his lips knowing his brother had a point. "Stregheria is some type of witchcraft, Dean. Still doesn't prove any link to the Demon that we're looking for."

Dean glared at him from under hooded lids. "We're getting close. I can feel it. 'Sides, witchcraft is intertwined with demon lore. You know that as well as I do."

"Okay, I know." Sam raised his hands in surrender. "You just keep looking on your side, and I'll keep looking on my side." He made his way to 'his' side of the room, carefully running his fingers over the book titles displayed on the bookshelves. These ones were less conspicuous. In fact, there were of the biblical bend that they had expected from Layla's mother.

His eye kept getting drawn back to three names that kept coming up on the spines of the books. "Lord Maam," he murmured, "St. Simon…Maximon…" He twirled the names around in his tongue, as if tasting them, trying to figure out how the three names fit in. Suddenly, his heart was pounding with fear and excitement. He pulled out one of the older books, "Santa Muerte," he read the title, realizing immediately that it translated directly to, "Saint Death."

"What was that?" called out Dean from his side of the room.

"I'll be fucked…" muttered Sam, raising the book for Dean to look at. "Hidden in plain sight."

His older brother got up from his seat and sauntered towards him, a frown on his face. "What do you mean? What you got there?"

"What do you know about Saint Simon?"

Dean glanced sideways briefly, thinking. He shrugged, curled his lips in slight disgruntlement, and shook his head briskly. "Not much."

"Exactly. He's obscure, but he's worshipped by several followers who know little about him, too: A Demon disguised as a Saint."

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They were at a small table in the County Library, hunched over several articles and books, actually researching. Or at least Dean was. Sam wasn't being very helpful anymore.

He was tired, and massaged the back of his neck with one hand. But the tiredness was less due to the physical strain of being bent over the books, than in the growing realization that he might just be right.

He usually relished being right about Demons and the hunt—but not this time. This time, despite his zeal, he had actually wanted to just hit a dead end. He wanted to be able to shrug it off and say, 'Just kidding!' But with his luck, it wasn't looking very likely.

"Hey," he whispered towards his brother, who was sprawled over a book on Hekate, napping. Maybe it was the college experience, but he really envied the way Sam could just lay his head on a book and take a so-called twenty-minute "power nap".

Dean was usually more restless. He found it hard to just fall asleep anywhere, unless he was absolutely sure he could sleep. Maybe it came from being a Hunter all his life. Or maybe it was because he had always been Sam's guardian. Either way, he wasn't likely to sleep in the next few hours at least.

He checked his watch and sighed heavily. It was running on five in the early evening, but darkness had already fallen in early winter Nebraska.

Sam mumbled, but didn't wake up. He was drooling all over the picture of the three-faced goddess on his book. Dean rolled up a piece of scratch paper into a ball, balanced it carefully on top of a stack of books, and then flicked the ball with his finger—straight onto his brother's nose.

"What the—" grumbled Sam, sitting up straight and blinking rapidly. "Damn it, Dean!" he hissed rubbing his nose as if he had flicked a rock at him instead of a piece of paper.

"Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty," he drawled, pulling a pile of books together and getting up. "Library's 'bout to close, gather what we need and let's get outta here."

Sam cracked his neck briefly, stretched his long body, and yawned widely. He shoved several notes and photocopies of book pages and articles into his backpack, and pushed his chair back. He stood up and started to follow Dean's example of returning some of the books.

"Dean, that's W412.36," reprimanded Sam.

Dean paused in shoving one of the books onto the shelf. He looked at his brother from the corner of his eye and shrugged. He pushed the book all the way in anyway. "How was I supposed to know that? Besides, what's the difference?"

His academically-inclined younger brother huffed, and pulled the book out. "It's the simple Dewey Decimal system," he sighed. "Just put the book back where the letters and numbers fit."

"Are you serious?" Dean groaned. "We'll be here all night!"

"It's not rocket science," said Sam, rolling his eyes at him.

"Isn't it someone's job to put these books back in order anyway?" whined Dean. He hated all this bookwork sometimes. It was just so tedious and detail-oriented. So not his style.

Sam exhaled a long-suffering sigh, looking like he was somehow stuck with a two-year-old instead of his twenty-eight-year-old brother. "Dean, will you just put the books back where they're supposed to go?"

"No."

"What are you, like two?"

Dean shrugged, pulling a face. "Honestly, Sam, I just wanna get out of here. We've been here for five hours! We could be out there doing something more useful."

Sam took a couple of books off of Dean's hands, and walked a little ways down the long line of book stacks. "Like what?"

"Like checking to see if Layla's mom has any of the tools for a summoning," pointed out Dean, his voice a hushed whisper, as he studiously looked around to make sure no one heard him mention Layla's name. "You know, like the stuff we found in Mississippi, outside Lloyd's Bar."

"She's gonna be home by now," cautioned his brother, stretching to his full height to return a book to the top of a shelf. "What exactly do we say? Can we check around and see if you have graveyard dirt, black cat bones, and yarrow flowers around the house? We're trying out a new recipe for hoodoo gumbo?"

"Oh, Ha. Ha. Funny." Dean gave his brother a sarcastic look. He scratched his head with the edge of the cover of a hardbound book in his hand, thinking of some way to get back inside Layla's house and continue the investigation. He glanced at the engraved illustration on the cover. It was a stone phallus in the middle of a crossroads. He smirked at the picture. "We don't have to say anything," he said, an idea forming in his mind. "I'll ask her out to dinner, while you snoop around the house."

Sam gave him a disproving stare, and he put on his most charming face. "What?" he asked defensively opening his arms wide in a gesture of innocence.

"That's low, Dean."

Dean frowned lightly at his brother. "I like her, Sam," he said honestly. "I'd take her to dinner. I mean…it's not like I'd bore her, either. I'll show her a good time. It's not all for the sake of tricking her out of the house."

"Right," replied his brother, sarcasm tainting his tone.

Dean dismissed his brother with a wave of the book in his hand. "So, we've got a plan, then." Then he looked at the spine of the book. R314.96, he mused, then shoved the book somewhere between the T's. Damn the Dewey Decimal alliteration system.

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"I'm glad you called," smiled Layla, sitting across from him at a small diner in town, putting her fork down.

Dean smiled widely at her. "Yeah, me too."

And if he were honest with himself, it was the truth. He had completely enjoyed dinner with Layla, even managing to forget every now and then why he had asked her in the first place. She made him laugh, and embarrassingly brought out the more chivalrous side of him.

He was almost sorry that dinner was over.

She looked at him suspiciously, a small smirk on her pretty face. "Though, I find that I'm asking myself why I'm here with you."

Dean cocked his head arrogantly, "Because you couldn't resist my charms, of course," he drawled playfully.

Layla rolled her eyes, but chuckled. "Or maybe I was just curious to see if you had any tricks up your sleeve?"

"You think?" Dean's lips widened into a shark smile. With Layla, he had the strange tendency to slip back and forth between dangerously flirtatious, and sincerely interested. She constantly brought up their differences, but then easily overlooked them. It kept him on his toes, and he enjoyed that.

"I don't doubt," she retorted, but her smile softened the effect. Then she looked at her watch, and smiled regretfully at him. "It's getting late," she started.

But Dean cocked his brow at her. "Am I being dismissed?" he asked ruefully. "That hurts."

She smiled at him, but there were no pretenses in her eyes. "I think so," she replied honestly. "You're a great guy, Dean,"

"But?" he asked, and he could have kicked himself for even pushing the issue. He knew better than anyone else the answer to the question 'why not?'

Her eyes slid away from his, that small smile lingering on her red lips. She hesitated in answering, and Dean waived her off the hook. "That's okay, Layla. You don't really have to answer that." He left a few bills on the table enough to cover the tab and tip.

She looked both relieved and disappointed—another startling mix of contrasts that was starting to define Layla. Dean stood up, and waited for her to do the same. Then he gave her a slow, not-quite-seductive-but-close smile, "How 'bout some dessert?"

She looked away from his smile, a small blush tainting her cheeks. "Sure."

"Lead the way."

They walked amiably down the street, and Dean found that he didn't actually care where they were going. He was strangely content to match her stride, letting his shoulder bump into hers as they avoided other pedestrians, allowing his fingers to brush hers lightly in a temptation that he knew was never going to become reality.

She turned to him, stopping suddenly. Her eyes were such a deep blue that he could look in them forever and never find his footing. She smiled tremulously, her voice breathless and hesitant, "Dean, I was thinking that maybe we—"

She was cut off by the insistent ringing of his phone. He jumped, slightly startled, before smiling apologetically at her. He slipped his hand into his pocket to check the caller ID and saw Sam's name flashing against the neon green screen. "Hold that thought," he smiled, then flipped the phone open.

"Yeah?" he voiced over the phone, not really hiding his irritation at Sam's terrible sense of timing.

"Dean, you were right."

Immediately, all the warmth and pleasure of the evening faded into the background. It was like he had been flying, and suddenly shackles were back on his ankles, pulling him back to ground at terminal velocity. He couldn't breathe for a moment, before he forced himself to speak. "What'd you find?" he whispered onto the phone, taking a few steps away from Layla.

"Everything. And more…but it all doesn't make sense right now," said Sam, his voice carrying his confusion across the distance. "I think I need to know where Mrs. Rourke died."

Dean closed his eyes briefly, knowing that from that moment onwards, he was going to have to play a part. His night had ended, and his job had only just begun. "Sure. I'm on it."

He flipped the phone closed, and shook off the coldness inside. Then he turned around and smiled at Layla, hoping that she wouldn't be able to tell the difference between now and two minutes ago.

"Is everything okay?" she asked, her head tilted in concerned interest.

"Yeah," he smiled wanly at her. "It was Sam."

"Oh! How is he?"

"Not so good," he replied with a small sigh. He looked at the coffee shop that they were standing outside of and nodded his head towards it. "Mind if we go in here?"

"No, let's." she said, nodding, her eyes inquiring and even worried.

Dean felt a stab of guilt at what he was about to do, but he plodded on anyway. They settled themselves into a warm corner, steaming cups of coffee and tea between their chilled hands.

"Layla," he ventured, his voice low and soft. "Tell me about how your mom died."

Her face clouded over instantly, and she reared back and away from him. She suddenly looked like a whole different person: closed off, unresponsive, and cold. Dean felt his heart chill even more at the sight.

"Why would that matter?"

Dean swallowed painfully. "I just thought you might help me help Sam," he murmured.

She frowned, but leaned in. Dean knew that using the word 'help' around Layla was like dangling a carrot in front of a hungry horse. She was gonna take the bait. "What do you mean? What happened?"

"Our father died a few months ago, too," he croaked, already hating where this was going. "It was sudden…and Sammy, well he took it really hard. They had just had a fight, and he felt guilty." Dean felt the lies rolling out of his tongue so smoothly, that he actually wondered whether they were lies at all.

"Oh, Dean," she murmured, practically melting with compassion. She laid a hand over his and squeezed gently. "What about you? How are you doing?"

"Me?" he asked uncomfortably. Trust Layla to think of him. "I—I'm fine. Moving on."

She looked like she didn't believe him—and Dean couldn't blame her. He was far from fine. Far from moving on where his father's death was concerned. It was the reason he was here in the first place.

It was the reason why waking up each morning was the most disappointing thing in the world. Why each breath felt stale, the taste of food felt like ash, and the touch of another human being felt like ice. He felt like he had died along with his dad.

Layla was intuitive, and Dean used that to his advantage, knowing that in he state he was in, she was likely to open up first. And he was right.

"My mom died at home," she whispered. "It was my aunt who found her. She said that she was just sitting on the couch, waiting."

Dean swallowed at the eerie picture that was being painted in his imagination.

"My aunt was supposed to come and bring her to the hospital to see me before they unhooked all the life-support," she whispered, her voice breaking every now and then.

This time, Dean placed his hand on top of hers, forming a small pile of his-and-her hands on the coffee table.

"They said her heart just stopped."

Dean nodded, and they shared a turbulent moment of silence, each swallowed in the despair of their thoughts. A moment later, he slid his hands from hers, and smiled apologetically. "I'll be right back," he muttered uneasily. He glanced purposefully at the blue door of the Men's Room, and she nodded, excusing him.

He quickly made his way inside, his finger already in his jacket pocket, speed dialing his brother. "Sam," he whispered into the phone.

"Yeah, what'd you find out?"

"She died at the house. Does that fit?"

There was a long pause. "I think so."

"Okay, is there anything else?"

"I think you should know that I found all the stuff in Layla's room, Dean. And under her bed I just found a quincunx—a cosmogram—basically a portable crossroad."

Dean closed his eyes and shook his head as his faith cracked under the weight of the implications of Sam's words. "No." he whispered, before hanging his head and clenching his fist. "No."

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A/N2: Well, here's to my resolution to finishing this before the 7th! Wish me luck!