Life in the Fast Lane

by Persephone Price

AU. Set between S5-S6, post-'Turn the Page' and pre-'The Sound of Silence,' but it's not strictly necessary to read those first. Series of case-shots set in the Claire 'Verse, so Dean/OC. Dean comes to find that being on the road without Sam is a bittersweet experience.

2. Lander, WY - September, 2010

A/N: Thank you so much to Wolflihood, sarahmichellgellarfan1, ImpalaLove, and sunshine1984 for reviewing, and thanks as well to anyone who has followed/favorited. You guys are incredibly awesome and loyal and amazing, and I appreciate your feedback so much! Also, if any of you are eagle-eyed, you'll notice that the locations they're going to so far are places that have been referenced in TSOS ;)

BTW, I know I said less angst… But I lied. And (just a warning) sometimes I am not above schmaltzy romances.

Disclaimer: I only own Claire, and this long AF story.

Synopsis: A sleepy town in Wyoming is rattled when several sets of young twins go missing.

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Lander, Wyoming

September, 2010

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Once upon a time, there were two brothers, and they were born to be heroes.

.

.

.

.

.

"It's part of the plan of plans, Sammy," he told him. "Tale as old as time, and all that – you are meant to kill your brother. The story of Cain and Abel is in Genesis, after all, and my falling out with my bro Michael was the genesis."

Sam stared at his own reflection blankly, disgusted by his own face.

"You're a scholar at heart, aren't ya, Sam? Think of it this way," Lucifer began mercurially, "certain patterns are programmed into the universe, kind of like computer software. This is programmed into you. Fate, destiny – those words are so lyrical, romantic – so subjective. But I know you. You like to deal with cold, hard fact. Woulda been a good lawyer, if Dean hadn't hauled your ass outta there to chase after absent Daddy – oh! And there's another pattern right there."

"You're wrong," Sam's mind cried.

"This isn't divination, Sammy-boy, there's no crystal ball here. This is a blueprint, lines drawn on paper. You want evidence? Me and Michael. Cain and Abel. Romulus and Remus. The list goes on…"

"Something being true in the past is not sufficient evidence to prove something will be true in the future," he recited.

He watched his own lips twist to convey Lucifer's delight. "Smarty-pants," he singsonged. "There's that 174. Fine. You caught me. I snuck a peek at the answer sheet."

Sam wanted to grimace, but he had no dominion over his features. Lucifer's logic was fallible, surely, but…

Sam did know this: If you buy a red shirt every single day of your life without deviation, the odds of you buying a red shirt tomorrow increase exponentially.

In the past, Sam had – unwittingly, of course – followed Lucifer's plan to a T. Which means the odds of him following it tomorrow were…

But what did it matter?

He had already said yes.

What she hates the most about it – almost the most, anyway – is that he reads over her shoulder. They are locked in a trinity of pain and he could get out, she could protect him, but neither has the wherewithal to actually make it happen.

Sam's pain is Dean's pain, always and forever.

But Claire is doing nothing but enabling him.

Dean's eyes are bereaved and waxing blue in the computer's glow as he reads each torturous word. Part of him is still stuck in Hell, always will be. Part of him is stuck in the Cage with part of Sam, too. She watches him reread certain passages, committing them to memory, watches the current drag him back into that dark part of his soul.

She says, "You shouldn't," but he never did listen to her. She slams the screen against the keyboard, folding her laptop.

"Don't," she reiterates.

He watches her in muzzily, pupils expanding to see, as though he's not sure she is real – or maybe he's not sure she's for real, that she could be audacious enough to cut off his reading. Her hand flies to his chest, gingerly nudging him away, and he snaps back to focus. His body caves to her direction, falling back against the pillows. He drags her down with him.

Somehow, she makes it easy to forget his brother's sanity is dangling on a knife-edge.

"It's okay," she tries gently. "It's over now, anyway. I'm the prophet, and I say that fratricide is not written into the script." She rolls onto her belly; her elbows prop her body up and one hand props her chin up, while the other has a mind of its own. She's facing him, and as they observe one another her fingertips absently stroke his hairline. The motion is too automatic, too intimate. He studies her still, like she is a riddle: optimistic and spirited – maybe like Jo would've been, if she'd grown up under normal circumstances – in spite of the monumental catastrophe that's barely faded in her rearview mirror. She should have been jilted, jaded, and bitter, but she wasn't, and some part of him admires this more than he cares to admit.

She grows uncomfortable under his stare, fidgeting. "What?" she questions.

A sphinxlike smirk finds its way to his face. "Nothin'," he dismisses, tone indolent and innocent. He finds it funny that she's trying to comfort him when she's the one who is truly in pain, that she's stroking his head when she's the one with the brain-splitting migraine. And then again he doesn't find it funny at all.

Her features relax and she angles up to kiss him, softly, just testing it out.

His chest twinges; he doesn't understand how they got here. The last time he let himself get this attached, he was twenty-four and stupid. He should know better now. He does know better now...

His forefinger traces circles on her back, following the outline of her tattoo – a pentagram framed by stark white spaghetti-straps. It's like a black, ugly stamp nesting in the gulf between two beautiful, sun-kissed shoulder blades, reminding him that they are more than they seem, more than just two young lovers lazing idly around in a dusty motel room.

How different this is, he thinks.

He should be angry with his brother, and he is. But his anger and betrayal don't permit him to miss him any less. When Sam left, he left along with him a gaping void in his heart. He had thought, spuriously, that Claire might be able to fill some small portion of it – but in truth, she only fabricated a new space beside Sam's. It makes his brother's vacancy tolerable, but no less glaring, and makes him vulnerable to a double-dose of sorrow.

Don't think about that, a small voice in the back of his head chastises. It sounds like Claire's, trying to shield him from something internal that she can't possibly reach.

"When are we going to interview the family?" rouses him from his insidious musings.

They've been putting it off. Dean's not squeamish, but interrogating the parents of two dead seven-year-old sons is daunting, even for him.

"Today," he grunts, meaning four hours from now, when dawn has actually broken.

Three sets of twins vanished in a week, drowned bodies found scattered by a lake five miles outside of town, waterlogged and unrecognizable, after having been missing for a day. That's why they're here – not to get all starry-eyed and lounge in a bed with moth-holes in the sheets. People are dying. Kids. They have to do something about it.

A few hours of self-delusion later, Dean rises with the sun and pads into the bathroom. His bare feet stick to the linoleum tiles as he runs the shower, hoping the sound will wake his slumbering companion so he doesn't have to. She complains incessantly that he's a heavy sleeper, but she's the one who could sleep through a banshee attack, not him.

Dean takes lukewarm showers, never dawdling, never allowing himself the luxury of a hot jet of water. In the end, it makes it easier the next time he inevitably has to bathe under one that is ice-cold. Even as he washes his hair, his actions are methodical, carefully calibrated not to needlessly expend energy. He's been trained not to waste any resource, including his own. A quick swipe of soap over the necessary parts, and he's done.

He emerges from the bathroom after several minutes, fully dressed and buffing his hair dry with a hand towel; Claire is still snoozing.

He chucks the towel at her face. "Get your lazy ass out of bed," he orders crankily, a fond smile nevertheless tugging the corners of his lips upwards.

" 'm tired," she grumbles, nestling deeper into the mattress. He tries to be sympathetic – the visions take a toll on her, after all, and…

The sky is pearly in the east, rays of light sneaking through the blinds. Where it touches her, it illuminates a shimmer of freckles dotting her skin like constellations.

"C'mon," he urges blandly.

She delicately removes the cool, damp terrycloth from her face, eyes fluttering open. "Ugh. Fine."

In retaliation, she twists the towel and whacks his ass with it on her way to the bathroom.

. . .

Claire can't help but think that any parents who could name their identical twin boys Tommy and Timmy were asking for trouble.

But not this kind of trouble.

The drive over is silent apart from the reverberating growl of the Impala's engine. Blood-red leaves intermittently block the light overhead, refracting a strobe-like glare off the windshield. It makes her vision flicker with bright-spots, pupils never given a chance to adjust to shade or sunlight. Wyoming is in the middle of an Indian summer; the trees have begun to change color and molt, but the temperature lies comfortably in the high seventies.

Unable to focus on the scenery, Claire becomes mired in her own thoughts. She doesn't need to be told that this job requires a certain level of detachment – otherwise, it would consume you alive. She wonders, though, if detaching gets easier with time and if so, if that's a good thing. She can't imagine that it is.

Something tells her Dean, for all his years of hunting, never truly learned to detach.

His expression is stony and unreadable as he drives, a prodigious mask begging to be torn off. The desire to decipher his thoughts is not unique to her – it tempts anyone sitting in that passenger seat. Watching Dean is just as fascinating as watching the scenery zoom by in a trail of muddled colors, maybe even more so. There is no hidden meaning to be found in all the trees and highway markers, no code to crack. After a while all the towns start to blend together, small variations unnoticed, but Dean's face is always some new wonder. At times it's fraught, emotions laid out clearly on the surface, but at others it's as impenetrable as a statue's.

Dean is far more thoughtful than strangers might give him credit for. His brain is working; all these years of impersonating a detective have made him pretty damn good at detective work, blurring the lines between reality and make-believe in a way that is perfectly suited to the rest of his life. Get to working, dude, he coaches, You've gotta start somewhere. Lander is home to around 7,000 people. Dean doesn't think there can be more than sixty twins in a town like this. That's thirty sets. That's fifteen sets of male twins, give or take. That's twenty-four more potential victims, minus the age component, minus all fraternal twins, which probably narrows the pool down to around ten. Tommy and Timmy Doorley, Brandon and Alex Ritson, and Caleb and Matty Hall were all under thirteen. There's not a lot of time before these unfortunate, remaining five sets of identical twin boys in this town are eradicated, he wagers.

He can already feel the sand from the hourglass slipping through his fingers, so he tightens his grip on the steering wheel.

They step out of the Impala onto chalk-scarred blacktop. The driveway soon amalgamates to yellow, sun-ravaged grass, as though the summer had taken a great toll on the lawn but no one had bothered to tell it that it is autumn now, despite the unseasonable heat. Judging by the number of training-wheel-fitted bikes strewn about and the primitive illustrations scrawled from the garage to the street, the twins are not the Doorleys' only children.

A quick rap on the door, and two exhausted, raw-eyed adults appear.

Claire's heart clenches – detaching is simpler when you're not faced head-on with someone else's debilitating sorrow. These two… They look hollow, empty, torn-up inside. Their stares are glassy, unseeing. A girl of around four or five hangs onto the bearded father's left leg, and he seems not to notice.

"Can I help you?" he rasps.

Dean feels almost sorry for deceiving them. "FBI," he says, offering his badge. "Agents Currie and Plant. We'd like to express our deepest condolences." Claire's eyes glitter to corroborate his claim. He goes on, "However, we're here because we want to ensure that no other families ever have to go through anything like this. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?" 'Like this.' He cringes to himself, wishing he could've come up with a better way of phrasing it.

The mother, grayish, un-dyed roots spilling from her scalp, sighs, "If you think it will help."

The little blonde girl watches the two with wide eyes as they cross the threshold, still clinging to the father's jeans.

"Lucy, go play with your sister," the mother instructs wearily.

"But I don't wanna-"

"Go," the man she is wrapped around snaps, voice spread thin and leaving no room for argument.

She extricates her tiny arms, flouncing off as though she senses something is gravely wrong but she's not quite sure what. She shoots Dean and Claire one last curious glance before ascending the staircase in the center of the house.

The air inside is static with grief, like time stopped in this house the moment those boys were lost. There are more toys dispersed across the navy-blue carpet – Barbie Dolls and Hot Wheels, just like perfect little girls and perfect little boys should play with. The toy trucks, no doubt belonging to the twins, remain untouched, preserved and surreal in their abandoned state.

"You have several other children?" Claire observes, appraising the den.

"Two," Mrs. Doorley chokes, her hand flying to her mouth at once to smother her frayed lament.

She instantly realizes her mistake. "I'm sorry, I-"

Mr. Doorley eases his wife onto the couch gently, as though this has become a common occurrence for them, and gestures for Claire and Dean to sit in the armchairs opposite. "It's all right," he says, even though nothing is all right.

"Lucy doesn't understand," she rambles absently, "but Caroline, she's older, she… We've been keeping her out of school. To… to process what's happened. But soon enough she's going to have to go back, and…"

Dean attempts to spare her from saying any more by slicing straight to the quick. "Can you tell me about the day you last saw your sons?" His tone is hard and businesslike, but Claire sees his eyes train on a hanging photo of two bronze-haired boys smiling wide, dimpled grins and boasting mouthfuls of missing teeth.

They are glad they only just arrived in Lander, after the bodies had already been found. They couldn't have endured being around for it.

"It's just like we told the police," Mrs. Doorley sniffs. "It was just like any other Wednesday." She says this like a question, her inflection pitching up at the end. As if to ask God, Why? Why did you take everything from me on just another Wednesday, like there could have been a more appropriate day. "Th-they took the bus to school. Number 10. Always number 10. And then they took the bus home. After they finished their math homework, they wanted to play outside, so…"

"That's when they disappeared?" Claire asks.

Mr. Doorley nods. "Yeah. 'round four-thirty. The sun hadn't even set all the way-"

"We didn't think-" A sob interrupts her sentence. And it's clear now, clear to both of them: these parents blame themselves.

"Not in a neighborhood like this," Mr. Doorley finishes. "I mean, there's hardly anyone around. Only three other houses in the cul-de-sac, and we know all of 'em – hell, we have 'em over for the Fourth of July. What kinda sicko would do something like this?"

Dean has no answers, so instead he questions, "No one saw anything?"

"Nothing at all. Not even the girls. They were in the driveway and the boys had just gone for a ride around the neighborhood on their bikes…"

"Did anything unusual happen before the disappearance?"

"Unusual?" Mrs. Doorley sniffs.

"Anything at all. Any strange animals spotted, nightmares…"

Mr. Doorley's hazel eyes narrow mistrustfully. "Why d'you say nightmares? What kinda question is that?"

"Did they have nightmares?" Claire interjects.

"The typical kid stuff. Monsters chasing them, coming to get them, you know." He looks at their jointly blank expressions, deciding, on second thought, that probably they don't.

"Did they describe the monsters?" Dean asks urgently.

"What? No – I don't know – what does this have to do with anything?" the other man bristles.

"Just routine questions," he lies easily. "You sure your daughters didn't see anything?"

Mrs. Doorley shakes her head. "They would have told us, certainly. They've already spoken to the police."

Claire starts, "Do you mind if we-"

"They've been through enough," she cuts her off, sharp as a razorblade.

Her gaze floats to the staircase; two sets of green eyes are peering at her through the whitewashed railing at the top of the steps. The elder of the pair appears to be around twelve, and is cradling her oblivious little sister protectively as she whispers into her ear. Claire feels as though she has been punched in the gut.

"Of course," Dean amends, his line of sight nevertheless converging with his fake partner's.

The parents catch on. "Go back upstairs," Mr. Doorley barks, and the girls scurry away like mice.

Mrs. Doorley covers her face with her hands and Dean and Claire stand to leave.

. . .

Dean is sitting across from her, looking past her.

"Sometimes I fuckin' hate this job."

"I know," she replies mystically. She wishes she could say something more useful, wishes she could conjure some sort of comfort. Not just for his sake, but for everyone's. But they can only do their best and hope it's enough. "What do we do now?"

Before Dean can respond, their jovial brunette waitress materializes, pen at the ready. "What can I getcha?"

"Cheeseburger," he says succinctly. "And coffee for both of us. Just leave the whole pot."

Carly, the tag reads, looks slightly thrown, but nods all the same. "And you, Miss?"

"Caesar salad. With a side of fries."

She scribbles their order. "That'll be right out for ya."

Once she's gone, Claire's eyes lock Dean's. "How do we know this is supernatural?" always seems to be the question.

Frankly, at this point, he doesn't care if it's supernatural or not – whatever or whoever is doing this, he wants to butcher them. But he answers, "It's ritualistic. The MO is too specific, the killings are too quick. Whatever's taking these kids is taking them for a purpose, and not your typical psycho-pedophile purpose." He grits his teeth, before continuing, "And whatever it is, we're gonna kill it dead."

She nods ponderingly. How could this happen? How could something like this happen in the world?

Scalding coffee is a welcome reprieve from the taste of bile rising in her throat. After taking a swig she repeats, "So, what do we do?"

He swallows his own gulp of the bitter liquid, replying, "Research. Did you see the signs? We're deep in Native American territory – Shoshone and Arapaho. There's a reservation only a few miles out, and this whole town is built on land it shouldn't be, which means everyone's at risk. We gotta check the lore and see what kinda monsters snatch up twins."

"Prepubescent, male, identical twins," she elaborates. "Three instances are enough to say, don't you think?"

He nods, the muscle in his jaw contracting in sync with the waves of misery washing over him. "Yeah." 'Prepubescent' sounds so odd – they're children, robbed of their whole lives before they've even begun. But maybe she's onto something with that logic, he considers. "I've been thinking… There can't be that many more kids at risk. We should make a list and warn the families."

"Sounds good. How can we do that?"

Carly returns with their food; the plates clatter on the plastic tabletop and she makes herself scarce as she realizes she's brought their conversation to a standstill.

"I dunno how much good a census'll do us, but maybe a school directory? Can't be too many elementary schools in a place like this," he says eventually. His eyes flick to his left to peer out the widow, tracking the cars as they pass by.

"You're right," she agrees needlessly, trying to fill the awkward, morose silence that has descended upon them. He snaps his gaze in her direction, and their stilted pretense of professionalism diffuses. More quietly, she murmurs, "I think I might hate this job too…"

He almost smiles, thinking, You can leave whenever you want, all the while haunted by the awful knowledge that, in actuality, no she can't.

. . .

Using their handy-dandy badges, it's not difficult to procure a directory for each of the three elementary schools in Lander. And, with the help of three rather chatty school secretaries (Claire waited in the car so Dean could work his magic), they've even managed to pinpoint which students are identical twins.

They've come up with four sets:

1. Daniel and Blake Mueller (5th grade)

2. Ian and Paul Dobrinski (Kindergarten)

3. Tyler and Kevin Reyes (4th grade)

4. Braden and Patrick Lerner (1st grade)

"What's the best way to do this?" asks Claire. They're currently at the library, sitting across from one another at a desk towards the back.

"You mean so people don't think we're pedophiles?"

She shoots him an un-amused frown, but nevertheless replies, "Yeah."

"Easy," he says, hooking his arms behind his head and leaning back in the chair. "You're gonna do it."

Her eyes widen. "Me? Alone? Why me?"

"Grown-ass man going around askin' about kids? People don't like that – believe me, I've been there and I'm not ridin' that carousel again. But you – well, people won't mind you asking. You don't exactly look like the kidnapping type… You've got more of a Becky the Babysitter vibe goin' on than I do, that's for sure," he says, talking out of the side of his mouth.

He's not wrong to point out that people would likely be more receptive to her asking questions about their children than his. Claire has a gentle, kind demeanor, whereas he can be a little… brusque.

"That is not a thing. That is literally a phrase you just made up."

"So what? You know what I mean. You go to the houses, say you're a fed like always, ask if you can talk to the kids to see if they've had any unusual nightmares, and tell the parents to keep a lookout and call us if they suspect anything is out of the ordinary. Piece of cake."

Still, Claire looks unsure.

"You don't need me for that," he adds, a bit milder. "I'll keep working on figuring out the lore, and that way we can get this done as quickly as possible."

She sighs in resignation, standing. "Fine."

"I have faith in you," he assures her with a mischievous wink.

She rolls her eyes at him, albeit playfully. "I'll meet you back here when I'm done." She starts off, before apparently remembering something and backpedalling. "Almost forgot," she begins. The uncalled for ear-to-ear grin on her face is making Dean insanely nervous. She extends her hand, palm up. "Keys."

"What?" he scoffs.

"How am I gonna get to their houses without a car, hm?"

Dean looks as though someone has just asked him to donate a kidney. He stares at her expressionlessly, and she cocks her head out of impatience. "Any day now," she prods.

"Fine," he hisses, digging through his pockets. He dangles the keys above her hand, so close that she can feel the cool metal brush her skin each time it sways like a pendulum. "If you so much as scuff the rims-"

"You'll what, kill me?" she drawls. More seriously, she insists, "I'll take good care of her, don't worry."

Dean's tone is grim when he says, "You'd better. Keep it under forty. Acceleration is smooth – no need to punch it."

"Okay, okay. Got it." She gives him a peck on the lips before she departs, and Dean wonders bitterly how he ended up stuck doing research while she gallivants around town in his Baby.

. . .

"Hi, Mrs. Mueller, do you mind if I step inside?"

The Muellers live at 45 Black Creek Lane, fifteen minutes away from the Lander Public Library, in a neighborhood filled with minivans and Golden Retrievers encapsulated in electric fences.

Right now, one of those Golden Retrievers is trying desperately to lick her face, its wagging tail thwapping steadily against her knee like a wet fish.

Mrs. Mueller's bespectacled eyes scan Claire's badge, before she takes her reading glasses off and lets them hang by the cord around her neck. "Is this about the boys who were drowned?" she questions.

"Yes. We're visiting all the families with identical twin boys in the area."

"Of course, of course, come in. It's just awful about what happened," she says, sounding genuinely appalled. The dog whines, following Claire closely as they walk into the kitchen. "Bailey, settle down," the other woman commands her pet. "Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea? Water?" Mrs. Mueller seems a bit frazzled.

"I'm fine, thanks," Claire says politely. She soaks in the scenery: sponge-paintings, A+'s, and photos are taped to every visible surface of the refrigerator, and there's a reeking gym bag and several pairs of dirty cleats by the back door.

She sits on a stool by the counter, trying ineffectually to brush some of the dog hair off of her black skirt. "Do you have many children, Mrs. Mueller?"

"Linda is fine. And yes. Five boys," she says, sounding fatigued by the mere concept. "Blake, Danny, Luke, Stephen, and Parker."

"Wow," she hums.

"Yeah. We kept trying for a girl, but… After five we called it quits."

"Understandable. So, I realize your kids must be at school right now, but I'll get right to it – have either of your twins mentioned anything strange to you? Maybe something about nightmares?"

Linda's eyes roam the ceiling as she scours her memory. "Can't say that they have, no. Why?"

"The other victims complained of nightmares before their disappearances. We think wha-whoever took them might have been stalking them for some time beforehand, scaring them."

She presses her hand to her chest, as though to quell her racing heart. "How terrible. No, neither of the boys mentioned anything like that. Bear in mind we've already been keeping an eye on them, what with what's been happening."

"Yes, very good. You should continue to do so – it's clear that this killer seeks out a very particular profile."

"Yeah, we made the connection. We've started driving them to and from school instead of having them take the bus, doing what we can without locking them up in the house which, frankly, I wouldn't be entirely opposed to doing. The thought of them being out there with that freak still on the loose is just unbearable, but my husband is adamant that we don't interfere with their daily routine. They're only kids, after all. We don't want to scare them."

"Well, here's my card. If anything unusual happens, please call me. No detail is too small to be important, you understand? Keep a close watch on them."

"Yes, of course. Thank you." She escorts her to the door. "You have a good day now, Agent Currie. Take care, and find this monster."

Responding to this false name has become second nature by now. It's all a lie – one big lie. Everything a sham, lie upon lie upon lie. She and Dean and all the other hunters put on an Oscar-worthy show. But in the end, their intentions are bone-deep in their sincerity.

Claire tries to smile, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "I will."

. . .

She visits the Lerners last. By now it's around five PM, she hopes not too close to dinnertime to be disruptive.

They live at 14 West Valley Road, right off the main drag. Claire parks the Impala on the street beside the driveway, finally coming to understand Dean's borderline unhealthy obsession with the car. It drives silky smooth, and she feels cool as hell stepping out of it. She attracted attention at every stoplight, men dragging their eyes over the car and then over her with a parallel sort of appreciation and mesmerism – they probably wouldn't expect a girl like her to drive a car like this. Her Jetta certainly never turned this many heads, that's for sure.

Claire glances down at her phone and sees an unread text from Dean.

D: Everything OK? Baby still in one piece?

C: Fine. I'm fine too FYI. What time does the library close?

D: Soon I think.

C: K. I'll hurry.

D: OK.

C: Want me to pick up dinner?

D: I can do it. It'll save time. There's a place down the street – Ben's Burgers. Pick me up there.

C: K. Everyone loves your car, BTW.

D: Duh.

She smiles to herself, envisioning his proud, cocky smirk on the other end of the line. She pockets her cell and follows the pavers leading the way to the illuminated home.

A man in his late-thirties to early-forties answers the door, holding a Bud Lite. His gaze washes over her, but before he can speak she wields her badge. He sucks his teeth as he considers her. "That your Chevy parked out front?" he asks eventually, nodding his head in the general direction of the Impala.

What's she going to say? 'No, it's my boyfriend's'? Is Dean even her boyfriend? There's too much confusion rolled into that one simple question, but what she does know is that she's playing the part of a professional government employee. "Yes," she lies primly.

"What is that, a '70? That baby's gotta be older than you are, Agent." His eyes are twinkling with skepticism, and Claire doesn't like it.

"It was my dad's." She shoulders her way inside, but he doesn't seem fazed.

"Bureau lets you drive that?"

She shoots him a charming grin that she thinks maybe she picked up from Dean. "What they don't know…"

He appears to relax, his shoulders slumping slightly. "Karen, c'mere. It's the FBI."

A tanned woman with long, beautiful onyx-colored hair cinched into a low ponytail rushes into the living room. "What?"

"Just checking in, ma'am," she assures her, measuring the splatter of what she hopes is marinara sauce across her right cheekbone; it marks her angular face like war paint. "Agent Currie." She extends her hand – Mrs. Learner shakes it, but only after rubbing her own on the front of the apron.

"Is it about the twins?" she questions, voice hushed.

Claire's lips meld together in a straight line. "Yes," she answers.

The house is ranch-style – only one story. Down the hall to the right, she can see two dark-haired and mop-headed children peek beyond the doorway, their identical heads stacked one above the other in an almost comedic fashion. They're the only kids she's actually caught a glimpse of thus far in her investigation. Her first thought is, They're so small.

She tries to remember what Charlie was like at that age, but can't. Can't afford to. Won't.

At least they don't have red hair, she thinks, as though it's some consolation.

"Sit, sit," Mrs. Lerner offers, gesturing to the sofa. She appears to be quite a bit younger than her husband, which she supposes makes sense – it doesn't seem as though they have any other children, and the twins are only six.

"I've been visiting all the families with identical twin boys in town," she prefaces. "Just as a precaution. I urge you to contact me if anything – anything – unusual happens. If either of your sons mentions something strange to you, you need to contact me right away. Even if it just seems like routine kid stuff. We think the culprit might be shadowing the children for some time before the abductions."

"Shit," Mr. Lerner grunts angrily. "What kinda bastard could do somethin' like this, huh?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out," she assures him with a placating smile. "Has either of your sons mentioned something thus far? Some of the other…" She hates to use the word 'victims. "…children reported nightmares before they were taken."

Husband and wife lock eyes in a way that sounds an alarm in Claire's brain. "If they have," she starts, "I would like to speak with them. It's essential to the case and, more importantly, to their safety."

"Alright," Mrs. Lerner allows tentatively, after several beats of contemplation. "Braden! Patrick! Come here!"

The two shaggy-haired children carefully tread into the room, bewildered looks plastered across both of their faces. Up close, she sees that eyes are enormous and black-brown – bottomless – and they have splashes of freckles across their noses.

Their mother stoops down to address them. "Boys," she commences, "this nice lady is Agent Currie. She's here to talk to you about the kids from your class that went missing."

"What kinda agent?" one blurts out.

"Like a secret agent? Like James Bond?" the other piles on. He stares up at Claire with those fathomless orbs, his brother soon following suit.

She smiles softly. "No," she corrects. "An FBI agent."

"Ohhh," one – the one who first spoke – drawls in apparent comprehension. She can't help but get the impression that he doesn't actually know what the FBI does, only that the word is familiar to him.

She turns her attention to the parents. "Would you mind if I talk with them alone? It's important that you don't influence anything they say," she explains.

Mrs. Lerner looks hesitant, but Mr. Lerner cuts in, "Yeah, that's fine. We'll just wait in the kitchen." The two then pass through the doorway to the other room, and Claire gestures for the boys to sit on the couch while she perches on the coffee table in front of them.

"So, which one of you is Patrick and which is Braden," she starts off.

The brother on the right says, "I'm Patrick, he's Braden." Ah. She's identified the leader.

"Patrick, are you the older one?"

The little boy puffs out his chest proudly. "Yeah," he declares.

"By two minutes!" Braden scoffs, shoving him with his elbow.

"Alright, boys, settle down," she urges, smiling nonetheless. "So, you two went to school with Matthew and Caleb Hall, didn't you?"

Patrick answers, "Yeah. Matty and Caleb were in fifth grade so we didn't really know them, but sometimes we would see them when we would switch out for lunch and recess."

"What do you mean switch out?"

"The older kids have lunch after us," Braden supplies.

"So you didn't know them well?"

Both shake their heads in unison. Braden says, a bit tentatively, "No, but someone came to our class to talk to us about it after they found them…"

"What did they say?"

"It was someone like you," Patrick explains, "A police officer. She talked about staying away from strangers and all that stuff." He says the latter part with a trace of annoyance, as though this is a point that the adults in his life are constantly belaboring.

"You do stay away from strangers, right?"

"Du-uh," Patrick replies, scoffing in a manner that is identical to his brother's. He crosses his arms across his tiny chest and adds, "Do you think we look like dummies? We're not taking the candy from the man in the unmarked van, lady. Don't worry."

"Okay," she allows, somewhat flummoxed by his precociousness. "But has anything strange happened to you since the other boys went missing? Anything at all – someone strange talking to you, following you, even nightmares…"

Patrick catches Braden's gaze and the two become engrossed in a silent conversation. After convening, Patrick replies, "No."

Claire narrows her eyes at the two in obvious suspicion. "Are you sure?"

Again, Patrick looks at his brother before responding, but maintains, "Yeah."

"Well, there was-"

"Braden," Patrick hisses, jabbing him in the ribs.

"What?" he shoots back, "she said nightmares."

Patrick whispers directly in the other's ear, "Don't tell her about that. We're not babies," as though her thinking they are would be some unimaginable tragedy.

"But she said-"

"Guys. I can hear you."

Both brothers tear away from one another to peer at her guiltily. "We've been having the same nightmares," Braden says before his sibling can stop him.

"Braden!"

"Have you guys ever had the same nightmares before?"

"Not the same same. Not like this," he continues to spill.

"What are the nightmares about?"

Patrick gives him a warning look, but Braden gulps and presses on, "This monster with-with shining red eyes – like those laser pointers, y'know? And it has these huge claws, and it's soaking wet, kind of like a grizzly bear…"

"In your dream, what does it do?" she asks urgently.

His answer is simple. "It chases us."

. . .

Twenty minutes later, Dean shimmies into the passenger seat of the Impala, announcing, "I got you a burger because no one should eat a salad for dinner."

Claire rolls her eyes dramatically. "Not everyone can eat the way you do and look the way you do, Dean. I mean I know we burn a lot of calories on the hunts, but…"

"Aw jeez, don't get all girly on me now," he complains. "You look…" His eyes drag over her, from head to toe. "…fine," he finishes, clearly struggling.

One eyebrow arches pointedly. "'Fine'?" she repeats.

"Yeah, like fine fine, y'know? Hot," he flounders.

A smirk playing at her lips, she switches gears. "Do you want to drive?"

Now, it's his turn to raise his eyebrows. "Nah, the car's already running and the motel's only like ten minutes away. Plus, I wanna make sure you treated 'er right."

Dean doesn't know if all that reading damaged his vision and right now his eyes are deceiving him, but when he says this he swears Claire looks nervous.

When they arrive at the motel, he only critiques, "You gotta go easier on the brakes. You're gonna wear out the pads." Nevertheless, he slings one arm around her shoulders and presses his lips to her temple. He has to admit that watching her drive his car was an unexpected turn-on. Like, too much so. Like, discovering a fantasy he never knew he had. Like, going to pop up in his rare happy-dreams for the next month at least.

Once inside, she demands, "What'd you learn at the library?" as he distributes their Styrofoam takeout boxes. His daydreams about her and the Impala quickly flee his mind.

"A lot," he admits. He sinks his teeth into the burger to sate one hunger, before expanding, "Lander was founded in the late 1800s. 1910 rolls around, it's been established for around thirty years, the population's a little bigger, the natives are getting pushed out – typical Westward Expansion stuff-"

"Yeah, I took American History in high school too," she interjects. "And?"

"A pair of boys go missing. Twins. Twelve years old. Drowned in the same lake as the Doorleys and the others. Everyone thought it was a freak thing and that they just wandered off. Cut to now, the population's way bigger, more twins are dying…"

"You think those two boys in 1910 set the precedent?"

"A century between killings is textbook stuff. I reckon more kids would've gone missing back in the day, but there were so few people – those were probably the only set in town. You look at the stats, and you'll find identical twins are pretty damn rare."

"But who would want to kill them? Why?"

"Like I said, Westward Expansion wasn't a pretty deal. Loads of Native Americans were displaced, killed… Lotta bad mojo here. Someone probably cursed this place at some point."

"But why twins? If you want to kill people to get revenge, that seems like kind of an ineffective way to do it."

Dean shrugs, takes another bite. "Conjuring monsters, spirits, whatever – it's not a science. Lots of things can go wrong or turn out different than what you expect. But once it's there, it's there, and it'll do whatever the hell it damn well wants. That's why people need to stay away from this shit. You think you're getting revenge, but really you're killing seven year olds a hundred years into the future."

"Did you look up what they could have summoned?" She takes a bite of her own (admittedly delicious) burger, and he nods.

"Looked into the twin thing," he says through a mouthful. "Thought it was important – turns out I was right. There are a few myths out there about these 'Hero Twins' – I forget the Native American word for it because it was like a million letters with accent marks and everything – that, get this – were 'monster slayers.' They were part of a creation myth or somethin'."

"So you think maybe one of the monsters they slayed in the myths is going after these kids?"

"Could be. Kids in these cultures also go on 'vision quests,' which are kinda like missions of self-discovery, before they become adults."

"A rite of passage, basically?"

"Yeah. There's no set time anyone is supposed to go on one, except they can't have already gone through puberty. So, I'm thinking this monster is killing twins before they complete their vision quests – y'know, snuffing them before they can become a problem."

"As though one of the sets is the Hero Twins?"

"Yeah. It's just killing all of them to be safe – kill them before they kill it." He chews contemplatively, before asking, "So, what did you learn?"

"The Lerners are its next target," is her grim reply. "I told them not to go outside, told their parents they're in danger and not to even let them go to school until we catch this thing, but…"

He straightens in his chair. "How d'you know they're its next target?"

"They're both having the exact same nightmare about a monster chasing them."

Dean, now very serious, observes, "What I can't figure is why they're getting dreams about it first."

Claire considers this thoughtfully. "Maybe it's some warning from… I don't know…" She looks off to the side, scrutinizing the patterned wallpaper. "Never mind, it's stupid."

"What?" he presses, tone steeped in curiosity.

His eyes bore into her until she finally answers, "Maybe something's looking out for these kids."

He snorts bitterly. "Well, it's not doing a very good job."

She stares at him for a moment, not saying anything, before starting a new conversation. "So, how do we kill it?"

. . .

The next day, it rains heavily. It's the type of metallic-smelling, unrelenting rain that leaves stagnant pools of water for a full week after, the type of rain that soaks the earth like a bucket of water from the heavens. It carries with it a chill, effectively ending Lander's lucky spell of good weather.

Both Claire and Dean oversleep, and when they wake the sky is black as night.

It's the sound of Claire's buzzing phone that finally jolts them out of their slumber. The call is from an unrecognized number and she hastily answers it, but not before clearing her throat and willing her voice not to sound as groggy as she feels.

"Hello?"

"Agent Currie?" The voice on the other end is harried, distraught.

"Yes? Who is this?" she interrogates.

"K-Karen. Karen Lerner. My boys…"

Claire suddenly feels lightheaded, as though she might faint. Shit shit shit. She collapses to sit on the edge of the bed, holding her head in her hands. She can only manage, "What happened?"

"W-we didn't wake them up for school this morning like you said, but was ten and usually they're up by then, even on the weekends, so I went to check…"

"They're not there," she completes.

"No," she chokes, voice raw from twenty minutes of unceasing sobbing. "W-we already called the police, but-"

"I'll be right there."

She twists around to see Dean propped against the headboard, staring at her intently. "What is it?" he demands, already knowing the answer.

"The Lerner boys are gone."

. . .

Raindrops crack against the car like bullets as Dean races to the Lerner house. The windshield wipers are working overtime, squeaking tiredly every two seconds as they swipe across the glass. After each synchronized half-rotation, they give the passengers a glimpse of the hell unfolding in front of them: the pitchy, rain-slick asphalt shines, reflecting the streetlamps' glow with mirror-like clarity, making it almost impossible to see where the road ends and where everything else begins.

"We need to find them before tonight," says Claire. "They only go missing for a day, before…"

"I know," he snaps, not irritated but worried. His eyes stand out vibrantly against their gray setting; any trace of brown that could have ever been found has been driven out, leaving only glittering, emerald green.

He can't let these kids die on his watch. He can't.

He stops for the telltale flash of red, white, and blue, parking the Impala neatly against the curb. He's barely set the parking brake before Claire springs out of the car, rain whipping against her face as she runs over the sodden lawn and straight past the police tape. The wind they couldn't hear before suddenly becomes the only thing they can hear.

"Agent Currie!" Mrs. Lerner greets her over the squall.

She reveals her badge to the two attending officers and, upon feeling several strands of hair pasted to her face, rakes all of it into a sloppy ponytail. "That's my partner," she says, beckoning to an equally drenched Dean.

"Agent Plant," he says smoothly, despite the water streaming into his eyes and clumping his eyelashes together.

There's a lull, filled with the sound of Mrs. Lerner weeping, trees rustling forebodingly in the wind, and rain slamming into the paneled walls. Someone shuts the front door and the sound becomes muffled, like they're vacuum-sealed in the house.

"It's just like the others," one officer, tall and redheaded like Claire, finally says.

"Anything left behind?" she questions.

"Nada trace. Like they vanished into thin air."

"You got people down by Louis Lake, where the others were found?" Dean grills.

"Of course. But that's the damn wilderness out there. We just don't have the manpower to canvas all of it, 'specially not with this kinda poor visibility," answers the other, short and squat and balding fast.

Dean and Claire lock eyes, and all at once it's decided that this is where they must go.

"We're going to join the search team," he announces and Claire says, "We'll find your sons, Mrs. Lerner," and Dean gawks at her, eyebrows drawn together, as though she's made rookie mistake number one.

You don't make promises you can't keep.

. . .

Dean settles the Impala in the lot beside the campground, knowing that if he tries to pull in beyond the pavement he's going to have to dig his car out of a thick muck whenever they eventually decide leave – which might be in a hurry. He flings the driver's side door open roughly, and when it catches the wind it nearly flies off its hinges. He closes it softly, apologetically, and makes a beeline for the trunk. Wrenching it open, he jams everything he can carry into a duffel bag. Once equipped, he treads to the dirt pathway in the direction of the lake, and as soon as the sole of one boot meets saturated earth, the overwhelming scent of petrichor fills his nostrils until it's enough to make him dizzy. Claire follows his lead, using the back of her hand to clear her waterlogged vision. A mixture of rain and mud slaps against their calves as they walk at a brisk pace.

"Watch where you step," Dean urges over the roaring storm. "The elevation changes fast, and the ground is slippery. It's easy to fall into a ditch and then..." He makes a guillotine motion with his index finger.

"Noted!" she calls back wryly.

"Stay in sight," he instructs more solemnly. "We can't get separated!"

"Okay," she mutters. He doesn't hear her, but he sees her lips form the word through the watery barrage.

He hates when she does this – he hates when she makes light of his warnings. He wants to say 'I'm serious,' like he always does, but this time he doesn't.

They have flashlights, and not much else. They stumble clumsily over tree stumps and rocks and briars. At some point his foot goes clear through a hunk of rotting wood with a sickening crunch, and he grimaces as pillbugs spill out just as quickly as the trails of water forging rivers through the detritus.

The terrain is sloping downwards, and the lake itself is in the middle of a plain. They glimpse other people in the far-off distance, see yellow beams of light glowing through the tree trunks, hear dogs barking over the rushing wind. The sense of urgency is not confined to them two.

Claire's clothes are soaked-through, hanging heavy and chilling her to the bone. The temperature isn't that low, but wet like this? She fears for those kids. If the monster doesn't get them, hypothermia might. She bites back a shiver, shining her flashlight around arbitrarily. The time of day is indiscernible; her last benchmark was around fifteen minutes ago when she checked the clock in the Impala, at 3:12 PM.

The absent sun is going to set behind the clouds, soon, making the sky even blacker.

Claire isn't sure when it happens, exactly.

She's not sure when the world around her goes completely dark, when the only thing between her and complete blindness is the narrow strip of earth illuminated by her flashlight.

She's not sure when she loses sight of the other rays of light, when she deafens to the dogs yowling in the background.

She's not sure when she loses Dean.

But here she is, beyond the trees, out in the open. The rain has relented to a soft pitter-patter on the grass, and if she looks up she can see the dull phantom of what has to be the moon struggling to shine. Still, she is dripping wet and cold as ice and moving isn't warming her up. She surmises the lake must be nearby, if she just keeps going towards the center of the valley.

And yes, panic seeps into her gut when she realizes she's been separated from Dean, the only reason she's survived the past few months, but the panic only intensifies when she thinks about abandoning the search for the twins. She can't afford to waste time turning around and looking for him – it's a straight-shot back to the car, anyway, and she'll rejoin him once the boys are safe.

She can do this – she has to.

She checks her phone halfheartedly, thinking maybe he called her and this isn't really a big deal after all. 'No Service.' Figures. She stuffs the object back into her saturated pocket with some difficulty. Of course there's never any cell service in the frickin' wilderness, where you need it most.

She returns her focus to the task at hand, trudging on. Moths flutter in the bar of light, hovering just above the grass and all the way into the shrouded stars. She exhales forcefully with each breath, blowing them out of her face, but the powder from their wings sticks to the moisture on her skin. It's disgusting. Her entire body feels clammy and dirty, her ponytail is glued to the back of her neck, and any trace of makeup she'd been wearing has washed away entirely. Her feet sink into the damp grass with every step she takes, water pooling inside her sneakers and drenching her cotton socks. Right now, she'd give anything for a hot bath and a cup of tea. Or even just some paper towel.

This is precisely what she's thinking about when she takes her next step into empty air. She drops about two feet, and then slides another two. Her fall, by some godly grace, is cushioned by the inundated landscape.

A slick coating of mud smears all the way up the back of her legs during her plummet, and when her rear-end meets the ground she already feels it forming a crust over the entire back side of her body, right up to her shoulders. Just peachy. Her hand fumbles blindly, stunned, before finally retrieving her discarded flashlight.

She shines it in front of her and her heart stutters to a jerky start, like an old engine abruptly given the full throttle. Peering directly into her soul are two pairs of black-brown eyes.

The Lerner twins.

"Patrick? Braden?" she ventures.

They nod in unison, baby teeth gritted. The moment is punctuated by an ominous crrrack, followed closely by a flash of white that lights up the whole valley. Bolts of lightning snake across the open, clouded sky; it could almost be beautiful, under different circumstances.

"How'd you get here?" she questions.

Patrick, the eldest by two minutes, answers, "T-t-the monster."

"Okay," she says sluggishly, while her brain works a mile-a-minute. "Okay. I'm gonna get you out of here."

Again, they nod in perfect unison. There's another boom of thunder. Their eyes are wide as saucers. There are streaks of dirt painting their ruddy complexions, but their dark hair camouflages just how filthy they are. They're huddled close to one another, shivering.

Claire moves towards them. They flinch, stare past her.

"It's okay," she tries. "Remember me?"

"I-it's there." Braden raises a shaky hand, finger pointed, and the tiny appendage quivers like a leaf in the storm.

She spins on her heel, wild. The ground makes a revolting squelching noise as she slips precariously, almost falling into the mud again. She waves the light around, but doesn't see anything. Not even the lightning can aid her search.

"What?"

"It's there," Patrick reiterates. "It won't let us leave."

Still, Claire sees nothing. Just moths soaring towards the battery-powered beacon. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," he says, voice low.

"Maybe you're just-"

"It's there!" Braden hisses, a whine infiltrating his voice and making him sound his age. Six. They're six, Claire must remind herself.

She gathers her wits and approaches the boys, inspecting them for injuries; they seem relatively unharmed, apart from the nasty scrapes on their shins. The thorn bushes have torn holes through their trousers.

She pinches the bridge of her nose hard enough to flatten it, recomposing herself. You know how to do this, she coaches, and her chest aches at the memory. "C'mon, boys," she starts again. She reaches for them, and they shuffle towards her.

It's not hard to boost them out of the ravine – they're only around fifty pounds apiece. The hard part is getting herself out.

The rubber soles of her shoes slide down the sloping wall, unable to get a foothold in the mud, and her hands grab grass by the fistful and come away with all of it. The boys even attempt to help her, their small, clammy fingers grasping at hers, trying fruitlessly to haul her up. It's no use – she needs Dean.

"Run," she shouts at them, "go towards the woods. My friend is out there – he'll find you!"

"But-"

"Don't worry about me," she says harshly, in her big-sister tone.

Patrick starts in the direction of the trees, but is blown back by some unseen force. He topples over easily, like a ragdoll, with a thud and a groan.

"It's here still!" Braden cries, "Can't you see it?! It won't let us leave!" Tears are streaming down his cheeks, cleaning thick lines in the dirt.

She still can't see anything, but now she's convinced.

Cupping her hands to her mouth, she shouts, "DEAN!" with all the force she can muster. The air leaves her lungs in a gust, making her throat burn. And suddenly she can't see what's happening to the boys anymore – they've moved beyond her line of sight.

But she can hear their wailing.

There is a response to her plea. It's faint, but ragged nonetheless. "Claire!"

"Dean!" she cries again, voice fraying.

Five minutes later, a hand appears over the edge of the pit. She recognizes the black wristwatch immediately: it's Dean's.

"Claire!" The rasping voice is even more familiar. His face comes into view, eyes feral and brow furrowed.

He drags her out so easily she's ashamed.

"Are you okay?" is the first thing he demands. And then: "What the hell, Claire?!"

"Where are they?!" she counters with her own hysterical question.

"What? Who?"

"The boys – the twins-"

He holds her steady, trying to get to the root of her words. "They were here?" His tone is like a laser, slicing through the histrionics.

She nods frantically, grime-encrusted strands of hair slapping her face. "Th-they said-the monster-"

Dean's face goes blank in his duress, and his eyes rove to the horizon – to the lake. It's a vast body of water, more of a sea than a lake, and a deep indigo color under Zeus' wrath.

Dean takes off and she follows, like she always does.

And there, from the shore, they see it: two bobbing heads struggling to stay above the turbulent plane of water. They're too close to one another. Something seems wrong. At first it looks as though one is using the other to stay afloat, but Dean squints his eyes and sees it's just the opposite. They're trying to save each other. His heart stings like it's being squeezed by barbed wire.

He's halfway to taking his jacket and boots off when Claire dives into the water without preamble. It's cold as ice.

He calls her name after her, only now sounding scared.

There's another bang of thunder and a blast of lightning, and if the lake is struck they're all fried, extra crispy. Now, though, Dean would be almost thankful for it – maybe it could resuscitate his weltering heart, because a defibrillator's not gonna cut it if Claire and those two kids drown.

He doesn't dither on the shoreline. Without another thought to the danger the weather poses, he rips his other shoe off and wades in after her, averse and unaccustomed to this reversal of roles.

He splashes as he moves towards them, the porous denim of his jeans an irritating encumbrance. Claire's slow her down too, but hers are more form-fitting and thusly more hydrodynamic.

One of the twins is coughing, and the other is screaming, "It's coming!"

Claire has already reached one of them – the coughing one. Her toes graze the bottom of the lake, but she's having some difficulty staying above the sloshing waves. Water pours into her mouth, cool and crisp – freshwater, not saltwater.

"Where is it?" she wheezes.

"B-by the shore," Patrick manages through a heaving breath. His lips are purple and his teeth are chattering violently as he doggie-paddles like a maniac. Claire grabs him, holds him above her. She reaches out towards Braden and he takes her other hand, limbs working just as frantically as his brother's. Now she has one twin in each arm. They're weighing her down…

Dean comes to the rescue in the nick of time, as always. He extracts Braden from her grasp and heaves him up; the boy's skinny arms circle around his neck automatically, as though he is a life preserver and not a stranger, as though he hasn't been drilled to avoid strangers all his life.

The kid can't be more than sixty-five pounds soaking wet – for Dean, he's light.

Claire fights a more pronounced struggle, but eventually they both emerge from the lake, a child clinging to them with all his might.

Dean has only just set Braden in the sand when something throws him back into the water with all the force of a semi-truck.

Thunder crackles overhead.

"Dean!" Claire shrieks, somehow still having the good sense to herd the Lerners away.

"No!" Braden laments tearfully, while his brother gags amongst the rocks. "It's going to kill him!"

Shockingly, he writhes against Claire's grip and tries to move towards Dean – like he can do something. Like he hadn't just been dragged from the abyss two seconds ago. His legs thrash as if he's still in the water, and she wonders how such a tiny body can pack so much energy, especially after what he's just endured.

If Dean ever admitted to having PTSD, it'd sure as hell be kicking in right now. As this invisible beast ravages him, he hears the howling howling howli–no. Not right now. Not this time. Stay alive.

His hand fumbles instinctively through the choppy water and slides Ruby's dagger out from between his belt and waistband. If it'll kill a demon, he figures it's worth a shot on this thing.

The blade slashes at empty air. Somewhere far away, he hears the muted shouts of Claire and the kids. The water ripples around him, the only evidence that he's not a lunatic fighting off some imagined creature. The only evidence apart from the claws tearing into his Achilles tendon and pulling him beneath the tide, that is.

Suddenly, Patrick and Braden start hurling stones in his direction.

Taken out of context, this must look like a family fishing trip gone completely awry, or a rock-skipping lesson turned to an attempted homicide. Whatever's attacking them simply isn't there, and Dean is flailing in the water while the other three are cowering ashore.

"You can't see it?" Braden demands of Claire.

"No," she answers hurriedly. "You both can?"

"Yeah," says Patrick, "just like our in dreams."

In a blink they're scrambling backwards, as though the monster is approaching. Claire feels helpless, pitted against an enemy she can't even see, let alone stop.

The sky turns white and then black so quickly they're seeing spots.

Braden is hacking, blood trickling from his mouth as though there's a tremendous pressure on his chest. Patrick is screaming, crying, throwing rocks like a major league pitcher. Claire wedges herself between the invisible monster and the little boy, her own chest caving under the force; it knocks the wind straight out of her lungs.

There's another flash of lightning and then Dean's out of the lake, knife drawing patterns in the space above them. He drips water all over her face, but by now they've all forgotten the white-hot cold.

He's launched back again. Ruby's dagger hits the pebbles with a tinny clatter.

Braden grabs it before anyone can stop him, his fist wobbling visibly. It's clear he's exerting a herculean effort just to hold it steady, muscles contracting and twitching, and even so he's failing.

Without warning, blood blossoms from Patrick's left arm, shredding the skin. Dean shouts and so does Claire, and Braden is moving towards his brother in silence. He lunges, jumps clean over his Patrick's prone figure. The blade must meet something, because his twin's shrieking quells to moaning.

The two adults rush to them, not comprehending what's happened but suspecting maybe – just maybe – it's over.

Patrick clutches his wound, blood leaking between his grimy fingers, and Braden groans as he picks himself up. Dean scoops the former into his arms without an inch of hesitation. Claire grabs Braden and the knife, and she doesn't care that she doesn't really know this boy – she kisses the top of his head and crushes him into an embrace.

"It's gone," he murmurs, returning the hug. "I killed it."

Those words – they should never be spoken from a child's mouth. There's a darkness in his tone that shouldn't be there, a nascent trace of the trauma that will likely haunt him for the rest of his life.

He seems not to realize that his life has forever been altered, flipped upside-down and torn inside-out. He continues, "It won't come back."

She doesn't bother asking how he knows this.

"C'mon kiddo," she hears Dean say to Patrick as they trek towards the woods. "You're gonna be just fine. I got my fair share of scars, and I can tell ya chicks dig 'em. Coupl'a stitches and you'll be good to go."

"How come you didn't see it?" he questions, his pain making him groggy.

"I dunno," he answers honestly. "But it's a good thing your brother did."

Patrick nods thoughtfully, shifting his head against Dean's waterlogged t-shirt. The boy's long, fine hair is everywhere. It sticks to the older man's clothes, sticks in his eyes; it reminds Dean painfully of Sam.

. . .

The boys are slumped in the back of Impala, alien additions. Dean has wrapped a cloth around Patrick's injury to slow the bleeding, but he's still in need of a hospital. Braden stares out the window distantly, his breath fogging up the glass. Claire can't help but speculate he's seeing a different world than the one he saw before. She'd say the same of Patrick, but his eyelids are drooping.

Dean tries not to think about the water stains they're imprinting on the leather and cranks the heat.

They leave the twins at the hospital with their unimaginably thankful parents. This is the end of the line, and it's obvious they're not FBI, now, but no one cares. Dean's hardly gotten out a "I'd say see ya 'round, buddy, but I hope for both our sakes that's not the case" and a hair-ruffle before they're back in the Impala.

Dean is dead silent and stony the whole way back to the motel…

And then, all of a sudden, he's screaming at her.

It takes her a second to recalibrate, to register that this is not the same version of him she'd seen thirty minutes ago. Sometimes she forgets how quickly he can change faces.

Right now, she's not paying attention to the words so much as the way he looks: stricken and scared. It crosses her mind – breaches her thoughts like the electrical storm brewing outside, really – that she is responsible, that she did this to him.

How odd, how strange, how incredibly fucking uncanny, she thinks. For once she's the one who's scared the shit out of him, for once he's the one who cares more. It almost feels righteous, this apparent retribution, but the hurt in his face saps all the satisfaction she might have straight out of her.

She can see the line of his jugular ebb and swell a visible rhythm, in tempo with his shouting.

"…What were you thinking?!" brings his tirade to a crescendo, starting on a high note and ending on a low one, just like always. He's pulling at his hair and pacing a stripe in the carpet, like a demon caught in a devil's trap, imploring the ceiling to relieve him of whatever the fuck kind of mess is going on inside his ribcage.

Claire still remembers the precise moment she realized she loved Dean Winchester. It was a moment not unlike this one, really. She can still see him in that shoebox in Las Vegas, imploding over a piece of paper.

She is probably the only person on earth to ever fall in love with the object of her affection while he was snarling at her.

And yet that was the moment. Dust motes sailing through the room, car horns blaring faintly in the distance. She remembers how the sunlight filtered in through the dingy window, casting him in gold, like some sacred effigy clothed in flannel. And she remembers how quickly his face melted down and re-sculpted itself into a broken one, so vastly different from the first she almost believed he had been wearing a mask, after all. But it was no ethos or pathos switch-up, just the same dire scrambling (and failing) to cloak his hurt that had always defined him.

But now she is the source of his ire, not Sam. And just because she loves him doesn't mean she doesn't sometimes hate him, and it sure as hell doesn't mean she's going to tell him how she feels – Dean is a hero of mythical proportions, but he has a mean-streak to rival any villain's. He can be cruel, and she can't risk giving him the fuel the hurt her so profoundly. She's open with her emotions, for the most part, but on this matter her mind is made up and rigid. What's between them is unspoken and yet so very obvious, but once those words hit the air everything changes.

"What should I have done, huh?" she spits, matching his rage. "I wasn't gonna let those kids die, Dean! Are you crazy?! What kind of goddamn question is that? Don't you dare fucking tell me you wouldn't've done the exact same thing!"

He can't tell her that because it would be a lie, but still his jaw is working, and in his agitation he's mussed his filthy hair against the grain. He presses the dip between his thumb and index finger over his mouth, surrendering, "But you can't just go off like that, Claire." His vocal chords rasp and rumble like tire treads crunching over gravel, and she thinks this might be one of the biggest mistakes of her life.

She doesn't delineate the meaning of this.

"I had to do something – there wasn't time-"

"What you did was insane! You had no weapon, no nothing! You had no fucking clue what you were up against – you just dove in headfirst like someone with a fucking death wish!" He pauses, inhales and exhales, balls his fists by his sides. When he starts again, he is calmer. "Do you get how easily… How easily you coulda… You almost got yourself killed, Claire."

"I did what I had to. I did what you would have done."

"That doesn't make this any easier!" he snaps, and she suspects he didn't mean to say this out loud.

"I'm sorry," she says, and she is. She's sorry she did this to him. "Dean, I-" But her throat is dry. The words wilt and shrivel before they can materialize, and whatever she had wanted to say is now nonexistent, erased from this world by the way his eyes dance with the dull flecks of moonlight streaming in.

They are flashing, really, and with what unbridled emotion she dares not guess. But she is not afraid, not of him (only how he makes her feel).

She bridges the five-step mile between them, hands finding broad shoulders. "I…"

He white-knuckles her waist, eyes searing into hers. "You understand, right? You understand?"

She nods even though she doesn't, and he pulls her face to his and kisses her nose, her eyelids, her forehead. Times like this, like when he held Patrick Lerner to his chest as though he were made of glass – these are the times she sees beyond the mask. Life has steeled him, made him rough and coarse, but that is not who he truly is. Deep down, his heart is far too accommodating for the role he plays. He claims he was meant to do this, but she disagrees.

He smells like silt. They're dry-ish, now, but caked in muck. Somehow this fades into the background.

His lips are soft as silk, the opposite of the rest of him, and his mouth tastes like blood and adrenaline and everything she can't live without.

They have no balance, they never did. They tried to find it in the beginning, but it always eluded them, so eventually they just gave up. Now the two are floundering in uncharted waters. When they come up for air they still can't breathe, but they can at least be sure a lack of oxygen is not the culprit.

Dean studies her with a creased brow, still searching for signs of injury, still searching for an answer to the gnawing in his chest. He finds none. All he finds is a proclamation shining in the blue of her eyes, four sparking letters she refuses to utter aloud.

Help me, he prays to no one in particular.

He's on the precipice of falling in love and running away. The right path isn't illuminated; it never was.

"We managed it," she murmurs, trying to remember that they can be happy. "Those boys are safe, the monster is gone." She leans back, hands in his back pockets linking her hips to his, and peers up at him. "Job well done, I'd say."

"Yeah."

"How, though? What do you think happened? Why couldn't we see it?"

"My guess? Only the Hero Twins could kill it, so only the Hero Twins could see it."

"You think Patrick and Braden are the Hero Twins?" she asks incredulously.

"Hey, those little bastards were tough as nails!" he defends. "But nah – I think the monster thinkin' they were the Twins was as good as."

He grins, and she grins back. It's probably dysfunctional that they can do this, that they can weave between contentment and despair so fluidly. But they're hovering in the moment, milking it for all it's worth.

"I need to take a shower," she says eventually.

"Okay," he agrees, assenting to an invitation she hadn't offered. He smirks and it's wolfish and dripping with lascivious intent, following her so closely she can feel his heat at her back.

Claire turns the faucet, before feigning to shoo him out of the room.

To be frank, she's not quite sure what he wants. Well, scratch that – it's very clear what he wants. She's just not sure if it's what she wants, too, because there's wanting to be with him every second, and then there's wanting to be with him every second.

Claire values personal space, which is something they already have very little of. Plus, she had always been pretty vanilla in her escapades; most of her boyfriends were short-lived, their relationships never really scratching any depth of true intimacy. She isn't sure how comfortable she is with trying something new.

Her hesitance must be written clearly on her face. "You've never done this before, have you?" he balks disbelievingly, the realization making him incandescent. A bright, impish smirk crawls across his face.

She bites her lip, looks anywhere but at him. "Um…"

"Aw man," he says, sounding incongruously like a kid on Christmas Day. "I'm honored."

She cocks an eyebrow, a smirk somehow finding its way to her lips, too. Not five minutes ago he was unhinged, some minute part of her brain rings. Still, she crosses her arms over her chest and pops her hip out in an accusatory stance that can't be taken as anything but flirtatious. "Dean Winchester, are you trying to deflower me?"

He scrunches his nose, put-off. "Not the right choice of words. Instruct. Guide. Educate," he lists in slow succession, tone airy and self-inflated. "I'll be your Yoda."

Claire's features contort to mirror his. "Not the time to be talking about Yoda," she echoes.

"Sorry," he repents breezily. He sweeps her body flush against his and fuses his lips with hers in one fluid motion, his hands soon finding the hem of her shirt. He always knows exactly which buttons to press, exactly which moves will elicit which reactions – it is almost a science. She thinks fleetingly she should be more alarmed by his expertise.

But they're in the shower, now, and things are not going as she expected. It's claustrophobic and feels intrusive and she's trying to get a mouthful of Dean but all she gets is water. She might have felt self-conscious about standing toe-to-toe with him, stark naked under the harsh fluorescent lights, but the water obfuscates everything. It pours into her face, preventing her even from opening her eyes to measure where he is, dribbling up her nose and causing her sinuses to burn. She wants to get away from it, but at the same time her skin is freezing wherever he or the water is not touching her.

Dean, vastly taller, actually bears the brunt of it, the jet pelting him like a machine gun. All the water that's making its way to her has to go through him, first. He maneuvers them out of the line of fire, but already they are slipping and sliding. Claire tries to hold onto something – anything – to steady herself, but there are no handholds in the slick fiberglass. Even more frustrating, the height disparity between them is complicating things – it's not easy to do this vertically. There are a couple failed endeavors at various positions before he finally just hoists her up, hands kneading into her thighs, and her heart leaps in fear as her back glides up the wall.

"Don't you dare drop me," she mutters breathlessly, clinging to him desperately. She knows her nails are digging ridges into his shoulders and her heels are digging bruises into his spine, but she can't bring herself to feel remorseful. He's the one who dragged her into this, after all. It feels risky to have him support her entire weight, even as strong as he is, and although she trusts him with her life, she's not sure she trusts him with this.

Still – the metallic taste of tap water has left her mouth and she has to admit he's found a good angle.

"I would never," he grins into her neck, panting slightly.

They're directly under the showerhead, now, and the stream cascades all around them like a waterfall. But it's Dean who's all around her really, his hands gripping her almost as tightly as she's gripping him, his body covering hers even in this strange position. Mingled perspiration and water collect on his skin, causing each and every muscle to glisten. His biceps flex and flex as he exerts the necessary effort to carry her, a tantalizing testament to masculine perfection, she thinks stupidly.

But she is scared to be so dependent on him. Her insecurities are bogging her down, while muscles in her abdomen are coiled like a spring and aching ominously, and she thinks if she could just…

She grabs the shower curtain rod with her right hand to steady herself, to make herself less reliant on him, and the corresponding foot struggles to find purchase on the outer ledge of the tub to relieve him of some of her dead weight. But just as his movements become more urgent and unassailable, reaching an apex…

The aluminum rod rips clean off the wall, taking the two down with it.

Claire cries out for a couple of reasons; then she falls on top of Dean, her skull smashing against the fiberglass wall on the way down. The thin plastic of the dislodged shower curtain adheres to them, and all the while the stream of water continues to beat down unyieldingly on their crumpled forms.

Dean attempts to disentangle them from the wreckage, managing to thrust the metal bar onto the bathroom floor and twist the faucet.

"Are you okay?!"

She clambers to her feet with some help (a lot of help) from him, her head throbbing to an excruciating beat. "Ow." She presses an exploratory finger the afflicted area, relieved but surprised to find her hand return devoid of blood.

He gives her a quick once-over, before unexpectedly bursting into laughter.

"It's not funny!" she protests, taken aback. "I probably have a concussion!" She feels her face grow hot with a blush.

His mirth subsides when he sees that more than just her pride is wounded. "Ah, I'm sorry," he says, sounding sincere. "Lemme see."

Obediently, Claire swivels around and lets him examine the back of her head. His fingers gingerly part her sopping hair, and he's seen enough injuries to be able to tell with certainty that an impressive goose egg is beginning to form. She hisses when he inadvertently brushes his callused fingers over the area.

"That stings," she complains.

"Sorry," he repeats, sobered. "You didn't notice that was just a tension rod?"

"A tension… What?"

He thinks maybe she is concussed, after all.

"Count backwards from one-hundred," he orders.

"Wha-?" He can hear the eye-roll in her voice.

"Just do it."

"One-hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven, ninety-six, ninety-five, ninety-four, ninety-three, ninety-two, ninety-one, ninety-can I stop?"

"Yeah, okay. You're fine."

"Definitely have a concussion," she counters.

He knows this is hyperbole, but if it's what she wants to believe he's in no mood to dispute her. "Hellova battle wound," he jokes. "Definitely one to tell the grandkids."

"How embarrassing…"

He shrugs nonchalantly. "It happens."

"What kind of cheap-ass motel uses tension rods instead of regular ones?!"

"Uh, the ones that are twenty bucks a night?"

"Dammit. I actually needed to take a shower, you know. I still have mud in my hair."

He shoots her a roguish look, carefully stepping out of the tub, and begins to re-fix the tension rod. "You still can."

"I knew this was a bad idea," he hears her grumble from behind the barrier of the shower curtain.

He steps back into the tub, shocking her, and shocks her even more when he squirts a liberal quantity of shampoo into the palm of his hand.

"Turn around," he instructs gently, voice low. His smile abates and becomes almost guilty, like that of a naughty child caught with his hand wedged in the cookie jar.

Spellbound nonetheless, she submits.

He threads his fingers through her gold-red hair, massaging her scalp with an unfathomable tenderness. His nails scrape lightly against her skin, now tangled into her locks in earnest as they work, but meticulously avoid her injury. A thrilled prickle of pleasure shoots through her nerve-endings with each soft tug, and she can't help but sigh as his expert fingers reach her hairline, moving in circular increments. She can't see him, but he smirks at the sound. He continues to lather until all the grime is out, his focus pulling his eyebrows together. She's far too disappointed when he pauses his ministrations.

"Keep you eyes closed," he tells her in a sensual purr. He draws her closer to him, until she can feel the wiry firmness of his chest pressing into her shoulder blades. Using the warm water to wash away the suds, he drags his fingers through her hair a few more times, before repositioning his hands over the bruises he created just minutes before. They mold perfectly to the shape of the pinkish marks on the sensitive skin at her hips, and he laps at all the other bruises and scratches on her body that were not, in fact, inflicted by him.

Claire shudders. "Dean-"

"Still think this was a bad idea?"

She twists around to capture his smug mouth in hers. When they break apart, she says, "No, but then again I'm not thinking clearly – I do have a concussion, after all."

"Well, I don't wanna take advantage-" He starts out of the shower, but Claire's sudden vice-grip on his wrist tells him all he needs to know.

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Fin

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A/N: Sorry in advance, guys. This is too long to be a note, and this 'one-shot' is long enough to be a multi-chapter story. These are the frickin' credits. Don't feel obligated to read this if you don't want to.

First and foremost (not going to bold because this is super long): HOLY SHIT THE MID-SEASON FINALE. Seriously, for those who saw it, what did you think!?

As for this story: I rewatched 'Dead in the Water' (1.03), which is part of the reason for this. Dean with kids... It does things to a girl. The mythology is founded in real Native American tradition, but I tweaked A LOT. The Hero Twins appear in several cultural creation stories, including Mayans' and Navajos', and they are called monster slayers. And there is in fact a Shoshone/Arapaho reservation near Lander. I just sort of combined everything and made up a monster.

I have never been to Wyoming, nor am I especially familiar with Native American legends. I apologize for any mistakes or misconceptions. All errors are my own. I made up all the names of people/places, so if any of them belong to someone famous it's not on purpose (although there was a Vampire Diaries shout-out, if you squint).

I know Sam and Dean aren't twins, but I liked the conflicting mythologies about brothers' destinies. Some brothers destined to kill one another (as Lucifer tells Sam at the beginning), others destined to team up and vanquish evil from the world (I mean, two heroic brothers slaying monsters?!)… I liked the comparison.

The line "The last time he let himself get this attached, he was twenty-four and stupid," is referring to Cassie, in case that was too vague. I don't know how long they were supposed to have been together for or how old he was at the time, but it always seemed like she was more than just a fling. Although the relationship couldn't have lasted more than two months, if we're going to take the wraith/mental hospital ep at face value, and he's already been with Claire for longer than that.

Hopefully the kids are in character. I volunteer at a school plus I have a million little siblings/cousins, so I've had a lot of exposure to this age group lol. (I was going to kill the twins off for dramatic effect, but I honestly couldn't do it. I think I'm pretty sadistic when it comes to my stories, so that's saying something. They took on a life of their own and were too cute to hurt).

As for Claire, we get to see her working alone for the first time! Fun fact, I based her on some friends and relatives I'm close to, as well as Caroline Forbes from TVD and Jessica Hamby from True Blood (if any of you watch those shows). I have it in my head that she's the opposite of Dean in a lot of ways, and in some ways similar to Sam – what you see is what you get with her. Too often I've read stories (and seen many many shows/movies) in which the characters/OCs are too sarcastic and wisecracking for their own good. I honestly don't know anyone who deals with a painful past like that, and I never have. More often than not, you'll find that these people are so remarkably optimistic that it makes you feel bad for complaining about anything at all. I'm sure some people react with sarcasm etc., but they are certainly disproportionately represented. I get that it's supposed to be for entertainment value, but in supernatural fiction, I think the way for these fantastical stories to be truly enjoyable is if the characters are just the opposite – hyper-realistic. And I don't think you have to be tough to be strong, which is what I've been trying to accomplish with Claire. I know it's cliché to have your OC have such a tragic history, but who doesn't have a tragic history on this show?! And if she didn't, I don't think she could ever relate to Dean or Sam in any meaningful way.

Maybe you're thinking, 'you just described Dean,' and Dean does mask his pain with sarcasm sometimes, but I think that's rooted in something different, something deep in his upbringing, in his sense of how he should act. And indeed deep down, he has to be an optimist – otherwise he'd have stopped trying long ago.

LOL sorry for the rant. This is just something I feel very passionate about. I feel like female characters are always portrayed as either sexy badasses or damsels in distress, and I don't think this is realistic, and I don't think it has to be this way. I hope you don't feel like I'm shoving Claire down your throat; these stories are, ultimately, about Dean, and about how he would deal with a situation like this. I tried to cover the full range of his 'masks' (and not-masks) in this one. OCs are just important to me because at some point I want to write my own book, and creating characters who are believable and relatable is the most essential part.

And uh… About the end… I don't even know. LOL sorry it got so out of hand. Just remember Dean's lovely quote from 9.23: "Game of Thrones – that's complicated. Shower sex – that's complicated." He had to form that opinion based on something, amirite? Who knows what compelled me to sandwich the story between shower scenes, but that's just what happened and I'm sorry for it. And I'm also not sure why there's so much water in this chapter. There just is. You can read into it whatever you like.

Oh also (only one last thing, I promise) – have any of you guys seen the new show Constantine? Aside from the fact that it seems like an early-SPN rip-off, Constantine and Zed have a total Dean/Claire thing going on!

Please let me know what you think, even if it's only to point out something I got wrong! Feel free to share your thoughts on anything at all. I'm also considering writing a SUPER SUPER AU multi-chap story about Dean, Sam, Jess, John, [and maybe a cameo from Claire], but I'm not sure. I have a Sleepy Hollow story that I have to finish first, but would anyone be interested in that?