"So, I got something to ask you," Dean said as he slid the bowl down near Sam's hunched form as Sam looked over some of the scanned manuscripts he had scored at the book auction.

"What do you- hey, mac and cheese. With the little crumbly bits on top?" Sam looked up from the computer, straightening his posture a little.

Dean shrugged, shaking his head. "It's not big deal. It was easy. So about that question-"

"Not a big deal?" Sam took off the glasses he used to ward against computer glare and picked up the spoon from the bowl of mac and cheese in one fell swoop and tried a bite. "Hot- hot but delicious."

"Thanks, Sammy. I went to a couple of different recipe sites and split the difference. Say, have you- have you broke out into song recently?"

"Broken out into song?" Sam asked with a confused look.

"Yeah, you know- like no background music or dancers or any of that shit but like- just, when you get super emotional and knowing all the words and..."

"Dean, are you feeling-"

"Well, no. But that's not the point. It's just- I've-a-kinda been-"

"Breaking out into song?" Sam offered helpfully.

Dean nodded. "Yeah that."

Silence filled the room for a moment and then Sam started to chow down on the mac and cheese. "Still delicious but not too hot anymore. Is there ham in here? You're the best brother ever. So what kind of songs are we talking here?"

Dean moved around slightly uncomfortably, grabbing onto a baseball he and Sam kept around for decoration and tossing it to himself with a shrug. "Doesn't matter. Singin's singin', right?"

Sam blinked at Dean, staring him down slightly with an arched brow. "Dean, if we're gonna figure this out-"

"- it's lovin music, okay?! 'Bout farewells and forgiveness and shit. Just leave it!" Dean barked.

Sam put his unforked hand up and made a face. "Fine. Leaving it there. What do you think brought on the singing?"

"I don't know. I mean, I went out to find Cas on a hunch and I kinda did and then he was singing and I was singing and it was-" Dean struggled for words, letting the sentence trail off.

"It was-" Sam asked, wanting Dean to continue.

"It was always hard singin'," Dean said in response. "It was about Cas."

"About. Cas. " Sam said slowly. Then he went back to eating.

"What?"

"Nofing," Sam said with a mouthful. "What do you think? Is it a spell of some kind or maybe some kind of-"

"Well, there was this little sting but no blood like at the Bates Motel. Just a twinge, like a leaf brushed against my neck or something. Cas looked around too but neither of us saw anything."

"Okay," Sam said as he digested information and food, "so you're singing to-"

"-with-"

"-right, with Cas and it comes on at emotional states and you're not sure what causes it or how it happens."

Dean nodded. "That's the long and short of it. You got enough to research on?"

Sam shrugged. "I'll check the Paranet. We have enough for seconds? I like a dinner with my show."

Dean squinted at his little brother, grabbing the bowl from his hand to refill from the casserole dish in the kitchen.

At the better part of half an hour, and one rereading of the newspaper later since Dean wasn't a champion with paranet message threads, Sam's head poked upwards from the computer which Dean knew meant one thing.

"You've got something?" he asked as he set down the newspaper.

"I did. Give me that paper you're reading." Sam took the paper from Dean and rifled through the papers quickly, finding a red marker and making a few notes. After a few minutes, he wrote something on a post-it note and attached it to the red lines and handed the whole chart to Dean.

Dean lipread and then looked up at Sam from the newspaper. "Holy crap. And in our neighborhood too. House values are gonna plummet."

"That's why we've gotta do something about it now," Sam said with a nod of his head. "We can catch a show tonight, they'll be there. They'd be crazy not to be with all those teens coming in. To much energy to feed off of."

Dean nodded. "Good. It's a lead, at least. We'll figure out what's going on if it kills me."

"You're not gonna die by singing, Dean."

"You don't know that Sammy."

Come ride with me

Through the veins of history

I'll show you how God fell asleep on the job

The dead field was full of parked cars, most of them near the Impala's age- though not nearly as well taken care of.

"Teenagers," Dean sneered a little to himself as he got out of the Impala and looked around the lot. "Just look at that guy- I mean, what the hell did he have to add that to his undercarriage for? It's just gonna be an expensive relay job-"

"Dean, can you focus please?" Sam called from the trunk, which he proceeded to pop open. "Let's see, I'll take one of these and one of these. And oh yeah, need one these. What do you want?"

"Classic," Dean said, scooping up a couple of his favorite hunting tools.

"You're not gonna start singing about cars, are you?" Sam asked with a quirked brow as they walked toward the barn.

Dean shrugged. "Maybe if I did, the bad guys would just off themselves and then we wouldn't have to go through this shit."

"Maybe we'll be one step closer to finding the answer," Sam offered helpfully.

"Yeah, we'll see," Dean said as they slid into the crack in the mostly closed barn door. The band was in full swing, teenage victims packed in like cattle and completely entranced by the light show and onstage band. Men in black with pale faces roamed the crowd, sucking a white force out of the kids at random intervals.

Sam squinted, wincing as the light passed over his eyes. "Well, you were right Dean."

And how can we win

When fools can be king

Don't waste your time or time will waste you

"I'd kill to be wrong one of these days. You want high or low, Sammy?"

Sam smirked from the corner of his mouth. "You know me. I'll take the crooners up there that are stomping all over that Muse song."

"Roger that. HEY, UGLY!" Dean yelled after confirming with Sam. Several of the black clad pale men turned to look at Sam and Dean, their eyes going wide. "I love it when they look at us like that," Dean said with a cavalier smile playing on his lips. "Let's go to work Sammy."

No one's gonna take us alive

The time has come to make things right

Dean crouched down, slicing along the legs of the few vampires brave enough to advance on his position. He heard their howls of pain and it didn't take long for them to realize that the sharpened hangars Dean had strapped to his wrists were more than normal weapons.

They didn't seem to fair much better with Sam's mini javelin as he pushed forward, his jaw tight with rage against the villains, his eyes bearing down as he collapsed skull after skull with rapid pace on his way to the stage.

You and I must fight for our rights

You and I must fight to survive

Once to the top of the stage, Sam looked back to see Dean on his knees, bent back and flipping one of the villains like a pancake, flattening him with a squish before flipping upright and slashing the bastard diagonally across the chest. Sam winced as the guy bubbled into nothing and then Sam turned to the band.

"You guys in on this too?"

They didn't respond, so Sam kicked over one of the amps, causing a massive squeal to echo all around the barn and awaken half of the stunned teenagers. The band kept on playing.

"Okay, that was-" Sam stopped in mid-sentence, noticing how odd the angle of one of the elbows of the bassist was. He walked over to the man, shoving his way past the uncaring lead singer and other guitarist and seized the man's elbow.

"Holy-" Sam said with pursed lips, unexpected surprise showing from the feeling of rubber against his skin. "You guys are ro-"

Dean finished off the last of the vampire beings just in time to see a bassist going after his brother, holding him aloft in a choking position.

"Sammy!" he snarled and bolted for the stage, unstrapping and throwing his weapon with perfect aim, the force of which knocked the robot bassist's head off. There was a collective scream and the beginnings of a stampede from the awakening teenagers as they fled the barn but all Dean could see was Sam being choked by a headless man with fingers pinched together like legos, as though the person who had made him hadn't finished completely.

Dean jumped on top of the headless thing, trying to get his brother released while Sam pushed off of the guy's chest, snapping the arm off. Dean noticed the movement out of the corner of his eye as he pried angry fingers from Sam's neck and stomped on the arm until sparks flew from beneath his feet.

Sam rubbed his neck and let out a cough. "Well, I guess the party's over?" he asked, trying to lighten the mood.

"I'd say it's just begun," Dean growled low as he bolted for the ramshackle stairs leading to the barn's second level.

No one's gonna take me alive

The time has come to make things right

You and I must fight for our rights

You and I must fight to survive

"Hey, what did you run up-" Sam stopped in mid-sentence, catching his breath from jogging up the dangerous, rickety makeshift stairs after nearly being choked.

Dean cocked his head. "Thought I saw something. Maybe the bastard behind this. Don't know but he runs a hell of a lot faster than any human I've ever seen. Couldn't make out a face, that's how fast he was goin'. Lucky for us, he's left us a clue behind."

Sam looked from his brother to the object. "Think it has something to do with breaking out into song or just the robotics?"

"I think it might have something to do with the fake robot band trying to suck up human juice like their fans were goddamn pink bunnies wearin' drums. Anyways, what do you think it's supposed to be?"

Sam shrugged. "Looks like part of a statue or a god-sized amulet," Sam said of the item on the table, the only two things in the hay loft of the barn, "but not one I've ever seen before. There are some carvings on the side though, it looks-"

Dean put his hand over Sam's as a reflex to Sam reaching out to touch some symbolic carvings on the side of it. "Woah. You sure you wanna do that?"

Sam shook his head, wincing a little at a bad memory. "Not really. But I don't think we have a ziploc big enough for this thing. It's like a mega sized amulet or a really small bong."

"Yeah, and all of our problems only come in fun-sized packets like M & Ms. Here, I brought some gloves. We'll try not to touch it and get it in the trunk."

"Right, thanks," Sam said as he took the medical gloves Dean pulled from his coat pocket. They lifted it gingerly, making sure it scraped as little skin as possible. The giant blue tuba looking dolphin shape made barely a noise as they struggled to get it down the aging barn stairs that they wondered might give with every creak.

(A/N: "Knights of Cydonia" by Muse)