Perfect

Summary: Sam and Dean head to a town from their youth on a case, but find more than they bargained for. Could it be that they've faced the same creature before? Dean-centric

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or anything associated with the show.

Author Notes: Thank you for reading! This chapter kind of ran away with itself a bit, but I hope you enjoy ^_^

Set early Season 14.

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Chapter 3

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Oakland Grove was a small cul-de-sac of happy, normal houses with manicured lawns and white picket fences, and driveways filled with modern cars that gleamed and shone in the overhead sun. Dean could practically feel his skin crawling as he passed by each house, before finally coming to number seventeen, where he parked up and turned off the engine. Unlike the other houses, which were bright and cheerful, this house was dark and grieving. There was no mistaking that this was the home of Connie Williams, from the drawn curtains to the heavy atmosphere that hung over the house.

Climbing out of the Impala, he glanced at Sam over the roof and bobbed his head toward the neighbour approaching the house with the traditional plate of made up food that always seemed to make its way into people's houses when a loved one had died. Then his gaze landed on Connie at the doorway, her thick black locks of hair and soft gaze, igniting the memory of a young boy with a bashful smile and reddened cheeks and awkward fumbling fingers, making an order with the waitress who was a good few years older but also the sweetest thing in town, next to Dottie's pie.

"So remind me," Sam said, closing the passenger side door and looking out across the lawn, toward the two women as one returned home and the other closed the door to hers. "Connie Williams?"

"Our latest vic, Sadie – this is her aunt. As close as sisters according to Dottie. If there was anything strange going on before she died, Connie will know."

"And is that the only reason we're here?"

Dean burrowed his brow, a frown tugging at his lips as he looked to Sam. "Why else would we be here?"

"A chance to see an old flame?"

At that, Dean stalled, backtracking and thinking back to the diner and the brief conversation he had shut down with Sam. "Dude, we were- we were never…" He motioned over his shoulder toward the house before quickly glancing in that direction as well. "I was fourteen!"

"Dean, you started sneaking out to see girls before you even hit eighth grade." But then something crossed Sam's face, realisation clearly dawning on him with the widening of his eyes and dropping of his jaw. "Wait… are you saying she didn't even know you existed?"

"Shut up," Dean complained, turning away, suddenly uncomfortable in the suit he had donned. He felt more like a young boy trying to impress a girl for a prom than a professional hunter, pretending to be a professional lawman, on a very important and professional job.

"So you're telling me," Sam continued on, despite the rolling of Dean's eyes or the long huff he let out, "that there was a girl that didn't even know the 'great' Dean Winchester existed?"

"She was a senior, okay? Now drop it." Dean kept his gaze determinedly away from Sam, instead focusing on the door they were fast approaching, one hand raising ready to knock whilst the other dug into his pocket for his badge.

"That's adorable," Sam teased, a loose smile upon his lips, which only disappeared once Dean had knocked and the youngest was readying himself for business.

Connie was quick to open the door, cheeks flushed red and mouth already moving as if she had been about to tell whichever do-gooder neighbour that she was fine and had enough food in her kitchen to last the month out, and would they please just leave her alone in peace, but the frustrated and flustered look waned to be replaced by one of confusion as the woman stared out at the brothers, her words gone as her brow knitted together.

"Connie Williams?" Sam asked, both he and Dean holding their badges up as she nodded slowly.

"Agents Sullivan and Smith," Dean continued, motioning between him and Sam before putting his badge away. "Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?"

There was a battle going on her eyes, no doubt between wanting peace and wanting justice. She bit at her lip and looked behind into the house before nodding and stepping to the side enough to allow them to pass. "Sure, but please… keep your voices down. Celia has just fallen asleep upstairs and I really don't want to disturb her."

"And Celia is?" Dean questioned with a burrowed brow, glancing toward the staircase before looking back to Connie.

"Sadie's mom," Connie answered, as if it were obvious.

"Right." Sam bobbed his head and motioned toward a photo frame on display in the hallway – no doubt a picture of the three of them, Connie and Sadie both easily recognisable, despite the fact that Sam and Dean had only seen Sadie on the slab at the morgue, which meant the third person in the photo, with dark rimmed glasses, was Celia. "So you're a pretty close family?"

Connie nodded once more and led the way through to the kitchen where she began busying herself putting away food filled Tupperware boxes and glass dishes with foil over the tops. "You kind of have to be when you practically live in each other's pockets."

"I hear ya." Something between a chuckle and a huff slipped past Sam's lips, one corner of his mouth tugging upward just a little in a small smile of agreement. "Must be a pretty crowded house."

"No more than any other house." She shook her head, reaching out to open the fridge door with one hand and using the other to balance one of the glass dishes. Before the door could fully open, the dish slipped from her grip and landed with a smash on the hard kitchen floor. A loud curse escaped her and her hands flew up to cover her face.

Before she could make to bend down, Dean waved his hand in dismissal, lowering himself to the floor instead to clear up the mess. "Here, let me."

"Thank you," Connie breathed out and looked down to the floor as she leaned against the kitchen counter. "I'm sorry. I… Celia is normally the one with everything under control and I'm the one who leaves the sink full of dishes and cries over tubs of ice cream, and I'm trying so hard to be strong and I just…" But the words vanished and the tears appeared, slipping down her cheeks as she covered her mouth and shook her head.

Sam pulled a tissue out of nearby box and handed it to her, his eyes soft and head tilted to the side. "Breaking down doesn't make you any less strong. Losing someone you love… It can be unbearable."

She took the tissue and held it to her eyes. It was another moment before she had calmed enough to speak again, and by then Dean was just finishing up cleaning away the mess and wiping away burnt macaroni and cheese from his hands with a cloth. "You… er, you said you wanted to ask me some questions."

"Yes," Dean filled in, settling back beside Sam again, "Dottie from the diner, she said you and Sadie were close?"

Connie nodded. "I helped raise her. She was like the bratty little sister I never wanted."

"And have you noticed anything strange over the last month? Did Sadie mention anything to you? Did she start acting out of the ordinary, hanging out with anyone new? Anything that struck you as odd?"

"No, nothing." Connie took a breath and looked to them, her eyes imploring. "And she told me everything, like literally everything. From the tattoo she got on Spring Break to her first kiss behind the bleachers when she was like twelve."

"What was her eyesight like?" Sam questioned, earning himself a perplexed look from Connie and Dean alike.

"I'm sorry?" Connie asked, blinking, brow burrowing further. "What has that got to do with…"

"Trust me, it might not seem important but we have our reasons for asking."

"Sadie has-" She took a breath and closed her eyes before correcting herself. "Had perfect vision. She took after her father like that. He was always the same – could spot a quarter falling to the ground, in the fog, from five streets away."

"Was?" Dean questioned, not failing to miss the past tense.

"Yes, Sadie's father - my brother – he, he was… he died a few months before she was born."

"I'm sorry."

"It was a long time ago," she answered, but the words were as hollow as her gaze, suggesting that despite the length of time, it was something she still dealt with daily, or perhaps the current situation was dredging up old memories she had long lain to rest. She shook her head, seemingly shaking away cobwebs as she did so. "Is there anything else you wanted to ask?"

Sam bobbed his head. "Yes… we were told they found Sadie near an old creek. Can you think of any reason why she would have been out there?"

"She was out running errands, she shouldn't have been anywhere near the old creek…"

"But?"

"But she has this old camera, and sometimes after dinner she likes to take photos. Liked. My God, I'm sorry… I just, I still can't believe this is happening. I keep expecting to see her walking through the door any moment. It's just like Josh all over again."

"And Josh is your brother?"

She nodded. "He was murdered, over twenty years ago… and now Sadie too?"

Dean breathed in at the words, meeting Sam's gaze, but it wasn't until they had finished up and thanked Connie for her time and were out of the house, approaching the Impala, that he spoke up, saying what he knew they both were thinking.

"Okay, so we've got dad murdered before the kid was born, and now the girl?" He stopped in his tracks, keys in hand, and looked to Sam. "Think they're related?"

"It's worth looking into." Sam pressed his lips together and offered up a slight shrug, but despite his hesitancy, they both knew there was no such thing as a coincidence. Enough years on the job had taught them that.

Dean scrubbed at his jaw, his gaze going distant, looking beyond Sam but not at anything in particular as he allowed his thoughts to wander, his feet pushing forward toward the Impala once more. "So we're looking at something that needs to what? Eat? Every however many years?"

"Or maybe it's a Doc Benton deal? Maybe whoever or whatever needs to replace body parts when the old ones wear out?" Sam supplied, his nose wrinkling as he followed Dean down the path.

"Speaking of," Dean continued, holding up a finger before using the same hand to hitch a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the house. "What was up with that question in there? About her eyesight?"

"Her eyes were missing, Dean. Whatever did this took them for a reason."

"Great," was all Dean said in reply, a low growl to his tone as he snapped his keys into the palm of his hand and came to a stop beside the Impala.

"Looks like this may be our kind of thing after all," Sam said, readying to climb into the passenger seat but pausing as Dean leaned against the roof of the Impala and looked across to him.

"You know, just once, it would be nice to work a nice simple job. I mean when was the last time we had a good old fashioned case, Sam? Casper the not so friendly ghost, or hell, a good old fashioned vampire? The kind that isn't all kinds of jacked up on angel juice or whatever it is Michael is pumping into these freaks…" Dean opened his hands in questioning, lips pursing. "Is that too much to ask?"

"We haven't had simple since… ever, Dean." Sam smiled a little and shook his head, snorting at Dean's shrug that clearly meant 'you have a point'. "I mean, look at our family history, man. We grew up with Dad dragging us all over the country."

"Yeah, about that…" Dean looked down at his hands, pausing a moment as his eyes absently traced the worn lines there. He clenched a fist and cleared his throat, doubting the very thoughts that circled around his brain. "Connie said her brother was killed over twenty years ago, right? You don't think Dad was here hunting this same thing, do you?"

"I don't know, Dean, I mean… could be?" Head tilted slightly to the side, Sam's careful and narrowed gaze wandered over Dean, making Dean feel even more foolish and uncomfortable than he already did. "Why? What are you thinking?"

"Nah, it's just… there's something about this place, something feels off, like there's this knot in my stomach." Dean chewed at his lip, attempting to keep his thoughts on track but unable to stop them from wandering back to when they had visited New Hope as children. It was like looking at a jigsaw puzzle filled with bright colours and pie and beautiful memories, but the more he looked, the more he saw some of the pieces were missing and the box was empty.

There was a look in Sam's eyes that suggested he felt the same, but whatever thoughts were going through his mind, he kept to himself for now, his tone instead taking on a hint of teasing. "Maybe it's all the pie you had. You should have stopped after the first slice."

"Hey! That second slice was on the house! It would have been rude to turn it down," Dean defended, pointing across the car to Sam, the cobwebs falling away from inside his mind, Sam's playful words bringing him fully back to the present and the job at hand. "Now, let's go find out what the deal is with our drifter friend."

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The old mill on the outskirts of town had cabins nearby, each one more worse off than the last, but according to Sam's conversation with Beatrice from the real estate office, only one of those cabins was being rented out. It didn't take them long to find the small collection of cabins, and it took even less time to find the one Driscoll was currently inhabiting. They had parked up a little way down the dirt trail, far enough away that the guy wouldn't hear them coming but close enough to see the smoke rising from the chimney of one cabin.

They approached on foot with caution, sticking close to the shadows of the brush until they were a foot away from the rickety wooden porch. Dean pulled his gun from inside his jacket and motioned for Sam to circle around the cabin to the right whilst his feet were already taking him the opposite way. Sam bobbed his head, staying silent and pulling his own gun free as he made his way around the cabin, using the cover of darkness to check through what windows weren't covered by faded red curtains.

When he met Dean halfway around, he shrugged his shoulders in reply to the silent question posed by raised eyebrows and followed Dean's lead in putting his gun away and straightening up.

"No sign of him inside," Dean said, and whilst it wasn't said in a whisper, his tone of voice was still lowered enough so as not to attract unwanted attention.

"Seems that way," Sam answered, and they began making their way back around to the front of the cabin. "But you saw the truck up front. That's got to be his, so he can't be far."

"Makes you wonder where he's at so late in the day?" Dean took the steps up the porch first and jiggled the door handled. "Locked."

Sam merely snorted in reply and shook his head. He hadn't expected anything less and was already reaching into his coat for his lock pick tools. The lock was simple and they were inside in no time. He flicked on the lights and took in the interior of the cabin. Small and cosy, and a whole world of crazy. Papers were strewn about, laid across furniture, piled up on the kitchen counter and on the table in front of the fire, pinned up on walls and laid across furniture. Dean immediately made his way toward the table by the fire whilst Sam took the closest target – the papers on the kitchen counter.

He grabbed hold of a small pile and flicked through them. Print outs of newspaper reports and obituaries, but that in itself wasn't the strange thing. "Dean," he called, raising the papers up in his brothers direction, "check this out."

Dean's brow burrowed and his tongue snaked out to wet his bottom lip as he turned away from the table a moment, still holding a folder he had picked up. "What is it?"

"News articles," Sam explained, crossing the open space to come to stand in front of Dean as he went through the papers again. "'Mysterious death shakes the town'. 'Bear attack leaves four dead'. Or how about, 'Captain of the football team suffers inexplicable heart attack'. These articles date back decades. And the obits?" He swung one of the papers around and handed it to Dean, pointing at the names circled in red only to be crossed out in black. "This guy has been researching the town for years."

"Yeah, 'cause that's not suspicious," Dean answered, shaking his head, attention drawn to a yellowed piece of paper at the bottom of the pile in Sam's hand. He pulled it free and looked over it with scrutiny before holding it up for Sam to see. "These mean anything to you?"

Sam narrowed his eyes at the paper, taking in the scribblings there. Some were written in black pen, some in red or blue, but they were all clearly written by the same hand, some crossed out, some underlined. Amongst the crossed out were the words 'nymph' and 'Likho', whilst several of the underlined included 'bodach' and 'green man'.

Realisation hit Sam and he took a breath, glancing around the room once more but this time taking in the compete chaos for what it is. "Dean…"

"Yeah, I see it," Dean answered, also looking around the room before meeting Sam's gaze, his eyebrows raised. "Either this guy has a seriously freaky hobby…"

"Or he's hunting the same thing as us." Sam pulled the paper from Dean's grip, looking over it more intensely now, taking in each word and scribbling. "I mean, these names here? Sors? Mammon? They're gods. And here," he pointed to the circled word at the bottom of the page, holding it out for Dean to see.

"Sacrifices?" Dean questioned the word, looking up from the folder in his hands to see what Sam was pointing out. "Sacrifices for what?"

But the distinct sound of a rifle being cocked had them both falling still and silent, the sound followed by a gruff and aged voice. "How about 'none of your damn business'?"

Dean cursed under his breath and Sam swallowed the thick lump in his throat, but they both did the same thing in that they raised their hands and slowly turned to face the open doorway and the man that stood there. Driscoll. He used his foot to close the door behind him, keeping both hands on the rifle as he kept it trained on them.

"Eddie, right?" Dean started, "Look, we're not here to do any harm. Funny thing, right? We were actually looking for you."

"Well here I am," Eddie answered, voice as cold and hard as the barrel of the gun he was holding onto tightly.

"Kind of makes me wonder where you were," Dean continued, "out late at night, alone… in the woods."

"Gathering firewood," was Eddie's quick response.

"And you always take a rifle with you to gather firewood?"

"What can I say? There's some damn dangerous things out there in the woods. But then, you'd know that, wouldn't you, Dean?"

Sam didn't miss the way his brother straightened beside him, or the way his jaw clenched, and Sam chose to take a step forward, his words placating, soft, as if speaking to a hungry bear and hoping something tastier looking came along soon to distract it. "So you know who we are? We're hunters, like you."

A harsh laugh escaped the older man's twisted lips. "I know who you are. Had you pegged soon as I saw you in the diner. Sam and Dean Winchester." Another harsh laugh, dry and humourless.

"Then you know we're hunting the same thing as you," Sam continued.

Eddie lowered his gun and shook his head. "You don't have the first clue what you're hunting. You're just grasping at straws, so how about you boys get out of town before you end up in over your heads?"

"Look," Dean spoke up, and it was his turn to take a step forward, his hands lowered, no longer attempting to pacify the possible madman with a gun in front of them, "you know who we are so you know we can't do that, and hey – hunters talk, so you should also know we've dealt with a hell of a lot worse than whatever's going on in this town. We've been in the game long enough to know our way around a simple milk run."

Driscoll stalked forward, purpose in each step, until he was right up in Dean's face, glaring up at him. "Yeah, Boy, I know who you are and you're right – hunters do talk, and you wouldn't believe the things they say about you, what you've done – or rather, the you that wasn't… you, if you catch my drift. So why won't you do us all a favour and drag your angel leftovers out of town to let the big boys deal with the mess you helped create?"

Sam reached out, placing a calming hand on his brother's shoulder, tightening his grip until he felt some of the tension leaving Dean. Michael was too recent to not be a sore subject for him, the anger radiating from the eldest aimed inward as well as toward the hunter before them. But that was always the way with Dean. He blamed himself for everything, and he would even find a reason to blame himself for this hunt if Sam let him.

"We're just here to help," Sam tried, but Eddie wasn't budging, the shorter and older hunter happily squaring off against the pair of them.

"Well, I can tell you one thing," Eddie said, stepping to the side and motioning the doorway, indicating that the conversation was over, "I don't need no help from the Winchesters. So how about you leave town before you mess things up, like I hear you're good at."

And though they had no intention of leaving town, they did leave the cabin. Even if there was anything useful for them there, Driscoll wasn't talking and he sure as hell wasn't sharing. They made it all the way to the Impala before Dean pulled a familiar looking folder from the inside of his jacket and passed it to Sam over the roof.

"You ask me, our friend Eddie is hiding something."

"No kidding," Sam scoffed, flipping the file open to peer down at the name inside, his eyes quickly flickering up to meet Dean's once he had. "This is…"

"Josh Williams' file. It was on a pile with others on the table," Dean continued, motioning back toward the cabin with his head. "See what else it says?"

Sam peered down at the pages once more but didn't get the chance to speak before Dean answered his own question.

"Dude was missing his…" He coughed and motioned downward on his own person. "Missing his…"

Sam pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes on Dean - who was still struggling to voice what Williams had been missing - before reading further down the page, the words written there causing him to clench his teeth and wince in sympathy. "Ouch… That's erm… that's…"

"Tell me about it," Dean answered, opening his door ready to climb in. "You know what this means, right?"

Sam nodded his head in response. "This isn't the first time this had happened."

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John's Journal – July 1993

The boys are climbing the walls. Dean's been on bed rest for a week. Still didn't stop him from trying to sneak out of the apartment twice now. The fever broke by Tuesday, but I want to make sure he's alright. I've spent so much time putting so much responsibility on him, training him, drilling it into him that he needs to look after Sammy, that I don't think he knows how to look after himself first anymore. And Sammy, I think the kid's already read the bookshelf full of books left over from the previous tenant. I think I'll give them a break tomorrow, from being cooped up. There's a diner in town they'll like, I'll drop them off there while I get to business.

I should stay with them, but bodies have been turning up and I hate to say it, but it's definitely our kind of thing. Normally I'd bring Dean in on it, hell, even Sammy now he's old enough to understand, but not this time. Not after the Kappa. Dean needs a break. And God help me, Mary, I know I should just get the car and drive away, get myself and the boys out of town, just this once, but I can't.

You don't walk away from a hunt. You can't.

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A/N: More to come soon...