If this anagram seems forced, it is. It was too good to pass up. Sorry not sorry. Also fixing up some typing errors in the first few chapters, so sorry if something weird happens. Anyway, enjoy.
- lives -
Dean would love to be able to say graveyards weren't really his thing, but they really were. He couldn't remember the last time he hadn't paid a visit to a graveyard during a hunt. They were the source of ninety percent of things creepy and crawly and undead, and as Dean hopped over the iron fence of the latest haunted conquest, he was suddenly very glad that when he died, he would be given a hunter's burial. He didn't like the idea of being stuffed under the ground for all eternity. Too familiar.
That morning, Sam had decided to check out the graveyards in town to follow last night's myth and see if anyone named Arial had ever died in the town. Seeing as there were two graveyards, they had split up, Dean taking the smaller one nearer to the motel while Sam took the larger and probably more recent one. At the moment, Dean wished he had taken the larger one. There, at least he would be closer to the bar. And the exit, for that matter.
Dean's graveyard was dark and gloomy, surrounded by looming pines on all sides that shrouded it from sight. Had it not been for the barely distinguishable stone-paved path that had led him there, he would never have found it; and had he not been looking for that path in the first place, he would never have known it was there. Despite its small size, it contained a good number of headstones, many of which seemed oddly new for a place that felt so old.
A shiver ran up his spine and he shook his head. The place was creepy, but it was nothing he hadn't seen before. He turned up his jacket collar for warmth and started kneeling in front of the graves to try and make out their names. A lot of them were impossible to read, half-destroyed by rain and wind and graffiti. He only skimmed over the newer ones, figuring he was looking for an obscure myth written in Latin and not the latest obituaries – that is, until he recognized one of the names on the graves: John Bonham.
He knew the drummer of Led Zeppelin was dead, but he was sure that he hadn't been buried in some broken down town one impromptu banjo duel away from Deliverance. Shrugging, he moved on. It was a common name, he told himself; he was bound to run into it sometime.
But as he continued through the graveyard, it was apparent that the coincidence didn't end there. There was Robert Plant (captioned Finally living up to his name); Malcolm (not-so) Young (anymore); Clint Eastwood (No one actually wore serapes in the Old West) and the kicker, Elvis Presley (Long Live the King).
The graveyard was filled with the names of famous people, not always dead, and not always technically real. Dean counted at least two Bad, Bad Leroy Browns, a James T. Kirk, and someone with a name so ridiculous it had to be made up. I mean, come on, Dean thought to himself. Who would name their kid 'Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch'? Seriously?
Shaking his head incredulously, he pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of Elvis. 'This has got to be our kind of weird,' he typed, sending it to Sam. He stuffed his phone back in his pocket, ready to head back to the Impala.
Three steps away from the gate, he was interrupted as, out of the corner of his eye, there was a movement. It was small, but enough to get Dean's attention. Instinctively, he slowed his pace, hand curling around the grip of his gun. If there was someone in the trees, he didn't want to be a stationary target, or an unarmed one.
A few seconds of silence passed, and Dean relaxed a little. Maybe just this once, it had been a trick of the light.
But he was never as lucky. There was a noise this time – a low rustle from the trees. Keeping his gun lowered by his hip, he followed the noise, tracking it until he was within inches from an old pine that the noises came from. But as he approached, the sounds stopped as abruptly as they had begun. Only the sounds of Dean's breathing and his ring clicking against his gun remained. He held deathly still.
"Mrrraow!" Dean's hands flew up as he raised the gun, finger on the trigger and ready to shoot – a cat?
"Fucking-!" Sighing sharply, Dean straightened up, a frown on his face. The cat shot off into the bushes like a rocket, tail held high behind it. "Goddamn cat," he growled under his breath as he angrily pocketed his weapon.
"Someone's got a dirty mouth."
This time, the jump from his hands to his gun was very necessary, because before him was the strange bartender from the previous night- only he didn't remember her eyes being black as coal.
