"So, yeah." Dean cleared his throat. "Really doubt these new vics were, uh, kiddie diddlers. Local assholes apparently, but…"

"No," Victor agreed, "I'd take odds they weren't. Kiddie diddlers, at least."

Next to Dean, Sam shifted. They were still in the car, on a call with Victor, Sam's phone mounted in the little plastic holder thing just like it had been when Castiel had been debriefing them. They'd just got done giving Victor and Art the rundown on the situation at Little Amityville.

Victor had answered on the first ring, and Dean had to admit that that had given him some grudging respect for the guy. That he hadn't already been in bed, after the long, cold night they'd all had. But, then again…Victor hadn't done any of the actual gravedigging.

"Ghosts do this." Art cut in. There was an almost military professionalism to his accent right now. "They…degrade. Go feral. Especially if they think somebody's trying to get rid of them - which we just did."

"Oh, so you think it's still Walt, huh?" Dean asked, deadpan. "After we went to all the trouble of digging him up and holding a little cookout."

There was a testy little sigh from the other side of the car, probably too quiet for the phone's speaker to pick up. Oh, look, Sam was mad at Dean again. After that tender moment they'd shared and everything. Dean wanted to punch the mute button and ask Sam if it wasn't starting to get on his nerves too, just a little bit, these guys' particular brand of spooky woo-woo crazy when there was something real out there, a real predator that their fellow agents - Sam's friends, probably! - were gonna have to put their lives on the line to catch. But the trick shoulder Dean had had since a case five years ago was acting up, what with all the digging, and he didn't want to lift his arm. So he didn't.

Yet again, Victor didn't share Sam's sensitivity. "Kid died in the house," he pointed out. "There's obviously still something of his in there that's keeping him on this side of the Veil. Blood, hair. Favorite fuckin' wristwatch strap or something."

"Does - does this happen often?" Sam asked with a frown. "Burning the body doesn't do the trick."

"Sometimes." Dean could hear the shrug in Victor's voice. "You hope it doesn't. Real pain in the ass."

"All right." Dean cleared his throat. "So, what's the plan? We swing back by the house tomorrow or the next day, see if we can - ?"

"We can't wait that long." Art cut in flatly. "The more violently the ghost died, the more hate and rage and pain was involved, the more dangerous they are. This kid shot himself after he killed his entire family for abusing his sister, and we just put him on the warpath. He's losing his mind. He's a gun that's going off indiscriminately."

"Wow." Dean's eyebrows rose. "That's, uh…pretty damn descriptive."

Art just grunted. Victor said, "All right, here's the plan. You two are gonna go back to the house, find the kid's tether, and torch it."

"Uh…think that might be a little hard, right now." Sam glanced through the rear window. "The house is full of cops."

"We'll take care of the cops," Victor answered. "Poke around and try and figure out where Walt might've left something, too. If we turn anything up, we'll call."

"So you're sending us into a house with something that's killed four people," Dean stated. He wasn't afraid - the real killer was long gone. He just couldn't help the kneejerk urge to repeat it back to them. "Alone."

"Oh, now. Don't tell me you're afraid of a ghost." Victor snorted. "Yeah, they can get nasty, but they make up about ninety percent of all the hunts out there, and…seriously. You boys took down a wendigo, didn't you?"

Dean turned to glare at Sam, exhaling hard through his nose. Sam didn't even have the decency to look at him as he reached out and hung up the phone.

Apparently, "taking care of the cops" meant calling in about a dozen tips, all over town, about seeing a blood-covered knife-wielder running through the woods. Every single car and deputy tore out of the house real fast, and the sheriff called Sam to give him a hurried rundown on the situation. Sam promised they'd be there as soon as they could. Once the red and blue lights had faded into the distance, they headed inside.

"Did we even need to come in here?" Dean complained. The power had been cut at some point, so they were walking through the entryway with flashlights. "Not like we can do any good at the crime scene. Don't have any gear on us, not even rubber gloves…like you said, they're gonna have to send in a team, techs and all."

"We have to salt and burn whatever's keeping the ghost here," Sam replied.

Dean snorted. "Yeah. Right." When Sam didn't say anything, not even an answering chuckle, he turned to look at him. "Are you serious?"

Sam shrugged. It made his light bob. "I mean - it's what Art and Victor told us to do, right?"

"Yeah, but." Dean cut himself off, shook his head. "Look, do we have to have this whole conversation again? Ghosts are not real. Art and Victor need a couple of straitjackets and a padded room. We - " He gestured back and forth between them. " - are undercover FBI agents. Not monster hunters."

"Exactly," Sam agreed. "We're undercover. As monster hunters."

Dean eyed Sam in the cold halo of the flashlight, before flatly stating, "You do realize that you're talking about removing evidence from an active crime scene, right? And torching it? When there's a serial killer - "

"Spree killer."

" - serial killer on the loose?"

Sam scoffed out a little laugh. "We've got, what? Fifteen, twenty years of field experience between the two of us? I think we can find something the entire investigation doesn't hinge on to burn."

"Well. There it is." Dean felt his eyes narrowing, almost as automatic as the words were. "Was wondering when it'd start."

"What?" There was an edge in Sam's voice.

"You thinking you know better than anybody else," Dean answered. "Ridgway or the highway."

Sam's jaw tightened, mouth screwing into a little pout, and he shoved his way past Dean. "Shut up." He made it a few steps, then turned around. "I-is - is there a reason you're being such a dick all of a sudden?"

Dean thought about how Sam's eyes looked in the streetlight. The warm satisfaction of watching him work at something he was good at, building a profile of a killer. He thought about Benny. And a smile twitched onto his face, so tight it was almost painful. He should've taken a deep breath and stepped back, but he didn't.

"Just doing my job," he said breezily. "One of us has to."

Sam snorted, a sound of disgust, and shook his head. "Y'know, for a second there, I almost thought - " He shook his head, cut himself off. Like he had earlier in the car. Dean could practically taste the smugness coming off him as he decided to be the bigger person or whatever. "Never mind."

They entered the living room. It couldn't have been more obvious that that was where the two new vics had died. Dean felt his irritation with Sam, worn like Kevlar lined with sandpaper, slide off him. Next to him, the same thing happened to Sam.

"Son of a bitch," Dean muttered as his flashlight played off crime-scene markers. Pools and sprays of blood, still shiny, gelatinous; probably even still lukewarm. A butcher knife lying discarded on the carpet, blade packed with gristle and gore.

The air reeked of fresh blood, a hot-penny smell Dean still could barely stomach even after all these years, and ruptured viscerae. The smell of the violent gutting of a living body. The smell of death.

"We should go upstairs," Sam said quietly. "More likely to find something that isn't evidence up there."

Dean had to admit that it was good thinking. As they climbed the stairs, he muttered, "God, I want this guy."

"I know," Sam said, and there was something in his voice, a raw, ugly desire that left almost the same taste in Dean's mouth as the smell of blood downstairs when he added, "I do, too." He paused. Dean had his flashlight on Sam's back, and when he reached the landing, he saw him make that motion with his hand again. The snatch, like he was grabbing a bug out of the air, and the squeeze. Voice more measured, he continued. "But that's not our job. These guys, these hunters - if we blow up their organization, put them away, it's gonna make it so much easier to catch people like this. Human monsters."

They reached the top of the stairs. They hadn't come up to the second floor when they were here earlier, but the dead owners obviously hadn't put nearly as much time and effort in here as they had downstairs. The second floor was mostly bare, outside of some boxes, some drop cloths. Sam seemed to pick an empty room at random and head into it. Dean wondered if it'd been Walt's, then remembered it literally could not matter less. He followed Sam, commenting, "Wow. You are really committed to this, ain'tcha?"

Sam exhaled explosively then, without turning to look at Dean, said, "You sound surprised."

"Yeah, sorry, it's nothing." Dean knew he was pushing it too far, had entered dangerous territory, was getting awful close to waking up the bear with all his poking. Any metaphor you wanted. But he just couldn't seem to stop himself. "Just, y'know. Ain't really like you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean could hear it, Sam struggling to keep himself calm. He watched him enter the room's open closet, looking around, aiming his light upwards, but it was all cursory. He looked back down at Dean. "Seriously. What's that supposed to mean?"

It was a demand, not a question. Dean ignored him, walking towards the window. A tense couple seconds ticked past, during which he could practically hear Sam grinding his teeth, and then Sam angrily started, "Okay, Dean, you know wh - "

"Shut it," Dean said tensely, because something had finally, mercifully, taken his attention off Sam. Something that wasn't the gruesome detritus of a bloody double murder. "You smell that?"

"What?" Sam asked flatly, with all the venom of somebody who'd just had an indignant rant interrupted.

"Smell."

Grudgingly, Sam did. Dean turned to see him, still in the closet, frowning. Their eyes met, and Sam began, "That's - "

"Ozone," Dean confirmed. "Just like earlier."

Sam's frown deepened in obvious thought. He looked down as his flashlight began to flicker - actually, as Dean's did, too. Dean smacked it against his palm, swearing, and in the strobing flashing beam, noticed the white curl of his breath. He squinted, glanced up at Sam again.

"Hey, did it just get colder in here?" he asked, even as he was reasoning to himself that the power was off and the cops had had practically every door in the place open while they were working.

Sam looked at Dean. He opened his mouth to answer. But before he could say a word, several things happened at once.

Their flashlights died completely, dumping them into pitch-black night.

The closet door slammed violently shut.

And Sam lost his goddamn mind.

He threw himself instantly against the door with the kind of sharp, whistling gasp that was a scream in reverse. The knob jiggled, rattled, and so did the whole door in its frame. It sounded like he was clawing at the thing, beating on it with hands and arms.

"I-it won't open," Sam chattered. "It won't open, I-I-I can't get it open, it's locked, why would you fucking lock - ?"

"Holy shit, calm down," Dean exclaimed, startled by the instant panic. "What, you claustrophobic, or something?"

Obviously, dumbass. Dean internally answered his own question asSam appeared to wrest himself back into control.

"Dean." A smack on the door, heel of his hand against solid wood. "Open the door."

"I didn't close it. It ain't locked," Dean replied. He crouched to set his flashlight down, making a mental note to come back for it later. No reason to hold onto it when it had just become useless.

"Oh, the fuck you didn't." Sam snarled it out, and the sudden anger was almost as shocking as the fear had been. "There's nobody else here, it didn't fucking shut on its own."

"It…" Dean frowned to himself, running back over the tape of memory. "Kinda looked like that was exactly what happened."

"No," Sam said. That one word had the feeling of something you said out loud not because you actually believed it, or wanted to believe it, but because it was either that or a complete and violent breakdown. "It couldn't."

"It - "

"You slammed the fucking door on me, and you locked it." It sounded like Sam kicked it. The frame shook. "Ha-ha. Funny fucking joke, Dean, but I'm over it."

"I - "

"Just lemme out." Before Dean could defend himself, Sam was talking again. "Just lemme out." The knob rattled. "Please, unlock it. Lemme out. I have to get out." The anger was starting to cool off. "Dean, lemme out, please, unlock the door."

Dean swallowed, as Sam kept going, kept sliding faster from fury to fear. A waver entered his voice as he half-begged and half-demanded, "Unlock it, p-please - "

In the handful of cases they'd worked, their off-and-on cooperation, Dean had gotten achingly familiar with how Sam sounded, from his whiny-girl bitching to his hyena laugh. But he'd never heard him sound like this before. Like somebody had peeled his voice down to the nerve, a needle-thin, stuttering core of pure fear. Fear that was contagious. As Dean floated through the velvety eigengrau darkness, flashlight useless, towards where he thought the closet was, the hair on the back of his neck rose and some coiled cave-lizard thing in him was convinced there was about to be a hand on his shoulder. One too cold to be living, too long-fingered to be human.

It was like when he'd been afraid at the grave all over again. As Dean hit the wall and felt his way over to the closet (the disorientation giving him an unpleasant little booster shot of creepy feelings), he tried to channel the fear into irritation. It didn't work. Probably a good thing, since he really doubted yelling at Sam would fix anything.

He wished he would've been allowed to read Sam's file the way Sam had his. This would have been real nice to know about beforehand, be prepared for. But it was sure as shit too late now.

"Why did you lock it?" Sam demanded. The rattling and banging had just ramped up in the time it had taken Dean to find the closet. He put his hand on the jiggling knob. "I-I can't breathe - "

"It's a closet door," Dean said, in the best no-nonsense tone he could muster. "It doesn't have a lock on it. And even if it did, d'you really think I'd lock you in there? You really think I wouldn't have let you out by now?"

Silence. Then a long, pained, audible swallow from Sam, and it hit Dean under the ribs. A sucker punch of guilt. Yeah, Sam probably did think he would. Especially after tonight.

"Well, I wouldn't," Dean said, uselessly. "Here, stop - shaking the knob around. Hands off. I'll get you out."

The knob in his hand stilled, and Dean twisted.

It wouldn't turn. No matter how many times he jerked at it.

Dean sank his teeth into his lower lip. "Well?" Sam asked, and hysteria hung off the word.

Dean sighed. "Pretty sure it's jammed." Probably from Sam fucking with it so much, but he wasn't going to say that right now.

A second later, he wished he hadn't even said it was jammed. He could feel Sam's fear, the horror that ran deep into guts and bones, like somebody had started a chainsaw in the closet and the vibrations from the engine were running up Dean's arms. There was a loud thud that made the door shudder in its frame again, and Dean realized Sam had thrown himself bodily against the door, full weight.

"P-please unlock it, please," Sam begged. "I-I-I'll be good, I'll do anything you want, just lemme out, please lemme out, please unlock it, please open the door, I-I-I - I can't breathe, I - "

He sounded young. Very young. It made Dean realize that he didn't actually know how old Sam was, outside of "late twenties"...or anything else about him. Like what might have happened to him before he'd joined the Bureau.

"Sam," Dean said, then had to raise his voice to be heard over Sam's babbling. "Sam! I told you, it's not locked, you're not locked in there, it's jammed."

"If you lemme go, I-I-I'm not even gonna tell anybody." Sam was panting, a whipsaw wheeze in his chest. "I promise. Please. I just - I can't breathe, I can't - "

"Okay. All right." Dean pressed his hands flat against the door after trying the knob a couple more times (it wasn't going anywhere), and rested his forehead against the wood. "Listen to me. You can still hear me, right? You're in a closet. You're okay. You're not gonna suffocate. I'm gonna get you out, but first, you gotta calm down."

"I - "

"Breathe, Sam." Panicked panting. Dean put more force in his voice. "All right? You're gonna breathe with me. Sam - ?"

"No." Dean could hear Sam gulping in air, the kind of giant, swooping breaths you clawed in right after you threw up, when your airway was still walled off and paralyzed for your own protection and most of the oxygen went down into your stomach instead of your lungs. "No. Fuck. I can't. I'm sorry. I - "

It felt like all they'd been doing for the past five minutes was interrupting each other, but Dean did it again. He smacked a hand against the door hard enough to make the meat of his palm sting and the door rattle.

"Agent Ridgway!" Dean practically bellowed it out. "I know you're just fucking allergic to following orders, but you're gonna sit here, you're gonna get your ass under control, and you're gonna breathe when and how I tell you to breathe. Got it?" Silence. It felt shocked to Dean. "I said, got it?"

"Yes," Sam muttered, and now he sounded like himself again. All pissy, not nearly as panicked.

"Good." Dean tapped on the door. "All right, listen to me. On my count. In, two-three-four, hold, two-three-four, out, two-three-four, hold…"

Sam couldn't catch the rhythm at first. But Dean kept chanting, kept counting, and slowly, Sam began to breathe more in time with his instructions. He stopped hyperventilating. His breaths got longer, slower, deeper. All the scrabbling and panting stopped, bit by bit, as the minutes passed, and the words in Dean's mouth slowly lost their meaning and just became shapes that his tongue moved around. Like a mantra. Not language, just a pattern. Sam matched it. Dean kept it going for a good, long while, forcing his way past his own impatience and fear, until he was reasonably sure that Sam's heart wasn't running like a methed-out hamster in his chest anymore, then cleared his throat. His mouth was dry and his jaw ached from saying the same thing over and over and over again.

"Okay." His voice was rough. It'd be phlegmy tomorrow, he'd probably have a sore throat. But Sam's breathing was still deep and slow and easy on the other side of the door, and Dean felt a pulse of…something. He couldn't identify it and didn't want to try, but it was warm. "Good. Good job." He cleared his throat again. "So I'm gonna have you - "

Somebody shrieked right into Dean's ear, breath so cold and voice so loud a sewing needle of agony darted right through his eardrum.

He automatically flinched, swearing as he stumbled away from the voice and the door both. His first, stupid thought was that it was Sam, but no, the door was still closed and Sam was still in the closet. And while Sam could climb into the upper octaves, the voice was still too high to be his. It sounded like a woman, or a boy who hadn't started shaving yet.

And whoever it was wasn't afraid. He sounded fucking mad.

The contrast was pretty stark when, a second later, Dean got to hear an example of a fear-scream and a Sam-scream both. Sam howling in the closet, guttural, animal, the kind of horror that hit like a reflex and came from just as far back down the evolutionary ladder. The kind that brought on seizures and heart attacks. Pure enough to kill.

Dean's own heart sailed right out of the bottom of his stomach, and he charged forward. "Away from the door!" he thundered. "Get away from the door, Sam, right fucking now!"

He found the door again, grabbed the knob, built the shape of the closet up in his mind. Then he backed up and raised his foot. He drove his heel at the wood next to the knob, where the weak point was supposed to be, bringing all of his strength and his full weight to bear behind the blow. The door shuddered, but he didn't feel any give. He kicked again, and again, and again, hearing crunching but feeling no movement, not wanting to waste the time it would take to put his foot down and feel the wood to see what kind of progress he'd made.

This wasn't a hollow door, wasn't particle board, wasn't anything like they made them now. It was solid, heavy, probably weighed at least half as much as Dean did, if not two-thirds. He was really tempted to bring out his gun and shoot the damn thing open - even knowing there was a fucking reason they didn't do that outside of TV shows and movies. Especially not with Sam on the other side of the door.

One more kick as he was thinking that and the door buckled under his boot, swinging brokenly inward in a screech of bent hinges and a spray of splinters. Dean stumbled forward, momentum carrying him, and then had to toss a hand across his eyes as he was practically blinded. Sam's flashlight, dropped to the floor inside the closet, had just flickered back to life, and even that light, aimed away from Dean, was an assault after total darkness.

He dropped his hand and, for a second so nauseating it had his vision skewing, he thought Sam was gone. That he'd just…vanished into thin air or something. But then he saw him, packed into one corner.

The closet wasn't a walk-in or anything, but it was decent-sized. Decent enough for Sam to curl up, make himself small, smaller than Dean had ever seen him or known he could get. Knees against his chest, face to his thighs, feet hooked over each other and arms wrapped around the whole thing. There was a faint, jerky buzz to him like the shakes you got on an endorphin overdose, and Dean couldn't hear his breathing.

Dean had seen Sam pull a lot of shit. He had chewed him out for pulling that shit. Reported him. Hated him. But he'd known this wasn't a stunt since that first note of fear entered his voice.

Slowly, Dean lowered himself to one knee, and picked up Sam's flashlight. He swallowed, doing his best to tone his voice down. Then, quietly, making no move to touch him yet, he asked, "Sam?"

Even as careful as Dean had tried to be, Sam flinched. Then he slowly lifted his head. His face was haunted, hollow, and not just because it was underlit by the flashlight Dean was holding down low, trying not to blind him the way he'd been. His breathing was ragged, raspy, Dean could hear it now, but slowly, it started to even out.

Dean opted, for now, to ignore the whole herd of elephants in the room. Sam's claustro-more-than-a-phobia (the I'll be good was still hanging heavy off the back of Dean's mind). His instantaneous reaction to being shut in. Why he'd screamed even after Dean had calmed him down. Instead of all the what-the-fucking he wanted to do, eventually, Dean just asked, "You okay? Uh, you good to, y'know, get outta here?"

Sam sucked in a deep, shaky breath, slowly beginning, "I…" But then his eyes rose up above Dean's head, and he trailed off. He pushed himself to his feet, movements stiff, and Dean scooted back to let him.

The closet had shelves built into the back wall. Sam was more than tall enough to reach the top one, and to root around with one hand between it and the ceiling. Dean stood up, too as he pulled something free, aiming the flashlight at it and squinting.

"What the hell?" he muttered. Slowly, the shape, abstract at first because it was so out of place, resolved into something familiar. It was a stuffed animal, so worn he couldn't tell what it had originally been. Maybe a teddy bear. And it was crusted through with something dark and gross-looking, a spray like it had been struck from below by a firehose of gore. Immediately, he said, "Put that back. We can't take it."

"Look at it, Dean." Sam must be feeling worlds better, because the "stubborn asshole" note had returned to his voice. "Yeah, it's blood, but it's old. Original-crime-scene old. It's been here for decades."

Dean had to admit, the teddy bear (or whatever it was) did look pretty cobwebby. But whether it was exhaustion, adrenaline burnout, or just that he wasn't crazy, he wasn't catching Sam's drift. "So?"

"So, this is exactly the kinda thing that Art and Victor told us to look for."

Dean raised his eyes from the bear to Sam. There were a lot of things he wanted to ask him, different things from a couple minutes ago. If whatever had happened in this tiny closet that was forcing the two of them to stand so close he could smell Sam's cooling fear-sweat had finally cracked that big brain of his right in half. Why he cared so much about authenticity on this case when usually he was all about the corner-cutting.

But…fuck, after what had just happened, the kid could use a break. So could Dean. The asshole center of his brain was feeling pretty dry right about then. He thought Sam's silence after he'd asked if he really thought he'd lock him in a closet might have had something to do with it.

So Dean said, "Okay." Dean said, "Fine, let's just get the hell out of here." And Dean handed Sam's flashlight back to him, then turned and led the way out of the closet, out of the room, and towards the stairs.

Dean was almost to the landing, thinking again about how fucking cold it was in this place, when a hand suddenly planted itself in the small of his back and shoved. He had his hands in the pockets of his coat, because of the cold, and in his arms jerked up in an abortive little half-motion, but there was no way he could've caught himself. He probably would have landed hard enough to send every bone in his face through the back of his skull, but before he could get out any more than a startled half-yelp, the back of his jacket was grabbed.

Dean teetered on his tiptoes for a second, entire weight on his jacket, before he could get his balance. Adrenaline was an acid hammer pounding in his throat. The hand let go of his jacket, and he turned to face Sam, angry. Spitting furious, actually. Wanting to know why the hell he'd pushed him and if he knew he could've killed him and if that was payback for the closet, which was stupid because he hadn't shut him in there -

But as he looked at Sam, tense and pale, mouth so tight he couldn't see his lips, squeezing the flashlight and the teddy bear both in the hand he hadn't used to catch him, Dean's mind whipped through some automatic analysis. Sam was taller than him, and a few stairs above him to boot. To push Dean from the small of his back, Sam would have had to crouch. If he'd crouched, he might not have been able to reach the back of Dean's jacket to catch him, and if he could, he would have gone over with him. Because he was so top-heavy, with those long legs and ridiculous shoulders, and you couldn't plant your heels in a crouch unless you were some kind of crazy martial-arts master. Which he was pretty sure Sam wasn't.

As Dean stared at him, Sam swallowed. There was naked fear in his eyes. He had it under control, not like in the closet, but it was like the difference between walking past a rattlesnake and squeezing one in your fist: no matter what, the snake was still biting you.

"You okay?" Sam asked eventually, and Dean cleared his throat.

"Yeah. Yep. Old stairs. Lost my balance." He kicked at the riser, then stopped. Didn't need it collapsing. "C'mon."

"Didn't look like you lost your balance," Sam said quietly, but Dean turned his back on him and very pointedly held onto the railing as they descended the rest of the way.

They'd barely hit the living room, still just absolutely reeking of fresh corpse, when there was a clatter in the kitchen. Dean punched down a groan. Oh, what the fuck now?

He was torn between taking a look with his gun in his hand and just getting the hell out. When Sam instantly killed his flashlight and moved towards the kitchen, Dean made up his mind in a split second. He clapped a hand onto Sam's shoulder.

"Hell d'you think you're doing?" Whispers carried. Dean pitched his voice low, down in his chest.

"That's him. The killer." Sam matched Dean's register, but he was practically spitting the words out. "The one whose victims are probably in that album."

Dean stared at him. Like a switch had flicked somewhere inside him, all the fear was gone, replaced by an anger/hate combo that bordered on the rabid. Dean was half-tempted to pull his hand back before it got bit.

"We are in no shape to take that asshole on right now," Dean ground out. "It ain't our job to catch him, besides. We talked about this. Let's go."

More noise from the kitchen, metallic, and the way Sam jerked made Dean think of a marionette whose strings had just been strummed. He shook his head, hair flying.

"Don't care. I need this guy."

Dean had seen Sam pissed before. Not quite like this, but it always meant that the wheels were about to come off and whatever plan there was would go out the window. Sam stuffed the teddy bear into his pocket, drew his gun before Dean could stop him, and Dean realized that, if he wanted him out of the house, he'd have to drag him kicking and screaming, if not getting shot. Which wouldn't be terribly conducive to not getting butchered by a serial killer.

Dean was lead agent. Sam was his pain in the ass. Wishing things were different, he said, "Fine, tell you what. Compromise. We get a look at his face, if he ain't masked up, and then we leave."

Sam did not seem inclined to agree to that, going off the set of his jaw. But his eyes flicked over Dean, just a double shine in the darkness and, miraculously, he seemed to remember he owed him after the whole closet thing. He nodded, driving his sharp chin down once. Dean nodded back, and they headed for the kitchen.

The house was old. The floor creaked. But they'd been there earlier in the day, and Dean's body remembered where to put his feet to keep it quiet. They made it through the living room, skirting the actual crime scene then, standing shoulder-to-shoulder at an angle that would hopefully keep them invisible in the shadows to anyone in the kitchen, looked in.

It was empty.

Dean blinked. Sam started moving, and he thought about telling him they needed to leave again, but decided against it, pulling his own gun instead. They swept the kitchen, moving as a more efficient team than Dean would have expected. They checked cabinets, the pantry, even the fridge - the contents of which hadn't spoiled too badly, thanks to the cold. Small mercies.

There was nobody here, nobody hiding, and the back door was still closed, the lock still engaged. The lock they would have heard anybody throw.

The only thing out of place were the knives. All of the remaining ones had been taken out of the block and the drawers, and lined up largest to smallest on the counter.

"Well, that's a little creepy," Dean muttered, as he flicked his safety on and reluctantly put his gun back in its holster.

"'A little?'" Sam repeated. His gun was still out, and even though his trigger discipline was good and he was aiming down, it was starting to make Dean nervous. What with how hot and cold he'd been running since they set foot in this house, emotion-wise.

"Yeah. A little." Dean looked at him. "Your man ain't here. Wasn't to begin with. Now, you wanna put your toys away and get that thing burned so we can get out of the cold?"

Sam didn't move at first, and Dean was reconsidering the dragging-kicking-and-screaming thing. Then, with tiny, hitching movements, Sam holstered his gun and took the bear out of his pocket again. He also grabbed a salt shaker off the counter. That was definitely taking potential evidence from a crime scene, but at this point? Dean didn't care.

It was too late, anyhow. He'd left his flashlight upstairs, and their fingerprints were all over up there, too. Maybe even a little blood from all Sam's clawing and banging and bouncing off the walls in the closet. They should try and clean it up, the prints would ping in Charlie's system if they were run and that would not be a fun conversation with Castiel. Normally, Dean would have insisted on a sweep.

But he physically could not stay in this house any longer than it took him to get to the door, and he could feel the effort it took Sam to even last that long.

They went way out back to burn the stuffed animal, past the point where the cops were likely to find the impromptu bonfire. Sam dumped the entire shaker out on top of it before he lit it, made the flames burn a bright yellow-green. As they watched it, another scream rolled out through the night, making both of them jump. It sounded a whole lot like the one from earlier.

Sam's eyes were wide, whites blazing in the light off the fire. He took in a deep breath, and Dean told him, "Relax. Just a fox." As he said it, he realized that that must have been what it was upstairs, too. A fox, nearby. Voice funneled up right to his ear by the weird, coincidental acoustics of Little Amityville. "They can sound pretty crazy. Them and cats." He let out a bleak chuckle. "And peacocks."

Sam did not look comforted or convinced. Dean didn't feel very much of either himself, but figured it had to do with the fact they were still outside. In the dark.

Dean swallowed. He needed to say something about what had happened inside, Sam's real-time demonstration of a bipolar episode. Or at least his guns-blazing moment, and how it could have gotten them both killed. Dean was mad about it, but it was a cold, tired kind of mad, and he couldn't muster up what he needed.

When the time came, he'd be gentle about it. If they were going to survive this, he needed to start being more professional to Sam, no matter what his personal feelings for the guy were. Less of an asshole, at least.

He reached out, put a hand on his shoulder. Sam looked at it, then at him. Dean squeezed, and felt a knot of tension under his palm loosen, just a little.

"C'mon," he said quietly. "'Bout damn time we got outta here, huh?"