AN: This story isn't mine. No, really. The wonderful bagelcat1 laid out a lovely, angsty, detailed plot and gave me the privilege of writing it out, even giving help along the way.

JaniceC678 helped, as always, with both beta services and as a friend.

Set right after season 13, episode 6, Tombstone. There's a bit of an exposition about what's happening around and to the Winchesters at this point in this chapter, which I hope you find helpful rather than redundant.

WARNING: This one looks like it's going to earn its T rating with both bad language and violence/gore. You know yourself -- if this will bother you, please don't read!

Thank you!

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No road is long with good company.

- Turkish proverb

"I have no idea how you can eat that stuff," Sam shook his head at Dean's selection of "road food." They were now well used to having real meals made in an oven and everything, but Dean still felt the need to stock up on staples like beef jerky and Twizzlers every time they took a drive of more than an hour or two. And Sam felt the need to give him crap about it. There was an undercurrent to their banter, however, more than usual. They were reminding themselves of what (who) they still had in a time of serious upheaval in their lives. More upheaval than usual.

In a short span of time, they'd lost Crowley, Cas, and Mom, were finally freed of Lucifer, hopefully forever, and had started to effectively raise Lucifer's kid, Jack – who was born a young adult with untold power and a touching innocence. Dean was so lost he'd actually killed himself to talk to a few ghosts, then Cas was somehow back, apparently thanks to Jack. Dean was happier than he could remember feeling in a long time, finally seeing it as having the "win" he needed to regain his natural optimism. They'd gone on a case to actual Dodge City with the four of them, and it hadn't gone well. Jack had accidentally killed someone. Terrified by his own power, he'd fled. Yup. Just when things were beginning to look up, everything went off the rails again...as usual.

The night before, buoyed by a lot of liquid courage, Sam and Dean had talked through some of the "epic fuckery" (Dean's term) that had been tossed in their laps lately. Dean had sort of, kind of apologized for being reckless and forgetting how much he still had. Sam had forgiven him (duh), and they were back on the same page, ready to get back at it.

But as they nursed their hangovers with coffee and a big breakfast heavy on meat, an email had come in from an old contact, asking a little desperately for help in northern Louisiana. They'd been out the door in less than an hour, and Sam had called Cas (who was tracking what was probably another specious lead on Jack in Georgia somewhere) to let him know where they were headed.

The first two hours or so on the road, they'd been doing all of the things they did when they were good determinedly, almost desperately, as if to convince themselves that, yes, the Winchesters were totally together again. But then it had started coming more easily, and now it felt like old times.

Sam bitched about Dean's music and driving, and Dean called Sam names and made fun of him for his super-sized super-expensive coffee habit and both tried to fart enough to force the other to open a window. And, of course, they were arguing about snacks. Though feelings were still a tad raw and there was a ton still on their plates, it felt good, easy now. Being on the road, on their way to a case felt like just what they needed.

"Really? And what food group are pork rinds in, Señor Health Nut?"

Sam grinned at his brother, making sure plenty of partially chewed food was showing. They both knew why he ate pork rinds. While Dean liked almost every kind of food (especially those that were pig-related), he loathed pork rinds. It was a snack he was guaranteed not to steal. But Sam had also bought a big bag of peanut M 'n' M's on the sly and stuck them in Dean's duffel while he was in the john. Dean might be annoyed at him now, but he'd be his favorite brother again when Dean found the treat.

The argument about snack food led to an argument about the best pizza toppings, then the way to cook a burger, then the best toppings for that perfect burger, then the perfect amount of floppiness for bacon. It was inane and probably ridiculously immature to anyone except the two of them, but it was also exactly right.

The next hour was nearly silent, but just as comfortable as the bickering had been, and Sam used the time to do some research into the area where they were headed.

Dean turned the music down when Sam set down his phone, needing a break from reading the small screen. "Man, what a blast from the past." He had called the other Hunter on speaker as soon as they'd read his terse email asking if they could help with a "dead not staying dead problem."

"Hooch? It's Dean Winchester. Sam's here too."

"Damn. It's good to hear your voice. I didn't have any phone numbers for you any more and pretty much the rest of my Hunting contacts are dead," came the voice from way back in Sam and Dean's past.

"To be honest, we thought you were dead, too," admitted Dean. "It's been what? 15 years?"

"At least," admitted Harold "Hooch" Huechner. He had Hunted with John on and off, but they'd fallen out of contact while Sam was still in high school. Sam and Dean had heard his name from mutual acquaintances here and there until a couple years ago.

"We tried to find you last year for a big Hunter shindig," said Dean lightly. Sam could hear the question behind the seemingly innocent comment.

"I retired after a...rough Hunt in the Everglades." Hooch sounded tired. "I changed my numbers, tried to pretend I was an ordinary guy. Just stuck around. Not like a retired guy in Florida sticks out. Are you guys, uh, still Hunting? Cuz I hate to ask, but I need help."

"Yeah, we are," said Sam before Dean could chime in with whatever snarky comment he could see brewing. "If you're retired, how did you hear about an undead problem in Louisiana?"

Hooch sighed again, and Sam thought he sounded a whole lot older than the fifty-five or so he should be. Caleb's age, Sam thought, remembering the Hunt that was the reason they'd been so quick to return a call to someone who they hadn't so much as heard from for so long.

"I didn't mean to. But, you know how it is. You automatically notice stuff. Well, my neighbor was talking about the town where he used to live and all the ghost stories there now. I mean, nobody lives in the town now, but there are all these stories about people seeing dead people walking around the area. Friends, family members, long buried are walking around, looking just how they did before they died."

"Sounds like ghouls," mused Dean, interested despite himself.

"I looked into it, and people in the area are going missing," said the older man. "That isn't ghouls.They only eat people who are already dead."

"Not always," said Dean darkly.

"Oh. Maybe it is ghouls, then," said Hooch. "So, I was going to ignore it...but I just couldn't. I mean, this whole family went out there a couple weeks ago to try and see the house where their grandparents had lived or something, and they all disappeared. The youngest kid is 7. I had to do something, you know? And it's not like I could just call the cops."

Thinking over that first conversation, Sam made a quick check-in call to let their old acquaintance know how far along they were and remind him to wait for them.

"I wish he'd just go back to Florida," Dean muttered as Sam hung up.

"No kidding." Not only was the guy getting older, he'd been out of the game for years. Instincts and reflexes dulled when they weren't constantly tested. Not to mention, Hunters didn't age well. They got old young, even when their dangerous job didn't kill them outright. Bobby, a high functioning alcoholic who knew his limits and used his skills to help more active Hunters, and Rufus, a paranoid hermit who made a living selling arcane artifacts had actually been better off than most. Some, like Martin Creaser, ended up in mental health facilities or lost their sense of judgment and perspective. Others became heartless killers. Many grew increasingly reckless until they finally committed suicide by monster, whether or not they acknowledged their own self-destructive tendencies.

"He didn't sound good," Sam added. Hooch's voice, once booming and confident, had been thin and wavering.

"But you believe him?" Dean asked, and Sam considered the question carefully. They'd been burned by supposed friends before.

"He was genuinely upset about the family disappearing," Sam answered after some thought. "And people really are disappearing, including a whole family. Records show that Hooch has been living in a house in Florida. He even has a neighbor who moved there from the town – uh, Gordes – when it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. And I believe him about why he went to check it out."

Dean nodded in concurrence. "Yeah. And he got overwhelmed once he got out there, realized he was in over his head and reached out to anybody whose contact info he still had."

Yeah, and Hooch was right that most of the "old guard" that he'd known when he was actively Hunting was dead, Sam thought sadly. They knew from conversations that Hooch had spent time at the roadhouse, and in addition to Caleb, had known Rufus, Bobby, all of the Harvelles, Gordon Walker, and even Daniel Elkins. "But still, there's something weird," Sam mused.

Dean nodded again. "Yeah. But we owe him. We'll give him enough rope to hang himself if he's lookin' for anything other than a little help, and we'll keep our eyes wide open." Dean tapped his thumbs against the steering wheel rhythmically in a gesture Sam recognized as indicating he was thinking. "The town was never rebuilt, right?"

"Yup. It's a so-called drowned town. It was built near a small river, the Calvon, but even though it's on low ground, it was never in the flood plain because of a series of three small hills between the town and the river. But the torrential rains of Katrina completely changed the topography of the area –" Sam caught Dean's annoyed look and gave him a half-smile in apology. Just because he liked to know everything about everything that he researched didn't mean Dean did. Dean preferred to stick to the practical necessities. "The first hill collapsed completely and the town was flooded with water and mud. And now, instead of flooding every 500 years or so, it floods pretty much every year. The Army Corps of Engineers determined it would take millions of dollars to build an artificial breakwater, and it still wouldn't be perfect. See, the bedrock in the area –"

"Cliff notes," Dean reminded him, acting far more annoyed than Sam knew he really was.

"Okay, okay. Since only like 600 people lived there, the town was just abandoned. The buildings weren't even torn down."

"Sounds like monster heaven." Dean sounded way too pleased by the prospect.

"Sounds like a million places for ghouls to hide," Sam corrected. "If Hooch is right, there are at least four or five of them."

"Good thing we know just what to do with ghouls." Abruptly, Dean's voice was grim and he was a Hunter again. He'd developed a special hatred for ghouls after what a pair of them had done to Adam (and Adam's mother, and the retired cop), and tried to do to Sam in their vendetta against Dad. Facing the ghoul who'd dared defile the memory of Dave Mather and indirectly led to Jack leaving them hadn't made him any fonder of the things.

"Oh, yeah we do." Sam knew he sounded a tad bloodthirsty himself. He, Dean, Cas, and Jack had just started to feel like a little family, if a strange, somewhat dysfunctional one. (Would Sam even know how to be part of a traditional family? Probably not.) Dean was warming to Jack, Cas was back, and they had a home. Right or wrong, Sam partly blamed the dead Dave Mather ghoul for breaking that up. It was far better than contemplating the possibility that it was an impossible dynamic. An impossible dream that would have fallen apart sooner or later, anyway.

Because that thought always made Sam consider the common denominator of so much brokenness – one Samuel Winchester. The other three Winchesters had had a happy and whole family before he was born. Jessica Moore and her family had been happy and whole until he'd considered joining their clan. He still couldn't even think about Bobby… Maybe he'd hoped that because Dean, Cas, and Jack were almost as messed up as he was, that he had a chance of holding onto something this time, and maybe not get his family killed.

"Whaddaya want from Starbucks?" asked Dean, interrupting Sam's thoughts.

"What? Why are we stopping?" They weren't through their snacks, and the car didn't need gas yet.

Dean was already pulling off the highway onto an exit that advertised gas and food. "Because whatever you're thinking about, you need to stop. And I thought a frou-frou coffee might do the trick. Besides, I think there's a little bakery here that – yes! There it is. – has these crepe things to die for."

Even as he appreciated his brother's special brand of looking after him, Sam rolled his eyes. "I was just thinking about killing more ghouls," he lied. Thanks.

"No reason we can't do that on a full stomach." You're welcome.

Whatever waited for them at the end of their journey, Sam was glad to be on it with his brother.