AN: This story is taking its own sweet time developing, but I promise we're getting somewhere. I hope you don't find it too slow.

Also, the SUN IS SHINING. Happy Woomie, happy muse.

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9:47 pm

"We can't break into a house this early," Sam complained for at least the 4,562nd time. "Somebody is going to see us and call the cops."

"Dude, we've been sitting here arguing for like 20 minutes – "

"Fifteen."

" – and not a single car has gone by. Even if someone happens to, they'll never see Baby back here." Dean had backed them into a small clearing just to the south of the house, surrounded by towering oaks. "Besides, we probably can't even get in. The township is hiring a specialty locksmith because nobody else has been able to get in, remember? And if that happens, we'll come back tomorrow night with a master key." Dean couldn't keep the glee out of his voice. Their "master key" was actually any of a number of things. Bolt cutters. An ax. A small liquid nitrogen tank. A hand-held pneumatic jack. And best of all? The jaws of life, exactly like firefighters had. It occurred to Dean that the last three were all with Dad and he pushed down the pang that brought.

"I bet I can get in," said Sam suddenly, surprising Dean. The kid pulled out his lock pick set. "And faster than you could." There was a hint of a smile on his face and a challenging gleam in his eyes.

"Oh, you're on," Dean snapped automatically, grabbing his own set from under his seat. "I'll take the front and you take the back." He held up his wrist and Sam held up his own, recognizing the gesture. As soon as he was certain their watches were synchronized, Dean said, "Start in one minute!" and shot out of the car. Even as he ran to his left, for the west-facing front door, Dean considered whether or not his brother had noticed when he'd started to think about Dad and had given in and woken up his competitive nature on purpose to distract him.

Could it be that Sam was looking out for Dean too? Nah.

Dean vaulted up the three steps onto the long, narrow porch and knelt in front of the heavy, hobnail studded wooden door. He held his tools at the ready, keeping an eye on his watch, waiting for the time to be up so he could get the door open and school his little brother.

Despite his haste, Dean had noted the basic characteristics of the house and surrounding yard. The house was a mansion with a square footprint and towered three stories above him. All of it was dark wood and small, diamond-paned glass windows, including two flanking the door. The whole thing was in far better shape and more ornate than Dean had expected. The boards under his feet were firm, neither rotting nor gaping apart. And there were decorative markings carved into the door and doorframe, and the pillars and railing of the porch. It sat a good ways back from the narrow dirt road with widely spaced and very tall trees here and there. The lock Dean was about to pick was a large, old fashioned keyhole, the type that would take a heavy iron key. Unless it was rusted, which was unlikely given the state of the rest of the house, it would be a breeze to pick.

Dean's watch clicked over and he immediately went to work. He found the right spot, but it slipped away. The same thing happened a second time and Dean cursed. Quietly. The crickets were still trilling merrily and he didn't have any sense of danger or otherness, but there was still no reason to advertise their presence more than their mad dash already had. He was coaxing the tumblers the third time when he heard a muted thud. He muttered another curse. That was the back door shutting, he'd put money on it. He kept trying in case he was wrong, but before he could get the really friggin' slippery lock to cooperate, the dark shape of his little brother appeared in front of the window to Dean's left.

Dean sat back on his haunches with a sigh. He'd have to figure out a way to make it best of three to restore the proper order of things. The proper order being: big brother wins. Sam moved out of sight, presumably to open the door, but the door didn't open. Dean stood up and tried to glare a hole through it, willing Sam to feel his irritation and hurry the hell up.

But instead of opening the door, Sam came back to the window, having to duck a good four inches to peer through it. He pushed something up against his side of the thick glass, which was nowhere as transparent as modern glass, but far clearer than Dean would have expected. Sam directed his flashlight at the white thing he was pressing against the window and Dean leaned forward to see that it was the back of a receipt, and Sam had written on it: supnat lockdown.

Now Dean cursed out loud. A house that ate people, and his brother was stuck inside while he was trapped outside. Not going to happen. Dean waved Sam to the side and pointed his shotgun at the lock that had frustrated him, angling it carefully to it would ricochet well away from him. Screw stealthiness when Sam was trapped. Boom.

Dean stared at the door, which didn't have so much as a scratch from the close range shot. "Well, shit." He looked at Sam, still peering through the window and shook his head to indicate it hadn't worked.

I know, mouthed Sam, with an eye roll. Okay, so maybe he'd tried to already, but he hadn't exactly told Dean that, had he?

Dean wasn't about to write everything he wanted to communicate with Sam. He pulled out his phone, flipped it open, and touched Sam's name, ignoring the younger man's shake of his head.

Hey, you've reached Sam –

Dean flipped it shut to see Sam scribbling on the receipt again, then flipping it back around. Dean was reluctantly grateful the kid had a pen and even a little paper on him. The new message read: Farraday cage. Dean thought maybe he should know what that meant, but he didn't, so he shrugged, an abrupt, angry movement. Sam's brow wrinkled, then he lifted his Taurus into sight, flipped it deftly around, and gave the window a hard rap with the butt of the gun. Dean understood instantly. Not a hint of sound had traveled out to him. That meant waves – sound or phone – were trapped too. Fantastic. This was one powerful…what?

Dean pulled the EMF meter from his pocket and flipped it around to show Sam the low-level readings he was getting. There weren't any electrical lines nearby, so chances were good it was a true reading. "Great. Just fricken great. A damn ghost house. Well, you're not eating my brother," groused Dean, kicking the door and not doing any more damage than his shot had. He looked at Sam, flicking on his powerful penlight to better see the kid's face, then trying to see the rest of him.

Sam, the rat, smiled at him. I'm okay, he mouthed. Or maybe it's okay. This mime crap was getting old, but it didn't seem that Sam was injured in any way. Dean tapped his own chest and pointed in the direction of the Impala. "I'll be right back," he said, hoping Sam could read his lips. "Stay. There." He turned before Sam could respond. The only good thing a out the situation was that Sam couldn't argue with him if he wasn't looking. He may have caught sight of a middle finger as he turned, and Dean even smiled, just a little. He hated the situation, but so far, so good. He'd just have to jailbreak his favorite overly tall geek and then they could torch the whole stupid house.

Dean came back with the entire weapons bag, with a few extra goodies. Namely, a crow bar and ax. Sam was at the right hand window this time, his flashlight flicking around the outside of it as if he were studying the window frame somehow. Good. Hopefully it would keep him busy while Dean busted his way in. But as he readied the ax, Sam flicked the light in his eyes to get his attention. Dean growled, wishing his brother could hear his displeasure.

Sam was holding up his receipt again. Across the bottom, he'd scrawled. Need to check house for hex bags etc. Back when 1st fl done.

"No, no, no you don't!" called Dean, shaking his head harshly in case the message hadn't gotten through. He held up the EMF meter again and tapped it. Sam didn't have one of his own – which was definitely something they'd have to rectify. But Sam only nodded back, smiling a bit ruefully. He said something that Dean was too angry to figure out, but was probably something stupid like it's okay or it will be fine. Dean hit the window frame with the side of his hand, moving as close to the glass as he could without actually smashing his nose against it. It was bad enough this barrier was between them. He wasn't letting Sam out of his sight.

He'd forgotten that he couldn't actually grab the kid to stop him. He couldn't even yell at him, not effectively. And that's right, Sam was a stubborn, opinionated shit. Sam said something else, maybe that he'd be back? Then he patted the window twice, straightened and stepped away.

Dean's small but powerful flashlight still couldn't penetrate very far into the house. He could just watch the tall form disappear into a dark door farther to the right. Other than that, all he could make out was a relatively narrow room with a small dark shape at each side, like a small table or sideboard, and a door to each side too. He couldn't even see how deep the room was. And watching Sam walk out of sight into the dark pissed him off.

Dean tried to use the ax to take his frustrations out on the door, but it was like hitting concrete. Actually, it was less jarring than that, but no more effective. The axhead didn't so much as bite into the wood, much less do any damage to the door, the doorframe, the window sill, or the wall. The crowbar was similarly infective on the glass. Next, Dean tried to wedge the crowbar between the door and jamb. He could just get the tapered end worked in, but not enough to get any kind of leverage, no matter where he tried it. He tried to pry it out anyway, but only ended up almost braining himself. He even tried to light the corner of the windowsill with his lighter. Not that he wanted to start the house on fire with his brother inside, but he was curious to see if he had any more luck with flames than the rest of it. Not so much.

Finding a piece of paper stuffed in the bottom of the weapons bag, Dean flipped it over and wrote: Checking other windows and doors in big, block letters. He folded the top over and used a pocket knife to weight it down on the rail with the words hanging down in front of the left window in case Sam came back before he did.

And Sam would come back. He had plenty of weapons, and he was no dummy. He'd figure out how to gank…whatever, or he would get in and they'd gank it together. Dean just kept telling himself that as he worked his way around the house, taking a swing or three at every door and every window he could reach. It was all completely useless. Even the back door that Sam must have entered through was sealed up tight.

Back where he'd started, wound tighter than a five dollar watch, Dean briefly considered calling Dad. But he wasn't sure he could stand to hear that voicemail right now. Not after he'd gotten no reply to his other messages. Calling for help outside the family went against all his instincts, but as he thought about the few people he'd even consider calling, he remembered something.

Before he could dial, Dean saw a bobbing light inside the house. He stuffed the phone in his pocket and flicked his own light up, then down twice. The light inside mirrored him, and Dean felt his chest loosen just a little. There. Sam finally got close enough for Dean to actually see him. "You good?" he asked, even though Sam couldn't hear him. Sam got it, because he nodded, then pointed at Dean, who nodded back impatiently. Yes, yes, he was fine. He wasn't the one stuck inside a building with a grudge.

Sam was scribbling again. Wrd burn marks on flr. He held up five fingers, then traced a five-sided shape on the glass. There were weird burns marks on the floor in the shape of a pentagon...possibly to represent a pentagram, which was odd but didn't tell him much. "What does that mean? And did you find anything else?" Dean demanded.

Sam shook his head and shrugged. He pushed his hair out of his eyes, then pointed up and made a swirl with his index finger. Dean easily deduced that he wanted to go up and sweep the next floor. But something…something about Sam had caught Dean's attention. He held up a hand, wait, and beckoned Sam closer to the window. When the latter complied, Dean swept him with the flashlight, as much as he could through the small window. There wasn't a mark on the kid that he could see, and Dean couldn't identify a single thing wrong with him, but his instincts were screaming at him. Sam had a long-suffering look on his face, but Dean would swear he wasn't hiding anything.

The only thing Dean could figure at all was that his clothes kind of hung on him, like he'd lost weight recently, and that wasn't news. The BLT notwithstanding, Sam wasn't eating much. Still, Dean hadn't realized just how much the kid had dropped.

Unable to put his finger on what had him so stressed, Dean looked back at Sam's face. Sam pointed up again, put his shotgun on his shoulder like Davy Crockett, and left again, despite Dean's ire. Dean officially hated this house.

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Stormy: Thanks! It's probably partly my love of the early seasons, plus the fact that I have three siblings, plus I'm pretty immature. hehe

Lena: I'm sure you do want Dean in your living room! LOL! Here we've had FAR less snow this winter than normal and it's fabulous. I think we only have like 6 inches on the ground. I'm glad you're excited and everything else. I hope this story doesn't end up too predictable (I hate predictable) and I'm very proud of you for not loosing any plot bunnies around me (yet)!

muffinroo: HA! Maybe Sam smells like bacon to all supernatural creatures and that's why they all go after him! That made me laugh really hard! Thanks for that and even more for your very nice compliments. I have done prompt requests (okay, one) but right now I literally have 3 stories in the works. But feel free to hit me with one if you don't mind waiting a while for me to get to it.

Shazza19: Aw, you are so darn nice. I'm trying to figure out where you might be from because you're like 8 hours off me…Australia? You don't have to answer…I'm just curious. I'm in the U.S. state of Michigan (the one shaped like a mitten). Sam's inside the house now, and more will be revealed in the next chapter. Promise!

DearHart: That wasn't too long a wait, I hope! *grin* Thanks for reading.