Chapter One: Smoking and Guns:

The Impala was a second home to the brothers. After everything that had happened, it made sense. Dean pulled the sedan into the parking lot of the "Twin Pines Motor Lodge" and shut off the engine. Pennsylvania was a hell of a drive from Kansas, but when your job was theirs it certainly wasn't the furthest either brother had driven.

"I'll get the room, you get the bags." Dean nodded to Sam. The younger brother nodded in agreement, he was in no mood for arguing, it had been a long and painful day and neither brother was in the mood for the usual back-and-forth. Twelve minutes later the two were in room eight.

"This place isn't half bad." Sam commented as he tapped the boomerang patterned table-top of the kitchenette, placing his bag on the ground beside it.

"Yeah, hell of a lot nicer than the last place." Dean muttered as he collapsed onto the bed nearest the door. He unlocked his suitcase and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. "You want one?" He asked as he flicked open his lighter and lit the first of what would end up being six.

"What are they?" Sam asked, glancing at the packaging.

Dean flipped over the pack and glanced at the label, "Red Skins." He read as he inhaled, flashing the logo of a Native American chief smoking a pipe.

"Red Skins? I thought you took Grey Hares?" Sam tilted his head slightly as he looked up from his unpacking.

"Used to, but Doc said I had to switch to something with filters. Tastes different, but it's the price of being healthy." Dean shrugged as he put out the first butt in the ceramic ashtray on the nightstand.

Sam frowned slightly, "I'll steer clear for now."

"What, Nancy trying to get you to quit again?" Dean chuckled.

"No…" Sam reddened at the thought of her, "It's nothing. Besides, we're not even together."

"Bullshit. I know when you have a crush. I swear one of these days I'm gonna go in there and just tell her."

"You do and I'll make sure everyone sees the picture of you from junior high where-"

"Don't even." Dean cut him off sternly, before he sighed, glancing at the clock. "It's only ten and we don't have anything big planned for tomorrow, want a quick nightcap?" Dean put out the second cigarette before sticking the rest of the pack into his jacket.

"Sure, just give me a minute to get dressed." Sam pulled out a jacket and slung it over his shoulders before the two walked out to the parking lot.

**SPN**

Their search for a decent bar had been a bust; apparently Lockheed wasn't much of a drinking town. After deciding to call it quits searching for nightlife Dean turned around in the parking lot of a Texaco and returned the Impala to the side road leading out of the small town and back to the motel where they were staying. The headlights lit up a few feet in front of the car, but the distance seemed to keep shrinking as a fog rolled in.

"You could cut this with a knife." Sam stated as he briefly stuck his head out the window and tried to see anything in front of them. As he did so the car approached a fork in the road.

"Which way was the motel?" Dean asked.

"Left I think." Sam replied, not bothering to try and unfold the map in the glove-box. Half the time the damn thing is wrong. We seriously need to get a new one.

Dean turned the car down the left road and the two continued driving in relative silence aside from Dean chastising Sam when he tried to change the station on the radio.

"Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his pie-hole." He swatted Sam's hand away from the dial.

Sam huffed, "It'd be nice if you didn't always listen to the same music from decades ago."

"They're classics and if you can't enjoy them, then tough. When you get your own car you can choose the music." Dean smirked before he slammed on the brakes. Sam's knee hit the dash as the younger brother whipped around.

"What the hell was that for?!"

"There was some girl in the road…" Dean opened the door and stepped out.

"Dean! I know you're desperate for a date, but come on, now is not the time to be picking up lady hitchhikers!" Sam stepped out of the passenger side and shut his door.

Dean scowled as the pair heard a shriek in the night.

"That's not good…" Sam replied as the two quickly opened the trunk and armed themselves. The brothers stood back to back, Dean wielding a shotgun and Sam holding a gold knife.

"Great, a banshee…" Dean muttered, "I thought this town was supposed to be normal."

"Well, this is us we're talking about. Seems like everywhere we end up has something that's trying to kill us." Sam replied. "At least the night wasn't a total waste."

"Yeah, exactly what I wanted to do on my Friday night. Kill some bitch who wants me to bash my brains out."

As if on cue the banshee appeared behind the pair and lunged at the brothers. Dean shot her-which given the rock salt rounds that were loaded in the shotgun-only annoyed her before Sam stabbed her in the chest with his knife. After she fell to the ground in a heap Dean looked irritably at the gun.

"Since when doesn't rock salt work?"

"Since always. Banshees aren't ghosts, they're fairies." Sam rolled his eyes as he drug the body to the roadside.

"Well that would've been nice to know before I pissed her off!"

Sam stifled a chuckle, "Bobby literally told us all about Banshees the last time we were there. Or were you too busy drooling over the new Corvette he was working on?"

Dean snorted, "Look, you put something that beautiful in the same room as me and it's like you with those big old books about Elwin Ransom on Malacandra. It's not my fault I couldn't focus."

"He was only on Malacandra on the first one, he was on Perelandra in the second and Earth in the last one." Sam corrected as the two returned to the car. "And they really aren't that old. They're no older than the music you insist is 'classic'."

Dean rolled his eyes as he started the car and the coupe continued down the road to the motel.

**Author's Note**

Hello everyone! It's the author here. I got this idea from somewhere in the ether and it refused to go away, so here it is. It's part of the reason why my postings have been a bit sporadic recently. Fear not, nothing is going on hiatus. Chances are this'll end up around 19 chapters (if all goes as currently planned). I should be finished Teenage Wasteland soon (only two more chapters on that, and I'm posting one tomorrow), which means it'll be this and True Legacy for a bit. But knowing me some other idea will come about and I'll end up with more to write. In any case, please review and let me know what you think. This chapter acts more as flavor text in setting the world, by chapter 3 things are more in-it, so forgive me if the start is slow.