Halloween

The veil was at its thinnest. Magic at its strongest. Especially in the parts of the world where the Great Dying of Autumn had begun.

Palo Alto was not the cold northeast, but the effect was still potent.

For all their primitive stupidity, early man had understood some truths that modern man did not.

Brady could feel the veil thinning. The curtain that separated the worlds. His senses became keener, his sense of self more powerful. There was an elation to it.

He'd eschewed other festivities to keep an eye on Sam, dropped into Jerry's party briefly to keep tabs. Jessica was dressed as a nurse, and oh God, did Brady want her to violate him in any "medical" way see saw fit.

She was bragging about Sam's LSAT score. Sam, as usual, was slightly embarrassed by the praise. Hanging at the party with his usual quiet uncomfortable air.

Brady mingled for a minute before his senses told him to leave and paused on his way outside into the humid night air. He sensed something. Knew it with every bit of his twisted Demon soul and all the pre-cognizance that provided.

Sam's life was about to be on a collision course into an event that would wreck him. Would throw him back into the world he'd tried so hard, so valiantly to leave.

And with perfect timing-timing so perfect that it suggested Destiny rather than Coincidence- something was about to happen. Something that would make that reality come to fruition with such delicious permanence that Sam would never be able to extract himself from that life again.

Dean Winchester was on his way to Palo Alto.


Dean turned on Baby's windshield wipers as he headed West through a random electrical storm. It was just weird enough to get his attention for a moment or two, but just usual enough to write off as a weird weather pattern caused by Global Warming or whatever the hell was the new buzzword being passed around was. Dean's profession gave him a larger understanding of meteorology than the lay person, but he'd never delved deeply into the natural phenomenon that caused different weather the way that Bobby Singer or his father had.

Had?

Did. Dean corrected himself adamantly, feeling the gnawing fear settle in the pit of his stomach again.

Dean wrestled it back down with a steadfast bravery he'd had since his childhood. It was instinct.

Fear was immobilizing. Stamp it out. Act. Don't examine it again.

His father had gone missing before. It was not unheard of for John Winchester to drop off the radar for a few days either following a new lead or on an alcohol fueled binge. But not for this long... and of all the times he'd disappeared, Dean had never had this kind of feeling about it.

There was just something...different this time around. Hunter's Intuition? The instinct of a son who studied his father's every habit? He couldn't tell.

All he knew was that he was alone. Deep down-though he would die before he admitted it aloud- he was scared. And his first impulse, his overriding instinct was to go find his oldest ally.

Sam.

Dean's anger toward his brother had cooled over the years to the point that he wasn't even quite sure what they had fought about last.

But he knew Sam.

Sam was slower to anger, but when he finally did...he didn't forget. He carried a grudge that rivaled his father's capacity for anger at times.

There had been so many arguments between the two where Dean had wanted to grab both of them by the scruff of their necks and knock their heads together. But he hadn't. He had played Peacemaker. Negotiator. Helluva lot of good that had done them in the end.

He'd thought of calling Sam, giving him a heads up that he was on his way, but somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that such a gesture only gave Sam the opportunity to rebuff his attempt at reconciliation. That was if the kid would even have answered his phone at this point.

But Dean also knew that if he showed up on Sam's doorstep looking for help, his little brother would not, could not turn him down.

Checkmate you stubborn bitch.


Brady lingered in the shadows outside of the big old house that was currently Sam Winchester's apartment.

He watched them come walking home at a reasonable hour, Sam slightly more relaxed that he had been at the party. After the initial nerves of courtship had passed, the young man was always more relaxed with Jessica Moore. They had fallen into a comfortable routine. It was lovely actually.

Brady thought for a moment about how easily Sam had slipped into the role of scholar and boyfriend. Responsible citizen. Hard worker. His past had done virtually nothing to impede his progress. It was odd in a way. He should have been so full of scars like his older brother, that adapting to a normal life would have been next to impossible.

Yet here he was- nice apartment, good friends, an excellent school and work record. A beautiful girl in a long term relationship. At only twenty two years old and coming in from left field with disadvantages so strong that he wasn't just starting a few steps behind his peers- he was starting in the fucking basement. A locked one.

And yet he'd passed them all.

It was around one in the morning and the veil between the worlds was still at its thinnest and most vulnerable when Brady's sharp ears caught the low growling rumble of a classic muscle car pulling ever closer. Dean Winchester had arrived right around the Witching Hour to go fetch his brother from his self-imposed exile. And unbeknownst to either of them, throw him back into the middle of chaos.

Dean didn't park right in the driveway, he'd pulled into a lot beside it. The old, mean looking black car rumbled to a halt and Dean cut the engine. She was silenced. He turned off the headlights and they blinked out like the light being snuffed from a victim's eyes at the moment of death. Live and electric and one minute- cold and lifeless the he next.

The door squeaked open and out stepped Dean Winchester, all worn-in boot cut jeans and military styled hair. He had a dangerous edge to him, an awareness of his surroundings that suggested both predator and prey. But mostly predator.

He was everything that Brady had pictured and a lot of what he hadn't predicted. The rough edge, he had known would be a part of him. But the boyish hint of vulnerability so very like Sam. That was fresh. That was unexpected.

He had long bowed legs, full lips visible even from a distance and high cheekbones. A heart breaker who treaded the edge of beautiful...in fact was masculinely beautiful but tried to rough it up with leather and attitude.

The silent way he slipped to the door, cat-like and fluid as a shadow passing over a brick wall suggested someone used to the darkness- unfazed by it. Someone who could navigate its mysteries and the horrors with a self-confidence born of familiarity and practice. This man would not adapt to life outside of what he had been raised in with any sort of Sam's ease.

Dean was born to the job. Brady watched Dean twist a paperclip from his pocket and use it to jimmy the lock. He paused once to look over his shoulder into the impenetrable darkness, eyes searching, almost like some instinct told him he was being watched.

Brady melted further into the shadows, the blackness of his eyes matching his surroundings.

Dean seemed to shrug the feeling off and went back to working the lock, his head cocked with his ear to the door until he heard the tell tale click and he flashed a cocky smile.

He was good, Brady had to give him that. Not only quiet, efficient with an energy like live wire running through him, but he'd tracked Sam's location down after years of no contact with impunity.

Dean opened the door and slipped inside.


Brady followed Dean's trail to the unlocked door. No salt, no warding. He looked up and observed a half opened window to catch the cool Palo Alto night air. Probably wasn't protected either.

Sam Winchester was getting complacent.

Brady strained his ears, decided to go inside a few feet. He stopped his breathing to listen up the winding staircase.

He couldn't hear anything but the hum of someone's fan, so he retreated outside and stood beneath the opened windows.

He heard the tussle first. Sam must have noticed an intruder before Dean had gotten very far. So his survival instincts weren't all gone... he must have been sleeping lightly to sense someone was in his apartment at all.

Good boy.

The match was short. A few body slams. Some grunts from the brothers.

And then Dean's voice broke through the thick night air. "Woah, easy Tiger!"

Sam's voice, filled with shock and disbelief. "Dean? You scared the crap out of me."

"That's because you're out of practice."

A car went by, drowning out the next few exchanges. The light flipped on. Brady caught something about smurfs.

The rest was lost again, mumbled tenor voices together-one softer and one that would be a baritone given time and age.

Brady liked baritone voices. There was something pleasurable about hearing screams tear from their throats like a wounded big cat taken down by a trophy hunter.

"Dad's on a hunting trip and he hasn't been home in a few days."

He heard mention of their father. John had gone missing. He had not been apprised of what had happened on the John front. That's obviously what had driven older brother to swallow his pride and attempt a kiss and make up after all this time.

Such beautiful timing. The tone of their voices told Brady that reconciliation was inevitable. Sam was a bit put off by big brother breaking into his house at 1 am but there was no real animosity in the tone and Dean's friendly breezy banter would wear down Sam's reserve in no time.

So it was with no surprise that Brady eventually heard the door to the side entrance clatter open and the voices out that way before the growl of the muscle car started up and the long black impala pulled out into the street and was gone in a haze of red tail lights.

Brady stepped out of the shadows and looked up at the open window. He saw Jessica Moore's lithe, athletic body moving behind the diaphanous undulating sheers as they stirred in the breeze.

Alone. She would be utterly alone.

It was perfect.