A/N: So I'm EVIL, huh? Mbwahhhh! (Thanks to Phoebe for helping me spell the evil laugh correctly. Never can get that sucker right.) I'm late with this, but here we go! And BTW: this is NOT a deathfic. I don't do those, which is why The Double Bind is in limbo right now. Dean was gonna die in that one, and I chickened out. I call do-over. Seriously. I can change him, but I don't like killing the boy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. This is for entertainment only, not for profit.

Chapter 3 – boys' night out

I head on out to the parking lot. Won't look right if I don't meet Dad outside.

This place has been deserted for years. Funny thing is, it's clean inside, except for the symbols on the walls and the ceiling, and old stuff like those metal filing cabinets and wooden desks piled up here and there. Kinda doubt the city would care enough to send a crew around to maintain an abandoned building.

The first homeless people who tried to squat here got slaughtered by the things in the pool. Slaughtered and strung up from the ceiling, so the others would go away.

I know that's what happened, because I can see 'em.

I see dead people all around me.

Some of them are people who died on hunts before me and Dad got there. I've seen plenty of crime scene photos in my time. They fade in and out all around me, pale grey smoke, ripped inside out, and I don't play much attention.

Some are hunters who died on hunts. They're all bloody and slashed open. Don't care much for the way they look at me, like they're judging me or something. They're Dad's buddies, not mine.

I see neighbors, kids Sam and I went to school with. Natural causes, accidents, whatever. Hey, death is all around. It's a part of life. Nobody knows that shit better than me.

Old Man Burgess died of a heart attack a few months after me and Dad and Sammy moved in. Columbus, Ohio. He called Family Services on Dad when he saw me with my arm in a cast that time. Think I was gonna tell anybody that a black dog broke my arm when it threw me into that chain link fence? Think again.

I gotta admit, when the paramedics carried him out of his house in that body bag a part of me just didn't give a damn.

Mrs. Esther Holcombe. English teacher. Taos, New Mexico. Ninth grade. I liked her. She saw me, you know? I sat in the back of her class and played dumb and she wasn't fooled. Not one damn bit.

Drunk driver plowed into her. I wanted to hunt the bastard down myself but he died in the wreck.

She's pale and grey. The look she gives me is sad, like she hates seeing me like this. That kinda pisses me off. I'm okay. I'm fine. Don't expect anyone else to understand, anyway.

I walk right through her and she vanishes in a puff of cold grey smoke.

When I turn the corner I'm twenty feet away from the back exit.

Somebody's standing right in front of the door.

Hallway's dark, full of shadows, but even from where I'm standing I can see right away that whoever this is, it ain't Dad.

I see a brown uniform. Gun belt, holster, and sidearm.

I pull the Colt out as I lean against the wall, then I ease down the hall sideways. I make one lousy target that way, but I've got the advantage. I can't let anyone stop me now.

I draw a little closer and cold chill claws its way up my spine.

The top part of the brown uniform is splattered with gray matter and blood. My eyes adjust to the darkness even more and I know who it is. Sheriff Andrew J. McGlynn, late of the San Mateo County Sheriff's Department.

Except for that pissed off expression on his face, dude looks just like he did the last time I saw him: dead.

The ghoul took the top of his head off like a dog gnawing on a chicken bone. Teethmarks in his skin, bone splinters sticking up past his ears and one long claw mark curving across his cheek that opened his mouth up almost to his ear. He took a shot at the damned thing, so naturally it bit his gun arm off at the elbow.

The blood dripping off his bloody stump onto the floor sounds like rainwater from a drainpipe.

When he was alive it was hate at first sight from the moment we met, and death hasn't changed a friggin' thing. McGlynn glares at me and I glare right back.

"We tried to tell you, asshole," I mutter to myself. I tuck my pistol back into my waistband as I walk by. "You didn't believe us. Why the hell wouldn't you listen?"

I glance down at the wall right beside him, and that's when I remember exactly why I walled this particular number up.

McGlynn's daughter Rebecca was the cheerleader type. Tall, built, flirty as hell. She hung around the living room the first time Dad and I dropped by to talk to her father, and hell yeah, I admit it, if I could've followed her upstairs to her room right then and there, I would've. Of course, her Dad was right there, with his gun on his hip. Not a good idea. I may be a horndog, but I'm not stupid, so I sat there on the couch next to Dad trying not to fidget in that thrift store black suit and tie and pretended to ignore her. That only made her flirt even more, behind her Dad's back.

She doesn't look so flirty now.

The ghoul got to her before her father arrived back home, so it took its time with her, stripped her skin off to her waist, pulled her long brown hair out by the handfuls. She doesn't look up at me, she just sits there, with her knees drawn up to her chest, rocking back and forth, brown eyes all wide and blank.

McGlynn was stubborn and wouldn't listen to me or Dad. Later on his deputies picked me up as I was coming out of the library. Damn fool had me locked up in a cell overnight, and the next morning I was taken out ten miles past the county limits, dumped, and told not to come back. They took my cell phone, and I had to hike eight more miles to a last chance gas station to call Dad. He picked me up as soon as he could, which wasn't easy because McGlynn had put an APB out on the Impala.

McGlynn and his daughter were dead by the time we got back into town. We tracked the ghoul down and scragged its sorry ass, but saving the McGlynns was the whole point.

And we didn't.

On the way out I sat slumped down in the passenger side, staring at my boots. We had the town in our rear view mirror, and nothing but open highway ahead of us. I was damned glad of it. I was sick of the place, sick of the people. I didn't have to say a word.

Dad shrugged. "We can't save everybody, Dean. You know that."

Tired of this life, you know? Tired of trying to save stupid.

I don't even notice as McGlynn and his daughter both vanish into thin air behind me. Night air's cool; feels good after being cooped up inside. It's about eleven thirty by my watch. I walk along the side of the building and pick a good place to hide in the bushes. Wouldn't do to have some real or rent-a-cop come by.

Thirty five minutes later I hear the rumble of the girl's engine off in the distance. Figures. Dad's not gonna drive right up to the building.

Yahtzee.

"Dean."

Dad's dressed in all black, same as he was when I saw him two weeks ago.

Your Dad can't help it, Dean. He's old and tired. Parents get like that sometimes.

He looks tired. Red eyed. Kinda thin, too, like he hasn't been eating.

I blink again. He looks good. He's moving okay, not limping, or stiff.

I'm not fooled. Not one damn bit.

"Hey, Dad."

He glances at me, gives me the once over, then nods to himself just a little. "So what have you got?"

I nod back towards the rec building. I'm lying like a rug. I don't know where in the hell all this is coming from; I just go with it. "A couple of teenagers disappeared in the area the day after you left. Another two disappeared last week, both cases a couple of blocks from here. Both pairs male and female."

Dad nods to himself again, and we turn and walk towards the building. "I did some checking, and it's not the first time. Happens every two years. This is a poor neighborhood, so the cops just chalk the disappearances up as runaways. This place was boarded up ten years ago. Found some weird looking symbols on the walls inside, near the pool."

…shoot him…

"Tagger graffiti?" Dad rumbles, and I shake my head. "Doesn't look like any I've ever seen."

…in the back of the head. Twice.

I reach the door first, grab that big brass handle and pull it open so Dad can step through first.

Then he can rest and go to heaven and be with your mom.

I reach back underneath my jacket and put my hand on my Desert Eagle.

You can do that for him, can't you, Dean ?

I pull my gun out all the way, smooth and easy, and I should have known better than to think this was gonna go smooth. My family doesn't do easy. Never have. So why the fuck would this be any different?

Dad turns, grabs me by the wrist, fists my jacket with his other hand, and smashes me backwards into the wall. I see fucking stars, all right, big, bright and white when Dad head butts me twice while he lets go of my jacket and blocks my left hand.

My knees buckle and he follows up with a few more punches all over. Sharp pain in my right side; hard to breathe all of a sudden.

Broken rib, but I'm not gonna let that stop me. The old man is no pushover. Come on, he's my Dad, remember?

He slams my gun hand hard against the brick wall twice. Never give up your weapon. That's one of the first things Dad ever taught me. He's focused on my gun hand, so I open up and let the gun drop to the ground.

Doesn't seem to startle him. That glint in his eyes gets even harder then, and I know what he's thinking.

"Christo."

I don't even blink. I'm too busy moving, blocking his punches, kicking out with my legs, pushing him back. Can't let him hem me up.

He's close enough. And I still have my knife in my boot. And my Colt.

I don't back down, and neither does Dad. We're toe to toe, and I could almost fool myself into thinking we're just sparring. I kick him hard in his left leg. When Dad's leg buckles I step in close and trip him. Damn, I'm paying for getting in this close. Dad nails me again in the ribs several more times, like he knows I'm weak there.

Soon as his back hits the ground I'm right on top of him.

I don't even remember drawing my knife.

Dad blocks, and I slash him across his left palm. Meant to slash his throat this time. Gotta stop him somehow, slow him down.

I stab him in the left shoulder, sink the hilt of the knife all the way in.

"Son of a bitch!" Dad clocks me a good one right in the face.

Dean?

It's Anne Marie, inside my head.

I favor my right side as I back up. Dad glares at me like I'm a stranger or something. He breathes in and out and my knife moves up and down in him.

"So what's your name, princess?"

"It's me, Dad. Dean."

"No. You're good, I'll give you that. But you're not my son."

"Suit yourself." I'm not about to turn my back on Dad. I grope for the door handle with my left hand. I can see how tired he really is. "Don't expect you to believe me."

"Enjoy the ride while you can. I'm sending your sorry ass back to hell first chance I get."

Dude thinks I'm possessed? I can't help but laugh. "Is that what you think this is?"

Dad's tired. He's confused, but I know he's not gonna stay down for long. I pull the door open and shag ass inside, fast as I can. Well, as fast as I can beat halfway to hell, broken rib and all.

I don't need to look back. Dad's gonna follow me in. I know he is.

Have to get him inside, to the pool.

So Anne Marie and the others can see when I put him to rest.

TBC next Tuesday