One Month Later
"We gotta get outta this place!" Lizzy sings loudly in her terribly off key voice. "If it's the last thing we ever do!"
Being alone in the car is a rare occasion. Sammy's almost always with her or Dean or both these days. Dean lost his job when he disappeared for a few weeks straight when Lizzy came back from Purgatory so he's out of work, every day free. It's been a blessing and a curse, really. She's never alone.
But right now, Impala windows open and tunes cranked, she's given a reprieve of sorts. Coming back into the world after so long in Purgatory has left her exhausted emotionally and confused fairly often. And with a two year old that's getting more and more attached to her every day free moments are rare.
"We gotta get outta this place," she keeps singing, inhaling fresh air between lines as she listens to the Animals. They always remind her of her father. He loved them. "Girl, there's a better life for me and you."
The plastic of the grocery bags in the back seat flap as she returns from a solo shopping trip on the back roads of Kansas and her thumbs lightly drum the steering wheel. A familiar pull, a spark of something in her chest, shows up out of nowhere right then. She hasn't felt that in a while now, a few months to be exact, and the former mundaneness of it almost makes her ignore it.
Up ahead she sees a man walking along the side of the road and she starts to pull away from the shoulder to be safe. He's wearing a tan trench coat. She sighs a little.
She misses Castiel. Every now and then… only, like, once every damn hour… she's somehow reminded of him and it gets her very down. Her friend and ally is still back there. And there's not a damn thing she can do about it. The guilt is crushing.
Rubbing her forehead as she passes the man, Lizzy tried to once more push past the thoughts. Her greatest mistake in life will haunt her until she dies, she knows it.
Looking out the passenger side window she gets a good look at the man's face. A scruffy beard, white institutional uniform, dirt all over his face and coat, and piercing blue eyes watching her as the Impala sails right past him.
After a couple seconds it registers with her brain. Castiel. That's Cass walking on the side of the road.
Two feet on the brake, Lizzy slams the car to a stop with squealing tires and her heart racing. The second the Impala is no longer moving, black rubber trails streaked behind her on the pavement, Lizzy shoves the driver's side door open and jumps out, ready to rush to the disheveled looking angel.
There's no one there. The side of the road is empty. Right where she could swear Castiel had just been standing is absolutely nothing.
Blinking a few times as she stares at the empty air, her body frozen with confusion as the image was so real and right, Lizzy jumps when she hears a car horn blaring as a pickup truck goes whizzing by her, just missing her. It brings her out of her head enough to really think things through as she gets back into the Impala.
She's got to be losing it. She knew the guilt was getting worse day by day for not being able to save her protector but this is ridiculous. She's now seeing him, even feeling him, when he's not there. And how could he be there? There's no way out for him. She was the key, the reason the portal would open at all. Without her, even in a human body Castiel couldn't leave.
"Damn it," she whispers to herself as she gets the car rolling again, ready to get back home and talk to Dean. Maybe he can set her straight. He seems to be good at that these days.
"Mommy!" she hears the second she opens the front door. Two months back from Purgatory and she'll never get sick of that sound.
"Hey, big guy!" she happily greets him.
"Look what I make!" he shouts from down the hallway and disappears into the kitchen.
With a smile on her face, Lizzy walks to the kitchen with several grocery bags. She places them on the small island and turns to check out Sammy at the table with Lou.
"Oh wow, dude," Lizzy cheers as she sits down next to Sammy, scanning over all the formerly blank white pages scattered across the table along with a litany of colored crayons. Each page is filled with different colored scribbles of all shapes and sizes, each one its own childhood masterpiece. "You two have been busy."
"I make 'dis one for you," Sammy tells her and hands him a particular drawing.
Lizzy takes it and looks it over. A big purple swirl of a blob with a circle on top is the biggest thing on the page. It vaguely appears to be a person, brown straight lines for hair and what appears to possibly be a face in the middle of the circle. Next to that is a shorter version of the same thing, this time in blue with shorter brown lines for hair. She knows what it is well enough.
"You drew us?" Lizzy smiles at him, loving how he makes stick lines for arms and they end together, like they're holding hands.
"Yup," Sammy answers, tongue already hanging out of the side of his mouth as he continues to work on another picture, this one with something big, black, and maybe on wheels in it.
"Are you drawing daddy's car?" Lizzy asks, astounded that at just two years old she can already tell what it is he's attempting to create on the page.
"I draw Baby," Sammy answers, knowing that his daddy's car has a name.
"Wow," Lizzy laughs, knowing Dean never taught him the Impala's name but that Sammy just picked it up over time. "Not too bad kiddo. And this one?"
"That's daddy," Sammy answers easily.
"What's in his hand?" Lizzy has to wonder, the brown scribble giving nothing away.
"Beer."
"Did you say beer?" Lizzy has to ask again, eyes wide on her far too observant son.
"Yeah. Daddy drinks beer."
Staring down at the picture, Lizzy's mind thinks over the picture. "Huh."
"We need more paper," Lou cuts in as she sips her coffee in the chair on the other side of Sammy, her laptop open and eyes glued to it.
"I can see that," Lizzy huffs a laugh.
"How'd it go?" Lou asks, eyeing her and asking for the truth.
Lizzy rolls her eyes. "I'm okay, Lou. I can actually be in public by myself and not lose my shit, okay."
"Mommy! No!" Sammy scolds her right away. "You no say that!" His little index finger wags at her.
"Sorry, baby," Lizzy apologizes honestly. "You're right. I shouldn't say that." She knows she needs to be better with her language. A year in Purgatory with no little ears has made her liberal with the gutter mouth. She then looks back to Lou once Sammy drops the issue. "All I did was pick up food anyways. It was easy."
Lou nods. "Okay." She then ends her concern right there.
Lizzy smiles at her sister, thinking how funny it is to see her like this. Lou volunteered to watch Sammy while she shopped for food. She wanted to be home with him. And she's good with him. Really good.
"So… any more thoughts on what Sam mentioned the other night?"
Lou's face goes angry and serious. "He shouldn't have said anything in front of you guys. That's between us only."
"Why not?" Lizzy shrugs. "We're family."
"Family or not… that's between us."
"Are you at least entertaining the idea these days?" Lizzy presses on anyways.
Now it's Lou's turn to roll her eyes. "Not happening. Drop it."
"Don't dismiss it," Lizzy says, picking up a paper that she knows has a picture of Dean drawn on it with a beer in his hand. "Could be good for you two."
"And Kevin's still out there," Lou reminds her. "We have work to do. If I'm not out of the life then I'm not doing… that." Her eyes are on Sammy when she says it.
Lizzy nods, understanding. "But he wants that."
"And he's smart. He can want it all he wants… but we can't. Sam knows that."
"I don't know, it's working out well enough these days for Dean and me," Lizzy reminds her.
"Oh yeah? And how did the first year go?" Lou challenges with upset.
Her sister can't answer that one. "Sammy does need a friend… just saying…."
Lou shoots her a dangerous look. "No." She then mouths the words fucking. "Way."
Lizzy sighs and gives up. "Whatever. Where are the two dummies?"
"Out back," she nods to the backyard. "Mower won't start and the two men who have never even owned a mowed until recently think they can fix it."
"Great," Lizzy sarcastically replies and heads out back, leaving Lou with Sammy for a bit longer. Masterpiece in hand, she heads for the shed in the corner of the back fenced-in yard.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
"Wait… seriously?" Dean asks as he sits on the grass facing the underside of the push mower that's been tilted on its side.
Sam just smiles at the beer bottle in his hands from where he sits on the small cooler a couple feet away.
"That's pretty painful. And you just went with it?" Dean questions his brother as if he might have recently lost his damn mind.
"She can be very persuasive," Sam tells him, sipping his beer on the warm day. He's internally shocked that they're even having this conversation.
"Sam, you get uptight when someone even says words like pussy or balls deep."
Sam simply shrugs in return.
"It's like I don't even know you," Dean comments with surprise as he uses a screw driver to loosen the screws on the blades.
Sam huffs a laugh. "Come on. Like you've never done anything like that?"
"Uh, no, Sam. I haven't. Because I'm usually not on the receiving end of that kinda stuff."
"Never?" Sam asks, starting to feel self-conscious.
"Not really," Dean shakes his head, thinking. "There was this one chick… uh, I think we were in a town outside of Orlando…."
"The time we snuck out and went to Disney?" Sam asks, remembering vaguely.
"Nah, the time it rained for the whole week and we couldn't go."
"Right, that sucked," Sam recalls, mind far off. "You ditched me at a Plucky's one of those nights."
"Good memory," Dean remarks, surprised Sam would remember something so mundane. "Yeah, I went to a dive with my fake I.D. that night. Just had to get out." Dean pauses what he's doing to search his brain. "God, what was her name?"
"You're thinking of the chick with the bleached blonde hair with black roots that had bruises on her forearm and leg?"
"Yeah! That one!"
"She was pretty gross, Dean," Sam easily remembers the winner of the night. He was absolutely skeeved out by her when Dean brought her back to the motel and got Sam another room.
"I was twenty," Dean brushes the observation aside. "And, honestly, I swore off Florida chicks all together after that. Unless we were in Miami. Miami girls are… mm. Totally different breed."
Sam just shakes his head with a small smile, remembering the good old days that really weren't all that good.
"Well, that chick was berzerk. I mean… shit I hadn't ever thought of before."
"That's impressive," Sam nods.
"In a bad way," Dean assures. "And let's just say… she had bruises for a reason."
Sam just gives his brother a question look, not understanding.
"I think she got them from dudes trying to defend themselves," Dean spills. "She basically kicked my ass in bed. I was fucked up after that."
"Right. The black eye!" Sam recalls suddenly.
"Bingo. Berzerk," Dean eyes him hard as he gets the last screw out and pulls the blades off the mower.
"Dude, Lou isn't like that," Sam denies right away.
"You trying to tell me you two never left bruises on each other?" Dean shoves the fact in his face. "Because I recall some mysterious ones on both of you in the past."
"I never said she wasn't a little wild… just saying she didn't ever punch me in the friggin' eye."
"I would hope not," Dean says back, reaching into the mower and removing large wads of dead grass.
"Lou has her own style," Sam explains. "And, honestly… she doesn't scare me anymore."
Dean gives his brother a look of pure bullshit.
"Okay, so maybe now and then she still scares me a little," Sam confesses. "But I never tried half the shit she got me to try before I met her. I had no idea about half that stuff."
"Like?" Dean presses, more grass getting dislodged from the mower.
"Like… I don't know," Sam shrugs and gets quiet, drinking his beer while getting uncomfortable.
"No, no, no. You can't just sit here and claim that your sex life is more adventurous than mine but you can't even manage to say any of it." He laughs at Sam. "You blushing, innocent young man, you."
"Alright, fine," Sam sits up taller, ready to see if he can actually outdo his sex-crazed big brother. "Shot for shot."
"Seriously?" Dean asks.
"Yup. And only the wives. No past chicks. We'll keep it even."
Something triggers Dean's competitive spirit on this one. He drops his tools and takes a little break, taking up his beer instead. "Ladies first." He nods at Sam to start.
"Okay… I'll start small. Mirrors."
"What about 'em?" Dean makes an unimpressed face.
"She's so into mirrors it's almost weird," Sam explains. "I think it's an ego thing or whatever. But if there's a mirror in the room… we're doing it."
"Okay," Dean nods. "Vanilla as all hell, but okay."
"I said I was starting small."
"You did, you did," Dean agrees. "I'll see Lou's thing for mirrors and raise you… bathroom sex. Like, a lot of bathroom sex."
"Why the bathroom?" Sam has to wonder.
"Dude, how many years were we on the road with L and we all shared a room? Sometimes doing it in the bathroom was the only option."
"In our motel room!?" Sam asks, hoping he's wrong and they didn't do that while he was there.
"Sometimes. Or in the bar bathroom before coming back to the room. Whatever worked."
"Gross," Sam makes a nasty face at the idea of the bathrooms at the dives Lizzy and Dean frequented.
"Hey, we were fucking about four or five times a week back then. Desperate times."
Sam gives him a funny look. "Back then?"
"Yeah, back then. You know… when we were new and all," Dean tells him, looking down at his beer. "We've been married a while now. Shit slows down…."
"Doesn't have to," Sam slickly remarks, smirking proudly.
"And you don't have a kid, Sam," Dean reminds.
"Okay, that's fair," Sam gives in. "Alright… uh… I see your bathroom sex and raise you…." He thinks briefly before getting it, raising an index finger when the lightbulb goes off. "Watching porn."
"Lou's a porn watcher?" Dean asks with very pleasant surprise.
"She tells me any woman that claims to not watch porn is a liar."
Dean laughs. "L says the same thing. But we don't really watch it together."
"There's a reason our credit cards get maxed at some motels," Sam huffs a quiet laugh at that.
"No shit." Dean's happily delighted by this information on the hard ass woman he's been living with for a year and what she's done to his brother.
"And dude… I think she might like chicks or something," Sam mentions offhandedly and with a slight undertone of worry. "A lot of lesbian porn. And threesomes with two girls."
Dean face melts into something very serious with the information. "Are you complaining about that?"
"No! God no… just… weird, you know," Sam airs his concerns. "She's never mentioned wanting that in real life. She just likes watching it while having sex with a guy… I guess."
"Hey, I know I get off on two chicks," Dean mentions. "Why not Lou too?"
Sam just nods as his over analytical brain once more tries to make sense of Lou's pornographic preference.
Dean's brain starts thinking in another direction. "You know, you play this thing right you could get some side action on it."
"What do you mean?" Sam wonders, lost.
Dean shakes his head at his dense brother. "Dude, she clearly likes chicks at least a little bit. You could probably talk her into another girl joining you." Dean has a moment of surreal-ness. "And I just said that to my uptight little brother…."
"No way," Sam instantly denies.
"Why not!?"
"Just… don't want that," Sam says with an air of weirdness.
"No straight dude has ever said that before," Dean tells him with a very serious voice, his face fallen.
"I… don't know," Sam shrugs and looks away.
"You're voice went up."
"Shut up."
"You're lying."
"Am not!"
Dean doesn't bother speaking. He just lets his bullshit-calling expression do the speaking.
"Alright. What if… what if she ends up liking that… more than me? Us?"
Dean pauses, brow wrinkled as he blinks a few times. "You think you'll lose her to a chick if you both sleep with one?"
"Maybe…."
"That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard. Sam, if you don't make that happen someday… I have no hope for the rest of us."
Sam just huffs a laugh at that.
"Okay… I'll see your lesbo porn watching and raise you threesome with a stripper."
Sam's face drops. "Dude, a stripper…."
"It was a crowning achieving in my life with L," Dean proudly tells him. "Had to make sure I got that in there before we settled too much, you know?"
"Maybe both our wives are a little gay then."
"I wish," Dean nearly drools at the idea. He then snaps his fingers after thinking over the idea of Lizzy possibly being into girls. "I got another one."
"I didn't even have a turn yet!"
"Doesn't matter," Dean hastily tells him and eagerly adds another one-upper to his list. "I've actually had my wife go down on me while fingering me." He grins so wide it hurts, an elbow leaning on his knee with pride. Oh, the memories of that very long night….
Sam's eyes pop out of his skull at this. "You too!?"
Dean's face turns white with shock. "Uh… what?"
Sam looks around, making sure it's just them as he prepares to say way more than he ever thought he'd share with his brother. He leans a little closer to Dean and nearly whispers. "Lou just kinda sprung that one on me a while back. I wasn't ready for it at all but her finger just kinda… got in there… but that's just how Lou does things. She just… does them. No warning…."
"Sam!" Dean interrupts him and it's then that Sam realizes the horror on Dean's face when this conversation takes a weird turn he wasn't ready for. "I was talking about when I got cursed. And I was a chick."
With instantly beet-red cheeks, Sam starts to stutter. "Right," his high pitched tone says with clear discomfort. "I remember that. I knew… that happened. And I was just… uh…." He stops there and takes a massive pull from his beer.
Dean washes a hand down his face as a smile creeps over his expression. "Sammy…."
"Dean. Don't," Sam nearly whines with already there embarrassment.
"Did Lou pop your backdoor cherry?" Dean asks with way too much excitement and glee.
"Shut up," Sam spits out, knowing he'll never live this down.
Letting out a good, hardy laugh, Dean enjoys the moment. "I can't believe you actually told me that."
"Me neither," Sam admits, looking down at the overgrown grass. Regret. All he feels is regret. And here he was thinking he was finally opening up a little.
"Oh man," Dean huffs out, trying to calm his laughing. "So?"
"So…?
"So, was it good?" Dean asks. "'Cause I gotta be honest, I've never been there with a chick before."
Sam's face turns bright red again.
"Aw, come on, Sammy!" Dean complains. "You're gonna clam up now?"
Sam shakes his head and swallows thickly. "It, ah… it wasn't bad." He pauses there.
"You figgin' liked it," Dean smirks. "Always knew you were kinky under all that studying and straight-laced bullshit." He then laughs a little once more.
Sam shoots him that all too familiar, patented bitch-face.
"Dude, relax. It's cool. Don't get all weird about it."
"You're laughing at me," Sam points out.
"Not because of the whole…" Dean says, making a poking motion with his index finger. Sam just groans with hatred for the pantomiming. "I'm actually kinda impressed. Lou's… adventurous."
"Putting it lightly."
"And you're keeping up. And I think that's a damn good thing if you ask me. I just never expected you to ever admit something like that to me. That's all." Dean laughs a couple more times, getting past how embarrassed Sam is. "Whoo. Wow. Insightful afternoon."
Sam huffs the smallest of laughs at that. Dean made a great point. Before now he never would have shared such information with his older brother. Maybe the year off, living together and just plain being themselves has helped them out a lot. Not ready to give up on this newfound ability to be open… or at least more open than before… Sam speaks up. "I see your… girl on girl action, and raise you the one thing you've never gotten outta Lizzy."
Dean looks at Sam with green jealousy, instantly knowing what he's speaking of. "No."
"Yep," Sam smirks, popping the 'p' sound with gusto.
"No." When his little brother just gives him a gloating look Dean gets pissed. "Seriously!? What the hell!?"
"Dude, if she was willing to go there with me then you had to assume I've been there with her."
"There is no justice in this world, I swear," Dean mutters to himself with anger. "Lou's into that?"
"Pretty hard, actually."
"So fucking unfair!"
Smiling, Sam says, "Remember last night when she whispered something to me after dinner and you made a joke about girls sharing secrets or something."
"Ya-Ya Sisterhood… or whatever," Dean nods, remembering somewhat.
"Yeah, well, she was telling me that she wanted me to… fuck her ass later that night. Her words. Not mine," he clarifies.
"And you did!?" Dean asks, golf ball sized eyes waiting.
Sam narrows his eyes playfully. "Lou generally gets what she wants in bed."
"Son of a bitch!" Dean gets super pissed off and incredibly jealous at that, Sam grinning ear to ear with his ability to make Dean this mad. "Holy shit. I married the wrong girl."
"Excuse you!?" a very upset sounding female voice asks and when they both look they see Lizzy heading their way with a paper in her hand.
"Did you know Lou takes it up the ass regularly? And likes it?" Dean asks her impatiently.
"Of course," Lizzy shrugs, making it clear it's no big secret to her. "She's always been kinda into that. I mean, not every day or anything but now and then."
Sam absently nods, agreeing with Lizzy's assessment, and it makes Dean lose it.
"What the hell? You're just gonna let Sam hold this one over me?" Dean asks her with upset.
Lizzy pauses as she stands next to him, looking down at his seated form with a straight face. "Do you really want to discuss anal sex with me while Sam's right here?"
Dean glances at his brother, Sam making a show of sitting with an attentive, waiting face, and he sighs. "I guess not. But this conversation isn't over."
"When has it ever been over?" Lizzy laughs at him. "Here."
Dean takes the offered paper and looks it over. A lot of scribbles. "What the hell is it?"
"That, dear, is you. Holding a beer," Lizzy says, only partially patronizingly. "Sammy made it for you."
Dean nods to it now that he can make out what the image is. As he glances at what must be an alcoholic beverage in his hand, he comments, "Fair assessment."
"It doesn't concern you that when your son thinks of an image of you he pictures booze in your hand?" she asks, making it clear that it is a concern for her.
Thinking about it for a moment, Dean answers, "Well, maybe it's a little concerning."
Lizzy lifts an eyebrow at him.
"I'll slow down during the day, okay?" Dean promises. "Car work, yard work… just not when with him."
"I like it," Lizzy smiles at him and leans down to kiss his cheek. "Hey, uh… something kinda weird happened on my way home. Thought I'd mention it to you, see if I'm maybe losing it or not since, you know… Purgatory and all."
Dean's forehead wrinkles with worry. "What happened?"
"Well," she begins, sitting down on the grass next to him so that she can see both brothers. "I saw Cass."
"Cass?" Dean repeats with surprise. "What do you mean you saw him?" He can see Sam sit up taller out of his peripheral vision.
"I mean, I saw him," Lizzy starts explaining. "I was driving down the street after I left the grocery store to come home and he was just walking on the side of the road."
"Did you stop?" Sam wonders quickly.
"No, I sped away," she caustically bites. "Of course I stopped! I slammed on the brakes, got out… and he wasn't there anymore. He just vanished."
This is where Sam and Dean exchange a thoughtful look.
"No. See? This is why when I found out the two of you were together out here I almost waited to say anything until it was just me and Dean," Lizzy complains with their reaction.
"What? Why?" Sam questions, hurt by her comment.
"You both know I hate that stupid brother-ESP crap you do. Don't think silently to each other. Use words. Include other people."
Dean levels her with a look that's softer and filled with concern for her. "We're just wondering if you really saw Cass or if maybe just your brain or whatever did."
"I saw Cass," Lizzy answers quickly and with confidence.
"But you said that was impossible," Sam reminds her. "That without you he wasn't getting out."
"Right," Lizzy nods, agreeing completely with the statement.
"Then it couldn't have been him."
"But it was," she fights back and Sam gives her an expression filled with sympathy for her clearly messed up mind. "Dude, I swear it was him!"
"We're just trying to figure out how that'd make any sense," Dean calmly tells her. "Cass can't just pop out of purgatory on his own and he's stuck there. So, you know it makes no sense that you'd actually be seeing him on the road like that."
"Logically, no. I should be thinking I was seeing things and be really concerned with my own wellbeing. But it's more than just seeing him."
They both wait silently for further explanation.
"I felt him."
"Meaning?" Sam asks.
"Meaning… I've been able to feel Cass and his presence ever since he popped back into my life in my twenties. I know that feeling. Well. And I felt it right before I saw him walking on that road."
Dean sighs and closes his eyes before rubbing them with his free hand. Stress. Always with the stress.
"I'm fine, Dean. I just think…"
"You're not alright," Dean tells her, lifting his lids to look right at her. "None of us are ever alright. Every time we think we might be… something happens. Either Cass is back and that makes no sense or something terrible is happening or you're losing your freakin' mind. No offence."
"Oh, none taken," she lies with pure sarcasm.
"I'm sorry, I'm just sick of it. Even now, even after a year of having a home, a real one, and real jobs… it just never stops," Dean tells her with fear as he stares at his beer for a split second before killing it off.
And Lizzy just watches, sadness creeping in. "I didn't come out here to ruin your day."
"I know that," Dean tells her, ditching the empty next to his other on the grass and picks up the screwdriver and mower blade again. "But first having to find Kevin and now Cass in your head, I was hoping that once you were back shit wouldn't fall apart."
"It hasn't," Sam tries to help.
"Yet," Dean comments quietly while starting to replace the blade.
Sighing, Lizzy gets up onto her feet again. "I shouldn't have said anything."
"No, you should have," Dean tells her, not looking away from his work. "We need to know what's happening with you. It's just never great hearing about the crap."
Looking to Sam, Lizzy gives him a questioning look to ask if he's got this. Sam nods and Lizzy head back for the house to keep looking for leads on Kevin and make Sammy some lunch.
Once she's gone Sam waits a moment before telling Dean, "Could've been a little warmer there."
"You mean about reacting to my wife seeing her dead guardian angel?" Dean grips, blade almost back on the mower.
"We don't know he's dead."
"He's probably dead." The pain in his tone alone makes Sam move on.
"Look. She's being honest. Something both of us kinda suck at," Sam huffs a little laugh. "You should be thankful for that."
"I am. Hell, she's a freakin' open book and I don't think I could handle if she was anything like me."
"So take it in stride instead of act like she's burdening you. Or she won't keep sharing stuff with you."
Dean locks eyes with Sam. "You want me to act like sunshine and puppies over her brain cracking?"
"No. Just don't be a dick is all I'm asking," Sam explains himself. "And you really think her brain is cracking?"
"What else could it be?"
"Maybe Cass really is back. She said she felt him and Sammy had that dream a month ago that sounded like Cass visiting him."
"He's way more likely to die in Purgatory than get out and you know that," Dean tells him. "Cass… I'm just now accepting that about him. Don't ask me to have hope over him ever being alive and out of that shit hole. Ain't gonna happen."
"How do you know that for sure?" Sam challenges. "I mean, we've gotten outta hairier situations before."
"Well, Cass ain't us. And seriously, when was the last time we got any kind of good luck?"
Sam gives him a surprised look. "Lizzy's here, Dean. She's back with us."
"And there goes all the luck we had left," Dean depressingly assumes. "I've had to let it go, man. Cass is gone. No need to get hopes up… especially not Lizzy's. She can't handle the disappointment when he never shows up."
"Yeah," Sam agrees while peering back to the house in which Lizzy just disappeared. He knows her well enough too. She's been hanging onto false hope for Castiel this whole time. "Maybe that's why she's seeing him. She can't let it go."
"Especially since she blames herself for him still being there," Dean concurs with Sam's assessment easily. Dean's shoulders visibly drop. "As much as I'd love to have him back and as much as I wish I could do anything to bring him here… he's gone, man."
Sam nods. "I know. Me too and… I know."
Dean and Sam both keep quiet as Dean puts the lawnmower back together. When done and he pulls the cord, Dean finds a reason to smile. "Got her started," he smiles wide at Sam. Sometimes a small victory is all he needs to hang onto.
"Nice work," Sam flatly tells him.
"Alright, get going," Dean shouts over the hum of the mower as he starts for the house, wiping his hands on his jeans.
"What!? Where you going!?" Sam asks, standing up off the cooler with outrage.
"Lawn ain't gonna mow itself, Sammy," Dean tells his brother and he walks up the stairs and into the house, smirking the whole time.
Sam just stares at the idling mower with disbelief. "Jerk."
"Am I the only one that doesn't drink all day around here?" Lizzy questions as she looks at Lou while putting the last of the groceries away.
Her sister is still at the table with Sammy, her laptop open and a bottle of beer next to it.
"Probably," Lou absently says, clicking away on her keyboard and giving Lizzy only minimal attention.
"At least you're busy while getting your buzz on," Lizzy comments, pulling out bread, jelly and peanut butter. "You got something on Kevin?"
"Nothing still," Lou sighs, sitting back in her chair once she's gotten a better idea of the story she's just found. She crosses her arms and looks to Lizzy. "He's a squirrely little fu… friend." She edits herself last second and Lizzy just laughs at her.
"Nice catch."
"Thanks," Lou half-laughs also. "But I may have found something else."
"Why are you looking for something else?" Lizzy has to wonder, having gotten the impression that Lou and Sam were only after Kevin and nothing else.
"Boredom. The Kevin search hasn't been too successful so I started farting around to break up the monotony."
"Old habits?" Lizzy keeps prying as she had thought they were all trying their best to get out of hunting.
"That, and I've been known to call people now and then with cases, make sure things get taken care of."
Lizzy pauses in the middle of spreading peanut butter on bread to smirk at her sister. "You're Bobby."
"Huh?" Lou takes offence with just the man's name.
"That's what Bobby used to do. He'd send us and tons of others out on jobs he found. You're the new Bobby."
Lou's face wrinkles with dislike. "No one is Bobby."
"I know that. You're just… taking up the slack since he can't." The sad smile on Lizzy's lips makes it clear she remembers the man with fondness and pain yet appreciates what Lou is doing in his absence.
Swallowing hard, Lou moves on so she doesn't have to speak about that loss. "Whatever. I've been looking for demonic activity since, you know, Crowley's a dickhead demon."
"Seems like a good start," Lizzy mentions, peering at Sammy. He's not listening. Instead he's wrapped up in his current picture. Good.
"Well, this kid went missing from a preschool," Lou explains, once more glued to her laptop screen. "And at the same time that he vanished a surprise tornado hit. Like, literally out of the clear blue sky. It was sunny and gorgeous out and then boom, tornado that lasted 20 seconds. And just like it started, it just suddenly stopped. Back to perfect weather."
"And some people still say climate change is crap," Lizzy shakes her head.
"But here's the super weird part. Similar things have happened over the past few weeks in other places all over the place. In Tulsa a bus driver vanishes and a river gets overrun with frogs. In New Mexico a mailman disappears, the earth splits open."
"So of course you immediately think… uh, our black-eyed friends, right?" She glances at Sammy to see if he's listening. Still nothing.
"Duh," Lou comments rudely.
"Duh," Sammy copies her right away, not really listening but knowing the sound Lou makes isn't one he's supposed to repeat.
"Dude! Watch it!" Lizzy warns him as she finishes up the sandwich.
Sammy doesn't respond, just keeps coloring.
"Yeah, possibly our black-eyed friends, but... I mean, this stuff is nuts." Lou waits while Lizzy pours a sippy cup of milk and brings Sammy his lunch.
"Here, baby," Lizzy says to him, pulling the crayon out of his hand and sliding his current masterpiece out of the way. He grimaces and she laughs. "I swear, you took that look straight off your dad's face. Eat some lunch and you can finish up after, okay?"
"Okay," Sammy easily relents when he sees the sandwich in front of him, crust cut off.
"Lizard, these people have nothing in common," Lou keeps going, turning her screen so Lizzy can see the open article on it. "No religious affiliations, different hometowns, all ages. Why would de… our black-eyed friends… want them?"
"Why do they ever want anything?" Lizzy comments while looking the list over. The kid that disappeared looks so young. He must be terrified. It makes her look over at Sammy with fear in her heart. That boy's mother must be going crazy. "Who you sending on this one?"
"Not sure yet," Lou lies, thinking this looks just Crowley enough to warrant their specific attention.
"Hey," Dean greets and comes in through the back door.
"Boots!" Lizzy points at his feet. "I just swept."
"Yeah, yeah," Dean gripes with fake upset and kicks his shoes off by the door. "Is it lunch time already? Whacha got, big guy?"
"Peanut butter and jelly," Sammy answers through a full mouth as he raises one half of his sandwich, two big bites missing.
"Chew your food before you speak!" Lizzy lightly scolds. She then looks to Dean. "You want something?"
"What're you making?" Dean asks.
"I bought turkey," she answers and holds up the package from the grocery deli.
"Awesome," Dean grins and sits down next to Sammy to leaf through the pages all over the table. "Wow. Sammy, buddy… you've been busy."
"I maked a picture for you," Sammy tells him.
"I know. Mommy showed me," Dean tells him, realizing he left it outside by the cooler. He now hopes Sam won't mow over it. "But it looks like you made one for every person in the neighborhood."
"I maked Baby," Sammy says, putting down his sandwich and pointing to the picture of a big, boxy, black blob on wheels.
"Look at that," Dean grins with much pride as he picks up the paper. It's Baby alright, somewhere in the scribbles. And even Sammy knows her name these days. There's just something way too good about that idea. "We should put this up in the shed with all our car stuff."
"Okay!" Sammy gets excited with that idea, knowing all the items Dean stores for working on the car is in one place in the back shed.
"We'll do that after lunch," Dean promises, smiling still.
"Where's Sam?" Lou asks.
"Mowing the lawn," Dean smirks with triumph.
Lou face wrinkles with confusion. "Thought you said you were doing that."
He shrugs in return.
"Well, when he's done, we're having a pow wow," Lou tells him, shutting her laptop for now and standing up from the table. She heads off to who knows where.
"Nice talking to you," Dean mutters quietly as he sits there.
"She's got something," Lizzy explains, cutting two sandwiches in half and plating them.
"On Kevin?" Dean asks, perking up with hope.
"Uh, maybe… maybe not," Lizzy tells him, grabbing two bottles of water along with two plates and sitting at the kitchen table. "Time will tell."
She places a big, loaded sandwich in front of him and he smirks a little. Homemade anything still gets Dean giddy like a child. He wastes no time and take a massive bite, barely chewing before humming in approval.
"It's just a sandwich," she reminds for the millionth time. Since she's been back and reintroduced into a more domestic way of life, Dean's been in heaven. Home cooked, not-fried food seems to excite him as much as a good roll in the hay these days.
"It's a treasure," Dean disagrees with her simplicity. A real sandwich made with real bread, turkey, cheese, lettuce, tomato, the good kind of mustard… and love? That's not something to think nothing of. It's huge.
"Aw, well you're a treasure," she winks and smile, proving she's joking. Dean gives her a look of disgust and she moves on. "All Lou told me about were some weird omens and… people disappearing. Sounds like a certain one of our playmates."
"Ah," Dean nods, understanding right away. "Plan?"
"She'll get to that. I think Sam finishing yard work and Sammy's nap time should line up for us all to talk."
"Perfect."