A/Ns: I wrote this chapter months ago, so the Avengers reference in it seemed totally innocuous at the time, a bit of fun, you know? Now, of course, it just sounds like I'm still stuck on Endgame… Not that I'm not, or, like, going to see it again this weekend, or anything… XD

Reviews: You all continue to be fantastic and I really really really appreciate it! For the guests reviewing on ff dot net without a login, some of you have been asking fantastic questions or just leaving really wonderful reviews. Please know that I would love to reply to your comments, answer your curiosities, and thank you personally. If that is something you're interested in, please PM me or leave me some sort of contact or something. Whatever works best for you!

Chapter Warnings: Andy's taking advice from Edna Mode, Dean's getting to play with just his absolute favorite of supernatural beasties, and Sam's in a sharing mood. Bring on the capes, coins, and just a sprinkle of silliness.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The Road So Far (This Time Around)

Season 2: Chapter 32

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The mist was thick, almost fog really, and it hung low in the air, heavy enough to taste the humidity with every breath. It was somehow worse in the cemetery; the trees were slick with it, moss hanging off the branches lowest to the ground, swaying in a wind that didn't seem to exist. The tombstones and above-ground entombments of soldiers long-time passed were hazy silhouettes in the yellow lights of the nearest street and then the grey light of a half-moon once the three hunters ventured further in.

The Winchesters had told Andy to stay in the car, but yeah, no, screw that. That was how people died in horror movies, man. Didn't they know that?

"Can I have a gun?" he asked as he caught up to the two brothers, one armed with shovels and a small duffel, the other with a shotgun. Both of them exchanged looks before answering together.

"No."

Andy made a face, toyed with the idea of making Dean give him the shotgun (although he knew he'd never actually do it. Sam would kill him and then Dean would kill him again once he came out of it. It was a fun thought, though.) "Does a gun even do anything to a ghost?"

"It does when the shell is packed rock-salt."

The kid's brow went up in interest. They'd given him the basic rundown of supernatural baddies and their weaknesses, mostly in response to his stream of questions and curiosity and logistics that kept him from thinking too much about the last few days or the shambles his life was in.

"Bet those aren't standard rounds," he chuckled, quickening his step to come up between them, almost tripping on his robe as it tried to tangle between his legs. "Do you guys pack 'em yourself?"

They looked surprised, exchanging another one of those brotherly-type looks, and Andy glanced between them.

"Really? Bible belt, guys. Practically doubles as the second amendment belt?" Andy laughed again at their faces. "What kind of civilians are you used to dealing with?"

"The kind that would have stayed in the car," Dean emphasized, but his grump was mostly for show.

"Or the kind too shocked by the werewolf breaking into their house to remember where the gun safe is," Sam added and Andy had to concede that point.

He didn't have much experience with guns, himself. He'd shot a rifle a couple of times with some high school buddies, mostly cans and bottles in fields or on camping trips, but it hadn't really been his thing. He knew plenty of hunters, though. The turkey and deer kind, he thought, glancing at the two brothers who were definitely unlike anyone he'd met in his hometown.

Silence fell between the three as they kept moving deeper into the park. Their ghost was old – really old – and that meant the back of the place, apparently. He was civil war era level old, which, according to Sam and Dean, was pretty rare. Most of the time, ghosts hanging around that long were usually taken care of by hunters generations before them. Unless they were newly awoken by something, like an excavation or grave robbery.

Apparently, the only sorts of ghosts who managed to stick around to the triple digits were either in a remote location, kept a low victim count, or were of the rare power level that made them too risky to go after.

"Like the Morton House," Dean said, not that Andy knew what that meant. Sam immediately spared his brother a look.

"No."

"I'm not saying we go," the older Winchester amended with an eye roll, but Andy kinda had the feeling that's exactly what he was saying. "I'm just using it as an example."

"Do I even want to know?"

Sam shook his head in Andy's direction, hefting the shovels over his shoulder as they picked their way through graves. Andy had been armed with a flashlight and the job of finding their dead Lieutenant ('If you're tagging along, you're gonna be useful') but he wasn't really paying much attention to the passing names. Unfortunately for them, this section of the cemetery was old enough that half the names weren't even visible on the stone anymore, and the county office didn't have accurate plot records for at least a quarter of the park's skeletal residents. It certainly had the potential to be a very long night.

"It's a haunted house famous for its body count. No one even knows if it's one ghost or multiple, but the house locks down on February 29th, every four years. No hunter has ever come back from it."

"Plenty of school kids looking for a dare haven't come back, either," Dean added, pausing to wipe plant growth off of a tomb so they could properly read the faded name. Not their guy. "And it's one ghost. One pissed off, it-rub-the-lotion-on-its-skin level, psycho ghost, with a whole bunch of death echoes hanging around."

Sam raised his eyebrows at his brother, but Dean didn't elaborate further. The bitchface Sam pulled clearly said he was the one who didn't want to know, now.

"How has that gone unnoticed?" Andy's eyebrows were also up, but he was focused about the missing kids. "I mean, that many deaths on the same day, and local authorities haven't looked into it?"

"Because the house is back to normal by the time cops come looking. And no bodies have never turned up, so they're all classified as missing, usually declared runaways." Sam bent down in front of a grave, trying to discern the worn carving on it. He dropped the shovels to the ground beside him. "I think this is it, guys!"

"Thank Christ." Dean passed Andy the shotgun with a pointed look. The kid got a little more serious, giving a nod back as he took it. The older Winchester bent down for a shovel and started clearing the top layer of ground cover that had grown naturally after so many years.

The brothers broke ground and dug for several minutes of mostly silence, offset only by the shovels shifting dirt and the Winchesters occasional grunts of effort and heavy breathing. Andy stood guard, but he wasn't even sure what he was looking for. So, he just kept scanning across the misty landscape, the silhouetted tombs and tree trunks pretty creepy in the darkness.

"Oh yeah, if I was a monster, I'd definitely kill as many people as I could on a night like this." The comment, mentioned offhand, caused both brothers to stop digging, and silence reigned. Andy looked over his shoulder to catch their looks. "What? It's all about mood. Atmosphere! Even monsters understand setting the tone."

Dean shook his head, digging the blade of metal back into the ground. "Thanks for that truly helpful perspective there, kid."

Andy just shrugged, eyes going back to the mist. "Just trying to get in the killer's mind. Profile them. Like the FBI."

"They're monsters," Dean disagreed, groaning with effort against a particularly stubborn tree root that fought back. "This one's an ancient-ass ghost. Don't need profiling to hunt that down, just a good old fashioned salt-n-burn."

They'd made it about a foot down in a roughly six by two rectangle, and Andy grinned at them from the edge. "You know, that's what people in the sixties said about profiling psychopaths. 'They're psychopaths – don't gotta understand them, just gotta catch them.' But profiling actually turned out to be an incredibly useful tool to the FBI."

Sam was giving Dean the kind of look he knew too well. The look that said, 'He's got a point, you know.' It'd be a bitchface all of its own number if that look didn't also pull Dean's ass out of the fire on the occasional hunt. The older Winchester stopped digging and leaned against his shovel, glaring up at the much shorter kid instead of his brother.

"Okay, here's my profile of you: you watch too much television."

Andy seemed to think about it, like really think about it, before he turned to Sam and said, completely sincerely, "That's true. See, working already!"

Dean just rolled his eyes and Sam, who hadn't stopped digging, wondered when he became the mule who carried all the gear and did all the work while the other two bickered.

Good god. He'd become a middle child.

"Dig, Dean," he grumbled, though it was mostly good naturedly as his brother grumbled back and kicked the blade into the dirt.

"What else would you profile about me?" Andy crouched at the foot of the grave, maroon robe piling in the loose leaves around his feet. The shotgun was laid across his legs and doing them a whole lot of good. About as much good as their look-out.

"I'll tell you what I'd profile," Dean growled, not stopping digging this time at least. "You need a life. Some grooming wouldn't hurt. Change of wardrobe-"

"Hey, these are your clothes!"

"And you definitely need to get yourself a girlfriend."

The words were out before he had time to think them through. Good natured ribbing that the hunter would lay on just about anyone. Not even targeted specifically at the kid, just pulled from the Dean Winchester library of insults. But as soon as his brain caught up with his tongue, the older man closed his eyes, shovel stilling in the ground.

Silence reigned, and not the good kind.

"…Sorry, kid."

"It's okay." Andy was still crouching, legs like a cricket, a little too pale with a brittle smile on his face. Soon enough, though, it morphed into a weak grin. "It's the robe, isn't it?" He grabbed a hold of one side, holding out the edge like he was a back ally drug dealer with a trench coat full of fake Rolexes and little baggies of the good stuff. "Gives off too much of a 'lives-in-his-mother's-basement' vibe."

Dean huffed something very close to a laugh. Even Sam, who had stilled since the close mishap, shook his head.

"Maybe just a little?" The younger Winchester offered a sympathetic grimace, hand raised with his thumb and forefinger pinched together.

Andy sighed dramatically, and the tension passed. "But it's so comfortable!"

Dean could almost agree – there were days when he longed for his Dead Guy robe (and more so the bunker that came with it) – but that would be too easy. He had a reputation to maintain. So he shook himself back to grumpy.

"Maybe in a house, behind closed doors, buddy, with a white picket fence and a little yapper to go fetch the paper. But not in public, looking like Jerry Maguire and Ferris Bueller had a love child that hasn't showered for a month. And definitely not on a hunt! It's a friggin' work hazard."

Sam was trying to muffle his growing grin, but Andy just scoffed.

"If anything, it's an advantage!" The kid stood, swishing back and forth at the hips. The tails of the robe followed, and Sam kind of wondered when this had become his life. One hunter doing the hula and the other looking close to brotherly-murder-by-shovel. "Free range of movement, flexibility, ectoplasm slime shield-"

Dean reached out, latched onto the end of the fabric, and pulled. Andy yelped as he toppled into the shallow grave, landing in a heap between them. Leaning heavily onto the shovel once more, Dean looked down at his sprawled form with a smile made up entirely of teeth.

"Work hazard."

"So…" Andy sat up. "In that way, it's like a cape."

The older hunter just groaned, throwing his head back in clear defeat, and climbed out of the grave.

Andy scrambled up, soil-spattered robe and all. "And I'm a superhero."

He caught the shovel Dean chucked at him. "Why don't you put those heroic muscles to work, then, hero."

Sam, who decided several minutes ago that he was not going to dig this grave single-handedly to the surround-sound background music of two idiots bickering, was leaning on his own shovel when Dean looked his way. Andy started on his first dirt load.

"Whose idea was it for him to tag along?"

"Yours." Sam didn't even hesitate. He probably should have, given the glare he got in return. "Definitely yours."

"Brought two shovels for a reason, Sammy!" Dean hollered, bending down for the shotgun Andy had dropped. Sam rolled his eyes but dug the tip of the blade into the ground and started digging once more.

-o-o-o-

The attack, when it came, wasn't wholly unexpected, but the source of it sure was. Lieutenant James W Barnes' ghost ('Look for a metal arm, Sammy! If there's a metal arm in that grave, I'm so keeping it! God, you don't even know, do you? Just wait; 'Winter Soldier' was awesome. Only gotta wait…uh…eight years. Maybe seven?') reported attacks had suggested a powerful spirit. They were talking level five poltergeist activity, at the least. Ectoplasm had been present at the last two crime scenes, and that slime took a lot of rage and a lot of time.

Sam had only seen the stuff once or twice before in his life. It just didn't make any sense.

They'd spent half the day at the county records office, looking for whatever Lieutenant Barnes could have been tied to, or what might have woken him up. They walked away empty-handed, a day wasted and another victim dead in the time between. The only reason they even knew the identity of the ghost was a witness who'd turned out to have a good eye. Civil War nut, he'd explained, followed quickly by the distant look and numb expression usually acquainted with a witness who knew they couldn't possibly have seen what they'd seen. But the town had a museum dedicated to their fallen soldiers and past wars, and James W Barnes just happened to have a decent photograph taken of him in the war, blown up and hanging next to one of the larger displays of military regalia.

The Winchesters still didn't know what was keeping the Lieutenant tied to Earth, or what the hell he was so pissed off about. The victims had basic community ties to one another, but nothing criminal or particularly malicious. The three of them had spent a second day split between the museum and the public library until the sun set and they'd decided to just go burn some bones, see where that got them.

So when the pretty skeletal visage of James Barnes showed up just shy of the grave, skin hanging off his frame like ripped curtains (and looking nothing like Sebastian Stan, which was a damn shame), Dean had been ready. He pulled the shovel free of the pile of bones they'd just hit and swiped the metal right through the thing's legs. It wasn't pure iron, so it wouldn't last long, but Lieutenant Barnes disappeared with a whoosh and an angry cry.

By then, Andy had the shotgun leveled where the thing had appeared, though the barrel shook ever so slightly where it was braced against his shoulder and his eyes were definitely two sizes too big. Despite that, he was ready. Dean kept the shovel raised like a baseball bat while Sam dropped to his knees and started digging out bones and scraps of fabric and metal adornments with his hands.

What made the attack something none of them were expecting, though, was Andy's clothes to suddenly turn homicidal.

The kid's robe attacked him from behind, the ends coming up and over his head while the belt wrapping around his throat like a hangman's hood and noose. Andy cried out in surprise, the shotgun going off as he struggled, the shot thankfully wide of the Winchesters. The folds of fabric completely entangled the kid and he was hauled back and away from the grave.

His strangled, "Not the cape!" could just be heard through the fabric before Dean recovered was scrambling after him, and Lieutenant Barnes was back. Sam went flying out of the grave as the ghost threw an arm to the side. Dean managed to duck, his brother's limbs tomahawking over him as he dove for the ground and conveniently landed on top of the shotgun Andy had dropped.

He rolled on his back and fired just as the ghost bared down on him. As Barnes disappeared in a wave of blasted smoke, Dean spotted movement in the trees. It was a woman, tucked partially behind a tree, staring right at them. Her lips moved in a chant he couldn't hear, one hand wrapped around the trunk of the tree, the other stretched toward them.

Witch. Great. A witch and a ghost. Or, more like a witch controlling a ghost. Lucky them. At least they'd found their mystery cause behind Lieutenant Barnes' sudden reawakening rage fest.

Dean rolled over and up to one knee, braced the butt of the gun into his shoulder and fired at the bitch. The tree splintered brilliantly with his hit, but the witch managed to duck behind it just in time. Before the hunter could take a second shot, cold fingers dug into the back of his jacket and he cursed as the Lieutenant hauled him up to his feet and sent him flying.

Amidst the chaos, Sam scrambled back towards the grave, snagging the duffel bag they'd brought with them as he slid into the hole. He could hear Andy's muffled hollering and saw the robe haul him up and into the trees, feet kicking with all the kid had in him. The younger Winchester dug the igniter fluid out of the bag with one hand, desperately clawing the bones free of dirt with the other. He upturned the container and squeezed all of its contents across the skeletal remains.

Cold plunged between his shoulder blades like a blade of ice and Sam screamed, body spasming. What felt like freezing water filled his lungs, encased his entire chest cavity. It was so cold he couldn't catch his breath. The young hunter doubled over, clawing at the now gasoline-soaked dirt as he tried to get away from the ghost towering over him, Barnes' arm buried in his back up to the elbow.

"Sam!" Dean, on his knees at the edge of the grave, swung a shovel at the Lieutenant's head. He missed Sam's hunched form by inches and the murderous ghost disappeared with a cry.

Twenty feet up in the trees, legs kicking and most of his body weight hanging from the shoulder seems of his robe to keep the weight off his neck, Andy managed to tear the fabric away from his face just in time to see a normal looking woman run from the treeline straight towards Dean. Her arm was spread out in front of her, fingers strained. The older Winchester was climbing to his feet, using the shovel as a leg up, his back to the woman he couldn't see coming.

"Duck!" Andy yelled without thinking.

Dean and the woman both hit the ground immediately. Whatever she was, she had powers of some sort, as a purple blast erupted from her hand as she hit the deck. The energy flew wide of Dean, but Sam, immune to Andy's command and just straightening up from his bout of ghost-to-the-chest-cavity, was not so lucky. He cried out in surprise and pain as the purple charge toppled him backwards into the grave.

Andy kicked his legs, trying to drop out of the robe, but the tie remained tight around his throat as he struggled with it. The woman – witch, Andy figured out a little too late – snapped her eyes up to his from where she lay on the ground. Oh boy. She was furious. Andy had time enough to think 'uh-oh', before the witch threw her hand out at him and the tie around his neck tightened agonizingly. Breathing became more than just difficult, and good god, he was going to die.

Death by bathroom apparel. Unbelievable.

Dean scrambled to his feet and tackled the woman before she could get back up. Her concentration suddenly taken up by the hunter, Andy was able to get his fingers under the fabric and gasped for breath, which he did greedily. Orange light lit the corner of his vision, and he saw Sam scramble out of the grave, lighter in hand, just in time to take a hit from the Lieutenant. Luckily, the blast knocked him clear of the grave, which was now a pit of flames. The ghost stalked after the fallen Winchester, who was clearly struggling to get back to his feet, having taken several hard hits in a row. But as the fire grew, devouring the fuel with loud crackles, the Lieutenant faltered, staggering. He fell to one knee before the downed Winchester, who stared up at him with hopeful relief. Embers lit among the ghost's legs, climbing up and up until he was consumed by the same flames eating away his bones.

He burst out of existence like a firework, and Sam collapsed back to the ground with groan.

Andy managed to rip through the last of his robe, enough to get the straggles of fabric and belt up and over his head. He was just about to tackle how to get down from the tree, assuming the article of clothing would let him – it had started tightening around his wrists and fingers instead – when a woman's scream pierced the air. Andy cried out himself when his robe suddenly stopped holding him up and he dropped out from under it. The limp fabric caught on a passing branch and Andy's arms slid right out of it as he hit the ground below.

It was jarring and it hurt, but Andy stood triumphant and alive, his robe hanging lifeless a dozen feet over his head.

Beside the still burning grave, Dean rolled off of the witch – his hunting knife buried in her chest – and collapsed on the ground, chest heaving. "God damn witches."

Andy had to agree. He stumbled over to the two brothers as they both struggled to sit up, visually checking one another over for injuries before doing the same for him. They were all alive. Bruised and a bit beaten up, maybe. Kind of shocked and rethinking fashion choices, in Andy's case. But alive.

"So…no capes?"

Sam laughed, paused to catch his breath as his ribs ached in protest, then laughed again as Andy offered him a hand. He hauled himself up and off the damp ground with the kid's help. Dean groaned, climbing to his feet as well, but there was a grin on his face regardless.

"Sorry for the whole, 'duck' thing," Andy offered as the older Winchester limped over to them.

"You kidding me?" Dean checked his brother over again with another quick up and down, then repeated the look on Andy. The inspection apparently proved up to snuff as he clapped the kid on the back almost jovially. "You probably saved me one hell of a hit, maybe even a concussion. Magic hurts, dude. And in this line of work, that's another five years, easy, of not drinking my food through a straw. If I make it that long."

Sam, who was halfway to opening his mouth to say, yeah, magic didhurt, jerk, considering he had taken that hit, stopped as Dean's words made it all the way to his brain. He gave his brother the kind of worried look that said he was probably wondering if Dean was concussed anyway. Andy just blinked, looking pleased at first before his face scrunched up in reconsideration, a clear picture of hunter retirement now painted in his mind.

"Dude. That was the most counterproductive victory speech ever."

Dean huffed again and squeezed his shoulder in what doubled as comradery and a painful warning to take the damn compliment. Andy had never had an older brother, but he was pretty sure that was an older brother should clamp right there. "You did good, kid."

"That one was much better," Andy congratulated, but he was smiling widely. "Second attempt for the win."

"Don't make me hurt you." Dean groaned as he bent over and picked up the shotgun, then made his way over to the witch's body. Andy was about to ask what they were supposed to do with her – a little worried about the fact that they'd just killed someone, even if she'd been busy trying to strangle him to death with his favorite robe – when Dean rolled her over with his foot and she toppled into the smoldering grave.

Sam bent down for a shovel, tossing Andy the other one. He sighed – not much of a victory lap – but got to work re-filling the hole they'd spent the night digging. It wasn't easy, in fact the whole night was nothing but sore muscles, a pounding heart, and utter exhaustion. But, the ghost was gone, the woman controlling him dead, and no more people in that small Nashville suburb were going to die unpleasant, unwarranted deaths.

It felt… Andy didn't know. Good wasn't quite right. Not bad, at least.

When they marched back to the Impala an hour later, Sam speculating the witch had been using Lieutenant Barnes' ghost to go after personal grudges, they left Andy's robe hanging in the tree. Its tatters blew gently in the wind that still wasn't really existent, sort of a conquering flag or possibly a symbol of fashion defeat. Solid fifty/fifty, really.

-o-o-o-

Andy was beat by the time they got to the motel. It took everything he had not to fall asleep in the car on their way back into town. Now that he was staring at the bed, so inviting despite its rock-hard springs and paper-thin comforter, Andy didn't know if he'd be able to resist. He couldn't not sleep for the rest of his life. Superhero or not, (cape or no cape), everybody needed sleep.

Sam was climbing into the other bed, having changed into a pair of pajama pants and an old t-shirt while Andy sat on the edge of his mattress, looking miserable. They'd gotten two rooms again, and this time Dean had laid claim – loud claim – to the single, declaring rock-paper-scissors an inadequate and unfair decision making paradigm. Probably because he never won at it. Sam didn't mind, though. He'd been wanting to talk to Andy ever since they'd had to shake him yesterday morning.

"You look terrible," Sam started with a sympathetic moue. "You should get some sleep, Andy."

"I can't. Not when every time I close my eyes, I see…"

Sam looked away, which was his first mistake. As his gaze drifted to the ceiling, he was hit by that brutal image of Jess, pinned and bleeding. The brunet turned his head back to Andy, physically shaking off the terrible vision.

"I get it, man."

Andy sighed and started toeing off his shoes. "I don't think you do, Sam. It's not just…Tracy. It's the yellow-eyed man, too."

"Azazel?" Sam suddenly sat up, worry etched in his frown. He'd wondered at what Andy had said that morning, but he hadn't wanted to push. He'd…kind of been hoping it was nothing. "Andy, did you see Azazel in your dream?"

"I think he knows I'm with you." The kid rubbed at his arms, bare without his robe. They would have to get him a couple sets of his own clothes, soon. He couldn't keep wearing Dean's.

Sam's frown only deepened, but his gaze drifted down to his ow pillow. Andy hardly noticed.

"He's…terrifying, man. I think he might be worse than the nightmares. It was like he was there. He was real, and I couldn't get away."

Chewing on his cheek, Sam nodded. Then, out of the blue, he swung his legs off the bed and stood. He swiped his pillow, revealing a weird looking coin lying on the mattress. Andy blinked at it, then up at Sam as the hunter snatched the thing up and made his way to the other side of Andy's bed.

"Uh…Sam?" The younger Winchester didn't say anything, just plopped down on Andy's bed, putting the coin between their two pillows. Andy watched, eyebrows raised, as Sam got under the sheet and blanket, re-arranged the pillows so they were end-to-end and covering the coin completely, then laid his head down. All without a word. "We having a sleepover, buddy?"

"It's magic," Sam said by way of explanation. "A Persian sleep coin; you put it beneath your head while you sleep and you don't dream. Azazel won't be able to find you. We can try it like this, see if we can get two for the price of one."

After all, today's standard pillow wasn't exactly common – or maybe even in existence – back when the thing had first been created. Sam highly doubted there was a clause in the coin's magic that limited it to a single pillow. He didn't know if the spell would work on two people at once, but there was no reason not to try. Andy didn't deserve the torment Azazel had in store, and if the yellow-eyed demon realized who he was with, he would use Andy to find the Winchesters.

In the morning they would make him a hex bag and, if he was willing, find a tattoo parlor to get him warded against demonic possession. But if the coin didn't work for two, they'd have to pray to Cas for a second one, if she could even find another. Sam had sort of been under the impression they shouldn't hail the angel unless it was an emergency. So there was absolutely no harm in trying this, first. Other than a crowded bed and the risk of a nightly visitor.

The kid hesitated, glancing between Sam and the hidden coin before he finally shrugged out of his last shoe and slid awkwardly under the covers.

It was a bit of a tighter fit than was strictly comfortable. Sam wasn't exactly a small man, after all, and the bed was only a double. But Andy was used to sleeping in a van, and Sam had spent his entire life bunking with his brother, so neither of them had much complaint about it. When both woke five hours later from a dreamless sleep, free of their yellow-eyed pursuer, there was no need to discuss the next night's sleeping arrangements. It was a silent agreement between them: a price they were more than willing to pay.

The next morning as they climbed into the Impala, Sam told Dean they wouldn't need two rooms after all. Predictably, the older brother spent the next several minutes shamelessly ribbing the 'happy couple', until Andy leaned over the front seat and said, "You know I can convince you that your shaving cream tastes better than any pie in the world, right?"

Dean snapped his cakehole shut, eyes all squinty in the rear view mirror. "You wouldn't."

"You could just tell him he's deathly allergic and can't ever eat pie again," Sam offered, a shit-eating grin on his face as his brother turned his most scandalous look on him.

"You know, you're right, Sam, I could."

Dean's dropped jaw snapped closed with an audible clack, broken only a moment later to grumble about bitchy passengers not able to take a joke. He put the car into gear and they pulled away from the motel. Sam shared a grin with Andy, who settled into the back seat, rather proud of himself.

Jedi on the team, indeed.

-o-o-o-

Tom sat in front of his laptop (well, it was his ever since he'd murdered the owner) and squinted suspiciously at the screen. He had an internet browser pulled up, page currently displaying a map of the continental United States and a little blinking green dot moving, ever so slowly, along one of the main interstate routes.

The same route, in fact, that it had been moving along for two weeks now. Back and forth. There and back again. And again. This would be the third time the Winchesters were making the trek from Raleigh, North Carolina, to Seattle, Washington.

Tom slammed the laptop shut with a hiss. Fucking Winchesters. They'd planted the damn tracker on a commercial vehicle. He stood, grabbed the broken cocktail glass off the table – Sam Winchester's blood still lining the jagged rim – and snatched his jacket off the back of the chair.

The demon headed out of the rather high-end townhouse he'd been squatting in ever since he'd slit the throats of the couple who owned it and stashed them in their coat closet for safe keeping.

Time for Plan B.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

James W Barnes: Was actually a real Tennessee soldier in the civil war (no clue on his rank, though). Sometimes I just make up names, sometimes I find real people, and this time I went in search of Tennessee soldiers. I went with James since it was an easy name and there were probably tons of last names to pick from. Turns out, there are tons, and at least 12 pages on dedicated to James Barnes's in the civil war alone. Since Supernatural likes to have such fun and games with names, I figured why not?

Reviews: Please share your thoughts if you have them! As always, thanks for reading :D