Cats, Couch, Crystal

Bobby called us when we were halfway through Mississippi; gruff, familiar voice over the phone asking us for help. Dean protested at first, said we already had a hunt lined up, a good one too – hacked corpses left and right, his voice soaring sour over the radio, hands tapping with agitated rhythm on the wheel. And then I told him, I said, "It's Adele. She's gone missing," and he turned the car around right there in the middle of the freeway, mouth grim, horns beeping.

"No obvious signs of what did it," Bobby said, lips tight, hands stuffed into the pockets of his old fisherman's vest, cap pulled down low over his eyes. "If there were any clues they erased 'em from top to down. All of 'em. 'Cept for this. "

He passed me a slip of paper, creased and ripped, obviously torn out of an old exercise book Adele must've had lying around. It said in a rusty, flaking scrawl: Don't hurl your diamonds unless you're sure they'll drown.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Dean said for both of us, pushing a hand through his hair, pacing back and forth in front of Adele's battered couch. The ancient thing was just as I remembered it: sagging in the middle, bottom all torn up where her cats got at it, sides with stuffing crawling out, the colour indistinguishable from green or brown. It was the ugliest thing I'd ever seen; within minutes of my butt's first meeting with it eight years ago, I'd fallen straight to sleep. She'd loved that thing.

It was then I realised I was already thinking of her as dead.

"Guys, I hate it as much as you do, but what are the chances she's still alive?" I asked, throat close, paper clenching under my fingers. I didn't look up from the words, writ in blood. Blood on blue-lined, exercise book paper. Adele's blood. "How do we know there's even –" a body "– anything left to search for?"

"She's not dead," Dean said fiercely, hands clamped white-knuckled on a door frame. Down the sides it had markings in pencil; measurements of years and heights – two, until the fifteenth sketched line, then one. "She isn't. And even – we owe her, Sam. We have to look."

Winchester loyalty. "I know we do."

"Samuel. Saaamuel."

"Gnnhh?"

"You always this much of a charmer?" When I pried my eyes open I met identical sets of mismatched blue and brown, and blinked hazily. Adele was tugging at my arm, faceless with the sun behind her. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" I groaned, shaking leaves out of my hair, standing. I'd fallen asleep under a tree, warmth and the first home-cooked food I'd had in years making me too comfortable to move. I wondered where Dean was; probably dead to the world on the fabled couch. "What'd you put in those brownies?" I accused as she towed me along the path, waves of red-brown hair catching the light as we stumbled along. Her fingers were hot on my forearm, then my hand, slipping between my own. My palms started to sweat.

"Trade secret," she grinned over her shoulder, and then we were at the river, white edged water rushing and tumbling over moss-eaten rocks. "Swim with us," she said, pulling her shirt over her head. She was only wearing a ragged sports bra underneath, nipples pebbling in the sudden cold. Jeans followed, until she was only in boxers and that bra, gooseflesh rippling all over her skin as wind brushed the trees. "Come on, Samuel. Swim with us."

She walked into the water, tossing me a wink over her shoulder, hips swaying.

I woke up with a snort, dream already disappearing, a cat springing off my chest as Dean shook my shoulder, changing the watch. It was still dark outside, a single candle burning on the table in the corner, Bobby asleep on a mattress in another room. None of us were ever going to be able to sleep in Adele's bed, or the other one.

The cushions of the couch had moulded themselves to my shape; the springs moaned in protest as I levered up – so did I. "Goddamn," Dean sighed out reverently, laying himself down onto it in my place, pulling the blankets over himself, still warm from my body heat. I knew how he felt; I'd just been there. Already his eyes were closing, which was a miracle in itself. Usually Dean wouldn't sleep when a normal case was bothering him; ones like this he threw himself into suicidally, wouldn't look after himself at all. I fell in love with the thing all over again.

I moved to the table, rubbing sleep out of my eyes, yawning. More reading. We were looking for a clue – anything to tell us what that note might have meant. There were plenty of books to choose from; Adele had always been a packrat. She had tomes on every supernatural thing under the sun, and then some. Ritualistic information on possession, demons, spirits, voodoo. Recipe books for spell craft, wizardry, vegetarian dishes. Religious symbols, arcane symbols, satanic symbols. Knowledge on psychics, telepathy, telekinesis, prophetic visions. I'd have to ask her if I could borrow that last one if –

We were hoping she'd written a note in one of them, somewhere. Something to go on. We hadn't found her personal journal yet, if she had one.

I sat down in one of the two chairs, massaging my forehead where a headache was already starting to grow. Within minutes of my picking up a book one of her six cats jumped into my lap, purring, and curling itself down to sleep. I left it there, scratching idly at its ears, immersing myself in exorcisms and ceremonies.

The water was colder than I expected, and higher too, coming up to my neck before I stopped, not even near the middle yet. Adele was further out, floating, arms spread wide as though to embrace the blue sky, its branch-framed length studded with fat white clouds.

"Hey," I called, teeth chattering. "It's cold."

She laughed, the sound flowing into the roar of water further up the way, and said, "What'd you expect Samuel? It's only just spring, isn't it?"

"Sammy – hey, Sam, wake up." I'd fallen asleep on top of a book, one on cleansing a house free of spirits, the pages dog-eared. Cats were piled up around me like a vibrating blanket, their collective purr a dull, thin rumble throughout the room. "Hey," Dean said again, when I blinked up at him. "You find anything?"

"No," I grunted, and shut the book I'd been using as a pillow. As one the cats all hissed at me, backs arching, hair standing up straight all along their spines. They raced each other out of the open window above the couch.

Dean and I looked at each other.

"That was weird," he said, eyes narrowing, and picked up the book I'd just closed, mouth pursing as he studied it. "You don't think…?"

"They are Adele's cats," I said, staring, considering. "Maybe…?"

"Maybe not," Dean said, pushing it away from him a couple of hours later, rubbing a hand over his jaw, stubble rasping. He looked up at me from bloodshot eyes, the lines around his mouth more pronounced with his fatigue. I wondered if it was possible for him to have developed a couple more in the last week.

"Maybe…" I said slowly, biting the inside of my lip as I ran my eyes and fingertips over the thick, leather cover. "Maybe it's not in the book. You think?"

"It can't be that easy," he said, but he passed me the knife out of his boot anyway, trying not to look hopeful. I slit along the seam, and there it was: a key, small and cold and with a curled pattern at the end, falling into my palm. "Tomb Raider she is not," Dean said while I stared at the little bronze key in my hand, pulling the book out of my other and cutting it all the way open. There was a letter there, too.

A simple note that said: 'If you guys are reading this, you finally wised up and grew some brains – well, I can hope can't I? You found this instead of the real thing. Hurry up and look in the left arm of the couch; my diary's in there, jerk wads.' It had Adele in every loopy a, every plump e and backwards slanted l and f. I felt salt in my eyes and smiled to cover it.

We cut the couch open too, pulling stuffing out while I apologised mentally, knowing Adele'd probably make one of us sew it up if she was in a mood. And there it was, her diary, key sliding in easy, falling open immediately to a well worn page, the writing messy and tear blotched; the start of this hunt, I thought, eyes closing.

We found the body one and a half miles up the river from where we'd crawled out, three hours later. Congealed blood pooled around the head like a halo, limbs snapped at insane angles from the force of the water, skin pale as fresh linen sheets, the lips blue. Freckles across the bridge of the nose standing out as obvious as the clouds in the clear sky, lit by the fading sun. The red-brown hair is spread out in a bedraggled, tangled mass, twigs and leaves and mud and half-melted snow stringing locks together in a mass of Medusa coils to outline the face.

Adele's face.

Next to me Adele screams, a wordless sound full of agony beyond my comprehension; Dean tries to hold her back, sobs caught in his throat, but Dad just tells him to let her thrashing body go, and she falls next to Crys, shuddering with the force of her pain.

"No," she moans, gathering the body into her arms, rocking back and forth, pulling her twin's face to her own. "No, please, oh god, please, no, I'll do anything…"

The scratches on my arms where she pulled me out instead catch on Dean's jacket when he puts it around my shoulders with shaking hands. He grips my bicep for a minute, four heartbeats, then shivers out a choked sigh and steps back again. I'm still here. Dad's doing the same for Adele, who doesn't even seem to notice, doesn't stop rocking slowly, tears falling to melt some of the ice on Crystal's eyelashes.

"Adele," Dad says softly, his voice firm. "Let go."

We went through every page; she'd stuck in some of the rituals from her book, had made little notes in the margins next to certain ones, things like: 'made the last room catch on fire', 'no noticeable change?' and 'load of shit – everyone knows marjoram is for cleaning out memories, not spirits. Won't use it.'

"The house haunted?" Dean asked; covering the bases.

"Can't be," I replied, auto-answer, practical. Stretching, my back creaking out of its slump. I rolled my shoulders and neck; my headache was getting worse. My chest felt tight too, now, remembering. Ice thinning blood like turpentine around that too familiar face. "Bobby checked soon as he got here; no EMF, no cold spots, nothing. He thought it might be that, but he didn't find any signs, and he looked for three days before we arrived."

"You and I both know that doesn't mean anything, Sam. If it is – you know – the normal rules don't apply here, you get that?"

"Yeah," I said, and flipped to the last page again.

I know she's here, it said, I can feel her. Whacked up twin-connection or just the normal whack? Never could tell the difference when it came to Crystal. She's leaving notes over the house now, little things we used to say to each other, written in blood. 'Mistook the heat for fire', she left me after I tried the first cleansing ritual. She'd used the power beyond the grave – always was stronger than me; set Dad's old uniform on fire. I couldn't put it out in time to save it; it crumbled to ash in my hands. 'Stop turning your tricks', she put on my pillow when I'd tried three more, and I haven't tried another since. 'Don't hurl your diamonds unless you're sure they'll drown,' appeared this morning. Dad called us his diamonds before, so I think that's it. Well, I'm gone. Thought about moving to Chicago, but the city never thrilled me much anyway; know Dad'd give me a look like I just peed on a kitten if I even suggested it – you know, if he was still around. Wouldn't want the old place gone all to ruin, not that I think there's much of a choice now. Bobby – boys, if you're there; if I'm not dead she'll have me out by the river – there's an old cave by the sandbank where we found her. Bring me food.

If I'm not alive make sure you look after the cats? And the couch, too.

'Del.

She was alive; exhausted and almost fainting from hunger, but she was alive. "Torch her corpse yet?" she asked, wolfing down the pack of oatmeal cookies and the carton of milk Dean had brought for her. Bobby slung a blanket around her shoulders, and she just smiled at me, bit savagely into the cookie and faked an apathy I hadn't been around to see grow.

"Why didn't you?" Bobby said, for all of us, and she shrugged.

"I never could bring myself to do it; sentimental old bitch that I am, and besides – I don't really want to have the sure knowledge of what I'd look like as a dried up husk, know what I'm saying?" She swallowed more milk, and wiped her eyes on the blanket covertly; we all pretended not to notice. "She's not evil, just lonely. I know how she feels. But she is a danger. Her thoughts when I got them are all mixed up, crazy confused. She needs to move on." It was said matter-of-fact, like it was any case, any spirit – we all took our cues from her.

"Yeah," Dean said, "We'll go do that now. Get her back to the house safe, Sam, alright?" He and Bobby took up the backpacks and disappeared.

I helped her up and we started walking, slow down the path to her house, her body cold where it leaned against mine. "Thought I was gonna die, Sam," she said finally.

"Yeah." I didn't know how to respond. Glad you aren't? Sorry we're late?

"Thought you were gonna die – you remember the sound? I'll never forget it. Roar like a thousand lions in a waterfall, and I knew what was happening, so did she. You didn't. She said to me – 'Sam! Get Sam!', so I did." I didn't know what to say to that, either, my heart freezing up somewhere to lodge in my mouth. I remembered the sound; wouldn't ever forget it either. "Haven't ever regretted it, Samuel. If I didn't it would've been all three of us. I know that, so should you." I nodded, unable to say a word. Her fingers were as hot as they'd been all those years ago, slipping in to twine with my own. "She's forgiven me, and you – I think it's time we did the same, huh?"

All six cats flopped on top of her when she sat on the couch, scrambling to climb onto her lap; a tabby with orange ears got there first, purring loud enough to rival the Impala. She buried her face in its coat and just sat there for the longest time, unmoving, for all the world looking as though she was communicating with it.

It was Adele, after all.

"Take the book, Samuel," she said when we were leaving, book on prophetic dreams shoved into my hands, a white fur ball draped around her neck. "You need it more than me. By the way? She always wanted you to have this." Then she kissed me, one sweet kiss that tasted like differences present and past, cold lips and hot hands on my face. When she stepped back I opened my eyes, one blue and one brown one staring into mine. "Goodbye, Samuel."

I opened it on the highway, Dean silent next to me, Metallica loud between us. In the middle there was a note: hey Adele, she's got a show for you. There was a tiny C at the bottom.

Season 2? Sam pov. OFCs. Bobby. Dean.

Song Inspired By: Adele by White Mud Freeway.

Dedicated to Delsunshine, for just generally being wonderful (totally stole your nickname right there), and The Goddess Aurora for being my test-monkey and ArtemiScribbles for being all sorts of fabulous. I'm not sure if I like this one or not. Anti-climax, anyone?