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glimmeringwinchester · 1 month ago

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𝐁𝐔𝐆𝐒 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 — grace winchester remembers the very first night her father showed his true colors, and she’s confronted with the memories when she and her brothers take on a case in oklahoma

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆(𝐒) — implied/referenced child abuse, panic attacks, anxiety, canon-typical violence, dean winchester is an asshole but he does care about his little sister, sam winchester just wants dean to realize he was hurt too, oc au

series: love was the law

Palm Springs, California. 1991.

Rain came down heavy in Palm Springs, cold droplets splashing against asphalt and concrete with a rhythmic pattering that fought to quell festering anxiety. Tiny hands batted at the doors of a sleek black car, pleading to be let inside, to be allowed to escape the frigid rain and late summer mosquitos. Brown hair is drenched, weighed down by the rain shower that started just after sunrise. The wooded area still smells of flesh and gasoline, and salt residue gathers beneath untrimmed fingernails that are jagged and uneven. The smokes cleared, the fires burnt out, but John Winchester remains at the scene of the burning, his jaw set into a tight line as he watches his youngest child – his only daughter – pound against the windows, fear etched across her features as she stands out in the rain. Every couple of seconds she shrieks, slapping at her skin whenever a mosquito lands on her body, and sickeningly the father of three can only laugh as he watches her panic.

“Daddy!” The little girl no older than five years old, though she’ll very proudly tell anybody who asks that she’s almost six, pleads with her father, having not yet learned that begging is futile. She doesn’t know what she did wrong. Maybe he’s angry that she slipped in the mud on the way to burn the bones of a pissed off spirit, maybe he’s finally punishing her for breaking Dean’s fishing pole that hardly ever got used anyways, or maybe he just feels like being mean. He’d felt like being mean a lot lately. She jumps away from the car when a spider crawls near her hand, the tiny insect fighting to find shelter from the storm, but no matter how innocent its presence was in the moment, Grace Winchester was not a fan of anything with more than four legs and two eyes, and she knows for a fact that spiders have eight eyes, they just learned about it in school.

The rain continues to patter against the dense woods, and as the humidity in California increases, it only draws more mosquitos out of hiding. The little girl sobs when she realizes a spider is crawling up her arm, and she flails dramatically to get it off of her. She thinks it's never going to end – the storm; the assault of mosquitos – but then the doors click, and John begrudgingly inclines his head toward the backseat, the only indication that she’s allowed to escape the downpour. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t apologize for locking her out, doesn’t affirm that she’s safe from bugs now, merely huffs through his nose and speeds away, leaving the pile of charred bones behind him.

Present

Grace Winchester lays against the hood of the Impala, her eyes wide and full of wonder as she gazes up at the sky, an endless expanse of stars just out of reach above her head and speckled across the abyss of darkness like splattered paint. The air is twinged with something warm and inviting, Springtime in full swing across the states, though the temperature fluctuations with every border she and her brothers cross over. She doesn’t mind the slight chill and promise of something warmer once the sun rises over the horizon, taking a minute to appreciate how the breeze feels as it brushes against her arms and legs. Unlike her brothers, who never seem to adjust their wardrobe for the seasons, Grace leans into the annual change of climate, and looks forward to the warmer months and the promise of lighter layers and bright colors. She’s a sore thumb standing between Dean and Sam, their dark and broody exteriors softened by the splashes of color and patterns on her clothing, but they’ve long since stopped trying to indoctrinate her into flannels and deep neutrals. Even if Dean’ll never admit to it, he doesn’t mind the cotton shorts and frilly tops that take up space in his trunk. It’s a refreshing sight when everything else in their lives is so heavy and serious.

Sam leans against the hood, his broad frame accentuated by the jacket around his shoulders. He doesn’t know how Grace is unphased in only a pair of shorts and a white t-shirt, subconsciously shivering whenever the breeze rolls past him. Unlike the youngest Winchester, whose only priority is trying to locate the big dipper, he’s nose deep in the local paper, scouring for a case to work while Dean does whatever he intended to do inside of the bar he’d spontaneously pulled up to nearly an hour ago. Grace has a good idea of how their older brother is wasting time inside the dive bar, but she can’t bring herself to care about the nitty gritty details of his scamming as she loses herself to relaxation for the first time in a while.

She turns her head to the side when footsteps draw near, her brothers laugh projected over the lively atmosphere of music and distant chatter. She rolls her eyes at the wad of money Dean holds up with evident pride, entirely missing the fact that in his other hand is a paper cup with a bendy straw that hasn’t yet been mended into an arch. Sam trails his gaze over to Dean seconds later, and his reaction is almost identical.

“You know, we could get day jobs every once in a while.” Sam scoffs, lowering the news paper that he’d been very intently skimming for leads. Grace sits up on the hood, pulling her knees into her chest as she looks at her eldest brother, analyzing the short lived exasperation that crosses his features at Sam’s comment.

“Huntings our day job and the pay is crap.” Dean hands the cup to Grace, saying nothing about what it is, though the youngest Winchester has a pretty good idea and instantly perks up, reaching for the take-away cup that she only just noticed. She hums in satisfaction when creamy vanilla washes against her taste buds, the cup cold between her hands but she hardly bristles at the temperature, more than content to sip away at the milkshake like it's warmer than it really is.

“Yeah, but hustling pool, credit card scams?” Sam drops the paper even more, his shoulder crashing into Grace’s shin as he adjusts his stance, “It’s not the most honest thing in the world, Dean.”

“Well, let’s see, honest, fun and easy.” He holds out his hands, pretending to weigh the options that he’s never even really considered. Grace likes to think that in another life, he would’ve owned his own mechanic company, but Dean has never known freedom nor normalcy enough to even recognize that as something he’d be remotely interested in. “It’s no contest.” She can only scoff at his stupid expression, both of his eyebrows raised as he inclines his head to the side. “Besides, we’re good at it. It’s what we were raised to do.”

Sam’s quick to rebuttal, the moonlight glistening against his eyes. “Yeah, well, how we were raised was jacked.”

“Yeah, says you.” Dean doesn’t hear what’s actually being said, and his response comes quick and without thought. “We got a new gig or what?”

“Maybe. Oasis Plains, Oklahoma. Not far from here. Gas company employee, Dustin Burwash supposedly died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob.” Sam slips off the hood with purpose, laying the paper down on the black surface, just barely skimming the words as he tells Dean about the potential case. Grace furrows her eyebrows at the medical term she doesn’t understand, but Dean makes a noise of confusion before she can swallow her mouthful of milkshake to ask herself. “Human mad cow disease.” He clarifies, his eyes flickering to Grace for a second. He can only laugh at the sight of her only half paying attention as she bends the striped straw into a loop.

“Mad cow? Wasn’t that on Oprah?” Dean leans forward, hands bracing on the hood of the car as he inspects the paper for any details Sam left out, his interest peaked far more than Grace’s.

“You watch Oprah?” Grace could only roll her eyes at what Sam chose to focus on, but a smirk of amusement pulled at the corners of her lips as she took another sip of the cold treat between her hands.

As if he’s only just realized that he’s unintentionally outed himself, Dean bristles at the question for a second before he’s moving on, clearly wanting to avoid any further teasing. “So this guy eats a bad burger, why’s it our kind of thing?”

“Mad cow disease causes massive brain degeneration. It takes months, even years for the damage to appear but this guy Dustin, sounds like his brain disintegrated in about an hour, maybe less.” Grace listens closely to what Sam rambles off, but she makes no indication of being interested in any way. Dean however, inclines his head, having to agree that the conditions around Dustin’s death seem strange enough without any further details to support the claim Sam initially presented. “Now it could be a disease or it could be something much nastier.”

It takes no further convincing, and with a curt nod of acceptance, Dean stands, clapping his hands together before he reaches out to pat Grace’s ankle. “Alright, Oklahoma. Man, work, work, work. No time to spend my money.”

Grace rolls her eyes, sliding off of the hood as she follows her brother's movements. She ducks under Sam’s arm when he opens the back passenger door for her before she has the chance, crawling into the backseat with a careful grip on her milkshake. She reaches for a blanket that's thrown onto the floor instinctively, pulling it up around her body as she snuggles into the door as Dean starts the car. It’s not even a full minute later that the Impala is peeling away from the parking lot, heading straight for Oklahoma.

Hours later, the sky is bright with daylight, but the clouds that hang overhead keep the Springtime heat from fully settling over the small town. A sweatshirt is pulled over her body, but the hem of her pink shorts is visible as she climbs out of the car after Dean, eager to stretch her legs after falling asleep in a tight ball in the backseat. She pulls her hair up into a ponytail as they approach a man loading his truck outside of Oklahoma Gas and Power, smiling sadly at the man as Dean swings his keys into his palm, also playing up the act they’ve discussed in detail on the drive over.

“Travis Weaver?” Sam questions as they approach, straightening out his jacket that had gotten bunched up from his position in the car.

“Yeah, that’s right.” The man, Travis, answers, turning to look at the siblings that have the same light eyes in various shades of green.

“Are you the Travis who worked with Uncle Dusty?” Dean asked, wanting to be sure they were talking to the right person while not-so-subtly dropping their connection to Dustin. It was almost disgusting to consider how good they had become at slipping into lives that weren’t their own, but that ability to disappear into someone else had come from years of practice and failure. Grace can’t remember the first time she’d been told to ‘just go with it’ but she can definitively assume she was more than a little skeptical. Now, she hardly bristles at the prospect of lying through her teeth.

“Dustin never mentioned having nephews or a niece.” Travis frowned, taking in the appearance of the siblings, his eyes raking across Grace’s body as he took in the sight of her dressed so differently from the men on either side of her.

“Really? Well, he sure mentioned you. He said you were the greatest.” Dean kept up the act, his smile entirely fake as he looked down at Travis.

“Oh, he did? Huh.” Grace could’ve cringed at how flattered Travis looked if she wasn’t so focused on getting the information they needed. It was sickening to think that something so small could make someone stricken with grief so happy, and it was even more sickening to think that it was all a lie and most of the people they encountered never even knew. Maybe it gave them peace; Grace hopes that it does, otherwise she’d feel horrible.

“Listen, we wanted to ask you, uh what exactly happened out there?” Grace’s lips trembled, her sad smile sinking into a grimace as she looked to Travis for information, hardly aware of how she played the part of a grieving niece almost too well. Sam had always been amazed at how naturally she could become somebody else, fitting whatever roll they wore like she was a trained expert. That was definitely an area where she far surpassed his level of expertise.

Travis shook his eyes, his eyes twinged with pain that spoke volumes about his awareness of the situation; not that anyone could blame him for not immediately questioning the circumstances of Dustin’s death. The average person didn’t immediately consider that something supernatural had been at hand. “I’m not sure. He fell in the sinkhole. I went to the truck to get some rope, and, uh, by the time I got back…”

“What’d you see?” Grace allowed her voice to waver just slightly, desperation bleeding into her tone as she set her eyes on Travis firmly. Dean had to hide his amused smile behind a wrinkled grin of matching desperation, though his tone remained far more even than Grace’s.

“Nothing. Just Dustin.” All of the siblings could tell that was far from the truth, but Travis didn’t seem to question the nature of the injuries he’d seen. They’d probably all been explained away by detectives and medical examiners who were always so desperate to find scientific evidence over logical reasoning.

“Well, he was bleeding from his eyes and his ears and his nose, that’s it.” Travis shrugged, and Grace nodded gratefully, taking in the information and simultaneously trying to piece together what had happened with the information they already knew.

Dean tilted his head to the side, his lips pressed into a thin line as he pressed for more. “So do you think it could be this whole mad cow thing?”

“I don’t know that’s what the doctors are saying.” Travis was hardly phased, having no reason to doubt the medical examination or the facts that the doctors had disclosed to him and the public.

“But if it was, he would have acted strange beforehand like dementia, loss of motor control. You ever notice anything like that?” Sam pressed this time, but his tone was even, unassuming.

Travis shook his head again, “Yeah, but then again, if it wasn’t some disease what the hell was it?”

“That’s a good question.” Dean hummed his agreement.

“You know, can you tell us where this happened?” Sam questioned, knowing that they’ve gotten everything out of Travis that they possibly could, and they’d need to do more digging elsewhere if they were going to learn anything of use.

Oasis Plains Estates was exactly how Grace had pictured it would be, and as the engine revved, she glanced out of the back window, taking in the sights of large and lavish homes steadily being constructed by teams of men in orange hard hats. These were the kinds of neighborhoods she’d always been fascinated by, but there was something off-putting and eerie about knowing that a man had lost his life here – still, she thinks a neighborhood like this would be better than crappy motel rooms any day.

She’d changed since they peeled away from the construction company’s headquarters, and as she climbed out of the car before Dean had even gotten the gear in park, she adjusted the waistband of her jeans, already annoyed by how thick denim cut into her hip bones.

“Huh. What do you think?” Dean hummed as they crossed the street, approaching caution tape and the sinkhole that Dustin had fallen into. Nothing about the location in particular had her feeling any type of way, and so she only shrugged indifferently in Dean’s direction, brushing hair out of her face when the wind blew just enough to rustle her thin locks.

“I don’t know, but if that guy Travis was right it happened pretty damn fast.” Sam noted, ducking beneath the caution tape with Dean, but he turned to hold it up for Grace, laughing quietly when Dean scoffed in annoyance about not receiving the same treatment.

“So what? Some sort of creature chewed on his brain?” Grace grimaced at the visual, batting a hand against Dean’s bicep as she rolled her eyes at his unnecessarily vivid imagery.

Sam wasn’t so phased, shaking his head as he peered into the sinkhole where roots grew and intertwined chaotically. “No, there’d be an entry wound. Sounds like this thing worked from the inside.

All three of the siblings squatted down, peering into the hole in the ground with equal disinterest. Sam’s nose wrinkled as he watched Dean shine a light on the sinkhole, and Dean, ever the observant individual, noted that there was only room for one of them down there. “You wanna flip a coin?” He questioned, ducking under the caution tape once again.

“Oh yeah, let’s go down there when we have no idea what the hell happened to begin with.” Grace scoffed, shaking her head as she and Sam exchanged equally bewildered expressions before turning back to their older brother.

“Alright, I’ll go if you’re scared.” Dean grabbed a hose from the ground, his tone laced with jesting arrogance that he knew would get under Sam’s skin. Grace wasn’t so easily roped into his shenanigans, and thus, entirely ignored the antagonizing comment. “You scared?” He only further egged Sam on.

“Flip the damn coin.” Sam caved and Dean chuckled with amusement, reaching into his pocket for a coin upon the rebutted request.

“Alright, call it in the air, chicken.” The coin toss was futile, because the second Dean flipped the nickel, Sam snatched it out of the air, declaring that he was going to be the one to go down. Despite not knowing what awaited him in the sinkhole, Grace wasn’t going to argue, just glad that she wasn’t being sacrificed with the bullshit excuse of ‘you’re smaller’. Dean, however, continued to tease, claiming that he said he would go down as if they all didn’t know he was bluffing just to do the opposite.

Sam tied the hose around his waist, but his hands were quickly batted out of the way by Grace who stepped in to tie the knot the second she realized Sam had no idea what he was doing. She knew the second he bore any weight on the knot he originally created, it would’ve slipped right out and he would’ve fell however many feet it was to the bottom. She really did question if they’d still be alive without her constant supervision.

“Don’t drop me.” Sam huffed, looking more toward Dean than Grace. Dean only rolled his eyes in response, gesturing for Sam to get on with it already, not wanting to draw any suspicion toward them when the up and coming development was crawling with construction workers still on the job.

Sam lowered himself into the sinkhole, and Dean grabbed onto the hose, batting Grace away when she stepped up to help him. She rolled her eyes at him, but didn’t object, stepping away from the hole in the ground with the assurance that her brothers had it handled. Sam wasn’t down there for any more than thirty seconds before he was calling for Dean to pull him back up, one of his hands cradling something cautiously while the other clawed at the dirt around him.

When he was on his own two feet again, he wiggled out of the hose, nodding toward the car without any further comment. Grace rolled her eyes, and Dean did the same, but the both of them followed Sam regardless of their attitudes towards his newfound silence. Once they were situated in the Impala, Sam opened his palm, revealing a very dead beetle with the most disgusting antennas at the top of its head. Grace flinched, shrinking into herself as she put as much distance between herself and the bug as she could manage.

“So you found some beetles in a hole in the ground. That’s shocking, Sam.” Dean hummed not even three minutes later, his eyes glancing at the insect that Sam hadn’t stopped messing with before he refocused on the road ahead of him, one hand on the wheel while the other gripped the gear stick.

Sam only shrugged, not giving into the sarcasm this time around, apparently able to pick and choose when he wanted to fall victim to Dean’s antagonizing. “There were no tunnels, no tracks, no evidence of any other kind of creature down there. You know, some beetles do eat meat. Now it’s usually dead meat, but–”

“How many did you find down there?” Dean cut him off, not interested in hearing all of the oddly specific beetle facts that Sam undoubtedly knew off the top of his head. Grace was more than glad about that, though she still shivered in disgust at the fact that her brother was holding onto a dead beetle somewhat protectively, poking and prodding at it like it wasn’t once a live insect that probably carried a few million diseases.

“Ten.” Sam sounded proud of the development, meanwhile Grace scrunched her nose up in disgust, very glad that she hadn’t been the one to stumble upon ten beetles.

“It would take a whole lot more than that to eat some dude’s brain.” Dean shook his head, rightfully skeptical about the premise of only ten beetles eating a man's brain in a matter of minutes.

“Well, maybe there were more.” Sam rebutted, wrapping his fingers around the beetle as he tried to sway Dean’s opinion. Grace was just glad she couldn’t see the black insect anymore, still beyond disgusted that it was even in the car with her to begin with.

“I don’t know. Sounds like a stretch to me.”

“Well, we need more information on the area, the neighborhood. Whether something like this has ever happened before.” Sam prattled on, but Dean’s attention was quickly misplaced as he analyzed red balloons on the side of the road, tied to a post just inches away from an open house sign.

“I know a good place to start.” He commented smugly, his eyes scanning the surrounding area until they found yet another sign that advertised a community barbeque in a backyard. “Kind of hungry for a little barbeque. How about you?” Sam rolled his eyes, and Grace did the same, hardly surprised that Dean was interested in free food and conversing with townspeople. “What, we can’t talk to the locals?”

“And the free food’s got nothing to do with it?” Sam teased, his smirk only growing when Grace laughed softly, bating at the back of Dean’s seat.

“Of course not. I’m a professional.”

“Swear to god, Dean. If you puke this time, I’m going to kick you.” Grace threatened as Dean pulled up to a house on the left hand side, her mind flashing back to the last barbeque they’d stumbled into somewhere deep in Ohio. He’d entered a hot dog eating contest like an asshole, and after losing (which he still won’t admit to, claiming the guy who won cheated by not eating the buns) he’d puked inches away from her brand new running shoes that hadn’t even acquired a spec of dirt yet.

Dean only rolled his eyes at her comment, turning the engine off before he climbed out of the car, Sam and Grace following his lead begrudgingly. They glanced at the houses, taking in the large driveways and abstract roofs as they ventured down the sidewalk. “Growing up in a place like this would freak me out.” Dean commented, which had both Grace and Sma frowning in confusion.

“Why?” Grace questioned, looking at the houses that were more or less finished. They weren’t exactly her style, a little too flashy and big for what she figured her taste was, but something about it still felt safe and oddly romanticized. This was the kind of neighborhood that threw block parties in the middle of the street, and where everybody knew everybody even if they secretly hated everything about the town and its community.

“The manicured laws, how-was-your-day-honey? I’d blow my brains out.” Dean scoffed, still heavily critiquing the development.

“I think it’d be nice. You’re just allergic to normal.” Grace commented, Sam nodding his head in agreement as he stepped toward the left, giving her more room to walk between them instead of lingering awkwardly behind their broad frames like she’d found herself doing.

“I’d take our family over normal any day.” Dean scoffed, eyeing a sign in the front yard as they stumbled up the driveway.

“Normal and our family don’t have to be antonyms, you know. We could be normal.” Grace hummed, already getting lost in the hypothetical image of growing up without crappy motel rooms and a dead mom that she can’t even remember. She knows that had they had white-picket fences and parent teacher conferences, they most likely wouldn’t have had the relationship that they do now, but she thinks she’d be okay with stereotypical annoying older brothers that have their own lives outside of her own instead of the trauma and constant fear that’s rooted in the reality they did actually grow up within.

She pushes past Sam to be the one to knock on the door, a cheeky smile on her lips as she turns to tease him. Sam pushes her head away from his, but he laughs quietly beneath his breath regardless of the annoyed display he puts on. There are very few moments where he gets to see his sister for who she actually is, but as he watches her pound her fist against the textured glass, it’s clear as day that beneath the hunter exterior she always puts up, she’s just a twenty-year-old kid that still has so much joy tethered to her spirit. He wishes that she’d drop the act more often, she’d finally stopped putting it on at all in the last few months that they spent together at Stanford, but he knows what happens when she slips up, and he knows that despite their father not being around physically, she’s still terrified of word getting back to him that she was anything less than perfect.

The door swings open seconds later, and Grace’s mask comes right back up. Her contagious excitement that had both Sam and Dean grinning was quickly shoved aside, replaced with a stoic expression that only conveyed what it absolutely needed to. “Welcome.”

“This the barbeque?” Dean questioned, a smirk splaying across his lips as he inhaled the aroma of smoked meat and charcoal.

“Yeah, not the best weather, but…” The man glanced at the sky, the overcast weather not uncommon for early Spring, but definitely a damper on his plans for a sunny-day barbeque. “I’m, uh, Larry Pike, the developer here, and you are?”

“Dean, this is Sam, Grace.” Dean introduced them at the same time that Sam and Grace introduced themselves. Larry could only chuckle softly, his lips curving into a grin as he nodded.

“Sam, Dean, Grace, good to meet you.” Larry exchanged formalities, “So you three are interested in Oasis Plains?”

“Yes, sir.” Dean nodded his head, inclining his chin just slightly to the right as he agreed, but Grace could tell he was itching to be let inside and shown to the food. She had to stifle the scoff that threatened to fall off of her lips, the days she’d been spending with her brothers breaking all of the habits she’d spent decades perfectly curating to avoid her fathers rage. It was both liberating and terrifying, because she knew that they would find him eventually, and she’d have to deal with the repercussions of letting herself be comfortable in her own skin for a change.

“Let me just say, we accept homeowners of any race, religion, color or… sexual orientation.” Grace and Sam couldn’t contain their smirks of amusement, meanwhile Dean looked deeply distributed by the insinuation that his connection to either of them was anything more than familial.

“These are my brothers.” Grace smiled politely, fighting back her giggles as Dean tried his best not to start rambling about how Larry's analysis of their relationship was beyond off and disturbing.

“Big brothers.” Dean clarified, and Grace could only roll her eyes, elbowing him in the ribs.

“Our father is getting on in years and we’re just looking for a place for him.” Sam cut in before Dean could derail the conversation anymore than it already had been.

Larry hardly even bristled at the wrong assumption, inclining his head like a stereotypical businessman solely seeking out successes in his career. “Great, great. Well, seniors are welcome to. Come on in.”

The siblings followed Larry through the house, looking around at the furniture choices and style as they were guided out to the backyard where more people gathered. Some had red solo cups in hand, while others simply mingled, lively chatter filling the space easily.

“You said you were the developer?” Dean questioned as Larry stepped outside, a smile on his lips as he proudly showed off his accomplishments.

“A few months ago I was walking this valley with my survey team. There was nothing here but scrub brush and squirrels. And you know what, we built such a nice place to live that I actually bought into it myself. This is our house. We’re the first family in Oasis Plains.” Larry walked backwards as he explained the last few months of his life and developments, a smile on his lips as he peered over his shoulder, approaching a woman in a baby pink blouse. “This is my wife, Joanie.”

“Hi there.” Joanie smiled, shaking Dean’s hand before she shook Sam’s. Grace only smiled, Joanie nodding her head fondly at her.

“Sam, Dean and Grace.” Larry introduced them, and Sam was quick to mention that he was Sam, not wanting to be confused for Dean which had Grace shaking her head just slightly as she stepped back to let her brothers guide the conversation. She had no interest in baseless conversations, and so far, there hadn’t been anything out of the ordinary that piqued her interest enough to pretend like she wanted to engage in a mindless conversation.

“Tell them how much you love the place, honey. And lie if you have to because I need to sell some houses.” Larry faux whispered, and Grace had to fight the eye roll at his obnoxious attitude. She hated men that sought out nothing but personal gain, and while she could respect an honest hustle for business, something about Larry himself just rubbed her the wrong way. First impressions were hardly ever misleading, and so all she put her energy into was appearing polite enough.

Her brothers, however, laughed in polite amusement, Sam’s lips curving into a smile as he nodded along.

“Boys, Grace, if you’ll excuse me.” Larry quickly saw himself out of the conversation, and Joanie was quick to step up, although Grace found her energy far more enticing than this.

“Don’t let his salesman routine scare you.” Joanie brushed Larry off, more for Grace’s benefit than Sam or Dean, but still the men nodded anyway. “This really is a great place to live.”

“Hi, I’m Lynda Bloom, head of sales.” Another woman approached, and Joanie was quick to welcome her into the conversation, jutting a hand out in Lynda’s direction with a sweet smile on her lips as light refracted off of her necklace, something Grace was sure her brothers didn’t notice in the slightest, but she appreciated.

“And Lynda was second to move in. She’s a very noisy neighbor though.” Grace found herself smirking at Joanie’s comment before the woman peeled away, leaving only Lynda to converse with.

“She’s kidding, of course. I take it you three are interested in becoming homeowners.” The woman stepped the slightest bit closer, and instinctively, Grace stepped back, something that didn’t go unnoticed by Sam or Dean, though her brothers were hardly phased and thoroughly amused. They’d grown up with Grace rambling about how girls can read each other easily, and they’d always found it humorous, clearly that hadn’t changed as Dean’s hand jutted out to slap at her side.

“Yeah, yeah, well..” Sam trailed off, but Lynda cut in before he could finish, not that he knew what to say in the slightest.

“Well, let me just say that we accept homeowners of any race, religion, color or… sexual orientation.” Lynda gave the same rehearsed spiel, and this time neither Sam or Grace found it as funny as they did the first time, both fighting grimaces as they wondered why these people were so intent with analyzing their behavior beneath a romantic lens. In Grace’s opinion, they were basically the poster children for typical American siblings.

“I’m gonna go talk to Larry, alright honey?” Dean played into it, and Grace honestly wasn’t sure whether he was addressing her or Sam, but that question was very quickly answered when he turned on his heels and began walking back toward the house, but not without reaching out to tap Sam’s butt on his way.

Grace had to turn her face away to get her laughter under control, meanwhile Sam snapped his head back to glare at Dean’s retreating frame. It didn’t take any further prompting for Lynda to lead them over toward a tented area, talking their ears off about the customizations and amenities that Oasis Plains had to offer. Grace wanted to beat her head against the wooden fence, and every time she glanced over at Sam, she was certain that he was thinking the same thing, his eyes practically dead as he forced small smiles and head nods every few seconds just to appease Lynda. Grace was doing the same, but her boredom wasn’t so discreet as she drummed her fingers against the table to her right, wondering where the hell Dena had escaped to and inquiring about whether he was undergoing the same torment. She was only half paying attention when Sam stepped around Lynda and braced his hands on her shoulders, softly guiding her away from the table without any further explanation. Grace frowned curiously, but when her eyes followed his sharp motions, her breath caught in her throat as she realized a tarantula was mere centimeters away from where her hands had been. Immediately shivers crawled up her spine and she flinched in disgust, looking antsy as she glanced between Sam and the house.

“I need to go wash my hands.” She announced quietly, making a quick b-line for the house, leaving Sam and the tarantula behind, although she was almost certain that she could feel it crawling up her arms despite not even actually touching her skin. She shivered in disgust at the thought of it brushing against her without her even realizing, suddenly desperate to scrub her hands until they were raw and bleeding.

She stumbled into Dean on her haste to enter the house again, her shoulder bumping into his chest as she brushed through the crowd. She hadn’t even noticed him coming out of the house with Larry, but as she snapped her head to the left, she realized that he’d been one of the people she’d pushed past in an anxious hurry. Dean furrowed his eyebrows at her, a hand holding onto her wrist as he kept her in place. “What’s up?” He inquired, taking note of the unsettled gleam in her soft eyes.

Grace shook her head, practically trembling as her voice came out rushed and whispered, “Fucking tarantula like an inch away from my hand. Oh my god, I think we need to cut my hands off. I can feel it crawling on me.”

Dean rolled his eyes in fond exasperation, completely ignoring her dramatics as he pulled her along with him to Sam. “You’ll be fine.” He coaxed half-heartedly, accepting that her fear of bugs was very real, but not knowing the root, and therefore not recognizing the fact that she was seconds away from a panic attack – the memory of a late night in Palm Springs playing at the forefront of her mind despite all efforts to stay grounded in the present. His eyes fell onto her features when her fingers latched onto the sleeve of his jacket, and finally he took note of how her eyes were glazed over and far from the current moment, and the tough exterior he put on melted away quickly, replaced by soft understanding that he very rarely let show. “Hey, you’re okay, sweetheart. We’ll find Sammy and get out of here, yeah?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Grace agreed easily, but her grip on his sleeve didn’t falter, and although Dean was beyond confused, he didn’t push for anymore information, just continued on toward where Sam stood beneath a tent in front of a teenage boy. They got to him just as Larry began dragging the kid away, and Sam’s eyes lingered for a second before he looked to Dean and Grace.

“Remind you of somebody?” Sam smirked, his eyes trailing over where Larry was not-so-subtly reprimanding his son beside the back door. Grace shivered, knowing exactly what Sam was referencing, but Dean remained unphased by the taunting, apparently not recognizing the similarities between Larry and John. “Dad?”

“Dad never treated us like that.” Dean frowned, beyond confused.

Sam scoffed, his eyes trailing over Grace who was hardly paying attention to the conversation at all, subconsciously picking at her cuticles with the hand that wasn’t tightly holding onto Dean’s leather sleeve. “Well, dad never treated you like that. You were perfect. He was all over my case.”

John Winchester definitely had favorites, and very rarely (literally never) was Grace above her brothers. But, even though Sam was never thrown to the ground by his own hands, or locked outside of the car in a bug infested wooded area at five-years-old in the pouring rain, he didn’t avoid John’s gruff scrutiny so easily either. “You don’t remember?” Sam scoffed.

“Well, maybe he had to raise his voice but sometimes you were out of line.” Dean wouldn't touch any conversation about Grace’s relationship with John with a ten foot pole, but he would touch Sam’s, and the frustration that the middle Winchester felt was only piling up by the day, incapable of comprehending how his brother could openly admit that John was a dick, while also being his biggest supporter. Grace could understand it, but she wasn’t in the mood to unpack the trauma response of surviving at whatever costs necessary.

Sam rolled his eyes, not willing to abandon the topic just yet, despite how desperately Grace wished they’d stop talking about John all together. Her fingers twitched as she held onto Dean’s sleeve, but before he could react, she pulled her hands away entirely, intertwining her fingers in front of her body as she rocked on her feet. “Right. Right, like when I said I’d rather play soccer than learn bowhunting.” Sam rolled his eyes, his gaze trailing over Grace once more, but his sister still didn’t seem to be paying any more attention than she had been before, her eyes glazed over as she glanced back to where Larry and his son had once stood, but now both were gone.

“Bowhuntings an important skill.” Dean rebutted, and if Grace wasn’t so dazed from lingering panic, she would’ve frowned at how normalized all of this was for Dean. She’d gotten the chance to spend almost an entire year out from beneath her fathers thumb, but Dean never had, and when she’d been healing, finding herself and establishing connections in the real world, he’d been subjected to it all alone. Maybe Dean had never been beaten until he passed out, maybe he’d never been taunted with cynical punishments, but he was just as equally manipulated by the mind games that John Winchester thrived on playing with his own children; he just hadn’t realized it yet. Grace could be patient, she could wait for him to realize how much of his life and adolescence had been tarnished by John’s attitude on his own terms. Sam however, didn't seem to be able to extend the same thoughtfulness.

“Whatever.” Sam rolled his eyes, not in the mood to have his feelings belittled and trampled over. “How was your tour?”

“Oh, it was excellent. I’m ready to buy.” Dean quipped, a sarcastic smile on his face before it fell, his tone dropping as he grew serious. “So you might be onto something. Looks like Dustin Burwash wasn’t the first strange death around here.” Grace frowned, looking up at Dean at the information, finally coming out of her own head enough to be fully engaged in the conversation at hand.

“What happened?” She questioned, angling her body so that Larry couldn’t watch them talk, not that he’d be able to hear them from across the patio, but she didn’t want to take any chances and raise any more red flags than necessary.

“About a year ago before they broke ground one of Larry’s surveyors dropped dead while on the job. Get this. Severe allergic reaction to bee stings.”

“More bugs.” Sam concluded, and Dean nodded, repeating the realization.

“Fucking great. Yippee.” Grace shivered, her brothers glancing down sympathetically, although amusement shone bright in both of their light eyes. If only they knew why she was so afraid, there wouldn’t be an ounce of amusement glistening through their green stares, but she wasn’t ready to disclose hidden moments of the past just yet, and they weren’t ready to hear it.

Another handful of hours later, all three siblings were once again crammed into the car, although this time Sam was behind the wheel and Dean was nose deep in a book in the passenger seat. Grace was curled up in the backseat, forcing herself to go through a million different breathing exercises as her brothers discussed insects and creepy crawlies at distributing lengths. Her hair was dry, her clothes weren’t damp in the slightest, but she swore she could feel rain pelting her skin and turning her bones to frozen ice as she sat in the backseat, her mind half present and half far away in the first memory of her father being truly cruel and unforgiving. He’d raised his voice at her before that moment. He’d grabbed her wrist too hard, tied her braids too tight, but never had he done something like lock her out of the car in the middle of the woods. She can still remember the way her little heart had lept in her chest with overwhelming fear as spiders crawled over her clothes, and mosquitos leeched onto any part of her body that they could draw blood from. After that hunt, she’d been covered in at least thirty mosquito bites that had bled for weeks before they healed. Dean and Sam never knew how she got them, and John had made sure they never had the chance to ask.

“You know, I’ve heard of killer bees, but killer beetles? What is it that could make different bugs attack?” Dean questioned, flipping to another page in the book, although Grace is certain that he’s already read the same pages three times over, but she doesn’t comment on it, more than content to let the boys take the lead on this case while she focuses on not succumbing to violent memories at the forefront of her mind.

“Well, haunting sometimes includes bug manifestations.” Sam suggested, but Dean didn’t even let that sit in the air for a second before he was arguing its legitimacy, his eyes scanning the pages between his fingers intently.

“Yeah, but I didn’t see any evidence of ghost activity.” He explained, and with pursed lips Sam agreed, effectively sending them both back to the drawing board. “Maybe they’re being controlled somehow you know, but something or someone.”

Sam frowned, looking over at Dean, his eyes flickering to Grace for only a second before he was focusing back on the road, the Impala’s headlights shining bright in the expanse of darkness that surrounded them. “You mean like Willard?”

“Yeah. Bugs instead of rats.” Grace would be more than okay if it were rats that they were questioning right now, even if she desperately despised those creatures too. Nothing was worse than bugs. She’d been scared of them before that night in Palm Springs, but now all they do is stir wild anxiety in her belly. John Winchester hated her weaknesses, but he’d been the one to give her most of them.

“There are cases of psychic connections between people and animals. Elementals, telepaths.” Sam explained away what he could, ideas bouncing off of Dean who took them in with only mild scrutiny.

“Yeah, the whole Timmy-Lassie thing.” Dean hummed thoughtfully before he found a connection, his right hand jutting outward in a motion of understanding as he craned his head to glance at both Grace and Sam. “Larry’s kid. Got bugs for pets.”

“Matt?” Sam questioned, nodding in agreement with Dean as he recalled the events of the barbeque. “He did try to scare Gracie and the realtor with a tarantula.”

“Don’t mention it.” Grace shivered, grabbing at the silver chain around her neck instinctively, clutching the cold pendant between her warm palms, desperately trying to keep herself from overthinking how close the spider had been to her hand. Dean reaches back, patting her knee affectionately though he said nothing to ease her discomfort, not-so-subtly enjoying the way she squirmed in her seat like a terrified child.

“Think he’s our Willard?”

Sam sighed, both hands on the wheel now. “I don’t know. Anything’s possible, I guess.”

Dean inclined his head in contemplation, but quickly pointed out a house on the side of the road, his finger tapping against the window as he directed Sam to slow down. “Oh, hey, pull over here.”

Grace frowned in confusion, and Sam shared the same expression as he pulled into the driveway of the house. “What are we doing here?” He questioned, craning his head to glance out the window as Dean began to peel himself out of the car wordlessly.

Grace crawled into the front seat when Dean reached for the garage door handle, “It’s too late to talk to anybody else.” His only defense as he began to pull the door open, revealing an empty garage.

“We’re gonna squat in an empty house?” Sam called out in disbelief, but it wasn’t the most insane thing they’d done while seeking shelter on an active case, so Grace remained silent, emotionally drained from the long day behind her now.

“I wanna try the steam shower. Come on.” Dean encouraged, but Sam remained unconvinced, simply staring at him through the open window. Grace, however, smiled in amusement, always the one to make the most out of whatever cards they were dealt, and spending a night in a bed of her own – a real bed, on top of everything else – well that didn’t seem so bad at all. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had her own space to sleep in, certain that if it had happened at all, it had been years ago. “Come on!”

Grace batted her hand against Sam’s bicep, silently encouraging him to pull the car into the garage before anybody still lingering around the development could notice them. Sam rolled his eyes but obliged by the request, smirking in fond amusement when the side mirror crashed into Dean’s hand, their brother wincing in pain before he pulled the garage door down and into place, concealing the Impala for the night.

She climbed out of the car eagerly, brushing strands of hair off of her shoulders before she was heading to the back of the car in search of her own duffle bag. Dean already had the trunk open, her navy blue duffle over his shoulder and his own black bag held up on the other one. Sam rolled his eyes when he realized that Dean had no intention of grabbing his bag, and shoved his older brother out of the way so that he could retrieve it himself.

“Better sleep with one eye open, Gracie. Wouldn’t want any spiders in your bed, would you?” Dean taunted, his smirk electric and jesting, but it fell away quickly when Grace tensed at his side, her eyes widening with fear that was more than just irrational. Her breath caught, her lips beginning to tremble before teeth sank into soft skin, willing them to remain unmoving and neutral, though everything about her expression seeped genuine terror.

Her eyes refused to meet Deans, but weakly she pleaded with him to ease up on the jokes. “Can you not? Please?” She grabbed her duffle off of his shoulder, stalking past both him and Sam before either one of them could say anything to either remedy the situation or make it worse. It wasn’t the first time Dean had threatened her with bugs, he was the stereotypical annoying older brother that exploited any lighthearted weakness his siblings expressed, but all of the times when he’d teased her about spiders in the past had been out of pocket. Now, there were actual bugs that were potentially killing people, and Grace was in no condition to just let the joke roll off of her shoulders like she’d always done before.

Dean frowned in confusion as he watched her walk away and enter the house, Sam standing right beside him wearing the same expression of uncertainty. “She’s being weird, right?”

“She’s scared of bugs, dude. I think she has every right to be a little on edge.” Sam defended, but even he was skeptical.

Dean shook his head, and for a moment, Sam could see the genuine concern in his eyes that he tried so hard to hide at any given moment. “No. The way she held onto my sleeve at the barbeque… she’s not telling us something.”

“Think it has to do with Dad?” Sam questioned as he closed the trunk, not without grabbing a blanket from the back that he knew Grace wouldn’t be able to sleep without. She was always cold at night, and he doubted that the house would have the best heat circulation – or any at all – with only the necessary furniture piled into it.

“When doesn’t it with her?” Dean sighed sadly, nodding toward the door, desperate to leave the day behind and turn in for at least a couple hours of rest. Sam didn’t argue, following after his older brother and stepping past the threshold. For a moment, he wondered what their lives would’ve turned out to be if they’d never left Lawrence, but there was no point dwelling on what would never be known, so as quickly as he considered it, he moved on, just wanting to turn in for the night.

The next morning, Grace was already up and ready for whatever challenges they faced while trying to uncover the mysteries of Oasis Plains. The sun had risen over the development, and with the birds chirping outside, all of the siblings were gathering themselves in preparation, although Dean had skewed priorities.

Grace was sitting in the hallway, her back against the wall, and her knees pulled up to her chin as she waited around for her brothers to get a move on. She was in no rush to get back into bug infested territory, but she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t going restless. She’d never been good at keeping still, always in search of something to keep her mind alert and her hands busy, but there was absolutely nothing to do in a house that only had the basic necessities. The refrigerator wasn’t even plugged in downstairs, still covered in plastic that protected the stainless steel from scratches.

Sam knocked on the bathroom door minutes later, annoyance set into his jaw as he heard the water still running. “You ever coming out of there?” He asked, only receiving a grumbled ‘What’ in response as Dean stayed beneath the stream of hot water. Grace had already showered, and her hair was still slightly damp as it fell over her left shoulder in a loose braid. “Dean, a police call came in on the scanner. Someone was found dead three blocks from here. Come on.”

“More bugs?” Grace questioned from the floor, her light eyes revealing vulnerability that she just didn’t have the energy to conceal anymore. She’d hardly gotten even an hour of sleep, unable to move on from the phantom sensation of bugs crawling up her skin enough to actually rest, and that was evident in her dim eyes and timid demeanor.

“Looks like it.” Sam smiled sympathetically, knowing that even if he suggested Grace stay here instead of join them out in the town and upcoming development, she’d never agree to those conditions. He wouldn’t either. Not when the both of them grew up being expected to perform under any conditions and restraints.

The door cracked open, and Dean grinned widely. “This shower is awesome.” He concluded, a towel wrapped around his hair as steam slipped out from the crack in the door. Grace could only scoff her amusement, rolling her eyes at his fascination with simple pleasantries.

“Come on.” Sam rolled his eyes, strutting away from the bathroom door in exasperation. Dean had an amusing way of always getting beneath his skin. He played the same tricks every time, but somehow Sam never learned to just ignore him. If Grace didn’t know any better, she’d suggest that Sam likes being annoyed by Dean. It certainly makes her day interesting.

She stood up from her spot in the hallway, following Sam down the stairs. She’d already explored every inch of the house, but her eyes still scanned the layout as she descended the staircase, making note of all the subtle details and elements that further exonerated the vibe of the house. It wasn’t anything elaborate despite the size and favorable amenities, and she quite liked how nonchalant it felt to walk the halls in a pair of black leggings and a sweatshirt. It felt comfortable, easy. If she had been given the chance, she would’ve loved to grow up in a house like this.

“Gracie?” Sam questioned as the youngest Wincheter came to stand in the kitchen. Grace hummed her attention, soft eyes trailing over Sam as she inspected his body for injuries. “Yesterday–” He began, trailing off as he scratched at his chin, unsure of how to broach the topic without upsetting his sister who notoriously wanted nothing to do with conversations about their fathers behavior. “You’re scared of bugs because of Dad, aren’t you?” He decided that blunt was the best option, but immediately regretted it when Grace reeled back like she’d been physically struck, her eyes widening for only a second before she masked the expression like she’d always had to do whenever John was around.

“You don’t want to go there, Sammy. Just leave it alone.” That was answer enough, and Sam nodded, knowing that he wasn’t going to get anymore information out of Grace without further prying, and that wasn’t something he was interested in or ever wanted to do. Dean was the one who pushed them to open up, who fought to know every secret they kept close to their hearts. Sam and Grace, however, had the mutual understanding that they’d share when they were ready, and it was okay if they never were.

“Right.” He hummed, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he accepted the end of the conversion; not that it had even started to begin with. He wasn’t trying to get more information out of her, more than willing to leave it alone, but Grace still softened at the sight of him so caught up in his head, and her shoulders deflated as she leaned against the granite countertop.

“You were seven. I was five. We were in Palm Springs chasing that spirit that killed the two girls. Dad took me out to burn the bones, told you and Dean that we’d be back by sunrise with breakfast from that dumbass diner with the dinosaur in the parking lot. We came back soaked, and Dean was pissed off that Dad let me stand in the rain, because he got in trouble for going out during a storm the week before. Dad just agreed, let him think that I wanted to be out there with him, but he– god, that’s not even close to what happened. I tripped over a branch, fell in the mud. Dad was pissed that the new shirt I’d gotten from Bobby was already ruined. After he made me salt the bones, he told me to stay where I was, to make sure that the bones actually burned. He went back to the car, I thought he was coming back, but then he didn’t. It was the middle of spring, and humid, and it just started pouring out of nowhere. I came back covered in mosquito bites and you were mad that they kept bleeding onto the bed sheets. Dad told you I got bit while we burned the bones, and I mean, yeah I guess I probably did, but he didn’t tell you that he locked me out of the car for two hours as a punishment for ‘fucking things up like always’. At one point, there was a spider on me. I freaked out, I mean, I hated bugs to begin with, but being out in the rain, in the middle of the night, still able to smell the gasoline from the fire– I don’t know. It sounds stupid. Honestly, it is stupid. But that was when he really started to change. When the little comments he made turned into being backhanded, when any minor mistake was suddenly reason enough to hit me until I couldn’t get up without help. There is so much you don’t know, Sammy, and I’m not ready to talk about it. And, as much as you think you’re ready to hear it, you’re not. So yes, I’m scared of bugs because of Dad, but just… drop it, okay? I’ll be fine. I’ve always been fine.” Grace wasn’t even aware of the fact that she was rambling, anxiously pulling at her fingers as she disclosed the first night John Winchester had ever shown her his true colors. She’d idolized him at the time; been able to overlook the comments he made and the ways in which he treated her differently than the boys. She’d loved him, even afterwards, but now, now she’s not so sure whether she hates him with a burning passion, or still wants to try and impress him even slightly.

Grace could see the gears turning in Sam’s head. She could see him piecing together snippets of the past that had made no sense at the time, but now had a different meaning. “You let Dean and I torment you with bugs for years…” He trailed off, an unspoken apology in his saddened eyes that Grace only shrugged off, harboring no hard feelings for her brother's actions.

“You didn’t know, and I’m pretty sure most little girls hate bugs, Sammy. You were kids, acting like kids. It’s not your fault I was never allowed to be one too.”

Despite the fear of bugs that came from that night out in Palm Springs, Grace Winchester still adored the rain, and how it gave whatever streets it fell upon a chance to start fresh when the clouds cleared. Droplets of cold rainwater pelted the ground beneath the Impala, the wipers working fast to clear away the drops that pattered against the windshield without a rhythm. She had stolen one of Dean’s sweatshirts for a change, wanting something heavier than her own clothes, and the material threatened to drown her frame as she shoved her hands into the front pocket, pulling at her fingers as she coached herself into bravery, wanting to prove to herself more than anyone else that she was capable of still doing her job even when fear ran down to the very center of her bones.

Lights glimmered in the distance, an ambulance and squad cars pulled up to the house where Lynda Bloome had mysteriously died hours earlier. Sam was behind the wheel once again, Dean in the backseat for a change, not that he’d had any choice in the matter. Sam and Grace had already been in the car when he’d finally come out of the bathroom, and as if he could sense that something of importance had been discussed without him present, he’d slid into the backseat with only a huff of annoyance. Grace had craned her head to grin at him as Sam backed out of the garage, and all Dean had done was roll her eyes and mumble something about how she was a ‘princess’ beneath his breath.

She stepped out of the car in time with Sam, pulling the hood of the sweatshirt over her hair and sticking close to Dean, not wanting to drag yet another umbrella out of the trunk. Dean didn’t mind, holding the pole just slightly at an angle, letting it cover her entirely. Rain pelted his shoulder, but if he cared, he didn’t even grimace as the leather of his jacket became slick with tracks. They walked up to Larry who was on the phone, an umbrella in his hands that was similar to their own. His eyebrows raised in surprise as he noticed them, shoving the phone into his pocket before giving over his attention.

“Hello, you’re, uh, back early.” He commented, clearly frazzled by their unexpected appearance. At the end of the day, it wasn’t the death of Lynda that bothered him, it was the fact that he could lose business over it. Grace had to resist rolling her eyes at his attitude, wondering how somebody could become so detached from reality that they prioritized a sales deal over real relationships. Twenty years working a job like this, and even she still shed tears over the victims they couldn’t save.

“Yeah, we, uh, just drove in. Wanted to take another look at the neighborhood.” Dean explained away their sudden appearance, his eyes scanning over the houses that filled the block.

“What’s going on?” Sam questioned.

Larry sighed, his eyes darting in the direction of the house that Lynda had passed within before they found the siblings again. He looked straight at Sam, hardly even acknowledging Grace. “You guys met, uh, Lynda Bloome at the barbecue?” He questioned, glancing at the body bag that was being placed into the back of an ambulance just a few feet away.

“The realtor.” Sam nodded, establishing that the connection had been made.

“Well, she, uh, passed away last night.” Larry explained, and for the first time, Grace saw a wrinkle of despair in his expression, proving that beneath the businessman persona, Larry did have a heart in some capacity.

“What happened?” She asked softly, eyes saddened and understanding as she fit into her role of concerned young woman well. It wasn’t all a fabrication however, because at the end of the day, that was the true question that remained unanswered across all of their books.

“I’m still trying to find out.” Larry shrugged, his voice wavering as he glanced back at the house for a third time. “Identified the body for the police. Look, I’m– I’m sorry. This isn’t a good time.”

Grace shook her head, waving Larry’s apology off with a soft smile that conveyed her understanding. “It’s okay.” She assured, watching as he nodded before excusing himself, stalking up to the front door where an officer loomed, in the process of roping off the entry points.

“You know what we have to do, right?” Dean questioned, turning to look at Sam.

“Yeah, get in that house.” Sam sighed, already mapping out possible entry points that excluded the front door. Grace’s eyes lingered on the wooden fence, knowing that they’ve scaled more challenging fences in their past, and that it would certainly be easy enough if they could catch a minute without bustling crowds of law enforcement watching.

“See if we got a bug problem.” Dean prattled off, his hand that wasn’t wrapped around the pole of the umbrella jutting out toward the center of Grace’s back. She nearly jumped out of her skin when his fingers crawled up her cotton covered body, her eyes wide and full of fear as she flinched away from the sensation.

“Dean!” She hissed, her heart racing as she shivered involuntarily. She’d only just stopped feeling like there were beetles and spiders all over her body, but now that feeling was back tenfold, and her face flushed with anxiety as she tried to quell the brewing storm of memories as the rain seemed to splash harder against the ground beneath her feet.

Sam shook his head, pulling Grace into his side, his arm slinking around her shoulders protectively as his fingers brushed against her comfortingly. “Not cool man.” He directed the comment at Dean, his jaw set as he watched Grace swim within her own head, her pupils dilated with fear that he now knew wasn’t as baseless and irrational as he’d previously thought. How many times had they triggered her without knowing? How many times had she brushed off and forgiven their jokes when it stirred nothing but panic and fear inside of her? Sam hated to think about what those answers would be if he asked.

“It’s fine, Sammy.” She brushed it off, not wanting to dwell on the situation when Dean had no reason to think that his jokes were beyond insensitive and triggering. Her attempt to derail the conversation was futile though, because he’d already begun to figure that something was going on, and his jaw clenched with annoyance as he glanced between Grace and Sam.

“What’s going on with you two?” He questioned, but Grace only brushed him off.

“Nothing.” She excused. “Once some of these idiots leave, we can definitely scale that fence and go in through the window. Place like this, it’s definitely unlocked.” She explained, nodding toward the corner of the street. Sam agreed, saying nothing further, and for once, Dean let the topic drop without arguing.

They retreated back toward the car, Grace climbing into the backseat without even acknowledging Dean, who was ready and willing to take that seat for himself again. She only smiled softly when he glanced back at her questioningly, and for a second, his eyes softened and he smiled back. “Figure these idiots’ll be out here for at least another hour. There’s a diner up the road, you hungry?”

“I could eat.” Sam shrugged, leaving the decision up to Grace, who nodded in the affirmative.

An hour later, all three siblings were standing outside of Lynda’s house with full bellies. Grace had ordered a mac n cheese from the kids menu after deciding she wasn’t hungry enough to finish anything bigger, and Dean hadn’t let her hear the end of it since the waiter served her her food on a small plate with a fond smile; equally amused herself. As they stood on the sidewalk, assessing the best plan of action for how they were going to get into the window, he was still snickering quietly to himself, and both Sam and Grace had had enough.

“Shut up!” She groaned, slapping her palm against his head, rolling her eyes when he recoiled in mock offense. “Not everyone lives off of cheeseburgers, asshole. And don’t think I didn’t realize you stole I bite when I went to pee!”

“I had to make sure you weren’t being poisoned!” Dean rebutted, his eyes glimmering with amusement that had Grace breaking into a smile as well, the anxiety that had gripped her in the earlier hours of the morning no longer so heavy and paralyzing. “Alright, Sammy goes in first. You follow, and I’ll be right behind you. Got it?”

Both Sam and Grace nodded, accepting the game plan without complaint. Sam leapt up onto the fence, making it look far easier than it actually was as he shoved his foot into one of the holes and reached for the shutters on the side of the house, holding on with one hand while his other pried open the window. Grace, who’d temporarily been referred to as monkey when she was three and climbed anything in sight, had no trouble following his movements, even daring to laugh as she stumbled through the window and into Sam who steadied her with fond amusement etched across his green stare.

“Remember that time you and Jess scaled the fire escape at that frat house?” Sam laughed, recalling a night that felt like years ago, but was really only a couple of months ago as they waited for Dean to climb up the fence and join them in the bathroom.

“Oh my god, yeah!” Grace laughed softly, shaking her head at the memory she’d more or less buried since leaving Stanford behind, “She kept freaking out about falling. I was sure she was going to pass out.” She continued on, but her smile wilted as she and Sam connected eyes, both suddenly sobered up from their momentary bout of nostalgia as reality came crashing in on them once more. “I miss her too, you know.”

“I know.” Sam sighed, patting Grace’s shoulder before he pulled away from the embrace looking toward the window as Dean stumbled in. Sam was quick to turn around and pull the window closed, all three of them focusing on the crime scene beneath their feet now. The black tape on the floor in the shape of an unconscious body was eerie, but a definite sign that they were in the right place.

“This looks like the right place.” Dean affirmed what they’d already gathered, and began to lead the way into the bathroom, leaning down to pick up a rag that was crumpled on the floor. Grace stepped just over the threshold separating the bedroom and bathroom, moving just slightly to the side so that Sam could see as well, not willing to get any closer than she absolutely had to to what she desperately hoped wasn’t a pile of dead beetles. Her face paled when Dean picked the rag up and dead spiders fell onto the floor, their lifeless bodies shriveled up in odd positions that sent shivers down Grace’s spine. “Spiders. From spider boy?” Dean questioned, turning to look at Sam and Grace, the washcloth still between his grasp.

“Matt.” Sam corrected, adamant that Dean refer to the kid by his name, but his efforts were beginning to prove that they only lead to even more taunting. “Maybe.” He reluctantly agreed, sighing heavily as he stared down at the pile of spiders, desperately wanting to be wrong about even considering Matt’s involvement.

Grace had begun to slowly pull away from where Dean was crouched down on the blood stained tile, hardly noticing that she was stumbling backwards at all until her back hit the wall. Her breath hitched just slightly, eyes trained to the pile of arthropods that she could swear was moving toward her. She nearly jumped out of her skin when something thudded against her shoulder, and she definitely did when she glanced down, finding a spider just slightly caught within wild strands of her braid.

“Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!” Her entire body was frozen in fear, eyes wide and pleading as they flickered between both of her brothers, although she wasn’t really seeing them at all. Her hands flailed frantically at her sides, breath hitching as she became hyper aware of every minor sensation happening against her skin, almost certain that she could feel something crawling up her calf despite her pants being tight around her ankles.

Suddenly something was pressing against either side of her face, gentle but gruff against her skin that felt disgustingly clammy as the circulating air brushed through the room. Her unfocused eyes eventually focused again, becoming less glassy as she recognized Sam’s face in front of hers, blocking her sight from the spiders on the floor. His voice felt like it was years away, but she could make out the rushed words nonetheless.“Hey, hey. You’re good. It’s good. It’s gone. It’s gone.”

Grace shoved him away from her panickedly, batting against his chest with her palm when he hardly even budged, looking down at her with concerned confusion. He eventually got the hint and backed out of her way, just in time for her hands to seek out the ledge of the sink and expel everything she’d managed to eat at lunch. She groaned after a minute, reaching for the faucet with trembling hands, letting the water run until the bowl cleared and she could reach in and cup a handful, bringing it to her mouth quickly. When she spat it out, she didn’t look up right away, keeping her head craned above the sink and her eyes pinched shut, forcing herself to remember that she wasn’t stranded in the woods, nor was John even around to see her break like this at all.

When her chest didn’t feel so tight anymore, she stood up fully, reaching for the faucet and turning it off. She pulled Dean’s sleeve over her hand, wiping at her mouth. “You good?” Her eyes trailed to find Dean, his voice the one that had called out for her attention. His eyes were clouded with mixed emotions, his cluelessness conflicting with his natural response which was amusement. Grace could tell he was getting suspicious, connecting dots that had been in front of his face the entire time, but wasn’t entirely sure how the picture he had all the pieces to was supposed to look.

“I really fucking hate spiders.” She groaned, pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes, attempting to relieve some of the pressure that was building at the front of her head. “I need to get out of here.” She didn’t wait for her brothers to agree, stepping past Sam and heading for the window without so much as a glance back.

Grace woke up to someone tapping her shoulder with gentle urgency, and instinctively she leaned away from the disruption, her green eyes squinting open as she attempted to avoid the blinding brightness beyond the Impala’s backseat. She groaned quietly in exhaustion, but took in her surroundings just enough to recognize that the car was parked on a busy street corner directly beside a high school, and it was Dean who was standing in front of the car door, attempting to rouse her from sleep.

She shrugged off his hand, straightening her posture as she furrowed her eyebrows. She’d fallen asleep shortly after climbing into the backseat back at Oasis Plains, but more than a few hours had passed since then and the dirt caked beneath Dean’s fingernails insinuated that something had happened whilst she was essentially dead to the world. In any other case, she would’ve been pissed that they didn’t wake her, but she wasn’t too perturbed about missing out on even more conversations about killer insects.

“Hey, switch with me.” Dean inclined his head toward the high school, stepping out of the way so that Grace could climb out of the car. She didn’t question why he wanted to switch, figuring that whatever the reason was, it wasn’t a topic for others to overhear, let alone adolescent children getting out of school.

She slid into the passenger seat, pulling it forward so he wasn’t as crammed, and only then did she notice that Sam was on the other side of the car, putting a box down on the leather seats beside Dean. Curiously, she leaned over to peak inside, immediately regretting that decision when she found a bunch of dirt covered skeletons and worms. She groaned, pulling her head away and instead focusing on the road in front of her, beyond ready to finish this case and get moving onto the next, even if that meant they were just one step closer to locating John.

“Do I even want to know what I missed?” Grace questioned, pulling her legs together as she sat criss-cross applesauce in the passenger seat, something her brothers couldn’t even imagine being able to do. Even with the seat pushed up as far as it could be without Grace practically eating the dashboard, Dean’s knees hit the back of the chair and he shifted slightly in an attempt to find a comfortable position.

“Uh, not really.” Sam grimaced as he closed the drivers side door, starting the engine and peeling away from the curb. “Moral of the story is we think these bones are what’s attracting all the bugs.”

“And the kid? Matt?” Grace turned to look at Sam, having figured that they were at the high school he attended, and they’d most likely talked to him at some point.

“Not connected. Smart, though. Figured out something was going on, just didn’t know what.” Grace hummed as she nodded, accepting that her brothers had a good grip on the case without her help. “You okay now?” Sam asked after a beat of silence, his eyes shining with concern that made Grace’s chest clench. She hates when she’s the reason they’re worried; hates that half of what they worry about isn’t even in her control at all.

She nods her head, but the way she bites at her nails tells both of her brothers that she’s lying. “I mean, this case isn’t all sunshine and rainbows to begin with, Sammy. Given the circumstances, I’m as good as I can be.”

“Yeah, and what are those circumstances?” Dean calls from the backseat, finally having had enough of the apparent secrecy that was happening between his two youngest siblings. Grace sighs softly, soft eyes flickering to Dean in the rearview mirror, but Sam’s jack locks, and he shakes his head.

“Nothing, dude.” He defends, but Grace just shakes her head, knowing that Dean’s not going to relent until they tell him something believable.

“No, it’s not nothing. You two have been weird all day. I mean, really, what’s going on?” There was an edge to Dean’s tone that had Grace inching closer to the passenger door, a thickness in the air between Sam and Dean that she didn’t want to be included in at all. She sighed again, green eyes falling shut as she drew in a deep breath.

“Why can you never drop anything, dude?” Sam continues to try and go at Dean, but Grace puts her hand up, ending their arguing before it could really begin.

“It’s fine, Sammy.” She shrugged off his glance, craning her head to look back at Dean who was sitting in the middle of the leather row, his jaw locked, impatience etched across his features. “You remember the hunt in Palm Springs something like fourteen years ago? The spirit that killed those two girls? Dad took me out to salt the bones for the first time?”

“Yeah, and? What about it?” Dean questioned, evidently still annoyed as he barely even glanced at Grace. She bristled at the clip in his tone, sighing softly as she turned her gaze back to the road. The rain had stopped at some point, but the ground still glistened as the Impala’s headlights reflected off of puddles.

“Why do you even care if you’re just going to be an asshole about it?” She huffed, sinking down into the seat, suddenly not so willing to share moments of her troubled past with him. Dean sighed regretfully, letting his shoulders drop as he glanced at Grace softly, but the damage had already been done. The woman in the front of the car had dealt with irrational anger being directed at her for the entirety of her life, and although she still had trouble asserting her own personal boundaries, she wasn’t about to deal with Dean’s anger when whatever his problem was had to do with Sam and not her. “Just forget it. Where are we going?”

“Somehow, whatever’s happening here is connected to these bones. Figured we should probably find out where they came from.” Sam flicked the left blinker on, turning down a street that evidently led to a college campus if the swarms of young adults with backpacks walking around was any indication.

“Right.” Grace hummed, climbing out of the car when Sam pulled over, pulling the keys out of the ignition without saying anything more. Dean caught her wrist before she could follow Sam, keeping her on the sidewalk as he basically pleaded with her to forgive his earlier attitude. “Not now.” She pulled her arm free from his grasp, pulling the sleeves of his hoodie over her hands as she caught up with Sam.

“So a bunch of skeletons in an unmarked grave, maybe it is a haunting?” Grace questioned as they trekked toward the anthropology department. “I mean, pissed off spirits, not a far fetch to say at least one of them has some unfinished business.”

“Yeah, maybe. Question is, why bugs?” Sam nodded at the suggestion, fixing his jacket over the box, not wanting to draw attention to the bones he carted around with effortless nonchalance like they were only a collection of old textbooks. “And why now?”

“Uh, that’s two questions.” Dean muttered, something clearly on his mind as he matched Grace and Sam’s pace but contributed nothing to their back and forth. “Hey, so with that kid back there how could you tell him to just ditch his family like that?”

“Just, uh, I know what the kid’s going through.” Sam explained, not seeing where Dean was going with his line of questioning, although Grace figured that they’d already butted heads about the topic while she’d been asleep in the car. Dean’s aggravation made a lot more sense now, but she still didn’t feel like divulging pieces of her past even if his temperament was called for. He’d burned that bridge and she didn’t know when she’d ever be ready to rebuild it.

“How about telling him to respect his old man? How’s that for advice?” Dean kept pushing, kept trying to make his opinion of Sam’s decision known, though it wasn’t like neither he nor Grace ever even had a chance to forget about his feelings toward Stanford when almost every conversation led back to the topic in some capacity. Grace understood both of their perspectives, probably more than either of her brothers realized, but Dean’s unwilting loyalty to John was even too much for her to be okay with. She’d give him her patience, allow him to unmake every memory of childhood at his own pace, but pushing his own experiences onto Sam was far more than she could tolerate. One day, Dean would have to accept and understand that all three of them were treated differently by John, and for that they were each entitled to their own feelings about him.

“Dean, come on. This isn’t about his old man. You think I didn’t respect dad. That’s what this is about.” Sam fought, stopping right in front of the department building, his jaw tight as he glanced down at their older brother.

Dean scoffed, shaking his head. “Just forget it, okay? Sorry I brought it up.”

“I respected him. Even when he beat the shit out of Gracie. Even when he bailed on us for a fight he wasn’t even sure he could win. But no matter what I did, it was never good enough.” Grace hates that she respected him too, hates that maybe she still does. He was the first person to show her how cruel the world could be to someone smaller, weaker, kinder, but he’s also the man that raised her. The man that raised her brothers, and despite everything, kept a rough over their heads; even if it was an ever changing one. She hates that after everything, the smallest part of her heart still yearns to win over his pride.

“So what are you saying, that dad was disappointed in you?” Dean asks, stopping a few feet ahead.

“Was?” Sam scoffs, a perturbed smile crossing his lips as he shakes his head. “Is. Always has been.”

“Why would you think that?” He genuinely doesn’t understand where Sam’s coming from, because even if he hates John Winchester for how he treated his only daughter, just like Grace, there are pieces of him that only want to remember the good. And, there was good. Not for Grace, never for her, but for him and Sam, there had been undeniable good mixed into the unavoidable bad.

“Because I didn’t wanna bowhunt or hustle pool because I wanted to go to school and live my life which, to our whacked-out family, made me the freak.” Sam defended, his palm slapping against his thigh as he tried to keep his frustration at bay, but with each quip from Dean, his reserve was breaking more and more.

“Yeah, you were kind of like that blonde chick in The Munsters.” Dean’s smile only further annoys Sam, and Grace can only roll her eyes at her eldest brother's inability to ever have a serious conversation about Sam’s very real resentment towards John. There was only black and white in Dean’s world, but Sam had long ago discovered that life was more gray than anything else.

“Dean, you know what most dads are when their kids score a full ride? Proud.” Sam sighs, his voice softening as he begins to break, not possessing the energy to keep having the same conversation over and over again with little to no understanding from their brother. Grace frowns, knowing how much it had hurt Sam that John couldn’t have cared less about his scholarship. She’d been proud, unbelievably so, but she understands that her pride would never be enough to fill the hole in his heart that John had left empty. “Most dads don’t toss their kids out of the house.”

“I remember that fight. In fact, I seem to recall a few choice phrases coming out of your mouth.” Dean rebutted, and Grace wanted to facepalm at that moment. Dean’s perception of family dynamics was so beyond tainted that even years later, he couldn’t even begin to recognize that it wasn’t Sam’s job to keep the peace between himself and John. She couldn’t blame Dean, he’d never known anything other than this life and surviving by whatever means necessary, but she wouldn’t agree with him either.

“You know, truth is, when we finally do find dad I don’t know if he’s even gonna want to see me.” Sam admits, and Grace has to refrain from drawing in a heavy breath at the mention of reconnecting with John. Ultimately, that was the goal, the reason they were even working this case – or any case – at all, but it was easy to forget about the pending reunion when every lead they followed came back empty. She didn’t know if she’d make it out alive once she was back beneath his thumb, but that wasn’t what she needed to put her energy into right now.

Dean bristles, something that doesn’t go unnoticed by Grace, who frowns at his conflicted expression. Where she could see both of her brothers' sides in the argument, neither of them could ever seem to meet eyes on their own opinions; both of them too stubborn and fueled by trauma to recognize that all they’d ever been trying to do was survive by whatever means necessary, with whatever cards they were given. Grace knew that Dean had it harder than Sam, she recognized that, but Sam just couldn’t grasp how much Dean had sacrificed to practically raise them on his own whenever John was working a case. He followed orders because it kept them safe. He defended Dad because he desperately wanted them to feel like their lives weren’t so unorthodox and out of control. He didn’t know how to stop fighting the battle because the battle was all he’d ever known. “Sam, dad was never disappointed in you. Never.” Dean shook his head, and Grace could hear the sincerity in his tone, but Sam couldn’t – he didn’t want to, not yet anyways. That was the problem with them. Everything had to be at their own pace, in their own time. “He was scared,”

Sam scoffed, shaking his head as he cut Dean off, who for once was being painfully genuine and transparent. “What are you talking about?”

“He’s afraid of what could’ve happened to you if he wasn’t around.” Dean filled in the blanks, and Grace’s heart thumped in her chest. “But even when you two weren’t talking he used to swing by Stanford whenever he could. Keep an eye on you. Make sure you were safe.”

“What?” Grace froze, eyes wide as she looked at Dean for answers. Nausea pools in her belly, her chest tightening as she realizes that she had never fully been out from beneath her fathers thumb. She’d been with Sam for almost a year. It had taken her months to feel like she could be whoever she wanted without word traveling back to John, but now she was confronted with the fact that he’d always been there, always lurking, watching. Maybe he was there for Sam, maybe he never hid within the shadows to check up on her specifically, but he’d still been there. He’d still been there as she did all of the things he’d always told her she couldn’t do. Would he be pissed off when they found him? Would he punish her tenfold because not only had she left him behind in the middle of the night, but she’d gone and made a mockery of their family name? Her mind flashes to moments when she’d been less than perfect. When Jessica had dared her to do shots at a party, and she’d ended up so drunk that she puked in the bushes on the walk back to the apartment. When Sam had dragged her out to the fountain in the middle of the night, and they’d jumped in still in their clothes, claiming that it was a rite of passage at Stanford. Had he been there in those moments? Had he watched as she shed layers of scar tissue to instead embrace freedom and comfortability? Was she ever going to fully be free of his presence, or was she cursed to always be looking over her shoulder?

“Why didn’t he tell me any of that?” Sam craned his head, eyes flickering to Grace for only a moment before his attention fell back to Dean, needing to know why John had never tried to reach out to him when he was apparently worried enough to drive out to Stanford.

“Well, it’s a two way street dude. You could have picked up the phone.” Dean answered, and Grace wanted to scoff at the excuse, but she was frozen in fear, her mind racing a million miles an hour as she overanalyzed all of the times when she’d felt like somebody was watching her but had chalked it up to (valid) paranoia. They may be adults now, but it was never going to be their job to fix the relationships they had with John. “Come on, we're going to be late to our appointment.” He inclined his head toward the doors, stepping forward to keep moving, but Grace remained frozen, her eyes blurred with tears that stung and threatened to fall as she blinked. “Gracie, come on.”

“Um, I’ll, uh, meet you at the car. I need– I’m gonna go find food.” Grace could barely get the words past her lips, but by the time that she had constructed the sentence, she was turning on her heels, putting distance between herself and her brothers without even waiting to see their responses.

She’d spent eleven months and seven days – yes, she counted every last one – at Stanford with Sam. It had taken her a month to even leave the apartment for the first time after showing up on his doorstep in tears, and three months to stop looking over her shoulder every time she did. She’d put in the effort to reinvent herself however felt authentic and right, and there had been something sacred built on the promise that John Winchester would never know who she had become without his influence and restrictions. She’d never had a lot of things in life, but she’d at least had the chance to live her own way. But, now she was finding out that it wasn’t really her own at all. The nights she’d walked home from the part time job she’d gotten at the diner in town, and she’d clutched her bag tighter out of instinct when it had felt like eyes watched her closely. The days when she’d be out with Jessica, laughing and talking like her spirit had never been weighed down by fear, only to shrink into herself when the memories came back and learned instincts took over. Wherever she went, John Winchester followed her. She’d known that, but Sam had promised she was free of his control. She doubted that, but she’d trusted him anyway. Sam was wrong. She was naive. No matter how far she ran. No matter how hidden she made herself. She would never be unpinned.

Her chest tightened as she glanced around the campus square. Was he here now? Had it become something of a game to him? How were they to know if he lurked in the shadows? Suddenly Grace couldn’t breath, and she stumbled her way to a bench across from the department building. Her body crumbled onto the wooden boards, feeling heavy and tense as her vision blurred. For a moment, the sounds around her faded, but then they all came rushing back seemingly louder than they’d been before. She wheezed, blunt nails digging into the wood beneath her, clawing at any chance of finding solid ground to focus on.

Minutes later, the bench shifted beneath additional weight, and Grace’s gaze snapped to the right. She half expected to see her father glaring back at her, but instead, she met the eyes of a student who was probably her age, if not just a few years older. His face was kind, but tired, and his shoulders slumped to accommodate the heavy weight of his backpack.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle ya.” He apologized, having clearly noticed the way her grip tightened on the wooden boards beneath her thighs.

“No, you’re okay. Just got lost for a minute there.” She brushed him off weakly, her voice hoarse as a result of the emotions that had accumulated in her chest within such a short span of time.

“What classes are you taking?” The student questioned, expecting Grace’s stress to be related to coursework, which wasn’t the farthest fetched conclusion given they were in the heart of a lively campus.

“Oh, I’m not a student here. I’m not even from Oklahoma.” She laughed softly, the tightness in her chest ebbing away as she focused her energy on the casual conversation at hand, glad to be talking about something mindless and surface level for a change. She was getting really tired of long emotionally demanding conversations.

“Okay, I’ll bite. Where are you from?” Grace hadn’t meant for her earlier remark to come across any kind of way, but she can’t help but smile regardless. Something tells her the boy beside her knows a thing or two about fishing for conversations, and she can’t say she minds using him as a distraction.

“Kansas. But, I’ve lived practically everywhere. New York’s probably my favorite.” She doesn’t remember the last time she’s gotten to talk about something like this; probably months ago when Jessica was still around, but the sentiment remains. There was no need to have these conversations with her brothers, they’d all been there when moments happened, they all knew each other enough to just know these things based on body language, but it was nice to feel like someone was seeing her for a change. It got to be draining when all you ever were to anybody was a brush of wind in the night. Their lives were meaningful, she knew that, but that didn’t mean it was easy never having anyone around that cared about who you were as a person, not just an asset or an ally.

She doesn’t know how much time elapsed on that bench, but she knows that Sam and Dean came back far too quickly for her liking. She stood when Sam came into her line of sight, offering Weston an apologetic smile as she pulled at the hem of her hoodie, preparing to join the boys at the car. Weston, who had turned out to be a third year communications major from a town not even twenty minutes north, waved as she turned to leave, laughing beneath his breath when she stumbled over her untied laces and tried to play the entire thing off with nonchalance.

She gave him one last glance before she dunked into the backseat, sighing softly as she closed the door behind her, not even getting the chance to consider putting her seatbelt on before she sped away.

“Gracie–” Dean started, but she shook her head.

“If it’s about Dad, or a bullshit apology for being an asshole earlier, I really don’t care. What did you find out?” She questioned, not in the mood to have another conversation tethered to their father in some capacity. This case was enough without Dean’s remarks.

“The bones are Native American. There’s a Euchee tribe in Sapulpa that might know more.” He sighed, backing down from what was originally going to be his point of conversation. Grace nodded, saying nothing more as she crossed her legs, looking out the window as the scenery blurred together.

They walked into the diner after asking around, and immediately Dean led the way toward a man at a table, laying out playing cards. “Joe Whitetree?” He asked, receiving the slightest nod of confirmation from the long haired man.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions if that’s alright?” Sam tucked his hands into his pockets, keeping his voice even and unarmed as he approached. Grace stood between them, a kind and welcoming expression on her face despite how utterly done with the case she was. She wanted something different, something that was more guns blazing and literature. She hated when all there was to do was flounder around until they found something that stuck. And, she especially hated that everything they stumbled upon related back to their father as if the very premise of the case wasn’t enough for her wounded heart.

“We’re students from the university.” Dean began, but Joe was quick to dismantle that lie. Dean bristled at the confrontation, beginning again with another lie he’d thought up, but Joe didn’t take the bait for even a second.

“You know who starts sentence with truth is? Liars.” Grace couldn’t help but smirk a little at the man’s persistence for the truth, and instinctively she stepped out from behind Dean, facing Joe with a soft smile.

“Mr. Whitetree, have you heard of Oasis Plains?” She asked softly, glancing down at his playing cards for only a second before she was searching his eyes again. “It’s a housing development near the Atoka Valley.”

Whitetree’s eyes met hers with fondness, and his lips curved into a jesting smirk as he flicked his gaze to Dean’s. “I like her. She’s not a liar.” Grace only smiled more, a soft laugh falling off of her lips as she glanced at Dean to see him pull a palm down his face, clearly exasperated. “I know the area.”

“Is there anything you can tell us about the history there?” She asked cautiously, preparing for this to be dangerous water with the older man, but he only inclined his head curiously.

“Why do you want to know?” He fired back at her, though there was no defensiveness in his tone, and for that Grace was grateful. She couldn’t handle another hostile man on this case.

“Somethings happening there, and well, I think it might have something to do with some old bones we found down there.” She answered, being honest with the man, but still keeping the full truth closer to their inner circle. “The bones… they’re Native American.”

“I’ll tell you what my grandfather told me, what his grandfather told him. Two hundred years ago a band of my ancestors lived in that valley. One day, the American cavalry came to relocate them. They were resistant. Cavalry, impatient. As my grandfather put it, on a night the moon and the sun shared the sky as equals the cavalry first raided our village. They murdered, raped. The next day, the cavalry came again and the next and the next. And on the sixth night, the cavalry came one last time and by the time the sun rose every man, woman and child still in the village was dead.” Grace didn’t break her stare with Whitetree, but she was highly aware of her brothers connecting eyes behind her, and with their attention diverted, she tried not to draw attention to the way her body tightened at the details of the retelling of events. Enough secrets had slipped into the air already, there were just some that didn’t need to see the light of day along with the others. “They say on the sixth night as the chief of the village lay dying he whispered to the heavens that no white man would ever tarnish this land again. Nature would rise up and protect the valley and it would bring as many days of misery and death to the white man as the cavalry had brought upon his people.”

“Insects. Sounds like nature to me.” Dean muttered to Sam, before looking back at Whitetree, who had finally allowed his gaze to leave Grace’s. “Six days?” He double checked, earning a nod from Joe.

“And on the night of the sixth day none would survive.” Joe reaffirmed what he’d already mentioned, and the siblings nodded acceptingly.

“Thank you, Mr. Whitetree.” Grace smiled appreciatively before she followed her brothers out of the small diner, their minds reeling as they pieced together the information they’d just learned and what they already knew.

“When did the gas company man die?” Sam questioned as they stepped outside, heading back to the Impala to hopefully finish all of this once and for all.

“Friday.” Grace hummed, not even having to think about it. She was good with dates, she always had been. It was one of the few strengths that John Winchester saw in her.

“March 20th. That’s the Spring Equinox.” Sam pieced together the information that had been staring them in the face since the start. Grace wanted to bash her head into the wall for not considering the connection beforehand.

“The night the sun and the moon share the sky as equals.” Dean hummed, and Sam nodded, confirming that he was correct.

“So every year about this time anybody in Oasis Plains is in danger. Larry built this neighborhood on cursed land.”

“Uh, the sixth night would be tonight.” Grace piped up, looking at Sam with evident concern in her eyes.

“If we don’t do something, Larry's family will be dead by sunrise. So how do we break the curse?” Sam questioned, standing at the passenger side door of the Impala, not in the mood to be the one to drive. Grace didn’t even try to claim the position, just following him along to the left side of the car, waiting for Dean to unlock the latches so that she could slip into the backseat.

“You don’t break a curse. You get out of its way.” Dean shook his head, unlocking the car and beginning to sink into the driver's seat, but not without voicing the urgency that they all knew they faced. “We gotta get those people out now.”

Hours later, they were still on the way back to Oasis Plains, but Dean wasn’t taking his chances with the family. As headlights reflected off of damp roads, he held his phone up to his ear. “Yes Mr. Pike there’s a gas leak in your neighborhood.” He explained, but without the call being switched to speaker phone, neither Grace nor Sam could hear what Larry was saying on the other end. They simply waited with baited breath to hear Dean’s responses, desperately hoping that Larry didn’t prove hard to convince. “Well, it’s fairly extensive. I don’t wanna alarm you, but, uh, we need your family out of the vicinity for at least twelve hours or so just to be safe.” By the way Dean was answering questions, Grace knew that they weren’t going to stand a chance with convincing Larry to leave Oasis Plains behind. “Travis Weaver. I work for Oklahoma Gas and Power.” There was a beat of silence before Dean stuttered, pulling the device away from his ear and flipping it closed in frustration.

Grace sank back against the backseat, sighing in exasperation for headstrong men that didn’t know how to help themselves any. She watched as Sam reached for the phone next, hurriedly typing numbers into the keypad. “Matt, it’s Sam. Matt, just listen, you have to get your family out of that house right now, okay?” There was undeniable urgency in Sam’s tone, and Grace could only hope that it didn’t freak the teenager out to a point where he became less than helpful. “Because something’s coming.”

Grace looked out the window, watching the world pass by in the form of blurred together hues and shades. Dean was going as fast as he could, but even that was proving to not be enough as the night dragged on later and later and there was still distance to cover before they got to the Pike’s residence.

“You gotta make him listen, okay?” Sam stressed, but that wasn’t enough for Dean, who reached for the device, pulling it up to his ear as his voice hardened.

“Matt, under no circumstances are you to tell the truth. He’ll just think you’re nuts. Tell him you have a sharp pain in your right side and you gotta go to the hospital, okay?” Dean barked his orders sharply, and for a minute, all Grace saw was John telling her and the boys how to weasel their way into a case as children and young teenagers. Once they’d been embraced into the hunting world, John had no shame in using his children as bait. She couldn’t even recall how many times he’d told her to approach random strangers and get them talking, nor how many times he disregarded her safety to pull information out of a case. She knew Dean had good intentions, knew that this was for Matt’s benefit, but she couldn’t help but think that all of this had started for them as little white lies constructed by their father.

Evidently, Matt agreed because Dean slapped the phone closed for a second time and turned his attention to Sam. “Make him listen? What are you thinking?”

Grace rolled her eyes, not bothering to tune into their bickering. She’d had enough of the squabbling for a day, and so instead of paying attention to the way Sam clapped back defensively, she pressed her head against the window, watching the trees blur together as they passed.

When they eventually pulled up to Oasis Plains, making a sharp left before they approached the Pike household, all three of them sighed at the front lights turned on and cars still in the driveway. “Damn it, they’re still here. Come on.” They got out of the car with efficiency, and for the first time ever, Grace desperately wished that this was one of those hunts that could be handled with a gun. She was a near perfect shot, but that wouldn’t do her any good against what they were facing, and she felt entirely too vulnerable going in with only her senses.

As they approached the front door, Larry came storming out, his finger jutted out in their direction threateningly. “Get off my property before I call the cops!” He demanded.

“Mr. Pike, listen.”

“Dad, they’re just trying to help.” Matt interjected from the front porch, but Larry swung to address him quickly, his tone still raised and sharp as he turned his wagging finger to his song.

“Get in the house!” He demanded, and Grace couldn’t help but bristle at the sharpness of his order, her chin dropping to her chest as she recalled the many times John had yelled that same command at her before she’d been met with a world of pain from his bare hands.

“S-Sorry. I told him the truth.” The kid said apologetically, and suddenly Larry’s anger made a lot more sense. Grace sighed, but she couldn’t blame him either. Dean had been asking a lot of him and hadn’t even considered how Matt would feel about lying to the person that only ever saw his worst assets.

“We had a plan, Matt. What happened to the plan?” Dean snapped, his frustration bubbling over and being directed at the first person it could be. Unfortunately, that was Matt. Grace smiled softly at the boy, hoping that she could ease the guilt pooling in his stomach even slightly with the simple expression.

“Look, it’s twelve am. They are coming any minute now. You need to get your family and go before it’s too late.” Sam continued to try and plead, but Larry wanted to hear none of it. Grace hated that she couldn’t blame him for being defensive and critical, but it was in moments like this where she wished people had more blind faith in others.

“Oh, yeah, you mean before the biblical swarm.” The man rolled his eyes, and Dean had finally had enough.

“Larry, what do you think really happened to that realtor, huh? And the gas company guy? You don’t think something weird's going on around here?” He laid out the facts as blandly as he could, not having the time to stand there and hold Larry’s hand as he fought to prove the legitimacy of their claims.

“Look, I don’t know who you are but you’re crazy. You come near my boy or my family again, we’re gonna have a problem.” The man threatened, but it wasn’t anything that the siblings hadn’t heard a few hundred times already when they were working cases that involved real people and families.

“Well, I hate to be a downer, but we got a problem right now.” Dean fought back, his tone level as he tried to break through the man's strong reserve.

“Dad, they’re right. We’re in danger.” Matt tried again, persistent in his efforts to sway Larry’s decision to remain in Oasis Plains. Grace could only appreciate his courage, especially when Larry turned to yell at him again, and he didn’t even bristle in the face of confrontation. She knows that she would’ve backed down and scampered away the second John so much as turned his head to look at her. She could face monsters and things that went bump in the night, but put her in a room with her father and she was nothing more than a terrified little girl just wanting to avoid any additional pain and torment. “Why won’t you listen to me?” His voice raised, trembling as he finally broke, not able to act like Larry’s constant shoving aside and berating didn’t bother him.

“Because this is crazy! It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Look, this land is cursed! People have died here! Now are you gonna really take that risk with your family?” Sam raised his voice, but Grace wasn’t focused on the fight at hand, rather the distinct buzzing that was happening on all sides of her. Her chest tightened as she realized they were too late; that the insects were already here.

“Wait!” She called out, voice trembling despite every nerve in her body screaming to keep it together. “Do you hear it?”

Larry snapped his head toward the bug catcher on the porch, his eyes squinting as he took in the sound of audible buzzing, noticing that the electric trap zapped more frequently than it had been all night. “What the hell.” He commented, reality finally beginning to sink in as he snapped his gaze back to the siblings.

“Alright, it’s time to go. Larry, get your wife. Sam.” Dean turned to address his siblings, but he was cut off by Matt calling for their attention, his head craned toward the sky as they watched a swarm of insects rise over the treetops and make their way toward the house.

Grace felt her chest tightened even more, her hands beginning to shake at her sides as she realized that she was out in the open, vulnerable to whatever assault would come. For a moment she was frozen, her gaze turned toward the sky as her breathing became uneven and labored, but then something was grabbing her hand, and before she could really recognize what was happening, she was being dragged up the porch steps and into the house.

“No, no, no.” She mumbled on a loop, her hands tangling into her hair as she pulled at the roots, pacing back and forth as commotion ensued around her. She didn’t pay it any attention, she couldn’t, not with the way her mind was going blank and all she could think of was that night in Palm Springs when everything had changed. She wished she could go back to then, to hours before she’d ever gotten in the car with her father and headed off toward the woods. Things hadn’t been good, but they hadn’t been terrible either. That day in 1991 was the last time that Grace Winchester had ever really been a kid, and she could feel herself slipping into the vulnerable defenselessness that she felt then as she forced herself to remember that there was nothing they could do about the fate they’d found themselves tangled into. All that there was to do was wait and hope for the best, but the best had never found her easily or at all.

“Gracie, hey! Hey, come on! Now’s not the time, okay, sweetheart? I need you with me right now. I need you here.” Dean held her face in his hands tenderly, but unrelentingly. He pulled her hands away from her hair, his eyes filled with determined urgency that only just barely managed to sober her up from her state of panic. Adrenaline rushed through her veins as she nodded, breathless as she raced alongside him to where Larry and Joanie kept their spare towels and linens.

She grabbed a towel from his hands with numb fingers, forcing it beneath the gap in the front door as efficiently as she could with the trembling in her knuckles that just wouldn't stop. Her body was moving, but there weren’t any thoughts in her head besides survival. She knew that the Pikes were yelling, that frantic conversations were being had, but it was all static noise in her head as she tried to keep her breathing even and her senses as alert as they could be. She didn’t even register the fact that Sam had come downstairs or that Dean had grabbed a can of bug spray from the kitchen until there was an incessant rattling coming from the fireplace and in seconds a swarm of bees rushed in. Every breathing exercise that she’d even known failed her in that moment, and the composure she’d managed to grab onto left within seconds. She whimpered pathetically, stuttering over soft cries as she panicked, right back in those California woods.

“Come on, Gracie! Come on!” Sam grabbed her hand, dragging her up the stairs with efficiency. She could follow him, that was what she could do, but her feet thudded on the steps as she climbed them and her chest only tightened as she tried to draw in even a single breath.

Somehow she made it up into the attic, and the second Sam’s hand left hers, she was falling to the floor with a thud, scooting back until her back hit a wall. She curled up into herself, her head between her knees as she rocked back and forth, muttering desperate pleas and frantic apologies beneath her breath that were drowned out by the frantic yelling of the Pikes. Somewhere between the first swarm of termites chewing through the wood and the second, she’d passed out, slumping against the boards of the house in a useless pile on the floor. In a single moment of distraction, Sam shrugged his jacket off, throwing it over her exposed face before he went back to trying to find a solution with Dean. Every instinct in his body told him to go over and check on her, rouse her back to consciousness, but that wouldn’t do any good if they were dead by morning anyways. Instead, all he could do was hope that the insects had a harder time getting to exposed inches of her vulnerable body.

It was minutes later when she roused, and the swarm of termites was still attempting to cleanse the land of their presence. She glanced to her left, scrambling into the corner of the attic where her brothers were crouched desperately. She threw herself at whoever was closest, letting out heartbreaking and raspy sobs as she dug her face into their neck, the hood of the hood pulled over her face just enough to keep the bugs from bouncing off of her skin, but she could still feel the thud of their dense bodies hit the fabric on her body. And then, it stopped. She didn’t move, didn’t loosen her hold, but eventually it became clear that the swarm had left, and her chin was guided upward by gruff hands that she knew to be Deans.

“You’re okay, Gracie. It’s okay.” Dean coaxed softly, holding the back of her head as he analyzed her face for any bites or injuries. He frowned softly when he noticed three red blotches on her cheek and another on her forehead, but considering the circumstances, she’d come out relatively unscathed. “It’s over. It's done.”

The very next morning, when the Impala pulled up to the Pike residence, there was a moving truck parked at the curb and Larry was standing beside the bed, packing up the little belongings that they’d moved into the house. She climbed out of the car with her brothers, walking up to where he stood in casual attire as opposed to the suits she’d typically seen him wearing during the daytime.

“What? No goodbye?” Dean called out sarcastically, catching Larry’s attention.

“Good timing. Another hour and we’d have been gone.” Larry hummed, reaching out to shake Dean’s hand in silent thanks.

“For good?” Sam questioned, shaking Larry’s hand next. Grace could only offer a small smile, still reeling from the events from the early morning hours. Her chest still ached, her breathing was still wheezy, and every time she closed her eyes she constructed a scene of Palm Springs that looked eerily similar to the night's endeavors.

“Yeah. The, uh, developments been put on hold while the government investigates those bones you found. But I’m gonna make damn sure no one lives here again.” Larry explained, and the Winchesters nodded understandingly.

“You don’t seem too upset about it.” Sam noted.

“Well, this has been the biggest financial disaster of my career, but…somehow…I really don’t care.” Larry’s gaze flickered to Matt, and Grace couldn’t help the weak smile that pulled at the corners of her lips as she watched him finally recognize what was most important in life.

She laid a hand on Dean’s shoulder, nodding toward the car. “I’m gonna go wait in the car.” She explained, her voice hoarse and quiet, hardly louder than a whisper and she honestly couldn’t say if it was a result of her sobbing, or a learned instinct after years of forcing herself to be invisible. Either way, she tried not to think too much about the weakness she was showing in front of Larry and her brothers. “Don’t take too long. Please.”

Dean nodded, patting her back as she passed him. Whatever happens next, all he hopes is that Grace could finally catch a break.

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