"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…"

Dean pulls his mouth away long enough to glare and shush Priestly's mantra. The green-haired boy leaning against the bathroom sink clamps his mouth shut, but can't help the whimper that escapes when Dean's mouth descends back onto his dick.

Priestly's panting is loud in the little room, bouncing of the ancient tile walls, threatening to pound through them and alert Bobby to what is going on in his bathroom.

The air is thick with steam from the now-silent shower, and condensation clings to both boys. Priestly's hair is still wet, and stray droplets insist on trailing down his face and dropping off onto his brother below.

Priestly knows he's close, right on the edge, when the lights in the little room start to flicker. They strobe weakly at first, but as the psychic feels himself nearing the end, the flickering gets stronger and faster.

He's gasping now, hands threaded in Dean's hair as his brother drags his teeth along the length of Priestly's dick. Dean's hands, which had torn away his towel an eternity ago, keep a firm grip on his ass, pulling Priestly closer, closer, until Priestly thinks he might scream.

But instead, when Priestly finally comes hard down in his twin's mouth, the light above the mirror explodes.

*****

Sam thinks he may go blind if he has to read through another demonology textbook. He hasn't crammed so much information into his brain since his last round of exams back at Stanford. He would gladly take a mountain of case studies and court room jargon over this hackneyed pile of gothic garbage any day.

He runs a hand over his tired eyes and leans back in Bobby's prehistoric chair. For days now, he and his brothers have poured through over a dozen books on demonology and theories of hierarchy, but little has been helpful. Most of it is complete bullshit, and the rest is either unhelpful or… troubling.

The most reliable texts are those written by hunters, usually long dead, having committed their lives to the cause. Bobby claims that often times, when a hunter becomes too old or injured to continue the hunt, they write down everything they've learned about hunting and their prey, to pass along to future generations.

The academic in Sam hopes that maybe he'll be able to do the same one day.

If I live that long, he thinks darkly, fingering the engraved book cover on his lap.

"Please tell me you've found something at least remotely useful?" Dean sighs, breaking his thoughts as he wanders into the living room, a cup of coffee in each hand.

Sam smiles tiredly when Dean hands him the hot mug. "Thanks," he says, taking a sip. The coffee is hot and bitter, but it's liquid energy and Sam can't bring himself to complain.

"So," Dean says, now perching precariously on the arm of Sam's chair. "Got anything new?" He says it without looking at Sam, gazing into his own coffee instead, trying to sound nonchalant. In reality, Sam knows his older brother has been on edge ever since the attack back at the hotel. He tries to hide it, but Sam can see it in his eyes, and even Priestly's when Dean's not around. Something is after them, and none of them know just what the hell it is.

So much of being a good hunter depends on your knowledge of your prey.

Ignorance is what gets you killed.

Sam sighs into his coffee and shakes his head. "More of the same," he says. "It's mostly theory. No one knows for sure. But, I mean, how could you? Unless you, I don't know, visit Hell on a day pass or something, you could never really know." Sam rubs his eyes again without thinking.

When he opens them again, Dean's eyes are a brighter green, and Sam knows Dean is participating in a conversation he can't hear. He waits until Dean looses the blank stare and fixes him a questioning look.

"Sorry," Dean says sheepishly. "Priestly just wanted to let us know that they're on their way back from Ellen's, and she didn't know much more than we do." He gazes at the murky window across the room. "Another dead end," he sighs.

"Fuck," Sam breathes, and pushes the heavy book from his lap, standing to stretch and wincing when he feels something pop.

He sees Dean grimace out of the corner of his eye.

"You get'a hold of Missouri yet?" Sam says after a moment, turning back to Dean, who's still sitting on the armrest.

Dean shakes his head, cupping his mug of coffee in both hands. "Nothing yet. I've tried her house about a million times, but no answer."

Sam watches his brothers face. "D'ya think something's up?" He feels a knot of worry threaten to form in his stomach.

But Dean shakes his head again, eyes light. "No," he says, without a trace of doubt in his voice. "She's alright, wherever she is. If she were in trouble... I don't know… I think I'd feel it."

It takes him a moment to process the information, but eventually Sam smirks. "Show off," he says.

*****

"We come bearing gifts!" Priestly announces as he and Bobby enter the old house. He smiles triumphantly as he lifts a bag in each hand, waving them gently. "Meat," he says, jostling the bag in his left, "and charms," shaking the bag in his right. "Who wants what?"

Sam and Dean look at each other with a knowing smile.

"Charms," Sam says at the same time Dean yells "meat".

Priestly grins and lets go of each bag, right where he stands and Sam can't help the gasp that escapes him when neither bag drops. They hang there in the air, their only support the power of Priestly's mind. His eyes are a brilliant green as he opens each hand slowly, palms upward. Sam sits transfixed, watching open-mouthed as each of the bags begins to move towards their marks, floating gently through the empty air.

Sam chances a glance at Bobby, standing next to Priestly.

The old hunter is watching the psychic carefully, shoulders tense and ready should something go awry. It pains Sam, a little, that Bobby still doesn't quite trust his brother, but he supposes it just comes from the fact that the majority of mystical things Bobby has encountered in his life have tried to kill him.

It suddenly occurs to Sam that Bobby doesn't yet know about Dean's gift.

That was going to be a tough one to explain.

The airborne package suddenly drops into his lap, startling Sam from his thoughts. It clinks when it lands, and Sam feels his interest re-spark. Simultaneously, Dean snatches the package of meat from the air, and lets out a happy whistle when he opens it and peers inside.

"If anybody needs me," Dean says, getting up from his seat, "I'll be making sweet, sweet love to the barbeque."

"Ew," Priestly says, wrinkling his nose. "There had better be nothing but barbeque sauce on my steak when I get it, or so help me God…" he lets the threat hang as Dean waves him off and heads towards the backyard.

"Maybe if we're lucky, he'll burn himself," Sam sighs, returning his attention to the little bag in his hands. Bobby and Priestly sit down on the sofa against the opposite wall and watch as Sam carefully empties the contents onto the coffee table in front of him. The assorted trinkets catch the musty light immediately, their crystals and smooth metal reflecting it around the room like tiny disco balls. There's a variety of charms, no two being alike, and they all carry a sense of mysticism around them like an aura.

Sam's almost afraid to touch them.

"It was everything she had," Bobby says, watching the charms with a sad resignation. "Anything she's ever received from other hunters. There's even a few there that used to be Bill's."

"She gave us her husband's charms?" Sam almost whispers, shocked. He feels something shift inside him, like a knot is finally untwisting. The charms on the table are suddenly no longer just trinkets; they are forgiveness, a generation delayed.

"But this one," Bobby continues, singling out an especially beat up brass bauble and handing it to Priestly, "was your Daddy's."

*****

"Wh-what?" Priestly stutters, staring at the necklace in his hands with a shocked reverence. The small thing feels suddenly heavy in his hands, despite its size, as if it carries the entire weight of his heritage. Here now, he realizes, resting against his palms, is a tangible piece of a man he has never known.

"He gave that to Ellen after Bill died," Bobby says solemnly. "He told her it was a gift from a priestess down in New Orleans. He said it was powerful protection. He gave it to her because he said he no longer deserved it."

"Aw, Dad," a voice sighs from across the room.

All heads turn to find Dean leaning against the door frame of the kitchen. His eyes are dark and uncharacteristically open. Priestly feels the pull to go to him, but can't seem to separate himself from his spot on the couch and the emotional haze he floats in.

"This was really his?" Priestly chokes out instead, turning his face back to Bobby. There's a warmth spreading in his chest as if a tiny part of him has awoken for the first time.

Bobby nods and, surprising everyone, puts a hand on Priestly's shoulder, offering a single, gentle squeeze. "I think he would have wanted you to have it."

Priestly feels the threat of tears behind his eyes, and he sniffs hard, praying he doesn't start crying in front of the old hunter. Never before has he felt so close to his family. Even after the close quarters and road trips, the heart-to-hearts with Sam, and his most intimate moments with Dean… it all seems to pale in comparison to holding a piece of his father in his hands.

He sniffs again, this time wetly.

Priestly feels his twin's eyes soften, and senses his approach before the other boy even moves. In a blink, he's there, resting on the arm of the couch, hip touching Priestly's arm. Without a word, Dean lets his right hand drift into Priestly's hair, carding through the coloured strands in an almost absent-minded fashion.

Out of the corner of his eye, Priestly sees Bobby raise an eyebrow.

Across the room, Sam clears his throat. "Anything else we should know about the other charms?" he asks Bobby.

Seeming to have to physically pull himself from watching Priestly and Dean, the old hunter turns back to Sam and his senses and gives a simple shake of his head. "No. Ellen just figured you boys could use all the help you could get."

*****

It's day God-knows-what into the boys' cram-a-thon and Sam is now convinced that his head is going to explode.

The monotony of Bobby's small, cluttered house has been replaced with a coffeehouse patio in a neighbouring town. The coffee is good and the wireless signal is better and the boys take full advantage of both. Sam has been chatting with Mikey for the last hour, and Priestly is scouring the internet for any demonic information he can find.

Dean is flipping through a textbook, much to his obvious dismay. He had been using Priestly's laptop at one point, but was banned when tell-tale giggles and gasps began seeping from the speakers.

They've been at it for a couple hours, buying a cup of coffee or a muffin whenever the barista looks to be on the verge of tossing their asses out. Priestly has had the most coffee of all the boys by far, and proves this by tapping and bobbing all of his appendages in a way that makes Sam wonder what an epileptic would be like on drums.

Mikey has tidbits of information for them; things he's gathered on his own time. Sam has to smile when the young teen proudly announces his finds, eager to help. His natural techno-savvy comes in handy, and Sam finds the boy's ingenuity has started to fill a void Ash and the Roadhouse have left in their lives.

He's found a job for them if they want it. He knows they've been bogged down lately with their own troubles, but he also knows that Dean can get restless and that he is not one to pass up a hunt. There's a suspected black dog, he tells Sam, in the next state, terrorizing a small, rural town. It's a mean one, having already killed over a dozen people… including several children. The attacks have been attributed to rabid wolves or a large bear, but Mikey has trained himself well, and he knows that there is something truly monstrous lurking in the woods just outside the town.

Sam commends him for his good eye, and assures him that they will take the job. He says this before confirming it with the twins, but he knows neither of them will sit back on something like this… especially when children are involved.

Thanking the blonde on the other end of the web, Sam closes his laptop with a finality that causes his older brothers to raise their collective heads. They must see something in his eyes because Priestly, too, closes his laptop, and Dean shuts his book.

"Where to?" they say in unison.

*****

The cool night air that drifts down through the darkness feels like ice in the charred lungs of the Beast. Never before has it tasted something so crisp and clean, having spent its entire existence inhaling the toxic sulfur that permeates his plane.

Now, as it ascends, it gets the first scent of the mortals' world.

The Beast is literally crawling its way out of Hell through a jagged stone channel that begins in the inner-most chamber of the mystics' temple and shoots straight up into the black with no visible end in sight.

On the other end of the tunnel, which cannot be measured with logic and reason, is the world of human beings.

The Beast's prey awaits it there.

Sharp black stones, like coal, but older, cut into the dark, burnt-blood flesh that moves across it. The Beast allows itself to emit a snarled curse. This passage is not meant for corporeal beings. It is a channel through which demons, in their possessive, cloudy form move from plane to plane. It is also a means for which angry and restless spirits can escape to the world of the living, only to find they stay spirits. When confronted with this cruel realization, many become violent poltergeists.

No, this passage is not meant for one who still resides in their own body.

The movement is slow, and admittedly painful, but the Beast has not come this far to surrender now. It has not endured eons of training and a hundred lifetimes worth of study to stop here. It will fulfill the mission at long last, no longer hindered by the bureaucratatic idiocy of the upper class.

Charlatans and fools, all of them. They cared not for Hell or the old ways. They had become corrupted by the very beings they wished to control. Tainted by human characteristics and mannerisms. Absorbing human emotion. It was disgusting. The demon empire was a sham.

And yet, here the Beast is, doing everything in its immense power to save it.

It is how the bones were cast, mystics would sometimes tell it. It was no fault of the Beast's that it was born into the lower class of demons. The working class. Soldiers. Masses of muscle for the upper class to command. Blunt instruments, the aristocrats called them.

The Beast growls in its stone passage, the sound echoing off the walls and into the black. It will show them. It will show everyone what it could do. It would save every one of the pathetic, undeserving noblemen that cared more about their own power than their fate as a people.

They faced extinction, and were completely ignorant of it.

But the Beast will save them. As much as they can be saved, for the Beast cannot save them from their own lies and delusions. Regardless, as long as its spirit resides within its body, the Beast will protect Hell from those that would obliterate it.

It will fulfill its mission.

It will kill the Destroyers.

Read the next story in the Lost and Found 'Verse Black Dog