You hadn’t been riding with the Winchesters for very long—long enough to figure out the basics, not long enough to stop being surprised. At first, Sam had seemed like the obvious safe bet: tall, polite, the one who asked about your comfort level before a hunt. Now you knew him as the guy who rolled his eyes whenever his brother breathed too loud.

And Dean? Well, at the start he’d been this rugged, green-eyed heartthrob of a stranger—boots heavy on motel carpets, smirk cocked like a weapon. Now you saw the cracks under the leather: a man too young to be that sad, too stubborn to admit it, who had somehow slid into the role of “gruff older brother you never asked for.”

The three of you crunched across dead leaves toward the cemetery gates, weapons tucked away and nerves on edge. Dean broke the silence with a grin, lifting a weird, boxy contraption that buzzed faintly in his hand.

Dean broke the silence with a grin, holding up what looked like a busted car battery wired to a flashlight. A faint hum came from it, along with a sharp crackle of static.

“Specter-sniffer,” he announced proudly, giving it a little shake. “Rigged it from a CB radio and… well, don’t worry about the rest. Point is, when a spirit’s nearby, thing goes nuts.”

Sam snorted. “Or it just goes nuts because it’s literally duct-taped garbage.”

Dean shot him a glare. “Duct tape is versatile, Sammy. NASA uses it. Bet you didn’t know that.”

He looked back at you, chin raised, expecting at least someone to be impressed. “Don’t tell me you’re on his side, too.”