"Charles, didn't your mother ever tell you not to pick things up from strange parking lots?"

"The rule obviously does not apply to a penny that is face up."

He holds the oblong coppery thing up with a grin. Katherine matches it with a grimace.

"Well dear, I think you need to go back to elementary school." She rocks onto her toes and plucks the dirty coin from his fingers. "This is obviously not a penny."

Charlie frowns. "It obviously is. It's copper."

"Colored," she corrects. "Copper-colored. This is way too oblong to be a penny. And you can't even see what's on the front, it's so caked with gunk." Katherine's frown deepens, and she offers it back to Charlie. "So you really don't know if it was heads."

Charlie pockets the penny and continues along the sidewalk with Katherine.

This is undoubtedly an old city just outside Siloam Springs...the architecture is evident of that. Walk a little bit that way and you're in Oklahoma.

"What if it got ran over?" Charlie asks.

She laughs. "With what, a cement truck roller?" Charlie raises his eyebrows, questioning. "I don't know what they're called."

"Not 'cement truck roller'."

"Thanks." She bumps her hip into his. Easily, his arm drapes across her shoulder. "It's got to have 'roller' in it though, right?"

"Absolutely."

"Then I can't think of anything else."

Through their walk to the diner on the other side of the town center, the two discussed possible names for that particular construction vehicle. Katherine suggested "cement roller truck," to which Charlie replied rearranging the words doesn't change their meaning in this case. He was very quick to add on that last bit. Katherine wouldn't let him hear the end of it, even as they slid into the booth that already held the towering Winchester brothers.

Sam looks radiant, tanning skin glowing as he reaches across the table to shake hands with Charlie. Dean looks less warm, but friendly none the less. Katherine tries not to dwell on his presence for too long. It was hard, though. All Sam wanted to do was talk to Charlie, bless him.

As she glanced between the two, Katherine quickly figured out why.

Charlie's normal. A tether to the simplified world of regular people. He works in construction, for crying out loud. Sam always had a fascination for the terribly boring and mundane, which is every day for Charlie. Floor plans. Blue prints. Nail guns. Manage idiots. Early mornings, late nights, sleep, repeat.

There has never been anything Sam wanted more than to be normal. Maybe he's just found his new best friend...and Dean's worst enemy.

"You should come work with us," Charlie said. "If you ever want to quit killing totally weird things out of storybooks."

Katherine felt hot and cold all at once, and she thought of something quick. "Will someone please tell Charlie this is not a penny?" She digs into her boyfriend's pants pockets to unearth the ruddy thing, and she smacks it on the table.

Sam stares at it. "Charlie, what kind of pennies do you have in Florida?"

Katherine crosses her arms and sits back in the booth, a brow raised at Charlie. "He picked it up in the parking lot down the street and insisted it's a flattened penny."

"It's definitely not a penny," Sam hums, picking up the crusted thing.

"I'm gonna take a leak," Dean sighs, pushing himself from the booth. Katherine feels him walk around her back, like a magnet, and watched him approach the bathroom from the corner of her eye. She bobs her foot for a moment before coming back to reality, shaking her head, and listens to what Sam is saying. Already off the topic of the not-penny, Charlie is shoving it back into his pocket.

Katherine heads to the bathroom herself. Washes the ick of the not-penny off her hands. She stares at her reflection in the mirror of the handicap stall, water running, wet fingers gripping the sides of the sink.

She feels like she'll be sick. 

Fate is laughing at her. Someone is. She and Dean step out of the bathroom at the same time, forced to stare at each other. His tanned cheeks are slightly pink. Katherine's blue eyes flit to the ground, and she hurries for their booth.

Dean stares at WOMEN printed on the glass before him, lips pressed into a thin line, and follows after her.

"—think Old Testament God is my favorite," Sam hums.

"Old Testament God is undoubtedly a black parent," Charlie proclaims.

Katherine plops down with a raised brow. "God?" He looks at her with high brows and a pleasant smile.

"God."

"Why is God a black parent?"

"Old Testament," Charlie corrects. "Have you read the bible?"

Katherine blinks. "I am Catholic."

"So you know what I'm talking about."

Katherine looks to Sam, baffled, who is just grinning. "Assume I don't."

"He played no games," Charlie says. "'I told y'all to stop doing this dumb shit—you know what, flood the earth! Try me again.'"

Sam is howling with laughter still when their breakfast arrives. 

At least one Winchester likes Charlie.

He reaches for the sugar tray. Everyone is too distracted with their own plates to notice, but the tray fell by itself. Everyone heard that, though. 

Sam looks up from buttering his toast. "Butter fingers, Charlie?"

"Uh...I—"

"You don't drop things," Katherine chirps. "Feeling okay?"

"Everyone drops things," Dean grunts, leaning over to help Charlie with the broken sugar packet tray.

"Not Charlie."

"Oh, yeah?" Dean sits up with a sigh. "Why not?"

Katherine smirks, cutting into her short stack. "He was QB1 at Florida."

Dean's gaze whips back to Charlie, who seems to be blushing, and a little exasperated, as he narrows his eyes at Katherine. "Really?" He hums. Katherine shrugs. 

"You played at Florida?" Dean asks.

Charlie smiles thinly. "Yeah."

"Heisman runner-up in 2000," Katherine continues.

"Please stop," Charlie whispers. She giggles.

"Surprised you didn't catch on earlier, Dean," Sam chirps.

"You're..." Dean chuckles in disbelief. "Charlie Taylor."

How. Could. He. Not. Know.

Charlie awkwardly rips three sugar packets open and dumps them into his coffee. "Yep."

"Dude...what happened? You were, like, a sophomore and up for the Heisman! You just...you disappeared."

Katherine's face darkens a little, regret sinking in her gut. Why do these things have to be so complicated? "Maybe we shouldn't—"

"There was a party that summer," Charlie starts. He reaches for the creamer. Sam has taken to listening intently. Dean is on the edge of his seat, bright with curiosity. "Everyone got wasted. Greg was the least wasted of our roomates, so he drove us home." Dean's curiosity fades quickly, and he puts his hands in his lap.

Already sensing where this is going, he speaks, "Oh, man—"

"Charlie," Katherine whispers. 

"I was in the passenger seat...Keaton was right behind me, and Tyler was behind Greg. He did everything right," he continues. "Hit all the stop signs, the lights, yielded when there was no one else on the road...and two blocks from our house, when my light turned green and Greg went...this van ran right into us." Charlie purses his lips, staring unseeingly at the table before them. "Crushed the left side of the car, sent us over the median, and we rolled into a pole. They were doing ninety in a fifty." The words hang there for a moment. There's no one else in the diner, no other noise to distract anyone. The accident rolls around in Charlie's head. "I survived, so did Keaton. The other two, Greg and Tyler...Greg died instantly. He took the brunt of the hit. Tyler died on the way to the hospital. The car was so small..."

"Charlie," Katherine tries again. He smiles a little.

"S'okay," he says. "I, uh...I don't get to talk about it much, because people...already know." He wipes his hands on his pants. "Anyway, I broke everything in the right side of my body. Broken ankle, dislocated knee, torn...everything in the knee...cracked pelvis, broken ribs, cracked skull." Charlie chews his lip a little. "I still play...in the backyard, with Chris and Soph and Katherine. She's a shitty center, though."

She can't help the tiny laugh that forces its way from her lungs. He grips her knee under the table, and her fingers fasten around his wrist, lips drop to his shoulder. Dean looks away from the two.

"I'm sorry, Charlie," he murmurs, glancing to the table. 

He smiles a little, reaching for his water. "Nothing to apologize for," he says. As he takes a sip, water falls from his glass onto the front of his shirt, and he jumps a little. Katherine stares at him for a moment, and deciding his hands might've been shaking from recounting the worst day of his life, she looks away from him. 

"I have so much hardware in my body now that I set off metal detectors," Charlie reveals.

Katherine is the first to snort. Sam grins.

"No way," he says.

"I got to go to a private room before my flight yesterday," Charlie says with a brow wiggle. "I think that TSA agent would've tased me if I didn't follow 'I have a big rod' very quickly with 'in my back and thigh.'"

Katherine giggles, pressing her mouth into the back of her hand, tears welling in her eyes. She can't contain the giggling though. Charlie's laughing the hardest.

So maybe he would fit right in after all.

"What's your plan for the rest of the day, Winchester?" Katherine asks into her glass a while later.  Everyone has finished their breakfast and could use a nap. She feels sleep weighing heavily on her eyelids.

Dean groans, stretching his arms over the top of the booth. "Might hit the town later tonight. You in, Quarterback?"

Charlie grins. "Yeah."

"You pay pool?"

Charlie scoffs. "Yeah."

"Oh, here we go," Katherine sighs.

"Sorry, Kat," Dean sighs, reaching into his wallet, and drops a few bills onto the table. "He's our boyfriend now."

"Dean, that's the frutiest thing I've ever heard you say," Sam says after his brother. "And there have been plenty of comments—"

"Don't be homophobic," Dean chirps. 

Sam scrambles in the booth. "Hom—homophobic?" he rockets after his brother. "Me?!"

Charlie sighs, looking to his girl at his right. She grins, bright and warm as the sun itself, and rests her cheek on her knuckles. "I love you," she whispers. He kisses her lips and gets to his feet with her.

"I like Dean," he says.

"Oh, yeah?" She asks, winding her arms around his waist as they walk out of the diner. 

A strange thing for a current boyfriend to say about an ex...but she'll take it.

Charlie steps off of the curb, but something in his shoe catches, or maybe he just fell, but he nearly takes Katherine with him. He'd definitely have eaten concrete if she didn't brace against his pull and grab his belt loops.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." He frowns at the ground, like there might be a bump he didn't see, but there's nothing. "What the..." Katherine looks, too.

"Your foot probably lagged," she hums. "It's just a curb."

Charlie grunts, swinging his arm over her shoulders, but can't shake the distinct feeling of having been tripped. 

Everyone went back to Katherine's motel room. Napped. Turned on a baseball game that was airing.

It's opening day. Second-best day of the year, if you ask Katherine Louise, right behind the first Saturday of college football.

Everyone cracked open a beer and watched the screen intently before Dean announced he was headed to a local bar. He dragged Charlie with him, much to Katherine's chagrin.

"He's great, Kat," Sam says. She's lain over her bed, tossing a ball to the ceiling, and he's sprawled over the sofa. "Really."

"I know," she says. "The best."

"You okay?"

"I'm fine," she murmurs. "Just some leftover anxiety, I guess."

Sam smiles a little. "About what?"

And she lies. "I was worried someone wouldn't like someone. Charlie likes you, obviously. He was talking about religion." She rolls onto her elbows. "Charlie likes Dean...he told me as much."

"But you don't think Dean likes Charlie."

"I think Dean respects Charlie," she hums. "But no, I don't think he likes him."

Sam hums, tapping his finger against his beer bottle. "Say, you wanna help me with this crossword? I can't get it." He holds up the newspaper he snagged on the way out of the diner. So she swings her legs over the bed and leans across the top of the sofa, alluring scent of orange blossoms and vanilla fanning over Sam like a summer day.

"Which one?"

"Five across."

Katherine reads over the clue. "To do until death," she muses to herself. He watches the cogs in her brain turn. Then the lightbulb. "Cherish."

Sam frowns and looks back to the blocks. "God...dammit." He clicks his pen and writes it in. "Not fair. You're a literal genius."

"Shouldn't have asked for help if your ego couldn't handle it, Winchester," she taunts, heading for the bathroom. Sam finds himself grinning at the newspaper.

You know, like an idiot.

✕

Charlie was really good at pool.

Like, annoyingly.

Dean had nearly lost his earnings twice now. 

"Guess you had to do something after you broke your whole body," he grunts.

Charlie laughs. "It took me three years to figure out how to backpedal again," he says. "I was able to hold a pool stick better than throw a ball."

"Yeah, well, I bet whatever shitty throw you had then was miles better than anything I've got," Dean grunts. 

"Probably," Charlie agrees. It's Dean's turn to laugh.

"You all better now?"

"Not all," Charlie hums, watching Dean rack. "Eighty percent. Getting better every day. Kit used to practice with me on the weekends. She's a great recevier."

Kit. Dean knows Sophia calls her that, but he'd never heard anyone else do it. Probably because everyone else is dead, you dick.

"Still aches in the mornings sometimes," Charlie continues. "Especially when it's cold."

"So how did you two meet?" Dean asks. "You and Katherine."

"At a bar," Charlie replies. "She was the best dancer by a mile."

"Line dancing?" Charlie nods. "Yeah, she used to tell me about some place she and Sophia went to when they were in school."

"Ruth's."

"Yeah, I think so."

Dean's throat and eyes burned, but he didn't let it show. He simply tossed the rack aside and looked at Charlie.

"I'm gonna hit the bathroom and the bar," Charlie says. "Want another?"

"I'll grab the drinks," Dean says. He sets his cue on the table and heads over. 

He felt multiple gazes on him. None of which were the one he wanted. So he didn't look. He got their beers and went back to their table. 

Charlie wasn't back. Odd, but Dean waited it out. Checked his email, swung his feet a little. Pursed his lips, looked at the door.

Maybe he's having a digestive disaster.

Nah, his face looked fine...can't hide that shit. Literally.

Leave him alone—

Then a singsongy voice. She'd never forgive you if something happenneeeddd....

Dean doesn't know why he thought that, but it was what drove him to walk his ass into the bathroom. Fully prepared for a stink bomb, he took a breath and walked in.

The first thing he notices is how cold it is. Unsurprising, considering every bathroom is a meat locker. 

It was utterly silent, spare the running water from the sink. The bloody sink. The bloody, overflowing sink—

The mirrors are frosted over.

"Shit, fuck, dammit, Charlie!" Dean lunges for the unconscious man on the floor. Dean finds his pulse, checks his breathing. "Charlie." He shakes the man's shoulder, glancing around for some kind of spirit. "Charlie, she's gonna kill me!"

Charlie lurches, pushing himself up from the tile. Blood oozes from his swollen forehead. He groans. 

"Oh, thank fuck," Dean whimpers, rolling onto his foot. 

Charlie groans again, blinking hard, and reaches up to his forehead.

"Dude?" 

"God," Charlie strains. His movements are clumsy as he gets to his feet.

"Easy, big guy," Dean cautions, rocketing up to help him. He turns off the faucet and wipes Charlie's blood fom the sink. "Let's blow this popsicle stand." He glances around the thawing bathroom, practically dragging Charlie out, and hauls ass back to Katherine's room.

She and Sam, the epitome of Nerd, are completing a crossword together.

"Back so soon?" She asks, peering around the magazine, and grimaces at the sight of Dean hauling Charlie in. "Jesus, Charlie, how much have you had to drink? It's been two hours—"

"There's a ghost at the bar," Dean says.

"What?"

"I found him in the bathroom. Freezing, frosted mirrors, bood everywhere." Dean sits Charlie on the sofa. "You on blood thinners or somethin', pal?"

Katherine gets to her knees in front of Charlie. He knows that look well. Any time he'd come home with a swollen something, she'd get that furrowed brow of concentration, the pursed lips. 

"Sam, will you get my kit from my trunk?" She asks.

Sam takes two steps, and the door swings shut. The television shuts off, the radio goes haywire.

"Fucking fuck," she mutters, getting to her feet. Her heart hammers in her chest, sweat slicks her palms. "The bar is haunted? What did you pick up?"

Dean shakes his head. "Nothing, I swear. Charlie, did you take something from the bar?"

"Besides a raging headache?" He asks.

"Sam, try the door. Dean, get the salt and my bat."

Charlie points to the kitchen table. "There's salt right there. Wait, why do you need salt?"

Dean almost laughed. 

"Why do you need a bat?" Charlie asks.

"Charlie, keep quiet, please," Katherine requests, hurrying to the window.

"Nothing," Sam calls. 

Katherine tries the latch. It won't budge. 

Charlie's bad knee throbs, and he swallows. 

It's cold. Just like it was in the bathroom. 

"Kat, no bat," Dean says, panic lacing his voice. She whirls on him, eyes wide.

"No bat?"

"No bat!" He throws his hands into the air. With a pinched face, she rushes him and her bag while pointing at Charlie. Dean rushes with the can of salt.

"Charlie, stay inside the magical salt circle, buddy." Charlie watches him make a salt circle around the sofa.

"What—"

Katherine swears, running her fingers through her hair, upon finding there is indeed no iron bat. "It's probably in your freaking car."

"Don't talk about Baby that way!"

"Don't confiscate my shit! Bet you're wishing we had that stupid thing right now, huh?"

"Well we can just..." Dean looks for a fireplace. As if. Katherine raises her eyebrows.

The newspaper flies off the table. Katherine, Dean, and Sam bound for the narrow circle of salt around the sofa, jostling the cushions and Charlie. 

Then the door flies open, and the window shatters. 

"What the fuck," Dean whispers.

"How is salt protecting us?" Charlie asks, only mildly panicked.

"Great question," Sam replies, eyes sharp and scanning. 

Without telling anyone, Katherine snatches the keys from Dean's fingers, leaps over Charlie, and bounds for the door.

It slams shut right after her.

"Dammit!"

Katherine skids to a halt on the pavement, two pieces of the puzzle coming together.

Charlie, what did you pick up?

The supid—

"Fucking penny," she snarls. She flings herself against the door and tries the knob. Nothing. She beats on the door. "The penny!" She yells. "Get the penny!"

Dean looks to Charlie. "The penny?"

"Penny?" Charlie asks, the franticness in his dark eyes finally matching the gravity of the situation. Then he digs into his pocket and holds it up. "Why—"

"That's the only new thing," Dean whispers. "The only new thing." How to burn it? There's nothing in Katherine's bag but clothes and this tub of salt. "Sam. Get the shaker from the table." Sam glances across the kitchen. "We're gonna make a runway." He nods to the door. 

Sam bounds for the table and snatches the shaker before pivoting. Before he can get back to the sofa, he's tripped, and his hand scores the salt line. "Dean!" 

Swearing, Dean rushes over to patch the hole. 

Not before Charlie is yanked over the back of the sofa.

"Hey, you asshole!" Dean shouts. "I've got your ugly ass penny!"

Just like that, Charlie is dropped, and Dean is smacked into the wall. 

"Charlie!" Dean shouts. "Get the salt!"

Sam is working on ripping the top off of the little shaker to repair the hole. Charlie scrambles to get inside the circle. 

"I thought you said salt was safe!" Charlie yells.

"Not when the line is broken," Sam returns. "Hurry up!" 

"Quit worrying about that tiny thing, then!" Charlie shouts, scooping up the can of salt.

When Sam is back inside the patched circle, Dean is still pinned against the wall. "Hurry up!"

Charlie doesn't do what Sam or Dean would have done. They would have runs traight for the door, making a thick line behind them, then another on the opposite side. A runway. Charlie makes semi-circles, spaced out enough to step into.

Like a path. 

When he gets to the door and is able to open it, Katherine is crawling through the broken window.

"Did you get it?" She asks, bounding for the circle. Dean nods his head to his clenched fist. "How are we gonna get rid of it?"

Despire him being pinned to the wall, everything seems calm.

"I have something in my trunk," he says. 

"Charlie." Katherine throws him the Impala's keys. He tosses her the salt. "Why is he playing hopscotch and there's a ghost in here?!"

"It was actually really smart," Sam says. 

"We can discuss that later," Dean hisses.

Charlie returns with a blow torch in hand. "Why the hell do you have—"

"We can talk about whatever you saw later!" Katherine shouts. "Set the damn thing on fire!" Dean, using all of his might, hurls the ugly penny at Charlie, who catches it with ease. He drops it onto the pavement and lights the sucker up. 

"It isn't doing anything!" Charlie shouts.

"Just wait!" 

Then Dean drops to the ground, and the outside warmth blows into the room, a welcome spring breeze with it.

The baseball game is on. The radio is off. The birds are chirping.

And there's salt everywhere.

"I told you not to grab it!" Katherine seethes at Charlie.

He gawks. "You said it wasn't a real penny, not to not grab it!"

"Same thing!"

Charlie's eyes widen. "iT IS NOT!"