...A Movie By John Hughes

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The day was bright, sunny and unseasonably warm for March. The sky was clear, the birds were singing, and Abby wanted to curl up in a dark hole and die.

They told themself that they were being stupid. That high school had been too long ago to be upset about now. That they needed to be focused on resting from the hunt. Sam and Dean were already recovered and making breakfast plans, arguing amiably across the rickety motel table from them. So why couldn't they stop thinking about last night?

The hunt itself hadn't been a difficult one. In fact, it had been far below what they were used to dealing with. The vengeful ghost of a bullied girl had returned from the grave to wreak havoc on a small-town high school just before prom night, and the Winchesters, posing as substitute teachers, had taken on the relatively simple task of calming her restless spirit. Never one for dealing with teenagers, Abby had instead put their vast and otherwise useless knowledge of 80's new wave to good use by landing a job as DJ for the big night, a role that granted them access to the school after hours. After a questionable amount of probing through student files and school secrets, the three hunters had uncovered the source of the disturbance and laid the girl to rest two days before the dance, and that should have been the end of it.

But a paying job was a paying job, and Abby still had to work the dance, something they were now ashamed to admit they had stupidly been looking forward to.

The night had started out just fine. Armed with an old laptop stuffed to the circuits with The Cars, ELO, and Billy Idol, they'd set themself up in a dark corner of the school's gymnasium and settled in for a night of vicarious living. They'd even brought out their old thrift-store suit for the occasion, complete with a ruffled blouse and black bow tie straight from 1985. Sam and Dean, still wearing their substitute badges, had come along for one last hurrah; Sam had spent the evening fending off the advances of the school's scarlet-lipped math teacher while Dean stayed with Abby and made suggestions for song choices that were steadfastly ignored.

And then they'd looked out at all the teenagers in their dazzling dresses and rented tuxedos, the disco ball reflecting glittering stars on the paper streamers hung around the gym, and had been hit with a memory. A memory of a dance not dissimilar to this one, a night of adolescent highs and classics-assisted slow dances. But in this memory, they weren't wearing a thrifted suit and bowtie, but a dress and clumsily applied lipstick. They didn't have an older brother beside them cracking tasteless jokes about post-prom dry cleaning. They were alone in the dark corner of a church gymnasium, defying tears and wondering desperately what they'd done wrong.

The memory had stabbed them like a knife in the back, unexpected and sharp. Dean's voice in their ear faded, and was replaced by the sound of church-approved pop. Suddenly they weren't watching a bunch of strange seniors slow-dancing to their carefully curated John Hughes-inspired mix. They were watching a nervous teenager in a black dress making their way through a sea of awkwardly waltzing couples toward a tall boy in a white shirt. And even though they knew what would happen next, they were trapped in their own mind, forced to watch as the boy turned away and their younger self retreated, head held stubbornly high, to the dark shadows underneath the basketball hoop.

They hadn't realized they'd been crying until they'd felt Dean's hand wiping their tears away.

"Hey, sib. You alive over there?"

Abby was snapped back to reality once again by Dean's voice. They looked up at him across the ratty motel room table, blinking rapidly.

"What? Yeah, I'm...sorry. What were you saying?" they replied hastily, trying to look like they'd been paying attention.