Chapter Text
“What do you want, sweetheart?”
“You know what.”
The demon smirks, “Of course. But I want to hear you say it. I want to hear you beg…”
The blonde steps forwards, and there is the flash of a silver blade in his hands. The shorter guy stops, but he’s still smirking. “Don’t test me,” he growls out, “I might not have my grace but I can still end you.”
“Then why on earth,” the British guy spreads his hands, “Why on earth would I want to give you extra mojo?”
The blonde tilts his head to the side, “Why don’t you take a moment to consider that?” his voice is low, deathly dangerous.
The demon swallows, visibly nervous, “So…” he shrugs, weakly, “Souls?”
“Will you do it?” the other’s tone is flat. It’s his stance that gives him away, a thrumming nervousness beneath his skin that hints of desperation. The shorter man shifts but it’s hard tell if in fear or glee. “Can you do it?” the blonde asks again.
“I can.” The man in the suit considers it, “And I will. Just for you,” he grins, “So tell me? Are you prepared to make a deal with a devil?”
The blonde scrutinises him and the other man gives a charming smile, cocking his head to one side. Then he nods shortly, “Done,” he agrees.
“Great,” the demon says, “Now we just need to…” his words are cut off when the blonde grabs hold of the lapels of his collar and yanks him forwards, and presses his mouth down almost bruising on the demon’s mouth.
There was nothing romantic about the kiss, and it ended almost as suddenly as it had begun. The blonde pulled back, and his eyes fluttered closed, lashes drifting and then he blinked them open.
In a flare of white light shadows streamed out behind him, pale, vibrant things that spread from his shoulders, until for a brief moment it looked almost like a pair of giant wings spreading from his back.
Then it was gone, and he blinks and it’s dark. The demon looks suitably cowed and the blonde nods. “Nice doing business with you,” he smirks, tone cocky, stepping away and spinning around.
“Remember your side!” the demon sneers, snarling slightly, “I want Lucifer dead!”
“Oh, Crowley,” the blonde pauses, looking over his right shoulder at the demon, “Lucifer will die in time. Did you think I would let him live?”
Then he steps away and vanishes into shadow and the demon is left shivering at the crossroads, wondering what he had just done.
Sam never talks about Dean.
And to her credit, Jess doesn’t ask. He sets up that barrier and Jess respects it, doesn’t push, doesn’t prod, and doesn’t seek to know more than he is willing to give.
He still hasn’t told her about hunting. He’s still in the stage of deciding if he’s going to tell her. There is a part of him that doesn’t want to drag that part of his old life into his new one. This - this was his escape. His way out. His way to forget everything that had happened. He’d left his father and brother behind long ago, and though the guilt had weighed on his shoulders he hadn’t looked back.
Then his old life crashes back in through the front door.
He lashes out at the intruder, expecting a common thief. (He briefly muses at how weird his life is that petty robberies aren’t even a worry). Sam is surprised to find the intruder react, blocking the blows and twisting his arm around. He goes with the move, but another sharp twist and his legs are kicked out from under him and his back slams painfully to the floor, as the man pins him down.
“Hmph,” John Winchester huffs. “I’m disappointed.”
Sam’s breath leaves him and he had no idea whether to be happy, or really, really angry. “Dad? What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
John shifts back a little, giving Sam that inch to push up, twisting them over until he’s the one holding John to the ground.
“And I can manage just fine,” he snaps, “thanks.”
“Get off me…” John shoves him off and he stands, stretching out his muscles as he watches his dad stand up. “What do you think you’re playing at here… there are no protections… no salt lines… Sam, anything could just walk in!”
“Evidently,” Sam casts his father a scornful glance. “What are you doing…?” his question is cut off when the light flashes on.
Jess stands there blinking sleepily in the doorway. “Sam?” she asks, and her gaze slides to the other man. Sam instantly moves to stand beside his girlfriend.
“Dad, this is Jess,” he wraps an arm around his girlfriend’s shoulder.
John’s jaw clenches but he doesn’t say anything. “I need to talk to you,” he directs to Sam.
“Anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of Jess,” Sam challenges, meeting John’s gaze.
“Your brother’s missing.”
Sam feels the grin on his face grow strained. He takes several deep breaths before dropping the arm around his girlfriend’s shoulder. “Jess… can you give us a few moments please?”
“What do you mean you’re leaving?” she stares at him bemused. “You have an interview on Monday.”
“I’ve got to look for my brother.” Sam mutters, running through his mind what his dad just told him.
“Your brother,” she doesn’t sound impressed. “Sam, I didn’t even know you had a brother. Why didn’t you tell me you had a brother?”
Sam swallowed because how were you supposed to say you had an older, highly protective and slightly crazy schizophrenic brother? His breath catches in his throat and he stuffs clothing in his bag while perching on the bed. He meets her gaze squarely. “He… his name is Dean. He’s my older brother by four years and a pain in the ass.”
She nods, her gaze slightly understanding. She has brothers too, Sam knows, even if they barely talk and live the other side of the country. He takes her acknowledgement as a sign to keep talking.
“He…” he takes a breath, not knowing how to even begin explaining this, “He’s not well. Mentally,” he gestures at his head, “He used to be fine but then it just started up out of the blue. He was hearing voices all the time. And I…” Sam shakes his head, “I wasn’t there. I’d left. I was at Stanford and so dad… dad took him to a hospital. But now he’s gone and they… they don’t know what happened to him but he’s… it’s not safe for him…”
There is a light touch on his arm and Sam looks down to Jess’s hand on his shoulder, “It’s okay,” she says, gently, “You don’t have to explain. I know you need to do this and…” she stops, “Go. Look for him. I’ll try to reschedule your interview.”
He smiles weakly, protesting.
“Go find your brother,” she leans in close, and they don’t kiss, but it’s more personal seeing the truth in her eyes as she strokes his cheek gently. “Bring him back. Look after him for a change.”
At times like these Sam remembers why he first fell in love with Jess.
Sam can remember when Dean was a kid. He can remember constantly moving, and his own constant questions that followed. Dean had tried to ward them off - he had tried to explain what had happened to their mother, he had tried to find a rational explanation for what their dad was off doing all the time.
Sam wonders if that was one of the reasons he had been so prepared to walk away from his father. He hadn’t after all been much of a father. He might have raised Dean, but it had been Dean who had raised Sam.
Then again Sam had walked away from Dean that night as well.
“Do you have any idea where to start?” Sam says, sitting uneasily in the passenger seat of the car his dad bought, once he gave Dean the Impala. He thinks stupidly that Dean must still have it. John seems a little at loss at what to do now he finally has Sam back, but with that reassurance they start searching.
They begin at the hospital ward that Dean was kept on. Sam had told Jess it was a hospital, but it was more of a psychiatric ward. Sam flinches away from the patients holding conversations with thin air and he tries not to think about his brother there.
It’s nothing like they portray it in movies. The hospital is bright and friendly. There’s a garden filled with flowers and the nurse on duty smiles at them as they pass. An older orderly leads them to the room Dean had been staying in, but they are forced to continue alone when she gets side-tracked by a patient. A red-head with large wide eyes clings to orderly’s arms, “What are they doing here?” her gaze is fixed on Sam and John, “They can’t be here,” she pleads to the nurse, “It’s not time yet. It’s too early! It’s too early!”
Sam and John move on, leaving the young red-haired woman to her hysterics. “I can’t believe you left Dean here,” Sam mutters to his father. It’s not that it’s a bad place. It’s not. It’s the fact John left him. Left Dean. Dean who would never ever abandon them.
Yet Sam and John had both done just that, and Sam takes out his own guilt on his father.
John glares back, “Well, it’s not like you were around to help,” he snaps, and Sam bites his tongue from saying something equally cruel back. Now is not the time to be arguing.
Dean’s room is bland, the walls plain and the air stinking of drugs and antiseptics. The bed is made with military precision and that in itself is something that makes Sam feel both angry and saddened. It settles into a churning nausea in his gut.
He left his brother to this.
He should have been there to look after him.
Dean has almost no possessions in the room. Most were probably taken with him when he escaped. According to evidence and testimonies Dean picked the lock on his room, stole a spare nurse’s scrubs and walked out.
“There’s nothing,” John says in frustration looking around, “Dammit!” he kicks out, and his boot catches the edge of a nearby waste paper bin, scattering its contents to the floor. There are a load of dirty tissues and pencil sharpening’s, and amongst those are crumpled balls of paper.
Sam grabs one and carefully, slowly, unfolds it. It is lines and lines of what look like hieroglyphics. At first there is some variation to them, but then they slowly begin to repeat themselves over and over again.
John has pulled out another piece of paper, “What the hell?” he mumbles, and Sam glances up, staring at what are clearly sigils drawn over the paper in smooth circles that overlap, and are filled with sharp lines that form no recognisable letter. “What is this?” John leans back, looking grim, and Sam doesn’t have an answer.
"I've never seen symbols like that in my life before."
Sam shifts the phone to his other shoulder so he can page through the pages and pages of drawings, "None of them?" he asks, "There must be something…"
"I'm not fluent in everything, boy," Bobby scoffs, but there is warmth to his words that probably has more to do with the fact he's talking to Sam and not John who isn't even in the room. Sam doesn't know where he is, doesn't know what lead he's chasing down and honestly he doesn't want to ask. He doesn't want to start a fight, not now, not with Dean missing. His priorities are clear. Find Dean. Then, after, he can fight with Dad all he likes.
"How long until you find something?"
"You've seen my library. A while. Give me some time, I'll look through this."
"Please…" Sam says, before he can hold it back, "I just… it's Dean, Bobby…"
The gruff hunter takes a while to answer and when he does his voice is thick, "I know," he says, "We'll find him. We will, okay? You have to believe that."
"Yeah," Sam says, voice hollow, and he hangs up the phone and goes back to work.
"I found a hunt," John says when he reappears. The words don't register at first. Sam is deep in a book on ancient languages, that's assuming it even is a real language and--
"What?" his head snaps up to where John is packing his duffel bag, "A hunt? Now? While Dean is still missing?"
"The trail's dry," John says, "And it's an easy hunt, just a Woman In White hitchhiker."
There are no leads, and Sam is floundering. He doesn’t know what to do.
"Dean's still missing," he says again, "I can't… We can't give up on him."
John shrugs, "Your brother knows how to take care of himself. Even if he is…" his face twists, and he obviously doesn't have the words to describe how he feels about Dean's condition. Sam can only begin to imagine how difficult it must have been. Not so much for John, but for Dean, trying to pretend everything was okay.
It had started with voices in his head. It had ended with hallucinations and full out schizophrenia and all Sam can think is that it wouldn't have happened, wouldn't have been as bad had he been there for his brother.
John does his hunt. Sam doesn't complain, because he can feel the same sort of hopelessness beginning to stir. Dean has seemingly vanished into thin air and there are no clues as to where he's gone apart from the weird symbols.
John does his hunt and Sam…? Sam keeps searching.
"Enochian."
Sam's been functioning for the past week on barely any sleep, and it takes a moment for the word to hit. "Enoch-what?"
“Enochian," Bobby stresses the word, "The language of the writing. It's the only one that fits and believe me, it took a god-awful time to find it, since it's deader than dead. Hell, it's practically made up."
Sitting nearby doing his own research on a hunt, John already has a mildly constipated look from talking to Bobby over the phone, but at that answer as to what the sigils and language are, the expression on his face doesn’t dissipate.
“Can you translate it?” Sam leans towards the phone, anxiously.
Bobby scoffs, “Boy, do you know what Enochian is?”
“Uh… no? A language?” Sam frowns at the phone.
“It’s the language of the angels. Angels.” Bobby sounds confused, “What information there is, is mostly made up, and what isn’t fake, is based on about five real pieces of data. There’s too much here… I… I don’t even know if it’s all real Enochian or if your brother made up random symbols.”
“But why would Dean write in angel language?” Sam asks nobody in particular.
“He’s not well,” John snatches the notes out from under Sam’s nose, “That’s why we need to find him.”
Bobby scoffs over the phone, “Don’t discount other possibilities, John. I know you’re narrow-minded, but assuming your son is just plain crazy should be your last resort.”
“Believe me, I’ve considered my other options,” John looks grim, “And that? That’s the best one.”
Sam bites his tongue to hold back the words. The accusations. That maybe Dean would be okay had John not dragged him into the hunting lifestyle. Maybe he wouldn't see nightmares in daylight were their lives not spent hunting monsters.
"I'll work on the translation," Bobby says, hanging up and leaving Sam sitting there with John who won't even look at him. It's like all the urgency into finding Dean is gone. Slipped away.
They are no closer to finding Dean than they were a week ago.
The phone on the bed rings again. Sam answers it without looking at the number. A woman's voice can be heard, "Sam?"
He doesn't recognise the person speaking, "Yes?" he says warily, "Who's speaking?"
John glances up with a frown.
“My name is Missouri Mosely. I’m a friend of your daddy’s.”
Sam turns to John, "He's here, do you want me to put him on?"
She laughs, "I'm not phoning to talk to John. I spoke to John once. Told him what was really out there. Set him on his path. Almost wish I hadn't. No, I'm phoning to talk to you, Sam. About your brother."
"Who is it?" John asks, and Sam holds up his hand, barely breathing.
"Dean?" he asks, "You know where he is? How?"
"I'm a psychic. Your daddy will confirm that. And I was minding my own business, chatting to some ghosts when something flared on my radar. Something big."
"Big?" Sam frowns, "What do you mean by big?"
"I don't know. But it's bright and it hurts to look at straight, but when I do catch glimpses it looks an awful lot like your brother. I can't tell where he is. But there's all sorts of stuff following his trail. Hell creatures mostly, and you'll be wanting to stay away from those. But there's something else that might help."
"Please," Sam says, "Anything you know…"
"A Trickster," she says, "Goes by the name of Loki."
"Okay," Sam lets out a slow breath, "Okay, thank you."
"Anything I can do to help, sweetie. Just… be careful, okay? And check in on that girlfriend of yours."
“Hey, Jess. We think we might have a lead that we’re going to chase down. We’re getting nearer, and I’ll be back soon. I love you. Keep safe.”
The voice mail cuts off abruptly with a beep. The phone’s screen stays lit for a few more seconds before going dim, just as a lanky blonde steps into view. He circles around the room, sighing in disappointment.
Jess stares at where her phone sits. It’s so close, but it makes no difference. She sits on a chain in the centre of the room, thick rope wrapped around her ankles and wrists. There is a cloth stuffed in her mouth. Her head still pulses slightly from where Brady had knocked her out.
Brady. Her friend. She’d invited him in with a smile and warm cookies and he--
He wasn’t Brady.
“It’s a shame,” Brady clicks his tongue, “I hoped that Sammy-boy would come home for this special moment, but I guess he’s just gonna have to hear this all second-hand,” his smile is sick and Jess glares at him. It only seems to amuse him further, “It won’t have quite the same effect but… oh well.”
Jess shudders in confusion and revulsion as her friend paces around her. His grin is leering and it makes a tiny part of her want to crawl away and hide in terror, but she can’t. She can’t even speak.
In front of her, Brady twirls a knife. Jess flinches back, a moan escaping her as she tries to curse him and encounters material.
Brady’s insane. Or high. Or maybe the thought in the back of her mind is right and this?
This isn’t Brady.
“It was going to be symbolic,” Brady laughs, “Mommy burnt on the ceiling and so would you, but there’s no point keeping to that now,” the knife catches the light and Jess closes her eyes as he raises it above her. She’s not a coward, but she doesn’t want to see her death descending.
There is a sudden flare of light, burning the inside of her eyelids red. She clenches her eyes tightly closed, and briefly wonders if this is what dying feels like.
She hears the clatter first. The soft thud as something hits the floor. Then the scream.
Jess’s eyes fly open and she immediately wishes she’d kept them closed. Brady stands, hand still raised above her but fingers limp, the knife long since dropped to the floor. His body is stiff. His limbs tremble and he’s glowing from the inside. His body flashes a fiery orange, and Jess can almost see his skeleton illuminated inside him.
His body is burning from the inside out. He’s shuddering and contorting, eyes burning first. At first Jess thinks that’s it, he’s going to drop down dead but then the skin begins to smoulder.
His skeleton is still flashing as he goes up in flames. They are muted tongues of fire that char more than burn. Skin peels away to ash and Jess can smell burning meat as Brady’s entire body begins to haze and burn like a smouldering ember.
Jess feels sick. Brady drops to the ground, scream cutting off. Lumps of flesh turn grey and he’s turning to charcoal and ash before her eyes.
He’s dead long before the rest of his burnt corpse hits the floor.
A tall figure steps forwards. For a moment Jess thinks its Sam.
It’s not Sam. She doesn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. The man who steps forwards has shorter hair and it’s a tone lighter than Sam’s. His eyes though, they are the same.
She can feel tears clinging to her cheeks as the man holds up his hands, palms facing her. He’s unarmed. He’s alone too. Jess stares and wishes she could speak, could ask him what just happened but she doesn’t even know where to begin.
He steps forwards then, quickly and abruptly with brisk efficiency. She flinches back at this sudden movement, but all he does is unties her gag, and then moves down to undo the rope around her wrists and ankles. She curls away from his touch, but the man either ignores her reaction or doesn’t care. She barely has time to rub at her rope burnt wrists than he is dragging her up by one arm, “Come on,” his voice is deep, “We have to get you out of here. Others will show up soon.”
“Hey!” she protests, “Wait - what? What do you mean ‘others’?”
He doesn’t reply, dragging her towards the door. Jess barely manages to grab her phone from the table with one flailing hand as she passes. His grip is like a vice and Jess opens her mouth, not above screaming before she’s kidnapped--
A strong hand clamps down over her lips. “Don’t,” he warns her, his tone one of friendly advice. His eyes flare dangerously in the light. “We need to leave. Now.”
He drags her out, and she protests every step. Jess struggles, because she’s being kidnapped here. She kicks out at him, but the man is strong. And she’s not weak, but he is unnaturally strong.
He’s unnaturally strong and Brady burnt.
The guy had no weapons. No weapons, no lighter, no blow-torch so how, then, did Brady burn?
There had been something wrong with Brady. Something more than drugs.
And this man…
It settles into her with a cold certainty. She doesn’t really believe it, but it’s there, a tiny niggling in the back of her mind.
He isn’t human.
He throws her in the passenger seat of the black car parked on the street and by the time she manages to scramble for the door handle it’s already locked. He closes the driver’s door and begins fumbling for the key. Jess struggles away from him, curling up against the leather seat, staring with wide eyes at him. His features are rough but handsome and his eyes…
His eyes are the same as Sam’s.
“You’re Sam’s brother,” she breaths in surprise. He stiffens, glancing up at her, but says nothing, “Dean, isn’t it? You… you have the same eyes.” Sam’s are on the brown side of hazel, while Dean’s are on the green side, but the shape and expression in them is the same.
The man - Dean - says nothing.
She wonders if Dean’s unstable. He’s ill, according to Sam, but the man before her looks sound of mind. He looks calm and collected like he knows exactly what he is doing. Even if it involves kidnapping her apparently.
“Where are we going? Why are you taking me? We should… we should stay… the authorities will be here soon. I’ll explain how Brady just attacked me, tied me up and you--”
And he what, she wonders. And he burnt Brady into a charred corpse with what?
“What are you doing?” she demands, scrabbling at the door, “Where’s Sam? Dean… we have to back…”
The engine roars as Dean turns the key, “We can’t,” he bites out, “It’s not safe. More will come.”
“You mean more like Brady?” she queries, “He’s a thing? What thing? What did he want with me?”
He’s about to pull out, but for a moment he pauses, meeting her wide gaze, “They don’t want you,” he says, “They want Sam.”
Sam doesn’t know anything is wrong until Becky sends him an e-mail.
"I heard about Jess and Brady - I'm so sorry, I can’t believe something like that would happen."
"What do you mean?" Sam types back, "What happened?"
"You didn't hear?" Rebecca sends back within the hour, "Brady's body was found burnt to a crisp in your apartment. They think he was on some kind of drugs. Apparently they found stuff in his system but considering the state of his body it was kind of hard to tell. There was a chair with ropes but they couldn't find Jess. The popular theory is that Brady killed her and hid the body, but she may have been kidnapped. There is no news yet. I'm so sorry you had to hear this way."
Sam insists on driving back to California, and John agrees with reluctance. It’s not like they’ve made any progress on locating the Trickster. They visit Becky (dealing with a shapeshifter while they’re there) but he finds no more than the authorities have discovered.
It makes no sense. None at all. They’re too late to find much, the apartment has been wiped from top to bottom and the case is quickly growing cold.
What makes even less sense is that Sam spoke to Jess only a day ago.
She’s been missing two weeks.
Jess’ number rings and for a moment he thinks that maybe she is missing. But then she picks up, “Hi Sam,” she sounds happy. Cheery.
Alive.
Now Sam listens he can hear the sound of a car in the background. She’s driving somewhere. Or being driven. But she has her phone… what sort of kidnapper lets her have her phone? What sort of kidnapped person doesn’t even admit to being kidnapped?
"What happened to you?” is the first thing Sam demands, “Becky said they found Brady dead and you... they think you're dead."
"I'm fine," Jess says, but he can hear the sound dim as she converses with someone else.
"Is he there?" Sam demands, "Is your captor there? Just say yes or no..."
"I'm not kidnapped but then I suppose that is what someone with Stockholm's syndrome would say. I'm okay. I'm fine, safe, that's why I'm moving."
"You were safe where you were." Sam stands, beginning to pace with anxiety. Now it’s not just his brother he’s missing - he’s missing his girlfriend as well.
But her tone changes suddenly from pleasant to frustrated, “No. I wasn’t safe. I haven't been safe since I met you, Sam Winchester. That's why they're after me. Because of you."
"Who? Who is after you?"
"Demons."
Jess finds out everything eventually. About hunting. The full story of how Sam and Dean's mother died. She's quite proud of herself for finding everything out because the thing is Dean doesn't offer up information. He doesn't talk much at all really, and there are moments when she thinks he's not even there, sitting so still and staring off into space as if he's listening to something beyond her comprehension.
Sam said he was schizophrenic, she recalls, but she can't see it. She can't understand why their father left him locked up in the first place because monsters and demons exist. They're real. Every evil thing she thought was nothing more than a bad dream is out there, and Sam and Dean and others like them hunt them down.
And now Jess does too. She picks up a shotgun and marches out there right after Dean.
They save three siblings in Colorado from a Wendigo. They save a mother and child from a ghost. They save a whole town from a scarecrow and damn it, Jess is never going to look at a scarecrow the same way again.
No wonder Sam hates Halloween.
If Dean was more like Sam he'd try to stop her from coming with him. And he does protest, but like everything Dean does it's weak. Half-hearted like he's not really paying attention. He looks goddamn uncomfortable in his own skin and looks like he doubts every single thing he does, which for a man who moves and hunts with such purpose at times makes him completely paradoxical.
But Jess dated Sam. She's well accomplished by now at wrangling out information and also knowing when to stop pushing. She gets Dean talking, at first reluctantly, but eventually he just shares tidbits here and there, although Jess suspects he's pre-empting her questions before she can ask them. It's almost like he can read her mind at times.
And maybe he can.
He's not human. Not completely. He must be - he's Sam's brother - but there's something else there. The same thing that burnt Brady to a crisp. The same thing that has him silent at times, staring into space like he's in another world. The same thing that has him moving around like he's a human who has forgotten how to live.
He doesn't eat. He just plain forgets until she points it out. He does remember to stop to buy food for her, but the sandwich she shoves at him goes forgotten on the dashboard.
She phones Sam. He's mad. Frantic. Dean's missing and now she is too. She doesn't tell him where she is, only that she's safe, she's alive, she's on a roadtrip.
She feels guilty for lying. Sam now thinks he has to find not only his missing brother but Jess too. She should save him the pain and at least tell him they're together, but Sam has been lying to her for years. She can keep this up a few months.
So she keeps phoning and she doesn't tell him about Dean.
Monsters are real and they’re after her. After Sam. After Dean.
Once the idea of a road trip sounded absurd. Crazy. But she can’t go back. Not now. Dean may have dragged her unwillingly out of her apartment, but once he had explained everything to her she hadn’t been forced along.
But she had continued following him, ignoring the various attempts he would make to keep her locked in motel rooms. Dean would leave, go off for hours, days at a time. She wouldn’t question it and eventually he doesn’t complain when he finds her in a local library, catching up with her missed studies.
“I can see why Sam fell in love with you,” he says stiffly after the third time he tracks her down to the library. He has an inherent ability to find her wherever she is. And though he doesn’t talk about it, barely speaks to her at all unless prompted, there is still that strangeness about him that drags her mind back her first thoughts when she watched Brady burn from nothing.
He’s not human.
But he's something and Jess is going to find out what.