A/N: Rating will go up later. So many thanks to geckoholic for her support and beta work. You can have a better view of the art by kiki-miserychic that comes with this fic by visiting my LJ (same username).

Jesse woke up with a surge of adrenaline. He opened his eyes on half-darkness, the light from the street lamp outside filtering through the curtains. His heart pounded hard against his ribs, his mouth was dry, and his body tingled for a few more seconds, an electric feeling like a thousand ants crawling over his skin. He couldn't remember what he'd been dreaming about but he knew he needed a moment before he could go back to sleep. He thought he'd cried out, but he probably hadn't because it was only when Jesse's body was already half out of bed that Ben stirred and groaned.

"Whazz'it?"

"Go back to sleep," Jesse said, and waited until Ben shifted position and his breathing deepened again.

He tiptoed out of the room – Ben's room, he still couldn't think of it as his own – crossed the living room, passed the couch where he'd slept until sex with Ben had become more the rule than the exception, and only allowed himself to turn a light on once he was inside the bathroom and had closed the door behind him.

He leaned over the sink, a hand on each side, and took a deep breath before he raised his head and looked at himself in the mirror. His reflection looked back. His hair stuck to his face and his forehead gleamed with sweat, like he'd just run a marathon or had really intense sex. His eyes were gray; normal gray irises circled with a dark blue ring, normal whites. No oil-like blackness for him, oh no; his curse wasn't the kind you could get rid of with an exorcism.

"You're one handsome devil," he told his reflection, because it was true on all counts.

He drank from the tap to wash away the metallic taste in his mouth, and sneaked a paranoid sniff at his own arm after he'd shut the water. Demons smelled strongly like sulfur to him and he always wondered if he had a similar scent, but just wasn't aware of it, like the smelly guy everyone inconspicuously inches away from. His arm smelled like skin, as usual – but then the smelly guy's problem is that he can't smell himself.

Jesse heard Ben coming, the sound of bare feet slapping on laminate tiles.

"I'm okay," he said just as Ben slipped inside the bathroom.

Ben played outrage. "Can't I take a leak in my own fucking bathroom?"

He was bare-chested, wearing only his underwear – he used to sleep with a t-shirt but had stopped because, he claimed, Jesse was warmer than a furnace. The anti-possession tattoo, a flaming sun with a pentagram in its center, stood out under his collarbone with the stark black lines of brand new ink. Jesse had been a little afraid at the beginning that it could burn him or something, like holy water did, but through some experiencing they'd quickly concluded that his fingers, lips or tongue risked nothing from the tattoo.

With forced casualness – he was a pitiful actor and liar – Ben walked around Jesse to get to the toilet, then paused hesitantly.

"Don't tell me you're afraid of getting your dick out in front of me," Jesse teased. "I hate to break it to you, but I've seen it all already."

Ben snorted. "I'm afraid pissing in front of you will kind of kill the romance, that's all."

"I've seen you completely smashed taking a leak into a flower pot. I'm afraid romance has been nipped into the bud."

Ben laughed and thrust a hand into his boxers, at which point Jesse did slightly turn away, because staring would just be awkward. He'd feel weird about admitting it to Ben, but having him here had already improved Jesse's mood a few notches.

A few drops later – even Ben's dick was bad at lying – Ben nudged Jesse aside to wash his hands at the sink. Instead of stepping away, Jesse kept his shoulder pressed against Ben's.

"So you're okay, huh?" Ben said with a glance at him.

"So you needed to pee, huh?"

Rather than keep up with the banter like Jesse expected him to do, Ben sighed and dried his hands, and slid a still damp palm against Jesse stomach, the tips of his fingers lightly teasing at his ribs.

"Are you going back to bed?"

"I should. I've work tomorrow," Jesse said. "I don't know if I'll be able to sleep," he added honestly after a moment of hesitation.

The corner of Ben's mouth twitched but his eyes were serious. "You know, we don't have to sleep," he said, his hand slipping lower.

Jesse snorted, and pushed him against the sink with a hand to his side. They were even-sized, matched each other shoulder to hip, and it made this all the better. Jesse brushed a thumb over a scar Ben had just above his waistband, a wrinkled patch of pinkish skin two fingers large and about a one inch long, which Ben said was a burn mark from a cooking accident. Ben's shoulders shook with a sudden shiver, either because he was cold or because Jesse had touched a sensitive spot. He grabbed Jesse's wrist with a strong grip and tugged down so that Jesse's hand passed the elastic of his boxers.

"We don't even have to go to bed."

ooo

"Okay, kids, I gotta run. I leave you to close up, alright?"

Jesse raised his head from the table he was wiping, twisting a little to shoot a smile at Marisa above his shoulder.

"Bye, Mari. See you tomorrow."

Marisa smiled back as she thrust the door open with her hip, her arms full with a cardboard box. In her forties, but with enough vitality that she seemed a decade younger, she had auburn hair that burned with the setting sun, caramel skin, and a generous cleavage that Jesse couldn't resist getting a last look down. She caught him at it and gave him a wink.

"Bye, Jesse." Then, a little louder: "Bye, Katie!"

"Smooth," commented Katie, and Jesse turned around to see her leaning against a table, her arms crossed on her chest, looking amused. Her long dark hair was pulled up in a ponytail, as it always was when she was at work, and the hairdo cleared her ears, making her look somewhat elfish.

"Oh, shut up, morality brigade. I was just looking."

Katie laughed. "Oh, I know – and Marisa wouldn't wear that shirt if she didn't want anyone looking. Don't worry," she added sweetly. "I won't tell on you to Ben."

Jesse moved on to the table she was leaning on, and whipped his dishcloth at her hip so she'd get out of his way. "You can tell him whatever you want. I'm sure Claire's aren't the only boobs Ben looks at either. Are you going to help or what?"

Katie giggled again and half-heartedly pulled at a chair to set it head down on the table. It was technically more his job than hers, but the restaurant was small enough that everyone's job was everyone's. The place belonged to Marisa's mother, Mrs. Flores, who did the cooking while Marisa managed the business and waited the tables with Katie's help. Katie had been the one to recommend him as a busser when Jesse, realizing he was going to be in Long Beach for a while, had started looking for a job. He'd worked in restaurants before, for some of his few brushes with employment, and he had fit right in there.

They worked in companionable silence for a moment. She was Ben's friend first and foremost – they'd known each other since they were kids, and their bond was only strengthened by their common experience as victims from kid-snatching monsters – but having worked with her for a couple of months now, Jesse was starting to feel comfortable with Katie. Enough that after hesitating for a long time and a few false starts in his head, he said, "Can I ask you something?"

He kept his eyes focused on the hypnotic movement of the cloth on the table. It was shiny enough that he could see his reflection in it as a blurry shadow.

"Sure," Katie said. A chair squeaked as she moved it. "What's the matter?"

"It's, um. It's gonna be Claire's birthday in a few weeks. And that means – people give presents to each other on birthdays, right? That's the kind of thing you do when you're someone's boyfriend, no?"

"What's your point?"

There was laughter in Katie's voice. Jesse turned around to shoot her an irritated look.

"My point is – I just don't know what to buy her. I… I'm new at this shit, okay?"

"What makes you think that I can help you? Do you think that all women are part of a hive mind or what?"

"No, but–"

"It's not like I know Claire that well. She's your girl. Well, and Ben's. God, that still sounds weird when you say it out loud, doesn't it? Anyway, we're not pals or anything. She's never invited it." Was it bitterness he could hear in Katie's voice? "I've always kind of thought that she looked down on Blake and me a little bit."

"Is that what you think?" Jesse tried to reconcile this with the Claire he knew. It was close to five months since Claire and he had met, and Katie had actually known her for longer. "I don't think so… She's just not that comfortable with people."

"Yeah? Well, as I said, I'm not the best judge on what Claire would like to get for her birthday. I'm curious, though – why aren't you having that conversation with Ben? I'd have thought that one of the advantages of that arrangement you three have is that you get a buddy to help you with that sort of stuff. And Ben's arguably the one person that knows Claire the best."

"Oh, uh. I'd just rather… try to figure it on my own, you know?"

"But you're not exactly figuring out things out on your own if you're asking me, are you?" He turned to look at her and saw her tilt her head to the side, like she was considering him and found him lacking. "Is this some kind of macho competitive thing? Well, that's disappointing."

Jesse frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, I assumed that you being kind of – well, non-straight, you wouldn't fall for that, but I guess I was wrong." Katie shook her head in mock disapproval. "There go my illusions. Boys will be boys."

"It's not competition, it's… Oh, you know what, fuck you. If you don't wanna help then just don't."

Jesse ostensibly turned his back on Katie and focused again on his work, all fired up and pouring the energy into aggressive cleaning. Who was she that he had to justify himself to her? Not like he owed her anything. Except that… well, yes, he kind of did. But how could he explain himself when he wasn't even sure what kept him from discussing the issue with Ben? It was just that– It sometimes felt like Ben had it all figured out, from the moment the three of them had fallen into bed together. Knew what they were, where they were going, how this was supposed to work. Jesse, for his part, was fumbling his way in the dark, hitting his toes against random obstacles.

Having a threesome with Ben and Claire had been one thing – Jesse'd had sex with plenty of people he'd never seen again; he even had a few other threesomes under his belt. Claire and Ben had said they wanted him to stay, and he hadn't wanted to leave either. It had been new, exciting, intense. Like a brake-free tumble downhill. Exhilarating, was the word. Then Ben had wanted them to meet his mother – epically painful for Jesse and awkward for everyone involved, but that was a story for another time – and suddenly he realized he'd ended himself in a relationship. Relationships. He feared it was only a matter of time before everything blew in his face.

"Jesse, hey." Katie, not one for being ignored, hung herself at his shoulder when he didn't react to her poking him in the ribs. "Are you mad at me? Come on, don't be like that! We can brainstorm together. Jewels?"

"Claire doesn't wear any jewelry," Jesse said before he could help himself.

Katie gave him a small triumphant smile. "True. Perfume? Cologne?"

"What's even the difference between the two?"

"Okay, this one may be a bit complicated for a beginner." Jesse glared at her and she smiled impishly. "Why not buy her a book? Claire's a reader, right?"

"Yeah, but." Now Jesse was embarrassed. He wasn't a reader, to put it mildly. "I wouldn't know where to start to find something she might like."

"You're not helping! This isn't going to be easy if you shoot down all my ideas."

"I'll make it easy then: forget I said anything. I'll talk to Ben. We'll figure it out."

"That's what I've been saying from the start. You need to start listening to me."

"Oh, you." He made a face at her. "Shut your mouth or I'll have to turn you into something disgusting."

The joke had escaped him easily like it would have with Ben, and Jesse watched out for Katie's reaction. He wasn't really sure how much she knew about what he was – she knew he had some freaky abilities, as he had materialized out of thin air in front of her eyes that one time, but he didn't know if she was aware he wasn't fully human. To her credit, her eyes only widened slightly and she said, "Can you really… Or maybe I don't want to know."

"Maybe not."

Jesse gave a last sweep to the table he'd been working on and hauled the last chairs up. Katie didn't add anything on the subject, but didn't act uneasy either, so he probably hadn't fucked up too bad on this one. They didn't waste any more time closing the restaurant, and both headed home in the orange light of early evening.

ooo

The soft clicking sound of Claire typing on her laptop was the only noise disturbing the quiet of the apartment. Lying upside down on her sofa bed, watching her work with her back on him, Jesse was on the verge of falling asleep. Claire had decided to keep her own place while Ben and Jesse lived together, and they visited each other a few times a week. Sometimes it was the three of them, but at other times Ben or Jesse had a one-on-one with their girlfriend while the other was off doing one thing or another. It worked out for them. Tonight, Ben was at the Winchesters', a few hours up north in San Luis Obispo. He claimed he wanted to take up hunting, which Jesse privately thought was madness, but hey, it wasn't his place to say, and there were deeper issues there than he had a handle on. From what he'd gathered, Dean Winchester was some sort of father figure to Ben – or maybe his actual father, Jesse wasn't entirely clear on that matter.

"Are you getting bored?"

Claire's voice startled Jesse out of his thoughts. She'd slightly turned around to look at him, and was watching him with a wry smile.

"Not at all, princess. I'm finding the whole writing process fascinating."

She pursed her mouth at the nickname, but didn't comment and went back to work. It had started out mostly as a joke at Ben's expense, after a drunken confession on how he sometimes thought of Claire as a fairy tale princess, but it was growing on Jesse and Claire had stopped protesting. He looked at her hunched-over back, the bumps of her spine forming a soft line of hills, her blond hair draped over her shoulders like a golden veil. Then his eyes drifted to the floor where a pile of books perilously leaned against the sofa. Remembering his conversation with Katie, he tried to read the title of the one on top. M– was this a p or a q? psychisc? psychis? What the hell did 'metopsychis' mean? Well, that answered one question, at least: no way was he going to a bookstore and stare at titles he couldn't make sense of, not even for Claire's birthday.

"I think I'm done," Claire said suddenly. "Do you want to hear it?"

Jesse nodded as he always did, even though there wasn't much he could contribute. He wasn't a college student. He had never even been to high school.

"I'm sure it's brilliant," he said, and she shook her head in that 'flattery will lead you nowhere' way of hers. "But yeah, go ahead."

"The comparison between the Torah and the Nevi'im," she started reading, and he let himself be swept over in a rush of words.

She never made him read anything, but always read aloud to him. He didn't know whether it was more for her sake or for his, but he'd come to enjoy it. Of course, most of it flew over his head, although he'd learned to recognize some of the words – apocrypha, ontology, cabala – but he liked the sound of Claire's voice, clear and precise, rising and falling in a musical rhythm. She was angled in his direction so her words carried to him and he enjoyed how the yellow glow of her desk lamp painted shadows on her face.

"I'm not sure about the conclusion," Claire said once she'd finished reading, her eyebrows knitted together as she scowled at the screen of her laptop.

"It sounded fine to me," Jesse said, not under any illusion that his opinion was worth much on that subject.

He straightened up in one impulsion and pushed himself off the sofa. "Leave it for later," he said, coming to her and resting his chin on the top of her head. "You're not going to accomplish anything right now. Give it a night. Maybe send it to Ben to know what he thinks."

She leaned back against him. "You can go home if you want."

At first, when she was saying stuff like that, Jesse had thought that it was a gentle way to signify to him that she wanted to be left alone. But as he'd learned to know her better he'd come to realize that when she wanted to be left alone she simply said it, no fuss no muss.

"I'm good here," he said. "But you're not going to spend the whole night working. Come on. Sit with me."

He tugged at her hand until she smiled and followed him onto the sofa. She sat with a weary sigh, close enough that their shoulders and thighs were pressed together and Jesse's arm got caught between their bodies. Claire wiggled her hand in the tight space to interlace their fingers. She felt warm and soft against him, but being so close to her he could feel the angel whatever that lingered inside her resonate with his own demonic nature. It was a sort of buzzing feeling, but cold at the same time, numbing, a vibration that turned his stomach, and it was unpleasant but not outright painful so Jesse had grown used to it. Thinking back to Katie's suggestions he focused on the way she smelled, but she wasn't wearing any perfume and he only caught the faint herbal scent of her shampoo.

"How was your day?" Claire asked, her voice reduced to a low murmur.

"Oh, it was okay. A kid threw up on me, I almost caught a glass in the head from a couple fighting, and we had two hours of no hot water, which helped a lot with doing the dishes, as you can imagine. Just another day at the office."

He'd aimed at getting a smile from her, but when she pushed her hair off her face with one finger, sticking the strands behind her ear, her expression was thoughtful.

"Do you ever wish you were somewhere else? Doing… I don't know. You could do whatever you want, and you're here."

She twisted her neck to look up at him, her eyes serious and considering. Jesse wasn't sure what to answer to that. You could do whatever you want. She didn't get it, he thought, no one really did. In truth, once you decided that you didn't want to be an evil overlord, there wasn't a lot you could do with the kind of power he had. He had too much of it to really be in measure to use it.

"What's wrong with being here?" he said lightly. "Sure, I will regret the fact that I missed my occasion to plunge the world in darkness and fire, but you can't live in the past."

She pulled away from him. "I see your point," she said dryly. "I just… I know I'm not much of a girlfriend."

"Hello, have you met me? You can't be as clueless as I am when it comes to relationships. Ben is our expert on the subject."

"Is that supposed to comfort me?" She nestled back against him. "Ben's gone to see Sam and Dean?"

"Yeah. He went to receive the hunting wisdom. The Winchesters should do seminaries – that's what retired people do, isn't it?"

"You don't like it." Claire had a way of stating the implicit in all its naked truth.

"It doesn't matter what I think, but yeah, I'm not fond of the idea. I think it's looking for trouble. Stopping the world from ending once should be enough for one man, no?"

"Well." Claire shifted against his side. "You know that what Ben did in Stull Cemetery was all for you, right? He didn't set out to save the world. He was trying to save you. We both were."

Jesse felt himself grow hot, his cheeks burning. "Right."

"Now he wants to learn how to defend himself. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. These things don't always come with a warning, as we all know too well."

"Why don't you go with him, then?" Jesse said, then regretted it once the words had passed his lips: there were things he didn't fully understand about Claire's past, things that involved the Winchesters and the angel Castiel and Claire's father, and maybe Claire just wanted to stay away from all of it. Jesse could certainly understand the urge.

She didn't look upset, though, and a small smile curved her lips. "Some of it I already know. When it comes to weapon handling, well… Ben's been showing me what he's learned."

"Has he?" Jesse wondered what he was supposed to think of the fact that none of them had shared this tidbit with him before. "Are you any good?"

Her smile turned sharper. "What do you think?"

He poked her in the ribs. "Stop bragging. I bet you're lethal." He waited a beat before adding, "Seriously, though, you two do whatever you want. I have no room to criticize – I was born badder and meaner than most things out there, so…"

"Now who's bragging?"

"It's not bragging if it's the truth."

He was mostly serious, though he'd said it jokingly, but he enjoyed the tinkling sound of her laugh anyway. It wasn't a sound he heard very often. She wasn't much shorter than him so he didn't have to lean down to kiss her and steal the laughter from her lips.

They slowly got into it, bringing in tongues and hands. It was lazy making out, riding on the memory of having been there before and the knowledge you could do it again – a brand new feeling for Jesse. Claire pulled apart for a second, just long enough to straddle Jesse's lap. She wore a loose-fitting shirt and a linen skirt that rode up her thighs when she spread her legs. Jesse stroked his hands up her legs, his thumbs caressing the soft insides of her thighs until they reached the edges of her panties. She flashed him a smile, in a rare playful mood, and her hand was finding its way to his crotch when a ringing sound jingled out.

"It's yours," Claire murmured. She moved back and, disappointedly, stopped fondling his cock.

"My what?" Jesse said dumbly, not having room in his brain for more than one thought at the moment.

"Your phone."

"Oh – right. Sorry."

Jesse had to squirm a bit to pull the phone out of his jeans pocket. Claire swiveled on one knee and sat back on the sofa by his side, pulling up her legs against her chest. Jesse sighed inwardly at the broken mood, cursing whoever was calling. His phone was a recent acquisition, because Ben and Claire insisted, and he was already tired of it.

He glanced at caller ID. "Hey, it's Ben," he said, feeling a strange mix of surprise and fluttery warmth. "Ben, mate," he answered his phone, "You're such a cock-blocker. I swear I–"

"Jesse." Ben's tone was nothing Jesse recognized and it made him lose his train of thought. "You gotta come to the Winchesters'."

"What? You mean now? But I'm at Claire's–"

"Bring Claire with you," Ben cut in.

"Ben, what's going on?"

"I– Not on the phone. Please come as fast as you can."

On those words Ben hung up, leaving Jesse feeling like he'd missed half the conversation.

"What's going on?" Claire asked.

"Hell if I know. Ben wants us to jump to the Winchesters. He sounded…" Jesse breathed through the growing discomfort he felt. "…really odd."

Claire looked at him for a moment, like trying to read cryptic messages in what he wasn't saying.

"Okay," she said, dropping her naked feet to the floor and standing, graceful as a dancer. "Let me find something else to wear and we'll go."

Jesse waited on the sofa while she looked through her wardrobe for some jeans and a sweater. There was a ball weighing on his stomach and it grew bigger with each passing second as crazy thoughts whirled through his mind. Was Ben in danger? If that was the case, then Jesse shouldn't waste any time– but no, he wouldn't have asked Jesse to bring Claire then. Unless he was being threatened. Someone threatening him, or the Winchesters, maybe – or worse, his mother. If his mother's life was at stake, then all bets were off on what Ben would do.

"I'm ready."

Jesse looked up to Claire, now clad in a charcoal gray hoodie with the with word "Beach" sewn in golden and black cursive – Jesse recognized it as a sweatshirt from CSULB, the university Ben and Claire both attended – and with her hair gathered in a low ponytail. She'd dressed like she expected hell, Jesse suddenly realized. She reached a hand out to him.

"Come on," she said. "Let's see what it is that can't wait."

Jesse took her hand and let her haul him on his feet. "If it's a bootie call, I'm killing him."

"I'm sure it's nothing," she said, but there wasn't an ounce of comfort in her voice – she sounded more like she thought it was something she had to say under the circumstances. Not one for white lies, their Claire was.

"Yeah," Jesse said and swallowed.

He closed his eyes, more because he didn't want to see her knowing eyes anymore than because he needed it to focus. From what he'd been told, his way of traveling was horrible to other people. Ben hated it with a passion; said it felt like the world was losing all consistence while his insides fought their way to the outside. But to Jesse, it was really nothing at all: he pictured his destination in his head – it didn't even have to be a clear picture, he only needed to latch out on a significant detail – and then he was there in the blink of an eye with barely a passing impression of weightlessness.

When he opened his eyes, he was in the Winchesters' living room, looking through the bay window leading to their back garden, a mere patch of carefully tended grass with a lemon tree in the farthest corner.

"Jesse."

He turned around and Ben launched himself at him. Before any word had the time to pass Jesse's lips, Ben grabbed the back of his head and drew him in for a kiss, and Jesse froze for a moment, not used to Ben being this handsy outside of sex. The kiss was hard and rough, Ben's fingers were digging in Jesse's scalp like claws, and the desperation it exuded didn't do a thing to calm Jesse's fears.

"What the fuck is going on, Ben?" he asked when Ben let him go to give a more gentle kiss to Claire.

"Hello to you too," said a rough voice, and Jesse turned to scowl at Dean Winchester.

The man sat on a stool by the dark empty fireplace, sharpening a long knife on a gray stone with murderous intent, while his brother was hunched over the laptop lit up on the coffee table. Sam Winchester gave him an apologetic half-smile, maybe to compensate for his brother: Dean was never really outright hostile to Jesse, not since he'd helped Castiel wake up Sam from a coma, but he always acted wary around him, whether because of Jesse's nature or because he was fucking his surrogate son – or a happy combination of both.

"We're sorry about the dramatic phone call," Sam said, jerking his head to get hair off his eyes. "But I've found something, and I… We thought we should show you."

The emphatic we came with a glance to his brother, who huffed and looked away. Ben slipped by Jesse's side and took his hand, holding it tightly enough to stop the blood from flowing to his fingertips. He glared in Dean's direction, and Sam's eyes flew from Ben to Dean and he heaved a weary sigh. They'd had a fight, Jesse understood with a flash of surprise. They'd fought on the question of whether or not tell him about this thing they'd uncovered.

"What is it?" Jesse asked, his mouth dry.

"Well, I…" Sam patted the spot next to him, and Jesse tore himself from Ben's grasp to sit down on the couch with him. The leathered arm was so worn that it was flaking like a bad skin disease, and Jesse started fiddling with the patches out of nervousness. "I have this program," Sam started to explain, his eyes on the screen. His fingers flew over the keyboard and windows popped open or closed. They didn't mean much to Jesse, as he wasn't exactly a computer buff. "I use it to keep track of certain signs – lightening storms, dying cattle, sudden drops in barometric pressure, that kind of things."

"Demonic omens," Jesse said numbly.

Sam's eyes flickered to him. "Yeah. The program is set so that if enough of the signs manifest in one place, I get an alert."

"And you got one."

"Yes. It was a place where we'd been before. So I looked at online news, and…"

A new window opened: it was an online press article and Jesse frowned, concentrating to make sense of the title. "TRAGEDY IN ALLIANCE: A COUPLE FOUND DEAD IN THEIR FARM."

"No," Jesse said, shaking his head in denial. "No, they can't be… I would…" What, know it? Omniscience wasn't one of his many powers last time he'd checked.

He tried to read the rest of the article but the words wouldn't stop dancing in front of his eyes. He felt nothing but confusion until suddenly anger sparked red through the haziness.

"You didn't want to tell me," he said accusingly to Dean. "You wanted to keep me in the dark. My own parents – they were my mom and dad and you wanted–"

"And what are you gonna do now that you know, huh?" Dean said in that infuriating deadpan of his. "What does it change? You aren't gonna bring them back to life."

There was a warning somewhere in that statement. Jesse stood like a shot, his hands balled into fists. "Is that what this is about? You scared of what I'm going to do? What if I burn the whole goddamn world down to ashes, right?"

"Jesse," Ben said, and tried to take a hold of Jesse's arm.

"Don't," Jesse said, taking a step back.

He couldn't breathe properly, like the air was too thin, not quite right. It wasn't Ben's fault, he told himself. Ben had called him. But Ben was looking at him, they all looked at him and their eyes felt like hot coal on his skin.

"I don't– Fuck, I can't."

He closed his eyes and wished himself away. He saw his mother, brown strands of hair escaped from her bun and curling on her neck, fiddling with the kettle on the stove. His father, pushing his metal-circled glasses up his nose, frowning at the printed words on the newspaper.

"Jesse, don't–" he heard, and thought it was Claire's voice, but the world felt immaterial and that meant Jesse was already gone.

When he opened his eyes he had a few seconds of vertigo as he took in his new surroundings: he'd materialized in a kitchen, the kitchen of his childhood, so similar to his memories that for the briefest instant he wondered if he'd actually gone back in time. The ugly flowery wallpaper, the wooden cupboards. The round kitchen table with the slat-back chairs. The letter holder on the wall next to the fridge…

But the fridge was different, whiter, with sharper angles. The curtains had a different printed pattern. The stove was all new, a modern thing with an induction cooker. Jesse shook himself, trying to clear the fog from his mind. He hadn't jumped in time, of course not. He had merely jumped from Cali to Alliance, Nebraska, and he was standing in his parents' kitchen. In their home. Where they'd died.

Quietly, like he'd wake up someone if he made too much noise, Jesse padded through the doorway to the living room. On the frame were the pen marks keeping track of his height, one for each of his birthdays. The last was dated March 2009: he'd been 4'8'' at the time. He stepped into the living room and his eyes immediately caught the brownish stains of dried blood, and the white delimitations on the floor reproducing the outline of his parents' bodies. One just at the living room entrance, where Jesse had been about to walk, the other by the fireplace. There, the carpet had soaked up all the blood and its original pattern was indistinguishable.

Jesse gasped and fought a wave of nausea. He couldn't move or keep looking at the blood, so he looked for something else to focus on. The first thing to catch his eye was a picture on the mantle, of his parents and himself sitting in the grass with the leftovers of a picnic lying before them. The sight of it, the proof that his family had once been happy and normal, constricted his lungs and twisted his stomach, so he looked instead at the painting hanged right above the fireplace: gray expanses of field with blue mountains in the background. Jesse had always found it vaguely dull and depressing, but now it filled him with almost unbearable nostalgia. The feeling was softer than grief, though, and he breathed through his nose, in and out, until the pain in his chest dropped to a manageable level.

"God," he said out loud, the sound of his own voice startling in the silent house. He pressed a cool palm against his burning forehead, centering himself.

He took another breath, this time trying to smell for the familiar demon stench. At first he couldn't smell anything unusual, not even blood, only dust and wood polish. He took a third slow breath, drawing it in until his lungs strained with the effort, and only then did he catch a faint whiff of sulfur, almost like an afterthought. He released the breath noisily, his head swimming a bit. Since Stull Cemetery, he found it hard to stand that smell.

The faint scent wasn't strong enough for the demon who'd murdered his parents to still be here, so Jesse didn't worry about a confrontation. He still wanted to take a look outside the house and absentmindedly walked to the entrance, when it occurred to him that the front door was probably sealed by the police. He focused and made himself pop up on the front porch. It was painted white and the paint was flaking, like in his memories, but the plants in pot lining up the front steps were dying. Jesse walked down the steps in a daze, looking around and finding himself overwhelmed again by the sight of his childhood landscape. The sun was going down on the miles of fields facing the house, a ball of fire setting the horizon aflame with orange and pink.

"Hey, you! What are you doing here?"

Jesse had walked up to the road and he turned his head to the angry male voice that had called. "Me?"

"Yes, you." The man was in his fifties, with sparse graying hair and a chubby face red with either anger or effort as he hurried in Jesse's direction. "Did you come to snoop around, huh?"

He pointed a fat index finger at Jesse, who thought he was going to poke him in the chest and took a reflexive step back.

"No!" he said, waving his hands widely in denial. He'd been so caught up in his memories of the past and the horror of the present that it was an adjustment to have to talk to anyone. "I was just… I was looking for the Collins' house?"

The man squinted at him suspiciously. He looked vaguely familiar, and for a moment Jesse was afraid that the man might recognize him.

"Didn't you see the yellow tape?"

"Uuhh, yeah, I did, that's why I was turning back. I didn't want to– I'm sorry?"

"Mmm."

The man was still looking at him with undisguised hostility, and Jesse desperately wished for him to mellow out. Maybe the man knew something, but he would never answer Jesse's questions if he thought he was some punk kid looking for a cheap thrill. The desperate need for the man to trust him, or at least for him not to distrust him too much, got overwhelming for a moment, until the man's furrowed brow smoothed like the calm waters of a lake and Jesse realized with horror what he was doing.

"Kids have been circling the place like vultures," the man said, sounding almost apologetic but with eyes a little glazed over, which kind of ruined the effect. "No sense of decency. So I thought, you know."

"It's fine, it's – really," Jesse stammered. Unable to help himself, and knowing the man couldn't deny him, he asked, "What happened here?"

The man's eyes drifted to the house. "A couple lived there; they've been murdered a few days ago. Torn apart in their own living room by some sicko. Can you imagine that?"

He looked at Jesse like he earnestly expected an answer. "No, that's… terrible," Jesse said, even though he could imagine it all too well.

"Nice folks, the Turners were. Life kept shitting on them 'til the end, I guess – some people have no luck, you know?"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, it's an old story – the Turners had a little boy – Jeremy? can't remember his name for sure – but about a decade back he went missing and was never found again. The police thought at first that the kid had run away, because he was a bit… Strange, if you see what I mean." Jesse had no idea what he meant. "Always thought myself that he was a bit touched in the head, he had a way of looking at you. Uncanny. But really, a nice kid on the whole, just a bit troubled, as some kids are. But he never came back and he was like, eleven years old. Boy that age, he couldn't have gone very far on his own. Must have stumbled on some bad kind and his body's probably buried somewhere."

If only you knew. God, just thinking about what his parents had been through since he'd gone missing made him want to be swallowed whole by the ground. He thought he was protecting them but in the end they'd had a miserable life and a bloody end.

"You okay, kid?"

The man's sympathetic eyes were clearer now, so he was probably getting free of Jesse's influence, but he was also not hostile like earlier so Jesse had to wonder if the man even remembered being angry and suspicious at him.

"Yeah." Jesse flapped a hand and tried to smile, even though he wanted to throw up. "I'm fine. I'm just going to…"

"You were looking for the Collins, right?" This took Jesse by surprise. "Well their house is over there – see? The one with the blue front steps?"

Jesse's eyes followed the man's finger, and he nodded and hummed and thanked him appropriately, before heading in the indicated direction. Johnson, he remembered suddenly when he had turned his back on his childhood home. This was the man's name. He used to come for coffee and chat with his parents from time to time.

Jesse marked a pause, rubbing a hand over the symbol carved under his collarbone that was supposed to help him control his powers, a nervous gesture, before glancing around and wishing himself away.

Nebraska was gone, and at first all he could see was the night sky, a dark immensity studded with pinprick diamonds. He was overcome by a wave of vertigo, flailed helplessly for something to catch himself on. There was nothing but emptiness, like he was flying – which he couldn't do, could he? He fell to one knee and hit something solid: rock. He looked down.

"Oh, Jesus," he cursed, gripping the rock with bloodless fingers.

The sky above him, he recognized it now, was the Australian sky – he could see the broad band of the Milky Way stretching across the sky like a scar, and the three lined stars of the Saucepan – and he was perched at the top of a high sandstone spire, lost among a forest of similar pillars, secret nooks of shadows nestled between them. This was the Lost Cities of Limmen National Park in Northern Territory, ancient ocean floor old as the beginning of the world, and Jesse used to like coming here for the peace and quiet, and the thrill of getting up there, where normal human beings could only access by air.

He breathed. Now that he knew where he was he could relax, and he closed his eyes to listen: the only thing he could hear was the hiss of the wind – this high up it was strong enough that it could knock him down, and this was part of the excitement – over a silence so deep it felt like the world was holding its breath.

He stayed like that for God knows how long, making himself completely still, unmoving as a rock, listening and breathing until he was chilled to the bones from the wind. After a while it occurred to him that he'd left people in the lurch back at the Winchesters, and reluctantly he focused to get there.

He'd braced himself for an unhappy welcome, and he wasn't disappointed. The Winchesters were up by the door, like they'd been about to go out, and they both twirled around with eerie synchronicity and looked at him like they would point a gun at him if they thought it would do any good. Ben and Claire were standing deep into each other's spaces, and Claire's hands cupped Ben's face like she was forcing him to look at her, but they separated as soon as they saw Jesse.

"Jesse!" Ben exclaimed. Claire said nothing, but the way she looked at him made him feel like a worm helplessly wriggling in the dirt.

"Hey," Jesse said lamely.

Ben took a few steps toward him, cupped Jesse's shoulder with a hand and looked him over like he was checking for – for what? Wounds? Bloodstains?

"I'm fine," Jesse said, in case Ben needed some reassurance. And then, because it couldn't hurt, "Everyone else is fine too."

Ben's eyes narrowed and he used the hand he had on him to shove him away. "Fuck you!" he spat. "You can't do shit like that! Do you know– We didn't even know where you were going, and when you would come back, or if you even would–"

Jesse's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Of course I was going to come back! Ben, I swear–"

"Well, forgive me if I'm not overcome with confidence when you zap away in the middle of a conversation!"

Conversation? Is that what you call it? Jesse thought, but faced with Ben's fury he swallowed back the words. Ben's hand made an aborted motion like he wanted to touch Jesse again, or maybe punch him. He didn't do either and instead he swore and stormed past Sam and Dean, and slammed the front door behind him. The room felt disturbingly silent once he'd left.

"So," Dean said calmly, a lifted eyebrow his only tribute to the fraught situation. "Destroyed anything?"

His brother glared at him, but then looked expectantly at Jesse, who felt his face heat up.

"Not today," Jesse said, "So you can rest easy."

He thought about mind-whammying Johnson and felt kind of awful about it. There was a line, probably tenuous to everyone else, between bending people to accommodate him and twisting them to his will, and he was afraid he'd crossed it with that man. The line was important. He wanted to make some excuse to leave the room and escape everyone's gaze, but he was suddenly so exhausted that instead of speaking he swayed, his vision graying at the edges.

Claire popped up at his side, like she was the one with the ability to teleport. "Where can he lie down?" she asked the brothers, taking hold of Jesse's arm.

Sam and Dean shared a look, too quick for Jesse to know if it meant they were deciding on whether to off him – or try to – and then Dean said, "You can take my room. You know the way."

Claire led him away and Jesse stumbled after her like a puppy on a leash. The darkened hallway and Dean's room, Dean's wide bed, brought back memories of the last time Jesse had been here, and other memories that were not all good. Damn it, he'd started shivering. His fingertips were getting numb and he rubbed his hands against his jeans trying to bring back some feeling into them.

Claire gave him a shove and he tumbled on the bed. "Get some sleep," she said.

It sounded almost like an order, and Jesse half-smiled. "You're bossy." He lay down anyway after toeing off his shoes because sleep was an appealing perspective, actually the only thing he could think of doing that didn't involve him losing it.

When Claire joined him on the bed and settled against his side, her wordless solicitude threatened to unravel him. He took a long breath to calm himself but it stuttered in his chest.

"Don't mind Ben," Claire muttered to his ear. "He's worried, that's all. He panicked when you disappeared."

"Are we sure he's not a Winchester?"

"We don't feel qualified for that diagnosis."

"How wise of us."

They didn't talk for a long moment, with Claire curved along Jesse, one of her hands resting on his chest.

"I have…" Jesse said after a while. "I went to my parents' house. I saw the blood… I don't know how they died exactly but there was a lot of blood. Then I went out and I saw that guy, a neighbor, and he was pissed at me because he thought I was…" Claire's hand started rubbing circles on his chest. Jesse couldn't stand it and didn't want her to stop. "I didn't want to but I, I influenced him. Just so he'd be more… So he'd talk to me. And give me the information I wanted."

It freaked him out how easily it had come to him, to play with that man's mind, almost without realizing it. He hadn't been this instinctive with his powers since he was a kid. What if when he'd been taken and tortured by the demons so he'd open Lucifer's Cage, something had broken in him? What if his control mechanism was all screwed up and he really was a ticking bomb, like the Winchesters seemed to think he was?

Claire propped herself up on an elbow to look down at him, her hair falling in cascade on one side of her face. "Calm down," she said, and he realized he was breathing too fast.

"You remember that day you asked me to use my power on you? Because you wanted to know what it felt like?" She opened her mouth but he didn't let her speak, the words tumbling uncontrolled from his lips. "I wanted to make you kiss me. That's what I really wanted to do. I wanted it so bad and sometimes I'm afraid that I, that I–"

She cut him in with a kiss, a close-mouthed kiss that wasn't especially comforting or sexy, but very firm. "You didn't," she said. "I'm only ever kissing you because I want to."

He nodded numbly, even if he wasn't as sure as she was – and wasn't the fact that she was so sure a bad sign? – because he didn't have an ounce of fight left in him. Claire fell back by his side, and circled his head with her arm, drawing him against her chest.

"My parents are dead," he said against the fabric of her hoodie, wetting it with his spit. "They're dead."

"I know. Sshh."

He shut his eyes tight and tears spilled at the edges, and he pressed his face to Claire's chest to tune out the world. His parents were dead. If he repeated the words enough times, maybe they'd start making sense. His mom and dad were dead. All he'd ever done since he'd learned about what he was, he'd done it in answer to this one question: would they be proud of me? Would they still want me to be their son? A sob started in Jesse's chest and bubbled up his throat, and Claire held him tighter until he thought he was going to suffocate. He didn't try to push her away but took it as a permission to let it all go, and he sobbed to his heart's content, muffling the noises in her arms. After a while, he heard the door open and knew it was Ben because the Winchesters, God bless them, would never risk walking in on something.

The mattress shifted with added weight and Jesse felt Ben press at his back, a hard line of heat trapping him effectively against Claire. Ben kissed the nape of his neck, chafed lips lightly scraping his skin, whispered, "I'm sorry," and looped an arm over Claire and Jesse both. Wrapped in his lovers, Jesse cried himself to sleep.