Author's Note: This takes place after No Rest For the Wicked. Joely is an original character I created in another story which I ended up deleting. In this chapter there will be a flashback of sorts briefly explaining her connection to the Winchesters. Probably won't go into detail on her because I know readers want to focus on Dean and Sam, not on original characters. Reviews are appreciated, good and bad! I don't own Sam or Dean. Unfortunately.

Please read and review : )

Laisser Tomber

Chapter One - Last Resort

Sam pressed the tips of his thumb and middle finger to his eyelids. His eyes burned when he closed them; everything ached. His eyes and head, the back of his throat, his body, all from lack of sleep. No matter the pain he felt, Sam knew somehow that it was nothing compared to what his brother was enduring. He'd heard Dean calling his name so many times in his dreams, sometimes screaming it in agony, other times it was barely an audible whisper, his voice cracking when he realized that Sammy wasn't coming to save him.

Sam couldn't let him believe that.

It was harder to will his eyes open this time after letting them rest for those few seconds. Sighing through his nose, he leaned back against the headboard of the motel bed. It was one of the few times in his life that he'd had to ask for a king instead of two queens. There was a half-eaten fast-food burger sitting in its wrapper to the right side of his leg on the bedspread. To his left were the nightstand and lamp, which was the source of the horribly yellow light illuminating the room. There was also a near-empty bottle of Sprite, and beside that the room key. His bloodshot blue eyes flashed to the lampshade; he heard a buzzing and a repetitive clink-clink that was a fly stupidly grazing himself against the light bulb over and over again.

He unscrewed the cap to the soda and lifted the green bottle to his lips. It was warm and flat, and for a fleeting second his reflex told him to spit it back out. The sick sweetness clung to his lips and tongue even after he'd swallowed. Tossing the bottle across the room towards the waste basket, he sighed through his mouth this time, looking defeated. He'd missed the basket by a good foot or so, only this time there wasn't a big brother to razz him about it.

Sam picked up his brother's phone from his lap. He scrolled through the list of contacts yet again, his thumb easily recognizing the motion. He frowned, hoping that someone new would've appeared. He thought there would be more people eager and willing to help Dean, considering all he'd done for them. For people as good as family, and for complete strangers. Bobby would help, he was sure of it, as soon as Sam told him what he was up to. Bobby wouldn't let them down. Ellen had politely refused, once she made it through the initial shock that Dean was…anyway, she apparently had no faith that any of them could do anything about it. What's done is done. And he thought Ellen was always about family. No one knew how to get in touch with Jo, and Sam wasn't so sure he wanted to involve her anyway. He'd left messages for several people, some numbers had been disconnected, and some rang endlessly until he finally hung up.

If Sam were a Collie, his ears would have perked.

There in Dean's list of contacts was the name (if you could call it that) "Numchucks". He stared at the word for a moment, his lips parted as he thought.

"…Met this girl. She did this thing with her numchucks - "

"Is that supposed to be some sort of code?"

"Dude, she was a hunter."

Sam remembered: they'd been on a hunt in Colorado a couple weeks after their father's death, having stayed with Bobby just long enough for the elder Winchester to rebuild the beloved Impala. The very Impala that was parked just outside Sam's motel room. Driving that car was hell. Everything about it screamed "Dean". The purr of the engine and how it was music to Dean's ears, the outdated mullet-rock cassette collection that sat untouched on the floor…Sam couldn't listen to any of them. Dean's sunglasses were still in the glove compartment on top of his fake badges. The permanently empty passenger's seat…

Dean had stumbled back into their motel room in Colorado late one night and was gushing about some girl he'd met at the bar. Sam hated the female hunter before even meeting her - a bad judgment on his part he would later decide - for he'd thought she was behind the paranormal murders at the time, or that she was Dean's newest one-night stand. He'd been wrong on both accounts and realized that after she helped them waste the supernatural bastard. He remembered loading salt cartridges into his gun one night while Joely sat on the older brother's bed with Dean's head on her lap, holding an ice pack to the side of his head. Dean had taken a nasty blow to the head of course, and never would've allowed her to baby him so if he'd been conscious. Sam took the opportunity to share with her his feelings about John's death and his concern for how his older brother wasn't handling it very well. How neither of them were handling it well, but how he was afraid Dean was becoming self-destructive. Sam had only told those things to a stranger because it was eating him up inside. He had to tell someone, anyone, and she was convenient. She'd listened, despite his first impression of her being a heartless bitch.

Her name was Joely, he finally recalled.

Exhaling heavily, Sam returned his eyes to the cell phone and realized the backlight had shut off. Pressing a button to refresh the blue glow, he saw "Numchucks" still highlighted. His thumb hovered over the button as he weighed his options. It had been two years since they'd last spoken. He didn't know her enough to call her a friend - an acquaintance was more like it. He had no idea where she was, what she was doing, or who she was with. Hell, he didn't even know if she was still alive for that matter. The world was so much darker thanks to the opening of the Devil's Gate in Wyoming. Or maybe the darkness was only intensified for Sam now that he was facing the monsters alone, with the exception of Bobby. His thoughts had now come full circle - if he didn't at least try to recruit Joely, then who else was there? He silently prayed - although he knew not who he prayed to anymore - that she would be willing to help.

He pressed the "Send" button and cleared his throat while the phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times. Four. Again, and then it rolled to voicemail. Her voice was just as he remembered, even if a little clouded by the recording. He heard the familiar British accent, not at all as proper or smooth as Bela's, but still soothing. Like…Keira Knightley, he'd thought originally. She was hot. Keira Knightley, not Joely. But now that he thought of it…he glanced around as if to make sure no one had caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. How could he be thinking about hot girls right now? Abruptly he snapped the phone shut after realizing her prompt had ended a good thirty seconds ago and the only message he'd left was his breathing. He redialed and managed to leave a coherent message this time, simply instructing her to call back as soon as possible.

Five minutes passed. It seemed like much longer, like each minute was multiplied by ten. He wondered how slow the time was passing for Dean.

There were a hundred possible reasons why Joely hadn't answered. As an afterthought, he hoped she wasn't in any serious trouble. Maybe she was at a bar and didn't hear the ring. Maybe she was driving and couldn't reach the phone, or maybe she was taking a shower. How dare she not answer the phone, he thought selfishly. How could she not answer? Couldn't she telepathically sense his urgency, his desperation to reach her? He angrily set his jaw and focused on a dot straight ahead on the cream-colored wall. He frowned and scrunched his brows together when he saw the dot moving.

Just then, a rock song emanated from Dean's phone. Snatching the phone at once, he glanced at the caller ID and answered.

"Joely." His voice was low, like he was afraid that speaking it aloud would betray his luck.

"Dean?" The female hunter spoke. It was not the excited tone an old friend would use. Rather, she sounded uncertain, cautious.

"It's Sam, actually." He'd almost begun to feel the edges of his mouth involuntarily curling up into a smile, but only almost. He wondered if she even remembered him. She'd obviously kept the number in her phone and would've seen Dean's name as the caller. That had to be a good sign.

This felt wrong, thought Joely. In nearly two years she hadn't heard a word from the Winchesters. Dean had told her to call if she ever needed anything. She knew those words held the same meaning as "Let's be friends" after a bad break-up. You only used those phrases to be polite. Whether Dean had genuinely meant it or not, she'd never taken him up on that offer. And now, out of the blue, Sam was calling her. Suddenly she put her finger on what wasn't sitting well with her: Sam was using Dean's phone.

"Joely?"

"Yes." She pressed her lips together in a straight line. Did he sound worried that she might've hung up?

"So, uh…how've you been?" Innocent, friendly conversation. An ice-breaker.

She picked up on the strain in Sam's voice almost immediately. This was getting stranger by the second. "I don't know. It's like all hell broke loose these past few months."

"Yeah," he agreed, chuckling darkly. "It sort of did."

"What?"

"The Devil's Gate in Wyoming, it…got opened. About a year ago." He nearly whispered the last sentence. He'd decided the mobile black spot moving up the wall was a spider. "It's a long story," he added awkwardly.

"Oh." Curiouser and curiouser.

"Yeah."

She narrowed her eyes and ran her free hand through her blonde-brown hair. "Were you in need of some girl-talk or are you just drunk dialing?"

Sam pressed his lips together. He felt her tug at something in his stomach, always making everything into a punch line.

After the momentary pause, Joely posed another question, this time more serious. She couldn't mask the concern in her voice. "Are you guys alright?"

Sam grit his teeth. It was funny how even she, who hardly knew him, could sense something was wrong. Maybe she could hear it in his voice, maybe he just wasn't playing it as cool as he thought he was. "We need your help. I know it's been a while and you probably have your own things to deal with, but…I don't know who else to call." He nearly choked on the last bit. He pursed his lips, waiting for her reply. He wondered how he could honestly expect her to agree to something when she wasn't even fully aware of what she was agreeing to.

This far into the conversation, Joely decided the Winchesters needed help with something beyond just a demon or spirit. Sam sounded desperate, like she was his last resort. It was uncharacteristic for him to be calling her, him instead of Dean, and most of all, him from Dean's phone. Where was Dean? Was he hurt, was he missing? Joely closed her eyes and considered.

After a moment's silence, Sam sighed. "Look, I wouldn't have bothered you but…you're a good fighter, I saw you. So if you can help, we really - "

"What exactly am I helping you with?" Joely cut him off. She obviously wanted to get straight to the point. He remembered she had a habit of doing that, a tell-it-like-it-is kind of girl.

Sam sighed. Upon looking forward at the wall, he discovered the spider had disappeared. His eyes searched the ceiling with little enthusiasm as considered how to maintain his honesty with her without scaring her off. "Demons. Several of them." Several hundred, he thought. He heard her sigh; he could almost see her debating, asking herself if she cared enough about these hunters to put her ass on the line for them.

"Where are you?"

The question caught Sam off guard; he'd been ready to start kissing up to her, and if that didn't work, begging was his next approach. "Kansas."

Silence.

At last, Joely replied. "I can be there in about a day."

"You can? You will?"

"Yeah."

Sam actually smiled. He shut the phone and set it on the nightstand after giving Joely some quick directions and the location of his motel. Running his hand through his hair, he rested his head against the headboard and closed his eyes. Feeling the film on his hand after touching his hair, Sam decided a shower would be necessary in the morning since he was long overdue. He wondered what had changed in Joely's life since they'd last seen each other; he hadn't thought to ask during their conversation, having had more pressing matters. He wondered if her car was still a rundown piece of crap. He wondered how he would tell her that Dean was dead.