France was trying to sleep, thank you very much.
He'd set his phone on vibrate so that he could sleep through all calls without being yelled at for having his phone off, because honestly no one had any concept of time zones these days. Unfortunately it managed to vibrate right off his nightstand, rousing the nation by thudding loudly on the floor. Grumbling under his breath, France fumbled for his phone and squinted to check his latest text.
Royal blue eyes flew wide with shock.
need ur help france. come over quick. dont ask, just stfu and get here. USA
His grammar was atrocious but unmistakable, France noted with a slight satisfied grin. England would be so pissed when he found out that his precious former colony had gone to France for help. Might as well see what the boy wanted; when this was over, he'd never need any other reason to rub England's nose in his obvious superiority.
It was nice that America was asking for his help, though. Just like old times.
By the time Dean pulled into the motel parking lot, the sky was already pitch-black hours before it should have been. The lot was nearly empty, which Sam knew his brother was probably glad for (all the best spaces were vacant), but that, along with the premature darkness and the quiet, tense mood of the few people in the lobby made for an off-putting atmosphere. The middle-aged blonde behind the desk was all smiles as she handed them a card key to room 103 and informed them that "the rest of their party" had already arrived, but neither Winchester was fooled. She was nervous, and rightly so. Natural disasters in several major regions, a failing economy (well, failing even more so than usual), soaring crime rates, and general weirdness didn't make for a pretty picture of the United States.
"We don't know what's waiting for us in there," Dean murmured as they approached the door marked 103. "Ready?"
Sam nodded, feeling the blade of the demon-killing knife resting against his forearm in his sleeve, the handle tucked into his palm. (The nice thing about that knife was that, unlike holy water and salt, it worked on other things, too.) Pausing a split second to steel himself, Dean unlocked the door and opened it. Sam followed him in, keeping close to his brother's back as he looked to see who was waiting for them inside.
There was only one man in the room – no, wait, there were two. Sam wasn't sure how he'd missed the second one; they were sitting side by side at the table with backpacks at their feet, in full view of the door. Both of them glanced up at the Winchesters' arrival, and for a moment the separate pairs seemed to size one another up.
The first man, Sam found... vaguely unnerving. He was Asian, possibly Japanese, and looked to be a few years younger than Sam himself. The unnerving part was that his face was completely devoid of emotion, with cold brown eyes and an expression that might as well have been carved from solid rock. Dressed in dark hooded jacket, with what Sam could only assume to be a sheathed katana balanced across his lap, he looked like a ninja in street clothes.
The second... Sam couldn't help but stare, because the first thing he noticed about the kid was the small white bear curled up in his lap. Beyond that, he was dirty blond, bespectacled, and looked small and skinny with his baggy blue hoodie and wide, dark blue eyes. He couldn't have been older than eighteen or nineteen, and looked entirely harmless, despite the iron crowbar he was holding.
Looks could be deceiving, though.
The tense moment lasted only a couple of seconds before the man in black stood, his sword clutched loosely in one hand. "You are the Winchesters?" he asked in heavily-accented English.
"Yeah," Dean grunted, as neutral as he could ever sound. "Who're you?"
"Arthur Kirkland sent us," the kid spoke up in a subdued voice. The bear sat up in his lap, and Sam eyed it warily, wondering why, of all the pets in the world, the kid had chosen that.
"He informed us that he would call you," the man added.
"Didn't answer my question," Dean replied shortly.
The man nodded, apparently not put off by Dean's blunt manner. "My name is Kiku Honda," he said formally.
"Matthew Williams," the kid piped up. He looked down at the bear in his lap. "This is... um..." He blinked. "Kuma... Kumabaro? No, Kumajiro. That's it."
"...Right." Dean crossed his arms. "So what can we do for you?"
"This is your country," Matthew Williams told them, absently stroking the bear's head. "You know what's been going on, eh. We need your help stopping it."
"And you know how to stop it?" Sam spoke up finally. It wasn't really a question; Kirkland had mentioned that they did.
Kiku Honda beckoned them over to the table. Warily, the two brothers complied. "There is a demon behind this," he informed them. "The solution is quite simple; if it is exorcised and sent back to Hell where it came from, then everything will be fixed."
He was either lying, hiding something, or had no idea what he was talking about, Sam decided. The kind of problems that could be solved simply by exorcising a demon usually amounted to mysterious gory deaths, not wide-scale destruction and economic downturn.
"It can't be that simple," Dean argued, echoing Sam's thoughts. "What level demon is it? If it's capable of this scale of destruction, the weapons we have might not even work on it."
"Arthur says it's a normal one," Matthew offered, leaning forward in his chair. "Look, we can't go into detail, but as long as we get this demon back to Hell, we're good. But..." He bit his lip.
And here it was. The reason why this job would be as far from a walk in the park as any job could get.
"There are a few more demons who are... capable of this level of devastation," Kiku told them grimly. "Mr. Kirkland and another of our allies are hopefully taking the necessary steps to stop them, but we do not know exactly where they are, or what other places they might target." His unreadable brown eyes met both brothers' in turn. "In addition, Mr. Kirkland suspects that demons who were not otherwise involved may take advantage of the chaos to run wild."
"Gotta watch out for them, then," Sam muttered, half to himself. He went on, addressing their two visitors. "But you say you need us to exorcise one demon, who's behind all of this, right?"
"No, we just need your help trapping and containing it, and holding off the other demons," Matthew corrected. "A couple of our friends will be here soon, and they'll handle the exorcism."
Sam and Dean exchanged glances. This was a new one. "We've been ganking demons for going on seven years," Dean informed him. "We can handle it."
"It is a delicate situation," said Kiku. "And the allies that Mr. Williams spoke of... well, they have been doing this for longer than seven years. We do not mean to offend."
Great. That wasn't ominous at all. "Do you at least know who the host is?" Sam asked. "So we know who to look for?"
"Yes." Matthew drew a black iPhone from the front pocket of his sweatshirt, brought up a picture, and offered it to Dean. "Him. Alfred Jones."
Dean took the phone and held it up so that Sam could see the photograph. In it, a blond young man with wire-rimmed glasses and a smile that would not have been out of place in a Listerine ad lounged on a barstool and raised a shotglass in a toast to the camera. Sam couldn't help but glance back and forth between the phone and its owner. The kid in the photo had shorter hair, and his eyes were a slightly lighter shade of blue, but other than that he was a dead ringer for the young man before them.
"That looks exactly like you," Dean told the kid bluntly.
"I get that a lot," Matthew said quietly, casting his eyes downward. "He's my twin brother."
Sam and Dean looked at each other again. In spite of himself, Sam felt his heart soften, and when he turned back to the kid, he was feeling a bit more sympathetic. "Your last names...?"
"We were raised separately at first," Matthew explained. "It's complicated."
"Alfred is a very good friend of mine," Kiku added. "And Mr. Kirkland... he might not admit it, but he only wants him safe. We all do."
"We'll do what we can, but..." Sam hesitated. It wouldn't be good to get their hopes up. "Look, in this kind of situation, the host may never be the same." He swallowed. "That's if he survives. I'm not going to lie, sometimes we have to—"
Matthew's hand shot out, seizing Sam's arm is a vicelike grip. "Alfred can't die," he said, his voice rising slightly in volume.
Sam shook his head at his brother, who had stepped forward as if to remove Matthew's hand by any means necessary. The kid was scared, it was understandable. "Look," Sam said calmly. "I promise we'll do what we can. But the host doesn't always make it."
"Williams," Kiku spoke up suddenly. He laid his hand on Matthew's wrist, and the boy let go of Sam's arm. "We both knew it might be unavoidable."
"No, Honda, that's not what I meant–" For a moment Matthew dropped his voice, and muttered something to Kiku that Sam couldn't quite catch.
"Williams-san!" Kiku hissed, silencing the younger man. Recovering himself quickly, he inclined his head slightly in Sam's direction. "We know you will do all you can. We would prefer it if he lived, though."
Dean was glaring daggers at both of them. "Is there anything else you can tell us?" he asked through clenched teeth.
"Mr. Williamsthinks that this demon might be planning to kill him once she is finished..." Kiku paused, and for a split second a look of distaste crossed his face. It was the first real expression Sam had seen on him, and it vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. "...once she is finished playing with him, is how Kirkland put it." Beside him, Matthew shuddered. "We are not sure what her motives are, but..." He stopped there, shaking his head.
Sam leaned forward, frustrated. Why did they always cut off when they were about to say something important? "No no, but what? What were you going to say?"
"It's nothing," Matthew broke in.
"Don't you friggin' tell us it's nothing," Dean snapped. "It's never nothing. What the hell do you two know about this?"
"There are things that we are not at liberty to say," Kiku told him firmly. "You may keep your own secrets, but please let us keep ours."
"If you're trying to get us to trust you, you're doing a crappy job," Dean went on. "'Cause every time someone keeps a secret from us, people get killed."
"We're not asking you to like us or trust us, we're asking you to help us," Matthew said quietly, hugging his bear to his chest. He looked both of them in the eye, first Dean, then Sam. "I just want to save my brother. Can't you understand that? Look, once we're done with this, we'll leave, and you'll never have to see us again. But until then, we need you, and if you want to fix this, you need us. So we're just going to have to work together and live with it."
Not for the first time that night, Sam and Dean exchanged glances. This is going to suck ass in every way possible, and I can't wait for it to be over, Dean's expression said. Sam couldn't help but agree.
Kiku cleared his throat politely. "If you feel the need to sleep in shifts so that one of you is watching us at all times, we will not be insulted. Unnecessary, but entirely understandable."
Sam inwardly shrugged. Years of hunting made them light sleepers; they'd handled far worse before.
"Williams-kun, with all due respect," Jzpan murmured under his breath, too softly for the Winchesters to hear. "Are you a complete idiot?"
"I'm not being an idiot," Canda grumbled back.
"You used the nation-tongue in front of them." Japan's whisper was barely audible.
"I didn't want them to know what I was saying, I don't speak Japanese, and you don't speak French."
"If you use a language that they don't know exists, you will give us away," Japan pointed out.
Canada practically mouthed his next words. "Honda, if Al dies, he'll just come back, and that'll give us away anyway." Abruptly he dropped his secretive mutter. "Now can we stop whispering like this? We're not exactly inspiring confidence."
"Got that right," Dean remarked from across the room. For a moment the four of them looked at each other again, the nations calm and considering, the humans wary and suspicious.
Japan heaved a sigh and rubbed his eyes. If they weren't careful, this utter lack of trust would cost his friend his life. It could cost them all their lives.
He fervently hoped that Italy would arrive soon.
Bored yet? Don't worry, the action'll come pretty soon.
