AN: Okay, enough with all the moochy maudlin crap and Disney-moments. It's time to get our huntin' groove on. Booyah. Man, I've been looking forward to writing this bit for AGES!
Street Café
Nine
She emerges from her room around eight, hair a tumble weed of black curls and snarls, eyes at half-mast, and stumbles into the shower. She's out of the bathroom at quarter past and dressed by half.
Then she goes to put the tea on and it all goes to shit.
'Dani California' blares from Sam's phone. He grins as he answers and pointedly ignores Dean's snickers.
"Hey Peg."
Dean is nudging Adam in the ribs and murmuring undoubted unflattering explanations for Sam's behavior.
"Uh, hi, Sam," Peggy says, and Sam is instantly on alert.
"What's up?" he asks, and sees Dean start to pay attention, raising his eye brows and mouthing 'what?'
Sam shakes his head. Adam is looking between them over the Formica diner table; Kate was on an early shift, so Sam and Dean had taken their brother out for breakfast a la Winchester. On the phone Peggy is beginning to worry Sam.
"So," she says, going for casual, but sounding rather anxious, "I was about to put the tea on, and um, I-think-there's-something-in-my-vents-with-really-big-teeth."
"What?"
"It looks a little bit like a really angry wallaby crossed with a hedgehog. With bear teeth."
"Where are you now?" Sam asks urgently.
"…on my dining table."
"Peggy. Just. What?"
"Well, it jumps, okay? And it tried to eat Muss! I made for higher ground and this was the best I could do on short notice." There's a growl that Sam can hear even over the phone and an answering hiss. "Oh my god, cat, this is not the time to get offended! Stop aggravating the vent monster! He's getting territorial," she adds to Sam, sounding harried.
Sam can just picture it, and honestly, it's a little funny, except he's reasonably sure she's got a juvenile chupacabra in her air vents and that could legitimately eat her cat…although its Muss we're talking about, and this is a tomcat that in all likelihood runs a cat mafia and has the local dogs paying a protection racket in fresh rat meat.
It could hurt Peggy though.
"Okay, Peggy? Dean and I can't get there –"
"Clearly."
"Yeah, but we'll get ahold of someone in the area." He sees Dean take out his phone and dial Bobby. Bobby's bound to know someone. Although…he realizes he knows someone, actually. He scratches out a number on a napkin and shoves it at Dean. "Just hang in there, okay? Is there anything you can use as a weapon?"
"Uh, okay, I can probably climb across to the kitchen island and get one of the knives. But I do have the frying pan."
"…the frying pan."
"Hey, this thing's got a cast iron base. Not to be sneezed at."
Sam pinches the bridge of his nose. Really? How is this his life? "Okay, you've got a cast iron frying pan and potentially a knife. Will you be okay for a little while?"
"Um, yeah…yeah I think so. Just uh…actually really glad I got dressed before I went to put the tea on…"
Sam closes his eyes briefly and smiles. "You're gonna be okay, Peg."
"Oh I know. Just send someone good, okay?"
"Chupacabra's are real?"
"Just about everything's real," Sam tells Adam, and Dean remembers when that was his line. "Except Big Foot. And unicorns."
"And angel's," Dean adds, dialing the number Sam gave him.
Sam scowls. "We don't know that for sure."
"Yeah, yeah –" The ringing stops and a worrying familiar voice says, "You've got three minutes. Go."
"Uh…" Fuck.
"Who is this?"
"Jo? Jo Harvelle?"
A muttered, "for fucksake…" Then at normal volume, "Hi Dean. Long time no see. Who gave you my number?"
Ohhh, he is so screwed. She is not happy to hear from him and really, he has no one to blame but himself but he is just going to murder Sam for this. "Uh. Sam did." Who's got two thumbs and is about to completely fraticided? That guy.
"Awesome," Jo deadpans. "Why?"
"He was on the phone to a friend at the time. She's uh, kind of in a jam, and we're on the other side of the country."
"You need a favor."
"For a friend."
"Uh-huh. Hold that thought for two seconds."
"Jo –"
Dean hears some rustling, Jo talking to someone else – sounds like an older guy – and then…
BOOM
"Jo? Jo!" Sam and Adam look alarmed. Dean's right there with them.
"Hi, sorry," Jo says, back on the line. "Vampires."
"What the hell?"
"Unwad your boxers, Deano. They were holed up in a barn, so we blew up the barn."
"You – you – what?"
"What was all this about a friend in need?"
Dean reacquaints himself with words and the logical order thereof. "She, uh, she's in LA. There's a young chupacabra in her vents."
"Really?" She sounds…enthused. "Been looking for a chupa hunt. What's this friend's name?"
"Peggy Patcher. Look, Jo, she's stuck on her dining table with a frying pan while this thing picks fights with her cat, so –"
"Sooner rather than later, I got it, Dean. Text me an address. I can be in LA in less than an hour."
She hangs up on him.
Dean puts his head down on the table very, very carefully.
AN2: I do love Jo :D That woman does not take crap from anyone, least of all you, Mr. Winchester. As always, your thoughts and opinions are like gumdrops and rainbows to me.
