Get It While You Can
Disclaimer: I don't own anything Supernatural. All I got to my name is Jayne and Lynn.
Rating: T
AN: Thanks to angeleyenc, Peridot809, Nelle07, tbelle1234, legrowl, Padme4000, deansbabygirl934, impalame, Threemoons, Joan J., SilentKnightInDisguise11, Strangler000, Little Rock-n-Roll Queen, DantesDarkAngel, and Electric13 for the reviews!
My computer came back! Yay! Finally, an update! I'm sorry, but I just didn't want to rewrite 10 pages of this chapter, so I had to wait for my baby to come home before I posted. I hope you guys understand!
"Asylum"
Chapter 24: Love, Janis
Lynn stared out the passenger side window as scrub brush and field whizzed past, nothing to see but blue sky and flatlands and roaring semi trucks as she rode shotgun down the Interstate in Jayne's old, rattling truck. Beside her, Jayne was annoyingly silent, driving with her wrist, and playing what sounded like Johnny Cash on the cassette deck. Lynn grimaced.
Ugh, country.
She heaved a sigh, biting her lip as she twisted her fingers in her mother's necklace. Jayne ignored her and Lynn was fine with that, for once. Lawrence, Kansas was a handful of days and roughly three or four hundred miles back in their rearview mirror now, but Missouri Mosley's cryptic words about Lynn's mother were still ringing in her ears.
But even as preoccupied with her thoughts as she was, Lynn still heard the sudden clunk-clunk-clunk from the aging truck mere minutes later, and then she felt the vehicle slow down inexplicably, far too quickly. She frowned, turning towards Jayne, who was furrowing her brow at her dashboard, her knuckles white on the steering wheel.
"Oh, no," Jayne muttered. "Crap, shit, damn it."
"What's wrong with the truck?" Lynn demanded.
Jayne ignored her, entirely focused on Janis. Lynn heaved another sigh and rolled her eyes, slumping back in her seat as Jayne pulled the truck over, coasting to a stop on the shoulder just as poor old Janis shuddered unsettlingly and promptly died.
"Great," Lynn grumbled under her breath. "Again?"
The main downside to driving an old rusty POS pickup truck (and there were many) was that it tended to break down… a lot. Jayne darted a sideways glower in Lynn's direction, the only indication she'd heard her speak, and then went back to ignoring her. She tried starting the truck up again, more than once, but nothing happened… nothing except for click-click-click.
"Janis?" Jayne asked, her voice going up high and breaking like a pubescent boy.
"Oh god," Lynn muttered. "Are you going to hyperventilate? Because I have no idea where to get a paper bag."
"Shut up," Jayne snapped, not even glancing in her stepsister's direction, and then she started talking to the truck again like a weirdo. "Damn it, Janis, come on! Don't do this to me."
"It's a truck, Jayne. It can't hear you."
"It's a she," Jayne growled. "And her name is Janis."
Lynn sighed and rolled her eyes again, and Jayne once again ignored her. Instead, she threw open the truck door, hopped down from the cab and headed around to pop the hood. Lynn sat in the truck a moment longer, on the edge of the seat, tapping her foot impatiently as she watched the old gray hood rise up in front of the windshield. She heard Jayne cussing, and then rolled her eyes again and hopped down out of the cab.
"Jayne?" she called, coming around the front bumper with her arms folded tightly over her chest, her boots kicking loose gravel on the side of the road. "Are you all right?"
"Just peachy," Jayne retorted irritably, and Lynn rolled her eyes for the third freaking time. She tramped right up to her stepsister's side and found Jayne squinting at her engine… at least, Lynn assumed she was looking at the engine. She wasn't really a car person.
"Are you going to be able to fix it?" she asked.
Jayne was still squinting. "Uh… yeah," she replied unconvincingly, and it inspired zero confidence in Lynn.
"Are you sure?"
"Uh-huh…"
Jayne sounded distracted, and Lynn didn't miss the way she set her lips in a tight, thin line. "See, that doesn't sound sure to me," she retorted. "Should I call a tow?"
"No," Jayne snapped. She marched away from the engine, around the bumper and headed to the back of the truck. Lynn gawked at her, still skeptical, watching as she hopped up into the bed and grabbed an old, rusty steel toolbox out from under their bags. Jayne climbed out of the truck bed with the tool box in hand, marched back to the front of the truck, and dropped the box into the gravel and grass with a thump!
"Ok, seriously," Lynn said, as Jayne opened the tool box rather violently and grabbed a flashlight. "I'm not trying to sell you short. I know you can do plenty of basic car-maintenance-repair-whatever…"
Jayne grunted at her and started poking around under the hood, shining the flashlight into all the nooks and crevices. Lynn sighed heavily.
"Look, I just don't want to be on the side of I-80 for three days! And… look, don't take this wrong way, but… I'm not totally positive you know what you're doing?"
Jayne turned slowly from the truck and glared at her. Lynn swallowed, hard, faltering a little… and then she straightened her spine, folded her arms over her chest and tilted her chin, staring right back. Jayne just kept glaring at her, and Lynn cracked first.
"Maybe we should call a professional?" Lynn suggested, trying to sound diplomatic.
Jayne's glare was lethal. "No."
"Jaynie…"
"Look, I'm not taking advice from someone who called this 'car-maintenance-repair-whatever.' Ok?" Jayne interrupted rudely.
Lynn huffed loudly and lost her patience. "Ugh! Ok! That's just fine! You go ahead and do your thing, on the side of the road, while I sit here and try not get hit by a car, and roast in the hot sun…!"
"It's April," Jayne cut her off, rolling her eyes. She didn't even look up from the engine. "Chill."
"Whatever! We are going to be stuck out here for hours!"
Lynn stomped around to the back of the truck, leaving her stupid, stubborn stepsister to figure out what was wrong with the truck that she couldn't fix. She lowered the tailgate with a clang, and then hopped up in the bed, wincing as the old truck groaned and shook underneath her. Sighing, she took a seat on the edge and let her legs dangle over the exhaust. Traffic zoomed past them, rumbling and beeping, and Lynn rolled her eyes.
"Great," she muttered. "We probably really will be stuck out here for five freaking hours."
She grabbed her phone, wondering if there was a nearby garage she could call, for when Jayne finally admitted defeat… and then she was struck by a sudden, crazy idea that could totally get her murdered.
She did it anyway, and dialed a number into the phone, letting it ring in her ear several times.
"Lynn?" Sam finally answered his phone. He sounded surprised, and she really couldn't blame him.
"Hey, Sam!" she greeted him brightly.
"Uh… hey…" he returned uncertainly. Lynn breezed right over his unsure tone of voice like she hadn't even heard it.
"Look, not to bug you or anything," she went on easily. "But where are you guys right now?"
"Uh…" Sam said again, bemused. "Well… we're actually on I-35 right now, near the Kansas-Iowa line."
"That's perfect!" Lynn interrupted. "We're actually not that far from there. Want to make a pit stop?"
"Um… for what?"
It was a legitimate question, although Lynn couldn't help feeling like it would be nice if he could just be glad to make a pit stop and catch up with her. Why shouldn't he swing by and see her? They were friends, right?
She shook those thoughts out of her head and kept her crazy to herself. "Look, I know this is a huge ask," she admitted. "But… the truck died."
"Janis is dead?"
Lynn laughed: a short, surprised little thing. "Wow," she snorted, a little flabbergasted. "You just voluntarily called that truck Janis."
"Um…" Sam laughed too. "Yeah, I guess I did."
"She really gets into your head, doesn't she?" Lynn asked ruefully.
"Yeah, apparently. So… what happened to the truck?"
"We don't know," Lynn replied, sighing heavily. "We were driving, and it just died. Now it won't start."
"Did you take it to a mechanic?"
Lynn snorted out that same bark of a laugh once again. "Yeah, right."
"Uh… what does that mean?"
"It means," Lynn said slowly, her annoyance creeping into her voice. "That Jayne is a stubborn pain in the ass who thinks she can fix it herself."
"Can she?"
Lynn snorted again. "Yeah… I don't think so. I mean, don't get me wrong; she can do some things. Oil changes and other low level maintenance stuff, but… in all actuality, Jayne's auto-mechanic knowledge barely fills the well."
Sam laughed out loud. "Really?"
"Really," Lynn replied, far less amused. "And yet… here we are."
Sam laughed again.
"Anyway, Dean seems like a car guy," Lynn went on. "Maybe he could fix it?"
"Uh… yeah, actually," Sam said, surprising her by sounding a little enthusiastic about the idea. "You know what? He probably could. Dean's been keeping the Impala running for years, ever since Dad gave it to him, so… yeah. I bet he could fix Janis."
"You did it again," Lynn observed.
He laughed a little. "Where are you guys?"
"On the side of I-80 eastbound," Lynn replied. "A few exits before Des Moines."
"You're on the side of the road?" he echoed incredulously. "Ok, yeah. We're coming."
"Thanks," she said sweetly. "I guess chivalry's not dead after all."
Sam's laugh was awkward this time, and she sighed quietly, blowing her bangs off her forehead. Way to kill the mood, Lynn, she thought in annoyance. Couldn't just keep it easy and friendly and not flirty, could we? "Uh… guess not," he hedged out in reply, and she cursed under her breath. "See you in an hour, ok?"
"Ok. Really, though, Sam. Thank you."
"No problem."
He hung up the phone, and Lynn heaved another sigh. From behind her, there was a loud clunk, and she heard Jayne cussing again. Rolling her eyes, Lynn dragged her duffel bag towards her and started digging through the contents until she found her secret cigarette stash.
If she was going to be stuck out on the side of the road with Jayne for the next hour, she was definitely going to need one.
In the passenger seat of Dean's old Chevy, sitting at a pump in a rundown, rust-stained gas station off I-35, Sam hung up his cell phone and frowned at it, resting his chin in his hand and his elbow against the car door. They'd stopped for gas by the state line, planning to head straight to Rockford, Illinois from there, where they'd investigate an old, abandoned, haunted asylum that their father had asked them to check out.
No. Not ask. He didn't ask them to do anything. John Winchester barked orders and expected them to be followed. More importantly, this time John Winchester hadn't bothered to ask or even tell his boys a damn thing. He hadn't spoken to them at all. He had texted Dean from an unknown number with coordinates that led to Rockford, Illinois. That was all the text had contained: coordinates.
Sam was pissed off.
The man had disappeared for months without so much as a good-bye. He had left his boys with nothing but his old hunter's journal and a pair of coordinates. They hadn't heard from him since. And now, all of a sudden, he was sending them text messages of all things. Text messages that didn't bother with trivial formalities like hello or goodbye, text messages that didn't explain his absence or assure his kids that he was all right; no, none of that. All he sent were text messages that barked orders.
That was all John Winchester knew how to do: bark orders.
And then there was Dean. Of course Dean was ready to oblige and obey. That was all Dean seemed to know how to do half the time: follow orders. He was either following his father's demands unquestionably, or he was dishing out orders of his own that Sam was expected to obey… and honestly? Sam hated taking orders.
He'd never been any good at it, not even before he'd left. His whole life, he had been rebelling against the military survivalist approach that John Winchester had taken to fatherhood. And for the past four years of his life, Sam had finally escaped. He had finally made it out on his own and he had run his own life... and now it was twice as difficult to fall in line and follow orders.
The driver's side door swung open, and the whole car creaked as Dean slid in behind the wheel. "All right," his brother practically crowed, slamming the door behind him. "Next stop, Rockford, Illinois."
Dean knew Sam was pissed about Rockford, and it annoyed Sam that he was acting like nothing had happened, like they hadn't fought about it back at the motel in Kansas, and that he was just going along like his father's text message hadn't been authoritative and inconsiderate… but Sam let that slide. He had another concern to bring up with his brother, and his frustration about their dad and Rockford, Illinois could wait.
"Actually," Sam said, attempting to sound easy-going. "We need to make a quick pit stop by Des Moines."
Dean froze, fingers hovering over the keys in the ignition, and glared at Sam sideways. "We do?"
"Yeah, we do," Sam returned. "Lynn called."
Dean rolled his eyes and tilted his head back on cue, opening his mouth presumably to groan, but Sam didn't give him a chance to voice a complaint. "A quick pit stop," he reiterated. "The truck died."
His brother lifted his brows, doing a double take. "Janis is dead?"
Sam stared at him. "Wow."
"What?"
"Nothing, just… you did it too."
"Did what?"
"Called the truck Janis," Sam explained. "It weirdly sticks with you, right?"
Dean shrugged, making a noncommittal noise. "Whatever. So what? Is she gone for good?"
Sam shrugged too. "Don't know. Jayne's still trying to figure out what's wrong with her."
"Did Lynn think she'd be able to fix her?"
Sam laughed. "Uh… no. That's why she called. Apparently Jayne's not exactly a mechanic. She knows a few things, but not nearly enough to really fix whatever's wrong with the truck. She's just too stubborn to let anyone else do it for her."
Dean snorted. "Yeah, that sounds about right."
"They're on the side of I-80 right now," Sam went on. "Near Des Moines. Lynn was hoping we could stop and you could take a look at Jan… I mean, the truck."
His brother frowned. "They're stranded on the highway?"
Sam nodded, and Dean heaved a long suffering sigh, rolling his eyes. "Fine. Let's go save the day."
Dean started the car, and Sam blinked, staring at him, thrown by the easy acceptance. "Really?"
His brother shrugged. "Whatever's wrong with Jan… the truck… I can probably fix it."
"Probably," Sam replied. "But it might not be worth your life."
Dean snorted again. "Please. Goldilocks loves me."
Sam laughed. "You're delusional."
"You want to go or not?"
"You're seriously on board with this?"
"Why wouldn't I be?"
"You're joking, right?"
"What can I say, Sammy?" Dean said, smirking at his younger brother. "I'm just full of surprises."
He put the car in gear and swung away from the pump, wheeling the car out of the gas station and back onto the main road, headed for the ramp that would put them back on the interstate. Sam was still openly gawking at him.
"Don't call me Sammy," he said belatedly, closing his mouth and leaning back in his seat.
Dean smirked again. They were quiet a moment as Dean merged onto the highway. Then his brother threw him for a loop again. "Maybe they'd want to come to Rockford?"
Sam was quiet for a moment, trying to wrap his mind around this latest curve ball, and then he turned to Dean with a mixture of surprise, confusion and annoyance. "Are you serious?"
Dean shrugged. "Why not?"
"Why… when have you ever willingly suggested we work with them?"
His brother shrugged again. "Hey, if you've got a problem working with Lynn again…"
"I didn't say that," Sam retorted, a little too defensively. Why his brother had singled out Lynn as his possible problem was anyone's guess, really, but it bothered him all the same. "I just… thought you'd want to focus on the job Dad gave us."
"I do," Dean returned sharply, like a warning. "Just… you know. Extra hands can't hurt."
"What if he's meeting us there?" Sam pressed.
Dean shrugged again. "What if he is? I don't know, Sam, maybe he'd want to know about Jayne's mom and…" he trailed off, sighing, and scratched at his hair. "Ah, never mind. Forget it."
His brother went silent then, turning up the radio and focusing on the road, giving the Chevy a little extra gas. Sam frowned at him, but didn't say anything else, and slumped back into his seat.
Sam let the subject drop, but he didn't forget it.
Lynn lay flat on her back in the bed of Jayne's crippled pickup, kicking her legs as they dangled over the tailgate and inhaling deeply on the cigarette she'd dug out of the depths of her duffel bag. She blew smoke up into the bright, brilliant blue sky overhead, watching the little white cotton-puff clouds floating by overhead. It was the sort of scene that should have evoked a peaceful feeling, but that was completely ruined by the ear-shattering roar of the expressway traffic, and blaring horns, and even Jayne's clicking and clacking and cussing from the front of the truck, which was hardly the perfect, melodious backdrop to what was otherwise a pretty nice day.
She heard a familiar rumble about then, and immediately perked up, swinging upright into a sitting position with one fluid movement, her knees hooking the edge of the tailgate as she scooted forward. Dean's unmistakable shiny black Impala coasted to a stop behind poor old Janis, and the engine cut out abruptly. Lynn beamed at its passengers as they climbed out of the car, and she offered them a wave.
"Hi!" she practically chirped. "I am so glad to see you!"
Sam smiled back at her, and Dean waved at her absently as he headed around to his trunk. Then Sam crinkled his brow, gesturing to her cigarette. "Are you smoking?"
Lynn's eyes dropped swiftly and guiltily to the cigarette butt in her hand. "Uh… maybe?" Sam lifted his brows at her response, and she abruptly rolled her eyes. "Whatever, don't judge me," she retorted as she stubbed out the cigarette on her stepsister's bed liner. Jayne would have been pissed, but that was just bonus points as far as Lynn was concerned. "You don't have to live with her, ok? You don't understand the stress!"
"I believe that," Dean drawled as he reappeared from around the back bumper of the Impala, and Lynn looked up at him surprise. He had his own rusty toolbox in hand, and as Lynn watched, he shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it through his open car window.
"Thank you for this," she told him sincerely. "Really, Dean. I appreciate it a lot. Even if… if Jaynie, uh… doesn't."
He snorted. "That sounds ominous," he cracked. "It's no problem. You were on the way."
She smiled at him again. "Thanks."
He waved her off. "Where is Goldilocks, anyway?"
Lynn jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "Still under the hood. Watch out; she's mean."
Dean rolled his eyes as he headed for the front of the truck. "Yeah, that warning's about five months too late," he grumbled as he walked away.
Lynn smirked at his back, amused, and then turned back to Sam, who'd approached the tailgate and was now taking a seat in the truck bed beside her. He wrinkled his nose at her. "So… I honestly never pegged you for a smoker," he said.
"I'm not. I quit."
Sam raised a disbelieving eyebrow and glanced at the cigarette butt still crumpled on the bed liner. Lynn rolled her eyes again and knocked it out of the bed, into the gravel where it belonged. "It's just one, ok?"
He nodded, but his eyebrows were still lifted in that disbelieving way, and Lynn slumped, folding her arms over her chest. "Shut up," she retorted.
There were footsteps around the back of the truck then, and Jayne's voice rang out. "Lynn, I'm still not sure what's up with Janis, and I might…"
Lynn cringed, turning around just as Jayne appeared from behind the pickup cab, and bit her lip as Jayne suddenly stopped, frozen. She'd seen Sam. For a moment, she simply stood by the truck, staring at him. Her eyes darted around him, zeroing in on the Impala. Then she immediately rounded on Lynn with murder in her eyes.
"What is he doing here?" she demanded.
"Hi," Sam said ironically. "Nice seeing you again too, Jayne."
Jayne ignored him. "Lynn?"
"I called him," Lynn returned carelessly, despite feeling quite nervous. "They were in the area."
"Why?"
"Well, you know," Lynn shrugged, eyes going skyward. "I just thought, you know, the truck wasn't working and… well, Dean's sort of a car guy, and…" Lynn trailed off, noticing her stepsister's angry eyes darting around the berm. "What?" she asked.
"Where is Dean?" Jayne demanded suspiciously.
Lynn's eyes went wide with panic. She turned to Sam for help. Sam attempted to swoop in and take over, but he also began to stutter, which rather ruined the heroic effect. "Well, uh, look, he… he's… just up, under the hood. But he's just…"
Jayne turned her back on Sam before he could finish and craned her neck in the direction of her truck's front end, narrowing her eyes. Lynn winced as her suspicious expression gave way to livid.
"Dean Winchester!" she bellowed.
Lynn covered her eyes.
"You keep your hands off my engine block!" she shouted, storming away from them and right for poor Dean.
Lynn winced again, turning to Sam. "I'm just… going to try and ignore how dirty and wrong that sounded."
Sam began to laugh.
Dean rounded the rusty old truck's front bumper, cringing a little as he stepped out from behind the relative safety of the cab, and then he froze, looking all around the shoulder in confusion. Jayne was nowhere in sight.
It was odd, but he figured he shouldn't look the unexpected reprieve in the mouth, and he dropped his toolbox in the gravel. Digging out a flashlight, he hunched over the engine block, frowning at the old engine as he beamed the light at the rusty mess under the hood.
"Man," he muttered under his breath. "It is ugly under here."
He had a feeling he was going to regret the decision to come out here and help Jayne with her truck, but it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Sam had wanted to stop, and it was the first time since the motel back in Kansas that Sam hadn't been acting like a brat, so Dean had caved.
(Besides, the truck was broken and Jayne and Lynn were stranded, and for some reason, it had been difficult not to insert himself and try to help.)
At any rate, anything that kept Sam from acting like a bitch was worth doing. Sam's attitude since their dad sent that text message was really starting to grate on Dean's nerves. He knew his brother was upset with their dad – and hell, he couldn't really blame the kid. Dean was as pissed at John for that move as Sam was, but they needed to think big picture. Their father was being an ass right now, but that didn't change the fact that if they didn't stop whatever was lurking in the Roosevelt Asylum, then who would? A job was a job, and people were getting killed by something supernatural, and just because Sam was pissed at their father was no reason to let innocent people die.
But he shut down that line of thought about his dad and his frustrating little brother, because it wasn't going to help him fix this POS, and it wasn't going to help with whatever job was waiting in Rockford, and he wasn't really up to examining their dysfunctional family issues at the moment. Or ever. He narrowed his eyes, bending a little closer to the interior of the truck, only to jump, startled, and nearly bang his head on the hood as Jayne's voice bellowed out, "Dean Winchester!"
Dean winced, looking up ever so slightly from his work, and she appeared, angrily rounding the front bumper of the truck.
"You keep your hands off my engine block!" she snapped at him.
He snorted in spite of himself. She planted her hands on her hips and fixed him with a glare. His eyes swept her involuntarily, from her tight jeans to her barely there wife beater to the blonde hair piled messily on top of her head and the grease smeared on her cheek. She looked like she was gearing up to shout something else at him, but before she could say another word, Dean smoothly informed her, "You need to calm down."
"I am calm!" she retorted, and it was so obviously not true, that he almost burst out laughing.
"Sure you are," he said dryly.
"What are you doing?" she demanded. "Who asked you to screw around with my truck?"
Her voice was getting louder with every word. Dean rolled his eyes and knelt beside his toolbox, lying open in the gravel, and selected the correct size wrench.
"Uh… your stepsister," he returned smartly. Then, with the shiny, heavy tool in hand, he stood up again and returned to the truck.
"Put that down!" she ordered.
Dean held up his hands, as though to prove he was harmless. "I'm not going to hurt her!" he protested. "I was just checking some things out!"
"I didn't ask you to check anything out!" she barked. "Ok? Look, I don't need your help! You didn't have to come out here and… and…"
She was having a hard time figuring out what to shout at him, apparently, and Dean leaned against the truck, raising his eyebrow and turning the wrench over in his hand as he smirked at her, waiting.
"I don't want you under my hood!" she finally settled on, her voice ringing out shrilly over the roar of the expressway traffic.
Dean blinked. "Well, that sounded vaguely dirty."
She smacked him in the chest. Dean stumbled back a step, wincing, more out of surprise than actual pain. "Oh, come on!" he exclaimed. "I was joking!"
Jayne's glower grew darker. He rolled his eyes. "Would you relax? Look, this isn't rocket science: your truck won't start. You want your truck to start. I can make your truck start. Can you just let me help you and stop being such a crazy bitch?"
She smacked him in the chest again. "Ow!" he exclaimed. "Damn it, woman, quit smacking me!"
"I don't care what Lynn told you!" she snapped at him. "But I do not need help!"
"I'm sure you don't," Dean replied smoothly. "So, what's wrong with her?"
Jayne continued to glower at him, but remained silent. Apparently, she had no answer to his question.
"Yeah, that's what I thought," he said, returning his eyes to the engine. "Here, let me take a look. Hold this."
He offered her the flashlight. Jayne crossed her arms over her chest and glowered at the object in question. Dean frowned, shaking the light in her direction. "You going to take this or not?" he asked in annoyance.
She redirected her glower at him. "I'm not holding the flashlight! That's the girl job! Why do I have to do the girl job?"
"Oh, I don't know," Dean retorted. "Because it's the only job you know how to do?"
The glower deepened, and Dean automatically winced, expecting to get smacked again. The hit never came, but Jayne ripped the flashlight out of his hand so viciously that Dean swore she was trying to tear his arm off. She clicked the on switch with unnecessary force and held the light over the engine, her lips tight and her eyes dark. Shaking his head, Dean bent over the block and resumed looking for the problem.
"So, what is wrong with my truck?" she demanded, and she sounded unexpectedly catty about the whole thing.
"I don't know yet," he shot back. "I looked at her all of two minutes before you showed up and started shouting at me like a whack-job!"
Apparently she didn't have an answer for that either, because she didn't say anything right away, but her lips flattened into a line so thin and tight that they practically disappeared. Dean didn't say anything either, and reached for the transmission fluid.
"What the hell are you missing around with my transmission for?" she snapped immediately.
He drew out the dipstick and wiped it on his rag. Then he snorted and whistled, shaking his head. "See that?" he asked, holding up the rag. "That is black like death. I told you to check your transmission! How long ago was that? How many times..?"
"My transmission is fine!" she shot back. "That is not why my truck won't start!"
He rolled his eyes and put the dipstick back. Then he got down on the ground and scooted underneath the truck. "What the hell are you doing?" she yelled at him from overhead.
"I'm changing your transmission fluid!"
"I can change my own damn fluids!"
"Yeah? Then why the hell aren't you doing it?"
"I've been busy!"
Dean scoffed loudly. He started removing the drip pan, shaking his head. "You're lucky you didn't leave half your transmission on the highway!" he informed her.
Her dark gray eyes appeared overhead, glaring at him through the spaces between the equipment under the hood. "You don't even know what's wrong with her, do you?" she practically snarled at him. "You're stalling because you can't fix her!"
"No, I'm changing your transmission fluid so that after I fix her, she won't immediately crap out again for a whole new reason!"
"You are not getting my truck to start!"
"No, but I'm going to keep it running!"
"You're wasting my time!"
"I'm wasting your time?"
"Hey, I am not the one who called you out here!" Jayne snapped at him. "And you didn't have to come!"
"Fine!" Dean snapped, finally removing the drip pan. "Next time, you can handle it yourself! Happy?"
"Ecstatic."
"Why don't you make yourself useful and grab some transmission fluid out of my car?" he ordered.
"Why don't you bite me?" she snapped, and then she stomped away, presumably to get the transmission fluid. He shook his head, whistling low at the crazy, not to mention the unexpected compliance.
"It's in the trunk!" he shouted after her.
There was no answering reply, and Dean shook his head again, focusing on draining the old fluid and cleaning out the filter.
"Whack-job," he muttered under his breath.
Sam could hear every single word Jayne and Dean were shouting at each other at the front of the truck, and from the pained, cringing look on Lynn's face, he could tell she could hear it too, even if she was trying to act like she couldn't. He couldn't blame her, really; they were both seriously embarrassing.
"So," Lynn said conversationally, a little too loudly and a little too brightly as she swung her legs over the tailgate. "Where were you two headed, anyway?"
"Rockford, Illinois," Sam replied on a sigh. "You?"
"Just left Bellevue," she informed him. "Easy salt and burn job. Headed east, not really sure where yet. What's in Rockford?"
Sam squinted at the hazy horizon line, blurred by the exhaust fumes from the nearby traffic. "Uh… the Roosevelt asylum," he said. "It's abandoned. Local cop recently killed his wife, then himself, after responding to a call there. Dad had it earmarked in his journal." He scoffed out a laugh, shaking his head. "Actually, he's the one who pointed us there in the first place."
Lynn did a double take. "You heard from your dad?"
Sam twitched his mouth at the corner and glared at the front end of Dean's car, kicking one foot. "You could say that."
"What does that mean?"
Sam sighed and mussed his hair. "It means he sent us a text."
Lynn blinked at that. "Wait… he sent you a text?"
"Yep. Coordinates."
"Just coordinates?"
"Yeah," Sam let out another bitter laugh. "Just coordinates. No hello, no goodbye, no 'sorry for disappearing for about six months without telling you why,' just coordinates."
"I don't understand."
"It was the coordinates for Rockford," Sam returned, every ounce of his frustration and contempt oozing into the words. "Dean looked it up, and then he checked the local news and found out about the police officer. My dad sent us on a hunt."
Lynn didn't reply right away. When she did, she sounded disbelieving. "Wait," she said again. "So your dad's sending you on a hunt. He hasn't talked to you in nearly six months, but he's just out of the blue sending you on a hunt."
"Yeah. That's my dad."
"Well, is he meeting you there?"
"I don't know," Sam sighed. "Maybe. Maybe not." There was a beat, and then Sam sighed again. "Honestly? Probably not."
Lynn sat silently in the truck bed beside him, shaking her head, screwing up her face like she honestly couldn't find the words. Sam could understand that; truthfully, he didn't have too much trouble believing that his father would pull something like this, especially considering how he'd always operated, but… Sam was still pissed, and the fact that his dad really was capable of being this big of an insensitive asshole was a little difficult to swallow.
"Sam, I'm sorry," Lynn said finally. "I know how much you wanted to find him."
Sam shrugged. He sat quietly, swinging his legs. Honestly, he wasn't sure how to respond to that. "Well," he murmured at last. "At least I know he's alive, right?"
"Yeah," she replied encouragingly. "There's always that."
He sighed once more, tilting his head back and squinting at the blue sky overhead. Explaining the text and the hunt and his dad to Lynn, originally meant for venting purposes, had only managed to throw fuel on the fire of his annoyance. Beside him, Lynn fidgeted on the edge of the tailgate, swinging her legs too, and blew air up into her wispy black bangs.
"Well… thanks for getting your brother to help us out," she offered. "I mean, I didn't realize what a big ask it really was, considering the circumstances…"
Sam scoffed out another laugh. "Trust me, I'm less than excited about following another one of my dad's orders," he retorted. "You know what? He can wait."
Lynn lifted her brows, looking amused but a little surprised. "Ok… well, Dean probably wasn't happy…"
"Actually, he wasn't that mad," Sam admitted. "I told him the truck broke down, and he seemed fine about stopping to fix it."
Lynn frowned at him. "Dean wanted to fix Janis?"
"Kinda, yeah."
"Part of me is certain that you're lying."
Sam shrugged. "Yeah," he laughed. "He also thought you and your stepsister might want to check out that asylum I was telling you about."
"He did?" Lynn asked incredulously.
Again, Sam shrugged. "Yeah, I know. Weird, right?"
"So weird," Lynn agreed.
They fell into an awkward silence. Sam scratched at his ear. "So, if Janis is up and running by nightfall, are you and Jayne interested in the asylum job?" Sam asked.
She blinked, looking taken aback. "Seriously?"
He shrugged again. "Yeah. Why not?"
"Um…" Lynn shook her head, opening and closing her mouth, and then she shrugged back. "Yeah, ok. Why not?"
He laughed. "Is that a yes?"
"Yeah. Let's do it."
As if on cue, Jayne came storming past them through the gravel along the shoulder, muttering curses and throwing dark looks over her shoulder as she stomped up to the Impala. For a moment, Sam tensed, wondering if he ought to try and protect his brother's baby from any intended malice. Then Jayne reached into the open trunk and grabbed a bottle of something before marching back to the front of her truck, still muttering and glowering as she went.
Both Sam and Lynn watched her storm by, and then Lynn turned to him, screwing up her face again. "Are you sure you want us to come out to Rockford with you?" she asked. "Because I kind of think that would only give my stepsister more opportunities to murder your brother."
Sam snorted in spite of himself, and then he too screwed up his face in mock thought. "Yeah… you know what? Little pissed at my brother lately, so… kind of ok with that."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"All right then," Lynn shrugged, giving him a smile. "I guess we're going to Rockford."
Jayne stomped back around the front bumper of her pickup truck, fuming the whole way. Dean's boots were still sticking out from under the car, and she had to swallow down the urge to kick them. As it was, she bent over and practically threw the bottle of transmission fluid under the truck and at his face.
"Hey!" he barked. "Watch it!"
She didn't reply or apologize or anything; she marched to the front of the truck and glared through the undercarriage at him, lying on the grass and gravel under her truck and fixing shit that no one even asked him to touch. Actually, Jayne was seething, because her transmission was not the problem, whether the fluid was due for a change or not, and apparently now that Dean was under the hood of her truck, he thought he could just fix whatever he damn well pleased!
She sighed, taking a step back and folding her arms over her chest. None of this would even be happening right now if her truck wasn't so rusty and old and... well, unreliable. "Janis, baby, all I ever do is love you," she muttered. "Why do you do this to me?"
There was rolling, clattering gravel all around the base of the truck, and then Dean climbed out from under it, transmission fluid in hand. "Took you long enough," she spat at him.
He glared at her. "Hey, it's not my fault all your screws are impossible to twist off and put back on," he retorted. "This thing is more rust than truck, you know that right?"
"She's almost two decades old," Jayne snapped back. "Excuse her for not having a perfect body!"
Dean ignored her and started fussing around in his tool box. Jayne watched him take out a funnel, and then bend back over her engine block. She glared at his back as he took out the dipstick and replaced it with the funnel and started filling up the cavity with fresh, pinkish red fluid. "So are you done screwing around now?" she bit out. "Can you get her to start again or not?"
"Kind of," he replied, and she saw red.
"Kind of?" she echoed incredulously. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Uh..." he returned, distracted by topping off the transmission fluid and returning the dipstick, but Jayne jumped all over his hesitation.
"You really don't know what's wrong with her!" she accused him. "Do you? You are stalling because you can't fix her!"
"I do too know what's wrong with her!"
"Oh, really? What?"
"You need a new fuel pump!"
The words struck a stinging blow, and Jayne tensed up, temporarily at a loss for what to say. She stood silently behind him and swallowed down her groan, because that was parts and time and money. Dean glanced over his shoulder at her as she glared at the underside of her hood, pressing her lips into a tight, thin line. He finished up with her fluids, and then he bent down over his toolbox and dug out a small hammer.
"You got spark though," Dean went on. He headed around to the back of the truck, hammer in hand, and she followed him with suspicion in her eyes. "Why don't you get in and try to start her up? I know a little trick."
She glowered at him, and made no move to do as suggested. He rolled his eyes. "Seriously," he said. "Just look."
He still had the hammer, and Jayne wanted to smack it right out of his hand. She glared some more as he bent over by her fuel tank, and half climbed under the truck. "The motor on the pump won't start because the coils won't rotate," he explained, and Jayne's glower darkened because she felt like a preschooler whose teacher was trying to explain 'how cars work' to her. "You try and start her up, and I might be able to knock the coil loose and get it it moving again, temporarily. Just got to give it a good whack..."
"You're going to what?" she snapped angrily, cutting him off.
He smirked brightly at her, like a shit-eating little boy. "Whack it with a hammer!" he announced proudly.
For a moment, she simply stood there, staring at him, attempting speech and failing. Instead, her breath came out in short, harsh huffs and puffs, while her eyes darted from him to the truck and back again.
He actually laughed. "That's adorable."
She snapped, and Dean barely ducked the flashlight that flew at his head. "Son of a bitch!" he exploded. "What the hell is wrong with you? You don't just go around whipping flashlights at people!"
"Well, you can't just… just… fix things when… when no one… asked you to!"
He blinked. For a moment he simply stared at her in disbelief. Jayne glared back at him, hands on her hips, breathing a little too hard, and she was all too aware of Lynn and Sam trying to climb quietly out of the bed of her truck and make a beeline for the relative safety of Dean's Impala.
"Are you freaking kidding me?" he finally exploded.
"No!" she shot back, even though on some level she was aware that she sounded like a crazy person. "And you are whacking nothing!"
He blinked again, and Jayne rushed to finish shouting at him before he could turn what she'd said into something dirty. "If you think I'm going to let your dumb ass smack my fuel tank with a hammer and blow up my damn truck…!"
"I'm not going to blow her up!"
"Oh, that's comforting! She's more rust than truck, remember? If you punch a hole in my fuel tank...!"
"Hey, if I blow up the truck, then we're both dead," he pointed out, entirely too reasonably. "So… there's really no point in threatening me."
She blinked at that, pursing her lips, and glared at him some more, pissed like all hell and somehow with no retort. Dean shrugged at her, staring at expectantly, and then he glanced over at the truck and raised his eyebrow. "You going to start her up or not?"
Jayne gawked at him some more. Then, her shoulders went stiff. Her jaw got tight. "Asshole," she spat, and then she stalked over to her truck, threw open her door and slid in behind the wheel.
"Count of three!" he shouted from outside. "One… two... three…"
She started the engine and heard a loud, unsettling clang, and then Janis roared to life, like nothing had ever been wrong with her in the first place.
Dean's loud, cackling laughter echoed from outside. She grimaced as he crowed triumphantly, and glared at him sideways as he passed by the open window and sauntered around to the front of the truck. He dropped his hammer back in his toolbox and vanished behind the hood. The hood dropped with a bang! Still laughing, he approached the driver's side window, rubbing grease off his hands with an old rag, and leaned against the cab frame. Jayne sat stock still, glowering at the dashboard.
"You're welcome," Dean smirked.
Jayne didn't look at him. "Thank you," she said through her teeth.
"Told you it would work," he said, still smirking, and Jayne glared at him. Dean got serious. "But that's not going to hold her forever, so you better replace that fuel pump ASAP."
Then he reached through the open window and patted her on the shoulder. Jayne made a face, wrapping her fingers tight around the steering wheel like she was squeezing his throat. Dean was still smirking as he turned away and headed back towards the Impala, and Jayne glared at him in the side mirror. He bent over the Impala's driver side door, and her eyes dropped involuntarily, assessing the way he looked from behind. He straightened up, lifting his gray tee shirt up and wiping sweat off his forehead with the hem, and Jayne raised an eyebrow as she caught a brief glimpse of toned stomach and possibly decent abs before he dropped the shirt again.
"Shit," she whispered, shaking her head and tearing her eyes away from the view in the mirror. What was wrong with her? She trained her eyes on the ceiling. There was nothing over there she should be checking out for any reason, damn it.
The truck was still rumbling away happily, chugging along just fine, and Jayne breathed deep through her nose, tongue running over her teeth as she redirected her glower at Janis's dashboard.
"Traitor," she accused.
Lynn frowned from where she stood behind the Impala, treating Dean's old Chevy like a shield, blinking at her sister's truck. She was impressed to hear the engine turn over, she was impressed to see poor old Janis rumbling away, and she only cringed when Dean started with the triumphant cackling laughter as he made his way back to the Impala. She was sure Jayne was fuming, but all Lynn really cared about was that the truck was fixed, she no longer had to sit on the side of the highway, and that Sam had invited her on a hunt with little to no prompting or wheedling on her end.
"Well," Sam murmured beside her, lifting his brows. "I guess the truck is fine."
"Yeah," Lynn murmured back, blowing her bangs off her forehead. "I guess so."
They were quiet for a moment, watching as Dean loaded his stuff into his car. Jayne got out of the truck for a quick moment, grabbing her toolbox and returning it to the bed. Then she got back into the cab without looking at anyone and slammed the door in such a way that if Lynn had done it, she would have gotten punched in the arm. Lynn rolled her eyes.
"So... see you in Rockford?" Sam asked, taking a step backwards, towards his brother's car.
"Right," Lynn nodded quickly. She squinted at him against the sunlight, and he forced out a smile for her, staring right back. Lynn fell silent, at a loss for words. When Sam had agreed to bring his brother out here to take care of the truck, Lynn had simply thought he was being nice. Then he'd suggested she and Jayne come out to Rockford, and... well, now he was standing on the side of the road, hands jammed in his coat pockets again and looking awkward, and Lynn wasn't sure what she was supposed to say, or how she was supposed to interpret all this.
"Ok," Sam said, and he headed towards the Impala.
"Ok!" Lynn echoed at his back. "Uh... see you there!"
He waved at her, and got into the car. Dean started up the Impala with a roar, and Lynn watched them wheel away from the shoulder, cringing as they kicked up loose gravel and merged recklessly back into oncoming traffic. She waved at their back end, and then heaved a sigh, narrowing her eyes at her stepsister's truck. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and marched back to Janis, preparing herself to deal with Jayne.
Her stepsister looked thunderstruck, staring out the windshield, and she barely looked at Lynn when she hopped up into the cab beside her and slammed the door shut. "Hey," Lynn greeted her. "Good to go?"
Jayne grunted, and Lynn didn't complain, because a grunt was way better than the shouting she'd been expecting.
"Good," she said. "Um... so... I was thinking. We're looking for our next job, right?"
Jayne slowly turned her gaze away from the windshield and glared at her. Lynn delivered a cringing smile, not missing the way Jayne's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "I was talking to Sam," she continued with forced brightness. "And actually, they were on their way to Rockford, Illinois to check out this haunted asylum, so if you're interested…"
"You've already sicced them on me once today," Jayne interrupted in a low, deadly voice. "The older one changed my transmission fluid."
Lynn snorted. "I love how you say that like it's some kind of a crime instead of the nice, thoughtful gesture that it actually was."
Jayne ignored her observation and continued as though Lynn hadn't spoken. "Now you want to go hunting with them. Really?"
Lynn nodded and gave her another too bright smile. "Uh-huh!"
Jayne glared at her for a moment, and then she rolled her eyes and put the truck in gear. It was not lost on Lynn how the truck did not shudder or whine for the first time in a long time when Jayne shifted gears, but she figured she better not voice that out loud.
"Fine," Jayne finally grunted.
Lynn grinned brighter, and her stepsister glowered out the windshield as she steered the truck off the shoulder and back into traffic.
It wasn't a happy agreement to the new job, but she'd take it.
The Old Terminal Pub was far from a crowded, busy place. It was an old timer's bar, attached to a tiny, cheap, crappy motel, and inside it was quiet and laid-back, with BTO on the jukebox, and a beat-up pool table crammed in amidst the seating. According to the locals in Rockford, Illinois, this was the town's primary cop hang-out, and as such, the perfect place to find the late Walter Kelly's ex-partner.
Walter Kelly, apparently, had been a rookie police officer who killed his wife and then shot himself right after investigating the so-called haunted Roosevelt Asylum... and of course, according to local legend, this so-called haunted asylum made anyone who stepped inside go insane.
They'd wheeled into town earlier in the afternoon, just before dusk, and they'd only been in the bar for less than two hours now. Jayne had a beer, just the one, and she was drinking it slow, but her stepsister wasn't following her example. Lynn sat at the bar, one leg crossed over the other, drumming her long shiny nails on the countertop. She was sucking down liquor like it had been discounted for the night, and Jayne raised an eyebrow from where she sat beside her at the L-shaped bar. She was on the third vodka and cranberry since they sat down, and Jayne couldn't help thinking the drinking was ill-advised.
Actually, Lynn had been acting weird for days, and until the distraction provided by Janis's break down, Jayne had been starting to really worry about it. Lately, Lynn was oddly quiet and apathetic. Nothing seemed to incite the girl to move. In fact, for the first time in a long time, Jayne had been in complete control during their last hunt. Whatever Jayne had said, went. Lynn had no opinions.
While it was nice not to be argued with every step of the way, Jayne stopped enjoying her newfound position of dictator about twenty-four hours into tracking that homicidal ghost back in Bellevue. There was no doubt about it; something was up with her stepsister. Lynn was not quiet. Lynn was not unmotivated. And more importantly, Lynn always had an opinion.
Jayne didn't know what was wrong with Lynn, but she knew something had to be. They'd tracked down the ghost's remains, saved the night guard at the cemetery from certain death, and then salted and burned the bones… and Lynn had maybe uttered two words the whole hunt. When Jayne started to feel like she was the one talking too much, they were in trouble.
For the life of her, Jayne had no clue what it was about the last hunt that had turned Lynn silent and distracted. Rationally speaking, nothing about Bellevue should have shook Lynn enough to make her stop running her mouth. And so, Jayne was forced to conclude that Lynn's problem had started back in Lawrence, Kansas. The more Jayne thought about it, the more sense it made. It seemed to her that right upon leaving Kansas was when Lynn had stopped speaking. And really, why wouldn't Kansas have gotten under Lynn's skin? Kansas had certainly gotten to Jayne, even if she was hiding it better than her stepsister.
Jayne wasn't sure what part of the hunt had shook Lynn. If it had something to do with Sam and his freaky weirdo mind powers or if maybe it was just about reliving what had happened to Jayne's mother… or maybe it was the reminder that Stephen was gone, and he didn't seem the least bit inclined to come back.
Hell, for all Jayne knew, that boy could be dead.
Jayne was worried, but she had already decided to let Lynn come to her. After all, Lynn always did. Lynn could only suffer in silence for so long before she absolutely had to say something.
She watched as Lynn sucked down the last of her drink through the tiny red straw, making a loud slurping sound. Jayne raised an eyebrow in her direction. Ignoring her stepsister, Lynn waved down the bartender and ordered a fourth.
"You want to slow it down a little, Judy Garland?" Jayne asked sarcastically, sipping her beer. She never had been the patient and nurturing type.
"I'm fine," Lynn snapped, tossing her ponytail and glaring at her. "It's only four drinks. That's nothing."
"Yeah," Jayne said skeptically. "Maybe. If the last time you ate something hadn't been over six hours ago."
"Shush," Lynn waved her off. "It's just a drink."
"Well, we are working a case here."
"Whatever. Sometimes I work better with a little buzz."
"Well, that's just a big steamy pile of not even remotely true."
Lynn flipped Jayne the finger. Seconds later, her drink arrived. She pushed a few bills in the bartender's direction and immediately took a sip. Jayne rolled her eyes and resigned herself to being her sister's caretaker for the rest of the night.
Right about then, Sam showed up, taking the open seat on the other side of Lynn. Jayne snorted. Her stepsister almost didn't notice Sam's arrival, she was so focused on her drink. Not that Sam cared; he paid Lynn's drinking no mind at all and, predictably, got straight down to business. "Dean found the cop," Sam announced, leaning his elbow on the countertop. "He's going to slip him the nosy reporter dick act…"
"Dean's dick thing is an act?" Jayne interrupted uncharitably.
Sam blinked. "Um… sometimes. Anyway, Dean's going to be a dick and I'm going to shove him."
"The plan is to shove Dean?" Jayne asked dryly. "Hell, I'll volunteer for that job."
Sam cocked his eyebrow, wearing a wry but surprised smile. Lynn punched her stepsister in the shoulder.
"There's no need to be such a bitch," she informed Jayne, and she found it difficult not to shove her tipsy stepsister right off her barstool. "That nice boy fixed your truck, even though you threw things at him. You shouldn't be so ungrateful. In fact, you should say thank you, and probably apologize."
Jayne gave her the skunk eye.
"How many have you had?" Sam asked suddenly, frowning down at the top of Lynn's head.
Lynn narrowed her eyes at him. Jayne snorted and drained her beer. Sam looked from Jayne to Lynn uncertainly, his eyes wide and innocent, and predictably, that did nothing to pacify Lynn.
"I am not drunk," she informed him with no small level of annoyance, leveling her fingertip with the end of his nose. Too bad she was clearly drunk, Jayne considered wryly.
Sam blinked. A short chuckle escaped from deep in his throat. "Never said you were."
"Good. Because I'm not. I can hold my liquor."
Sam seemed to be fighting a smirk. "I'm sure you can," he said patiently.
This only served to piss Lynn off. "Don't mock me," she snapped. "I can drink as much as I want."
Sam nodded in agreement. "Ok."
Lynn returned to her drink. Jayne raised her eyebrow at Sam, giving him an amused and knowing look, and Sam returned it with a bemused smile. Then he glanced across the bar, and Jayne followed his eyes. Dean was making his way towards an aging black man sitting at a table by the door. The man's shoulders were hunched over and he was nursing a beer, all by his lonesome. Undoubtedly, he was the mourning cop in question.
Dean took a seat across the table from the man, wearing a cocky, self-assured smirk. Sam rolled his eyes. "That's my cue," he said. He pushed himself off his barstool and headed towards the table.
Lynn stared at the tall, lean, muscular form of Sam Winchester as he walked away, her eyes traveling him up and down very obviously, and Jayne snorted again. Then Lynn turned back to the bar and sucked down more of her drink. Jayne rolled her eyes and ordered another beer. She took a heavy swig once it arrived, and turned back around, eyeing the Winchester's little con job from across the bar. Then she glanced in Lynn's direction, raising her eyebrow again.
"You all right?" she asked.
Lynn poked at the ice in the bottom of her glass with the tiny red straw. "Sure."
"He's just a boy."
"Mm-hmm."
"Far as I can tell, he hasn't done anything wrong."
"Yep."
Jayne stared at her. Lynn ignored her, sipping her drink. Then Jayne shrugged her shoulders, her brown flannel bunching up around her neck, and took another long drink of her beer. Her stepsister was crazy, she decided, even crazier than she was, and for the record, Sam Winchester was way too complicated for Lynn. She wasn't sure what Lynn wanted out of that corner, or what she was trying to do, but she knew her stepsister's crushes when she saw them, and the way Lynn smiled and batted her eyes at the youngest Winchester brother made her want to puke most days.
She sat there for a moment, eyeing her moody and quiet stepsister. "You ok?" Jayne finally asked. "You've been kind of dragging ass lately. It's not like you."
Lynn shrugged. "I'm fine, I guess."
Jayne nodded slowly, not buying it for a minute. Lynn seemed to sense her eyes on her, because she looked up from her drink. "What?" she asked.
"Sorry, I just… if something's up, you can tell me."
"I know."
Lynn threw back the rest of her drink, and Jayne screwed up her face. "That better be the last one for the night," she said.
Her stepsister scoffed, and flagged down the bartender again. "Shut up."
Dean stomped around the small parking lot behind the bar, narrowly avoiding scattered puddles throughout the cracked asphalt lot, staying in the vicinity of his Impala. It was dark save for the bluish glow of the pub sign, and the air was starting to get a little chilly. Dean, on the other hand, was starting to get incredibly irritated. His brother was taking forever to interview that cop, not to mention Sam had been a little too forceful during their staged confrontation. He was annoyed at Sam, had been since they'd received that text message and his brother started acting like a bratty teenager all over again, and now he was starting to get bored out in the parking lot. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he had some company, but neither Jayne nor Lynn had followed him outside.
Which was probably a good thing, when he stopped to think about it, because he was kind of pissed at Jayne too. She was definitely pissed at him, though, and that was bugging the hell out of him. Who got mad at someone for helping them? She was psychotic.
So, basically, Jayne wouldn't look at or talk to him, and was mad for no good reason. Meanwhile, Sam was rediscovering his daddy issues and now, on top of all that, Lynn was sitting at the bar inside and getting drunk.
Well, this all went to hell fast.
After what felt like years of pacing, the door to the bar opened and Sam came hurrying out. Not far behind him were Jayne and Lynn. Lynn was walking a straight line, but she looked dazed, as though she wasn't really seeing the world in front of her. Jayne was a step or two behind her, watching her carefully as though she expected to have to catch her at some point. Dean couldn't really blame Lynn for drinking; between Sam's crap about their dad, and Jayne being a complete and total whack job about her truck, a few drinks were looking pretty good to him too right about now. Still, it was weird to watch because she was Lynn, and he'd sort of built up this idea about her being a responsible and job-oriented person... not the type that got smashed in a bar.
He was starting to reappraise that notion.
The other three hunters reached his parking space, and Dean leaned against the side of his car, fixing Sam with a glare. "Shoved me kind of hard in there, buddy boy," he snapped at his younger brother.
"Had to sell it, didn't I?" Sam retorted, but his reasoning just sounded like a flimsy excuse to Dean. "It's method acting."
"Huh?"
"Never mind."
"You're lucky," Jayne interjected grumpily. "I'd have shoved you harder."
Dean glowered at her, about to make an angry retort. Lynn intervened.
"Please," she snorted, waving her hand at her stepsister in a rather uncoordinated way. "Can't we all just get along for one night?"
"Of course we can," Sam agreed all too seriously. Dean rolled his eyes as Sam stared at the slightly inebriated woman for a moment too long. A little wham-bam-thank you, ma'am might do Sam wonders, but Dean knew all too well that sex was the last thing on Sam's mind. Sam was just staring at Lynn out of concern, because he was worried he'd have to catch her, or hold her hair while she puked her guts out. What a waste.
Quite frankly, Dean wasn't impressed. The girl wasn't that drunk. He wished Jayne and Sam would cut her a break.
"What'd you find out?" Dean asked, dropping the subject before even bringing it up.
"Well, according to his partner, Walter Kelly was a good cop," Sam explained. "Top of his class. He had a bright future ahead of him."
"So he shot his wife," Lynn interrupted sardonically, leaning against her sister's pickup. "Because that's what all good cops do. What a great piece of…"
"Ok," Jayne interrupted. "No more vodka and cranberry for you."
"I am not drunk," Lynn snapped.
Dean snorted. She was definitely drunk.
"Just finish the story, Sam," Jayne said, ignoring her stepsister.
"Yeah," Dean added. "How'd he get along with his wife?"
"Um, well… I guess they had a few fights, but nothing really out of the ordinary," Sam explained, looking a little thrown off by the interruption. "Seemed like smooth sailing."
"So either Kelly had some deep seated crazy waiting to bust loose, or something else did it to him," Dean concluded. Sam shrugged, nodding in agreement. "All right," Dean said, taking charge. "I say we roll out of here, get some shut eye, and head up to the asylum tomorrow morning. Agreed?"
"Sounds good," Sam agreed.
"Whatever," Jayne muttered.
For some reason, her tone struck a nerve. "You have a problem with my plan?" Dean demanded.
"Nope," Jayne returned, crossing her arms over her chest and looking him straight in the eye. "Just with you."
Dean glared at her. She glared right back. Lynn pushed herself off the truck, groaning, and announced a little too loudly, "I am so not in the mood for this dumb crap you two pull everywhere we go. Let's just leave; I'm tired."
Jayne and Dean redirected their glares in Lynn's direction. She ignored them both and headed for Janis's passenger side door.
"I'm with Lynn," Sam said. "Dean?"
"Whatever," Dean echoed Jayne, right down to the grumpy muttering. He got in behind the wheel of his car and slammed the door. As he watched, Jayne and Lynn got into the truck. The truck rumbled to life – thanks to him, he might add – and then pulled out of its parking spot, presumably headed for their motel. Sam got into the Impala beside him and Dean turned the key in the ignition, still glowering after the truck.
"Uh..." Sam offered, looking a little too amused about the situation for Dean's taste. "What's wrong with you?"
"I don't get it," he complained, pulling out of the parking lot and following the truck down the main road. "She was normal in Kansas! Why is she suddenly a crazy bitch again?"
"Dude," Sam laughed. "What did you expect?"
Dean glared at Sam instead. "Oh, I don't know! A little gratitude would be nice!"
"Yeah, well... I mean, Lynn did warn you..."
"I didn't think she'd be this pissed! And you know what? Exactly what the hell did I even do wrong?" Dean demanded, ignoring Sam's reply. "You know, other than get that damn heap over there she calls a truck running again?"
Sam shrugged. "Well, I mean... when you think about it, it does make sense. I mean, it's Jayne."
Dean didn't want to think about it, and he didn't believe for a moment that it made sense. "Well, that's crap."
"Not really. I mean... you fixed her truck. Really think about it, think about every time we've helped her... she really doesn't like it."
Dean focused on the road ahead of them, fuming. "Yeah, well... too bad! She's a psycho!"
Sam rolled his eyes. Dean ignored him. His brother sighed, leaning back in his seat, and Dean tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
"This is going to be a long hunt," Sam murmured under his breath.
Dean didn't disagree.