The car jerked forward as it's driver pressed on the brakes.
Though we'd only said we'd drive together for a few days, Dean Winchester and Raven Quinzel were becoming a good pair of hunters.
Neither of us wanted to admit we were using the other to get over the loss of our sibling. Dean reminded me of my sister. She was a flirt. She wasn't having a proper weekend until she had sex with two guys (if it was at the same time, then yay). She was a soldier, an assassin trained to hunt the monsters of the world. I reminded him of Sam. There had been a lot of times he found my nose deep in a book, sometimes for a hunt and sometimes not.
I'd taught him how to make the salt paste for jackets. He taught me the proper way to fire rock salt, without falling back on your ass. Good skills, in the long run. We learned from each other.
I woke up harshly, glaring at Dean. He sat in his seat ignoring my death glare. The seasoned hunter only acknowledged me when he looked towards the house.
Dean was staring intensely at the building. He didn't make any real moves towards it, just sitting in the driver's seat with a tense form.
"This isn't a bar." My deadpan would've been more effective if I wasn't pulling myself up from the floor. "You said we were getting drinks."
The hunter gave me a sort of glare. It fell flat when he looked back the building with hesitation.
"This is his house, isn't?" I asked carefully, wanting to pacify the glare. Dean's tense shoulders loosened. "So buck up, and go get your nerd of a brother."
Dean eyed me. He gave me a half confident smirk. "Whatever the lady wants."
"You're damn right." I smirked. In excitement I whacked him on the leather covered arm. "You better walk out in five, or I'm gonna come after you." I reminded him, giving him a warning look.
"We'll shoot you." Dean warned. There was an indecisive look on his face that was gone in a second.
"That'll be a laugh." Though he didn't hear me, since he had already left the car and slammed the door shut.
While waiting, I pulled out my phone to get a good song or two in before running up after the idiots. A play or two of 'Dead Girl Walking' was long enough for a wait.
Chances were, Dean was waiting in front of Sam's door piss pants scared. On TV, the man was brazen as all hell. When it came to family shit, the boy was drowning.
"That's five." I pushed the passenger door open.
I ran up to Sam's apartment. Dean had been going over this hard for two weeks so we knew as much about this place as probably Sam himself. It was easy to reach his apartment, then pick the lock of his apartment.
Pushing the door open, I could see the two brothers having a lovely reunion in the dark.
"Dean?" I called out.
The hunter stared at me in surprise. "You said you would wait in the car!" He hissed.
"I said I would give you five minutes, then I'd come in after you." I reminded him.
"That wasn't five minutes!" Dean whined.
The lights switched on, so I got a better look at Sam's place and the man himself.
He was a baby. The hair short enough that it didn't reach his shoulders, choosing instead to flair out like angel wings around his head. There were no lines on his face from all the years of loss, centuries in Hell as Lucifer's playtoy. His lips were in their typical Sam frown, the one you saw in the later seasons more often than not. There were just some bags under his eyes from the sleepless nights of college (and having sleepovers with your girlfriend). His expression was a flat lip of annoyance, staring at Dean and I like we were cats that kept finding a way into your apartment (except you don't have a cat door or open windows).
Standing by the light switch, I saw the gorgeous face of Jess, wearing a cropped Smurf shirt and booty shorts. Not gonna lie, she was hot. Just wish blondes were my type...
That was another fun thing about being in this universe. This Raven Quinzel, she was more open than Morgan Spencer had ever been. Back Home, I'd bite my tongue off before admitting I was bi. Raven didn't have that silent trait, apparently.
Yeah I said bi. I totally lied to Dean.
"Sam?" Jess asked. She nervously observed her boyfriend, then the two strangers in her house.
The two knuckleheads turned to her. It was funny how stupid they were when they were arguing.
"Jess. Hey." Sam found his voice. "Dean, this is my girlfriend, Jessica."
Dean was just getting lost in her...eyes.
"And...who are you?" Sam asked, eyeing me dare I say angrily.
"Raven Quinzel." I answered, with a clever smirk. "His friend."
"Yeah. Friend." Dean murmured, still staring at Jess.
"Wait, your brother Dean?" Jess smiled happily at the older hunter.
Sam nodded. The only thing he really could do with Dean standing in the room like that.
"Oh, I love the Smurfs." Dean complimented. "You know, I gotta tell you. You are completely out of my brother's league."
"You are." Was my input.
Jess nervously started to back away. "Just let me put something on." She had nearly escaped when Dean called her back.
"No, no, no, I wouldn't dream of it. Seriously." He went back towards Sam. He didn't once look away from Jess.
Sam was annoyed, no doubt used to it after two decades of living with him. Me, on the other hand, I had eight seasons of this so that was like eight decades of Winchester flirting.
"Anyway, I gotta borrow your boyfriend here, talk about some private family business." He glanced at me, probably trying to get me to leave too. I just smiled innocently, not moving. "But, uh, nice meeting you." He gave up with me. He instead just smiled politely at Jess.
"It really was." I smirked.
"No." Sam shook his head. goes over to Jess and puts an arm around her. Sam "No, whatever you want to say, you can say it in front of her."
Dean and I exchanged a look.
"Okay." The other hunter braced himself. "Um. Dad hasn't been home in a few days."
"So he's working overtime on a Miller Time shift. He'll stumble back in sooner or later." Sam responded sassily.
Well, John was a drunk.
Dean just schooled his features. Sam was being difficult, which according to Dean on the way up here was kinda expected. "Dad's on a hunting trip. And he hasn't been home in a few days."
Sam had the best poker face.
"Jess, excuse us. We have to go outside."
==DG==
"I mean, come on. You can't just break in, middle of the night, with your girlfriend-"
"Not my girlfriend."
"-and expect me to hit the road with the two of you." Sam argued as he were leaving his apartment.
"You're not hearing me, Sammy. Dad's missing." Dean stressed. He paused on the stairs to give his brother a stern look. I stopped beside him, looking at Sam with impatience. "I need you to help me find him."
"You remember the poltergeist in Amherst?" The student reminded when they started back down the stairs. I had to rush to keep up with Dean. These two had long legs! "Or the Devil's Gates in Clifton? He was missing then, too. He's always missing, and he's always fine."
Again, Dean stopped in the middle of the stairs.
"Not for this long." Dean stressed.
"And why can't she help you find him?" Sam motioned to me.
"Because I don't know anything about John." I explained. "Not as well as you and Dean."
"Then why are you even here?" Sam snapped.
"Dean asked." I replied. "Now are you gonna come with us or not?"
"I'm not." Sam answered matter-of-factly.
"Why not?" Dean asked. Ever the mature older brother.
"I swore I was done hunting. For good." Sam narrowed his eyes at Dean.
"Come on. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't that bad." His brother brushed off, walking down the rest of the stairs.
I followed. We were headed towards the door.
"Yeah?" Sam turned to me. "Hey, maybe this'll tell you something about John Winchester. When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45."
I didn't let my wince show. When my sister was six, she was already learning how to use a blade. She was seven before I started training her with guns.
"I can't really say anything negative about that, cause it's a good idea." I admitted. "That happened when...I was a kid. Saved my life more than once."
"Well, what was he supposed to do?" Dean agreed with me, though more in defense of his dad.
"I was nine years old!" Sam argued. He was now glaring at us in disgust. "He was supposed to say, 'don't be afraid of the dark'."
Dean stared at his brother as if his ear had doubled in size. "Don't be afraid of the dark? Are you kidding me?" He asked. "Of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what's out there."
His brother huffed. "Yeah, I know, but still. The way we grew up, after Mom was killed, and Dad's obsession to find the thing that killed her." Sam ranted. The older Winchester and I looked anywhere else but him. "But we still haven't found the damn thing. So we kill everything we can find."
"We save a lot of people doing it, too." Dean pointed out.
"You think Mom would have wanted this for us?" Sam countered.
'No. She didn't.'
==DG==
Sam's complaining didn't stop. If anything, our ignoring him made him angrier. "You have no idea what it was like." He explained to me. "The weapon training, and melting the silver into bullets! We were raised like warriors."
"Not seeing the problem with that. I was raised one too." I stated. "It wasn't that crappy a childhood."
In truth, it wasn't. When you don't have parents, you can raise yourself however you please. Can I be faulted for wanting to grow up a fighter? I liked being the nomad that I was. There were times when things were tough, when I struggled to get food on the table. Still, Darcy and I made it work.
This seemed to be enough for Sam to realize his argument on hunting would be lost on me. He huffed, going back to his bratty bitch face.
"So what are you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it?" Dean challenged.
"No. Not normal. Safe." Sam corrected, giving Dean a hard challenging look back.
I snorted. "Are you kidding me? College kids are the least safe people on the planet! Just look at every horror movie ever: college kids die in those." 'You wouldn't die, Sam, because you're the smartest college kid I know...which is kinda like being the tallest dwarf.'
"And that's why you ran away." Dean stated. Coldly. Hurtly. Hoping no one notices how much it hurt to let Sam leave.
"I was just going to college. It was Dad who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone." Sam reminded in a matter-of-fact voice. I glared at him on Dean's behalf. 'John is an asshole.' "And that's what I'm doing."
'You've never listened to him once in your life. How come the only time you did it was to leave Dean alone with him?'
"Yeah, well, Dad's in real trouble right now. If he's not dead already." Dean reminded. "I can feel it." Sam didn't say anything to that. "I can't do this alone." Dean begged.
Sam shook his head. "You're doing it with her."
"He won't do it without you." I corrected. "To be honest, I won't either. Your brother talked up a big game about you. I'd like to see if he was right."
This almost surprised Sam. Guess he didn't think Dean would brag about his baby brother to anyone, much less a virtual stranger. He was a seasoned hunter, his expression didn't flinch at the news. His poker face was fit for any high stakes game. There was a spark of submission in his brown eyes. He was going to say yes.
"What was he hunting?" He asked Dean.
Dean was satisfied with his answer. He walked over to the trunk of the Impala. He popped it open, then the secret second compartment. "All right, let's see, where the hell did I put that thing?"
"So when Dad left, why didn't you go with him?" Sam asked Dean.
"We were working our own gig." Dean answered. He looked over at me. "This, uh, voodoo thing, down in New Orleans, right?"
I nodded. "Yeah. And you left the folder under that rifle."
I had done it with him. Dean had spoken with John over the phone, so I was spared the presence of John Winchester. It was a bit of disappointment. My fist wanted to meet his cheek.
"Dad let you go on a hunting trip by yourself?" Sam asked. His eyes were wide in surprise. His mouth was an 'o' shape. He looked over at me, which made his eyebrows fly up to his bangs. "With her?"
I smiled toothily at him. A small, 'fight me' chuckle came from my throat. "I'm right here."
Dean gave his brother an indignant stare, which made me smile wider. "I'm twenty-six, dude. I don't need his permission for who I hang out with."
He moved aside the rifle, revealing the folder of old newspapers. "All right, here we go. So Dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago, this guy." He gave the folder to the student lawyer. "They found his car, but he vanished. Completely MIA."
Sam gave the file a quick glance. He turned a few pages, then shrugged. "So maybe he was kidnapped." He excused.
"You'd think that, until you heard of the man in April." I gave Sam the other newspaper. "Then going back, you have one in '04, '03, '98, '92. Ten men over the past twenty years go missing over the same five-mile stretch of road." I explained. When I was done, I took the newspapers back from Sam and stuffed them back into the pack. I put my hands on my hips, confident that Sam couldn't argue against that.
'Besides, he's a Stanford student. I am a proud Harvard grad. Suck it, Stanford.'
"It started happening more and more, so Dad went to go dig around." Dean took over the talk. "That was about three weeks ago. I hadn't heard from him since, which is bad enough." He pulled out one of the burner phones. "Then I get this voicemail yesterday."
"Dean...something big is starting to happen...I need to try and figure out what's going on. It may... Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger."
He clapped the phone shut.
Dean and I were giving Sam matching challenging looks. A dare to call us out. A dare to back out now. A dare to leave his family behind.
He took it like a champ. "You know there's EVP on that?" Sam asked.
"Not bad, Sammy. Kinda like riding a bike, isn't it?" Dean encouraged.
Sam shook his head. There was an under hit of the Bitch-face.
Dean made a face. The dark blond eyebrows lowered. His green eyes narrowed a bit. His lips thinned. If you watch this show long enough, you'd recognize it as the face he makes before arguing with Sam.
"Dean slowed the message down." I explained before Dean could say anything that'd start a fight. I looked at Sam with a straight face. In the corner of my eye, I kept watch of Dean's expression. "Ran it through a gold wave, took out the hiss, everything. He got something out of it." With a bit of impatience, I looked to Dean.
The hunter huffed at having the wind taken out of his wings. He pulled out the tape recorder, pressing play.
"I can never go home..."
He stopped it.
"Never go home." Sam repeated.
Dean tossed the recorder back in the trunk. He stood up straight. It nearly made him as tall as Sam. He closed the trunk. Looking at Sam over his shoulder, Dean leaned over the trunk. I rested my hip against Baby's side. "You know, in almost two years I've never bothered you, never asked you for a thing."
Sam looks away and sighs, then looks back. Sam "All right. I'll go. I'll help you find him."
Dean nodded, victorious.
"But I have to get back first thing Monday." Sam warned. "Just wait here." He turned towards his apartment.
"What's first thing Monday?" Dean called out before Sam could get far.
"Is it a thing with the girlfriend?" I asked, being deliberately wrong. "Cause I can get you back here if it's about your girlfriend."
It would occur to me in five minutes that something does happen to his girlfriend on Monday. And that unless I wanted to die pointlessly, it would happen while Sam watched.
"I have this...I have an interview." Sam admitted.
"What, a job interview? Skip it." Dean encouraged easily.
Sam gave us both a mockingly arrogant face. "It's a law school interview, and it's my whole future on a plate." Sam countered.
"Law school?" Dean smirked proudly.
Sam huffed. In the annoyance of a child truly done with his parents. "So we got a deal or not?"
His brother didn't say a thing against it. Neither did I.
Satisfied, Sam walked away.
I waited until he was climbing the stairs to look at Dean. "You know, I thought he'd be shorter."
Dean gave me a half hearted snort. He pushed himself off the trunk, making his way to the driver's seat.
My shoulder slumped some. He hadn't looked away from where Sam left.
==DG==
Dean had been driving for a few hours before we stopped at a gas station. I was wandering the aisles grabbing various bits of snacks, beer, and candy. I was a sucker for peanut butter cups and caramels. Besides that, I had picked up extra containers of salt and other ingredients for the salt jackets. Sam was going to need one later for the whole thing with Constance.
Checking out, I thought I had an impressive amount of road trip snacks. I made my way back to the Impala. Dean was right behind me.
"Hey!" Dean called over to his brother. The younger looked at us, away from the box of tapes he was sifting through. "You want breakfast?" I opened a pack of mini donuts, taking a bite of one.
"No, thanks." He grimaced at all the greasy sugary food. "So how'd you pay for that stuff? You and Dad still running credit card scams?" Sam asked, not hiding his distaste.
"I'll have you know this was all paid for by the lovely-" I pulled out the wallet I had stolen three days prior. "-Miss Heather Chandler. She is filthy rich and felt generous when she left her purse open in front of me!"
Dean snorted at me. He turned back to his brother, not letting Sam off. "Yeah, well, hunting ain't exactly a pro ball career." He put the gas nozzle away. "Besides, all we do is apply. It's not our fault they send us the cards."
"Yeah?" Sam scoffed. "And what names did you write on the application this time?" He pulled himself back in the car. The window was open so he could still hear us.
I climbed in the backseat. The backseat had mostly been claimed by me when we picked up Sam. My Infinity Bag was on the seat behind Sam. My body was able to comfortably lie back against the side. Dean had some beers of his own back here in the space between the seats. I put my bags of food down next to the beers.
There was a giddy part of me that kept thinking this was my first road trip with the Winchesters. If I thought I could get away with it, I'd take out my iphone and take pictures. The disposable camera would have to do for now.
"Uh, Burt Aframian." Dean answered Sam as he climbed in the car. He put his food beside his seat. "And his son Hector. Scored two cards out of the deal." He grinned proudly.
"Dude nice." I complimented.
"That sounds about right." Sam shook his head. "I swear, man, you've gotta update your cassette tape collection."
Dean puffed his chest up. "Why?" He asked, ready to defend his tunes.
To be honest, I started snickering.
"Well, for one, they're cassette tapes. And two." Sam holds up a tape for every band he names. Sam "Black Sabbath? Motorhead? Metallica?"
"Metallica. Sweet!" I reached for the tape.
Sam glared at us in annoyance. "It's the greatest hits of mullet rock."
Dean yanked it away from both of our grubby hands.
"Dude! I wanted to play it!" I defended.
Dean's eyes glared at me. "I still don't like you touching it. Last time you nearly tossed it."
"You turned the car!" I defended for what felt like the hundredth time. "Of course the tape would fly out of my hand!"
"Well, house rules, Sammy." He pushed the tape in the tape player, pulling out the second Metallica tape. "Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole." He dropped the other one back in the box, while also turning on the engine.
The Impala purred for him. The music blasted out of the speakers. I started playing air drums to the music.
"You know, Sammy is a chubby twelve-year-old." He tried to shout over the music. "It's Sam, okay?"
His brother pretended not to hear. "Sorry, I can't hear you, the music's too loud."
He drove the Impala out of the gas station.
==DG==
It was another three hours before we made it to the Jericho sign.
"Thank you." Sam sighed when he finished his phone call. "All right. So, there's no one matching Dad at the hospital or morgue. So that's something, I guess."
"Whoa." I pulled myself up in the seat, pointing towards the bridge. You could make out a pair of police cars. "Check it out."
The two brothers moved for a closer look. Once they saw what I saw, they tensed. Dean pulled over. The three of us watched the police cars, looking for any sign of John. When there wasn't any, Dean pulled the fake ID's out of the glove box.
I went to my Bag, searching for some of mine. There was one from my days in the FBI that I had swapped out Raven's face for. With Dean's help, I had a few extra. I had come up with a quick lie telling him my other ones were getting old.
Dean held up his marshal badge. I held mine up beside it. The two of us exchanged grins while Sam watched this utter disregard for law in horror.
"Let's go." Dean decided.
Though I wasn't in a pantsuit, my outfit looked kinda professional. It was a blue plaid shirt, with a white tank under. My jeans were dark and new, with dark brown boots. All in all, not the least professional thing I'd seen someone wear. I took off the plaid shirt, pulling out a dark brown jacket from the Bag.
With my disguise ready, I climbed out of the car. It was not time before I was walking beside Dean. My shoulders were squared back with enough confidence to keep up my story.
It was the straw that made Sam get out of the car.
"You guys find anything?" Jaffe shouted from the bridge.
"No! Nothing!" An officer shouted from the river below.
The officer huffed, walking back to the car.
"No sign of struggle, no footprints, no fingerprints. Spotless." Hein reported from the driver's side. "It's almost too clean."
The brothers and I walked in the crime scene. They started glancing around for clues on what this thing was. I knew better. Instead, I found myself scanning for what I would when I was a fed.
Hein was right. There was nothing here that was suspicious except for the abandoned car.
"So, this kid Troy. He's dating your daughter, isn't he?"
"Yeah."
"How's Amy doing?"
"She's putting up missing posters downtown."
"You fellas had another one like this just last month, didn't you?" Dean asked.
Jaffe turned his head to Dean, suddenly noticing him and us. "And who are you?"
Dean pulled out his badge. "Federal marshals." He shoved it back in his pocket before Jaffe could get a good read.
"You three are a little young for marshals, aren't you?" Jaffe questioned.
"Thanks. I moisturize." I stated, walking over to Hein's side of the car. The officer was giving me an untrusting glare. I pretended to look over Troy's seat.
"You did have another one just like this, correct?" Dean pressed with Jaffe.
Jaffe nodded, still unsure about us being here. "Yeah, that's right. About a mile up the road. There've been others before that."
"So, this victim, you knew him?" Sam asked. Finally getting involved.
"Town like this, everybody knows everybody." Jaffe explained.
"These victims were all men." I stated, coming up from my crouched position. It was doing murder on my thighs. "Is there any other connection than that?"
"No. Not so far as we can tell." Jaffe admitted.
"So what's the theory?" Sam asked, as he and Dean made their way to me.
"Honestly, we don't know. Serial murder? Kidnapping ring?" Jaffe guessed.
"Well, that is exactly the kind of crack police work I'd expect out of you guys."
I kicked his shin the same time Sam stomped on his foot.
"Thank you for your time." Said Sam diplomatically before he walked away. "Gentlemen."
I gave them my brightest smile before following him. Dean followed me.
Once we were far enough away, Dean smacked both of us on the head.
"Ow!"
"Geez!"
"What was that for?" Sam asked, rubbing the spot.
"Why'd you have to step on my foot and kick my shin?" Dean challenged.
"Why do you have to talk to the police like that?" Sam countered.
"Will you two shut up! Then can still see us!" I reminded them.
Dean stepped in front of us, effectively blocking our path. "Come on. They don't really know what's going on. We're all alone on this." He argued. Behind him, proper feds were coming up. "I mean, if we're going to find Dad we've got to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves."
I was tempted to kick his shin to shut him up. Sam saved my skin, clearing his throat and looking over Dean's shoulder.
Dean turned to face the sheriff. "Can I help you boys?" Sheriff Pierce asked.
"No, sir, we were just leaving." Dean assured. The two agents walked past him. "Agent Mulder. Agent Scully."
The three of us went back to the Impala.
==DG==
We went into town. Our only lead was the girlfriend, Amy.
We found her by the movie theatre. The goth was hanging up pictures with Troy's face.
"I'll bet you that's her." Dean stated.
"Yeah." Sam and I agreed.
We walked up to her.
"You must be Amy." Dean greeted.
"Yeah." She replied, cooly.
"Yeah, Troy told us about you." Dean smiled warmly at her. "We're his uncles, and his aunt. I'm Dean, this is Sammy, and that's Raven."
"He never mentioned you to me." Amy replied easily. She turned to walk away.
Dean, Sam, and I walked with her.
"Well, that's Troy, I guess." I laughed. "We're not around much, we're up in Modesto."
"So, we're looking for him too, and we're kinda asking around." Sam joined in on the fun.
That was when another goth, Rachel, came up. She put a comforting arm over her friend. "Hey, are you okay?"
"Yeah." Amy nodded.
"You mind if we ask you a couple questions?" Sam asked.
They said it was okay.
There was a local diner they told us about. The five of us were seated at a booth, with Winchester opposite the girls, and me at the head of the table.
"I was on the phone with Troy. He was driving home. He said he would call me right back, and...he never did." Amy explained.
"He didn't say anything strange, or out of the ordinary?" Sam asked.
"No. Nothing I can remember." Amy answered.
"Cute necklace." I complimented, trying to lift her spirits.
She held up the pentagram necklace. She smiled. "Troy gave it to me. Mostly to scare my parents-" She laughed. "-with all that devil stuff."
"Actually, it means just the opposite. A pentagram is protection against evil. Really powerful." Sam explained before remembering himself. "I mean, if you believe in that kind of thing."
"Okay. Thank you, Unsolved Mysteries." Dean teased. He leaned forward in the booth. "Here's the deal, ladies. The way Troy disappeared, something's not right. So if you've heard anything..."
The girls exchanged a nervous look.
"What is it?" Dean asked.
"Well, it's just... I mean, with all these guys going missing, people talk." Rachel shrugged it off.
"What do they talk about?" Dean, Sam, and I asked.
Rachel shifted in her seat. She leaned forward on her elbows, looking down at her clenched hands. "It's kind of this local legend. This one girl? She got murdered out on Centennial, like decades ago. Well, supposedly she's still out there. She hitchhikes, and whoever picks her up? Well, they disappear forever."
The three of us shared a look.
'We had a ghost.'
==DG==
Dean was trying-and failing- to look up anything.
After ten minutes of failing to find anything, Sam pushed Dean out of the way. "Let me try."
"I got it." Dean pushed Sam back.
The younger shoves his brother away into my seat. I fell to the floor, landing on my bag. It hurt.
"Stupid nerds." I grumbled. Pushing myself to my feet, I grabbed Sam's old chair.
"Dude!" The older smacked his brother. "You're such a control freak."
"You're both idiots so it balances out." I snarked, trying to get comfortable in the new seat. It was warm and weird.
"So angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?" Sam asked, ignoring us both.
"Yeah." Dean and I grumbled.
"Well, maybe it's not murder." Sam changed murder to suicide. This one got us a result. "This was 1981. Constance Welch, twenty-four years old, jumps off Sylvania Bridge, drowns in the river."
A picture of Constance was beside it.
"Does the article say why she jumped?" I asked.
"Yeah." Sam scrolled down.
"What?" I pressed.
"An hour before they found her, she calls 911. Apparently her two little kids are in the bathtub. She leaves them alone for a minute, and when she comes back, they aren't breathing. Both die." Sam read off.
"Hm." Dean and I huffed in sympathy.
"'Our babies were gone, and Constance just couldn't bear it,' said husband Joseph Welch'." Sam read off.
"The bridge look familiar to you?" Dean asked, pointing at the bridge we passed on the way to town.
==DG==
That night, Dean drove us back to the bridge. The moon was half full, so everything was cloaked in darkness.
Dean leaned over the railing, staring down at the rocks below. I stayed closer to the road. Heights had never been great for me. "So this is where Constance took the swan dive."
"Unless they're another bridge exactly like this one that we missed." I snarked.
"So you think Dad would have been here?" Sam asked.
"Well, he's chasing the same story and we're chasing him." Dean reasoned.
We continued walking down the bridge, waiting for Constance. I knew she wouldn't come just yet.
"Okay, so now what?" Sam asked, impatiently.
"Now we keep digging until we find him." Dean reasoned. "Might take a while."
Sam stopped in his step. His glare was visible under the moonlit. "Dean, I told you, I've gotta get back by Monday-"
"Monday." Dean interrupted. I stopped in my step, lowering my head in annoyance. My brown hair fell over my face like a shroud. "Right. The interview."
"Yeah." Sam bitched.
"Yeah, I forgot." Dean brushed away. "You're really serious about this, aren't you? You think you're just going to become some lawyer? Marry your girl?"
"Maybe. Why not?" Sam asked.
"Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know about the things you've done?" Dean argued.
"Can you two stop arguing for five straight minutes?" I asked.
"No, and she's not ever going to know." Sam swore.
"Well, that's healthy." Dean scoffed. "You can pretend all you want, Sammy. But sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you really are."
"Don't you say it." I warned Dean.
"And who's that?" Sam challenged.
"You're one of us." Dean stated in an 'I'm the big brother so I'm right' voice.
"Oh dear Storyline he said it." I pinched my forehead with my fingers. "Guys we're trying to hunt-"
"No. I'm not like you. This is not going to be my life." Sam argued.
"You have a responsibility to-" Dean snapped.
"To Dad? And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like." Sam argued, his voice low. "And what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back."
I jumped back when Dean grabbed Sam by the collar.
"Hey!" I hissed. "Put him down! We'll get the wrong attention!"
That was when I saw Constance on the bridge.
"Uh...boys?"
But Dean wasn't listening to me. He was glaring Sam down, despite the height different. "Don't talk about her like that." He warned Sam.
The younger brother relented.
Dean let him go.
I punched both of their arms. They winced, rubbing at the marks.
"Way to go boys!" I snapped. I waved my arm in the direction of Constance. "We got her attention at least!"
The brothers looked off towards Constance. They both tensed.
The ghost turned her head towards us. Before anyone could move, she stepped over the edge.
I ran up to where she had been. Sam and Dean behind me.
"Where'd she go?" Dean asked.
"I don't know." Sam replied.
"Did you salt the car like I told you to?" I asked Dean.
He furrowed his eyebrows at the question.
I was answered by the bright headlights switching on.
"What the-" Dean asked.
"Who's driving your car?" Sam asked.
"Found Constance." I answered.
Dean swore under his breath.
Dean pulled out his car keys, as if to prove they were there. Sam stared at them in surprise.
Then we started running.
The car was coming closer and closer to us. Baby was trying to kill us. It was some cosmic joke that had the angels laughing upstairs. No doubt Chuck was losing his mind.
In the end, we had to jump off the bridge.
==DG==
My hands grabbed on to the metal bars below. My feet dangled below me. It was some work swinging them back up so I was in danger of falling.
When I made it back to the bridge, I clasped my hands on the railings to hold on for dear life.
"Sam? Dean?" I called out. "Boys!"
In the water, I could see two figures climbing out of the water. Dean hadn't surprised me, Sam had. I guess I took his space on the bridge.
"What?" They called up.
"You too okay?" I asked.
"Well...we're not dead." Sam answered.
Dean held up a gesture for okay. "We're super."
Pressing my back against the railing, I nodded. A laugh bubbled up from my throat. 'They're idiots.'
Below, I heard Sam laughing too.
==DG==
Dean's first action when he made it back up the bridge was to check on the Impala.
"Your car all right?" Sam asked.
"Yeah, whatever she did to it, seems all right now." Dean shook his head. He glared off in the direction we had last seen Constance. "That Constance chick, what a bitch!"
"Well, she doesn't want us digging around, that's for sure. So where's the job go from here, genius?" Sam asked. He leaned against the hood of the car beside me.
I grimaced. "We're not doing anything until you two shower. You smell like toilets."
The two brothers looked themselves. Their matching grimaces told me they could smell it too.
==DG==
It was morning by the time we made it to a motel.
"One room, please." Dean threw down the Aframain card. The two of them were still gross sticky messes.
The clerk looked down at the card. "You guys having a reunion or something?" He asked.
"What do you mean?" Sam asked,
"I had another guy, Burt Aframian. He came and bought out a room for the whole month." The clerk admitted. He went to
The three of us exchanged knowing looks.
==DG==
Sam picked the lock of John's hotel room.
The walls were covered in printed out articles. John had picked out related supernatural photos. The dead men had their own wall.
John was good.
"Whoa." Sam and I breathed out.
Dean turned on the light, showing off more detail of the room. As neat and organized as the walls were, the rest of it was a dump. Half eaten food thrown around, a few old shirts stuffed by the bed, coupled with a smell that said the room hadn't been aired out in at least a week.
"I don't think he's been here for a couple days at least."
"Really, I would've said a week." I tried to avoid smelling the overripe room. I walked over to the wall with Constance's face slapped on.
"Salt, cats-eye shells...he was worried. Trying to keep something from coming in." Sam pointed out. "What have you got here?" He asked Dean.
"Centennial Highway victims." Dean noted. "I don't get it. I mean, different men, different jobs, ages, ethnicities. There's always a connection, right? What do these guys have in common?"
"I think your dad figured it out." I spoke up.
"What do you mean?" Sam asked.
"He found the same article you did." I pointed at the printed out paper, then trailed my finger down to the photo of the woman in white. "She's a woman in white."
"You sly dogs." Dean spoke to the wall of victims. "All right, so if we're dealing with a woman in white, Dad would have found the corpse and destroyed it."
"She might have another weakness." Sam thought out loud.
"Well, Dad would want to make sure." Dean came up to my side. "He'd dig her up. Does it say where she's buried?"
I scanned it. "Doesn't say."
"If I were Dad, though, I'd go ask her husband." Sam came up on my other side, tapping the photo of Joseph Welch. "If he's still alive."
"All right. Why don't you two, uh, see if you can find an address, I'm gonna get cleaned up." Dean instructed.
"When your done, it's his turn to shower." I poked Sam's shoulder (trying to avoid the mud and other questionable things there.)
Sam grimaced at his own untidy self. Dean just laughed. He went inside the bathroom. I was willing to bet money it smelled as horrible as the rest of the room. I made my way towards one of the other walls to avoid the smell.
"Hey, Dean?" Sam spoke up. Dean paused, turning back to his brother. "What I said earlier, about Mom and Dad, I'm sorry."
"No chick-flick moments." Dean warned.
It was clear he had let the whole thing go. My lips curled up in a warm smile
"All right." Sam laughed. "Jerk."
"Bitch." Dean shot back.
"Idiots." I snickered.
Sam laughed again. As Dean left, Sam noticed the photo his dad had pinned up. He went up to pick it up. His smile was fond now.
"What happened to her?" I asked, once I heard the sounds of Dean starting the shower.
Sam turned over to me. The photo was still in his hand. "Dean didn't say?"
I shook my head. "You know him. He's not a guy for heart to hearts. That and...it sounds like a personal story. You've been talking about it and I...just feel weird being out of the know."
Sam let out that small little half laugh he does. The kind that's under his breath, but lights up his whole face. "Yeah. I guess I made it kinda awkward bringing it up earlier, huh?"
"You did, yeah. Thanks for that." I teased.
He snorted. "Yeah well...it's not the kind of story you start friendships with."
'It's the story you use to make friendships last.'
He settled down beside me on the bed. I tilted my body away to avoid the mud. "Mom was killed by a demon when i was six months old. She died in my nursery. Dad says he found her, burning on the ceiling." He sighed, as if hearing the story for the first time all over again. "He started hunting after that. He took Dean and me with him, raising us to be hunters. Except when I was seventeen I was offered a scholarship. Dad said if I took it, I wasn't allowed back. So I left."
I bumped my shoulder against his. It would've been a stretch if he had been standing. "I can't remember a time I wasn't in the life. My sister...she hunted with me too." My smile dropped at the memory of my sister. Instead was a heartbreaking frown. "She died a couple years back...it...it's still hard to talk about, you know?"
"Yeah, it's alright. I get it." Sam went to put his hand around my back, then thought better of it. His hand was covered in mud so I was thankful. "As annoying as Dean is, I don't know what I'd do if he died."
'You get hooked on demon blood. I don't like thinking about it either.' "...I hope you never have too. I hate my life without..." 'What was her fake name here again? Holy crap this is irritating.' "...Ivy."
"Raven and Ivy Quinzel?"
"What, we can't have fake names?" I challenged with a mocking grin. Sam raised his eyebrow at me. "Kinda hiding from...things. Can't exactly go by my birth name. They'd find me and kill me. As much as I love my sister, I'm in no hurry to join her in the afterlife. She'd kick my ass for dying this young."
Sam gave me a look of assurance.
Then, we got on looking up the address of Joseph Welch.
It had felt good to talk about my sister. Back Home, I couldn't say much without getting looks. No one liked hearing about my assassin of a sister. Talking about her, in any context, was relaxing. Freeing.
It didn't shake away the grief I felt without her, though.
==DG==
Sam was finishing his shower up now. Dean had finished up five minutes ago. Already, the room was smelling better.
When Sam stepped out, Dean went back into hunter mode.
"Hey, guys. I'm starving, I'm gonna grab a little something to eat in that diner down the street. You want anything?" Dean asked.
"No." Sam grabbed his jacket. (Which I had covered in the salt cream while he was in the shower)
"Aframian's buying." Dean offered.
"Mm-mm." Sam shook the water off his hair.
"Ooh take me!" I raised my arm.
Dean grinned. He opened the door, walking out. He left it open for me. I ran out.
We didn't get far before seeing Jaffe and Hein in the parking lot, talking to the clerk.
Dean pulled his phone, calling Sam.
"What?" Sam asked when he answered.
"Dude, five-oh, take off." Dean warned.
"What about you guys?" Sam asked, on alert.
"Uh, they kinda spotted us. Go find Dad." Dean ordered. He clapped the phone shut, turning to the officers. "Problem, officers?"
"Where's your other partner?" Jaffe asked.
"Other partner? What, what other partner?" Dean lied horribly.
Jaffe motioned for Hein to check out the motel room. Dean shifted on his feet beside me. I kept my face cool and calm.
"So. Fake US Marshals. Fake credit cards. You got anything that's real?" Jaffe challenged us.
"My boobs." Dean decided to say.
"Mine are actually fake." Was my joking addition. "Yeah. These are just used socks."
Dean and I grinned.
Not long after, Hein was handcuffing us against the hood of the cop car.
'Worth it if it gave Sam time to escape.'
==DG==
Due to the small size of the department, Dean and I were being interrogated in the same room.
They had taken my Bag into evidence. It was making my skin crawl to have it so far away.
Pierce finally stomped in the room some ten minutes after Dean and I were left here. He was carrying a storage box. Inside, I was rolling my eyes. I had done this all the time when I was a fed.
"So you want to give us your real names?" Pierce asked.
"I told you, it's Nugent. Ted Nugent." Dean replied.
"Veronica Dunnstock." I added with a faint smile. "Two n's in Dunnstock."
"I'm not sure the both of you realize just how much trouble you two're in here." Pierce warned.
"We talkin', like, misdemeanor kind of trouble or, uh, squeal like a pig trouble?" Dean asked.
"You got the faces of ten missing persons taped to your wall." Pierce brought up. "Along with a whole lot of Satanic mumbo-jumbo. You are officially suspects."
"Right, yeah, I get it. Because the first man was taken in '82. Before I was born."
"I know you've got partners. One of 'em's an older guy. Maybe he started the whole thing. So tell me. Dean." He tossed John's journal across the table. "This his?"
Dean stared down at it, otherwise not saying anything.
I was already mentally flipping the bird at the book. For no other reason than it was John's. It was oddly relaxing.
The sheriff started turning pages in the journal. "I thought that might be your name. See, I leafed through this. What little I could make out-I mean, it's nine kinds of crazy." He turned to one of the last pages. "But I found this, too."
In black sharpie, 'Dean 35-111' was written. Dean leaned forward enough to read the message.
"Now. Both of you're stayin' right here till you tell me exactly what the hell that means." Pierce ordered.
==DG==
"I don't know how many times I gotta tell you. It's my high school locker combo." Dean repeated for the hundredth time that night.
Pierce had been interrogating us on this for hours. His face was getting on my nerves. "We gonna do this all night long?"
'Chuck I hope not. How much longer until Sam fakes the call?'
As if the writer had heard my thoughts, a deputy walked into the room. "We just got a 911, shots fired over at Whiteford Road." He reported.
The sheriff eyed Dean and I. "Boy, you have to go to the bathroom?"
"No."
"You little lady?" Pierce asked.
I sent him a look at the nickname. "No."
"Good." He handcuffed Dean to the table. He took the deputy's handcuffs to handcuff me beside Dean.
I waited until he was gone to pull a paper clip from my jean pocket. "This reminds me of that case we had in Nevada last month. Didn't you get me arrested for assault?" I started picking at my lock.
Dean snorted, shaking his head. "Nah. You were arrested because you shot that guy in the foot."
"He was supposed to be a werewolf! How was I supposed to know he just had anger issues?"
==DG==
Once Dean and I made it out, we high tailed it to a phone booth. (Okay, bit of a lie. I had stolen my Bag back first. Wouldn't be my first time taking something from lockup).
He started digging for change to call Sam when I pulled out my phone
"What's happening Sam?" I spoke when he answered.
Dean huffed in annoyance, stuffing change back in his pockets.
"Fake 911 call? Nice touch." I complimented. I put him on speaker, holding my phone up for Dean to hear. "And illegal. Shouldn't that be a big no-no for lawyers?"
"You're welcome." Sam's grin was in his voice.
"Listen, we gotta talk." Dean walked over. He reached for my phone but I pulled it out of his reach.
The two of us fussed over who had control of the phone while Sam spoke. "Tell me about it. So the husband was unfaithful. We are dealing with a woman in white. And she's buried behind her old house, so that should have been Dad's next stop."
"Sammy, would you shut up for a second?" Dean snapped. "Raven give me the phone!"
"It's my phone! You should've grabbed your's when we left!" I snapped back.
"I just can't figure out why Dad hasn't destroyed the corpse yet." Sam talked around us.
"Well, that's what I'm trying to tell you!" Dean gave up trying to grab the phone. He shrugged uselessly, looking dejected. "He's gone. Dad left Jericho."
"What?" Sam and I asked.
"How do you know?" Sam asked.
"I've got his journal." Dean revealed.
"The numbers..." I pretended to realize. Dean nodded.
"He doesn't go anywhere without that thing." Sam noted.
"Yeah, well, he did this time."
"What's it say?"
"Ah, the same old ex-Marine crap, when he wants to let us know where he's going." Dean explained.
"Coordinates." Sam recalled. "Where to?"
"I'm not sure yet." Dean admitted.
"I don't understand. I mean, what could be so important that Dad would just skip out in the middle of a job? Dean, what the hell is going on?" Sam asked.
"It is odd that a hunter would-"
The rest of my sentence was cut off by mechanical screeches.
"What was that?" I asked sternly.
"Sam? Sam!" Dean shouted.
"...take me home." A ghostly voice demanded just before the call cut off.
==DG==
We had stolen a car to get to the old Welch house.
Constance was screaming as we arrived. She pulled herself off Sam, quickly going static and evaporating.
Sam looked around in confusion.
Dean went to the trunk to pull out a gun with rock salt.
When Constance came back a second time, she found a way around his jacket. Sam screamed in pain. Dean quickly fired her full of salt.
"I'm taking you home." Sam growled at Constance. He slammed his foot on the gas. He drove the Impala right into the house.
"Sam!" Dean called out.
"Sam! Still alive?" I called out, following Dean inside.
"Sam! You okay?" Dean asked. He made it to the passenger's side of the Impala.
"I think..." Sam groaned.
Dean handed me the rock salt gun. "Can you move?"
"Yeah. Help me?" Sam asked with another pained groan.
Dean nodded. He reached his arm in, pulling Sam out. I kept a watch out for Constance.
She appeared in the room, family painting in her hands. Raising the shotgun, I waited for her to make any move or realize we were here.
Sam was out of the car soon enough. Constance glared at us with her cold black eyes. She threw the painting down on the floor, stepping aside.
As the piece of furniture moved towards us, I tried to fire the shotgun. It was out of ammo. 'Dammit Dean too many shots to the ghostface!' The old wooden furniture pushed me back against the Impala. Sam and Dean groaned beside me.
I tried pushing it off me. Constance was keeping it in place. It was bearing down on my legs. The lights flickered to my relief. Constance was losing concentration, looking up at the lights. I heard water pouring from the staircase.
"You've come home to us, Mommy." Two scary ass kids spoke at the same time.
The two kids appeared beside their mother. She didn't have a chance to run away. Her kids pulled her in for a hug. Constance screamed out in pain as the family brightly vanished into the floor.
All they left behind was a puddle.
"So...this is where she drowned her kids." I noted once we were free.
"That's why she could never go home. She was too scared to face them." Sam explained.
Dean grinned at his brother, proud. "You found her weak spot. Nice work, Sammy." He slapped Sam's still injured chest.
The younger brother laughed through the pain. "Yeah, I wish I could say the same for you. What were you thinking shooting Casper in the face, you freak?"
"Hey. Saved your ass." Dean reminded. He elbowed my arm. "She did too. Put some salt on your jacket. Saved your from getting your chest ripped open."
I shrugged. "A mixture I made with salt that keeps ghosts from grabbing you. I put it on your jacket when you were showering." He went over to check on the Impala.
Sam lifted his eyebrows at me. "You made that?"
I nodded. "Has saved my ass-and your brother's-more than enough times."
"I'll tell you another thing." Sam and I turned back to him. Dean was standing at the driver's side. He was glaring at his brother. "If you screwed up my car? I'll kill you."
Sam and I laughed.
"In his defense, Constance drove for most of the way." I excused. "Sam knows this stuff. He's a lawyer."
Sam laughed again.
==DG==
Driving along the highway, our stuff all packed back up, hunt finished, I knew I should feel relaxed. It was hard to feel relaxed knowing someone was dying in a few hours and I was doing nothing against it except eating caramels.
Sam was searching for the coordinates with a ruler and a paper map. He was using a flashlight tucked under his chin, and a pen. "Okay, here's where Dad went." Sam reported. "It's called Blackwater Ridge, Colorado."
"Sounds charming. How far?" Dean asked.
"About six hundred miles." Sam admitted. He was already seeing the problem with it.
His brother didn't. "Hey, if we shag ass we could make it by morning."
"Dean, I, um..." Sam opened and closed his mouth, trying to find the right words for I'm abandoning you for my own selfish wants.
Dean stared at him, shocked. "You're not going."
"Your interview's that important, huh?" I asked.
"The interview's in like, ten hours. I gotta be there." The younger excused.
Though Dean didn't say, both Sam and I felt his disappointment at the decision. "Yeah. Yeah, whatever. We'll take you home."
He drove on.
For the rest of the drive, he didn't look at Sam even for a glance.
==DG==
Dean pulled up in front of the apartment a few hours later. It had been an uncomfortably silent ride.
"Call me if you find him?" Sam asked after he climbed out of the car.
Dean only nodded.
"And maybe I can meet up with you later, huh?" Sam offered.
"Yeah, all right." But they both knew the chances of that were slim.
Except me.
"Sam?" Dean called out. Sam turned around. "You know, we made a hell of a team back there."
Sam sucked in his lips. "Yeah."
"It was nice meeting you." I admitted to him. "Wish it was under better circumstances."
Sam nodded. "Yeah. Nice meeting you too."
Dean drove off. I watched as Sam's shoulders slumped. Then, he made the climb back to his apartment.
We'd barely left the block before we saw the fire.
Even without turning around I knew it was too late. Jess was gone.
==DG==
I always hated it when the police were gathered around a building like this. It felt like a neon sign saying that I had let that person die.
They were always right.
Sam was glaring at the building as if the bricks and mortar themselves had done this to him.
Dean and I, we were being supportive. We didn't even have to ask Sam if he wanted to get in the car. He was already throwing his backpack in the passenger seat.
"We got work to do." He slammed the trunk shut.
==DG==
AN: Holy shit this took awhile. I finally cracked down on writing this thanks for a friend, SkadiLokison, and some writing tips online. My summer has been intense. Lucky for me college starts in a week!
We've been through a lot. Comic!Con happened. The Tweet happened (it about near killed my friend who is a die-hard Padalecki fan) and Twitter/tumblr exploded. I binged watched Star Trek because it's a gorgeous work of art (yes I ship McKock/McSpirk. OT3 for life!)
Also, Cas, gets your feathery ass back to life or I will drag Chuck back here and MAKE HIM bring you back AGAIN!
Happy birthday to me! This is my present to myself: finished/published chapters!
Thanks to CleanerFuzzball for favoriting
Thanks to Dreamer Miyu, Scribleyellow, mlr96, Juplin, and CleanerFuzzball for following