"Supplier? Of what?" Percy asked. Dean looked down, like he knew what Sam was about to say but feared the worst.
Sam looked hesitant to say. "It's..."
"Demon blood." Dean answered succinctly.
Percy blinked. "Okay. Wow." He shut himself up, not allowing himself to say anything else in case something worse came out.
Sam hung his head depreciatingly. "I know. It's pretty bad. But it's the only way I can have these powers, this ability to exorcise demons without hurting the host."
"Oh, so you think it's justified?" Dean raged. "She's playing you, Sammy!"
"So what?" Sam asked, bitter sarcasm in his voice. "I'm defeating demons without hurting people! Isn't that what we were trying to do in the first place?"
Dean looked like he was going to say something particularly nasty, but Percy cut him off. "What the hell are you two arguing about? Like, for real?"
Dean turned around, ready to unleash his wrath upon Percy now. Percy held up a hand. "This is stupid."
"Well, I don't see you helping any." Dean snarked.
"Really?" Percy lost most of his restraint. "What have I done since I showed up but save your sorry asses? And now I'm trying to do that yet again, and you're still fighting over trivial matters!"
"Sorry." Sam said, at the same time as Dean's, "Fuck you."
Percy sighed. "Okay, Sam. Solution time. What if I just killed Ruby? What then?"
"I'd have to quit the demon blood, cold-turkey. And we don't know what kind of side effects occur from that."
"Okay, so that's out." Percy said. "What if we just kinda….weaned you off?"
"She'd notice." Dean replied immediately. "Demons are crafty. There's no way she'd let Sam escape from her grasp."
"So our only options are bad, and worse." Percy summed up. "Fantastic." He sat down heavily on the motel bed.
A violent thought flitted across Percy's mind… that they should kidnap the demon and drain her of blood before hilling her. Then they could wean Sam off…..
He almost voiced it, but he didn't really want the Winchesters to consider him a maniac.
It was the only real good solution, though.
He tried to rephrase it as nicely as possible. "Do you think we could… I dunno… stock up on demon blood, and then kill Ruby?"
Dean looked thoughtful. "That might actually work. Huh."
Sam smiled hopefully at Percy. "At the very least, it's a start."
Percy hated the way his chest still fluttered at the sight of Sam's smiles. He was past this, gods-dammit.
Slowly, as if admitting to a truce, Dean started unpacking his duffel bag.
Just then, a phone started to ring.
Percy checked his pockets instinctively (he didn't know why he did, cell phones still attracted monsters, so he rarely carried them), only to see Sam pick up a phone out of his back pocket and hold it to his ear.
"Hello?" He asked, sounding professional. "Whoa, okay. Where? …. Jack Montgomery. Got it." He gestured at Percy, and Percy handed over his pen. Sam uncapped it and nearly dropped the phone, but he put the cap on the end and it shrank to a useable pen.
Damn. Percy was more than a little miffed that Sam had figured that out years faster than he had.
Sam started scribbling down an address and a name, that Montgomery dude, before capping the pen and tossing it back to Percy.
"Okay. Thanks, Travis. We'll check it out." He hung up.
Turning to Percy and Dean, he explained, "That was Travis. Dad's old hunting buddy. Says there's a possible hunt in Carthage, Missouri."
"Carthage, Missouri?" Percy echoed.
"Yeah. Something about that familiar to you?" Dean asked.
Percy shook his head dumbly. "No." But the truth was, there was something vaguely familiar about the location. Percy didn't know if that was because he'd dreamed about it before, or been there but somehow forgotten about it, or something else. But something rang a bell…
Sam glanced at him of out the side of his eye, but didn't say anything.
"Well, guess you get to visit brilliant Missouri for the first time, then!" Dean said, falsely cheery.
"Okay." Percy said. "Let's get going, then."
.:~*~:.
The ride to Carthage was a long, awkward one.
Percy was alone by himself in the back of the Impala, with Dean blasting his questionable music the entire way up. Sam had gone to sleep early on, but Percy stayed up with Dean.
And while Sam was asleep, the two of them talked.
"So, Percy." Dean said. "You sure you never been to Carthage?"
"Dude, why are you pressing?"
"Your reaction." Dean said. "Something about Carthage is important to you. Even if you don't remember."
Percy closed his eyes and leaned back. "Sure."
'Are you a camper?' 'I used to be. Once upon a time. But these monsters….they ain't like the ones you're used to. I had to get good, quick. And you will too.'
Percy jerked his head up, eyes opening wide. "Dean, did you hear that?" He hissed, quietly.
Dean didn't even look back at him. "No."
The voice had sounded maddeningly familiar.
Percy closed his eyes again and concentrated, remembering the sound of the voice. The first one was definitely him. He was asking if somebody was a camper. And the other person…. Why couldn't he remember?
It was almost as if the man was talking about the Hunters' monsters, not the Greek ones but the ones from legends of all pantheons, the ones that murdered and raped and stole souls.
Was that how he got started? Percy tried to remember.
Why couldn't he remember?
Percy strained his mind, trying to recall, impossibly, what had happened to him. He hadn't even noticed the hole in his memory until Dean- and Carthage- had brought it up.
'I had to get good quick. And you will too.' 'Good? But I already know how to use my sword.'
Percy curled up in the back seat of the Impala, trying his best to draw up the memory. If Dean noticed, he said nothing.
The rest of the ride passed in silence.
.:~*~:.
There was a man waiting for them in the parking lot of the motel as they pulled in.
"Hey, Travis." He and Dean hugged, before the man turned to Sam and hugged him as well.
"And who are you?" The man turned to Percy.
"I'm Chase." Percy said, the name falling from his lips like second nature, now. Percy hated it.
Travis shook his hand jovially. "Nice to meet'cha, Chase."
Percy noticed that his other hand was in a cast. "What happened there?"
Travis's face darkened for a second. "Tangled with a drider a few states south of here."
Percy had no clue what a drider was. It sounded like something out of D&D.
"I'm sorry to hear that." Sam said sincerely.
Travis shrugged. "It is what it is. Anyways, did you find the guy yet?"
"Jack?" Dean asked. "I think we saw him on the way in. Eating a burger he forgot to cook." Dean almost phrased it like a question, as if he wasn't sure if it was really the right person.
Travis nodded sagely. "That's him, alright."
"What is he?" Percy asked.
"We got a rougarou on our hands," Travis said.
"That sounds fake." Dean asserted.
"Yeah, they're pretty ugly sons of bitches. Rotted teeth, wormy skin, the works."
Percy had an image of zombies in his head. "But…" he said. "This Jack guy… he looked pretty typical. Like an ordinary mortal."
"Mortal?" Sam asked.
Shit. Percy hastily tried to think of a cover-up. "Yeah…killable, the way I'm assuming the rougarou isn't."
Sam looked like he barely bought it. "I guess. But every monster has its weakness."
Travis looked at Sam proudly, like he was an uncle watching his favorite kid grow up. "Yeah. They start out human looking, anyways. But they change, like a maggot turning into a bull fly."
"But most of all," He continued. "They're hungry."
"For what?" Dean asked.
"Anything, at first. Later on, though… long pig."
"Oh no." Percy whispered. Another flesh-eating monster that he had to deal with, that so far only Travis seemed to know about. Which meant only he knew how to kill. Which meant if anything went wrong, anything whatsoever, they were going to have a helluva time killing the thing.
"What the hell is 'long pig?'?" Dean asked, sensing that everybody else seemed to know what it was.
"Human flesh." Sam clarified.
"And that is my word of the day." Dean said.
"How long do we have until he turns?" Percy asked Travis, needing to know how dire the situation was.
"Theoretically, never." Travis said.
"Well, that's helpful." Percy snarked. "What do you mean theoretically?"
Travis gave him the stink eye. "If he never eats human flesh, he'll never turn. However, we have about as much chance of that happening as finding a fart in a tornado."
.:~*~:.
Jack looked at his wife, running her finger under the water after having cut it.
"I think I need stitches." She moaned.
Jack looked at his wife's hand again, feeling somehow unwell.
"Jack." Michelle complained.
"I gotta get outta here." Jack said. He grabbed his jacket and rushed out the door, ignoring his wife's cry of, "Jack, wait!"
He made his way to the bar, not even bothering to take the car, needing the fresh air a brisk walk would provide.
When he got there, he headed straight for the bartender, ordering a whiskey and some peanuts.
He wasn't sat down for long when a voice behind him called his name. "Jack."
He spun around to see a handsome twenty-something looking at him in a funny way.
"What do you need?" He forced out, not wanting any more human interaction.
The other man snapped, and time seemed to freeze.
Jack looked around wildly, wondering what the hell had just happened. His eyes shot back to the man, who was advancing on him.
"What the hell, kid?"
The kid took out a baseball bat (a baseball bat? What the fuck?) and swung it underhanded, sort of like he was golfing.
Jack's head hit the ground, and time resumed.