This wasn't like him at all. Well, Sam hadn't really acted like himself in two years, but still. Sam didn't really like to go to parties. He didn't really like crowds, even if the Stars Hollow crowds were small. He drank with his friends out in a field once in a while, a rite of passage for any small town teenage boy, but he didn't really enjoy the taste of cheap whiskey that his friends' parents wouldn't miss from the liquor cabinet. But now, he chugged from his red solo cup like it was the last drink he would ever get. Now that he was leaving the next day, he supposed it would be the last drink he had, at least in Stars Hollow.

"Dude, slow down," Kyle laughed, despite being two drinks deeper than Sam already. Kyle always got way drunker, way faster than anyone. Maybe because he was smaller, maybe because he guzzled beers like water.

Sam finished off the last of his drink, tossing his cup into a garbage bag at the bottom of the steps. He was ready for a third cup, but a door slam from upstairs gave him pause. His stomach lurched as he saw Rory storm down the hall. He had come here tonight as a final farewell, but also to escape his own thoughts. Rory had broken up with him suddenly a few days ago. He had hoped to convince her to give him another chance when he learned yesterday from a concerned Lorelai that Rory had kissed Jess before Sam had any idea that he and Rory were over. Maybe that's why it was so easy for him to pack his bag to leave when Dean called him earlier.

But now, as Rory moved quickly down the steps, Sam couldn't find it in himself to be angry at her. She held her arms tightly around herself as tears ran down her face. Sam didn't stop to think about that fact that she cheated on him or that she had dumped him, he just held his hand out, stopping her before she could reach the bottom of the steps.

"What's wrong?" He asked her over the music. Rory shook her head, not looking at Sam. "Rory, come on." He urged.

"Of course, you're here to the rescue," Jess said from the top of the stairs. He climbed down, shouldering past Sam with his hands in his pockets, aloof as always. It didn't take much for Sam to put two and two together.

"Hey, asshole," Sam said, despite Rory trying to pull him back.

"What?" Jess said. "What are you gonna do, Sasquach? Hit me again?"

"Not a bad idea."

The inn was a lot nicer than the crappy, no star motels they had to stay in normally. Sam remembered how Lorelai used to talk about the Dragonfly Inn. She wanted nothing more than to fix it up and now she had, Sam was kind of proud of her.

"Alright, thanks, Garth," Dean said, hanging up the phone.

"Anything?" Sam asked.

"Garth checked, Jess doesn't have a record, just a hell of a lot of unpaid parking tickets," Dean said.

"So he could just be good at covering his tracks," Sam said. "It doesn't make sense that he would be here without Luke telling him about Rory."

"I know, Sammy, I know," Dean said, holding his hands up. "I'm not defending the guy, I'm just telling you what Garth told me. Besides, I thought you said you didn't think he would really hurt your girl."

"That was before I found out he was stashing a picture of the other missing girl."

"He's definitely high on my Sketchy Subjects list, but he didn't seem like any sort of monster to me."

"This town isn't known for its paranormal activity, Dean," Sam explained, sitting down on the edge of the carefully made bed. "I was here for almost two years without so much as a cold spot. I think Jess could just be a run of the mill psycho."

"I'll take your word for it, but we both gotta admit you're a little biased."

"It was ten years ago, Dean," Sam said. "I'm over it."

"Sounds exactly like something someone who wasn't over it would say," Dean shrugged. Sam rolled his eyes.

"She was my first real girlfriend, so yeah, I'm still a little bit upset about it, but I don't let it get to me. I left after that anyways."

"It's not like she knew who you were anyways, the whole thing was a lie."

Sam didn't like how Dean's words hit him. He had never thought of it that way. Sure, Sam lied about his name and his school work, and maybe about his reading habits, but he didn't feel like he was playing a part for Rory. He always told her how he felt, he was always honest with her about that, and that felt more important than telling her about his past. But now that he thought about it, how could he have expected her to tell him the truth when he didn't even tell her his name.

"Yeah," Sam said softly. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Dean grabbed Sam's shoulder, pausing deadly still as if listening for something. "Did you hear that?" He asked. He went to the window, looking out at the darkened sky outside.

"Hear what?"

"That noise," Dean said.

"Dean, I told you, nothing supernatural happens in this town. They don't get the bumps in the night that we're used to. It's probably a raccoon or something."

"Except that two girls have gone missing without a trace," Dean said, grabbing his gun and tucking one of their silver knives into his waistband. "Come on."

Sam couldn't argue with him and had no intention of trying. He grabbed his own gun and followed his brother out the door and down the hall.

"It was outside," Dean whispered back to Sam, leading them out the front door. No one was in the front room, all the other patrons had gone to their rooms for the night. He hoped Sookie had gone home already; he didn't want to explain to her why he had a gun.

They walked along the porch, down the path towards the barn. Sam was about to tell Dean that maybe he was being paranoid when he heard the distinct squelch of a knife through flesh and bone.

The boys broke into a run, heading for the barn as fast as they could. Sam readied his gun as Dean kicked the door open.

Sam felt his jaw drop at the scene before him. Jess, his shirt slashed, stood with a machete in his hands, splattered with blood. The body at his feet was decapitated, the head a few feet away.

Sam kept his gun trained on Jess as Dean stepped forward, nudging the head with the toe of his boot.

"It's not what you think," Jess said, no hint of his normal sarcasm and malice. "That wasn't a human."

"Yeah, it's a vamp," Dean confirmed, seeing the fangs poking through the corpse's gums.

"You know it's a vampire?" Jess asked, his arm wielding the machete dropping slightly.

"How do you know it's a vampire?" Sam asked. "And how did you know how to kill it?"