Sam Winchester glanced around the apartment, taking in the home and space he and Jess had created together. Actually "together" was too strong a word. It was mostly a space Jessica had created for him. Out of the spartan look of the old apartment with its decent sized rooms, neutral paint colors and wooden flooring she had created a home for him.

She had a green thumb and a love of growing things. Every available window that got decent light had a houseplant parked in front of it. She'd brought in furniture from her parents, lamps, chairs, even an old gourd repurposed into a vase. Her art work-with a tendency to the abstract-stood on an easel in their living room. She wasn't always tidy and thus the apartment had a lived in look with clothes lying draped over the arm of the couch or a DVD lying here or there.

It was all Jessica. Sam's contribution was a shelf full of books and the old antique desk he'd rescued from the curbside.

And yet...he didn't mind. At all. He was surrounded by Jessica. And Jessica meant home. Meant safety. Meant Love.

He moved a half empty coffee cup left on his desk. The rim had left a slight watermark and he wiped his hand over the slight warp in the wood. Coasters. They needed coasters.

His fingernail traced the groove of the old wood and he moved to tidy a few papers. He saw a sheet of discarded printer paper in the stack that she'd scrawled I love Sam and Jess and Sam Forever on and his mouth curled up into a smile. It was stupid, even juvenile, but it warmed his heart.

He grabbed a pen and wrote: I love you too. But when he tried to scrawl it, the ink had dried and he only dragged the ball tip over the surface of the paper. He pressed harder and retraced his line. Finally the ink started flowing again and he rewrote it then set it aside.

Sam looked down at the desk top and realized that his pressing so hard had left an indentation in the varnish of the soft wood. Only visible at the right angle to catch the light, the desktop read I love you too.

Sam Winchester was not an impulsive man. He'd seldom done things on a whim without thinking them through, but despite his natural sobriety, there was a dichotomy in his nature because he also trusted his instincts. Thinking got in the way of instinct.

Thus the idea to propose to Jessica was a well thought out plan with all options considered, but I love you too carved into the desktop had awakened his instincts. And thus he set about acting on them.


Brady could feel the building storm from where he was inside his apartment. The charged ions of the atmosphere, the sense of impending power brewing, ready to explode. There had been more cattle deaths. Crop failures. All signs that demons were on the move. Most likely Azazel or others of their kind gathering power, telling Brady it was nearing time to act. He, himself, would cause mayhem with the weather when he finally put plan into action.

The hooker in his bed room was passed out from too many drugs and she barely moved when he grabbed her by her tangled mop of fake blonde hair and slit her throat to let the blood drain. He caught it in a chalice, licked his lips as his eyes went black.

Brady watched her bleed out in fascination. How the partly viscous fluid dripped ruby into the gold of the cup. It didn't behave quite like water, the consistency all wrong. Fascinating stuff, blood.

Somewhere, in the very back of his mind, he could hear Tyson Brady, the real Tyson Brady protesting weakly in distress. So the kid was still alive back there, despite being quiet for so long. He made a mental footnote that he would have to dispatch of him soon. The Demon Brady was keeping this meat suit. It was a great one and he wasn't planning on sharing.

He dropped his voice into a language older than Latin. The chalice swirled. The red coalesced into yellow eyes.

"I'm awaiting your instructions."

Brady paused, tilting his head, listening to the smooth voice from the other side.

Brady nodded once. "November the second. I understand." He said.

Sam Winchester was going to lose Jessica exactly as he'd lost his mother. And Brady was going to do the honors.


Sam paused awkwardly near the Jewelry counter in the Midtown Mall. He didn't step into the carpeted space, he sort of hovered awkwardly, one foot on the line where the store was tucked behind a few pillars. Rows of glass cases and bright lights greeted his vision and he bit his lip, tentative, unsure.

He hovered near the entrance for another moment or two, his eyes roaming over the various pieces of jewelry. -Necklaces and bracelets, pins, rings. So many adornments that sparkled in colored stones of greens and blues and ambers. So many little stones and precious metals that cost the equivalent of a month's rent. Sometimes more. The sheer wastefulness of it struck Sam as odd.

A sales associate was scoping him out. She caught his eye.

Dammit.

He dropped his gaze -hoping to get away before he was accosted, but it was too late.

A trim woman Sam estimated to be in her fifties approached him. She was attractive except for mildly sun damaged skin. Too many tans as a college youth.

Unbidden, the thought crossed his mind that too much brightness could be as detrimental to a person as too much darkness.

"Hi honey." She said cheerfully. "Can I help you?"

"Umm. Just looking." Sam replied awkwardly, subconsciously backing a step.

She gave a knowing smile. Her name tag read Elena. "Looking for something for your girlfriend?"

"Y...yeah." he replied.

"A present... or..." her dark eyes measured him as she spoke. "Or are you thinking of popping the question?" She read the answer in his expression before he replied. "Awww. Congratulations. Does she know or is it a surprise?"

"I'm fairly certain she'll accept but I'm... I haven't quite told her yet."

"Oh that's so exciting!" She replied. He had a hard time figuring out what was genuine and what was honed salesmanship. "What's her style. What's she like?"

"Uh." He shrugged, feeling himself shrink a little.

Elena took his arm gently, as if he were a colt that might spook and led him over to the counter with diamond rings glinting under the lights. "Everything depends on your budget. You can get something big and flawed or something smaller with no imperfections for the same price."

Sam's gaze fell on the different cuts and sizes of the rings in the case.

"It all depends on how flawed the diamond is." She pointed between a few, her manicured finger clicking on the glass. "See how some of them pick up the light more? Those are the better cut ones with no occlusions."

Sam's mouth went a little dry.

"Wow." He wiped a hand across his forehead. "I am not prepared for this at all."

She looked at him with a sympathetic air that he figured was probably genuine. Older women often responded to something in his boyish looks and mannerisms. "What's her personality like? What's her style?"

"She's..." he paused. "She's casual. She a little on the hippie side, I guess... I'm bad at this."

She laughed. "Most guys are. I tell you what. Here is my card." She drew a card from the brass holder on the glass counter and slipped it to Sam. "You figure out your budget...snoop around her jewelry to find out what size and shaped rings she wears. And then come back to me, okay?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah. Okay."

The nebulous idea to propose to Jessica at the end of the year seemed suddenly solidified with the business card clutched in his hand.

He never even noticed the demon wearing his handsome square-jawed friend observing him from the shadows of a nearby store.


Brady leaned up against a pillar at the mall and watched Sam slow at every jewelry store he passed.

The demon kept his distance, but observed him keenly, like a big cat stalking prey. He really didn't tire of watching the young Winchester. It kept his senses sharp. Made him feel predatory. Dangerous.

Except for times like this when Sam made it all too easy. No wariness in the young man any more. No hunter's senses. Just a mild mannered sack of shit. As Azazel had feared, Sam was becoming soft.

Even though the kid's tussle with the demon who currently called himself Tom showed that Sam still had steel deep down-that steel wore away away a little more each week. Such a damned shame.

He left the mall and stepped into the sunlight.

There was no nip to the air in Palo Alto in October. No ominous announcement of impending hardship and winter.

It was fucking paradise, really. Brady loved it. Hedonism at its best. Much harder to be hedonistic while freezing your ass off half the year in some shit hole like New York. Here it was easy to party all fucking night, stay up in hot tub til dawn. Start over again. He loved it here.

Too bad his tenure wouldn't last forever. He was about to test Sam's mettle.

So many great reviews last chapter! Dom Darkwolf, Nonon Bane, ncsupfan, Michele, waitingforAslan, shadowhuuntingdd, fluffydragon Thank you! Hang in there... destruction and mayhem ahead.