Jess doesn't go back to her room, she's shaking too hard for sleep. She gets a cab instead, trying not to worry about where money for the fare is going to be coming from. A cab downtown, because she can't wait for the bus, not now.

The shop she's looking for is incense tacky and makes her eyes burn with childhood memories. "You're here," she whispers to the woman behind the counter. "I thought you and dad were still back east."

The woman smiles and shakes her head. "My only daughter goes away so far, I need to check to make sure it is okay."

Jess nods, though if it were any other way, any other place she had to go but here, she'd have been angry. Not relieved. Not warmed soul deep. "I've done something terrible. I need help."

The woman, her mama, gets up and folds her arms around Jess, so much like Sam did and so very different. Smaller than Jess, tiny and dark eyed. "Oh, daughter. If I can."

Jess takes hiccuping, sobbing breaths and tucks her head in close. "Mama. I didn't believe. Not really. I didn't believe it would work, so I did it."

"Did what?" Warm hands pet her hair and draw her into the back room. Sit her down on a squishy soft couch, surrounded by dust and incense.

"I cast a love spell. Like you taught me. I wished into the flour and fed it to the boy I wanted and now- I don't know." She closes her eyes, remembering the jerky motions of the greyhound bus and how lost Sam's eyes had been. How lost and alone and still strong and beautiful and perfect. How hungry she'd been.

"It happens," her mama said briskly. "I wouldn't have taught you a spell that wasn't to be used. I'll put on some tea and we'll talk of the ritual you used and its consequences."

Jess nods, uncurling a little and surprised that she'd curled up to begin with. "I brought a strand of his hair for you to look at."

"Good, good," her mama said and took the wadded up tissue with Sam's hair from Jess' outstretched hand. Jess just watched while her mama made tea and set up the herbs and mirrors, whispering under her breath the whole time. It was comforting. Familiar.

Finally, Jess had a steaming mug pressed into her hand and her mama sat down next to her, hugging her close. And her mother's face is so set, looks so old in just that moment, like she's been carved from river rock. It's utterly terrifying and it's all Jess can do to keep still.

"Little idiot," her mother whispered. "Of all the boys in the world. You claimed him. And this boy- you think no one will challenge you for what you've claimed? You have no idea."

"Mama?" Jess whispered in a tiny girl voice, eyes too wide open.

"I don't know for certain. There's too much power there, Jessica." Her mother covers her face with her hands and Jess just watches, waits, until she uncovers them again. When she does she looks like herself again, like she's playing the inscrutable gypsy matron for a bunch of marks. A month ago that would have pissed Jess off, that retreat. Made her yell, challenge. Now all she feels is afraid.

"Never mind. It's done. Now let's talk about the other problem."

"Other problem?" Jess asks, even though she knows damned well what that means. Whatever has happened, whatever this thing with Sam is, she's on her own. No one's going to jump from the sidelines and save her.

"Baba Yaga. I do watch the news, girl, I've heard about the deaths. Now, you listen to me, and I'll tell you what you need to do."

And Jess nodded and listened, like this was class and she was taking notes. At least this was doing something.

\

So, even though he actually knows better by now, Sam tries to call Dean. It's just sheer stubbornness by now. Every five minutes. Then every ten and twenty. Keeps trying, but it's hard to even turn his cell on, never mind dial. He can't force it, like there's some stiff, thick barrier in his head, between nerves and fingers. Still, Sam thinks that maybe if he wishes hard enough Dean will hear him and come. Just come, because Sam needs him. Because Sam is dying for need of him.

But that won't happen. Sam knows that Dean won't even know that Sam thought of him at all.

Eventually Sam just drops the cell on his desk and leaves it there. Heads back for the library, but it isn't any more help than before. He tries anyway, spends hours trying before he finally paces outside, trying to clear his head instead. That's when he finds the eleventh body. A girl, blonde and tan like Jess.

Sam almost chokes before he realizes it's not her, not Jess. Just a girl, curled up to tightly, face clenched like she died having nightmares. He kneels by the body, and he can smell grain.

When Sam looks up, he sees it, passing on his left, hooves pounding the pavement loud enough to wake the quad if anyone else could hear it. The black rider, black as night, on a black horse.

Sam has a silver knife, salt, and holy water. He knows his enemy now. He knows that looking for it pretty much guarantees he's going to find. Sam gets up and gives chase, running hard and fast enough that he should be out of breath but isn't.

Running until it's sunrise and he's somewhere that should be Stanford campus, but isn't anymore.

At the end of the path there is a house on crooked legs. And around it are twelve poles, and eleven of the poles have a desiccated head that might have been human once, stuck on like some sick fairytale. Eleven poles with human heads and one without. Eleven people dead on campus so far.

If he dies here, he'll die like they did. Sam doesn't blink.

He doesn't jump, isn't surprised when he meets the woman at a gate made of bone. She is still old and bent and yellow eyed, but her gaze is cunning, like she knows something he doesn't.

"Hail, Samuel," she says, and salutes him like a soldier. And he's not that, he's fucking well not. He's a freshman at Stanford and nothing else. "Why have you come? Is it of your own accord or against your will?"

"I don't know," he says. "I'm not sure. Isn't that strange?"

And the woman laughs, like something out of a cartoon or a mystery, ridiculous, but terrifying. "Against your will, of course. Poor, poor little Samuel, you fought so hard to be free and now you're just her slave."

And Sam opens his mouth to profess ignorance, to yell, to challenge. To hurt her. All he wants is to see blood on his hands.

"Please, grandmother," comes out of his mouth instead. Soft, respectful, the way he learned to be for everyone except the people who matter. "I need to know the truth."

"Truth? If you know too much, you age too soon. But ask questions, if you must."

And Sam swallows hard, and doesn't flinch away from the woman's yellow fingernails on his skin. "My mother died," he says.

The woman jerked back hissing and nodding. "Yes. She died and she blessed you as she died, with her last blood. It's a strong blessing, your mother's, it burns my bones. For that alone I will answer when you ask. Now ask me your question."

Sam's hands fall to his sides and he lets out a low tearing breath. She died and she blessed you. If Dean or dad were here, with the chance to know this, their insane quest to know this. If he asked, and then he finds out and tells them, he can just imagine the look on their faces.

It could be over now, everything Dean and Dad had been looking for. Sam can do that, and if he does, he gets them back, doesn't he?

Even Dad would take him back. And Dean...

Sam stares and the woman's yellow eyes stare back, daring him to ask. The heads on their poles turn too, eye sockets wide and full of fire.

"How do I stop the deaths on campus?" he asks softly because he needs to know that. He owes it to Zach.

For a moment the woman looks like she'd like to shriek, and her hands reach out, curled into fists, ready to grab him. Sam has the knife out before he even flinches, silver and blessing, but she jerks back. "Your damned mother's blessing," she hisses. "If you didn't have it you would be the last head on my pole. And how the demons of hell would howl!"

"Answer the question," Sam says, voice cracking and unsteady, but his knife hand solid. His mother. Mom. He can see an image on a yellowing photograph and a word picture in Dean's voice.

"There is a red doll in a glass case in a white hall. That doll is from the Russian Steppes. Inside the doll is an egg and in that egg is a needle. Break the needle and I will seek elsewhere for my heads," she spits, like she's fighting for every word. She speaks anyway.

"White hall?" Sam presses.

"It is a white hall, in the place where you come from." The woman speaks as if every word is ground out from her teeth, like it's wearing them to blood and gums. "You are clever and will find it. Now ask your next question."

"Is Jess a witch?"

The woman's teeth seem to grind even harder and she shouts when she speaks. "Your little gypsy mistress? I think you know that truth already." She smiles and shows rows of yellow teeth. Too many rows like a shark's. "She was afraid to be alone and ignorant, so she cast a spell to bewitch and enslave. She will pay for it. Ask your next question! Ask!"

"Ignorant?" Sam whispers. He can see Jess when he closes his eyes, her pale hair and the way she smiles and it feels so real. She didn't know. Of course. It hurts, the sudden possibility, the hope.

"Only the ignorant would bewitch such as you." The woman gives a wild, sharp gesture of the hand, as if urging Sam forward. "Ask! Ask!"

Sam can see Jess. And he can see Dean, his face pale and set, freckles like blotches in sour milk when Sam walked away. His mother, fading edges of a yellowing photograph and his father, telling him to get the fuck out and never, never, never come back. He's shaking. He's shaking and he can't stop.

He's alone. No Dean, no Jess, just Sam, with a knife in his hands.

"Why did my mother die?" Sam blurts out, heart pressed to close to his chest, and it hurts.

"Boys who ask too many questions don't live out the end of the tale, even blessed ones," the old woman hisses and reaches for him again. Her eyes are even yellower, slit like a goat's, and Sam screams, raises his knife and throws the holy water.

The tattoo on the small of his back burns like it might explode and the woman does not come closer.

She hisses, clutching her burning, acid washed face. "You have more blessings than you know," she whines. "Now get out! Go! Remember the white hall."

\

It's still night when Sam wakes up, huddled up against a bench near the body of the girl who looks like Jess but isn't. He jumps up, gagging, and wonders how long it's been. Not too long, no one found this yet.

In the end it's stupidly easy, because Sam stumbles to his feet and right there on the library door there's a poster plastered in bright colors and black and white. The Cantor Arts Center is having an exhibit of Russian cultural artifacts. And on the poster is a red doll, a matryoshka in layers, in a glass case.

He breaks in without too much trouble, the lock popping easily, and the alarm system not much to disable. The collection isn't exactly valuable. Somehow, he's not surprised to find Jess already there, by the display case.

She's dressed in black, and staring at it, and Sam doesn't ask how she got in without tripping anything.

"So," he says softly, mostly just to see her flinch. To know she didn't know he was coming, that he surprised her.

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

"Why me? I'm not- I'm not a good person."

Jess laughs at that, harsh and hysteria tinged. "I wanted you. And good… I am good?"

Sam shrugs and raises the case, pulls out the doll. It opens easily and inside is an egg, thin and fragile. He cracks it and the silvery needle settles into his palm.

"I have a brother. Dean. His name is Dean," Sam whispers. "He gets a real kick out of burning things. Total pyro freak."

He breaks the needle in half with his hands and then gets the accelerant out of his backpack.

"That'll trip the fire alarm," Jess says softly. "If we're going to stay here and go to school, let's not get caught today, okay?" Sam nods, and lets her guide him outside, somewhere isolated. Somewhere it's safe to burn things.

He douses the doll, the needle, and the eggshell, all of it. Jess takes the lighter and he can see the flame in her eyes. Bright and endless.

Sam hasn't seen someone burn to death since he was six months old, but he has nightmares about it often, and all of them come out and choke him at the reflection of fire in Jess' eyes.

He thinks about sitting down at her feet and hugging her knees. Telling her everything, about himself, mom and his dad and the hunt and the bone deep, grinding terror that never, ever went away. About the morning he woke up and actually understood that it was not going to get better. Sam wants to tell her he maybe loves her.

And Sam thinks about telling her about Dean. And that- he wants to shake. Wants to smash her face in with his fist, the way you do when it's a guy and you can't love them for hating them but never, never can with a girl you cradle in your bed. Wants to scream, to demand, 'You let me go! You let me go to him! I'll fucking kill you if you don't let me go!' Scream and scream and see her face dissolve into a pulp of fire and flesh.

Sam can almost taste it.

"I was fucking him. My brother," he says instead of anything else, as Jessica palms fire against the wood and the doll lights up. To make her flinch.

She flinches. Eyes wide, hand pressed to her mouth. "I- I don't know what you want me to do with that," she says and her voice cracks around the edges.

"Nothing. What can you do?" he says, because he can't hit her.

"Nothing," she repeats. Still flinching and shaking and staring at him, like it's all his fault.

Sam isn't satisfied with that, so he keeps talking. "I was all alone and there was no one else. So I fucked him. I loved him. There is no one else. And now I tried to call him and I couldn't. I can't. Did you-"

"Not on purpose," she whispers. She looks very young, younger than eighteen, and her eyes are wide and white and full of strain. It makes Sam's stomach ache. He still wants to kill her and he knows he can't.

"Okay," he says and somehow the outrage fades and he's just tired. Just drained.

"That's it? Okay and that's it?" Jess mumbles, shaking her head. She's close enough that he can smell the warmth of her skin.

"Maybe it is okay. I mean, all this-" Sam make a wide expansive gesture, as if to bring everything, Stanford, Jess, all of it, into one circle. "This is what I wanted," Sam mutters. "To come here. This is it." He stares at the fire, watches it brighten and then sputter. Jess lets the lighter drop to the ground while the doll keeps burning. She reaches out to take his hand in hers.

"I wanted to come here too," Jess says, and clutches at his hand, hard enough to bruise. "All I wanted was to be happy. I thought you could make me happy. That I could make you- I don't know."

Sam starts to nod, but he can't, so he just stands there and tries to think, to breathe. He breathes with his mouth open, huge gasping breaths. He's not looking at Jess now, not really, just the embers of the little doll. The air stinks of charcoal and ash and so do both of them. Sam doesn't push her away when she reaches for him, but he doesn't touch her back either, doesn't move any closer.

"Happy. This... I wanted to come here," he whispers. "But this isn't. I can't. I can't. I can't do this any more." Three times is for magic. Repeating anything three times- Sam's voice breaks like a boy's when he speaks, breaks like the needle in the egg.

"No," she agrees, eyes down, forehead pressed to his chest. He stays perfectly still against her, like he's afraid of what will happen if he moves.

"Is that okay with you too?" he sounds like he's asking permission and he doesn't know why. "That I can't? Do you- do you mind?" Like he's begging for something, and all he can do is hope that Jess understands what he's asking and doesn't make him say it out loud, because he honestly can't. Jess' hands clench around the soft, worn fabric of his shirt.

"Okay," she says, not quiet, but not loud either. Her voice is shockingly steady, but she sways against him and his hands are suddenly there, braced against her back and holding on, pressing her close. "All this- this shit. It's just superstition. Not real, right? Not like..." Not like school and sun, and the apartment they already talked about for next year, even though it honestly hasn't been that long they've been together. Even though- all that other stuff they've just sort of agreed to never mention again.

"Yeah," Sam says hoarsely and he doesn't look down to meet her eyes, but kisses her forehead, gasping, breathing her in. "Yes."

Later, much later, he kisses her mouth and her neck, traces her nipples with his tongue, slow and ardent. He says, "Thank you. Oh thank you, thank you."

Jess nods and clings to his shoulders, leaving nails marks indented into Sam's skin that will disappear even before she does.

End

Author's notes: Strangely, in its original conception, this story was going to be a romantic comedy all about how Sam and Jess fall for each other. Erm. That worked out well. It was stuck in the fragment stage of writing because Sam kept being really angry and angsty and Jess was just off somehow. And then I got hit with the idea for Whoever Eats of It and I realized why. Between that and a creepy dream involving one of my personal favorite fairy tale characters, Baba Yaga, I knew what this story was going to be about.

Obviously, I made completely free with the Baba Yaga stories for my own nefarious purposes. If you're interested, two of the originals are, Koshchei the Deathless and Vasilisa. You can find them online with a quick google search.

If you didn't catch it but still care, my Baba Yaga speaks in nursery rhyme fragments quite a bit. It's tough to come up with that level of creepy on your own.

The rhymes in question?

There was a crooked man
Who walked a crooked mile.
He found a crooked sixpence
Against a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat
Which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together
In a crooked little house.

A man of words and not of deeds
Is like a garden full of weeds
And when the weeds begin to grow
It's like a garden full of snow
And when the snow begins to fall
It's like a bird upon the wall
And when the bird away does fly
It's like an eagle in the sky
And when the sky begins to roar
It's like a lion at the door
And when the door begins to crack
It's like a stick across your back
And when your back begins to smart
It's like a penknife in your heart
And when your heart begins to bleed
You're dead, and dead, and dead indeed.

I would, if I could,
If I couldn't how could I?
I couldn't, without I could, could I?
Could you, without you could, could ye?
Could ye? Could ye?
Could you, without you could, could ye?

The next story in this series is pretty well underway, but probably going to hit a snag since I have never managed to write Dean before. We will see how that goes.