2.
The morning after the harpy Jessica hurt too much to bother getting out of bed, so (after a careful mental review of what was happening that day, which was nothing important) she didn't. Instead she watched old reruns on television and contemplated the merits of getting food verses not moving until noon, when her phone rang.
She started to reach with her right, cursed, and grabbed it with her left hand. "Hello?" she rasped, then coughed and tried again. "Hello?"
"Are you sick?" Sam demanded, and Jessica blinked.
"Yes," she said after a second of deliberation, mentally crossing her fingers. (She really hoped all this lying about being sick to cover up after hunting wouldn't lead to some sort of massive karmic payback involving projectile vomiting. She hated vomiting.)
"I'll be right over," Sam said, and hung up.
Jessica struggled out of bed and shoved her duffel under it, then attempted to brush her hair. It stubbornly resisted her attempts to make it resemble something other than a massive bird's nest, and only using one hand wasn't helping much. (Her shoulder wasn't all that bad, but pulling stitches didn't exactly make the healing go any faster.) After a minute she tossed the brush down again and reasoned that she wasn't any worse looking than she had been the day she met Sam. (Hadn't she been wearing these exact pajamas then too? At least this time she was actually in bed and not out wandering around in public.) Besides, it wasn't like they were dating (yet) anyway.
So she unlocked the door and crawled back into bed to wait.
Sam appeared and let himself in about ten minutes later, a paper bag swinging from one huge hand and a stack of DVDs in the other. "I brought you food," he said softly, setting the bag down on her desk, "and entertainment." He held up the DVDs, which appeared to be two box sets, so they were probably seasons of some TV show—
Jessica sat up, wincing when the stitches in her shoulder pulled, and shoved her hair out of her eyes. "You did not just bring me Gargoyles, did you?"
He went a little pale. "Is it okay? They were on sale, and you have all that anime and all the Disney movies, and this was Disney too, so I thought—"
"I love you," Jessica said fervently, and grabbed at the boxes with her left hand. "My god, I haven't seen this show since I was, like, eight," she informed him after staring reverently at the covers for a few minutes and then hugging them to her chest. Eight, she thought, just a little wistful. Eight was right before Esme got possessed, back when their family didn't know what was out there, when they were actually Normal and all Jessica had done was go to school and watch cartoons and play outside and not go through training every day. She could barely remember it, now.
She looked up at Sam, who was watching her with an odd expression on his face, half amusement and half bemusement. For a second she wanted to throw herself into his arms, wrap herself up in him and maybe pull covers over their heads so it would just be the two of them, at least for awhile. Instead she took a deep breath and stopped hugging the box sets so she could hold them out to him. "Have you ever seen it?" she asked him, and didn't her voice sound remarkably steady?
"No," Sam said, a smile twitching the corners of his mouth, "but obviously you thought it was good."
She laughed and declared, "We are watching every single episode of this today."
They didn't make it through the whole series, though. After they ate (Sam had brought her chicken noodle soup and a hunk of sourdough bread, which she devoured), Jessica wrapped up in her extra blanket (for cushioning) and sat on the bed with Sam to her left, so that she didn't jump every time he poked her to either make fun of her for being so fascinated or (after a few episodes) with excitement every time something awesome happened. Unlike last weekend when she had spent a whole day watching an entire cartoon show with him, this time they ended up touching, leaning against each other with their heads together, and not even the pure nostalgia of the show or the lingering pain in her shoulder could distract her from the feel of him against her. Even through the blanket he was warm, and the ends of his hair kept brushing her cheek when he would shift next to her. She wanted to close her eyes, savor it, but she also wanted to watch, and so she compromised by turning the TV off the moment season one had ended (it was only thirteen episodes, fortunately) and letting her eyes drift shut.
"You want me to leave?" Sam whispered after a few minutes, interrupting her listening to his breathing.
"No," she murmured back, shifting a little, and then her cheek was pressed flush to his and she could smell his shampoo and feel his breath against her skin and it was wonderful. He shifted a little back and then his arm was around her, and it was so nice that she didn't even bother telling him to move because he had one of his (huge) hands planted right over her stitches. She just sighed and settled against him, and didn't wake up until he gently shook her and told her it was dinnertime, and did she feel up to going down to the cafeteria?
She yawned and muttered something about not wanting to move and besides, her hair was an absolute mess. Then Sam carefully detached himself from around her and picked up her brush.
"Is it all right?" he asked her, eyes watching her. She tried to answer but her voice wouldn't work, so instead she just nodded and turned so her back was to him, and tried to ignore the pounding of her heart.
She went still when his fingers touched her hair, carefully threading through it to unsnarl the worst of the tangles. It was like the sound on the world had been turned down, like all she could hear and sense was him, little movements as his hands worked, the feel of his legs crossed on her bed behind her and his fingers brushing against her scalp. She jumped a little when he pulled her hair, but not because it had hurt; he had murmured, "Sorry," and broken the silence, startling her. But at the same time she loved the sound of his voice, and she could feel the brush stroking cleanly through her hair now, feel the curls bouncing freely after each pass, and still he was brushing through it. She let her head drop forward, closed her eyes, and didn't move when he lay the brush down.
He cleared his throat, shifted, and she heard his feet touch the floor again. Then his hand touched her on the shoulder (the good one, but even if he had grabbed the right she doubted she'd have been able to feel the pain). "We should go," he whispered, and she opened her eyes and looked up at him. He had both hands out now, obviously waiting for her to take them so he could pull her to her feet.
Jessica thought about saying something then, breaking the tension she could feel humming through her and (she thought) through him. She thought about teasing him about trying to be a gentleman, or asserting that she was a modern girl who didn't need his help just to get up. But she knew he didn't mean it like that, and part of her didn't want the tension to break. She knew what she wanted; what she didn't know was what he wanted.
So she took his hands.
After she was on her feet he let go of her. "You okay?" he asked, and she nodded and tried to remember that Melissa had only dumped him a week ago, after all. "You want to get dressed first?" He gestured to her.
She looked down at her beloved Snoopy pajamas and shook her head. "Why bother?" she shrugged. "I go to the library in this, why not the cafeteria?" He laughed, the smile lighting up his eyes, and she grinned back, and maybe it was okay if they stayed like this for awhile.
They went down to the cafeteria, and Sam laughed again when she ate two plates full of food in less time than it took him to eat one. She made a face at him for that and made a point of getting a dessert too.
When he followed her back upstairs to her room she contemplated kicking him out. She needed to shower at some point, and she wanted to call her mother, and she could hardly give in to the urge to analyze their relationship with him sitting right there. "Aren't you going to sleep in your own bed?" she asked him before opening her door.
He gave her a look of wide-eyed innocence. "Aren't you sick?" he queried, also innocently. "Don't you need someone there to make sure you're okay?"
She rolled her eyes at him. "I'm not that sick and you know it," she countered.
He countered back with puppy-dog eyes. "I should stay. What if you get up in the middle of the night and fall or something?"
She raised one eyebrow. "You mean fall over the enormous guy sleeping on my floor?"
His lips twitched a little at that, but he turned up the intensity of the puppy eyes and pressed, "I just want to make sure you're okay, Jess."
"You just want to watch the first part of season two with me tomorrow, don't you?" she accused, and he grinned shamelessly.
"Please?" He held out his hands in supplication, palms up, and gave her his most winning smile. She debated with herself for about two seconds, then reasoned that she could do all of those things tomorrow (what else were Sundays for? Surely not homework) and let him in the room with her.
Sam spent the night on her floor, wrapped up in her extra blanket with his head pillowed on his arms while she curled up on her left side and watched him. Her heart ached as she listened to him breathe and watched his chest rise and fall, slow and rhythmic. She wondered if maybe she had been imagining it earlier, when his hands had been on her hair. Maybe she was just his new best friend and she was silly to think he might want something else (more?) from her. Or maybe it hadn't been long enough yet; maybe Melissa was still stamped on him and needed to flake off more before he could even think about Jessica like that. But either way, it was all right. She wanted Sam-the-friend just as much as she wanted Sam-the-boyfriend, and she had the first.
She could wait for the second.
o
Jessica woke up to the sound of Sam's voice. "Not like that," he was saying, and she cracked one eye open to see that he was huddled against the door, still wrapped in her blanket, his phone cradled between his shoulder and his ear. He went silent for a moment, then made a noise like he was trying to hold back laughter and murmured, "Why, what would you do?"
She stirred and was about to ask him whom was talking to when he exclaimed, "Dean!" in a scandalized tone, and the words froze in her throat. Dean, she thought, heart thrumming. She hadn't heard that name from him before, and she knew all his friends at college (or at least the ones he knew well enough to be talking on the phone with at eight in the morning). So that meant Dean was someone not from Stanford, someone he knew well, whose name she didn't know.
His brother, she thought, and held her breath.
It turned out not to matter, because then Sam said something about Dean being a jerk (though he sounded amused) and "she's going to wake up" and snapped the phone shut. Jessica let out her breath and wondered if all Normal guys were this mysterious about their dysfunctional families. Maybe they are, she reasoned; her other example, Adrian (who, despite evidence to the contrary, was at least partly Normal), clearly had a lot of issues concerning his family, but he didn't talk about them either. (Not sober, anyway. But Adrian would talk about pretty much anything when drunk, so she didn't think it counted.)
Perhaps, she started, but closed down that line of thinking. She might burn with curiosity about him, but she wasn't going to get Sam plastered just to make him talk about his family. But there wasn't anything wrong with just asking, was there? And it wasn't like she wanted to know every secret about his family ever, just a confirmation that Dean was, in fact, his brother. (Well, just that to start. She was fully intending to completely unravel the mystery of Sam Winchester one day, but she could be patient, no matter what Esme said about the matter.)
She watched Sam carefully make his way across her floor to lie down next to her bed again. He had settled down again and had just closed his eyes when she said out loud, "Was that your brother?"
Sam jumped and let out a swear, and she couldn't resist laughing a little at the look on his face. "Jess!" he gasped, trying to look dignified despite his hair sticking in every direction (she wouldn't pet him, she told herself sternly, no matter how adorable his hair was). "You're awake!"
"I know that," she lobbed back, rolling onto her stomach. "Was that your brother?"
Several expressions flashed across his face at once – confusion, anxiety, even a little amusement, and something she couldn't identify it was gone so fast – before settling on evasion. "Yeah," he admitted, but she could already tell by his tone that he wasn't going to say much more.
She pressed on anyway. Fine, she got it, Normal guys obviously didn't like to talk about their families, but really, was she asking for that much? She had practically told him everything she possibly could about her siblings, and she had to worry about spilling the whole killing-monsters-for-a-hobby (or in Esme's case, a living) thing. Even if (though) he was hiding something too, couldn't he tell her pointless things like favorite television shows or colors or something?"So his name is Dean?"
He blinked, but nodded, that faraway look in his eyes again for just a second. Then he shook his head a little (she would not pet him) and asked, "You hungry?"
"You sounded happy," she answered, figuring if he was going to ignore her questions, she could ignore his.
"I hadn't heard from him in awhile," he admitted, and she peeked at his face again. Relieved, she realized. He was a million things about this conversation with his brother, but one of them was relieved. She knew relieved; it reminded of her of how she felt every time Esme called, and just the sound of Esme's voice would flood her with relief because then Jessica knew her sister was still okay, still alive (and still irritating, but that was a given).
It made her wonder, just for a moment – but there were a thousand other reasons Sam could be relieved to hear from his brother, starting with the fact that she was pretty sure he and Sam had had some sort of fight before he left for college. The fact that they were talking again was probably a relief, especially considering how much Sam kept mentioning him even if he officially Didn't Talk About His Family (and stop asking, please). Maybe now that they weren't fighting (she was pretty sure they weren't now, despite the 'jerk') he would actually open up and tell her everything and she could (pet his hair) listen.
"Everything's okay then?" she asked, carefully.
He shrugged. "Seems to be." His stomach rumbled then, and he looked up and met her eyes. There was a beat, and then, "Can we please go get food now?" he begged, giving her his best puppy dog eyes and clasping his hands under his chin to boot. She laughed, and he grinned, and she couldn't resist anymore. Reaching out, she mussed his hair (what kind of shampoo did he use, anyway, to get it that soft?). He ducked away from her hands, laughing and crying, "Mercy!" and she managed not to throw herself at him by reminding herself that 1. she had morning breath, and 2. it had still only been a week, dammit. So instead she threw the covers off and sat up.
To her surprise her hair snaked down around her shoulders in tousled but tangle-free curls. "Wow," she commented, touching it, and when she looked back down at Sam he was looking back at her, and there was another beat before he suddenly shook himself and got to his feet and held out his hands to her, again. She took them.
But he still let go after she was on her feet.
They finished watching the show after breakfast ("WHY isn't the second half of season 2 on DVD?" Jessica moaned piteously afterwards, prompting Sam to snicker and throw a pillow at her head, which had resulted in an all-out pillow war) and then Jessica, regretfully, kicked Sam out, though he made her promise to meet him for lunch tomorrow first.
"That is, if you're feeling okay," he added, and she made a face at him and shut the door on his grin before she ended up with her hands in his hair again.
o
She finished her homework in record time and then called her mother, who (after gently admonishing her for not calling at all yesterday and then catching her up on all the Family News) advised her to wait on the Sam Issue just a little longer, and to perhaps clear it with Melissa first. "Even if she's the one who did the dumping," her mother added in the wise tone she employed when giving Life Advice, meaning Jessica wasn't supposed to argue in the face of her superior wisdom. Jessica rolled her eyes and neglected to point out that, knowing Melissa, she probably had a new boy toy by now and therefore why should Jessica worry about her opinion then, mostly because it actually wasn't bad advice.
She should talk to Melissa.
Melissa had been Jessica's first friend at Stanford (they had been roommates during orientation – the only time Jessica had ever had a roommate, even if it had only been for a few days), and even if she had dumped Sam first Jessica didn't want to risk hurting Melissa if she suddenly (only a week later) picked up with him. For one thing, it would be a shitty thing to do, and Jessica tried her best not to do shitty things to the few friends she had.
For another, the only other good friends she had made at Stanford were Adrian and Sam (Little Becky, Preeti, and Zach were getting there, but they were still mostly Sam's friends and therefore didn't count on the list of friends-Jessica-actually-made-by-her-damn-self), and though she loved both of them dearly (though differently), neither of them was a girl. Jessica had grown up with her mother and Esme as her best friends and there were just some things you didn't talk about with boys, no matter how close you were to them otherwise. She and Melissa weren't as close as she and Adrian, or even she and Sam now, but Melissa had always been there for Jessica when she needed her. She owed it to Melissa to talk to her first.
Come to think of it, Jessica realized, she hadn't called Melissa once since the breakup. They'd seen each other briefly between classes but hadn't had time for more than a quick wave and a 'Hey!' before Melissa had disappeared into the crowds again and Jessica had gone back to obsessing about Melissa's ex-boyfriend. She'd been too caught up in Sam and his moping to remember that she was friends with Melissa too, she thought, a bit guiltily, and grabbed her phone.
"Hi, Jess," Melissa answered, sounding distracted. "What's up?"
"When are you not busy?" Jessica demanded.
Melissa laughed, and Jessica heard her flipping through pages of the meticulous planner she always had on her. "Tuesday," she said after a minute. "After four. The paper that is eating my soul is due at three."
Jessica twisted a curl around one finger. "My last class ends at two, so that works."
"Great," Melissa said. "I've been meaning to talk to you for awhile, anyway. You know about me and Sam, right?"
Jessica told herself that there was no reason to be feeling guilty and answered, "He told me a little bit about it."
"I thought he might," Melissa replied, a note of something Jessica couldn't quite identify in her voice. "We'll talk more on Tuesday, okay? I really need to get back to work on this."
Jessica ignored the plummeting feeling in her stomach and nodded. "Sure. Is it organic chem again?"
"I'm crazy for taking this class," Melissa moaned. "Wasn't one quarter enough? Why do I torture myself like this?"
"Because you're brilliant," Jessica answered promptly. Melissa laughed and said goodbye, then cut their connection. Jessica sat on her bed, cross-legged, and stared at her cell phone for nearly half an hour before dragging herself to her feet to take a shower and get ready for bed.`
She and Melissa agreed via texting to meet at their favorite café on Tuesday. Jessica snagged a table in the corner, perfect for private conversations, and was nursing a steaming cup of cappuccino and trying not to fidget too noticeably when Melissa appeared, dark hair tied sloppily back and looking exhausted but happy. "It's done," she announced dramatically, throwing herself down into the free chair and grabbing Jessica's cup. She took a long swallow and then handed it back to Jessica with a tired smile. "Thanks, Jess."
Jessica rolled her eyes. "I'll order you one of your own," she said, and nearly ran over to the counter to do so.
When she got back, Melissa was tossing back the last of the first cappuccino. "I figured we can share the next one too," she said, grinning impishly at Jessica over the rim of the mug, and Jessica was struck with how glad she was that she hadn't actually done anything preemptively. She was almost sure Melissa would give her blessing to Jessica – Melissa was a little fickle when it came to boys, and Jessica doubted she'd dated Sam long enough to have any especial attachment to him – but what if she didn't? After all, Jessica hadn't known him as long as Melissa had and she was getting all swoony over the way his hair looked messy and practically had to restrain herself from jumping him at least five times per interaction. She really, really didn't want to have to choose between them.
"So," she said, as Melissa appeared to be content with not talking and just sitting there staring at each other, "what's up?"
Melissa tipped her head to the side. "What's up with me?" she asked, all knowingly. "Or what's up with me and Sam?" Jessica flushed (she couldn't help it) and made a show of checking to see if their cappuccino was ready, but she could feel a tiny spark of hope flaring up somewhere in her stomach. Melissa was being coy, which meant she knew something that would make Jessica happy, and if she was talking about Sam—
Melissa reached out and touched her hand. "It's okay, Jess, I know," she said, and Jessica looked back at her. Melissa looked inordinately pleased with herself, Jessica decided, and let the tiny spark of hope flutter into full-blown life. Melissa nodded with satisfaction and sat back and didn't say anything else, just smiled secretively and watched Jessica with sparkling eyes and why wasn't she elaborating, dammit?
"Know what?" Jessica asked after letting her be silent for roughly two seconds. Melissa had to say it, after all, not just imply it and sit there looking all pleased with herself.
Melissa's lips curved up even more. "Please. You're not subtle, Jess. I've seen the way you eye his shoulders."
Jessica flushed again, and Melissa squeezed her hand. "But I also know you didn't do anything while we were dating, and I love you for that. Both of you, really."
She found her voice then to ask, "Then why—"
"Because," Melissa interrupted her, "Sam is a great guy, but we didn't click that way. He's like my intellectual soul mate, but he's not my one true love, trust me. It was fun while it lasted, but it's definitely over. Besides," she added, looking right at Jessica with that knowing look, "he was always talking about you."
Jessica made herself breathe again. "He was?"
Melissa grinned. "Oh yeah. He's totally into you, ever since he met you. I mean, really, I'd try to invite him over and he'd blow me off to go watch cartoons with you."
Jessica grinned back. "They're awesome cartoons, though."
"Whatever you say, darling," Melissa said with an infuriately indulgent tone. Jessica almost – almost – let it devolve into their usual argument about the validity of animation as entertainment for adults, but she refused to be derailed now. Melissa still hadn't actually said it.
"So it's okay?" she asked, clasping Melissa's fingers. "If I go out with him?"
Melissa snorted. "It's inevitable, Jess."
"But it's okay?" Jessica persisted.
"It's fine!" Melissa exclaimed. Jessica let out a huge sigh and threw one arm over her eyes. Melissa giggled a little and added, "You don't need my permission, anyway."
"But I wanted to make sure," she said, lowering her arm. "Just in case. You're my friend, you know."
They called their cappuccino then, and Melissa went to get it. When she came back she handed the mug to Jessica and sat down, and they were off. They spent the next several hours talking nonstop, changing locations several times before finally ending in Melissa's dorm room, trading stories about Melissa's hot new chem study partner (how Melissa found new boy toys so fast never ceased to amaze her), Adrian's latest antics, and, more interestingly, about Sam and what he looked like naked. ("He's in proportion," Melissa said with a wink. "Make sure you have lube.") When Jessica expressed her worry that Sam wasn't into her That Way, Melissa burst into giggles and then spent the next twenty minutes enumerating all the times she had caught Sam staring at Jessica when Jessica wasn't looking. She and Melissa then plotted several ways for Jessica to get Sam into bed, starting reasonably enough but getting wilder and wilder the later it got. She wasn't going to do any of them (not even the one involving spilling chocolate syrup on him and conveniently not having any clean napkins or towels around, even if it did sound like a tasty way to get someone naked), but it didn't matter. Talking about it with Melissa wasn't really about her and Sam; it was about her and Melissa, and she wouldn't trade it for anything.
Jessica ended up spending the night, crammed into Melissa's bed with her since Melissa barely took up any space at all. After they had both gotten ready for Wednesday classes Melissa asked her, "When do you think you'll make a move?"
Jessica considered. Two weeks was probably long enough, and to hear Melissa talk Jessica hadn't been imagining Sam's feelings for her; he was just too shy to act on them. (God, he was so adorable.) She knew he had a project due Friday (not to mention the paper she had due Thursday she hadn't even started), but after that—
"This weekend," she replied, and hoped Melissa couldn't hear the pounding of her heart.
o
Naturally, Jessica's mother called her right after classes Friday with another job, this time hunting down what appeared to be a draugr. "A draugr?" Jessica yelped, momentarily distracted from her rapidly crumbling plans to seduce Sam that weekend. "Mom, they're strong—"
"Esme is going to join you on this one," her mother said in a tone that brooked no argument (not that Jessica was planning to argue – she knew that going after a draugr alone was, at best, idiotic). Jessica was to pick her sister up at the airport and then proceed to the tiny seaside town where the deaths had occurred.
"How long do you think this will take?" Jessica asked, trying to keep the whine out of her voice. It figures, she thought, it just figures that Mom would call this weekend of all weekends.
"Esme is bringing all the pertinent information," her mother replied. "You should be able to do it over the weekend; the research is complete already, so you won't be doing any of that, just finding and killing the actual draugr. Be careful and report back when it's over."
They hung up without saying anything else; when her mother called with a job, it was different than when they called each other (every day) to chat. It was to the point, no messing around, strictly professional. She knew it was how her mother reconciled sending her baby after dangerous things: treat her like all the other hunters she sent after dangerous things. It was How It Was, ever since Jessica had announced that she was both going to Stanford and not giving up hunting.
So Jessica spent the next few hours packing and then calling Sam to cancel their plans. They had planned a group outing to the movies and then to a bar, because they always seemed to end up in bars. (Jessica suspected that was Adrian's influence; the boy did like his shots, after all.) She had planned to let Sam get a little drunk and then whisk him off alone, but obviously that plan would have to be put on hold as well.
He didn't ask her why but she told him half the truth, that her sister was coming to visit and they were going to go visit the ocean. "It's too cold to swim," Sam commented, and Jessica agreed but said that they were just going to look and (remembering the cover story she had once told him about her sister) take pictures. "I'll miss you," Sam said, playfully, and Jessica couldn't help smiling.
"You just want me around to distract Adrian," she said, and he laughed, a little guiltily. "I knew it. You'll just have to watch how many shots you let him drink. I am not responsible for what he does if you let him get completely plastered."
"You introduced him to me, so—"
"Sam."
His laugh washed over her, and for a moment she felt warm again. "I will, I will," he promised. "I still wish you were coming, though. Everything's more fun with you there."
She smiled at the air. "I'll see you Monday, okay? Lunch?" She could work with Monday lunch instead of Friday night, she thought. They both had all their classes in the mornings on Monday.
"Sure," he agreed, "Have fun with your sister," and they hung up.
Jessica called Adrian on her way to the airport and apologized for skipping out. Adrian snorted and told her, "Hey, I'll miss you, Jessie girl, but not having you around to keep a leash on us could result in some wonderful things."
"Yeah, because Preeti and Little Becky are such a loose cannons," Jessica muttered.
Adrian went on like he hadn't heard a thing. "Wonderful things, Jessie girl. Like Sam Winchester and body shots. Me-ow."
Jessica hung up on him.
o
She waited by the arrivals line for Esme for about twenty minutes, which gave her a lot of time to think about several things, most of them revolving around Sam and (doing body shots off of his chest, damn but Adrian was a bastard) what she could do at their Monday lunch to give him the hint that she was both interested and available. That led her to thoughts about what Melissa had told her about him in bed, all of which kept her mind very firmly off the fact that her mother was sending her up against frigging draugr.
Esme appeared before she ran out of things-about-Sam to think about instead (she was currently on what his shoulders would look like without a shirt stretched over them but not what they would look like drenched in alcohol and salted, thankyouverymuch) and got in the car. "It's killed eight people," Esme said without preamble, fishing in her duffel and then throwing a dossier at Jessica. "Including a freelancer who tried to take it on by himself."
Jessica looked up at that. "Another hunter?"
"Hal Binns," Esme confirmed. "He's a fucking moron. Or was a fucking moron. I'm surprised it took him this long to get topped, honestly."
Jessica sighed and threw the dossier back at Esme, possibly harder than necessary. "Great. I can't believe Mom is risking sending us both up against this thing."
Esme looked over at her. "Hey," she said, her voice uncharacteristically soft. "Don't worry. Dad and I took out one of these in Virginia Beach a couple years ago, remember? I know what to do."
"Yeah, and Dad had to get forty stitches and use crutches for a month afterwards," Jessica countered.
Esme grinned. "But I was fine. I'm the—"
"—best hunter ever, I know," Jessica finished, throwing the car into gear and nosing her way back into the flow of traffic. (Unfortunately, airports weren't places you could gun the engine in frustration.) Esme just laughed, a silvery little peal that sounded like it should belong to a fashion queen and not to a woman who killed monsters for a living.
"Well, it's true," Esme said, sounding amused. "That's why Mom is sending us up against it. You don't suck too much," she punched Jessica's arm, lightly (Jessica refrained from responding verbally and just stuck her tongue out), "and I'm the best," Esme concluded with a wink.
Esme was a little too confident (as usual), Jessica thought as she made her way around the terminal back to the interstate. Sure, Esme was good and had good reason to be confident (not that Jessica would ever tell her that), but Esme's bragging always made Jessica feel like she was judging her for choosing to go to college instead of being Esme's hunting partner full-time. Esme always denied this, of course ("It's your life, Jessie!"), but then she would go on and on about how hunters operated best in pairs, and wasn't it too bad that Dad was too old to go full-time with her anymore?
Jessica was already braced for the lecture when Esme spoke again.
"Come on, Jessie," Esme said, reaching out and laying a hand on her arm. "It's just a draugr. You'll be fine. You've been up against nasty things before." Esme's hand tightened, giving her a reassuring squeeze, and Jessica was about to thank her sister for her (unusual) understanding when Esme added, devilishly, "Like Owen!"
Jessica growled. "You're never going to let me forget that, are you?"
"Nope," Esme said cheerfully.
"It was over three years ago! And it's not like I knew he was a werewolf!"
"No, but you knew you should have looked more closely into his background before you started making out with him all over town." Jessica growled again, and Esme laughed. "You're too sensitive, you know that?" she asked, poking Jessica's ribs.
"Hands off while I'm driving, bitch," Jessica snapped.
"You're just mad because you know I'm right." Esme hummed a little, and Jessica resisted the urge to let go of the wheel and throttle her sister (not an unusual response to being in Esme's presence). They drove in silence for awhile, and then Esme said, "Hey, Jessie. Tell me Sam's last name."
"No," Jessica groused.
"Come on," Esme wheedled. "Didn't Owen teach you anything?"
"I checked up on him," Jessica said, her knuckles turning white on the wheel. "Just drop it, okay? Trust me on this. He's Normal."
"I do trust you, but what about him?" Esme countered. "Mom has better resources than you, Jess—"
"Drop it, Esme."
Esme made an annoyed sound (she was blowing her hair off her forehead, Jessica knew without looking) and said, "Fine." Jessica heard the rustle of the folder as Esme opened it again, and then Esme was reading her the information they had in her 'professional' voice. "It started when this whole slew of squirrels living in a cemetery went batshit," Esme told her. "Then – do you want to know this part? It's pretty gruesome."
"Hit me," Jessica said. So Esme told her every gruesome detail in the folder (possibly a bit too gleefully). Some of the victims had been crushed, presumably by the draugr's bulk, all of them had had bits eaten off (some more than others), and the fallen freelancer had had his neck treated like a drinking fountain. "The thing just stood above Binns and drank the arterial spray," Esme concluded. "Witness who saw it won't leave her room at the facility now. Can't say I blame her."
"Lovely," Jessica grumbled.
Their mother had done painstaking research, though, and the folder had the name of the person the draugr had been before it became an undead marauding monster ('John Berenson'), and more importantly the location of his grave, which would be serving now as the draugr's home base. Esme enumerated all the steps they would have to go through to make sure it had been defeated: corner it in its own grave, cut off its head, burn the body, then scatter the ashes in the sea. It seemed like overkill, but Jessica knew enough about draugar to know that if any of it was skipped or they left part of the draugr unburnt, it could return.
They had to make a stop on the way to pick up additional incendiary devices, as Jessica's stash in the car "wasn't strong enough" to take care of a draugr. (She admittedly only had a small hand-held blowtorch and matches and kerosene, as most of what she had hidden were bladed weapons. She liked bladed weapons.) Esme directed her to a hunter-friendly supplier only about fifty miles out of their way. Jessica's mother had called ahead so they had no problem picking up the flame gun along with (surprisingly) a homemade dinner made by the supplier's chef husband. By the time they actually made it to their little motel, it was approaching twilight.
"It only comes out at night, so I figure we can waste it once the sun comes up tomorrow," Esme said, throwing her bag onto the bed closest to the door.
"What happens if it attacks someone tonight? Shouldn't we go after it now?" Jessica asked.
Esme sighed and threw herself after her bag. "Sure, and give it two more hunters to add to its tally. It's stupid to go after them at night, Jessie. They're much stronger at night, for one thing. For another, they have to be killed in their grave. During the day they're already there, but at night we'd have to fight it back there. So we wait. Unless you want to end up as a drinking fountain, of course."
She sounded irritated, and Jessica knew it killed her to wait. But Esme was nothing if not pragmatic, and so Jessica grabbed the dossier from her and set about being pragmatic too, which meant spending the rest of the evening studying the maps of the town and the cemetery (which was about a quarter mile from their motel) and memorizing the location of the grave in case she had to help get it back there. Esme, however, spent the evening raiding the trunk of Jessica's car and sharpening all of her knives while lecturing her about proper bladed weapon care, which Jessica tuned out as she had (literally, she was pretty sure) heard it a hundred times before.
Sometime after midnight Esme ordered her to bed, and after a brief fight (during which Jessica proclaimed that she was an adult and could put her own damn self to bed, prompting Esme to tickle her until she begged for mercy) they both curled up in their respective beds and listened to each other breathe for several long minutes.
"Do you really like him?" Esme whispered. She didn't have to say who she meant.
"Yes," Jessica whispered back.
She sensed rather than saw Esme nodding. "You'll have to tell him the truth, Jessie."
"I know," Jessica mouthed, closing her eyes again. Esme made it sound so easy, but she knew what Normal people could be like when confronted with the abnormal. Not everyone reacted the way her family had. But she would tell Sam. (Eventually.)
"And you'll have to tell him that if he hurts you, I've got better aim than a police sniper," Esme added, the smirk back in her voice, and Jessica laughed weakly and told her sister to shut up, but she knew acceptance (if not approval) when she heard it, and after that they both finally fell asleep.
Jessica woke up after only a few hours, but as Esme was still asleep she just crept into the bathroom and, after brushing her teeth and doing other morning routines, spent a few minutes braiding her hair back and around her head until there were no loose ends or pieces an enterprising monster could grab. She admired it for a few moments (it looked a bit like she was wearing a helmet made of blonde braids) and then slipped back into the room. Esme still slept, but a pale gray light suffused the room. Sunup, Jessica thought, and considered waking Esme. But the alarm wasn't supposed to go off for another hour, and Jessica figured she could let Esme sleep. One of them could get a good night's rest, at least.
She grabbed a knife (almost ten inches, bigger than the one she usually had on her) and, carefully, eased the door open and stepped outside onto the little porch in front of their room. It was a little cold out, and she could smell the salt on the air from the nearby ocean. Dawn had barely lit the sky, but she could just make out the edge of the sun on the horizon, through a bank of trees she remembered bordered the cemetery. She watched the leaves on the trees move gently with the wind, breathing deeply, both trying not to think about the upcoming battle and trying to reassure herself that it was Just Another Job and everything would be fine. The beauty of the place helped, she thought, turning her gaze from the trees to see the ocean. It was strange to think that something so nasty could lurk on the edges of such beauty, but Jessica knew better than most people that appearances meant almost nothing.
She stepped off the porch onto the grass, still wet with morning dew, and took a few steps away from the little motel, towards the ocean. The same breeze that was shivering the leaves brushed her skin. She started to hug herself for warmth, but then, out of the corner of her eye, she registered movement. She turned just in time to see a huge, white, dripping hand reaching for her throat.
With a shout she dropped herself to the ground and rolled, but the draugr was on her before she could get back up. Its waxy fingers grabbed at her shoulder and scrabbled at her throat, and she kicked as hard as she could. Her bare feet connected but it kept coming. She brought the hand holding the knife up and stabbed. The blade sank into the thing's side but it barely even seemed to notice. It just leered at her with its bloated lips and pinned both her arms to the ground before slowly starting to drag its bulk on top of her. The smell of rot, and seaweed, filled her nostrils, and she fought not to gag. It was unbelievably heavy; it was pressing all the air out of her lungs, and Jessica's mind flashed to the reports of victims crushed to death. Or possibly suffocated and then crushed, she thought wildly, and with her last breath she screamed, "Esme!"
But Esme was already there, loose hair flying as she jumped on the thing's back and pointed their new flame gun directly at the back of its head. "Get ready!" she shouted, and then flames were roaring out of it, lighting the draugr's sodden hair up like a bonfire. It reared back, throwing Esme to the ground, and Jessica scrambled out from under it, panting for air. She could see it properly now, and couldn't repress a shudder. It looked like a drowned corpse, bloated to larger than human, with slick death-white skin and a gaping dark hole for a mouth. Its dripping hands beat at its flaming hair, which was already starting to spit and smoke as the flames died. Her knife was still stuck fast in its side, she noted, and whirled to make for their room.
"Get away!" Esme yelled from the ground.
"I need a weapon!" she shouted back, and tore into their room through the open door. Esme had left her collection on the little table by the window, and Jessica grabbed the largest blade there (a machete) and dashed back outside, already prepared to swing it as hard as she could.
But it wasn't there. Jessica's eyes raked the area, and she saw that Esme was on her feet again, but she was running, streaking towards the trees with the draugr shuffling after her much faster than it looked like it should be able to, its head still smoldering but no longer flaming. For a split second Jessica didn't understand why Esme was running – Esme never ran from a fight – but then she remembered: "You have to kill it in its own grave." Esme was leading it, and even as she watched Esme sent a gout of flame over one shoulder, and the draugr swiped at her.
Jessica took off after them, her bare feet squelching through the grass as she ran, paying no attention to the sharp stabs of pain whenever she stepped on a rock or a branch. The grave, she thought, where is the grave?
It was in the back, near the treeline, and Esme was running straight for it. She had to approach differently, she thought, not distract the draugr from Esme too early, but get there first. She had to get there first so she could be ready to cut off its head. Veering left, Jessica ran all out, clutching the machete and making her own approach a sweeping arc that took her away from Esme and the draugr but headed her towards the grave all the same. It was longer than Esme's path, but she was taller and therefore a faster runner, and she was weaving her way between tombstones before (as a quick panicked glance over her shoulder told her) Esme and the draugr had even reached the boundary of the cemetery.
Second row from the back, third grave from the end. She skidded to a stop and planted both feet next to the upturned earth. She raised the machete and braced herself, remembering all the times she had beheaded practice dummies with her father watching. She could do this. She would do this.
Esme appeared then, gun in one hand, leading the draugr on with an expression that suggested she was merely concentrating on solving a problem and not running for her life. She darted between two tombstones and signaled Jessica with the hand holding the gun. Jessica nodded back and lifted the machete higher and waited for Esme to make her move.
The draugr lumbered up then, making a horrible hissing noise, and the smell washed over her again. But this time she was ready for it, and she just breathed through her mouth and tried not to recoil at the fact that she could taste the foul odor on her tongue.
Esme trampled through the sodden earth to Jessica's side, then suddenly stopped, whirled around, and raised the flame gun again, still one-handed. She blasted it again, and then dropped to the ground and rolled behind Jessica as the draugr roared with fury and tried to grab her, except she wasn't there.
Jessica was.
Jessica swung. The machete connected exactly where she'd planned, at the juncture between neck and shoulder, and bit into the waterlogged flesh with a horrific squelching noise that nearly made her jump back in disgust. But she kept pushing, straining to get the machete to cut its entire head off, and when it stuck about a third of the way through she snarled and wrenched it free and got ready to swing again, even as the draugr's fingers grasped her shoulder (right where she had just had the stitches out, of course). She shrieked, and it pushed her back a step, driving its fingers into her flesh, and then Esme came out of nowhere and hit it on the forearm with the gun. Its hand dropped away from her just as Jessica swung the machete and slammed it into its neck again, and this time it went through and its head tumbled from its shoulders and splatted on the ground.
Esme jumped back. Jessica tried but the body hit her anyway, knocking her onto her ass in the dirt and spewing dark slimy liquid all over her from the stump between its shoulders. It came to rest half on her lap, its fingers still twitching spasmodically.
"My pajamas," she said, stupidly.
"Holy shit, Jessie," Esme said, kneeling down next to her and shoving one-handed at the draugr's headless body. Slowly (not nearly goddamn fast enough) she rolled it off. "Help me," she grunted. "We need to move it right over the grave before torching it. Move it, Jessica!" she added when Jessica failed to do anything other than stare down at the copious amounts of sticky corpse blood currently plastering her favoritest pajamas in the world to her torso.
Esme's tone finally motivated her though (that, and the kick Esme delivered to her miraculously clean shin), and she stirred and helped Esme move the even heavier ('dead weight' Jessica thought, trying not to start laughing hysterically) body so it was lined up on top of the grave, its head at its feet. ("You don't put the head by the neck or it'll just come back before you've even set it on fire," Esme explained.) Then she stood up, wiping her hand on the (clean) back of Jessica's pajama shirt. Her other, Jessica noted, was being held close to her abdomen.
"What's wrong with your hand?" Jessica asked her.
"I think my wrist is broken," Esme replied, tone blasé. "Happened when it threw me off while I was saving your ass from getting crushed. Hurts like a bitch, too."
"I thought you were the best hunter ever," Jessica couldn't resist saying.
Esme flipped her off with her good hand. "I am so going to hit you with my cast when we're done." Jessica grinned, a little shakily, and Esme rolled her eyes and said, "Now strip."
Jessica blinked. "What?"
"Strip," Esme repeated. "We have to burn the entire body and then scatter the ashes in the ocean, or this bitch could come back. And since most of its blood is currently on your pajamas," she gestured, "we need to burn them too."
"But – Snoopy—" Jessica protested dumbly. She could feel tears pricking at her eyelids and seriously, was she about to start crying over pajamas? Esme rolled her eyes and poked her with the butt of the flame gun until she (extremely carefully) divested herself of them, which unfortunately included the pants and her underwear too, as both had blood on them as well. The entire bundle of clothing absolutely reeked with draugr-smell, and she had to agree that burning them was starting to seem like an excellent idea. "But what do I wear?" she asked Esme, already shivering.
"You could just stay naked," Esme told her, one eyebrow quirking.
Jessica hit her.
Esme laughed, and Jessica found herself laughing too, so hard it was beginning to approach sobbing. Esme touched her on the shoulder, briefly, then told her to clean the machete off with the clean back of her pajama pants. Then she handed Jessica the flame gun and, one handed, wiped Jessica clean as well.
"Okay," she said, tossing the bundle of clothing on the draugr's chest. "Let's light this asshole up."
"What about accelerant?" Jessica asked, wrapping her arms around herself. At least no one other than Esme was around to get an eyeful, but it was damn cold. It was so cold she barely noticed the fact that her feet hurt. (Not that that was a surprise, considering she hadn't had shoes on when the draugr had attacked. She hated Esme and her hastily put on sneakers.)
"It's drying out now that you've made it bleed out," Esme pointed out. "It'll go up like dry leaves now. Light it." Jessica trained the flame gun on it and proceeded to prove Esme's point; the draugr caught immediately and flared up, as did Jessica's pajamas. (Goodbye, Snoopy pajamas, she thought wistfully, but she definitely did not say it out loud.) After a minute Esme carefully took the gun from her and finished one-handed. The flames lit up the faint smile on her sister's face as Jessica shivered and crept as close as she dared to the lovely, lovely heat.
Jessica waited until Esme was finishing indulging her bent for pyromania and the draugr was ashes before asking, "I thought they stayed in their graves during the day. What the hell was that thing doing over by the motel at this hour?"
Esme lowered the gun. "They do," she said thoughtfully. "I guess early dawn doesn't count as day in draugr-world, though."
"I wouldn't have gone outside if I'd known that," Jessica grumbled. "Damn it, I loved those pajamas. Not to mention that I'm probably going to get arrested for indecent exposure."
Esme, who was wearing a loose pair of gray sweats, handed Jessica the gun again and carefully pulled off her own shirt (she was wearing a sports bra underneath). "Better than nothing," she said, almost apologetically, and then clambered out her pants and held them out too. They barely fit Jessica (who was a good four inches taller than Esme), but they at least covered her up enough to make the trek back to the hotel not bring cops down on her.
As she walked back through the grass, barefoot, wearing her sister's too-small pajamas, and carrying a machete, while on her way to (get clothes) pick up bags so they could transport a undead corpse's ashes to the ocean, it suddenly struck her that her original plans for early Saturday morning had (she had hoped) involved sleeping in the same bed as Sam Winchester and waking up in his arms. The disparity between her hopes and her reality was so vast she started to laugh again.
If Sam could see her now, she thought, wondering if he would even recognize Jessica-the-college-girl in Jessica-the-hunter. Esme was right; she had to tell him the truth, she thought. She couldn't expect to keep the two personas separate when what she wanted was for him to know just Jessica.
But how could she ever get him to believe her?