SAM

By the time they arrived at Lafayette, Indiana, Sam and Brady had a bizarrely efficient rhythm down. In most cases, Sam found that explaining to their targets what he and Brady were about to do only made things worse. Since the extraction ritual put the psychics to sleep—which made everything much simpler—they'd developed a system. Brady would enter the home, make sure there was nobody else around, let Sam in and start the ritual as soon as Sam walked through the door. In most cases, Sam only had to wait a minute or two before the cup filled and the psychic dropped unconscious.

They hadn't had any difficulty in weeks, and they'd gotten way too careless.

Sam waited outside Scott's house in the neat little suburban backyard, while Brady checked inside. It was broad daylight and the neighborhood was thrumming with the sounds of life, but the Careys had built a secluded little backyard oasis. A tall, cedar privacy fence circled the property, dotted every so often with plastic butterflies. Sam had the place to himself, drawn to an old hammock that stretched between two leafless trees, remembering the summer when he was nine.

Somehow, they'd ended up at a campground while Dad hunted a chupacabra. Right after Sam clambered into a hammock to catch a long overdue nap, Dean had snuck up and folded the hammock around him like a huge cocoon, and spun him until he thought he was going to puke.

It hadn't been funny at the time, except to Dean, and it still wasn't funny now but for a very different reason. Sam smiled pensively and pushed down the ache of loss he felt whenever he thought of his brother. He walked a step closer to the hammock, and heard a loud pop go off behind him. Right behind him. Immediately thereafter, two more pops sounded, for a total of three. His torso jolted and initially, he was clueless; it didn't make sense. Then the pain bloomed, quick and sharp, and he turned around, clutching at his chest. His hand felt slick and when he looked down, he saw blood—red and yellow and black and finally a sickly white—coursing over his fingers. He landed in the grass, trying to will the blood to stop leaking, urging it to return and draw back inside. The sky was starting to tunnel, closing in, when Sam saw Brady appear behind a skinny, twitching kid. The kid had a gun.

The demon grabbed the gun and brought it crashing down on the kid's temple. Stepping over the unconscious body, Brady reached Sam's side just before everything went forcibly, and terrifyingly, dark.

DEAN

The world was spiraling. Dean slammed into the Impala, the cold metal of a gun in one hand, the hot spill of his own blood in the other. This was an impossible decision. Impossible, unfair, and he couldn't make it. He'd taken the Colt and ran, just as his father had asked, but now the call was Dean's. No choice; he wasn't leaving his dad.

He stumbled back to the farmhouse, half-assedly looking for Meg even though she wouldn't be hanging around; she wasn't stupid. He tore open the door, leaving red everywhere he touched, and was met with dead silence.

"Dad!" he barked. The effort set his gut on fire.

Nothing moved, save the dust motes that drifted in the wan sunlight from a broken window.

"Dad," Dean said again, this time without urgency.

Caleb hadn't moved, lying in the middle of a wide, dark puddle. Dean corrected himself; it wasn't Caleb anymore, it was just a vacant shell.

His head swam again, black spots beginning to dance in front of this eyes and heart pounding so hard he thought it might break through his ribs or shoot out the slice in his belly.

What do I do what do I do? He just wanted to sit and think, to fold up under his own weight and think for a God-damned minute, but if he did that, he'd never get up again. This could not be an option.

He wished he could call Sam but fuck, no, that wasn't an option either. Every bad vibe in his body congealed around Sammy: Jess' death, Mom'sdeath, the Tall Man and his handiwork, ol' Yellow Eyes' supposed 'plans'—none of it should've made sense and yet somehow, it still did.

Dean felt his eyes start to sting and a moan catch in his throat. He'd been alone before, but this was a fresh new hell. Fellow hunters, family friends, had lost their lives over this and he didn't know why. His brother was slipping away and his dad…shit, his dad. His dad was being puppet-mastered by an adversary that wasn't even human. How the fuck do you fight that?

He caught himself on a banister, almost toppling, and his boot kicked the butt of the shotgun he'd dropped earlier, when the demon had stuck him to the wall like a frog on a dissecting tray. Dean winced, tucking the Colt in the back of his jeans, and stooped painfully to retrieve the firearm. As a joke, twelve-year-old Sam had carved a smiley face into the stock of the shotgun. Dean had never sanded it off.

He made a decision right then and there: he'd pick up and he'd carry on, stop thinking and just do.This was his family; this was his life.

After patting down Caleb, who'd been picked clean by the demons, Dean made a brief search of the house. He found nothing but telltale drifts of yellow powder at some of the windows. Sulfur.

Once outside, he raised his blood-heavy shirt and inspected the cut on his belly in the mid-day sun. Yeah, it certainly needed stitches and maybe he could sew himself up if he could get his hands to quit shaking. It wasn't as deep as he'd feared, though. For once, he was relieved he had a just a little meat around his middle and the gash didn't bite though the muscle wall. If this had been Sam, they'd be picking up innards right now.

He patched himself up with a few butterfly bandages and choked down painkillers, dry. After swapping his ruined shirt for an unstained one, he unfolded a map on the hood of the Impala and stared at North America, displayed in print and the pastel colors of each state. There was no one he trusted in Wyoming and he sure as hell wasn't going back to Kansas but the next state over, Nebraska, was home to the Roadhouse.

Dean felt a brand new thrill of panic at the possibility someone at Harvelle's was on Yellow Eyes' hit list too. That settled it.

Using his own spare key, Dean hid his father's Sierra Grande in the nearby woods, first emptying the bed of every single weapon and piling the arsenal into the trunk of his car. He stripped the truck of all personalizing items and tucked Dad's journal in his jacket pocket. He didn't bother with the license plates; they weren't legitimate anyways.

Without a single look back, he left that fucking farmhouse in the dust and made a straight shot to Arcadia, Nebraska—Home to Hunters Everywhere—praying the whole time he wouldn't find a burned-out shell when he got there.

SAM

The first thing that hit Sam when he became conscious again was the smell in the air—blood and sulfur. He heard a warped slur of voices near him, arguing, as his brain filled with pain and cement. A hand grabbed him by the chin and held something cold and metallic against his lips. The odor of blood was so close, and Sam wanted it so bad, but his body just wasn't listening to him.

"Drink this," Brady said. At least Sam was fairly certain it was Brady; who else would be force-feeding him O-positive?

Sam moaned and tried to open his eyes but his lids weighed a ton. He managed to crack one halfway open and then the other. The demon and his human skin both wore nearly identical expressions of concern, though the Brady inside looked even more panicked. There was someone else behind him—a woman with two faces looking out through her skin—one demon, one human.

"Drink!" Brady insisted and pushed the brim of the chalice against Sam's teeth. The woman standing behind him moved closer and stared at Sam with stark, black eyes.

Sam opened his mouth and drank. It was supposed to be chicken soup. Dean always gave him chicken soup when he got hurt or had a fever. And Sam was certainly hurting, but he couldn't remember—

Brady tilted the chalice up further and poured the blood into Sam's mouth.

He kept swallowing, and the pain disappeared as if some great hand had swept it away, nothing more than a vague inconvenience. Sam was left groggy and befuddled, and though greatly improved, still a long way from functional. His eyes fluttered and focused on a dirty, cobwebbed ceiling. When had they gone inside? And where the ever-loving hell was inside? He was distantly aware that there was more blood running down his throat than the few spoonfuls he usually got. A lot more.

"This is such a bad idea," said the woman, tucking her short, blonde hair behind one ear. She turned away from them and added, "You're an idiot."

"Shut up, Meg. What are you even still doing here?" Brady tilted the chalice up and smiled at Sam. "Good. Good job, Sam. You'll feel better soon."

"You know the hunters already figured out this isn't a disease. They have a name for him. You don't think the rest of the humans are going to start getting suspicious when two bodies from different states turn up dead together?"

Sam followed this 'Meg' person's gaze as she glared down at an unfamiliar pair of motionless figures, piled against a wall. From the looks of the place, they'd landed in an abandoned house but it was getting dark, and the shadows were growing long. Sam couldn't see with clarity much more than his immediate surroundings.

"No, I don't, because you're going to help me make sure that doesn't happen. Take Miranda and Scott back to their own homes." Brady continued to feed Sam the contents of the cup, even as Sam struggled in vain to lift his head off the floor.

"Right, I'll just bring them back home. It's not like anybody would have noticed that they've both been missing for the last two days! Oh, and I'm sure nobody heard the gun go off at Scott's house either." The blonde woman let out a patronizing sigh and snapped, "This wasn't the plan."

"I'm improvising," Brady grumbled, slipping a hand under the back of Sam's neck. "If you think it's such a bad plan, then leave."

Sam swallowed the rest of the blood and Brady pulled the cup away.

"I'm not bringing them back to their homes. Not while they're still breathing, anyway. They talk and we'll have a real problem." Meg blew a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. "The humans—police, hunters whatever—they're all going to start going after Sam. You know that, right?"

"Then we'll just have to move faster, until they're not a threat anymore."

The woman's voice raised a decibel. "Faster? Are you insane? You're way ahead of schedule as is. This is crazy! It's dangerous!"

Sam felt curiously removed from the conversation zinging over his head. The blood settled in his belly, warm and satisfying. Awash with contentment that he probably should've questioned, Sam simply didn't. It wasn't worth the effort. He licked the last few drops from his lips and decided now was the perfect time to drift right back to sleep. Brady, apparently, had a different plan.

There was a light pressure on Sam's chest, and he thought that for a moment Brady had set his hand there, fingers splayed wide. This theory proved wrong, however, when a sudden and violent tug exploded in Sam's chest. A hot sear ripped through him and his eyes snapped open, back arching off the floor and fingers scraping splinters from the rough wood.

Brady was holding his hand over Sam's chest, his mouth thinned in concentration.

Something small and metallic tore loose from inside of Sam. It snapped into Brady's waiting hand, slick and red. "Sorry, Sam. That idiot's aim was a little too good. One of the bullets got lodged in—"

Suddenly, Sam's mind exploded and he howled. The pleasure from the blood turned into white-hot fury, unfocused and impossible to contain. Two opposing forces coursed through him, one knitting his flesh back together, making him whole, and the other violent and desperate to lash out. There was something else too, something that made his heart race and his body feel far too small. It pressed against his very being, against the walls of the room, and Sam gasped, trying to find the air, the space, to breathe. His skin twitched and tingled, the hairs on his arms lifting.

There was a loud, cracking noise and from the other side of the room, the sound of voices crying out in pain.

"Shit," Brady said, standing up and backing away from Sam.

"I fucking told you!" snapped the woman. "Let's go before —"

Sam thrashed in agony as the area flooded with energy. The room lit up flash-bang bright, and for just a moment, Sam knew what it was like to be a storm.

Then there was nothing.

JO

It was a peculiar Wednesday night when the guy blew into the Roadhouse. Peculiar because the snow that had smothered the far northern part of the state missed Arcadia in favor of wind, hail and thunder. Jo fiddled with busywork—polishing glasses, restocking coasters. She hated the way the windows jittered and pinged with ice flecks, and how the heavens rumbled like celestial indigestion. But she and Ash had been tracking strange weather conditions for the past few months and if this storm meant the Tall Man was nearby, she'd forgive Mother Nature anything, even if it took out a neon letter from the sign over the porch outside.

The door smacked open, shoved by the wind, forcing the newcomer to muscle it shut again. Young guy, not much older than Jo. She'd never seen him before but he looked like every other customer in the joint: boots, layers of flannel and denim and toughness, and a wary dart to his eye that said he didn't miss much. He was tallish, slightly bow-legged and compact, and from the way he carried himself Jo could tell he was packing firearms. She was pretty sure he was a hunter of something, preternatural or otherwise.

He brushed the sleet out of his sandy hair, leaving it in wet bristles. When he caught her staring, he made a beeline for the bar and tried damned hard to smile around exhaustion. Jo felt something flutter in her belly, and she couldn't be sure if it was trouble or sympathy or something a little less polite.

"Some night, huh?" Jo said, grabbing a clean rag to buff off a spot for him at the bar.

He pulled up a stool and sat, barely stifling a wince. "Yeah. Some night."

Now that he was closer, she noted how truly wrung-out he looked; he must've been driving for hours, maybe days. He had that sort of zombified, dry-eyed stare and dark circles, a dirty shade of purple, that suggested more than a little missing sleep. There might even have been bruises. His knuckles were red and swollen too; maybe he'd been in a knock-down drag-out. Jo fancied she was good at ferreting out patrons' business.

"Coffee or beer?" she asked.

"Whiskey."

"Ah. Shitty day?" She turned and grabbed a bottle of one of the top-shelf brands; she'd decided he'd earned it.

"Oh, darlin', you don't know the half of it," he chuckled humorlessly, and Jo saw his jaw tighten when he shifted position.

She poured him a double. "Try me."

"Nah. Some things are just better left unsaid." He lifted his glass. "To absent friends…"

Jo had poured herself a shot, and clinked it against his. "To absent friends."

They drank in tandem, both hissing and grinning at the burn.

Just about then, Ellen came out from the kitchen with burgers and baskets of fries for the corner table. Jo quickly palmed her empty shotglass and the guy smirked again, wrinkling the corners of his weary eyes.

"My mom," Jo mouthed soundlessly.

"Wait, is that Ellen Harvelle?"

"Yeah…" she squinted at him, trying to place his face but nope, not a flicker of recognition.

"You Jo?"

"Well now, this doesn't seem fair. Can I at least get a name from you?" Whatever initial attraction she'd felt for him was solidly punted by suspicion.

He hesitated but didn't seem to have the energy to be evasive. "Dean."

Ellen Harvelle's radar had pinged, apparently. She'd come up behind his left side, square-shouldered and narrow-eyed. For once, Jo was glad for her mother's keen over-protectiveness. "Winchester? John's boy?"

The guy—Dean—turned quickly and all the color bleached from his face. He shuddered once and toppled over backwards. If not for Ellen, he would've hit the floor, hard. Jo shot from around the bar and caught his other arm; this Dean wasn't a fly-weight.

With the aid of Ash and Jud, the sheriff's nephew, they wrangled him into one of the back rooms the Roadhouse kept for occasional overnight guests. It wasn't much more than a bare light bulb, a flimsy cot and a lettuce crate for a bedside stand, but it'd do. Ash's room was just around the corner.

He woke up as Jo was pulling off his leather jacket, bleary and objecting with about as much gumption as a baby deer. Ellen pressed a cool, damp rag to his forehead and murmured something about him feeling too warm, and it didn't take them long to figure out why. The poor patch-job across his belly hid an angry slash, pink around the edges and seeping blood and serum through an ineffectual gauze wrap.

Ellen sent Jud out to watch the bar and Ash to retrieve whiskey and the first aid kit as Jo checked him over for any other festering wounds.

"Dean?" Ellen said softly, despite her hard expression.

He blinked up at her and grunted, his eyes nearly crossing with the effort. He was sweating and pale as a fish belly. The cut on his abdomen seemed to be the worst of his external injuries, apart from the odd fresh bruise or scrape. If something had sprung a leak inside, though, he was in trouble: they had no way of dealing with that.

Jo flipped open the little pocketknife she carried, and Dean started struggling all over again.

"Settle, there, cowboy. I'm just gonna cut your shirt off," Jo said. He stared at her long and hard, then finally flopped back down, stilling. She slipped the blade up under his t-shirt and split the garment open wide. When she moved to pull off the doodad he wore on a leather cord around his neck, his hand snapped up and caught her wrist. It took a lot of effort on his part, she could tell. "Okay, okay. I won't touch the jewelry. Relax, before you have a stroke on top of it all."

Ellen took the medkit from Ash and opened it up on her lap. She fished out fresh bandages, antiseptic, and a suture kit, setting the items on the pillow for easy access.

"Damn, that's gonna leave a mark," Ash said pointedly, squinting and hovering over the damage. Jo batted him away.

If this Dean wasn't a hunter, he should've been. His skin was dotted with freckles and a load of old, difficult-to-explain scars that looked a lot like bite wounds and claw scrapes. He was in exceptionally good shape—quite the tough guy—but he'd lost a lot of blood and hadn't taken particular care with the cleanliness of his wound. Or maybe whatever had made the cut wasn't exactly human.

Jo and her mom had patched up more than a few unfortunate casualties of too much beer, too little brain, as well as the occasional hunter who stumbled into the Roadhouse after a hunt gone wrong. They worked quickly and quietly, Ellen cleaning the wound thoroughly despite Dean's gasps and shivers and Jo threading a curved needle for the stitchwork. Jo was better at the detailed stuff; her mom probably needed reading glasses but wouldn't admit to it.

Ash handed Jo the liquor. She gave the wound a splash for luck then sat Dean up long enough to allow him a few long swallows. He was going to need it.

After the first three stitches, Dean had the good graces to pass out. Thank God, Elvis, or whoever the hell looked out for fools and baby animals, Jo said to herself.

DEAN

Dean's eyes felt like burrs drifting in some sort of dry-ice fog, which made about as much sense as anything else. At first, he thought he was tied down and then he realized he was just too fucking sore and weak to move. His midsection was stiff and incredibly tender, and the room refused to swim into focus. Since his vision wouldn't rally, he let his eyes drift shut again and stopped trying. His ears worked just fine, though – providing his brain would get on board with the plan.

The muffled strains of Patsy Cline's "Crazy" drifted through the walls and Dean found the song selection thoroughly unfunny. Seemed he couldn't get his sense of humor to rally either.

The last thing he remembered was the taste of whiskey. Backtracking from there, his memory surrendered up a short blonde, then he recalled driving, chewing up the road in a panic to get somewhere, anywhere, because…Dad.

Dean's eyes crawled open again and a bit of the fog lifted. His limbs were still leaden, and he realized there were voices in the room from some spot behind him, out of sight. Women's voices. They spoke softly, but he could swear he heard "Winchester" mentioned at least twice.

He ran his tongue over his lips and said "Hello?" but it came out more of a squeak. A manly squeak, he hoped.

The voices hushed and footsteps approached. A face emerged from the glare of a naked light bulb—the blonde from before—the bartender, he recalled, though she still looked far too young to be serving booze to anyone.

"Well, about time," she smiled and Dean made a miserable attempt to smile back. His teeth were so fuzzy and dry, though, his lips stuck.

"Bet your belly hurts like a sonuvabitch," she continued, lifting a threadbare blanket to peek at his torso.

"Hope I still have my pants," Dean croaked.

Now the other woman stepped into view, arms folded over her chest, unyielding. "Nope. And we've got your gun, too."

Shit, the Colt.Dean had every intention of sitting upright but that wasn't happening anytime soon. Nothing but his head moved; it came a few sad inches off the pillow before collapsing back down.

"How long…?"

The older woman—Ellen, he barely remembered—huffed a sigh and her eyes softened. She wasn't particularly tall or broad, but she had the rigid posture of someone who could kick his ass if she put half a mind to it, even on one of Dean's better days. Which this wasn't, so he wisely stayed still. "Almost three days. What took a chunk out of your middle, son?"

Son.Dean's heart rate kicked up a notch with instant dread for Dad, which made his belly throb in bright agony and he breathed deep through his nose to force some small bit of calm.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he managed to grind out.

"Try me."

He had no idea how much the Harvelle women knew of his father's business, supernatural or otherwise. He was as sure as he could be that the Roadhouse was hunter-friendly, but maybe that simply meant the proprietors were happy to turn a blind eye to strange goings-on and since they were out in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere, the local law gave them a wide berth. John had once worked with a Bill Harvelle but maybe Bill didn't involve his wife and daughter in the dangerous stuff.

He also knew Bill was dead. There might've been more in Dad's journal about Mr. Harvelle but Dean hadn't gotten that far yet. Decoding the journal was like catching frogs with your bare hands: slippery and messy and sometimes, just plain impossible. Frankly, until the yellow-eyed fucker had run off in Dad's skin, Dean wasn't allowed access to the journal anyway. It was a scary peek into John Winchester's brain, and Dean wasn't altogether thrilled to get in there.

Jo leaned forward, elbows resting lightly on the edge of the bed. "We noticed the sigils on the gun. We know what they're for. Non timebo mala. I will fear no evil…" Her face got serious. "So what are you hunting, Dean Winchester?"

Where to begin?Ellen was hovering over Jo's shoulder, the grim press of her lips reading all kinds of unhappy.

"A demon is skin-riding my dad," he said hoarsely, fists bunching in the blankets.

Ellen's mood shifted into something Dean couldn't read, but he could feel it. It felt like things unspoken, like skeletons peeking out of closets. "Jo, would you go get Dean some water to drink, please?" Her voice was tight.

Jo flashed a glance from Dean to her mother but obeyed without objection. When she'd left the room, Ellen took her place at Dean's bedside.

"That gun is the Colt, isn't it? The Colt?"

Dean swallowed hard and nodded.

"I thought that thing was just a legend, like the Holy Grail. Or Excalibur."

"No, ma'am." There was no such thing as 'legend' in Dean's line of work.

Ellen was so close he could see the fine wrinkles around her eyes, the odd shoot of gray through her brunette hair. He couldn't help but sweat a little under the scrutiny; Dean made the connection that Bill Harvelle had, indeed, included his widow in hunting business.

"So. You planning on going after this thing by yourself?"

Dean shifted uncomfortably, and it wasn't just the slice in his stomach that was giving him grief. "I haven't really gotten that far but…yeah?"

Ellen shook her head. "And that's why you came here? To hunt by yourself?"

"Umm." Dean was fresh out of fibs and he just didn't have the energy to drum up more.

"Mmmhmm." Ellen studied him hard. "Back before…back before Bill—Jo's daddy—died, John told him about the Colt. I overheard them talking one night. So I know what it does. And I know why your father wanted it." Sympathy flickered across Ellen's face, only to vanish again in a blink. "But Jo doesn't know. Hell, she doesn't even know Bill and John were…friends." That last word felt dragged out, kicking and screaming.

When Ellen didn't continue, Dean made up his mind to scour John's journal thoroughly for any scrap on Bill Harvelle, as soon as he could move. "Dad never said much about your husband. I'm…I'm sorry, ma'am."

"Please, it's Ellen," she said tersely, and then sighed, patting Dean's arm. He felt like shit and probably looked no better, might've tugged at her heartstrings a tad. "I'd just rather you didn't get Jo messed up in scouting demons. Call me over-protective." Ellen gave a faint smile that made Dean nod immediately. Of course he got it. There were times he'd wished Dad had made the same choice, especially with Sam. Almost always with Sam. "In fact, if I catch you involving my daughter, I'll put enough buckshot in your pants to make you rattle when you piss. When you're back amongst the living, you can hit up any one of the other hunters passing through for help. You got it?"

Dean nodded. Lots.

Jo returned with water and Ellen gave Dean a last, light warning glance before wandering out.

JO

As soon as Ellen disappeared down the hall, Dean was peeling back the blankets and trying to get upright. It was adorable.

Jo let him struggle for nearly a minute before she unfolded her arms and held out the bottled water.

"Yeah, I don't think so," he said blearily. "I have to piss like a racehorse so if you could just…" The patient waved a hand in irritation and hobbled two steps, bent at the waist like an old man, before his knees buckled.

Jo debated letting his dumb ass kiss the floor, but he might pop her perfectly even stitches. She jumped forward and levered him back to the bed, feeling him shake. Sweat was already slicking his forehead and he smelled three days ripe. Jo certainly sympathized with his predicament; that still didn't mean she was willing to let him re-injure himself just to shake the dew off his lily.

He sat heavily with a grunt and a shiver. Every bit of his body language telegraphed 'surly', until he noticed what he was wearing. Jo had appropriated a pair of Ash's boxers—clean—and Dean didn't look any too impressed by the hearts and rosebuds printed all over them.

"Here." She reached under the bed and pulled out a squat brass urn. It'd been sitting around the Roadhouse for as long as Jo could remember and came in handy for lots of things: a spittoon when Doc Riggins insisted on chewing Skoal, a make-shift vase for flowers (not that there was much call for one at Harvelle's but they didhave a bachelorette party for RitaJane Pope last summer and filled it with peonies as a centerpiece), and of course, a chamberpot for Dean Winchester.

Dean looked at the container, appalled. "Oh, no no, I am not—"

"Look. You ain't got nothin' I haven't seen before." Jo left the pot by Dean's stocking feet. "Who do you think's been cleaning you up the past three days, hmm?"

He shut his mouth and scowled, not exactly blushing, then the frown turned into a shit-eatin' grin as he clearly cycled through the idea of a pretty young blonde with a nice warm washcloth. Probably in lingerie, given the look on his face.

"Oh, don't flatter yourself, pinky." Jo rolled her eyes. "I'll be back in a few minutes. Do me a favor and aim, okay?"

"Hey, I always hit my target," he said gamely, but she could tell by the hunch of his shoulders he was hurting something fierce.

When she returned, he was back under the covers and propped up by a few old goosedown pillows. Peeing must've plumb worn him out. His hair stuck up every which-way and his eyes were bloodshot and droopy. And green. She noticed for the first time he had green eyes, like her dad.

She held out her hand, palm up, and in it sat a pile of pills: antibiotics and a pair of yellow, oblong tablets that made the hurt go away. He took them without dithering, washing them down with a swig from the bottled water Jo had left.

He'd feel better shortly, and Jo was gladder than she'd like to admit that he was awake enough to complain. The past few days had been full of worry and fever. He'd sweated through and soiled innumerable sheets and t-shirts, to the point Jo was sick to death of laundry. In his delirium, he'd been going on and on about demons and storms, his father and someone named Sam. His wound had looked worrisome until just this morning, when the angry pink skin finally lost its heat.

Springs creaked as Jo sat down on the edge of the bed. "I'm sorry about your father."

"Me too," he said with a wan smile. His gaze sharpened marginally and the fingers of his free hand twitched in his lap. "Has anyone heard…anything? Anything that might…?"

"I don't think so. Sorry. Again."

He sighed and wilted back into the pillows. "Peachy."

"Hey, I know what it's like to lose your dad," Jo said gently, picking at a snag in the blanket. He probably didn't want to hear her pathetic life story, but the moment felt weird and weighty, and Jo figured misery loved company. Maybe she could help him; maybe she could make her father's death mean something, in whatever remote way. Besides, Dean owed her for the whole Florence Nightingale routine. The least he could do was lay there and listen. "My dad was killed on a hunt. I barely remember him; I might've been four? But I still feel him like a little hole in my heart and it bleeds every once in a while. So if I can do anything, if I can help…"

She looked up at him and his eyes had closed, mouth open slightly, wheezing a light snore. Jo breathed a little laugh and ran fingers over his forehead. He felt cool, if a tad greasy. Good. She slipped the half-empty bottle from his grip and tucked his hands under the covers. She'd probably dig out a second blanket for him later.

As night firmly took hold, the wind howled and pummeled the Roadhouse. They were predicting record lows tonight, possibly snow, certainly black ice. It was going to be a nasty one.

"See here? Abnormal plant growth. Like, shit-tons of it. Makes kudzu look like a rare and delightful orchid. And then lightning again. Su-prize, su-prize." Ash had his laptop open on the bar, wires sprouting from places no computer had any business sprouting them. Jo squinted over his shoulder as he scrolled through the report, mindful to avoid said wires; the last time she accidentally touched one, she very nearly got electro-shock therapy.

"Where?" she asked.

"Arizona."

"Damn."

"Yeah, bummer."

"The Tall Man's avoiding us."

Ash grunted. "Maybe we're just not psychic enough for the fucker."

A distinctly non-girlie voice issued from the doorway to the back rooms. "What fucker?"

Jo spun around, brows hoisted. "Well, lookee there; it lives." It was already after the lunch rush, if one could call a dozen locals a 'rush'. Half an hour ago, she'd checked on Dean and he'd still been drooling in his sleep.

He looked groggy and sloe-eyed, but had managed to struggle into the jeans and old wool sweater she'd left for him. And socks.

Ash casually closed the computer as Jo poured Dean a Coke from the soda gun. Perfectly choreographed misdirection. She sat the glass on a coaster and gestured him to a stool.

"Sit down before you fall over. How you feeling?"

"Like someone tried to shanghai a kidney and left me in a bathtub full of ice." He gimped over to the seat and hoisted himself up with no small amount of grimacing. A hand curled around the glass but he just sat there and wobbled for a second, collecting his breath. His skin still had a disconcertingly waxy sheen.

"You hungry?" Jo plucked a toothpick from the stack on the bar and slipped it between her teeth.

Dean seemed to consider the question, eventually nodding.

"Awesome. Gimme a sec." She trotted to the kitchen, leaving Ash and Dean pointedly notstaring at each other.

Jo wasn't gone but a few minutes. There was still venison stew leftover from the daily special and she set a bowl of it in front of Dean, with a spoon sticking out of the steaming stuff. Along with it, Jo added a slab of homemade bread and a foil-wrapped pat of butter. He instantly brightened and hung his nose over the vapors, smiling in earnest for the first time since he'd stumbled into the Roadhouse. Jo patted herself on the back; guess it was true what they said about the way to a man's heart.

He shoveled in mouthfuls like he hadn't eaten in three days. Which, okay, was the truth. Jo and Ash watched in mild awe until he felt their eyes on him and pulled a face. "What? It's good, okay?" This last was said with a crust of bread hanging out of his mouth.

Ash lifted his hands in surrender, implying an unspoken well, excuuuuse me.

Dean reminded Jo a little of a stray dog, in sore need of kibble and a good grooming. "I just don't want you over-doing it, right outta the gate. I've wiped up your messes enough to last a lifetime."

Dean made a show of slowing his roll, poking at the Coke. "Can I get a beer?"

"Not on top of the painkillers," Jo countered, tonguing her toothpick.

"Fine. So what about this Tall Man?"

Ash's expression shifted to he's alllll yoursand folded his arms over his chest expectantly.

Jo hissed under her breath. "Crap."

Dean grinned.

"Watch for Ellen," Jo directed Ash—to which he saluted—and she took a few steps closer to Dean's corner of the bar. "Okay, so maybe I might be working a case. Sort of. You heard of the Tall Man?"

"Nope," Dean said between chews.

Jo examined him hard because getting the truth from hunters was like pulling teeth; Gordon was recent living proof of this. "The deaths of a bunch of psychics? Freaky lightning storms? Ring any bells?"

The movement of spoon-to-mouth slowed almost imperceptibly and he nodded. "That, I do know. Been keeping half an eye on that junk myself."

"So what'd you dig up?" Jo leaned in, not beyond offering Dean a little flash of cleavage beneath the 'v' of her t-shirt to loosen his tongue.

No dice. He kept his eyes trained on the stew, pushing around bits of potato. "Haven't made heads or tails of it, really. You know, just talk coming down the grapevine."

That was bullshit, Jo knew it. Maybe if Dean had been feeling 100%, he could've sold that lie, but he wasn't so he didn't. Jo's interest was piqued to the ceiling.

"Dean."

He "hmmed?" and glanced up, eyes full of fatigue and distraction.

"Look. You don't know me from Adam or Eve or whoever, but you were really messed up when you came in here, and I don't just mean your belly. Hell, you still are." Jo pinched the toothpick between her fingers and tapped it restlessly on the bar. "Lone hunters get themselves killed. That's what happened to my pop. If you need help, you've just gotta ask."

"Thanks, but I don't need help."

"Fine. So what about this Sam?"

Turnabout was fair play, and now she had his attention. He got as still as stone, his eyes boring into her with fresh energy that fairly screamed warning. He didn't say a word.

Jo wasn't daunted, even though maybe she should've been. More than a few hunters had snapped and gone postal or ate their own gun. It wasn't a calling for the entirely sane, after all. "You talk in your sleep. Especially when you're running a 104-degree fever." She tried to look enigmatic, make him think she knew more than she did. If the cleavage didn't work, maybe a good poker-face would.

"He's my brother."

"He a hunter too?"

"Dunno. Used to be." Dean glared at his soda.

"You don't talk anymore?"

"Look, Jo, I told you it was none of your GOD-DAMNED business." The effort it took to reign in his obvious anger also made his middle twinge, Jo could see from the resulting cringe. She was sorry she pushed, but only a little.

Ash stood up and drew back his shoulders. He was ropy as an old chicken wing, but that didn't keep him from getting booted out of MIT for fighting, and he'd stand up for Jo without a second thought. Not that she couldn't handle herself just fine.

The front door clattered open and cold air and daylight flooded into the barroom.

"Momma Bear at two o'clock." Ash coughed, and quickly pushed the laptop across the bar to Jo, who slipped the computer under the cash register in one fluid motion.

Ellen was bundled in winterwear and lugging a huge bag of halite. "Little help, here? But not you, darlin'; wouldn't want you busting a stitch." This, directed toward Dean.

"No problem; not feeling stellar anyway," he murmured, and eased off the barstool, heading back to the bedroom without much more than an appreciative nod to Ellen for her concern.

"There's more in the truck, if you two feel like making yourselves useful." This, directed toward Jo and Ash.

Conversation over, Jo snarked inwardly. For now.