Jessica was in the shower having just woken up for the night. Despite the renovations in Bill's house since he became king, sleeping still reminded her of the dirty cubby hole and she always felt dirty waking up.
Jess had always loved showers when she was alive, and she'd been almost surprised when she'd discovered that the small pleasure had remained. There were many things she missed from her human days, like food. Her tight-ass dad hadn't ever let her have take-out, but there were occasions when she'd been involved in a school play or something and someone had ordered pizza. She remembered the first time she'd had pizza; it was so delicious she had almost eaten an entire pepperoni by herself. Obviously, the thought of it now revolted her, but that didn't mean she didn't hold the memory fondly.
She was just rinsing the shampoo out of her hair when she heard noise from downstairs. It was quiet enough to not be one of the guards, but loud enough to be human. In a second she had dried herself and pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, leaving her hair in a sodden mess of tangles down her back. The mystery guest had made their way slowly towards Bill's office, stopping occasionally; to check for guards presumably. Bill had excused himself as soon as night had fallen. probably to save Sookie from something else, so she was the only vampire in the house.
As Jessica made her way down the stairs she dismissed the guards that she saw. There were only two and she wanted to see what the strange human wanted. She could smell him now, and there was something about his scent that seemed familiar but she couldn't place it. He was definitely male though; that much she could tell. He intrigued her, and she didn't want some trigger happy guard shooting him before she could play. Plus, she smiled, if he turned out to be boring she could just eat him. She could even tell Bill it was in self-defense.
She reached the bottom of the stairs and made her way over to the doors, behind which lay Bill's office. She silently opened them and stood inside, closing them just as silently behind her.
In front of her a man was bent over, looking through Bill's files and with his back to the door. He was big, very big. It wasn't that he was just tall, though he was very tall, maybe even taller than Eric. His shoulders were broad and thick. The strange thing was that although he looked completely out of proportion with his surroundings, he didn't with himself. There was a look Jessica had become accustomed to when men worked out or were overly muscular, where they seemed like there was too much muscle for their body. Yet this man looked just like a normal guy, albeit a hot one. It was like someone had taken him and made him a bit bigger.
She had recognized him immediately, of course, he was still wearing the distinctive red plaid shirt that looked about the size of a tent and seemed far to lumberjack for someone whose eyes looked so intelligent. He was the man who had been in Merlotte's the other night. Jess could have sworn he was looking at her, but then out came Sookie throwing one of her fits about Vampire equality. I mean, like Jess didn't know, she was a damn Vampire, but she never threw a fit about it. Other than with Arlene, but that bitch didn't count. After that he hadn't looked at her once.
Suddenly Jessica realized that she'd been standing there for a good five minutes and the man was still rummaging through Bill's things. She leaned nonchalantly against the wall with her hands behind her back.
"Hi there," Jess said simply, in her sweetest voice. The man jumped, spun around and pulled a gun out from inside his jacket in a split second, which he pointed at Jess's heart with a rock steady hand. Even as a vampire Jess was impressed by his speed, for a human that is. It was also unreasonably hot.
"You're, you're the girl from the bar," He said incredulously. He got real cute when he was confused, his nose crinkled and everything.
"The girl?" she queried, "So you noticed me then?"
He got really flustered at this point and it was all Jess could do to stop herself giggling.
"That's, that's not... what are you doing here?" he finally managed to get out.
"You mean you haven't figured it out yet?" Jess was having more fun than she'd expected.
"You're… a vampire?" he choked.
"Not just any vampire," she jokingly taunted, "My daddy's the king."
"What?" was all he managed.
"Yup, so I guess, that sorta makes me the princess don't it?" she pushed herself away from the wall and walked over casually to the desk. She sat down on the chair, kicking some papers aside so she could put her feet up. His gun, which had previously lowered in his confusion, had been aimed straight at her again as soon as she'd moved.
"It was a bit dumb wasn't it? Coming here at night that is?"
He didn't reply.
"You're lucky Bill wasn't here, he tends to be a bit grouchy when he wakes up," she twirled her hair around her fingers as she spoke.
This time he smirked.
"That wasn't luck, I'm not stupid. I just didn't figure there were more of you here. Now, where's my brother?" On the last sentence his voice dropped. It sent a shudder through Jess, but she was also thrown off slightly.
"Your brother?" she asked.
"Don't act like you don't know. He was taken, by vampires, and you're the only fangs in town so I'm told." He lent down one hand on the desk to get closer to her, gun pointed straight to her heart, expression deadly. "These here are silver bullets you know. So I'll ask again. Where. Is. My. Brother?"
"He's the guy you were with last night right?" Jess asked, trying not to be shaken, not just by the prospect of silver, but how damn hot he looked, all serious like that.
"YOU KNOW DAMN WELL WHO HE IS!" he yelled knocking over a lamp in fury. The gun never moved an inch.
"And what makes you think we took him?"
"I told you…" he began.
"Oh I see, so just because we're vampires you presume we're all killers and kidnappers?" her voice dripped with sarcasm.
"I know it was vampires, for a fact, so don't try acting innocent."
"Did it ever cross your tiny mind that it might have been the famously hostile vampires in Shreveport who run the vampire bar, rather than the vampire king and his progeny who are very well known for mainstreaming?" Jess was pissed now. Sure, she might have had few ideas of drinking him before, but he didn't have to be so damn prejudice. Plus, no one was going to accuse Bill of anything bad, not when he'd been so good to her.
"Why should I believe anything you say, or your crazy vampire king for that matter?" he shouted in defiance.
Jess shot out of her chair and slammed her hands down on the desk. The man immediately leapt back but his other hand was now steadying his gun, ready to shoot at a moment's notice.
"Don't you EVER talk about Bill like that!" she realized that her fangs had come out but she didn't care. "Just because we're vampires doesn't mean that we go 'round kidnapping people for the hell of it, and it certainly doesn't mean that you can just accuse us of random shit just because of where we live!"
He paused, as if he was weighing up his options. He took one hand off the gun and put it up in a show of surrender.
"Okay, okay, look, why don't you just put your fangs away, and I'll lower my gun and we can talk?" he said, his voice calm. He was poised though, ready to spring into action should she suddenly decide she want to rip his throat out.
Jess lowered herself back into the chair, glaring at him and making a show of retracting her fangs.
"Fucking humans," she muttered for good measure.
"I get that I shouldn't have been snooping around," he admitted carefully, both hands still on the gun even though it was pointed at the floor. "It's just, it's my brother."
There was a slight break in his voice, barely perceptible to human ears, but Jessica caught it and she found herself feeling sorry for the intruder.
"How do you know it was vampires?" she asked. The predatory tone that her voice had when she was barely in control of her actions had vanished. She felt more human now; maybe it was thinking of her little sister that did that. She'd hate to think of her having been taken and to not be able to do anything.
"My brother, he wasn't," he paused and shuffled his feet awkwardly, it was on odd gesture in a man so large, yet somehow it fit his personality. "He wasn't exactly friendly towards… your kind."
He looked kind of sheepish at this.
"And what about you?" Jess inquired.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, are you friendly to 'my kind'? Or do you hate us all too?" she meant it to sound like a throw away comment but a venom crept into her voice.
"You guys are dangerous," he shrugged, "You're strong, and fast, and deadly. But I don't hate you."
His voice was earnest, but Jessica wasn't convinced. After all the hatred she faced, it was hard to accept that someone just, didn't hate her. He hadn't even given a reason, or maybe he was just naïve.
"Yeah, sure, you think we can all just hold hands and sing songs together in peace," she retorted. Surprisingly, he laughed. Not a proper laugh, just an upturn of his lips as he looked to the ground and chuckled slightly.
"No, obviously there's always going to be problems. Naturally, we're food to you. There might be this whole Tru Blood deal, but we both know that's not enough for most vampires," he paused slightly, frowning to himself. "But honestly? I've seen evil, true evil, and you're not it. None of your kind is. You're no worse than humans. Then again, as my brother would say, humans are fucking crazy."
Jess had to laugh at that.
"Who are you?" she asked incredulously. He didn't talk like normal people, his eyes looked too old for his face and he wore an expression like he had seen far too much.
"My name is Sam Winchester, I'm a hunter."
"A hunter? A hunter of what?" she was wary now.
"Everything really," Sam said simply, "Everything supernatural that is."
"So you hunt my kind?"
"We used to, when vampires still fed just on humans and before all these politics got in the way."
"Why?" she asked. She probably should feel more outraged, but all she had was curiosity. Never before had she heard of a 'hunter'.
"We protect people. If people are getting hurt by something supernatural, whether it's a vampire, a spirit, or whatever, we hunt it down and kill it," he sounded matter-of-fact, but there was also a hint of determination in his eyes.
"So are spirits evil?"
"What do you mean?" his brow furrowed.
"You said that you had seen true evil, so what is it that's so much worse than us?" Jess asked simply. She sort of felt defensive; like she wanted to be the most dangerous thing he had met.
He sighed and looked to the ground again.
"Look, I just want to find my brother, I don't really have time for twenty questions," he snapped. That was a touchy subject then.
"So you want me to help you rescue the vampire hater?"
"Dean might be a lot of things, but he's my brother," he pleaded, "You seem to care about your maker, is he like a dad to you?"
The fact that Sam had noticed and remembered how Jess cared for Bill took her off guard for a second. She nodded.
"I can't see my family no more. Not that I mind that but," she hesitated, wondering why she was opening up to this stranger. "He's all the family I've got now."
Sam nodded knowingly.
"Both my parents are dead, I don't even remember my mom," he laughed slightly, the kind people do when they're trying not to cry. Then he looked at her, dead in the eye, with a look so lost that Jessica wanted to reach out and hold him.
"Please, Dean's all I've got left. He practically raised me, and I just…" he trailed off.
"Well it's not Bill," she stated firmly, trying not to show that he'd gotten to her.
"I believe you," he said quickly, with new hope, "But you mentioned other vampires, ones in… in Shreveport?"
Jess sighed and stood up suddenly and Sam reacted slightly in surprise but righted himself quickly. She grabbed a jacket from a stool to the side and shrugged it on. She didn't need it of course, but old habits and all that.
"Fucking Eric," she muttered under her breath, "C'mon then, you won't get anywhere close without me."
Sam scrambled into action, scooping up a duffel bag that Jess hadn't noticed before. It looked like a doll's on his large shoulders. Now he was standing close she could see that there was a good eight inches height difference. Somehow this just made him more attractive.
"Well Eric's not going to like you," she grinned, "You're probably the only man in a fifty mile radius that could look him right in the eye."
He looked puzzled, and stared down at his body like he hadn't noticed himself before. Then looked back up and grinned at her sheepishly.
They moved towards the door and, to Jess's surprise, he opened it for her. She was about to make a sarcastic remark when she met his eye and suddenly became flustered. So she smiled slightly and continued walking through.
They walked through the grounds in silence before they reached where Sam had parked his car. It was a stunning muscle car, painted in deep black. Jess looked up at him with wide eyes; she had never seen such a beautiful car in her life. Rushing over to it she ran her hand across the roof and down the bonnet, caressing the stunning angles and marveling over the tiniest details.
"Is this yours?" she asked excitedly.
"Err, actually it's Deans," he replied, with an expression half way between bemused and just plain amused.
"It's gorgeous!" she exclaimed.
"Yeah, it is pretty cool," Sam admitted.
"Cool? This is beautiful! We get to drive it to Shreveport right?" she felt like a little girl on Christmas morning.
"Yeah, yeah," Sam smiled, "You know, you might just be the one to convince Dean that not all vampires are evil. Nothing convinces Dean of a person's moral standing like their car taste."
Jess just grinned and waited whilst Sam unlocked the door. As she pulled open the door Sam stopped her with a gesture.
"By the way, you know my name but I don't know yours?"
"Oh, it's Jessica! Nice to meet you," she introduced herself lightly.
Sam froze, staring at her with wide eyes, the blood seemed to drain out of his face.
"Sam?" she prompted, ignoring how nice it felt to say his name for the first time. "Did I say something wrong?"
"No! No," Sam jolted out of it, but still looked as though he had seen a ghost.
"Okay…" she said hesitantly.
"Let's…" he cleared his throat slightly and then it was suddenly as though nothing had happened. "Let's just find Dean."
Jess nodded slightly before gently sliding into the passenger seat. Sam sat down next to her a few seconds later. He seemed fine, but he was gripping the steering wheel a little too tightly as he started the engine up. In the back of her mind she appreciated the soft growl the car made as she pulled out onto the road, but her main focus was on the man by her side. Silently they sat in each other's company as tarmac slid underneath them. Jess stole glances at the broad hunter but he seemed intent on the road in front of him, his grip still tight. Finally they pulled up at a junction in the road and Sam broke his gaze to look at her intently. Jess felt a sensation deep in the pit of her stomach, and it wasn't holy unpleasant.
"Right," he said; his voice deep and filled with determination, "Which way to Shreveport?"