Becoming Human – At Peace
I know that many of you (like me) are disheartened by the severe and distressing lack of Gabriel within this fic. For those Gabriel loves out there (like myself) I've included a bit of him in this chapter, though he won't meet up with Sammy for… oh, I'd say two chapters, just about. That sounds right, given my tentative outline of the plot for this fiction.
Keep in mind folks! This is an epic length fiction that will take us through the cannon events of at least season four. So we've got plenty of time. Chillax - I will get to the Sammy/Gabe boykissing eventually. ;D
Oh! SPOILERS up to season seven, if you squint. Gabriel is musing over the many potential ways the future could go, and stumbles across some cannon events. Nothing terrible. If you know who Gabriel is, you're most likely fine. He only really alludes vaguely to the events of six and seven, so if you haven't watched that far, no worries.
~InK
…
Gabriel watched, and waited.
He was waiting for his brothers and sisters to discover his ruse, and drag him back into their damned feud. He was waiting for his father to actually do something to bring peace back to their warring family. He was waiting for the plans of Heaven and Hell to converge and bring about the war that would end the fight between Michael and Lucifer for good, robbing him of one beloved brother and forcing him to watch the other become a murderer of his own kin.
He was waiting for the future he had seen to come to pass.
Gabriel could see time bending around him, a million different possible futures standing just out of reach. He was watching them as they passed through his vision, showing him what might be coming.
And right now, he was particularly interested to see how the coming apocalypse would play out. He could see how the decisions of each of the major players would affect the outcome of the war. If only any of them knew just how delicate the choices they made were! If they knew that a single choice could end or cause the war… well. Perhaps it was for the best then, that Gabriel keep his silence.
First and foremost, there was Lucifer and Michael, Gabriel's beloved brothers. If Michael gave in to Lucifer's pleading that they not fight, or if Lucifer relented to Michael's leadership, the war never need happen.
Gabriel snorted. The number of futures where either of his brothers relented was laughably small. Almost not worth mentioning.
And then there were the demons and the angels involved. Gabriel's heart broke to see what might become of his youngest brother, the angel Castiel. It broke to imagine the hardship he would endure, and the loss of faith that would come to him in almost every future that stretched out before him. Their dad would fail Castiel so spectacularly, it almost made Gabriel want to slap the man.
Worse was the fate of Uriel, so stripped of his faith in the Host that he would defect. In some futures, it was to the side of 'Team Free Will,' as Castiel would affectionately call it, and in others, it was to Lucifer.
And Zachariah… Gabriel loved him, but what a dick the angel was turning out to be. He might earn the trust of Michael's vessel, or push him over the edge entirely.
Which of course left the Winchesters. Dean and Sam.
Gabriel thought he might like those two boys. You know, if they ever met in a future where they weren't trying to kill him. Which was surprisingly unlikely. Gabriel sighed. How the two reminded him of his own brothers, and yet how different they were at the same time.
At their worst, at their very worst, Gabriel could see Sam allow Lucifer to take over his body, before he took back control of his vessel, and jumped into the cage that had been built to contain the devil. His very soul burned with the goodness inside of him, shining like a beacon. It shone like Lucifer's grace, untarnished.
And Dean? The man who would decide to hunt down the devil himself with nothing but a GED and a 'give em hell attitude'? The man who lived to protect his family?
Gabriel was fascinated by them both, and found himself rooting for them. He wanted them to make the right choices. He didn't want them to start the apocalypse, and he dearly hoped that they would withstand the pressure that all of Heaven and Hell could bring to bear to manipulate them into doing so.
Leaning back on his spacious couch, munching on sweet caramel and chocolate covered popcorn, Gabriel watched as Dean Winchester screamed for his brother, tortured in hell. He watched as the man stepped down from the rack and took a knife of his own, saved by Castiel too late to stop the breaking of the first seal – and he watched as Castiel slaughtered his way through demons just in time to stop that from happening.
He watched Sam Winchester walk away from hunting after his brother's death, refusing the advances of a demon bent on freeing Lucifer. Gabriel watched brother strike down brother, and sisters wet their hands with each other's blood, and the smiling face of Sam Winchester – worn by his brother Lucifer – presiding over it all.
He watched Rafael smite Castiel, and saw Castiel smite Rafael in turn.
He watched as Uriel turned Castiel to his cause, and the two joined forces to free Lucifer.
He watched as Castiel told Sam and Dean the truth in a dilapidated warehouse – watched the horror on Sam Winchester's face as he learned that the revenge he so desperately craved would end the world should he succeed.
He watched as Anna killed Mary and John Winchester before either of their children was born.
He watched John Winchester give away his life to save his son.
He watched as Rafael dragged him, kicking and screaming for Sam Winchester, all the way back to Heaven to fight in their misguided war.
Huh. That was interesting.
Gabriel watched the shift of the different futures the current events could bring, and he waited to see how they would play out. So many turning points, so many possibilities. But almost every road they were on now said that the apocalypse was coming. At what intensity, and to what end – well, only the players themselves could determine that.
He might pretend to be a Trickster and a pagan god, but Gabriel was an angel of prophecy – and he could see the futures shifting and turning around them.
And suddenly, his vision lurched, and Gabriel cried out into the silence of his apartment. He held onto the wall as the visions he saw shifted dramatically.
Someone had done something. Something Gabriel hadn't foreseen, something that changed the score.
Because now, almost every future spread out before him was dark, full of fire and brimstone.
Something had happened, something that would make Sam Winchester almost sure of saying yes and starting the apocalypse.
No.
Gabriel closed his eyes, and felt warm tears trickle down his face.
They were all going to die.
The cute college girl that Gabriel had romanced in a library at Stanford, the man who ran the most delicious ice cream shop in Italy, the pretty child that had given Gabriel a wreath of flowers when he was walking through Versailles on a warm summer night on the eve before a group of young men gathered in a tennis court to swear an oath to end tyranny in their country back in 1789, the swooping architecture of Notre Dame and the coliseums…
The little boy that had just been born after his mother spent twenty-two hours in labor, a miracle that his family had prayed for every day for years, the quiet lake hiding away in a mountain pass in Canada, and the herds of buffalo that ran wild in Wyoming… the art and history and culture of the world –the pain and the sorrow, the laugher and the joy… the slaughter and the rebirth that followed, it would all be gone, destroyed by the battle between Michael and Lucifer. In their rage, the two would destroy the best of their father's creations, and turn this world into ash.
Everything would fall.
Sam Winchester, with his puppy dog eyes, and that bright, beautiful soul that belied how much suffering he had endured, he would die.
With that understanding came another, more frightening realization.
He couldn't let it happen. He didn't want to lose any of that, any more than he wanted to see the blood of his brothers being spilled.
And oh, how much of it would spill.
Gabriel watched his brothers dying by each other's blades, the rivers of blood that flooded Heaven and Hell and Earth.
He scoured the futures shifting around him, looking for a future where it didn't all go sour.
Whatever had been done to so drastically chance the future that was to come, Gabriel would fix it.
Slowly, he unwrapped a chocolate bar and snapped a gorgeous brunette into existence. She began massaging his shoulders as he watched for any sign of what had gone wrong.
…
Three days after Sam killed the spirit that was burning down buildings, he was desperate enough to go back to working the streets.
It was a living, though a few degrees off honest, and not really all that dignified, but Sam had learned long ago that the bite of a questionable morality was greatly soothed by having a full stomach and a roof over his head. Table scraps and an underpass weren't perfect, but it was somewhere to lay his head, and Sam wasn't going to starve to death before he found his next hunt, so they were enough.
Of course, there were plenty of practical downsides to his night job.
Case in point: Sam spent his Wednesday cowering in a back alley, getting the shit kicked out of him by an asshole that didn't want to pay.
His only excuse for letting the guy get the jump on him was the fact that he was still badly injured from his tussle with the flames courtesy of San Francisco's local pyromaniac spirit.
"Stupid whore," the man growled as the world tunneled outwards, and Sam lost consciousness.
He woke up what must have been a few hours later, because it had been just after sunset when Sam had picked up the belligerent John, and now it was fully dark, and the streets were alive beyond the entrance to the secluded alley. Sam used the wall to pull himself off the ground, grunting in pain when he tried to use his right hand to support himself.
Ouch. Crap. That feels like a fracture, Sam thought, examining his wrist more closely. Breathing was a bit difficult too, but Sam was reasonably sure that his ribs were just bruised all to hell, not actually broken.
If they were, he was in trouble, because they would take forever to heal, and he wasn't exactly going to pull in top dollar with a long-term injury.
Sam might be a whore, but the guy who tore into him was a real son of a bitch, probably even nastier than some of the supernatural things Sam had killed without even thinking about it.
He pulled himself together, deciding that his best option was to head back to his base in the basement of an unfinished and abandoned construction project, and just try and let his injuries heal.
Suddenly, Sam went sprawling onto the sidewalk, landing painfully on his injured wrist. He cried out involuntarily before he managed to seal his lips shut. He closed his eyes tightly to ride out the pain.
Okay. Ouch. That's definitely a fracture. Fuck.
"Oh honey, I'm so sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going like such a proper idiot, are you okay?"
Sam opened his eyes and found himself staring up at a woman with long blonde hair falling in curtains around either side of a delicate face. Her dress was a sheer red, shining with sequins and beads. On anyone else, Sam might have called the thing gaudy, but the woman seemed to make it work for her – all attitude and fire.
"Uh, I'm fine," Sam muttered, hesitantly accepting her proffered hand with his left.
"You're sure? You went down pretty hard there."
Sam nodded, risking a glance back up at the woman. Damn, she was tall! Taller even than Dean, who had hit his growth spurt at fourteen and remained taller than almost everyone their age thereafter.
"Was just surprised, is all," Sam said, shifting uncomfortably. His wrist hurt, and though he'd had several painful breaks over the last many years, nothing quite compared to the feeling of broken bones grating against each other inside his wrist.
"Oh hey, haven't I met you before?" the woman said, extending a hand to help steady him by the shoulder.
"Um, maybe," Sam groaned as the world tilted a bit. Shit, he didn't have a concussion, did he?
Focus Sam.
Now that he thought about it, the woman's features did seem a little big familiar – a dusting of freckles and light brown hair, but his brain was having trouble concentrating on any specific subject.
"Yes, I do!" the woman said, elated. "You're Sam, you saved my life from that awful monster, even when I nearly killed you just because she told me to-"
Sam's eyebrows knit together in confusion. He'd had two hunts in this town, one of which was a pyromaniac not in the habit of leaving survivors, and the other had been a siren preying on young men –
But the woman in front of him was almost definitely a -
Ah. Oh.
He recognized her now – the features on her face being oh so similar to the guy that had bowled him over just as the siren had died. Sam remembered the look on the young man's face – horror, revulsion, fear - and though he hadn't seen the connection at first (fear and happiness made a human face look so different), he could definitely see it now with her face tightened with worry. Over him? Nobody worried about him.
And then he was back to the fact that the woman in front of him was a man, but actually a woman, and his head hurt from thinking about it too much.
"Oh," Sam said eloquently.
"It's okay honey, I'm not going to bite," she grinned at him, and Sam blushed a bit, because he'd never actually met a transvestite and while obviously there was no difference between the woman in front of him and any other person on the planet, he still wasn't quite sure how to not put his foot in his own mouth.
"Uh, sorry, I'm not – I mean, I don't – er – shit-"
Good start there Sammy.
"You'll catch flies," the woman chided, closing his jaw with her free hand. "I'm Janelle, by the way. I never got the chance to say thank you for saving me, not really. I'm still not sure I deserve it."
"Nobody deserves to be left to die at the hands of a monster like that," Sam shrugged. And if anyone did, it would be me, much as I desperately don't want to die.
His wrist gave a throb of pain, and Janelle surveyed him critically.
"You look awful hon, do you have a place to stay?"
Sam nodded. It wasn't even a lie, not really. He'd been living in an old apartment complex that was under construction. For some reason )probably funding) no actual building was happening, so it was an idea place for someone like Sam to grab some sleep somewhere where there was a roof over his head and a wall at his back. It beat sleeping on the streets, anyway.
"Why don't I walk you over?" Janelle asked kindly. "It's the least I can do, after-"
"No, it's okay, really," Sam found himself saying. "I can manage on my own. I'm a big boy you know."
And somehow, he managed to give her a reassuring smile, even though he was just about ready to pass out right there in the middle of the street. He doubted he'd make it back to the complex now, but on the other hand, he didn't need help, and he definitely didn't need pity.
He could handle himself.
"If you're sure," Janelle replied uncertainly, letting Sam amble off into the crowds. She wanted to follow the kid, make sure he was okay, because he didn't even look like he could hold himself upright. After a moment of indecision, Janelle cut through the crowd, determined to at least make sure Sam got somewhere safe, but he was already gone.
…
The days passed, and slowly, Sam healed.
When he wasn't working the streets, Sam studied. He went through every book on the supernatural he could get his hands on from the local libraries – though most of what he read was a big steaming pile of crap. He hunted down obscure legends, and researched ways to kill different kinds of creatures.
He also jump started his research into demons, because while Sam was sure there was no visible trace of anything demonic in his blood (no sulfur, not even the slightest anomaly, really), there was nothing to say that the demon blood wasn't still waiting to manifest itself.
And so he researched.
Demons could be warded away with salt and holy water, both of which would burn their skin painfully. They would flinch at the Latin name of god, and there were about a hundred different exorcisms of varying intensity meant to cast a demon back into the pits of hell. Sam knew all of that already – though it was rare to run into a demon (John had once estimated that there were no more than four incidences of true demonic possession a year in the United States), John had still ensured that his sons were armed to fight them.
Sam kept digging. He wanted to know how to kill one of the sons of bitches, because at the very least, he could hunt down the thing that had killed his mother, and try and get some justice for her soul.
Maybe then, he could go back to having a normal life. Hell, maybe if the demon that had killed Mary Winchester was dead, John and Dean could get the apple-pie life they would have had if the supernatural hadn't crash landed into their lives on that fateful night.
He read through dusty pages of books on the occult, and surfed through pages decorated with blinking dragons and spinning pentacles online, trying to figure out if anyone had any idea what might put one of those suckers down for good.
So far, he had a pile of theories, but nothing concrete.
….
As it turned out, Sam ran into Janelle again.
It was a few weeks later. Construction had begun again on the apartment complex where Sam had been squatting, so he was forced to move out and was currently living rough. His income from walking the streets was enough to pay for food, and he was slowly replacing the weapons he'd lost in the fire. He slept in a circle of salt in an alleyway, covered by a measly blanket he'd picked up from a donation bin. It wasn't comfortable, and it wasn't easy, but it was pretty routine for Sam at this point.
He'd been looking for a client in one of the seedier districts, and was nearly bowled over. He righted himself just in time to avoid getting up close and permanent with the sidewalk, and to keep his would-be assaulter from meeting the same fate.
"You know, we really have to stop meeting like this," Janelle said, breaking the awkwardness of the moment, making Sam crack a smile that was entirely genuine.
It felt like the first real smile he'd had in a long time.
"I suppose the ladies really can't just keep their hands off me," he sighed, winking at Janelle.
"Well, you look better than you did when I last saw you," she told him brightly. "I wasn't sure if you were going to make it, given…"
Sam shrugged.
"What can I say, I'm kind of like a roach like that," he commented flippantly. "People with nice shoes try and avoid stepping anywhere near me, and I'll pretty much survive anything."
Janelle giggled.
"Well Sam, It was good to see you again," she told him. "Take care of yourself, will you? You saved my life and whole bunch of others to boot, and this place needs all the white knights it can get."
She kissed him on the cheek, making Sam's face go bright red.
….
The next time Sam ran into Janelle, it was under less than ideal circumstances.
He'd been walking to the corner he usually worked when he heard someone cry out in pain from one of the alleys.
Hunter instincts kicking into gear, Sam ran after the sound, coming to a halt when he found four guys beating on a huddled form curled up on the ground.
"Fucking trannie," one of them was growling. "What the hell is the matter with you, freak?"
It took less than a second for Sam to make the decision to step in, because who the hell did these guys think they were? They didn't live in the neighborhood (over a month working the streets and hunting evil here had ensured that Sam knew the faces of pretty much everyone who lived and worked in the area). He couldn't recognize the girl they were beating on, but where the fuck did these assholes get of hurting someone because they didn't conform to their fucking gender standards?
"Seriously?" Sam asked. "It's a Saturday night, and you've really got nothing better to do than prey on a defenseless girl? You guys need a life. And some serious lessons in class."
All four guys turned on Sam, who, while having grown at least three inches since running off on his own, was still wiry and in no way a physical match for four guys who were easily taller than Dean, or even John.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Fuck off, that's who."
Sam threw the first punch, letting the satisfying crunch of the man's breaking nose give him the encouragement to follow through with a knee to the groin and a heel to his instep, taking the man out of the fight. He slammed the second attacker into the third, buying himself time to dodge the blow the fourth man sent at him, and deliver a solid kick straight to the man's solar plexus, bending him over, and making him back off.
The second attacker had recovered, and jumped Sam from behind, getting in several painful blows before Sam managed to roll the heavier man off him. He went straight for the silver knife in his shoe, burying it in the man's shoulder. He didn't feel any guilt at the scream of pain the guy let off as Sam faced the third attacker.
"Take your buddies and get the fucking hell out of here," Sam growled. There was blood dripping from the corner of his mouth and the side of his head, and an angry bruise forming on his cheek, but his eyes blazed with vengeance, and the man he was facing took off like a rocket.
"Fucking cowards," Sam muttered, seeing that the other three were starting to come around. He bent down to check on the poor girl they'd been beating up, and felt a jolt of surprise as he recognized her.
"What the hell? Janelle, are you okay? Can you hear me?"
"Oh, it's you honey," Janelle said. Her eyes were glazed over (concussion), and she was bleeding pretty heavily. "I knew… you were my… white knight… You keep saving me…"
"You need a hospital," Sam said, pulling one of her arms over his head. "There's one over by-"
"No!" Janelle moaned. "No hospital."
"Son of a – Janelle, you're hurt bad, and you could actually die if these don't get cleaned out and stitched up. Ever got an infection from an open wound? It's not pretty. Your skin turns all yellow and green, and then it starts going black-"
"Stop talking honey," Janelle said firmly. "No doctors. No hospitals. I can make it home on my own."
Sam just stared at her, because for the life of him, he'd never met anyone who was quite as stubborn as a Winchester, but right now, Janelle was giving John in a mood a run for his money.
"Fine, no doctors," Sam conceded. "But I'm taking you to my place, and I'm going to stitch you up, like it or not."
He didn't even know why he was offering, only that he liked Janelle, and it would be a real shame if she died. It made his blood boil that someone would do this to her just because she had once been a he.
Man, people were fucking psycho.
"Come on then, I'm not far."
"My apartment's probably closer," Janelle groaned. "Only three blocks away."
"Right, then, if you can stay lucid enough to give me directions, let's get you cleaned up."
"So tell me Sam-my," Janelle said, enunciating the syllables of his name very clearly. "Where you from, my white knight?"
"Nowhere, really," Sam said, humoring her. "I move around a lot."
"Hunting ghosts."
"Yeah."
Even to his ears, this conversation was absurd. Rule number one of hunting was always 'we do what he do and we shut up about it.' That was the golden rule John had imposed over Dean and Sam, and Sam wasn't sure if he was elated or hesitant to break the rules that John had set for them.
Man, my life is just weird.
"Well, where were you born?"
"Lawrence, Kansas," Sam said, putting on a southern twang that made Janelle giggle.
"My knight in shining armor is a honest to god Kansas farmboy?" she asked.
"Never worked on a farm a day in my life," Sam rolled his eyes, grumbling petulantly. "My… my… dad, he was a mechanic."
A comfortable silence fell between them, though Sam was keeping a concerned eye on Janelle's injuries. He really hoped that he could give her the help she would need to survive, because he liked Janelle, despite not knowing all that much about her.
"So how about you?" Sam asked. "Where are you from?"
"New York."
"You're a long way from home."
"I'd be farther if the coasts were any further apart."
"That bad, huh?"
"Yeah, because mommy and daddy don't have any use for a son that wants to play dress-up," Janelle muttered, and Sam winced.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. He knew what that kind of rejection felt like. He knew how it stung and burned, and that there was no way to move past it, no way to get over the pain. There was only time, time moving you through the pain until you figured how to ignore it long enough to stand on your own two feet long enough to function again.
"I mean, what kind of parents tell their kid that they don't want them?" Janelle asked, and suddenly, Sam found himself leaning against a doorway, an armful of sobbing blonde on his hands. "They're parents, Sammy. They're supposed to love us no matter what, right? That's the point! Other people can judge us and hate us and that's their fucking problem, but our parents, they don't get to do that. They're the ones who are supposed to just love and support us no matter what, and they just threw me out into the street like trash."
Sam rubbed her back. He didn't say anything. He'd suffered like Janelle had, and he knew that there were no words that could soothe him, and he wouldn't insult Janelle by offering her empty comfort or pity. Besides, what could he say? Sam had literally zero experience with crying girls. He didn't know Janelle, and her life wasn't his business.
And yet… She was hurting, and Sam wanted to help her.
"I guess some of the more modern models don't exactly perform up to code," he said, picking his words carefully. "But maybe that's why we get each other? The family we chose, rather than the one we get saddled with?"
Janelle sniffed.
"It just hurts, you know?" She asked.
Oh yeah, Sam knew.
"I wish I could make it stop, I wish I could just take it all back if it meant they would love me. I tried, Sam, I really tried, but I can't not be who I am. My name isn't Jason, it's Janelle, and I'm not the son my parents thought I would be."
Sam held her until her breakdown had passed, hoping that Janelle would be okay.
"I'm sorry for digging this all up," he told her softly.
"No, it helps to talk," Janelle whispered, wiping streaming eyes and wincing as the movement pulled at her injuries. "It makes it a little easier."
Sam wondered if that were true, if maybe what he needed was to bleed the poison from the wounds his father and brother had inflicted – because nobody but his family could possibly hurt him so deeply. They had been his family once, even if they were no longer.
Sam never knew how he managed to get Janelle up two flights of stairs. The going was rough, and he was worried that she might be seriously hurt. He might have only met her a few times, but she was a nice woman, and nobody deserved getting beat up on. Not because they were a man who felt that they had been born with the wrong reproductive parts and social role, not for any reason. Hell, the bastard that had blindsided Sam a few weeks before had more reason to kick his ass than the guys beating up on Janelle. At least the guy who beat up Sam got a free blowjob out of the deal.
Sam helped Janelle find her keys, and gently helped her get through the door.
"Janelle, are you alright?"
"M'fine Gare," Janelle groaned as Sam helped her into a chair. "Sam, this is my roommate Gary, Gary, this is my white knight, Sam."
Sam blushed again when she called him that. He wasn't anyone's white knight, of that he was sure. Janelle must have a pretty serious concussion.
"Hi," Gary said, barely glancing at him. "Janelle, you should go to a hospital, you're hurt bad-"
"No hospitals Gary," Janelle said firmly.
"Stubborn brat."
"Whiny bitch."
Sam hid a smile.
"Well, if you're not going to a hospital, at least let me check you out," Sam said quietly.
"You have medical training?" Gary asked.
"My dad was a marine once upon a time, taught me everything he knows about field medicine," Sam replied. The word father burned in his throat.
"Right, then what can I do to help?"
Sam closed his eyes and took a deep breath, garnering some control over the situation.
"I need to know which injuries to address first," Sam said. "You've got a dislocated shoulder, and probably a concussion, the latter of which is more worrying at the moment."
He noticed the blood on her shirt, and mentally added stitches to that list.
"Um, she needs to drink a lot of water," Sam said. "So we should get her some. I think I need to stop the bleeding first, and then I'll deal with the concussion. Janelle, any idea where you're cut?"
"Along my ribs," Janelle hissed in pain as Sam lifted the side of her shirt to examine the wound.
"Do you have bandages, a needle and thread?" Sam asked Gary. "I think this is going to need stitches."
"Have you ever given someone stitches before?" Gary asked, hesitating. "I know you've helped out Janelle once, but-"
Sam pulled up his own shirt, showing Gary the expanse of scars that cut across his torso.
"I stitched up all of these with my own two hands," he told Gary frankly. "It would be better if you could get her to go see a doctor, but in the absence of one, I'm probably the best you can do."
Gary nodded, and went to find what Sam had asked for. He began work using warm water and soap to clean the blood from the wounds. Most of the cuts could just be cleaned and bandaged, but there were two particularly vicious ones (probably the result of steel toed boots, Sam thought, his jaw clenching in anger because his hands were too busy cleaning the blood away to form fists) that would need to be sewn up. The last one took ten stitches and a lot of swearing on Janelle's part to get it closed, but he finally bandaged the wound, and set about examining the cut on Janelle's head.
"Alright, what year is it?" he asked, cleaning and bandaging the wound with quick, practiced movements.
"Nineteen ninety… uh, something… think it's nine… nine nine nine!"
"Who's the president?" Sam asked, feeling pretty sure that his diagnosis was confirmed, but wanting to double check.
"Uh…"
"Don't think she knew that one anyway," Gary told Sam with a strained smile. Sam returned it. "Any nausea, ringing in your ears?"
"Urgh, all of the above," Janelle moaned. "Can I go to sleep now?"
"Well, I'd say you definitely have a concussion, which means yes, you should rest, a ton of it, and water," Sam told her sternly. "Last thing before that though, I check out your shoulder, pop it back into place."
Janelle nodded, glancing down at the swollen join with a little apprehension.
"It's going to hurt, but it will only be really bad for a few moments," Sam assured her. "Deep breaths. Now, on three. One-"
He pushed the arm back into its socket, and Janelle whimpered.
"You're okay, it's okay, you're okay," Sam told her, stroking her hair gently. "Just breathe Janelle."
"Okay, here's the deal," Sam told Gary. "Wake her up every hour, on the hour, and make her drink a bottle of water. If you can't wake her up, or if the bleeding gets worse, or she seems more incoherent, you drag her to the ER, whether she approves or not, because you don't dick around with head injuries. Don't let her do anything that might tear her stitches for at least a week, because that wound needs to close, and I don't like having to redo my work."
Gary nodded.
"Thank you," he told Sam. "You didn't have to do this."
Sam just stared.
"I didn't do it because I had to," he told Gary softly. "I don't like it when people pick on other people just because they think they're easy targets."
Gary didn't respond, and Sam left. He was drooping with exhaustion by the time he managed to get to his underpass and fell into a deep sleep.
…
Janelle found him in the library two days later, looking worse for the wear, but standing on her own two feet.
"I'd hoped to see you," she told him with a bright smile that belied how much pain she must still be in. She settled wearily on the couch beside him, breathing a sigh of relief when she was no longer moving and aggravating her injuries. "I wanted to say thank you, for last night."
Sam smiled back at her, happy to see Janelle on her feet again.
"I, uh… I don't do so well with hospitals, so I owe you one for stitching me up, and fixing my shoulder," Janelle said. "Also, I seem to recall spending some time sobbing in your arms last night, so I'm sorry about that too."
"Don't be sorry," Sam told her, marking his page and setting the book back onto the stack that was taking up most of the space on the coffee table in front of him. "Happens to the best of us."
Janelle just laughed, and shook her head.
"You really are something, Sam, aren't you?"
Sam smiled back, the brilliant sunshine that shone through the library skylights wiping away the fear and grief of that dark nights. It chased away the shadows that hung over both their heads, giving them a reprieve from the darkness that surrounded both their lives.
"Can't seem to stop owing my life to you, can I?"
Sam shook his head, smile turning to a frown of concentration.
"You don't owe me shit," he said. "Anyway, I'm glad to see you too, because I'm thinking of moving towns, heading out again, and I wanted to say goodbye."
Janelle clasped her hands in her lap and stared over at him.
"Well, honey, I can't lose my knight in shining armor," she said practically. "Why don't you come stay with Gary and I instead of leaving? We have a two bedroom, and Kevin, our fourth, just moved out. There's space, if the problem with staying is that you don't have anywhere to sleep. I mean - we have a bunch of rules we all enforce for our mutual sanity and safety, which some of the earlier tenants laid out, and we've kind of kept to, but I think you'd fit right in with us. The block is quiet, nobody's gonna judge you for doing what you do, and I'm sure all of us will feel a lot safer with you around, even Gary said so, and he doesn't know what kind of hero you really are."
For a second, Sam wasn't certain that he hadn't just been struck by lightning, and now he was in hell, where a bunch of demons were playing some kind of cruel prank on him.
After all, he was a Hunter. He should be getting moving, going after the things that go bump in the night. On the other hand, he'd already ganked two ghosts in San Francisco, and it wasn't like a little break ever hurt anyone. Who was there to judge Sam for taking a few weeks to just try and be normal, to try and find his equilibrium again?
Besides, he could work out of San Francisco, finding hunts in the area and taking off for a few days or a week to deal with them.
In the end, it really wasn't even a difficult decision.
"Sure," he said finally, his face breaking out into a grin. "If you're certain that it wouldn't be a problem, then I'd love to move in with you guys, at least for a bit."
"It's settled then," Janelle told him with a grin. "Come by the apartment say eight tonight, and I'll help you get settled, and introduce you to Kylie, our other roommate."
Sam grinned back.
He really loved San Francisco.
….
The transition to living in an actual apartment, with actual running water and a real bed that was his for as long as he kept up with his quarter of the rent and occasionally helped pick up groceries was much easier than Sam had thought it would be.
Sam had appeared on Janelle's doorstep at 8:30, all of his worldly possessions slung over his shoulder in the pack that he'd replaced sometime after the fire in his motel room.
"Hey honey!" Janelle said, opening the door and giving Sam a big hug. "Gary just left for work, and Kylie should be stopping by soon, so I'm gonna get you situated."
As it turned out, Janelle ran their two-bedroom apartment rather like a mother bear protecting her cubs, despite the fact that apart from Janelle and Gary, their roommates tended to switch up every few months. After getting Sam set up in the second bed in the room Gary was sleeping in, Janelle sat Sam down and lay down the law of her land.
"Eighteenth of every month, we pool rent money," Janelle told him. "If one of us is short, they need to let everyone else know a week in advance, so that the remaining three can cover the rest of the cost of rent. Dishes get washed within twelve hours of use. Common areas like the living room need to have some semblance of orderliness at all times. I see every one of you back here by two in the morning, or I hear a good reason why I don't, and don't think I won't be following that rule as well – you all have leave on get on my ass about being back on time too."
Sam nodded, wondering if he should laugh at the idea of being given a curfew. On the other hand, Janelle was giving him a look that left him vaguely scared of the woman. He could understand the need for a curfew though – all of them worked at least side jobs that put them regularly in danger. If one of them didn't come home, it would let Janelle know that they were in trouble.
"Nothing heavier than alcohol or pot comes into this apartment," Janelle continued. "I doubt that's an issue for you, but that's on the table. On a more relevant note, nobody brings any johns into this apartment. Same rule applies to Kylie, and every other roommate that lives here who works the streets. This is our home, and it's private space. One-night stands and girlfriends or boyfriends are fine so long as nobody has to hear your roommate whining about it, but your work stays outside the door."
Sam nodded. He had no intention of ever bringing a client into his private space, but the rule made it official, and he liked that.
"You guys have a serious system set up," he said, furrowing his eyebrows. He hadn't quite been braced for something this… institutional? Was that the word he wanted? Not quite. It wasn't really anything like living with a parent, because all of these rules relied for the most part on mutual agreement and enforcement. More like living in a college dorm, with Janelle as their stubborn but caring RA, if anything.
What was really unsettling was the idea that anyone gave enough of a shit about Sam to actually want to make sure he did his dishes and got home on time, and didn't croak.
Janelle smiled at Sam then, taking a deep breath, and relaxing a tad.
"Sorry, but that's the mamma bear speech," she told him with a sheepish smile. "We look after each other, and that includes you, if you still want to stay."
"Hell yeah," Sam said, exhaling, and barely withholding the urge to whoop with the knowledge that somebody wanted him, somebody cared if he made it home, and that he wasn't going astray.
"I'd hoped you'd say that," Janelle told him, grabbing a drink from the sink. "Like I said, I feel safer knowing you're around. It's kind of like having Batman living in my apartment."
Sam laughed at that, just as the key clicked on the lock.
Sam caught an eyeful of frizzy dark hair and skin the color of coffee, surrounded by a very small dress made of shining gold sequins, before the giggles exploded.
"You said he was noble Janelle, you never said he was hot," Kylie said, crossing the small living room with a few steps and leaving her purse on the table.
"Hi there Sam, I'm Kylie," she told Sam, who was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the intense energy that Kylie seemed to be giving off.
"Kylie, don't scare the poor kid," Janelle chided.
"Oi, I'm not a kid!" Sam protested.
"No you are not sweetheart," Kylie grinned seductively at him.
"Don't mind Kylie, she flirts with anything with a pulse that could even vaguely resemble something out of her books," Janelle rolled her eyes. "She's not flirting with you – Gary told her how you've saved me twice now, and Kylie things you're some kind of superhero. Really, she's just flirting with Eragon from some 'Lord of the Flies bull or something."
"Lord of he Rings," Sam and Kylie said at the same time, and the grin that lit up Kylie's face was kind of like Christmas had come early.
"And its Aragorn sweetie, not Eragon," Kylie chided her roommate sternly, which she then turned back to Sam. "Noble, adorable, and a nerd. Marry me?"
Sam turned bright pink.
"Uh, I'm, er, ah-"
"You broke him," Janelle swatted Kylie on the shoulder.
"No its just that, um… how do I… er… my flavor lord of the rings character is just more Aragorn than Arwen…?" Sam ended the statement on a question. Janelle looked kind of puzzled for a moment, but Kylie's eyes lit with understanding almost immediately.
"Oh, whoops, my bad." she said, blushing. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable or anything, just-"
"No harm no foul," Sam grinned back. "I don't mind really, it's just, well… yeah. Shit. Can I go bury myself in a hole before I embarrass myself any more, Janelle?"
All three of them giggled, and the awkward moment was smoothed over.
"Aw sweetie, you're just too adorable," Kylie said, and Sam rolled his eyes as Janelle smirked. He knew she was thinking of Sam Winchester, ghost hunter extraordinaire, and knew that he was anything but adorable. Kylie saw him as a golden retriever puppy. Janelle knew that he was a fully-grown and well-trained attack dog.
Not that she was going to help him escape Kylie, who was so energetic she practically radiated heat, and who was thrilled by just about everything.
Their conversation was interrupted as Kylie's pager beeped, and she looked down and swore.
"It was really nice meeting you Sam, but I have to head over to work," she called, grabbing her purse from the table. "Just came by to say hi and meet the new roomie. Ta!"
"Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" Janelle called towards the door.
"Oh, don't be like that mom, you never let me have any fun!" Sam could hear the pout in Kylie's voice as the door closed.
"I am not their mother," Janelle said, pointing her finger at Sam with a mock serious expression.
"If you say so."
"Impertinent brat."
Sam stuck his tongue out at Janelle and headed out to go work the streets for another night.
….
Once Sam and Gary had gotten over their mutual distrust of the other, their sleeping arrangement proved to be rather interesting.
Not that either man found the other to be particularly dangerous of course, but Sam was mistrustful of anyone and everyone on principal these days, and Gary was the self-appointed protector of the household, and saw any interlopers as a threat to the two women he viewed as sisters.
They shared stories – Gary told Sam about his music, and Sam shared stories with him about travelling across the country with his family. Gary had never left California, and he found Sam's descriptions of Wyoming and New York fascinating. Sam had never even held a musical instrument (he had never dared test John's resolve that far), and so when Gary picked up his violin to play a piece for Sam, he was enthralled.
As things settled, Sam began to understand his roomates a bit better.
Gary was the son of a local fireman, putting himself through college waiting tables and playing violin on the streets. He wanted to go professional with his music career, but the BA he was pursuing was in computer science, the field in which he expected to make most of his money as an adult.
"I'm telling you Sam," Gary said one night as the four of them huddled on the couches together with beers in hand. "In a decade, computers are going to be the most important thing in anyone's lives. I'll bet you by 2010, almost every home in the United States will have it's own personal computer."
Sam drank to that. Supernatural research would be much easier with his own computer, not that he could lug one of those giant desktops around, let alone afford one. Laptop computers were being used more and more frequently, but Sam didn't even dare hope that he could one day afford his own one of those, either. He was doomed to spend the rest of his life doing research on ghosts from library computers.
"You sure you're old enough to drink?" Kylie asked, getting a middle fingered salute from Sam.
"How old are you, anyway?" Gary asked. "Sounds like a stupid question, but-"
"Ask me no questions, and I will tell you no lies," Sam replied after a moment. He probably couldn't pull off telling people he was eighteen just yet –in a few months, he might, if his growth spurt kept up… but for now he wasn't going to make up a number and get caught in the lie.
Gary snorted.
"This coming from a guy who doesn't even need to shave-"
"Do too!"
"Do not," Sam stuck out his tongue.
"Right," Gary rolled his eyes, ruffling Sam's hair. "We can try this discussion again when you hit puberty."
The four of them laughed, and their conversation wandered.
Where Gary was sharp edges smoothed by a fine ear for music and an incredibly nerdy disposition, Kylie was sunshine and rainbows. No matter how bad things got, she was always smiling, because there was no better way to deal with any situation.
Sam knew that she was a runaway, and that she stripped and sold her body for money. He never heard her complain or cry, or even speak harshly against another human being. She was a vegetarian and a hippy, and spread happiness like a plague.
He hunted. Two more ghosts appeared, and Sam dealt with them, with some input from Janelle, who seemed to have a sixth sense for when Sam was on the trail of a hunt. He came home from both with a dusting of bruises that were easy to explain away, though he exchanged a knowing glance with Janelle when he groused about a client roughing him up.
She knew the truth. And if she disapproved, Sam never heard about it. Janelle just always warned him to be careful and stay armed, and made sure to check the salt lines Sam had set up any time she entered or left the apartment.
Before Sam had even noticed, almost a month had gone by. Ten months to the day into the after, he found himself laughing at a rerun of The Princess Bride with his roommates.
Life, it seemed, was not all terrible.
…
Just as things were starting to settle down in his personal life, Sam caught wind of a demonic possession.
Deciding that leaving San Francisco would be counter-productive, Sam grit his teeth and went after the demon. He blessed himself three gallons of holy water, and armed himself with as much salt as he could reasonably carry around with him. He knew sixteen different exorcisms by heart now, and he was ready to take this asshole on and send it back to hell, no problem.
Mistake.
He was so wrong.
Everything went shit faced from the start. The demon had known that Sam was following him, and used its powers to slam him into a wall over and over again.
Sam managed to work himself free by distracting the demon with holy water. As it screamed, Sam grabbed a metal pipe and slammed it through the thing's heart.
Okay, so iron through the heart wasn't something that could kill a demon. That was nice to know.
It would have been nicer to find that out without an enraged hellspawn kicking his ass three ways into next week.
Hands shaking from pain, Sam managed to trap the thing in a hastily made salt circle and stumbled through an exorcism.
Alone and hurt, he stumbled back towards the apartment he now called home, every step coming with the burn of his injuries. Tears of frustration for his weakness and incompetence streamed down his cheeks.
He bought a bottle of jack from a local store, and collapsed into an alley. He just wanted to drink until he stopped hurting.
He'd been absolutely useless against that demon. If it weren't for pure luck, Sam would be stone cold dead, several times over. Maybe he should get god a fruit basket or something.
Or maybe he should get one for the devil, seeing as how he had the devil's own luck when it came to hunting. He'd survived thus far, even though by all rights, he should be dead.
Sam laughed sardonically and took another long swig.
Fucking demons.
Drink.
Fucking broken bones.
Drink.
Fucking John and Dean.
He was halfway through the whiskey, and feeling dangerously loopy when he found his phone in his hand. There were four numbers on his contact list – his roommates and Bobby. He pressed the call button when he reached the older hunter's listing. Sam needed to talk to a hunter right now, someone who could understand and would sympathize.
Maybe Bobby wouldn't kill him.
Or maybe he was hoping Bobby would, so that he could put himself out of his misery.
Sam didn't know anymore, and the phone was ringing.
"Hello?"
"Bobby," Sam slurred. The world spun spectacularly around him as he tried to pull himself together enough to have a conversation.
"Sammy? That you?"
"Yeah Bobby."
"You drunk boy? I can smell the liquor from South Dakota."
Sam hiccupped, unable to pull a full breath of air into his lungs.
"Are you alright?"
Sam leaned against the side of the building, sliding down to the grimy floor.
"No, I'm not."
"Do you need me to come and find you?" Bobby asked, and his voice was gentler than Sam could ever remember it being.
"No," Sam answered. "Don't trace my fucking phone either."
There was a long silence.
"Did you call me for a reason, or are you too far gone to even know what you're doing?" Bobby asked finally.
"I – I don't know," Sam whispered. "Bobby, I – I killed a demon tonight."
"Well, your daddy must be real proud of you," Bobby said. And then he paused. "Are he and Dean okay? They're not hurt-?"
"No!" Sam hissed. "You're not listening. I killed a demon. There weren't any hunters here, nobody else to help. I don't know where Dean or John are, and I don't give a fuck. They left me."
"Your daddy-"
"Stop calling him that," Sam snapped. "He's not – he doesn't consider me his son, so I have no business thinking of him as my father. He and Dean…"
Sam trailed off, pain shooting through his chest and throat as he tried to get the words out.
"Doesn't matter," Sam concluded. "That demon kicked my ass three ways into next week and I'm... feeling it."
"That might be the liquor," Bobby said dryly. "Demons aren't a walk in the park boy! You shoulda never gone after one alone. Didn't your daddy teach you squat?"
"It's not like I had a choice," Sam managed to get out. "Ain't nobody to back me up, and I was the closest hunter, so I had to deal with it. The thing threw me around like a fucking rag doll, like I was some useless accessory-"
Sam broke off with a hiccuping sob.
"Demons have gotten the best of a lotta good hunters Sam," Bobby said evenly. "That ain't nothing to be ashamed of. But what do you mean there's nobody to back you up? You've got two of the best hunters I know for kin, they wouldn't have let you out of their sight last I heard!"
"Please don't make me tell you," Sam slurred.
"I want to help you Sammy, I do, but I can't if I don't know what the problem is."
Sam took a deep, steadying breath as the world tilted dangerously around him. He was definitely not sober, and he was starting to reject the half bottle of jack that was making him feel like he wanted to vomit. Or maybe that was just thinking about Dean and John.
"It was about ten months ago," Sam whispered. "They jumped me. John was yelling something about demon blood, about… about it being my fault that Dean's mom was dead."
The words tasted like poison in his mouth, but once he started, he couldn't stop. He just kept going.
"They carved me up," he said. "Three days… they – they – hurt me. Wanted to spill every drop of demonic blood in my veins."
"Demonic blood?"
Sam could hear the confusion in Bobby's voice, drunk as he was.
"Apparently the demon that killed Mary Winchester was really after me that night," Sam growled into the receiver. The alcohol in his system was suppressing his better sense, and he forgot to remember that he was basically painting a target on himself right in front of one of the most talented and relentless hunters he knew. "It fed me its blood. Some demon John tracked down told him the truth, and he decided that he wasn't going to take having a demon for a son."
Sam broke down then, sobbing as he held onto himself, onto the wall, onto the phone, onto anything he could for dear life, because if he didn't have a tight enough grip, he thought that he might just get washed away in the storm of emotions that were battering him around in his drunken haze.
"I'm coming to find you."
"NO!" Sam called. "Don't. Please, I promise, I'm not gonna go darkside. I've been hunting, been trying to make up for everything, you don't have to kill-"
"You think I want to kill you?" Bobby's voice was filled with outrage, as though the very thought of killing Sam was offensive. Even inebriated as he was, Sam found that comforting. "It sounds like you've landed yourself in a world of trouble boy, and I want to help you."
"I don't need help."
"No offense, but you Winchesters aren't the best judge of when you need help, and it sounds like you've been through hell and back, and you need someone in your corner. I shoulda shot John up with buckshot the last time I saw him."
Through the haze of drunkenness that surrounded his mind, Sam didn't realize the significance of the fact that Bobby wasn't planning on shooting him. The blatant disgust in the older hunter's voice was for John Winchester, not the boy that had once been loved as his youngest son.
Sam just shook his head, unable to force the words past his throat to tell Bobby to back off.
"I ain't a Winchester," he finally settled on. "John and Dean don't want me. I'm on my own, doing just fine too."
"Fine. Right."
"Lemme alone Bobby."
"You called me son," Bobby said. "You have somewhere safe to sober up?"
"Yeah."
"Go lie down then," Bobby said gently. "Get some rest Sammy."
The older man hung up.
At the time, Sam didn't know how long he spent curled up in the alley next to his apartment, but what felt like hours later, he had finally sobered enough to pull himself up to the apartment, where he passed out on his bed.
He didn't wake up until late the next afternoon, staring into Kylie's dark, worried eyes.
"Sam?" she demanded. "What the hell happened?"
"Client," Sam groaned, lying through the painful hangover as he went about the process of pulling himself upright. Kylie steadied him, her gentle hands being carful of his bruised face and torso. His stomach and head twisted painfully.
"So did the alcohol come before or after the beating?" Kylie asked, handing him a glass of water.
"After," Sam groaned. Between the injuries and the hangover, he wanted to die. "It hurt less when I wasn't sober."
"Poor baby," Kylie said, stroking his hair. "But next time, remember that the alcohol just makes you hurt worse the next day. Go back to sleep. I'll make sure Janelle or Gary come by to check on you in a bit, make sure you get through this."
"Thanks," Sam moaned. He was asleep not a minute later.
When he woke up for good late that night, the official story he gave his roommates was that he'd been cornered by a client that had gotten the jump on him.
To Janelle, he told some semblance of the truth, once Gary and Kylie had gone to sleep.
"It was a demon," he told her, when she cornered him with an ice pack. "Nasty son of a bitch too."
"How could you tell?" Janelle asked.
"When demons come knocking, they always leave some trace of sulfur at the scene," Sam explained. "And once you're staring them in the face, you can use the latin name of god to get them to slip up and show their black eyes."
"How on gods green earth did you track it?"
"The pattern," Sam said. "Virgins over the age of eighteen. The thing was working up to some kind of summoning ritual, but I got there before it killed the last one. Really, I just got lucky. Or unlucky, depending on your perspective."
"Shit."
"Yeah."
"So this is your life?" Janelle asked. "You work the streets and live on your own, and when you hear about bodies starting to pile up, or a pattern of gruesome deaths, you head straight towards the worst of it all?"
Sam paused.
"Yeah, pretty much," he reflected. "Somebody has got to, right?"
Janelle just frowned, and he knew that she was wondering why it had to be him.
Fuck, Sam wondered that most days.
The best he could come up was the fact that he was there, and he knew the truth. Sure, the normality he had with his roommates here in San Francisco was wonderful, but he couldn't walk away from what was out there, not when he knew he could really make a difference.
How many lives had he saved since being tortured by his family?
He didn't even know. It was a lot. Sam couldn't even go back and count the number of hunts anymore, the weeks and months after The Incident blurring together into cheap food and hunger and desperation and sharp silver knives and blood, and inhuman screams, and lies, and fake identification cards…
"So tell me, how do you kill a demon?" Janelle asked.
"You looking to become a hunter?" Sam asked with a grin.
"Why, think I can't do it because I'm a girl?"
And oh boy was that last word loaded because Sam knew exactly what Janelle was implying.
"Are you kidding me?" Sam asked. "I haven't met many hunters, but there's no reason you can't do the job just as well as anyone else. I'm just surprised, because people don't chose to be hunters," Sam told her, smoothing over whatever gaffe he might have made.
"What do you mean?"
Sam smiled humorlessly.
"Nobody with a viable alternative makes the conscious choice to live as a hunter," he repeated. "For the most part, it's endless travel from city to city, risking your life to hunt down creatures most people don't even think exist, and half the time nobody even knows you did it. Half of the time you get run out of town by the cops, or arrested for what you do. It's lonely and it sucks serious balls."
"But you save people," Janelle said with a frown. "I would be dead if it weren't for you. Isn't that worth it?"
Sam nodded slowly.
"Most hunters," he said, trying to gather his thoughts because he was fucking sixteen and he shouldn't be fucking responsible for training another hunter to go after supernatural creatures, and this was stupid. "They get into it because of revenge. Someone they love gets killed, and they just couldn't let it go. They find some way to pull back the curtain, discover the truth. And once they know, they can't ever turn back. It's like a bell in the back of your brain that rings every time you're doing something normal, something safe, reminding you that out there, people are dying and you might be one of the only people who can stop it."
He paused for a long time.
"The man who raised me got into it for the same reason."
"You mean your daddy?"
Sam flinched.
"Yeah, John," Sam waved his hand dismissively. "My mom died when I was six months old. A fire was started in my nursery, and she was cut up and pinned to the ceiling by some demon."
Janelle reached out and pulled Sam into her. He breathed in the comfortable and familiar scene of her perfume and just kept going. "It nearly broke him. When he learned the truth, he pulled Dean and I completely off grid, and we became hunters."
"He hunted demons with a baby to take care of?" Janelle demanded.
"Can we ignore the guys dubious parenting skills for a second?" Sam asked. "It wasn't the worst thing he did to me or to Dean, and I really don't want to talk about it."
"I get it," Janelle said, raising her hands in surrender. "But more on point, how do you kill a demon?"
Sam grinned to himself.
"I wish I knew," he admitted. "Best we can do is send them back to hell…"
They went to bed at nearly four in the morning, stumbling with exhaustion. Janelle was looking a little overwhelmed from everything Sam had told her, but Sam also saw that a spark had been lit there, a taste for the hunt.
He wondered if it would last. The world always needed more hunters, but at what cost would Janelle turn her back on everything normal that she had, just to hunt down evil bastards?
The worst part was that between the ass kicking and the exorcism, Sam hadn't had the chance to try and question the demon. He promised himself that the next time around, he would be more prepared.
If another demon came sniffing around San Francisco, Sam would be ready. He would find out the truth, one way or another.