MJ woke slowly. She knew it was going to be one of those days. Her joints were stiff and she could barely feel her fingertips. She shivered and rolled to the edge of the bed, groaning. She dragged herself into a sitting position and leaned so she could reach her duffel on the floor. She clumsily undid the zipper and pushed her arms through the sleeves of a much too large sweatshirt. She knew it wouldn't really help, but there was something comforting about the weight of the fabric. She stumbled into her boots and to the door of the motel room, keen on getting to the vending machine for breakfast. MJ wasn't watching where she was going, so when she turned back from locking the door she bumped right into Dean. He wore a t-shirt and jeans, and MJ nearly spilled the coffee he was holding.
"Watch it!" Dean exclaimed, lurching back.
"Sorry." MJ mumbled, sidestepping into the wall.
"How are you wearing a sweatshirt right now? It's like 80 degrees in here!" Dean demanded.
"I'm cold." MJ shot back. It was too early for this.
"You're nuts." Dean scoffed. He shook his head and took a sip of coffee.
"Excuse me if being dead for a year has some side effects!" MJ muttered angrily. She was having a hard time thinking clearly, she was so, so cold. And the older Winchester's attitude rubbed her the wrong way.
Dean could barely stop himself from flinching away from the words. A year? She hadn't just died and come back right off. She'd been very, very dead. And she'd been to hell. Dean stared at her, starting to really think about the implications.
"Oh don't!" MJ snapped. "I don't need your pity." She could see it all over Dean's face.
"What happened to you?" Dean completely ignored what MJ had said. He gave her a searching look, there were about a million questions racing through his mind.
"Fine. I'll tell you, just let me get a granola bar or something." MJ sighed, defeated.
"I was an extremely stupid kid ok?" MJ paced back and forth in Sam and Dean's motel room. "I got in way over my head messing with crap I didn't have any business messing with. I got mixed up in a coven, thought being a witch could solve my problems."
"Coven? As in witches?" Dean asked. There was an accusatory undercurrent, a sharpness to the way he asked.
MJ stared at the floor. At least neither of them had left yet. "Yeah. And before you get all judgy, they weren't borrowing power from demons. There's more than one kind of witchcraft out there." MJ's voice was tense. She didn't want to talk about this, so she kept details to a minimum. She used her right hand to massage the left nervously as she spoke. "I found out some stuff about the coven's leader I wasn't supposed to. She was killing people. Tried to kill me. So, I ran. Took evidence to the grand coven, and they took her into custody. Before she was executed though, she made a deal to have me killed and dragged to the pit." MJ couldn't look at either of them, so she kept her eyes on the floor as she paced. She took a shaky breath and forced the rest of the story out. "When my old mentor found out I was in hell he felt guilty or something and traded a crossroads demon half a dozen spell books to get me back. After he used some spellwork to stitch my mind back together he figured he didn't owe me anything else and told me to get lost." Sam and Dean sat speechless for a few minutes.
"So, your mentor just... threw you out?" Sam asked, a little appalled.
"Your coven is your family. I destroyed mine." MJ replied, shrugging. "I'm shocked he bothered to bring me back at all. Even if he had no idea what was going on behind closed doors I'm still the one who burned it all to the ground." She shook her head and laughed humorlessly.
"That's a load of crap." Dean objected. "Family cares about you no matter what. They don't kill you and toss you out on your ass."
MJ stopped pacing and looked up at him, a mixture of surprise and grief on her face. "Well it doesn't matter anymore. I've been a hunter for the past six years, not a witch." MJ looked away and sighed. "So, do you want me to take down a demon or not? We need to find out who holds your contract Dean. Otherwise... I don't know how to help you." Her brows knit together as she said the words.
"Do it." Sam looked up from his feet. Dean turned to argue and Sam held up a hand. "I'm not going to sit by and let you die Dean. MJ are you sure you can get a demon to talk?"
"No, but I can try." MJ exchanged a look with Sam. He nodded and she left the room.
"Damn it Sam!" Dean yelled, slamming his fist on the table and standing. "I should march right over there and tell her to forget it!" He pointed angrily at the door. Sam rose to his feet too.
"She offered! And we don't have time to keep arguing about this!" Sam was getting close to shouting at his big brother. "We need to know everything we can about your contract and I don't see you coming up with any viable alternatives!" He moved to stand between Dean and the door. Dean's shoulders slumped.
"So, we torture innocent people to get answers from demons now?" He sat on his bed with a bump.
"If the situation were reversed you'd do it in a heartbeat." Sam said quietly. "And we're not doing it." Sam made a gesture towards the door, "She is."
MJ had found the perfect spot. An old one room building, more of a shed really. It was out of the way, right next to a crossroads. She carefully painted the fifth pentacle of Mars on the floorboards, making sure the chair legs wouldn't interrupt the scorpion in the center. She stood back to take it all in. It had taken some finessing to get the chair bolted down properly, but eventually she'd made it work. She checked the pages of a leather-bound book for the hundredth time, chewing her lip. It was a risk, but she was mostly sure that the adjustments she'd made to the exorcism would make it run smoother. This was far from her first demon, she had made it a bit of a habit to go after the back eyed monsters.
MJ hoped that the crossroads demon wouldn't show up in anyone too much bigger than her. It was going to be difficult to get the spell to incapacitate it to last long, and if its vessel was too big for her to carry, it'd be game over.
It was starting to get late in the day so she decided to get one more night's rest before actually summoning the thing. She drove the forty odd minutes back to the motel, realizing she should check out first thing before going back to deal with the demon. There was no point in coming back here, she had both of the Winchester's cell numbers. MJ kicked the door to her room shut behind her and flopped down face first on the bed. Moments later there was a knock on the door. She groaned and got up to answer.
"You done already?" Dean asked the second she opened the door.
"No. I finished setting up. I'm going to get some sleep before I go summoning supercharged hellspawn." MJ answered crankily. She was still stiff and cold and she'd started to get a headache a few hours ago.
"Oh." Dean responded lamely. He shifted uncomfortably. "Listen... About you torturing-"
"I'm not gonna hurt the victim if I can help it." MJ cut him off. "There are plenty of things you can do to a demon that leave the vessel relatively unscathed." Her expression softened and, it made Dean feel a little like butterflies were fluttering around in his stomach. "Your conscience is clear."
Damn. Was she always that pretty? A little tired looking sure, but something about the frayed braid and dusting of freckles across her cheeks was pleasing. Even the three-day old smudged eyeliner mixed nicely with her features, bringing out flecks of green and blue in her grey eyes. A corner of her mouth was turned up in a gentle smile.
"Yeah..." Dean responded just above a whisper. "I don't know about that, but thank you."
"You're... Welcome?" One of MJ's eyebrows shot up. His voice was velvety soft, and she hadn't expected a thank you of all things. She blinked a few times to try and dissipate the sleepy fog keeping her from shutting her emotions out. She'd gotten pretty good at compartmentalizing over the years but Dean was testing that. MJ knew if she wasn't careful she'd cross the line from polite compassion to something stronger. And that terrified her.
"Well I'll let you get some rest." Dean mumbled, backing up. He couldn't quite read MJ's expression as she nodded and shut the door, but he thought he detected a little anxiety beyond the surprise. He turned back to his own hotel room.
"So?" Sam asked as Dean came through the door. He was fighting an amused expression, Dean's sheepish demeanor spelled out that his assumptions at the door across the hall banging shut had been wrong.
"She was just setting up." Dean grumbled. He crossed to his bed and sat heavily. "MJ says she'll be actually getting to it tomorrow." His voice had lost all of the venom from earlier. He absolutely believed that MJ wouldn't just start tearing into an innocent after their little exchange. Hadn't she gone out of her way to make sure that guy from the vamp nest had gotten home safe?
"I hate to say I told you so Dean." Sam said, only a little smug.
"You love to say I told you so." Dean groaned back. He laid down then, thinking. MJ had been planning on being a witch once upon a time. That hardly seemed to fit the girl he was starting to know. She was brash and loud, and so far, as he'd seen, a damn good hunter. Practical. Though he supposed six years was plenty of time to learn a thing or two. Six years... He sat bolt upright. "Sam, how old is MJ?" He figured Sam would know since he and MJ had been getting along pretty well, exchanging jokes and case notes.
"Um... My age? I think? Why?" Sam was wary at his brother's sudden change in demeanor. Dean sucked in a sharp breath, doing some quick mental math. "What Dean?" Sam asked, starting to really get nervous.
"Sam... if MJ's your age, and she's been a hunter for six years, and she was dead for a year before that... That means she was just a kid. Some coven was using her and she was just a kid." Dean looked over in the direction of MJ's room, horrified. "Sammy, she died and she was just 17." Sam thought for a moment before responding.
"Yeah. Well, we didn't exactly have picture perfect childhoods either. We saw some pretty messed up crap." Sam thought it was sad, but didn't see much of a difference from the way he'd grown up. He didn't really want to think too hard about something he couldn't change. "She seems to have turned out alright. And she's not dead anymore." Dean shot his brother a look, shaking his head and rubbing his face. He really didn't have the energy to argue.
MJ was still in her jeans when she woke up. She rolled to look at the digital clock on the motel dresser. 4:30am. She heaved a sigh. Typical. She sat up and stretched, pleased to find that the awful chill from yesterday was gone. She felt warm and alive. She yawned hugely and started packing all of her stuff up. A few minutes later her duffel was full and all that was left was to leave the key at the front desk. MJ trudged through the pre-morning mist to her car, she hoped it would stay gloomy out. It seemed wrong to be torturing a demon on a nice, sunny day.
Dawn was just breaking when MJ covered the little box with dirt. She stood and looked around expectantly. The insubstantial wisps of cloud on the horizon wouldn't last. She sighed and half hoped the demon wouldn't show. But then her leg started throbbing. It was show time. She spotted the crossroads demon before it could speak. It was wearing a slightly scrawny man half a head taller than MJ's 5'5". It smiled and opened its mouth. Before It could get its greeting out though MJ threw a spell jar at the demon's feet, shattering it and knocking the demon flat on its back, stunned. MJ worked quickly then, dragging it up onto her shoulder by the wrists and staggering into the shed. She dumped the man into the chair and stood there for a moment, wheezing from the effort. She took two faltering steps back and grabbed a handful of ropes she'd left soaking in holy water overnight. By the time the demon was coming to enough to notice the burning sensation, she'd tied it up.
"I've got some questions for you." MJ panted. Looking the demon in the eye.
Sam and Dean had both slept in, it was after 10:00 when Dean finally lifted his head from the pillow. He wandered to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. He stepped back into yesterday's jeans before chucking a pillow at Sam.
"Get up. Day's wasting." Dean told his little brother. Sam grumbled and sat up, hair a total mess.
"What time is it?" Sam yawned, looking at the clock. "Ugh. Why didn't you let me keep sleeping?" Sam whined, stumbling towards the bathroom himself.
Dean smirked and pulled on a button up flannel over the t shirt he'd worn to bed. He left it open and grabbed his keys. Today was much cooler out than yesterday had been and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. He was about to sit in the driver's seat of the impala when he noticed the absence of a particular big boxy car. His eyes swept the parking lot one more time before he was sure. MJ wasn't there. He sighed, realizing what she must be doing right about now. Dean got into the impala and went to go get a late breakfast for him and Sam.
MJ was wiping salt from her hands and trying to block out the garbled screams behind her when she felt her cell vibrate in her back pocket. She pulled it out to find a text from Sam.
"How's it going?"
She sighed and shook her head slightly before typing out a response. It was almost compulsive how she always responded immediately. And letting more than two rings go by when someone called was just about unbearable.
"Can't talk. Little busy."
She stuck the cell back into her pocket and turned to the demon. It had started to quiet as it spat salt on the floor. Its skin steamed slightly. MJ had set up a saline drip earlier. Partially to keep the human hydrated, and partially to keep the demon in constant pain. She picked up a syringe and filled it with holy water.
"Do you really want to keep playing dumb?" She questioned in a monotone. MJ was trying her hardest to keep herself from giving the demon any ammunition by staying objective.
"I told you! I don't know anything!" The demon choked out.
"Too bad." MJ sighed. Then she emptied the syringe into the IV. Moments later the demon was screaming and writhing against the restraints. Its skin appeared to boil from underneath and steam rose more heavily.
"She's fine. I told you." Sam held up his phone in Dean's general direction. Dean grumbled.
It was well into the evening and MJ hadn't so much as shot a text the Winchester's way. He'd started to worry a bit, which is when Sam had sent his message to keep Dean from going out looking for her. Demons were tricky, dangerous things, and until Sam had gotten a response part of Dean had started to think something had gone wrong. He didn't like the idea of their new acquaintance being alone with one.
"Well then what's taking so long?" Dean growled. He shifted anxiously in his chair. He was trying to keep himself from getting too hopeful. There was no guarantee that MJ could even get a demon to talk, let alone find out anything useful.
"You did kind of limit what MJ could do to get answers didn't you? Telling her that she can't hurt the victim." Sam teased. It was a relief to know that something was being done to help his brother. And he couldn't pass up the opportunity to poke fun. He was scrolling through newspapers online, looking for cases.
"Hey! She was the one who brought that up, not me." Dean shot back defensively. He didn't notice the teasing tone until after he'd said it. His eyes narrowed and he gave the best response he could think of at that moment. "Bitch."
"Jerk." Sam's response was automatic, he didn't even glance up from his laptop.
MJ had one knee on the chair between the demon's legs. She gripped the back of its hair firmly, forcing it to look up at the gallon jug of holy water she was pouring steadily onto it. When it was empty she stepped back, as soaked as it was. MJ squeezed some of the water out of the front of her shirt. The heat of the day was starting to ebb away, so wet clothes wouldn't be comfortable for long. The demon growled and thrashed, clearly not taking the torture any better than it had earlier.
"So, are you ready to tell me who holds Dean Winchester's contract?" MJ sounded almost bored. And to be honest, she thought she might actually be soon. She was tired, wet, and seemingly no closer to answers despite the hours working the demon over. She glanced at her watch. 9:45pm. That meant she'd been at this for over 15 hours solid.
"I can't tell you." The demon hissed. MJ perked up. It knew something. The demon's expression wavered a bit, realizing it had given something away. It had been insisting that it knew nothing all day, but now... Now it was simply a matter of the right leverage.
"Well then maybe you can tell me what this is." A little emotion leaked into her voice as MJ picked up the green book she'd been studying yesterday. The demon said nothing, but its eyes were locked onto the item in her hand. She waited for a response, but when none came she supplied the answer herself. "That's ok. I already know what it is. It's a collection of exorcisms." MJ continued conversationally, dropping the monotone completely. She flipped to a section fairly early on in the book before holding it up lazily. letting the demon see the page. "Now this one, it's a hunter's best friend. Short and dirty. Gets the job done real quick."
"You think I'm afraid of a little Latin, girl?" The demon sneered. The holy water was all but gone from its skin at that point.
"Oh, I didn't expect you to blink at this one."MJ scoffed. "It barely sends your kind to the lobby. It would take you what? A couple years to climb back out at the most?" Her voice had taken on an edge, which the demon picked up on. It looked her up and down warily. MJ smirked at the expression on the demon's face. She was starting to get to it. She calmly flipped further through the yellow edged pages.
"This one is fun. It'd send you right to the fourth circle of hell." MJ offered cheerfully. The demon simply glared. "No? Alright I'll keep looking." Her voice was dripping with mock disappointment. She turned a few dozen more pages. "Oh, here it is. My personal favorite." She smiled at the demon, and then looked back to the book. "I mean, it takes like five hours to do properly, but all the best things take time, right?" She waved carelessly with the hand not holding the book as she spoke. MJ watched the demon go very still out of the corner of her eye. Gotcha.
Three paragraphs in the demon started to get restless. It still refused to talk though. It was almost like it didn't want to believe MJ was capable of sending it to the ninth circle of hell. It was a very old, very delicate exorcism that could easily backfire if you didn't know what you were doing. What the demon didn't know was that she'd done it before. She knew where the kinks were in the ritual. She'd even made some annotations in the margins of her book, fixing a line here or there, adding a splash of holy water or oil to punctuate certain passages. This crossroad demon didn't have a clue who it was dealing with. MJ had yet to meet another hunter with the kind of hatred she had for demons. Plenty had burning rage for them, but MJ's loathing was cold and calculated. She knew where she was sending this one was way beyond overkill for a crossroads demon, but she didn't care. She hoped it'd get ripped apart.
It was two hours into the exorcism that the demon took a turn. It twitched and thrashed with each word. MJ held a cloth soaked in holy oil above the demon's head in her fist and each drop that rolled off onto its forehead sizzled.
"ALL RIGHT!" The demon screamed. MJ paused, and the demon took a breath before saying anything else. "All right. I can't tell you who holds the Winchester kid's contract because I don't know anymore." MJ gave the demon a bored look before turning back to the page she'd been reading from.
"NO, NO PLEASE! It's been chaos! Demons trading contracts for power, no one even knows who's in charge anymore! I swear, I'll tell you everything, just don't send me there!" The words came out all at once, and there was a satisfying level of fear in them.
"So, who had his contract last?" MJ asked harshly.
"The king of the crossroads. He sold it. Whoever has it now must be really powerful." The demon whimpered out. "Will you let me go now?"
"You're kidding right? That information isn't worth your freedom!" MJ laughed. "Start listing names and places. I want to know about every demon that's topside. Then we'll see about letting you go."
"I can't!" The demon sounded desperate, pleading.
"Then I can't stop." MJ said flatly before continuing to read out the exorcism. It didn't take much more to break the demon, every few minutes it would give a new name and location just to get a reprieve from the torture. MJ wrote it all in a notebook. Her hand faltered at the last name the demon gave. It saw.
"I knew you looked familiar." The demon managed to hiss quietly. It was slumped in the chair, shaking. "Somebody's looking for you." The hiss turned to a chuckle as the demon taunted.
MJ looked at the demon, her lip curled in disgust. Then she started to read the end of the exorcism. It howled and screamed and arched its back. MJ was yelling at the top of her lungs by the time the demon burst from its vessel and descended to hell. She was never going to let it go, it must have realized that on some level. And now it would never make another deal. Even if it survived that deep in hell, it'd never find its way out again. She stumbled outside and sat heavily on the rickety wooden steps of the shed. She leaned back, exhausted. She watched the stars for a long time, long enough that some pre-dawn light started to leak into the horizon.
MJ heard a groan from inside the shed. She allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction before standing and checking on the now demon free man. He wasn't really conscious yet, which was just as well. She pulled out the knife she always kept sheathed at her ankle and cut the restraints. The man groaned again and started to slide forward.
"Oh boy, easy there." MJ said quietly, pushing his shoulders back. "I need you to wake up a bit, let's get you some help." She watched the man's face twitch as she spoke, his eyes fluttered. "Come on." MJ encouraged.
With much coaxing MJ managed to get him half awake. The man needed her to support most of his weight to stagger out to her car. She reclined the passenger seat and helped the man into it before buckling him in and shutting the door. She decided it would be better to get him to a hospital now and come back to clean up after herself later.
The hospital staff were nice enough once MJ flashed one of her forged badges. They stopped asking too many questions and just took care of the guy. She took the first opportunity she saw to slip out of the hospital. He would be fine physically, and hopefully he'd never have any awareness of the time he'd spent possessed.