Chapter 9: I See Wings of Blue...

The next few months are really rough for the Winchesters. While Sam and Dean are hunting a shapeshifter in Milwaukee, they are accused of robbing a bank and taking hostages. Meanwhile, Jean is a few states over in the middle of practically nowhere hunting a wendigo alone. She manages to roast it, but not before the wendigo inflicts serious claw wounds to her back.

For weeks Jean is forced to sit on the sidelines by Bobby, who insists that she recovers before she starts hunting again. So while Sam and Dean are out risking their lives to save other people's, Jean is forced to lie on a bed on her stomach to allow her wounds to heal with only bottles of whiskey for the pain. After a month, Jean finally manages to sneak out of Bobby's and rejoin her brothers.

The sensation of falling startles Jean awake from a deep sleep. As she's falling off the edge of the bed, Jean flails her arms wildly, trying to keep herself from falling. She lands on the floor of the motel room with a loud thud accompanied by laughter from the bed she just fell out of. Dean's head appears over the edge of the bed, "Rise and shine, Jeanie!" Cursing, Jean reaches up and grabs Dean then pulls him over the edge and to the floor where the two immediately begin to wrestle.

The door to the motel room opens and Sam walks inside carrying two paper sacks of fast food. Sam sees his older siblings wrestling around on the floor and chuckles. "Really? I can't leave you two alone for ten minutes, can I?" Sam watches, in amusement, as the two twins wrestle for a couple of minutes before saying, "I have breakfast burgers."

Jean and Dean shout, "Food!" and Jean releases Dean from a headlock. She stands up and starts to walk over to Sam, but Dean wraps his arms around Jean's calves, locking her legs together and causing her to fall forward. "Me first!" Dean shouts, getting to his feet and rushing past Jean before she can retaliate. Dean grabs one of the bags from Sam and pulls out a breakfast burger as Jean is getting to her feet.

She joins her brothers at the table in the kitchen part of their hotel room and Sam hands her the other paper bag. "Jerk," she says to Dean as she removes the burger from the bag.

"Bitch," Dean automatically replies through a mouthful of food. Jean punches his bicep, "Ow!"

Sam rolls his eyes at them then walks over to one of the beds and sits down with his laptop. He opens the laptop and after a few minutes of checking online newspapers, Sam says to his siblings, "I think I've found a case. A professor at Springfield University in Ohio fell from the fourth floor of Crawford Hall."

"Okay, so the guy was depressed and decided to take a nosedive. Why is this our problem?" Jean insensitively asks.

"Whoa! Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning," Dean says and chuckles at his own joke. Jean punches him on the arm again, "Ow! Will you stop hitting me?!"

"Only when you stop saying stupid things."

Sam shakes his head in exasperation of his siblings' shenanigans. "Guys? Can we get back to talking about the case?"

Jean turns to Sam, "Yeah, sure Sammy. Please continue."

"So professor Arthur Cox taught a class on ethics and morality and from what I could find there wasn't any reason for him to be depressed. The man was tenured, had a wife and kids, and he had a book published that ended up being a best seller."

Jean and Dean frown and Dean states, "Okay, that is weird...Sounds like the guy had it made. So why would he kill himself?"

Sam shrugs, "My thoughts exactly. And that's not the only strange thing to happen at that university. I found another article from a few days before the professor died about a student named Bobby Lanker. Apparently, this Lanker guy was a bully; he stole other students' lunches, shoved smaller students into lockers, and things like that. Nobody knows how it happened, but he, uh, got stuck...in a honey tree."

"Seriously?" Both Dean and Jean ask at the same time.

"Like Winnie the Pooh?" Jean asks, chuckling at the thought of a grown man with his upper body stuck in a tree and his butt high in the air.

"Yeah, except...by the time they managed to free Lanker from the tree, he was stung to death by bees."

Jean laughs and her brothers turn to look at her. "What? That rhymed."

Dean chuckles, "Dude, she's right. You just rhymed."

Sam sighs, "Can you two be serious for a moment? What do you guys think? Should we go to Ohio?"

Jean and Dean shrug, "Okay." They then begin to gather up their belongings.

It's almost an eight hour drive to Springfield Ohio and by the time they arrive it's nearly dark. Sam and Dean head to a local college bar to see what additional information they can find. Meanwhile, Jean goes to the honey tree near Crawford Hall where Bobby Lanker died. She investigates the area around the tree and discovers a handful of candy wrappers. Jean is now suspicious that the creature they're hunting is a trickster, but she wants more proof before telling her brothers.

While making her way back to her car, Jean passes a trash can and throws away the candy wrappers. She reaches her classic Mustang and sits on the hood to wait for her two brothers. She doesn't have to wait for very long before her brothers pull up beside her in the sleek black '67 Impala.

As the brothers are getting out of the Impala, now wearing the jackets they use for wiring repair disguises, Jean notices a rather short man with brown hair exit the Crawford Hall building. When the short man steps into the light cast by an overhead street lamp, Jean's theory of the creature they're hunting being a trickster is blown to pieces. From behind the man, stretch three pairs of magnificent feathery wings. The first pair are the largest, easily thirty feet from wingtip to wingtip, however, the feathers on all three pairs are the same bright shade of blue. "Holy shit," Jean whispers, her eyes wide in awe of the man's wings.

Dean and Sam are close enough to hear her whisper and are immediately on high alert. "What? What is it?" Dean asks while reaching into his open jacket for his hidden pistol.

Jean nods her head towards the man with wings, "That's what."

Her brothers turn to look at the man. "Isn't that the janitor that was working when the professor died?" Sam asks.

Jean looks at her brothers in confusion, "Can't you guys see them?"

Sam and Dean look at each other, then turn to look at Jean in concern. "See what?" they both ask her.

Jean's mouth drops open slightly in disbelief. "So you two can't see anything off about that man?"

Dean turns to look at the janitor again, "Other than his short height? Nope."

Sam is studying Jean carefully, "Jean, are you feeling okay?"

Jean looks at the janitor again and notices that the two smaller sets of wings are now folded tightly against his back, making them nearly invisible. She then looks at her brothers, "Yeah...yeah, I'm fine. I guess I just need to get more sleep." Sam and Dean share another look with each other as Jean walks past them and towards the janitor. "Come on, let's see if the janitor will let us have a look around Cox's office."

As the three Winchesters approach him, the janitor stops and his wings rise slightly in curiosity. "Hello, what can I do for you?" He asks when the siblings reach him.

Dean steps forward, taking the lead. "Yeah, we're with Hammett Wiring and Repair. We've received a call about problems with the wiring in professor Cox's office. Can you let us in so we can see what the problem is?"

The janitor nods, "Sure, no problemo." The janitor looks from Dean to Sam and past them until his whiskey-colored eyes come to rest on Jean, who is trying her hardest not to gawk at his wings; the feathers of which have fluffed themselves as though displaying for her. He grabs Jean's right hand and kisses the back of it. "Is this gorgeous mademoiselle with you?" He waggles his eyebrows at her and Jean can't help but to smile.

"Actually, I'm with the Springfield Ledger. My name is Anita Lay." Jean hears her brothers cough in an effort to hide their laughter. The janitor smiles a wide, toothless smile and his eyes light up with humor. "I'm writing an article about professor Arthur Cox. Since you need to let these gentlemen into his office anyway, do you mind if I accompany you and perhaps ask you a few questions?"

"Sure," the janitor replies, putting his arm around her waist and leading her towards the entrance to Crawford Hall. "Anything for a beautiful lady such as yourself." Jean can hear Dean snort in annoyance from behind them and she smirks, deciding to let the man keep his arm around her. "I just so happen to have a thing for tall women." He says as they reach the door and he unlocks it with the keys. Sam and Dean walk up behind them as he releases Jean so that he can hold the door open for her.

Jean walks through the door, "Thank you." The janitor enters after her with Sam and Dean following him. The janitor begins walking up the nearby stairs and Jean follows him, hesitant, because she doesn't know exactly what he is and that makes her uncomfortable.

From behind her, she can hear Dean whisper to her, "What do you think you're doing? We're here working a job, not for you to get laid."

Jean whispers back, "Now you know how Sam and I feel." Sam chuckles at her reply and Jean can practically feel Dean glaring at her.

Sam asks the janitor, "How long have you been working here?"

"I've been mopping this floor for six years," the janitor replies.

"Did you know the professor well?" Jean asks.

The janitor shakes his head, "Not really. I would often pass him in the hallway as he made his way to his office. And more often than not he would have a young woman with him." He tells them as he unlocks the door to Cox's office. He opens the door, turns on the light, then steps inside. "There you go, guys."

Sam removes an EMF detector from his jacket pocket as soon as he enters the room and Jean nearly facepalms at her brother's careless actions. Sam turns the machine on and it emits a loud noise which catches the janitor's attention. "What the heck's that for?"

"Just for finding wires in the walls," Sam replies as the janitor crosses his arms and leans against a wall.

As Sam and Dean begin to move about Cox's office, looking for any EMF readings, Jean approaches the janitor again. As she walks closer to him, his wings rise and open halfway with the feathers fluffing up again. Jean clears her throat and forces herself to look away from the janitor's wings and at his face. "Did you say that professor Cox used to bring women up here? Was he having sex with them?" Jean asks.

"Yep. The guy got more ass than a toilet seat." Sam and Jean chuckle while Dean laughs out loud while stuffing what looks like bon-bons into his mouth. The janitor smiles again and his eyes seem to shine with some mysterious light for a second. The janitor's wings return to a relaxed position against his back.

"So the professor of morality and ethics was sleeping around on his wife with students." The janitor nods his head.

After learning about the professor's affairs, Jean is certain that they are dealing with a trickster...but what about the man that's standing in front of her? He's obviously not a trickster; tricksters don't have wings. Perhaps there are two supernatural beings in this city. It's possible but not very likely; supernatural creatures of different species tend to avoid each other if they can. Maybe the wings are an illusion caused by the trickster. Again, possible but not likely. Of course, there's always the possibility the winged man in front of her is pretending to be a trickster; after all, Jean has no idea what he is and therefore no idea of how powerful he may be.

"Were you working the night the professor died?" Jean asks.

The janitor walks away from the wall and closer to Jean, "I'm the one who found him."

"You see it happen?" Sam questions, walking over to join them.

"Nope. I just saw him come up here."

Jean reaches into her jacket pocket and pulls out a handful of hard candy. She chooses one, unwraps it, then pops it into her mouth. She then holds her hand out to Sam and the janitor offering them each a piece. The janitor takes one but Sam politely declines. "Was he alone?" Jean asks.

The janitor places the sweet into his mouth, "Nope."

Dean then walks over to them and with his mouth full of chocolate he mumbles, "Who was he with?" He then takes a piece of candy from Jean's still outstretched hand.

"Like I said earlier, he often brought a young lady with him to this office. This was one of those times." As the janitor is speaking, Dean brings another bon-bon to his mouth, but before he can eat it, Jean snatches it away and places it in her mouth. Dean utters a muffled noise of protest, but decides to let it go and instead picks up another piece. The janitor watches them in amusement as he continues to talk, "I told the cops about her, but, uh, I guess they never found her."

Jean's mouth is full and, unlike Dean, she has at least a small amount of manners so it's Sam that asks the next question. "You saw this girl go in, huh? But did you ever see her come out?"

The janitor thinks for a second, "Now that you mention it, no."

"You ever see her around before?"

"Well, not her."

"One more thing. Uh, this building, it only has four stories, right?"

"Yeah."

"So there wouldn't be a room 669?"

"Of course not. Why do you ask?"

Sam shakes his head, "Ah, just curious."

Jean's mouth is finally empty and she says, "Thanks for all of your help."

He takes her hand again and kisses it, "Anything for you, sweetheart."

Sam and Dean walk towards the door and Jean goes to follow them but the janitor calls out to her. "Would you like to have dinner with me sometime, sweetheart?"

"I would love to, except that I'm not entirely sure when my next day off will be," Jean says and the janitor's face falls in disappointment. "But I'll give you my phone number and maybe we can work something out."

After giving her number to the janitor; something she normally would never do, but she really does like the man; she follows her brothers back to their room at King's Lair Hotel. Sam enters the room first followed by Dean and then Jean. Sam sits down at the table, Dean opens the fridge and takes out two beers; he opens one then passes the other to Jean.

While her brothers talk about the case, Jean takes her beer and sits down on the bed she's sharing with Dean. Dean sits his beer down on the counter then walks into the bathroom. Sam picks up his laptop and opens it. A look of confusion appears on his face before he asks Dean, "Dude, were you on my computer?"

Dean walks back out of the bathroom, drying his hands with a towel. "No."

"Oh, really?" Sam says, clearly upset. "Cause it's frozen now on, uh, busty Asian beauties dot com."

Jean chuckles as she looks at her twin, whose face is just screaming 'guilty!' "Maybe it was Jean?" Dean tries to place the blame on her.

Sam and Jean both scoff, "Oh, please! One: I've got my own laptop. And two: I don't look up pictures of porn...I read smut fiction."

"Dean..." Sam starts to say before Dean walks back into the bathroom. "Would you just...Don't touch my stuff anymore, okay?"

Dean walks back out and says angrily, "Why don't you control your OCD?"

"Boys, enough. There's a simple solution to this problem. Sam's computer is used only for research while mine can be used for porn-slash-smut when I'm not on it. Is this acceptable?"

"Fine," both her brothers reply.

"Uh, one thing though...if you're going through my saved favorites and come across any marked as YAOI...Don't click on it...just trust me on this, you will not like what you read." Jean removes her laptop from her bag and places it on the table so her brothers won't have to go through her things to find it.

The next day the Winchester siblings begin hearing rumors about one of the school jocks, Curtis, being abducted by aliens. Of course, the siblings don't believe it was really aliens, but they figure it wouldn't hurt to speak with him.

They find Curtis at the same bar that Dean and Sam visited before. He's sitting at a table with three shot glasses of vodka in front of him. Dean sits down at the table with him while Sam stands across from Curtis and Jean stands next to Sam. Curtis drinks one of the three shots of booze.

Sam asks, "So, what happened, Curtis?"

Curtis looks up at him and shrugs a little. "You won't believe me. Nobody does."

"Give us a chance."

"I do not want this in the papers," Curtis states, while pointing a finger at Sam.

"You don't have to worry about that happening...ever," Jean whispers and Sam elbows her in the ribs.

"Off the record then," Dean says.

"I, uh...I blacked out and...I lost time and when I woke up, I don't know where I was."

Sam takes the seat opposite of Curtis, "Then what?"

"They did tests on me. And, um..." Curtis picks up another shot glass and gulps it down. "They, um...They probed me."

Sam's eyebrows raise slightly and he turns his head to the side, while scratching the back of his head in an attempt to hide his grin. Jean doesn't try to hide her own smile.

"They probed you?" Dean asks.

"Yeah, they probed me. Again and again, and again, and..."

Jean makes a funny snorting sound from her attempts at trying not to laugh. The three men look at her, "Sorry. I had something in my throat."

Curtis drinks the last shot and Dean takes this chance to share a look with his younger siblings. "And again and again, and again, and then one more time."

"Yikes," Dean replies.

By this time, Jean's face is starting to turn red from holding back her laughter. "That's not even the worst of it," Curtis says.

"How could it get any worse?" Dean inquires.

"They...They made me slow dance," Curtis stammers out.

Now Jean's face is as red as her hair and she can't stop a couple of snickers from escaping her lips. She takes a deep breath to help calm herself before asking, "Now...did you slow dance before or after some alien made you his bitch?" Jean laughs out loud.

While both Sam and Dean look amused, Curtis, however, looks pissed. Dean notices and quickly states, "Don't mind our intern...she was just leaving."

Jean takes the hint and walks out of the bar. She makes it to her car before she breaks out laughing. About ten minutes later, Sam and Dean leave the bar and begin making their way to Jean. "Really, Jean? You nearly blew everything back there." Dean gripes at her.

She shrugs her shoulders, "I couldn't help myself...I mean, come on! Slow dancing, sexed-up aliens?! That's hilarious!"

"We're heading to the scene of the supposed abduction, are you coming?" Sam asks Jean.

"Nah. I think I'm gonna go sit in a diner for a couple of hours and catch up on some reading. Do you guys want me to bring you back anything?"

Dean opens the driver's side door of the Impala, which is parked next to Jean's Mustang. "Bacon double cheeseburger with fries."

Sam smiles at her, "A chef salad. Thanks, Jean."

"Okay, I'll be back at about 7:30 boys." Jean then waves goodbye to her brothers and the siblings part ways, driving in different directions.

When Jean returns to the hotel room, it's almost nine at night and Sam is yelling at Dean about his laptop. "Enough!" Jean shouts in the deep, commanding tone that she only uses on very rare and usually very serious occasions. She places the two Styrofoam to-go boxes on the table, "I just got back from Crawford Hall...there's been another death."

Sam and Dean look at her, "Really? What happened?" Sam asks.

"The police aren't totally sure...so far they've only managed to find a couple of limbs. However, they think that the limbs belonged to a research scientist that ran a lot of tests on animals. I thought we could sneak into the local morgue later and have a look."

At about three in the morning, the Winchesters arrive at the local morgue. Sam slips the blade of his knife under the gap of the window and uses it to unlatch the old fashioned lock. They then climb through the window; first Sam, followed by Jean, and then Dean.

"Well, this should be quick." Dean tells his siblings as he removes a tub from the place where they keep the bodies. He then places it on the examiner's table and removes the sheet that's covering the remains. Both Sam and Dean groan in disgust and look away. "Okay. That is just nasty."

"Uh, yeah." Sam agrees, while trying not to throw up.

Jean wiggles her way between her brothers, "Move aside, sissies." She then begins to closely examine the severed limbs. "Looks like something was hungry." She moves her face closer to the remains, her nose scrunching at the smell. "I know what did this."

"Really?" her brothers ask at the same time.

"Yep. An alligator...And by the size of these wounds, a very large alligator. About twenty feet or so."

"An alligator?" Sam asks.

"Without a doubt. Not only do the wounds match what a large alligator can do, but there's also a belly scale here on the severed arm."

"An alligator in the sewer? Come on. Are you sure it's from an alligator?" Dean asks, skeptical.

Jean glares at her twin, "Who do you think you're talking to, idjit? I wanted to be a herpetologist growing up, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember you always had a freaky thing with reptiles...especially snakes." Dean replies.

Sam chuckles, "I remember the time you caught a ten foot python and tried to hide it and keep it as a pet. It ended up crawling into bed with dad when he was asleep and it freaked him out."

The siblings laugh at the memory, "Oh, that was nothing, Sammy. When you were about six, Jeanie managed to catch a rattlesnake without being bitten. I still remember the look on dad's face when she walked into the motel room with a live rattlesnake around her neck."

The siblings share another laugh before the atmosphere becomes serious again. "Maybe we should get some help," Sam suggests. "I'll call Bobby. Maybe he's run into something like this before."

"I'm pretty sure that a trickster is behind this," Jean informs her brothers.

"A trickster? Are you sure?" Sam questions.

"Considering the ironic ways that the victims have died...I'm fairly certain. And taking in the fact that you two have been bickering like an old married couple...I have to say that the trickster knows we're hunters and that we're onto him."

"So, should I still call Bobby?"

Jean nods, "Yeah, you should...because I don't hunt tricksters. I see them as the supernatural versions of us...We should still check the sewers, just in case."

Later in the afternoon, after they've all had a few hours of sleep, the Winchester siblings go to investigate the sewers. After finding absolutely no evidence of any alligators in the sewers, Sam and Jean return to the hotel room.

However, it is late evening before Dean returns and when he does, he is pissed. "You think this is funny?"

"It depends. What?" Sam replies.

Dean mocks him before saying, "The car."

"What about the car?"

"You can't let the air out of the tires, you idiot. You're gonna bend the rims."

"Whoa, wait a minute. I didn't go near your car." Sam says, while closing the book he's holding.

Jean looks up from her laptop, "It's true, Dean. He was with me the entire time."

"Oh, yeah. Huh," Dean says while reaching into his pocket. "Then how'd I find this?" He holds up Sam's money clip.

Sam looks surprised and then checks his pockets. After not finding anything, he stands up and holds out his hand. "Hey, give me back my money."

"Oh, no. No. Consider it reparations for, uh, emotional trauma." Dean walks over to the bed that Jean isn't sitting on and takes off his coat.

"Yeah, very funny." Sam says, following Dean. "Now give it back," he tries to snatch the money from Dean, but Dean moves his arm away.

"No," Dean turns to face Sam.

"Dean, I have had it up to here with you." Sam holds his hand in the air at about Dean's height.

"Yeah? Right back at you." Sam lunges for his money, but Dean quickly moves it out of his reach. Soon the two brothers are wrestling with each other on the empty bed.

Jean stands up and grabs her leather jacket. "You are both idiots. I've thought of some more questions for the janitor so I'm gonna go talk to him." Jean tells them, leaving the room and slamming the door behind her.

After ten minutes of wrestling, Sam and Dean finally calm down. About an hour later, Sam is flipping through an old book and Dean is eating chili cheese fries on Sam's bed. The two are starting to argue again when Bobby arrives. Sam and Dean tell him their versions of what has happened.

Afterwards, Bobby tells them, "If your heads weren't shoved so far up your own asses, you would've seen clearly what you're dealing with." When Dean and Sam just stare at him in confusion, he continues, "You got a trickster on your hands."

Dean snaps his fingers, "That's what I thought."

"What? No you didn't...Jean did."

Bobby looks confused, "Wait, your sister's here? Where is she?"

The wheels in Dean's head are in overdrive as he thinks of something, "Bobby, what do these things look like?"

Bobby shrugs, "Lots of things, but human mostly."

Dean turns to look at Sam with an angry expression on his face. "And what human do we know who's been at ground zero this whole time?"

Sam shakes his head slightly and then his brows scrunch together as he thinks it over more thoroughly. Realization dawns upon him, then a look of horror and worry appears on his face. "Dean...Jean is with him."

A look of concern appears on both Dean and Bobby's faces. "Balls!" Bobby curses.