SPN Reverse Bang Fic: I Solemnly Swear Not to Hunt Like a Dumbass
Title: I Solemnly Swear Not to Hunt Like a Dumbass
Author: borgmama1of5
Artist: dmsilvisart
Please go to her link and leave her some love!
https://dmsilvisart.tumblr.com/post/180094278668/for-the-second-year-in-a-row-the-same-author
Wordcount: 3900
Rating: PG-13
Genre: gen
Disclaimer: Just having some fun in the SPN playground
Beta: sandymg (Thank you for the ending!)
Summary: Just another day in the life of a hunter...
AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16617944
I SOLEMNLY SWEAR NOT TO HUNT LIKE A DUMBASS
“Oh no, no, no, no!” Claire muttered as she watched the blonde teenager confidently stride up to the steps cordoned off by police tape.
One thing she’d learned from her time at Jody’s was that the f-word was much more effective when used sparingly. But as the boy ducked under the tape and continued up the steps it was definitely appropriate. “Oh, fuck!”
Nothing but to bluff him away.
Walking across the street, Claire put all of her ‘authority’ voice into her yell, figuring she was enough older that it might have an effect.
“Hey! I’m gonna call the cops on you!” Because you’re trespassing where I need to go…She pulled her cellphone out to make the threat seem more credible. The kid froze with his hand about to turn the doorknob, then turned to look at her.
“You’re not a representative of law enforcement.”
“You’re not supposed to go in there so I’m going to report you!”
The puzzled look on his face was almost comical. For a moment it reminded her of…Claire shook her head and held her phone up higher.
“I’m dialing them now, you better leave if you don’t want to get arrested!”
He hesitated a moment longer, then came back down the stairs, not taking his eyes off her even as he bent through the crime scene tape again, his backpack catching on one piece and tearing it loose. He didn’t say anything more, though, just kept walking backward away from her until he reached the end of the block and turned the corner.
Claire waited an extra few minutes once he was out of sight, checking the windows of the neighboring houses to be sure their exchange hadn’t gathered the attention of anyone who would really call the cops, then darted through the flimsy yellow and black tape herself. The door was locked-how did that twerp think he was going to get in anyway-but Claire was very efficient with her lockpicks.
No attempt had been made to clean up the devastation from what police were calling a ‘home invasion.’ Shards of glass and plastic crunched under Claire’s boots as she walked over to the stain on the rug where Kevin Lee had found his bloody, unconscious wife, Mi-Young, two days ago. Standing on the spot, Claire observed it looked as though every breakable item in the room had simply exploded. She was baffled how the authorities could classify such thorough destruction as having been caused by humans…but then, most people were willfully blind to things that didn’t fit into neat little categories.
When the article about the attack on Mrs. Lee had mentioned she and her husband had just started a home renovation project, Claire’s hunter’s instinct had pinged. Now she headed to the second floor and was following the trail of lumber, paint, and tools down the hall when she heard the snick of the front door opening and closing. Footsteps paused, there was a soft “Wow,” and the intruder started up the steps.
Holding her versatile iron crowbar across her chest-effective against ghosts, monsters, and humans-Claire entered the nearest room and waited. Two things happened simultaneously: the intruder muttered, “Check the bathroom first” as he walked past her doorway and the temperature dropped abruptly.
Claire jumped into the hallway-and into a cloud of grit as she swung her crowbar at the misty figure. She furiously wiped one-handedly at her blinking eyes.
“Oh, I’m sorry! I thought you were the ghost! Here, let me help.” Claire forcefully pushed away the fingers brushing her cheek.
“Don’t touch me!” She squinted her eyes open. The teenage boy she had chased away was standing there with a canister of salt in his hand.
“What the fuck are you doing back here?!”
“I was waiting for you to leave before I continued my job…But when you didn’t exit the building I became concerned for your safety and decided I should not delay any longer.”
“What do you mean, your job? And did you throw salt in my face?” Before he could answer, the ghost was solidifying again, right behind the boy. “Duck!”
Fortunately the kid responded without questioning and Claire quickly dispersed it.
“You need to get out of here,” Claire said firmly, but the boy ignored her and resumed walking down the hall.
“Hey! You need to leave! Now!” Claire grabbed for the kid’s arm just as the ghost appeared again.
“I need to check the bathroom!” he yelled as he shook his salt canister at the solidifying form and ducked into a room where a toilet and a vanity stood forlornly, surrounded by walls that had been stripped down to the two-by-fours.
A man’s beat-up work boot sat incongruously in the corner.
As the boy reached for the boot the mirror on the sink frosted over.
“Burn this!” He tossed the boot through the doorway to Claire who caught it just as the mirror exploded and the kid went flying into the wall.
Juggling the boot and the crowbar while pulling out the lighter fluid from her pocket, Claire winced at each thud as the ghost threw the boy around. It didn’t seem to realize what Claire was doing in the hall until she was flicking her lighter, but then it was too late and ghost and boot went up in flames together.
Claire watched in dismay as the lumber stacked along the wall ignited as well.
“Shit, we gotta get out of here!”
“Uhh…” Coming out of the bathroom, he was holding his ribs in a way Claire was very familiar with. Blood speckled the kid’s face like freckles where slivers from the mirror had caught him.
“Come on!” She grabbed his arm and pushed him back down the hall as the smoke from the unexpectedly flammable wood futilely triggered the wail of the smoke alarm.
They were both coughing as they burst through the front door and plowed down the stairs through the crime scene tape.
“Shit, shit, shit!” From across the street Claire saw flames in the windows. She hesitated a moment, then grimly pulled out her phone and dialed 911. “There’s a house on fire at 428 South Maryland.”
Claire had never burned down a house doing her job before.
As flames erupted through the roof she hoped the Lees had good insurance.
The kid was clutching his sides and trying to stifle his coughing. She tugged his backpack to get him moving down the sidewalk away from the scene. “We gotta move. Come on. How bad is it?” she nodded at his crossed arms.
“I, uh, I’ll be fine…”
“Your face.” Claire handed him a tissue from her jeans.
“Thanks.” He wiped at the spots of blood but only managed to smear them so his face was streaked with red.
When they reached the alley where Claire had parked, she saw the right side of the boy’s now-shredded plaid shirt had a hand-sized bloodstain.
“Let me see.”
“I’m…”
She didn’t let him finish, just pulled the shirt aside-and then they both jumped at the sirens from the fire trucks tearing down the street.
“Looks like you got a pretty good slice from one of the mirror pieces, it’s gonna need stitches.” She took a close look at the face that seemed much too young to have known about ghosts being tethered to objects. “How did you know?”
The look she got was a mix of pained and puzzled.
“The boot-how did you know it needed to be burned?”
A look of pride crossed his face as he answered. “I researched like Sam showed me. When that house was built in the sixties, one of the workers was killed in an accident. The ghost didn’t appear, though, until they took out the bathtub to replace it.”
“That’s pretty specific information.” Claire frowned. She’d assumed the ghost was tied to the renovations and that she would figure out the link when she poked around the place.
“Well, Mrs. Lee was keeping a blog about the work and she wrote a post about how they found an old workman’s boot under the tub. The tub had been cast iron, you see, so the ghost was secured. But as soon as they moved it…”
“Okay, that was good research,” Claire pursed her lips disapprovingly, “but you shouldn’t be trying to take out ghosts, leave it to the…the people who do this for real. So. Your side. If I drive you home, will someone take you to the hospital, or do you want me to just take you straight there?”
She was startled by how quickly his look turned panicky.
“No hospital, I can’t…I’m not…If you could just…help me clean up a little I’ll just take the bus back…”
“Back where?”
“I have to get back to Seattle before Sam misses me.”
“Seattle’s a two-hour bus ride!” Then the end of the kid’s sentence registered-that was the second time he’d mentioned Sam. “Who’s Sam?” What were the odds that the kid was involved with hunting ghosts and that the Sam he needed to get back to was a Winchester?
Instead of answering, the boy cocked his head as if he were analyzing a math problem. “You’re a female hunter…like Mary.”
“Who’s Mary?”
“Mary Winchester…Sam and Dean’s mother.”
“So you know Sam and Dean? Wait, are you Jack?” Claire remembered a message from Jody back in the spring to look out for a blonde teenage boy who had ‘powers.’ “You’re the Nephilim.”
The abrupt tightening of the kid’s face bothered her.
“I am…well, I was…I guess I’m still a Nephilim because of my parentage, but I’m…human, now…I mean, Lucifer drained my grace and so I’m just human. And,” he looked with distress at the blood soaking through his shirt, “I can get hurt.”
“Yeah, you’re coming with me to get that taken care of.”
Claire handed Jack a relatively clean towel to hold against his side so blood wouldn’t get all over the passenger seat while she drove the short way to the empty house she’d found to squat in.
“So what are you doing on this hunt by yourself? You can’t be old enough to be a hunter on your own.” Even as she said it Claire winced internally-hypocritical much? “How old are you, anyway?”
“I’m one year, three months, and eleven days.”
“What the fuck?!” Claire swerved over to the curb and, reaching in her bag, pulled out the first weapon she grabbed, which thank God was her angel sword. What had she let in her car?
The boy looked at the blade calmly. “I’m sorry. Dean says I should answer that I’m eighteen, to match how old I look, or twenty-one if we’re going into a bar…I just thought that since you are a hunter, I could tell you the truth.”
“But how?”
“You understand that a Nephilim is half human, half angel? My mother, she was human, and when I was inside her, she told me I had to grow up quickly to be safe, so I did. Physically. And mentally. I knew words, and how to talk right away. Although Dean says I’m still really a child whenever I don’t understand why people do the things they do…Sam and Castiel, though, they try to explain when things confuse me.”
“You know Cas-Castiel, the angel?”
Jack actually looked proud as he answered, “Castiel is my father.”
“No fucking way. That is not possible.” All of Claire’s thoughts froze in her head.
Jack must have seen something in her expression because he quickly amended his proclamation. “He’s not my…my physical father. He didn’t impregnate my mother…But she told me, before I was born, that Castiel would be my father and protect me and raise me and teach me to be good.”
“Good luck having him as your dad,” Claire muttered. It irked that this boy had a stronger claim to Cas than…
“My real father was Lucifer,” Jack said quietly, looking at the angel sword which Claire still had pointed at him. “If you think you have to kill me because of that, I won’t fight you. But Sam and Dean and Castiel, they think I’m good. And I want to be…” He looked up at Claire. “I’m trying really hard. It’s why I went on this hunt while Sam was busy finding a book in Seattle. I’m trying to save people, like they do.”
He didn’t seem dangerous…and he was bleeding through the towel. Claire dropped the angel sword back in her bag and hoped she wasn’t making a mistake.
The rest of the ride was silent, other than Jack’s periodic hiss when the car hit a pothole. Claire wanted to ask why this…this…Nephilim that wasn’t even human got to have a father when that ‘father’ had taken hers…it wasn’t fucking fair! But a very tiny part of her was jealous at the thought of this kid getting Cas’s attention.
Claire led the way to the back door of the sad-looking ranch house with the tattered ‘For Sale’ sign leaning untended in the front yard.
She had Jack sit on the closed toilet-if you’re gonna squat, pick a house with working plumbing had been one of Dean’s lessons-and cut off what was left of Jack’s flannel shirt to examine the multiple gashes from the shattered mirror covering the kid’s scrawny chest. She noted the incongruous scar under his ribs on one side-he might not be as naïve as he seemed, she thought.
“You’re lucky, looks like only two of them will need stitches. Most of the damage is this one big cut. Got a few shards I’ll have to pick out...Butterfly bandages should take care of the rest. Let me see your face.” Claire wet a rag and wiped away the dried blood. “Not too bad…shouldn’t be any damage to your pretty face.”
Jack grimaced.
He yelled “Ow!” when Claire began to douse his wounds with peroxide.
“Don’t be a baby. I’ve had worse than this and had to stitch it up myself.”
“I don’t…I just…I’m not used to being injured. Nothing used to hurt me and now…Human bodies are so vulner-OW!-able.”
“So you hunt with the Winchesters?” Claire figured if she got Jack talking it might distract him while she did the stitching.
“They thought I made a good addition to their team when I had my powers. But now that I have no grace, I’m not much use.”
“You did a good job on the research for today. You knew right away what was tying the ghost here. It probably would have taken me a bit to figure it out.” She took a deep breath and asked, even though she knew that Jody would have already told her if anything had changed. “Dean still missing?”
Jack looked down. “Yes.” He jerked back as Claire started the first stitch. “Hold still!” She glanced at his face-it looked like he was trying hard not to cry. More distraction needed.
“Does…does Cas give you dumb lectures about stuff you already know, and tell you to be careful all the time?”
“Not really…He tells me not to be upset, but it’s all my fault…”
“Has he told you about Jimmy Novak? Or mentioned Claire?”
“No…who are they?”
“No one, apparently.” Claire honestly didn’t mean to stab Jack with the next stitch, but he jumped up and pushed her hands away.
“THAT REALLY HURT!”
“I’m sorry.” She really did mean it. It wasn’t this kid’s fault…” There’s just two more, I need to finish. If it hurts when I’m done, I have some Tylenol that’ll help.”
Jack sat back down slowly, his hand protectively over his side. “You’ve done this to yourself?”
“Yeah, more than once, so I know it stings. Just let me finish. And then I’ll drive you to Seattle, you shouldn’t be alone on a bus for two hours just in case, okay?”
“That’s…very kind of you. I appreciate it.”
Field medicine completed, Claire looked at the remains of Jack’s shirt. “You can’t wear this…Do you have another shirt in your backpack?”
A look of dismay as Jack realized the problem. “No, I don’t, I wasn’t planning on changing my clothes.”
Claire picked through her duffel bag and pulled out a loud green and red plaid shirt Alex had given her at Christmas, saying that Claire needed a holiday hunter’s shirt. “Here. This should fit you.”
Jack slid it on carefully over his bandages. “This buttons funny.”
“Deal with it. Or you can go naked.”
He fumbled with the buttons while Claire rolled her eyes. “Let’s get a move on, okay?”
Claire was just a few steps out of the back door when she saw them-two women and a man, with identical smugly superior expressions.
"Where is the Nephilim?"
"Jack-stay-" But he had already come out behind her.
"There he is." The three...angels, Claire bet from the dismissive way they looked past her-moved toward them.
Her angel sword was still at the top of her duffel, and she pulled it out while throwing the bag at the nearest attacker. It hit him squarely in the stomach and Claire had a moment of satisfaction as the angel doubled over-immediately wiped away as he straightened with an angel blade in hand.
"They're angels!" Jack stepped to her side and Claire was surprised to see he had his own angel blade.
"I know!"
"I don't have any more grace," Jack said to the dark-haired woman approaching. "Lucifer drained it and...and I'm just human now. So I can't do you any good."
"We are aware of Lucifer's actions. But Naomi does not believe you are completely graceless, and we are to bring you to her." The angel stepped toward Jack, and Claire moved in front of him.
"Back off! He's not going with you!"
The angel waved her hand and Claire went flying into the wall.
"Dumah! The human has a Grigori sword!" The male angel advanced toward Claire, clearly intent on relieving her of her weapon. "Where did you get that?"
Claire twisted in a futile effort to free herself from the force pinning her against the back of the house. "I took it from the angel that killed my mother and killed him with it! Like I'm going to do with you!"
“Leave her alone!” Jack’s voice silenced everyone for a moment. “If you hurt her I will put this blade through my heart and you won’t get anything.” He placed the point of his blade against his chest.
“You wouldn’t.” said the leader.
“Try me.” Jack hissed as the tip broke skin.
Everyone’s attention on Jack, Claire subtly changed her grip on the sword to grasp the razor-sharp blade, gritting her teeth as it sliced her palm. Jack was still defying the dark-haired woman.
“I want to be left alone, I don’t want anything to do with angels! You only want to destroy!”
Sliding the sword to the ground, Claire made a fist to smear blood on her fingertips.
“You have been tainted by your association with humans. You will see, in Heaven, the true purpose we have…”
Claire slapped her hand on the sigil she had marked on the wall behind her and closed her eyes against the flash as the three angels disappeared.
She staggered as the force pinning her vanished, and sprang over to Jack who was still holding the tip of his blade against his chest, as he stared at the widening circle of blood surrounding it.
“Hey!” Claire pulled the angel blade from his hand. “I just patched you up! And you got blood all over the shirt I gave you! I’m not giving you another one!”
“It…doesn’t hurt as much this time,” Jack mumbled.
“Jeez!” Claire manhandled him to the passenger seat of the car, retrieved her duffel and then, as Jack sat unresisting, quickly bandaged the puncture wound.
“I’m getting you back to Sam before you get in any more trouble!” she said as she started the car. Jack remained silent. “And…thank you for trying to protect me…but…that was really stupid.”
“I don’t want anyone else hurt because of me. Everything I do is wrong.” Jack stared out the side window as he spoke.
“Wasn’t your fault those asshole angels came after you. And hey, you did figure out what was keeping that ghost there. ”
“I…I just can’t do anything anymore. Castiel says I’ll get better at being human and there’s still things I can do, but…”
“Yeah…Listen to Cas.” Claire surprised herself as the words came out of her mouth.
“Do you know him?”
“Met him a couple times…” she said reluctantly. She didn’t want to think about Cas being a parent to this kid. She didn’t want to think about Cas at all. “How about some music? I always like to listen to something loud after a hunt.” She reached over to the CD button and Fall Out Boy blasted into the car, making conversation impossible. A two hour drive and then she’d be rid of Jack and his problems. She stepped on the gas, she could probably do it in less.
An hour into the ride, her stomach grumbled louder than the engine and she thought fuck it, let’s stop for food. Hunting always left her hungry.
McDonalds was easy enough and she told Jack he was going to eat when he started to object. He ordered the same burger, fries, and shake that she did, and she steered them to a seat where she could see the door, a habit she’d picked up from Sam and Dean.
Halfway through his food Jack asked about how she knew Cas and Sam and Dean.
"It’s a long story.” He stared at her for longer than anyone truly human would until she uncomfortably continued, “My father is…was Cas’s vessel.”
Jack nodded solemnly. “Castiel didn’t share much about that other than he was a great man.” He picked up a fry and looked at it before taking a bite. “So you’re his daughter.”
“Yeah. Well, he’s dead now. Both my parents are dead.”
Jack nodded, “Mine are too.” He studied her with the same achingly familiar way that Cas had. “But I have a new family. Castiel said we are family.”
The kid's puppy face was getting to her. “I have a new family too. Jody’s practically adopted me, and Alex is like my sister. We fight a lot but she has my back.”
He beamed at her over his burger, eating it enthusiastically in a way that reminded her of Dean. “I don’t think Sam will be staying long in Seattle. Do you want to come back with us?”
The way her heart hammered surprised her. It was tempting, more so than she would have allowed herself to believe before meeting this boy. But she had Jody and Alex and hunting. And somebody had to deal with the day-to-day monsters while Sam and Cas tried to find Dean.
She looked at Jack, his straight posture and weird unblinking gaze. “Nah. Not this time.” She glanced out the window at the slowly filling parking lot. “Tell them…Claire says hi.” Swiping ketchup from the side of her lip she allowed herself a long look at Jack. “And that they’re doing a good job with you.”
Author: borgmama1of5
Artist: dmsilvisart
Please go to her link and leave her some love!
https://dmsilvisart.tumblr.com/post/180094278668/for-the-second-year-in-a-row-the-same-author
Wordcount: 3900
Rating: PG-13
Genre: gen
Disclaimer: Just having some fun in the SPN playground
Beta: sandymg (Thank you for the ending!)
Summary: Just another day in the life of a hunter...
AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16617944
I SOLEMNLY SWEAR NOT TO HUNT LIKE A DUMBASS
“Oh no, no, no, no!” Claire muttered as she watched the blonde teenager confidently stride up to the steps cordoned off by police tape.
One thing she’d learned from her time at Jody’s was that the f-word was much more effective when used sparingly. But as the boy ducked under the tape and continued up the steps it was definitely appropriate. “Oh, fuck!”
Nothing but to bluff him away.
Walking across the street, Claire put all of her ‘authority’ voice into her yell, figuring she was enough older that it might have an effect.
“Hey! I’m gonna call the cops on you!” Because you’re trespassing where I need to go…She pulled her cellphone out to make the threat seem more credible. The kid froze with his hand about to turn the doorknob, then turned to look at her.
“You’re not a representative of law enforcement.”
“You’re not supposed to go in there so I’m going to report you!”
The puzzled look on his face was almost comical. For a moment it reminded her of…Claire shook her head and held her phone up higher.
“I’m dialing them now, you better leave if you don’t want to get arrested!”
He hesitated a moment longer, then came back down the stairs, not taking his eyes off her even as he bent through the crime scene tape again, his backpack catching on one piece and tearing it loose. He didn’t say anything more, though, just kept walking backward away from her until he reached the end of the block and turned the corner.
Claire waited an extra few minutes once he was out of sight, checking the windows of the neighboring houses to be sure their exchange hadn’t gathered the attention of anyone who would really call the cops, then darted through the flimsy yellow and black tape herself. The door was locked-how did that twerp think he was going to get in anyway-but Claire was very efficient with her lockpicks.
No attempt had been made to clean up the devastation from what police were calling a ‘home invasion.’ Shards of glass and plastic crunched under Claire’s boots as she walked over to the stain on the rug where Kevin Lee had found his bloody, unconscious wife, Mi-Young, two days ago. Standing on the spot, Claire observed it looked as though every breakable item in the room had simply exploded. She was baffled how the authorities could classify such thorough destruction as having been caused by humans…but then, most people were willfully blind to things that didn’t fit into neat little categories.
When the article about the attack on Mrs. Lee had mentioned she and her husband had just started a home renovation project, Claire’s hunter’s instinct had pinged. Now she headed to the second floor and was following the trail of lumber, paint, and tools down the hall when she heard the snick of the front door opening and closing. Footsteps paused, there was a soft “Wow,” and the intruder started up the steps.
Holding her versatile iron crowbar across her chest-effective against ghosts, monsters, and humans-Claire entered the nearest room and waited. Two things happened simultaneously: the intruder muttered, “Check the bathroom first” as he walked past her doorway and the temperature dropped abruptly.
Claire jumped into the hallway-and into a cloud of grit as she swung her crowbar at the misty figure. She furiously wiped one-handedly at her blinking eyes.
“Oh, I’m sorry! I thought you were the ghost! Here, let me help.” Claire forcefully pushed away the fingers brushing her cheek.
“Don’t touch me!” She squinted her eyes open. The teenage boy she had chased away was standing there with a canister of salt in his hand.
“What the fuck are you doing back here?!”
“I was waiting for you to leave before I continued my job…But when you didn’t exit the building I became concerned for your safety and decided I should not delay any longer.”
“What do you mean, your job? And did you throw salt in my face?” Before he could answer, the ghost was solidifying again, right behind the boy. “Duck!”
Fortunately the kid responded without questioning and Claire quickly dispersed it.
“You need to get out of here,” Claire said firmly, but the boy ignored her and resumed walking down the hall.
“Hey! You need to leave! Now!” Claire grabbed for the kid’s arm just as the ghost appeared again.
“I need to check the bathroom!” he yelled as he shook his salt canister at the solidifying form and ducked into a room where a toilet and a vanity stood forlornly, surrounded by walls that had been stripped down to the two-by-fours.
A man’s beat-up work boot sat incongruously in the corner.
As the boy reached for the boot the mirror on the sink frosted over.
“Burn this!” He tossed the boot through the doorway to Claire who caught it just as the mirror exploded and the kid went flying into the wall.
Juggling the boot and the crowbar while pulling out the lighter fluid from her pocket, Claire winced at each thud as the ghost threw the boy around. It didn’t seem to realize what Claire was doing in the hall until she was flicking her lighter, but then it was too late and ghost and boot went up in flames together.
Claire watched in dismay as the lumber stacked along the wall ignited as well.
“Shit, we gotta get out of here!”
“Uhh…” Coming out of the bathroom, he was holding his ribs in a way Claire was very familiar with. Blood speckled the kid’s face like freckles where slivers from the mirror had caught him.
“Come on!” She grabbed his arm and pushed him back down the hall as the smoke from the unexpectedly flammable wood futilely triggered the wail of the smoke alarm.
They were both coughing as they burst through the front door and plowed down the stairs through the crime scene tape.
“Shit, shit, shit!” From across the street Claire saw flames in the windows. She hesitated a moment, then grimly pulled out her phone and dialed 911. “There’s a house on fire at 428 South Maryland.”
Claire had never burned down a house doing her job before.
As flames erupted through the roof she hoped the Lees had good insurance.
The kid was clutching his sides and trying to stifle his coughing. She tugged his backpack to get him moving down the sidewalk away from the scene. “We gotta move. Come on. How bad is it?” she nodded at his crossed arms.
“I, uh, I’ll be fine…”
“Your face.” Claire handed him a tissue from her jeans.
“Thanks.” He wiped at the spots of blood but only managed to smear them so his face was streaked with red.
When they reached the alley where Claire had parked, she saw the right side of the boy’s now-shredded plaid shirt had a hand-sized bloodstain.
“Let me see.”
“I’m…”
She didn’t let him finish, just pulled the shirt aside-and then they both jumped at the sirens from the fire trucks tearing down the street.
“Looks like you got a pretty good slice from one of the mirror pieces, it’s gonna need stitches.” She took a close look at the face that seemed much too young to have known about ghosts being tethered to objects. “How did you know?”
The look she got was a mix of pained and puzzled.
“The boot-how did you know it needed to be burned?”
A look of pride crossed his face as he answered. “I researched like Sam showed me. When that house was built in the sixties, one of the workers was killed in an accident. The ghost didn’t appear, though, until they took out the bathtub to replace it.”
“That’s pretty specific information.” Claire frowned. She’d assumed the ghost was tied to the renovations and that she would figure out the link when she poked around the place.
“Well, Mrs. Lee was keeping a blog about the work and she wrote a post about how they found an old workman’s boot under the tub. The tub had been cast iron, you see, so the ghost was secured. But as soon as they moved it…”
“Okay, that was good research,” Claire pursed her lips disapprovingly, “but you shouldn’t be trying to take out ghosts, leave it to the…the people who do this for real. So. Your side. If I drive you home, will someone take you to the hospital, or do you want me to just take you straight there?”
She was startled by how quickly his look turned panicky.
“No hospital, I can’t…I’m not…If you could just…help me clean up a little I’ll just take the bus back…”
“Back where?”
“I have to get back to Seattle before Sam misses me.”
“Seattle’s a two-hour bus ride!” Then the end of the kid’s sentence registered-that was the second time he’d mentioned Sam. “Who’s Sam?” What were the odds that the kid was involved with hunting ghosts and that the Sam he needed to get back to was a Winchester?
Instead of answering, the boy cocked his head as if he were analyzing a math problem. “You’re a female hunter…like Mary.”
“Who’s Mary?”
“Mary Winchester…Sam and Dean’s mother.”
“So you know Sam and Dean? Wait, are you Jack?” Claire remembered a message from Jody back in the spring to look out for a blonde teenage boy who had ‘powers.’ “You’re the Nephilim.”
The abrupt tightening of the kid’s face bothered her.
“I am…well, I was…I guess I’m still a Nephilim because of my parentage, but I’m…human, now…I mean, Lucifer drained my grace and so I’m just human. And,” he looked with distress at the blood soaking through his shirt, “I can get hurt.”
“Yeah, you’re coming with me to get that taken care of.”
Claire handed Jack a relatively clean towel to hold against his side so blood wouldn’t get all over the passenger seat while she drove the short way to the empty house she’d found to squat in.
“So what are you doing on this hunt by yourself? You can’t be old enough to be a hunter on your own.” Even as she said it Claire winced internally-hypocritical much? “How old are you, anyway?”
“I’m one year, three months, and eleven days.”
“What the fuck?!” Claire swerved over to the curb and, reaching in her bag, pulled out the first weapon she grabbed, which thank God was her angel sword. What had she let in her car?
The boy looked at the blade calmly. “I’m sorry. Dean says I should answer that I’m eighteen, to match how old I look, or twenty-one if we’re going into a bar…I just thought that since you are a hunter, I could tell you the truth.”
“But how?”
“You understand that a Nephilim is half human, half angel? My mother, she was human, and when I was inside her, she told me I had to grow up quickly to be safe, so I did. Physically. And mentally. I knew words, and how to talk right away. Although Dean says I’m still really a child whenever I don’t understand why people do the things they do…Sam and Castiel, though, they try to explain when things confuse me.”
“You know Cas-Castiel, the angel?”
Jack actually looked proud as he answered, “Castiel is my father.”
“No fucking way. That is not possible.” All of Claire’s thoughts froze in her head.
Jack must have seen something in her expression because he quickly amended his proclamation. “He’s not my…my physical father. He didn’t impregnate my mother…But she told me, before I was born, that Castiel would be my father and protect me and raise me and teach me to be good.”
“Good luck having him as your dad,” Claire muttered. It irked that this boy had a stronger claim to Cas than…
“My real father was Lucifer,” Jack said quietly, looking at the angel sword which Claire still had pointed at him. “If you think you have to kill me because of that, I won’t fight you. But Sam and Dean and Castiel, they think I’m good. And I want to be…” He looked up at Claire. “I’m trying really hard. It’s why I went on this hunt while Sam was busy finding a book in Seattle. I’m trying to save people, like they do.”
He didn’t seem dangerous…and he was bleeding through the towel. Claire dropped the angel sword back in her bag and hoped she wasn’t making a mistake.
The rest of the ride was silent, other than Jack’s periodic hiss when the car hit a pothole. Claire wanted to ask why this…this…Nephilim that wasn’t even human got to have a father when that ‘father’ had taken hers…it wasn’t fucking fair! But a very tiny part of her was jealous at the thought of this kid getting Cas’s attention.
Claire led the way to the back door of the sad-looking ranch house with the tattered ‘For Sale’ sign leaning untended in the front yard.
She had Jack sit on the closed toilet-if you’re gonna squat, pick a house with working plumbing had been one of Dean’s lessons-and cut off what was left of Jack’s flannel shirt to examine the multiple gashes from the shattered mirror covering the kid’s scrawny chest. She noted the incongruous scar under his ribs on one side-he might not be as naïve as he seemed, she thought.
“You’re lucky, looks like only two of them will need stitches. Most of the damage is this one big cut. Got a few shards I’ll have to pick out...Butterfly bandages should take care of the rest. Let me see your face.” Claire wet a rag and wiped away the dried blood. “Not too bad…shouldn’t be any damage to your pretty face.”
Jack grimaced.
He yelled “Ow!” when Claire began to douse his wounds with peroxide.
“Don’t be a baby. I’ve had worse than this and had to stitch it up myself.”
“I don’t…I just…I’m not used to being injured. Nothing used to hurt me and now…Human bodies are so vulner-OW!-able.”
“So you hunt with the Winchesters?” Claire figured if she got Jack talking it might distract him while she did the stitching.
“They thought I made a good addition to their team when I had my powers. But now that I have no grace, I’m not much use.”
“You did a good job on the research for today. You knew right away what was tying the ghost here. It probably would have taken me a bit to figure it out.” She took a deep breath and asked, even though she knew that Jody would have already told her if anything had changed. “Dean still missing?”
Jack looked down. “Yes.” He jerked back as Claire started the first stitch. “Hold still!” She glanced at his face-it looked like he was trying hard not to cry. More distraction needed.
“Does…does Cas give you dumb lectures about stuff you already know, and tell you to be careful all the time?”
“Not really…He tells me not to be upset, but it’s all my fault…”
“Has he told you about Jimmy Novak? Or mentioned Claire?”
“No…who are they?”
“No one, apparently.” Claire honestly didn’t mean to stab Jack with the next stitch, but he jumped up and pushed her hands away.
“THAT REALLY HURT!”
“I’m sorry.” She really did mean it. It wasn’t this kid’s fault…” There’s just two more, I need to finish. If it hurts when I’m done, I have some Tylenol that’ll help.”
Jack sat back down slowly, his hand protectively over his side. “You’ve done this to yourself?”
“Yeah, more than once, so I know it stings. Just let me finish. And then I’ll drive you to Seattle, you shouldn’t be alone on a bus for two hours just in case, okay?”
“That’s…very kind of you. I appreciate it.”
Field medicine completed, Claire looked at the remains of Jack’s shirt. “You can’t wear this…Do you have another shirt in your backpack?”
A look of dismay as Jack realized the problem. “No, I don’t, I wasn’t planning on changing my clothes.”
Claire picked through her duffel bag and pulled out a loud green and red plaid shirt Alex had given her at Christmas, saying that Claire needed a holiday hunter’s shirt. “Here. This should fit you.”
Jack slid it on carefully over his bandages. “This buttons funny.”
“Deal with it. Or you can go naked.”
He fumbled with the buttons while Claire rolled her eyes. “Let’s get a move on, okay?”
Claire was just a few steps out of the back door when she saw them-two women and a man, with identical smugly superior expressions.
"Where is the Nephilim?"
"Jack-stay-" But he had already come out behind her.
"There he is." The three...angels, Claire bet from the dismissive way they looked past her-moved toward them.
Her angel sword was still at the top of her duffel, and she pulled it out while throwing the bag at the nearest attacker. It hit him squarely in the stomach and Claire had a moment of satisfaction as the angel doubled over-immediately wiped away as he straightened with an angel blade in hand.
"They're angels!" Jack stepped to her side and Claire was surprised to see he had his own angel blade.
"I know!"
"I don't have any more grace," Jack said to the dark-haired woman approaching. "Lucifer drained it and...and I'm just human now. So I can't do you any good."
"We are aware of Lucifer's actions. But Naomi does not believe you are completely graceless, and we are to bring you to her." The angel stepped toward Jack, and Claire moved in front of him.
"Back off! He's not going with you!"
The angel waved her hand and Claire went flying into the wall.
"Dumah! The human has a Grigori sword!" The male angel advanced toward Claire, clearly intent on relieving her of her weapon. "Where did you get that?"
Claire twisted in a futile effort to free herself from the force pinning her against the back of the house. "I took it from the angel that killed my mother and killed him with it! Like I'm going to do with you!"
“Leave her alone!” Jack’s voice silenced everyone for a moment. “If you hurt her I will put this blade through my heart and you won’t get anything.” He placed the point of his blade against his chest.
“You wouldn’t.” said the leader.
“Try me.” Jack hissed as the tip broke skin.
Everyone’s attention on Jack, Claire subtly changed her grip on the sword to grasp the razor-sharp blade, gritting her teeth as it sliced her palm. Jack was still defying the dark-haired woman.
“I want to be left alone, I don’t want anything to do with angels! You only want to destroy!”
Sliding the sword to the ground, Claire made a fist to smear blood on her fingertips.
“You have been tainted by your association with humans. You will see, in Heaven, the true purpose we have…”
Claire slapped her hand on the sigil she had marked on the wall behind her and closed her eyes against the flash as the three angels disappeared.
She staggered as the force pinning her vanished, and sprang over to Jack who was still holding the tip of his blade against his chest, as he stared at the widening circle of blood surrounding it.
“Hey!” Claire pulled the angel blade from his hand. “I just patched you up! And you got blood all over the shirt I gave you! I’m not giving you another one!”
“It…doesn’t hurt as much this time,” Jack mumbled.
“Jeez!” Claire manhandled him to the passenger seat of the car, retrieved her duffel and then, as Jack sat unresisting, quickly bandaged the puncture wound.
“I’m getting you back to Sam before you get in any more trouble!” she said as she started the car. Jack remained silent. “And…thank you for trying to protect me…but…that was really stupid.”
“I don’t want anyone else hurt because of me. Everything I do is wrong.” Jack stared out the side window as he spoke.
“Wasn’t your fault those asshole angels came after you. And hey, you did figure out what was keeping that ghost there. ”
“I…I just can’t do anything anymore. Castiel says I’ll get better at being human and there’s still things I can do, but…”
“Yeah…Listen to Cas.” Claire surprised herself as the words came out of her mouth.
“Do you know him?”
“Met him a couple times…” she said reluctantly. She didn’t want to think about Cas being a parent to this kid. She didn’t want to think about Cas at all. “How about some music? I always like to listen to something loud after a hunt.” She reached over to the CD button and Fall Out Boy blasted into the car, making conversation impossible. A two hour drive and then she’d be rid of Jack and his problems. She stepped on the gas, she could probably do it in less.
An hour into the ride, her stomach grumbled louder than the engine and she thought fuck it, let’s stop for food. Hunting always left her hungry.
McDonalds was easy enough and she told Jack he was going to eat when he started to object. He ordered the same burger, fries, and shake that she did, and she steered them to a seat where she could see the door, a habit she’d picked up from Sam and Dean.
Halfway through his food Jack asked about how she knew Cas and Sam and Dean.
"It’s a long story.” He stared at her for longer than anyone truly human would until she uncomfortably continued, “My father is…was Cas’s vessel.”
Jack nodded solemnly. “Castiel didn’t share much about that other than he was a great man.” He picked up a fry and looked at it before taking a bite. “So you’re his daughter.”
“Yeah. Well, he’s dead now. Both my parents are dead.”
Jack nodded, “Mine are too.” He studied her with the same achingly familiar way that Cas had. “But I have a new family. Castiel said we are family.”
The kid's puppy face was getting to her. “I have a new family too. Jody’s practically adopted me, and Alex is like my sister. We fight a lot but she has my back.”
He beamed at her over his burger, eating it enthusiastically in a way that reminded her of Dean. “I don’t think Sam will be staying long in Seattle. Do you want to come back with us?”
The way her heart hammered surprised her. It was tempting, more so than she would have allowed herself to believe before meeting this boy. But she had Jody and Alex and hunting. And somebody had to deal with the day-to-day monsters while Sam and Cas tried to find Dean.
She looked at Jack, his straight posture and weird unblinking gaze. “Nah. Not this time.” She glanced out the window at the slowly filling parking lot. “Tell them…Claire says hi.” Swiping ketchup from the side of her lip she allowed herself a long look at Jack. “And that they’re doing a good job with you.”