Run Like Hell, part four

[chiiyo86]

Part three


This must be what having a stroke felt like. Jesse didn’t know if he could even have a stroke, but something had to be wrong with him because the world unfolded around him slow as molasses, and disjointed like a badly edited video. He remembered talking to Ben, remembered going to the Saunders’, and now he was sitting in the Winchesters’ motel room, deeply ensconced in an armchair.

Dean was talking. “-couldn’t remember a thing… Hey, are you listening?”

Jesse realized he was biting on his thumbnail, a bad childhood habit his parents had endlessly pestered him about. Keep doing it, his dad told him, and the nails will turn into little worms in your stomach. It was a good thing he’d stopped then, because he’d probably have willed that nightmare-fodder scenario into reality too. He made himself stop, sticking his hand between his thighs.

“Jesse? Are you okay?”

Ben appeared in his vision field, crouched in front of him.

“Hey,” he said when Jesse focused on him. “Welcome back.”

“Where did I go?” Jesse asked, still feeling a bit hazy.

“I have no idea. Lost in your head, I guess.”

“As I was saying,” Dean said, sounding like an annoyed teacher. “Mrs. Foster wasn’t badly hurt and claims she doesn’t remember anything, but one of her students says he’s seen her ‘float like a ghost.’”

“No one else saw anything, though,” Sam said. “They didn’t see anyone come in or out.”

Jesse thought he should feel relief at this, but the only thing he felt was sick to his stomach.

“Why didn’t you tell us about your dreams earlier?” Dean asked.

Ah, so he’d told them about the dreams. Or - Jesse watched Ben rise to his feet and shift away - Ben had told them. It didn’t matter much. He hadn’t thought he could hide it from them for too long.

With an astounding amount of understanding, Sam said, “It’s not an easy thing to confess.”

His brother rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, Cassandra. The one million bucks question is, what do those dreams mean?”

Jesse opened his mouth to answer.

“We think the demon might be Jesse’s… father,” Claire said, beating him to the punch. “We think they have a connection of some sort.”

It wasn’t what Jesse had meant to say. He looked at Claire: she was sitting on one of the twin beds, looking oddly strained and tired with her hands joined on her knees, fingers knotted together. She met his eyes with defiance.

“Makes sense,” Dean said, to Jesse’s utter shock.

“What we’ve done so far isn’t working,” Ben said. “We need a new plan.”

He’d gone to sit down next to Claire, had taken her hands in his and was now kneading her fingers, patiently undoing the knot.

“We summon the demon,” Jesse said.

Everyone in the room looked at him like they were surprised he could still string a simple sentence together.

“We can’t summon a demon if we don’t have an inkling of who it is,” Dean objected, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Actually.” Sam signaled them to hold on with a raised finger, and went to the duffel bag at the bottom of one of the beds. He got a leather-bound notebook out of it and flipped through it. “There’s a summoning spell here that I found a while ago. It’s supposed to summon all the demons within an approximate two miles radius. It’s a bit of a bet, though - it’ll only work if the demon’s keeping close.”

Dean seemed to consider it. “We’ve worked on less,” he said. And then, surprisingly, “What do you think, kids?”

“I say let’s try it,” Jesse said.

“Then it’s fine with me,” Ben said, and Claire nodded her own approval.

“It’s a plan, then,” Dean said, rubbing his hands together with a dark kind of glee. “Let’s take it to the next level.”

With a new plan came a new focus, and the mood in the room seemed to lift up, even if the plan was vague and uncertain. Sam worked with Ben and Claire on making this plan real: clarifying the spell, working out the components - what they had on hand, what they’d need to buy - debating on what the best time and place were to do this.

Jesse hovered by them at first, but he was too out of it and too ignorant about this stuff to be of any use. He aimlessly drifted around the room until the tide brought him to Dean, cleaning his weapons.

Dean glanced up. “Tired of the geek talk?”

“They’re doing fine without me.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling. Bet you don’t know how to shoot, huh.”

“Have no need for it.”

Dean snorted, eyes on the shotgun he was cleaning. “Yeah, I imagine demonic powers don’t jam.”

It wasn’t said meanly, so Jesse didn’t take it in a bad way. He watched Dean’s hands at work, scrubbing the whole gun with a toothbrush, then wiping it with a cloth. There was something hypnotizing about the movements, sure and precise, like Dean didn’t even need to think about them because he’d done them for so long.

“Here.”

Dean gave him a handgun. Jesse took it clumsily, feeling like he was handling a vial of nitroglycerin. It was a very pretty gun, with an engraved barrel and an ivory grip. Jesse didn’t know the first thing about guns, but it looked like it should be expensive.

“What do you want me to do with this?”

“To make yourself useful. C’mon, I’ll show you how to clean it.”

---

In the end it was decided that they’d do the summoning spell at the Turners’ house - Sam claimed that the fact the demon had spent a lot of time there would raise the chances that they’d catch it in their net - and in the middle of the night. Midnight, the witching hour. It was so terribly appropriate. They settled in the living room, spent an hour or two moving the furniture around and drawing a devil’s trap of which Jesse made sure to steer clear. He went in the back garden to have a smoke, and when he came back the circle was painted in bright red on his mother’s hardwood floor.

The ritual involved mixing stuff together in a cup and burning it - Ben took care of that - while a Latin incantation was chanted - this was Sam’s part. They each positioned themselves in the room so as to circle the devil’s trap. Claire and Dean had shotguns loaded with rock salt and flasks of holy water, ready to cover for Ben and Sam. Jesse had his hands in his pockets. Because they didn’t want to alert the neighbors or any potential insomniac stroller, the only light in the room came from the torch Sam used to be able to read his incantation.

“Ready?” Sam asked.

Jesse wiped his hands out on his jeans. He didn’t know exactly what he was nervous about: that the demon would show up, or that it wouldn’t?

“I’m ready,” Ben said, and scratched a match and tossed it in the cup.

“Jam tibi impero,” Sam started chanting, “et præcipio maligne spiritus!”

Jesse had absolutely no notion of Latin, but the words resonated in his mind and he felt his body buzz oddly, like every single cell in it had started to vibrate simultaneously. It could have been his imagination - he’d never been in the vicinity of a spell aimed at demons before, and the idea set his teeth on edge. Smoke poured out of Ben’s cup and the smell had Jesse wrinkle his nose and brought tears to his eyes. He wiped at them with a hand and when his vision cleared, there was someone standing in the circle.

“Here you are!” exclaimed a clear, feminine, familiar voice.

He was stunned. “Lizzie?”

But of course it wasn’t Lizzie, not really, just her voice and body used like a sock puppet by a demon. She’d obviously been taken right from bed, dressed as she was in a pair of pajama pants laced at the waist and a tank top. Her fire-colored hair was gathered in a long braid. She turned to him and Jesse swallowed a gasp - her face, oh god. On one level there was Lizzie’s face, turned-up nose, pointy chin, big green eyes and all; but on another, like some sort of superimposition, there was a different face, a sick, twisted parody of humanity: wide open mouth like in a permanent scream, dark bottomless eyes that ate away most of the face, nothing that looked like a nose, gaping wounds that didn’t bleed. A demon’s true face; not the first time he’d seen it, but that didn’t make it any nicer to look at.

“I’ve been looking all over for you!” she - it - the demon said, completely ignoring everyone in the room to focus on Jesse.

It sounded so satisfied, like it’d just gotten the fruits of its hard work, that Jesse didn’t know what to make of it. The smell of sulfur made him want to gag.

“You killed my parents,” he said.

“I, what?” The utterly puzzled expression looked wrong on Lizzie’s face. “No, I didn’t.”

“The Turners - Jo and Kate Turner.” No reaction. “The humans who lived in this house!”

“Oh, them. They didn’t know anything.” The demon shrugged. On its real face something crawled out of one of the gashes. “I thought you’d said your parents, and I’ve never even met them so really.” It let out an air-headed laugh. “Such a strange misunderstanding.”

“So you’re not…”

“I have a proposal to make to you. Hear me out-”

“What about the Millers? Why did you kill them? And Mrs. Foster?”

“I don’t understand anything you say,” the demon said, using Lizzie’s lips to pout. “I didn’t think you’d be mentally-challenged. I thought you’d be taller too.”

“A man and a woman? A Bible quote written on the wall with their blood? You didn’t do that?”

“No, I didn’t. Now will you listen to what I have to tell you? Let’s take on Hell, you and me. Let’s push the King off his throne and take his place!”

“Crowley?” Dean said.

Until now they’d all remained silent and let Jesse lead the conversation, and the demon looked disconcerted at Dean’s intervention, like the furniture had suddenly started tap-dancing.

“Crowley’s a bureaucrat!” the demon said to Jesse, seeming to think it safer to talk to him. “We can do better than him. Now, you - I know you’re all powerful and everything, but you don’t know Hell. I know Hell. I know everything there’s to know about it. If we combine our strengths-”

The demon gestured wildly as it talked, intent on convincing, but the words soon become a droning sound to Jesse, who tuned it all out. This demon was nothing, just an ambitious underdog. Jesse could barely feel its power; he would only need a word to send it back to Hell. Was it really what had killed his parents? They’d died for this piece of shit’s dreams of glory?

“I’m not interested.”

The demon stopped in its chatter. “What?”

“I said.” Jesse took a step forward, coming barely an inch away from the edge of the devil’s trap. “I’m not fucking interested. You killed my parents.”

“They were not your parents.”

“Shut up!” The demon pressed Lizzie’s lips together. “They were my parents, and you killed them, and you’re full of shit if you think I’m going to lift a finger to help you in your mad plan to take over Hell!”

The demon crossed arms, looking put-upon. It sighed heavily and on its demonic face the gaping mouth convulsed obscenely. “I thought you might be hard to convince. You probably spent too much time with humans.” The demon took a few steps back until it came close to one of the walls, and it put a hand there. “That’s why I planted a few surprises behind those walls.”

The walls started to quake, hard enough that vases, framed pictures, and various knickknacks started to fall and break on the floor. Dean growled and raised his shotgun, and before Jesse had the time to stop him, he fired rock salt at Lizzie. The demon mewled in pain and Lizzie’s eyes changed to black. It waved a hand and Dean hurtled across the room until he hit the stone mantle of the fireplace.

Sam called his brother’s name and ran to him. A piece of the ceiling fell on him, trapping his leg before he could reach Dean, and he cried out in pain. Jesse’s body lurched forward, wanting to help, but the brothers were on the other side of the devil’s trap and he couldn’t get to them. At the same time, Jesse heard Ben yell, “Claire!” and he spun around in time to see Ben push Claire out of the way from another piece of ceiling. Next thing they knew, objects started flying through the room. Books, pictures, cushions, candlesticks, just soaring across the living room like miniature rockets. A flock of his mother’s collection of porcelain figurines was hurled at Jesse, but he stopped them with a thought and the objects stilled in the air, surrounding him like a pack of wolves circling their prey.

“Is that all you got?” Jesse shouted at the demon over all the noise from the crashing objects and the trembling house.

“Oh, we’re just getting started.”

Jesse heard another yell, then, this time in Claire’s voice, and when he looked to the other side of the room he saw Ben crumpled to the floor, bleeding and silent. Claire was kneeling by his side, brushing hair off his face and calling his name, and Jesse just stopped breathing, kept away by that goddamn devil’s trap.

Ben.

“Ben, honey, come on, wake up, please wake up.”

Ben.

The demon was laughing. It stood in the middle of the trap, plaster raining on it and dulling the flamboyant color of Lizzie’s hair, and it laughed heartily, head thrown back and shoulders shaking with it. Jesse gritted his teeth, stepped into the trap and grabbed Lizzie’s throat, making the demon squeak and the black eyes widen in panic.

Ben, Ben.

“Make it stop,” he commanded.

The trembling stopped at his demand. The floating objects dropped to the floor. The room looked like a battlefield: powdered with white, all the windows broken, all his mother’s vases smashed to the floor, rubble from the ceiling scattered all around. Ben’s moan as he woke up soothed a little of Jesse’s fear.

“Now, tell me: did you kill the Millers?” he asked the demon, slightly relaxing his grasp so it could speak.

“I don’t know who- I didn’t kill anyone in this town but the people who lived here.”

And weirdly, Jesse believed it.

“Come with me,” the demon babbled. “You have to. This is what you were meant to be. Leave these humans behind, and-”

“Are you fucking kidding me? Get. Out.”

A billow of dark smoke hurled out of Lizzie’s mouth and disappeared into what remained of the ceiling, leaving Lizzie with clear, panicked eyes and a wholly human face. Jesse released her hurriedly.

“What- who-” she choked out, shivering like a leaf in the wind.

“You’re safe, now,” Jesse said numbly. “You’re okay.”

She started crying then, and all he could do was repeat, you’re okay, you’re safe in a loop like a fucking automaton.

---

The rush to the hospital didn’t leave a big impression on Jesse. Dropping Lizzie to her mom’s house, calling an ambulance, scrambling with the paramedics’ minds so they didn’t wonder too much about what the hell people had been doing on a former crime scene - he lived through all of it in a series of flashes of colors and sounds. Dean didn’t wake up and he was the first to be whisked inside by the ER team. Sam’s leg was broken and he was taken away almost as soon. By the time they arrived at the hospital Ben was awake and lucid, albeit bleeding from a gash on his forehead and another on his arm. They had to wait a couple more hours before he was seen by a doctor and sent to be stitched up. Claire went with him, while Jesse wandered around the hospital until he found Sam in a cubicle lying on a bed, wearing a hospital gown. A sheet had been tossed across his midriff and his leg was cast in a brace and propped up on a pillow. He looked surprised to see Jesse.

“I though you’d be with Ben.”

“Ben’s having his head and arm stitched up.”

“Why didn’t you go with him?”

“Claire is with him. Three’s a crowd - I mean, I don’t think the doctor’s going to want too many people watching over their shoulder.”

Sam nodded and carefully shifted positions, mindful of his leg.

“Are you okay?” Jesse asked.

“Oh, yes. Clean break. This isn’t my first broken leg, although I may be getting a bit old for that.”

“And Dean? Any news?”

“They took him for a CT scan to look at his brain. They’ll come talk to me when they’re done.”

Strangely, Sam didn’t sound overly concerned about it. With how close the brothers were, Jesse would have thought he’d be out of his mind with worry.

“Aren’t you worried?”

“Of course I am. But I’ve been in this position far more times than I can count. After a while, you learn how to rein in your fear. And everyone has to die of something.” Sam winced. “That sounded cold, didn’t it? I swear I don’t want my brother to die.”

“You talk like death’s been a long time coming for you. You and Dean aren’t that old, though.”

Sam chuckled and rubbed his eyes. “Thanks, I guess. No, we’re not that old. Feels like we’ve lived through a few lifetimes anyway. But I’m not overly worried because my brother’s got a skull as hard as stone. It’d take more than a house falling over his head to do him in.”

Jesse said nothing. Must be nice to be that confident, he mused. Because he’d thought his heart would stop with the fear he’d felt at the sight of Ben’s unconscious form and his pale, bloodied face.

“So that demon didn’t kill the Millers, or attack Mrs. Foster,” he said. The new topic wasn’t any safer, but Jesse couldn’t help himself.

“Or so it said.”

“Oh, it was telling the truth.” It couldn’t lie to me, Jesse didn’t say.

He expected Sam to pick up on that comment but Sam looked about to doze off, seemingly content with letting the conversation fizzle out.

“You know what this means,” Jesse insisted. Sam’s sudden focus on him was so sharp that Jesse was tempted to think he’d faked his apparent sleepiness. “You know what is the other possibility, that I… Frankly, I’m a bit surprised your brother didn’t even mention it earlier.”

Sam smiled. “It has crossed my brother’s mind.” Something in his tone said, it has crossed my mind too. “But Ben obviously adores you. Believe it or not, but it matters to Dean. Enough to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“You think Ben’s in love with me?”

“I think you’d be blind not to see it.”

Jesse ducked his head. “Did you know,” he said in a low voice, “that I’m the first guy Ben’s ever been with?”

“Well,” Sam said carefully, “I can’t say I’ve discussed Ben’s love life with him much.”

“He told me. And even then, it’s quite obvious when we…” Jesse cleared his throat at Sam’s blank look. “Anyway, don’t you think it’s… strange?”

“I think human sexuality’s a very mysterious thing.”

Jesse frowned. Was Sam being dense on purpose? “Don’t you see it? What if I-”

The curtain ruffled and Claire appeared. Her face and hands were still dirty, there was white plaster in her hair, and she looked tired and irritable. “You’re here,” she said to Jesse, her put out tone saying that she’d been looking for him a while. Then she saw Sam in the bed and his stretched out leg. “Are you okay? What about Dean?”

Sam gave her the same answer he gave Jesse. Claire wished them well and turned to Jesse. “Ready to leave?”

“And Ben?”

“Ben’s waiting for us.”

Claire dragged Jesse through the ER crowd: stone-faced doctors and harried nurses; sick people coughing their lungs out, sniffing, sneezing, puking their guts in kidney-shaped bowls; hurt people gingerly holding injured limbs, pressing pads on bloodied faces; crying children; pale, silent children sucking on their thumbs, gathered in a parent’s arms; very old people with cannulas up their noses, gripping their oxygen bottles. They finally found Ben perched at the edge of a bed, swinging his legs like a little kid. He had a white bandage on his arm, and two stitches above his right eyebrow.

“Pain meds are making him a little loopy,” Claire whispered to Jesse.

Ben saw Claire first and his face lit up with pure, unfiltered joy. He slid off the bed and dragged her into an enthusiastic kiss. Jesse watched Claire’s irritation melt into fond exasperation.

“Hands above the waist, Ben,” she gently admonished him, catching his wrist as his hand slid over her hip. “Don’t give people a peep show.”

Her smile belied her words, and she licked her thumb to wipe dried blood from Ben’s cheek, her gesture slow with tenderness. Jesse felt a lump grow in his throat, watching them embraced, oblivious to the ER chaos around them. It wasn’t jealousy. He’d never had even one jealous moment at seeing them together since they’d started this whole thing, because they so obviously belonged together. They’d been in love a long time before Jesse came into the picture. Even Claire, who kept her feelings so carefully locked up, couldn’t hide her love for Ben the day she’d barged into his place, armed with holy water and a rosary, ready to protect him from the threat she thought Jesse represented.

Maybe she’d been right then, Jesse thought. Maybe the threat hadn’t just been quite what she assumed it was.

“Jesse! You’re here too!” Keeping an arm around Claire’s waist, Ben tried to pull Jesse in too but Jesse resisted.

“You’re doped to the gills, mate,” he said, gently detaching Ben’s fingers from his wrist. “Let’s get you out of here, okay?”

---

They slept away a good part of the next day - a broken sleep, because they had to check on Ben periodically. They woke up properly around three in the afternoon, and Jesse went out to get them food so Ben could stay in bed a little longer. They got a call from Sam: Dean’s CT scans were clear, but the doctors were concerned by his long history of previous head injuries and wanted to keep him a little while longer, so Sam was staying with him.

“What the hell are we going to do now?” Ben grumbled, shifting uncomfortably on the bed.

He was shirtless and the bandage on his arm, there mostly so he didn’t get the stitches wet or dirty, stood out with its stark whiteness. Gone was happy cuddly Ben from the night before; he was now cranky and miserable, and it had to be contagious because Claire didn’t seem in a very good mood either, spending an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom like she wanted to escape them. That was where she was now; they could hear water running but Jesse had a feeling it was just for cover.

“We need to consider other hypotheses,” Jesse said, trying to choose his words with care in the hope he wouldn’t set Ben off.

Fat fucking chance. Ben caught on to what he meant, his eyes narrowed and his voice turned sharp. “For God’s sake, Jesse, you are not doing this. You’re not hurting those people.”

“How do you know? I don’t want to, but this has happened before, I’ve hurt people without knowing I was doing it, and-”

“Sam and Dean told me the whole story, and it wasn’t the same: the people who died then died as a side effect of things you willed to life. The attacks in Alliance are different, they have intent: someone, something wants to hurt those people, wants to kill. And this something’s not you.”

“Teachers. I had issues with school-”

“I had issues with school too!” Ben exclaimed, hitting the mattress with his closed fist, even though he knew Jesse meant something a little more serious than the usual. “Do you think I’m a murderer?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Then believe me when I say you’re not either.”

In the bathroom the sound of running water stopped and Jesse knew that Claire was about to come out. Ben was going to draw her into the argument, and she’d agree with him, even if she would be less emotional about it. Jesse didn’t want them to tag-team him, didn’t think he had the energy at the moment, so he pushed off the edge of the bed.

“Where’re you going?”

“I’m going out for a walk. And a smoke. Maybe not in that order.”

“I’m coming with you.” Ben started to fight against the tangle of sheets trapping him.

“No, Ben, don’t. We don’t have to be attached at the hip every single moment of the day.” Oh, Ben’s wounded expression. “Sorry, mate. I just want to be alone right now.”

He’d almost reached the door when Claire left the bathroom, her hair lifted up in a messy bun, wearing sweat pants and a t-shirt. She looked at him and Jesse said, “’M going out for a bit.” She merely nodded, probably understanding the need better than Ben would.

The weather wasn’t so hot today, the sky overcast, and a fine drizzle was descending on the city. It didn’t keep Jesse from lighting up a cigarette as he walked down the street - his fire wasn’t the kind a little rain could keep from burning. He inhaled, filling his lungs with smoke. Fuck, that felt good. Dating two non-smokers meant that he’d seriously cut down on his consumption, even if they never asked him to.

He was reaching a part of the city he hadn’t known back when he was a kid. All squared brick buildings with flat rooftops, the walls covered with torn bits of posters. There were more people too, walking the sidewalks in spite of the rain, raising the collars of their coats and hurrying their steps. Jesse was still just wearing a t-shirt, never ever really cold - must have been hellfire or something keeping him warm - and it was getting uncomfortably damp. It was a new one, a gift from Ben: all black except for the front, splattered with blood-like red, with the inscription ‘Don’t worry, it’s not my blood.’ Private joke, from a time when it had been his blood and he’d almost died, and the black humor in it never failed to make Jesse smile. Laugh about it lest you cry.

The rain was falling harder, becoming annoying even for him, and Jesse started to look for someplace to keep dry. He eyed the enticing sight of a shop awning across the street, glanced right and left for safe crossing, but was stopped from leaving the sidewalk by the soft sound of a distressed moan. He looked around, searching for the source of it, and there, a couple of yards from him: a shape huddled on the ground, like a person curled in on him or herself. He took a few steps in its direction.

“Hey, you okay?”

He came closer, close enough that he could reach out and touch the person’s shoulder.

“Do you want me to call for help?”

The person - a woman, long wet hair sticking to her face - abruptly rose and turned, and Jesse jerked back with a surprised curse. It was Julia, her blue eyes wide open and panicked, her pale face distorted with pain. She opened and closed her mouth, gaping like a fish out of water, and her hands were clawing at her throat, her chest.

“Oh, god.”

She couldn’t breathe. She was letting out these little sucking sounds, like she wanted to speak, maybe beg for his help, but didn’t have enough air to do so. Jesse shook himself out of stillness and clutched her hands, patted her throat and chest, looked into her mouth, trying to see if there was anything obstructing her breathing. But there wasn’t - because of course, it wasn’t anything natural that was causing this.

“Stop it,” he ordered to whatever this was, infusing his words with as much power as he could. “I’m telling you to stop it right now.”

It was to no effect. What happened instead was that Julia’s eyes rolled into their sockets and she went limp in his arms. Limp and not fucking breathing anymore.

“Oh, no. Don’t do that, Julia. Please don’t do that.”

He had to do something, fucking CPR or whatever, but he couldn’t because one moment he was in the street being drenched with rain with a dying woman in his arms, and the next he was in the motel room again.

“Jesse? Hey.”

Fingers waved in front of his eyes. Jesse blinked, and saw it was Ben, looking at him with his brow furrowed.

“Ben? How-”

“Dude, I thought you had a seizure or something. You just sat there staring at nothing.”

At that moment the door to the bathroom opened and Claire came out, looking just like she had when Jesse had left earlier. Instinctively he looked down on himself and saw that he was wearing a different t-shirt: this one was gray and read, ‘Guns don’t kill people. People with mustaches kill people.’

“That’s impossible.”

He stood from the bed, hands put forward to keep balance. Claire gave him one look over and came at him, grasping his hands.

“What’s wrong?”

“You said I just sat there,” Jesse said to Ben. “I didn’t go out? What time’s it?”

“It’s 3:45. You didn’t go out since you went to get us some food.”

“I thought… a dream?”

“You had a waking dream?” Claire said. “What was it about?”

“It was… Julia! She was choking on something, couldn’t breathe. If I saw it then it means… I have to get to her. Where did she say she was staying? I need to go there.”

“She’s staying at the Sunset Motel,” Ben said. “1210 East Highway.”

“Take me with you,” Claire said.

Jesse wanted to protest, not knowing what to expect once he got there, but she still had one of his hands in hers and she tightened her hold, making it hard for him to shake her off without being physically aggressive, while she stepped into her shoes bare-footed.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“Hey,” Ben protested, struggling to pull on a t-shirt and cursing in pain when it jostled his arm.

“You’re hurt. You stay here,” Claire said. In her brusque tone Jesse could hear the pent-up fear she didn’t express, that Jesse had felt all too acutely himself.

“I can still-”

They never knew what Ben had to say on his own capability, because they were already gone. They materialized at some distance from the motel, as Jesse had never actually been there, but they didn’t waste time before running down the street looking for the right address. They barged into the motel lobby: the clerk was a blond white girl barely out of her teens leafing through a magazine. Behind her was a wooden sign that said, “Free Silage with Each Room.” Jesse slapped both hands on the all-wood counter and the girl startled.

“Julia Wright,” he barked. “What’s her room?”

The girl opened her mouth, and Jesse foresaw with crystal clarity what was going to happen: she was going to resist, probably threaten to call the police if they insisted, and maybe with patience, and diplomacy, and a generous amount of bullshitting they could convince her to give them Julia’s room number, but they were running out of time.

“Tell me,” he said, uttering each word with intent.

“Room 45,” the girl said at once.

“Thanks,” he said absurdly.

He could feel Claire’s eyes on him as they ran to the stairs that led to the rest of the motel.

“We didn’t have time,” he said.

“I know.”

“She would have-”

“I know, Jesse.”

They found room 45 - the numbers were drawn on an oval piece of wood and a garland of pale violet flowers was painted around them. Jesse hammered his fist on the door, twice, and when he didn’t get any answer - as he’d expected - he took a few steps back, wanting to shoulder the door open, but Claire stopped him with a light touch on his elbow.

“Wait.”

She tried the doorknob and the door opened. They entered the room, and the curtains were drawn so it was too dark at first for them to see much, but Jesse headed instinctively to the bed and found Julia lying still under the covers.

“Julia?”

Jesse shook her shoulder, but she didn’t react. He rolled her on her back, and put a hand over her mouth but couldn’t feel her breathing.

“Call 911!” he told Claire, hoisting himself up on the bed to listen to Julia’s heart.

He found a heartbeat, faint and fading fast, and just like in his dream he found himself at a loss as to what to do. He’d had first aid classes, a long, long time ago, when he was a kid. He could barely remember any of it. He took her face between his trembling hands. What if he did it wrong? Her pale face looked like a wax mask. Funeral mask. She didn’t feel like his mother, not really, but she’d brought him into this world, for good or for bad, and he’d already caused his parents to be killed. He was a curse, and he was going to do it again to Julia.

“Let me do it,” Claire said as she climbed on the bed with him and gently pushed him out of the way.

“Her heart’s still beating,” he said, filled with relief that someone else was taking over. “I don’t think she’s breathing.”

“Okay.”

She pulled the pillow from under Julia’s head and tilted her head back, before she pinched her nose and pressed her mouth to Julia’s, blew two quick breaths in, then released the nostrils and listened for her breathing. Then she repeated the same process again, and again, and Jesse watched her do it, so precise and self-assured that he felt infused with a sense of comfort, of it’s-all-gonna-be-alright, that he hadn’t felt since childhood.

When the paramedics came in Julia was breathing again and one of them, a tall man with five o’clock shadow, congratulated Claire for her skills.

“Probably saved her life,” he said before he rushed to work on Julia.

“You were amazing,” Jesse said to Claire in a private whisper as they trailed after the paramedics. “I was worse than useless.”

Claire tried for a smile but it wobbled quickly. “It was actually the first time I’ve ever done it on something else than a training dummy.”

Jesse saw that her hands were shaking a little. She clasped them together when she caught him noticing, so he smiled and draped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her against his side to kiss her temple. “You’re the best,” he murmured in her hair. “The very best. Leave Ben and elope with me into the sunset.”

It had the intended effect of making her laugh; it was such an improbable idea. They passed the motel clerk who looked at the procession with wide eyes, two fingers pressed on her slightly gaping mouth. Jesse diverted his eyes before they met hers. Outside the clouds had cleared from the sky and the sun was shining. Jesse’s attention was on Julia being loaded up at the back on an ambulance, when Claire tugged on his hand.

“Hey, look at that tree. Doesn’t it look strange to you?”

Jesse followed her look to the tall maple tree giving shade to the motel. Its trunk was bended like a tree that had grown under strong wind, and its branches were all crooked and twisted, but this wasn’t the strangest thing: the branches were also all tangled, knitted together like a ball of yarn.

---

Two visits to the hospital in two days. This was a new record for Jesse, who’d never had even a stubbed toe that didn’t heal in a few minutes. They waited for news about Julia and no one puzzled over their presence, or asked them questions about what had happened to the woman they’d saved. Jesse was grateful Claire didn’t comment on it. It was so easy for him to resort to this, as easy as it had been when he was a kid and barely knew he was doing anything. That was what he didn’t tell other people: using his powers didn’t feel like straining a muscle to him; no, it was more like the unconscious act of breathing.

Ben called, and Jesse told him he didn’t need to come. Ben didn’t fight him too hard on the issue, which told Jesse that he was probably still feeling achy and exhausted.

“I hate you,” he merely said to Jesse. “I think I’ll have a nap while you’re out having fun without me.”

“We’re hardly having fun. It’s the hospital.”

“I know. I just hate being out of the loop. I’m already tired of those stitches. They itch like a bitch.”

“Wah, wah, wah. Stop whining. We’ll be back soon.”

When he cut the communication Jesse thought he heard Ben say, love you - but it could just as easily have been, see you. He thought about his conversation with Sam, who seemed so sure that Ben loved him. Did he? Did Claire? Anything sure and obvious pinged Jesse wrong: it was often the mark of his own work.

“What did he say?” Claire asked.

“Oh, he’s complaining. I think he’s a little mad at us for leaving him behind.”

Claire smiled her slow, secret smile, the one she seemed to reserve for Ben.

“I bet he is.”

Then without warning, she turned her smile to him, and instead of being rightfully dazzled Jesse felt his insides twist violently with - of all the weird emotions to have - something akin to dread.

“Jesse?” Claire’s smile faded and Jesse felt like utter shit for it. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

He patted her shoulder comfortingly, but he felt so off - like he didn’t have any right to touch her, like he was a fraud - that it must not have been especially comforting. Claire frowned some more at him, then sighed with a soft exhale, like she didn’t expect him to make sense anymore. Which, fair enough. Jesse didn’t feel like he was making any sense either.

After waiting for an undetermined amount of time in a somewhat uncomfortable silence, they were joined by Sam, hopping on a pair of crutches.

“Ben called me,” he simply said.

Jesse brought him up to speed, including even his waking dream, but he hesitated before mentioning the tree in front of the motel.

“I don’t know if it’s relevant,” he said.

There was a line between Sam’s eyebrows. “I think it might be. Everything strange is relevant anyway,” he said in a slightly lecturing tone, “but this in particular rings a bell.”

But Sam didn’t have more time to think about the matter because a doctor came to tell them that Julia was fine and resting. Naturally, they were allowed to see her.

She was as white as the sheets on her hospital bed, and at first Jesse thought she was sleeping, but her eyes fluttered open at their entrance.

“Jesse,” she said. Her tone betrayed nothing: was she happy to see him, or wary? Or maybe she was afraid. “Is it you who called for an ambulance? They told me there was a boy, but they couldn’t remember anything about him.”

“Yeah, well. Claire’s the one who called 911. And she helped you breathe again.”

“Thank you.”

Claire’s cheeks colored. “It’s thanks to Jesse that we knew that something was wrong and that we could be there in time to save you.”

Sam drew a chair to sit on, holding his crutches up next to him. Jesse and Claire remained standing.

“How are you feeling?” Sam asked Julia.

“Exhausted.” She rested a hand across her eyes. “Like I haven’t slept in weeks.”

“Can you tell us what happened?”

“I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. It was like someone was sitting on my chest, I was being crushed and I couldn’t draw any air at all.”

“So you weren’t strangled.”

Indeed, there was no mark on her neck. “No,” she said. “It was more like being smothered. And…” She lifted her hand to look at them. “It wasn’t the first time it’d happened to me. Just… It was worse than usual. It didn’t fade away with waking up.”

“Did anything else happen? Anything strange that you noticed but didn’t really know what to make of?”

“I’ve had nightmares. I don’t know if it matters, I’ve had… quite a lot of nightmares over the years, but it had been getting better until a few weeks ago. Since then, I’ve had nightmares almost every night.”

“What were those nightmares about?”

She hesitated. Jesse must not have been firing on all cylinders because he didn’t get why until her eyes flickered to him.

“Oh,” he said. “It’s okay. You can say it.”

“Being possessed. Of course. Being tied up and left screaming in the cold. Blood; people dying. Me killing people. Giving birth to a creature that, that… ate me up from the inside. Something dark and monstrous, claws instead of hands, teeth that…” She turned her head away from them. “I’m sorry.”

“’S fine,” Jesse said. By that point the word had lost all meaning.

“But those dreams weren’t unusual in themselves,” Julia continued. “I’ve had them for a long time. It was just their frequency that was odd.”

“Okay,” Sam said. “And… this change you noticed, about your dreams - was it before or after you came to Alliance?”

“Before. It started weeks before I came here.”

Sam nodded like this only confirmed what he thought. What he was thinking, Jesse couldn’t even begin to fathom. For all that he was more agreeable than his brother, Sam Winchester was still a tough-as-nails, hardened-as-hell hunter. Jesse would do well to remember that, he thought with a sudden, irrational burst of unease and paranoia.

“One last question,” Sam said. “Why did you come here?”

“I told you. I’d learned about what had happened to the Turners and I wanted to check things out.”

“I would’ve thought, with the things you experienced in the past, that you would try to stay far away from demonic shenanigans.”

A silence. Julia’s faded-out eyes were fixed on the ceiling. “It won’t ever be over,” she said in a quiet, flat voice. “Whatever I do. I tried to keep myself out of it until I got possessed a second time. I thought I was free when my nightmares all but disappeared, but they came back with a vengeance. Hiding out from the world hasn’t worked so far, so I thought - well, that maybe facing my fears would accomplish something. Also.” She had a faint, almost bashful sort of smile. “I might have hoped that you and your brother would be here, trying to figure things out.”

“Did you hope that Jesse would be here too?”

Julia’s smile faded. “Well,” Jesse said a little forcefully, his mind screaming abort! abort! “We should let you rest. You need…” For me not to be here. “To recover.”

Julia and he made a brave but awkward effort to smile at each other.

“Jesse,” Julia started, but Jesse shook his head, not ready for anything that would come out of her mouth. She didn’t insist.

Sam went back to his brother, and Jesse and Claire went back to their boyfriend - a word that Jesse had never used in relation to Ben outside of his own thoughts, and even then it gave him a sweet-sick feeling at the pit of his stomach. Ben wasn’t sulking as Jesse had half-expected him to do. No, Jesse should have remembered how Ben raged and barked, and then moved on. Couldn’t hold a grudge to save his life; that was probably why he still got along with Dean.

“You okay?” he asked Jesse, looking at him worriedly like Jesse was the one who’d almost died.

“’Course I am.”

But maybe Ben was onto something, because Jesse felt hollowed out, a toy emptied of all its stuffing. That night, he didn’t sleep at all, staring instead at the ceiling until his thoughts were only a static sound at the background of his mind.

Part five