Women in White 3/?
Chapter 3
The brothers put Sam's bag in the trunk and then came around and got into the car. They closed the doors at the same time.
The first minutes they drove in silence. Sam shifted in his seat till he got comfortable and let out a sigh.
"Home sweet home, little brother." Dean said quietly and Sam smiled.
"So, voodoo in New Orleans?" Sam asked after a few moments of comfortable silence. Only Jess in the backseat felt like she had ants all over her body. The whole situation was borderline surreal.
"Yep."
"Can it be more cliche?"
Dean chuckled. "Was after a Jersey Devil with Caleb last month. In Jersey."
Sam stared at him for a second before he burst out laughing.
"You guys are insane, you know that, right?" Jess asked, however, by now she was kinda used to not getting any answers.
"You okay?" Sam became serious, eying his brother closely. "Hurt?"
"'M fine." Dean reassured him. Sam studied his brother for a moment longer before he nodded.
"So, you and Dad work your own gigs these days."
The way Dean shifted he knew where Sam headed. And he didn't like it. Jess leaned in closer, this could indeed become interesting. And it kept her mind from running in circles.
"Sometimes." Dean admitted. "I've worked with Caleb and some others from time to time."
"But Dad is on his solo trips as usual." There was the bitterness again. "Because I can still hear him railing about that he needs my backup, that you need my backup." He spread his hands in frustration and Jess really wanted to know what he was talking about. "Looks like you guys manage quite well without me."
"Looks like."
Silence fell between them and it wasn't as comfortable as before, leaving Jess wondering why Sam had agreed to this trip in the first place. It didn't look like the brothers got along very well.
"I missed you." Sam spoke without looking at his brother. "I wanted to get out but I never wanted to lose you."
Dean clenched his jaw and nodded. "Hey man, I get it. You didn't want to mix your new live with … the old one. I get it." It hurt him nevertheless judging by the hard line of his jaw and the flexing muscles. But before Sam could say anything Dean turned the music on and Metallica played.
Jess recognized the song. Sam didn't like it, didn't like anything from Metallica or any similar band. She waited for him to say something or to switch the music off but instead he smiled and slid further down in his seat.
"Try to sleep for a while." Dean said with poorly masked affection in his voice.
The engine roared and the music played and Sam didn't really fit in the seat and he was with his brother he hadn't seen in two years and their father was missing - probably dead according to Dean - and Sam slept. His jacket between his head and the window Sam slept deep and without nightmares.
Dean smiled at him, fingers drumming on the wheel while he drove them safely through the night.
Jess in the backseat felt a sting in her chest she recognized as jealousy. Sam shouldn't be able to sleep like a baby in this situation.
"Just you and me, then?" She asked but Dean didn't react. "Wanna tell me what this monster talk is all about?" She gave him a minute to answer. "Not much of a talker, aren't you?"
With nothing interesting going on Jess had time to think. Which was probably the only thing she actually could do. After her encounter with Brady and hearing Sam and Dean talking casual about monsters she had to admit that Brady probably wasn't quite what she had thought he was. Black eyes for sure weren't normal and doing to her what he did ... hell, she didn't even have a name for it. So she was stuck with Sam while he relived his trip with Dean, so far she got it. What really bothered her was Brady's open announcement to kill her. With the weapons and the training the Winchester brothers apparently had they could probably help her if they only knew she was in trouble.
"Move something." She mumbled and looked around. "Like in this move. Ghost." And she fully got the irony that Patrick Swayze's character was named Sam in the movie. "I just hope I don't have to find a medium to get through to Sam."
An hour later Jess had an headache and the burger wrapper she had tired to move lay unimpressed next to her on the seat. One time it had moved right when her hand touched it and she had yelled in excitement till she had realized that it had been only a bump in the road.
Frustrated Jess leaned back and nearly slipped through the back of the seat. This out of body experience - she didn't like the term ghost in any relation to her because it implied way to much I'm dead for her liking - really sucked, she decided. Thinking about her current state she noticed that she wasn't tired or hungry for that matter. Knowing her body she should feel her bladder by now but didn't. She could feel the nightgown she was wearing and her body was solid to her own touch, however, beyond that there was nothing.
The sun was up and Sam was still asleep when Dean stopped for gas. Sam woke up to the closing door and it took him one look around to relax back into his seat. And that was just another wrong in Jess' book. Yes, maybe she was jealous but Sam shouldn't feel so comfortable around his brother.
The brother who hadn't thrown him out like their father had but who didn't do anything to stop it either. Dean himself had confirmed that he had no contact whatsoever with Sam for two years.
With a smile Sam ran his fingers over the dashboard and it turned into a wide grin when he found the old box filled with the even older cassette tapes. Who even used those nowadays, Jess wondered. Apparently Dean did.
Door open, one foot outside Sam sat sideways in the seat skimming through the tapes which gave Jess a perfect angle to have a look, too. Hell, she could just lean through him if she wanted to but just the thought made her shudder. It was just wrong.
Metallica, AC/DC, Motörhead she read on the cases but when Sam opened one the label on the tape said something different.
"Dean." Sam whispered and ran his fingers over the plastic.
Jess swallowed against the lump in her throat. Her brother did the same thing. When he wanted to switch something out - cassette tapes, CDs, DVDs, even games - he didn't bother to find the right case when he had an empty one already in his hand. Which meant finding something was a real pain in the ass and more than once they had been on the chase for one movie they intended to watch and ended with another one they had found along the way. Jess smiled at the similarity to her brother but then straightened. She didn't want to like anything about Dean Winchester. Except for his brother, of course. Him she liked. A lot.
"Breakfast?" Dean asked from behind waving bags of junk food.
"At least you could feed my boyfriend right." She muttered. It helped a lot in the not-liking-Dean-department when he revealed that he and their dad lived from credit card scams, though. Whatever it was they did for "living". Hunting was mentioned again and apparently it wasn't very well payed for that matter. Whatever it was, Jess was really glad that Sam got out of it and she prayed that he wouldn't go back to it.
Sam on the other hand didn't seem to bother about his family's criminal way of living and teased Dean about the tapes instead.
"Well, house rules, Sammy." Dean snagged the tape out of Sam's hand and popped it into the player. "Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole."
"You know, Sammy is a chubby twelve-year-old." Sam had to raise his voice over the music. "It's Sam." He insisted and Jess wondered what took him so long to set that straight. Nobody called Sam Sammy. At least not a second time.
Dean just laughed and cranked the music up while Jess tried to picture Sam as a Sammy. He was right, Sammy just sounded young and chubby, somebody who got his cheeks pinched by aunts with names like Agatha. Just like a Bill had to be fat in her mind or a Jules was some kind of aristocrat. It was stupid, however, some names came with a picture no matter how many people she met to prove her wrong.
After an unhealthy breakfast in the car - Sam helped himself from Dean's bag which Dean had set between them in easy reach from both sides - Sam made a few calls.
With an icy fist clenching her stomach Jess listened into the conversations. Their father was probably dead, a fact she had successfully shoved back into her mind until now. Until now when Sam called hospitals and morgues to find a man matching his father's description.
"All right. So, there's no one matching Dad at the hospital or morgue." Sam shut the phone after the last call. He hadn't asked about a John Winchester once.
"So that's something, I guess." Sam said and Dean gave a grim nod.
Wouldn't use his real name, Jess guessed and tried to ignore the uneasy feeling in her stomach. In Sam's situation she would have no idea where even to start, who to call to get the information she needed. For Sam it seemed easy, natural and she didn't like it. Not at all.
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