Over the Hills & Far Away (Chapter 3b)
Title: Over the Hills & Far Away - CHAPTER 3B
Author(s): operationhades
Artist: evian_fork
Warning: few curse words, once or twice, primarily from Dean.
Summary: Sam was a fourteen year old mutant when he walked in on an injured Dean staring up at the barrel of a gun held by John Winchester. And after that, with Sam at the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning and Dean throwing John, every other hunter in the country, and a pissed Yellow Eyed Demon of their trail, thing's only get progressively worse.
3B
CHAPTER 3 (3B)
The rumbling of the motorcycle came to a stop, cutting off abruptly to leave nothing but the still silence of the night. Logan peered up in disgust at the creepy old house in the middle of nowhere, looking around for a moment before he did a double take and spotted the Impala, all sleek and sharp edges, the black paint job forcing it to converge with the surrounding darkness. The car looked positively dangerous, lounging there as a crash and a shot came from the barely standing house interrupting the dark night. If Logan were the type to think of an inanimate object as having feelings, he'd be pretty damn sure it was, simply lounging there like the damn beauty was used to this.
Logan sure as hell was. Seemed like every time he left to go back to the mansion to check in, he came back to the numbnut doing something illegal. Or playing a very dangerous game of poker with some shady people. Or flirting with the sheriff's daughter. Like setting a grave on fire. Though he still didn't understand why the idiot had been doing that last one.
Distracted by his thoughts, he patted his ride fondly, turning round to start hurrying towards the house. Habit had him sniffing the air, taking a moment to see if maybe danger had a scent, but this far out of civilization only had him wrinkling his nose as farm life assaulted him. Lights flickered on and off in the house, eerie as fuck, the whole house looking like a bad reject from the 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' film. Irritated at having to go inside, and at the thoughts of what Hunter could possibly be doing, Logan kicked the door open, holding it with a hand when it came to slam back shut, then striding through the house.
Inside was even worse than outside. The house had obviously been abandoned, items and signs of life still littered around the strange living room Logan had set foot in. Everything was in disrepair, large chunks of the place vandalised by ungrateful teenagers, the glass of the window broken. Something almost feminine shrieked upstairs, another crash shaking the house's foundation, and from the stairs something came tumbling down. It landed with a painful thud, a groan coming from the figure as it tried to get out of the way, scrambling on all fours away from the stairs. Logan grabbed the kid's shirt, yanking him backwards roughly, instincts screaming at him to follow Dean's example and get the hell away from the stairs. Just in time too, for a piano came crashing down after Dean, landing with a mocking note right where Dean had been moments ago, and Logan had to wonder what had thrown that.
The kid grinned over at him, holding out a sawed off shotgun while pumping another in his other hand. “Was wondering when you were gonna follow me into one of these creepy ass houses.”
Never willing to get his hands on any sort of fire power, Logan grabbed the gun, wondering why the kid had two on him with a raised eyebrow. “You've been waiting for me?” The mere fact that the kid had known he was being followed was something, but then again, Logan hadn't known the kid could play poker too.
A breeze picked up, transforming quickly into a fierce wind that whipped at their clothes and hair. Dean grinned wildly, looking two straws short of a happy meal with his ragged look and the pretty little bruise forming just underneath his jaw line, jerking his head over to the stairs. “Aim and shoot, big guy!” He yelled over the wind. “I need to find her necklace!”
What did that even mean? “Hey- Wait-”
There was a woman standing in front of him.
A woman wearing a white dress that seemed... off... and staring at him as if he'd done her a personal offence.
“Dude.” Dean's voice came from somewhere behind him, cocking his shotgun and shooting. The woman dispersed in a cloud of dust, shrieking like a banshee. Or. Well. Like Banshee. “Don't check her out, shoot.”
Then the woman came back, Logan frantically thought 'what the fuck,' and used his own shotgun to shoot her again, watching in quickly rising denial how she disappeared again. The sound of liquid being spilled from a bottle came from behind, then something that sounded like grains shaking inside a canister. His noise twitched at the heavy stink of petrol, too busy shooting the woman as she came flying at him from all corners to look back and see what the hell the kid was getting up too, but Logan still didn't miss the sound of a lighter being flicked on - a sound he intimately knew well - or the roar of flames.
And he also didn't miss the woman - wearing white and stained with blood - scream one final time and burst into flames herself, disappearing into thin wisps of quickly disappearing smoke.
He stood there staring, fingers wrapped tight around the shotgun, waiting for her to flicker into view again. Dean noisily came up beside him, smacking him with too much strength on the back like old friends, prying the gun from his hands.
“Dude, it's over. Come on, I'm freakin' starving.”
But Logan shook his head, looking over the house with a stern eye. Something still felt off, just like it'd done when he'd first seen the house, and there was a scent in the air he hadn't noticed before but was irritating the crap out of him. It was too weak to pinpoint, covered over in thick layers by the heavy cloying smell of petrol and fire, and in the end he just chalked it up to the strangest crap he'd just done in his life (which was really saying a lot) and turned to follow Dean out of the door, questions on his tongue. “Bub, you've got a shit ton to explain.”
The green eyed male spared him a cocky look, shrugging casually. “You saw it didn't you? Not much to explain. Basically, everything that goes-”
“-bump in the night exists. Really, Winchester? That's how you'll explain it?”
The smell was stronger here, a bitter tang that smelt of rotten eggs, and Logan just knew it was coming from the blonde haired woman leaning next to Logan's bike, sprawled all over his ride. Irritation flared in him, hot and strong, only tamped down by Dean tensing behind him. He didn't like this, didn't like having to defer to the kid's obvious knowledge of what the hell was going on, but it was obvious this was an area of expertise that Logan didn't have. And if the kid could grin in the face of some seriously pissed off woman in a white dress and flickering afterthoughts, that probably meant him looking like a trapped fox because of this one - pretty corporeal looking too - woman meant shit was in a whole new ballgame.
And when Dean gritted out, “Christo,” and the woman's flinched, her eyes turning bottomless black, well, Logan took back his shotgun and aimed it at the woman head on.
“Aaw,” the woman cooed, looking barely legal in a red leather jacket and dark skinny jeans as she stared Logan down. “Is the doggy feeling frightened?”
Dean didn't seem impressed, face stony and furious, the calm before the storm, reminding Logan that this was the older Hunter brother, which made him think this was probably where Sam had gotten his bouts of suddenly looking older than he was. “I'm going to send you back to Hell, bitch.”
The woman laughed gleefully, holding the bike as support. “Oh, how cute!” She gasped, wiping a fake tear from her eye. “Little toy soldier wants to be like daddy. Speaking of which, where is good ol' Johnny? In fact, where's little Sammy, too?”
Dean growled, metaphorical hackles raised. “You bitch--”
“--Left you in the ditch, huh?” She continued, interrupting like Dean hadn't even spoken. “Can't blame them. But see here, I have a feeling you still know where they are - especially little Sammy. Never could stay too far from him, could you Dean? Loyal guard dog that you are. And my daddy, who killed your mommy, wants him oh so much.” She waved a hand in the air, distracting herself with her nails, before speaking up again. “Daddy's looking for you, you know.”
Logan turned to look at Dean, eyes tracking the subtle emotions playing over the younger male's face. Dean had a damn good poker face going on, but something the woman said had hit a nerve, maybe the mom comment? Dean swallowed thickly, the only outward display of anything he might be feeling, and slapped a lopsided grin on his face. “Yeah? So you gonna run back and tattle on my location, sweetheart?”
The woman stood up, pushing away from the motorcycle with unassuming grace. “You can call me, Meg, darlin'.” She answered back, smiling coyly at Dean. “And yeah, I'll be doing that. After I have a little... fun, with you.”
Then Dean started chanting, the woman - Meg - jerked back in surprise, and the next thing Logan knew, black smoke erupted from her mouth, streaming upwards in the air before writhing off into the horizon, the woman dropping to the floor like a heavy sack. Dean cursed next to him, running towards the woman and skidding next to her, dropping to his knees to check her pulse. Logan approached the two a hell of a lot more warily, eyeing the night sky in case the black goddamn smoke decided to make a comeback, and frowned when Dean cursed again and stood up.
“We need to leave.” The younger of the two stated hurriedly, grabbing his dropped shotgun and making a jerky move towards his Impala.
Logan glanced down at the woman's body, instantly knowing it was dead - lived too damn long not to know a dead body when he saw one - and instead turned to look at Dean, not missing the 'we' Dean had used. Whatever the hell the black smoke had been, it'd seen Logan, knew Logan was with Dean, and would probably be telling her... its... whatever's daddy. “Damn it,” Logan bitched, fetching a cigarette from his pocket as he moved to his ride. “I knew you were fucking trouble.”
Dean looked surprised at his easy acquiescence, stopping short for a moment before returning to his journey towards the waiting beast, muttering something about a birthday present.
Logan whirled round to face Dean, surprise over his face. “Wait, it's your birthday?”
Dean shrugged, opening up the driver's door of the Impala, looking weary and exhausted by the question. “Happy twentieth birthday, right?”
. . .
January passed, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October and November, and Westchester County was thick in the hold of December. Snow had already fallen, covering untouched ground in a sheet of white, and Christmas was just round the corner.
Also, Sam was the only male in this group.
Next to him, Kitty and Rogue were arguing about the merits of a straightener as opposed to a curler, while Rahne - Wolfsbane - and Amara - Magma - trailed behind them a few steps. Jean led the small group, window shopping past every store they went, and Sam wondered for the sixth time why he was here. All he'd wanted was to see if Dean had sent that book he'd promised to the P.O. Box he had here, or whether he'd have to try and find what he was looking into elsewhere, even if he was worried what the staff at the Westchester mansion would say if they saw his browsing history. Even if he did try his best to get rid of it every few hours. Instead, now he had to trawl through the bright, people filled pandemonium that was the mall at Christmas time, and Sam was the only male present.
Also, probably the tallest.
Jean looked back at him, laughing softly. “I remember the day you first came - you were barely to my arm and only fourteen years old. Now you're sixteen, getting cuter and cuter, and growing taller every night.”
Right. Mind reader. He still sometimes forgot to keep up his shield when around mind readers, even if it didn't make sense how he could do it. Telekinesis only meant being able to move things with the power of one's mind - Sam knew, he'd researched the hell out of it the moment he saw the library they had stocked at the mansion - in no way whatsoever should Sam have been able to figure out a way to block his thoughts from being picked up by Jean and Professor Xavier. Even though they both seemed impressed and curious about it. Sam had a working theory that it was because matters of the mind were all interconnected, all psionic abilities, and thus could be interwoven together if someone had a seriously bad itch to scratch. And the last thing Sam needed was for either Jean or Professor Xavier to pick up about hunting.
Smiling at her, he shrugged awkwardly. “It's long overdue.” He simply said, grinning at the reminder of his age. His sixteenth birthday had been awesome, even if everybody had found out about the anti-possession tattoo he'd gotten done right over his heart. Note for next time: don't play strip poker with anyone. Especially bloodthirsty girls.
“We need to get groceries too.” Amara grumbled up from the back, walking with her hands in the thick hoodie she was wearing. She hated the cold, completely understandable considering she was a fire-based mutant, and completely different from Bobby who was enjoying himself twenty-four-seven in the mansion's grounds. “And hot drinks. I demand hot dri--- ooooh, look.”
The girls grabbed each other, stalking over to a lingerie shop proudly proclaiming to be selling things at 70%. Sam swallowed at the displays, averting his eyes until he saw a conveniently placed bench at the other side, and walked towards it to sit down. This was the tenth store the girls had all run off into, and Sam knew the gig, knew to just wait outside looking pretty until they came out again. Surprisingly, Jean ambled along beside him, sitting next to him and throwing a leg over the other, sighing in exasperation.
“You know the only reason they brought you along was so you could carry their things, right?”
Sam shrugged, a bit embarrassed because he hadn't known, but then again, the last two years had gone by faster than he would've thought possible away from Dean, and he still felt a pang of misery at the idea of how long it'd been since he had seen his brother. If it wasn't for the occasional mutants Dean ran into on hunts and sent over to the Institute, Sam wouldn't have known if Dean was even alive. “It's fine. Needed to check up on my P.O. Box anyway.”
Jean nodded. “What do you plan on doing after finishing your education at the mansion, anyway?” She asked instead, looking over at him.
Sam gave it some thought before deciding answering truthfully would be for the best. “I think... I think I'll go to college. I've been looking at possibilities lately, and I think I might have a chance of getting into a really good school.” 'After helping Dean,' he added on mentally.
“Ooh,” a new voice interrupted behind them. “Go Harvard. I hear that place is teaming with vengeful ghosts.”
Sam jumped from the bench, whirling round to face the voice, and eyed the woman strangely. Jean, confused, stood up and moved to stand beside him, shoulder to shoulder to calm him down, but Sam was too busy staring at the woman. The red leather jacket, the short cropped blonde hair, and the smirk didn't look familiar to him, nothing about her gave him any clues as to her identity, but what she'd said. Damn it, what if she was a hunter? One in contact with Dad? But there was no way she could connect a short fourteen year old with Sam now, except for...
Except for his hair.
Damn it, he should've listened to Dean and cut it.
“Can we help you?” Jean's voice interrupted him, voice upbeat and polite.
The woman, the hunter, whatever she was, shrugged a lone shoulder, eyes not moving away from Sam as she smirked wider. “Oh no, I'm just enjoying the view here. Not everyday you find what you're looking for.” She blinked, and the eyes turned a murky black for a second before blinking back to normal again.
Shit.
Jean's hand clasped Sam's shoulder, fingers digging into the muscles there, the only outward expression of her emotions. “We gotta go.” Her other hand landed on Sam's other shoulder, moving him around in a tight circle and frog marching into the lingerie store the girls had gone into. Sam craned his neck backwards, seeing the woman - demon, eyes blinking black at will or the name of God - still standing there, staring at Sam with hunger.
Jean seemed spooked, a bit more so than Sam would've thought, and then he realised she could hear thoughts, meaning she might have heard something. “Did you... Did you hear something?” He pointed at his head, not willing to say 'with your mind' inside the store filled with women and a few unlucky men.
Jean stared at him for a moment, emotions battling across her face before she grimaced slightly. “No. Just thought she was a bit creepy.” She regretted lying to Sam, especially since it was so obvious the woman had been there for Sam, but thought it'd be better to not scare him before speaking to the Professor about this and come up with something.
She gathered up all the girls, forcing them to drop what they hadn't already paid for, and herded them out of the store's other entrance, replaying over and over again the last trickle of thought the woman had projected right at the end.
'Father will be pleased.'
NEXT CHAPTER
MASTERPOST
Author(s): operationhades
Artist: evian_fork
Warning: few curse words, once or twice, primarily from Dean.
Summary: Sam was a fourteen year old mutant when he walked in on an injured Dean staring up at the barrel of a gun held by John Winchester. And after that, with Sam at the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning and Dean throwing John, every other hunter in the country, and a pissed Yellow Eyed Demon of their trail, thing's only get progressively worse.
3B
CHAPTER 3 (3B)
The rumbling of the motorcycle came to a stop, cutting off abruptly to leave nothing but the still silence of the night. Logan peered up in disgust at the creepy old house in the middle of nowhere, looking around for a moment before he did a double take and spotted the Impala, all sleek and sharp edges, the black paint job forcing it to converge with the surrounding darkness. The car looked positively dangerous, lounging there as a crash and a shot came from the barely standing house interrupting the dark night. If Logan were the type to think of an inanimate object as having feelings, he'd be pretty damn sure it was, simply lounging there like the damn beauty was used to this.
Logan sure as hell was. Seemed like every time he left to go back to the mansion to check in, he came back to the numbnut doing something illegal. Or playing a very dangerous game of poker with some shady people. Or flirting with the sheriff's daughter. Like setting a grave on fire. Though he still didn't understand why the idiot had been doing that last one.
Distracted by his thoughts, he patted his ride fondly, turning round to start hurrying towards the house. Habit had him sniffing the air, taking a moment to see if maybe danger had a scent, but this far out of civilization only had him wrinkling his nose as farm life assaulted him. Lights flickered on and off in the house, eerie as fuck, the whole house looking like a bad reject from the 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' film. Irritated at having to go inside, and at the thoughts of what Hunter could possibly be doing, Logan kicked the door open, holding it with a hand when it came to slam back shut, then striding through the house.
Inside was even worse than outside. The house had obviously been abandoned, items and signs of life still littered around the strange living room Logan had set foot in. Everything was in disrepair, large chunks of the place vandalised by ungrateful teenagers, the glass of the window broken. Something almost feminine shrieked upstairs, another crash shaking the house's foundation, and from the stairs something came tumbling down. It landed with a painful thud, a groan coming from the figure as it tried to get out of the way, scrambling on all fours away from the stairs. Logan grabbed the kid's shirt, yanking him backwards roughly, instincts screaming at him to follow Dean's example and get the hell away from the stairs. Just in time too, for a piano came crashing down after Dean, landing with a mocking note right where Dean had been moments ago, and Logan had to wonder what had thrown that.
The kid grinned over at him, holding out a sawed off shotgun while pumping another in his other hand. “Was wondering when you were gonna follow me into one of these creepy ass houses.”
Never willing to get his hands on any sort of fire power, Logan grabbed the gun, wondering why the kid had two on him with a raised eyebrow. “You've been waiting for me?” The mere fact that the kid had known he was being followed was something, but then again, Logan hadn't known the kid could play poker too.
A breeze picked up, transforming quickly into a fierce wind that whipped at their clothes and hair. Dean grinned wildly, looking two straws short of a happy meal with his ragged look and the pretty little bruise forming just underneath his jaw line, jerking his head over to the stairs. “Aim and shoot, big guy!” He yelled over the wind. “I need to find her necklace!”
What did that even mean? “Hey- Wait-”
There was a woman standing in front of him.
A woman wearing a white dress that seemed... off... and staring at him as if he'd done her a personal offence.
“Dude.” Dean's voice came from somewhere behind him, cocking his shotgun and shooting. The woman dispersed in a cloud of dust, shrieking like a banshee. Or. Well. Like Banshee. “Don't check her out, shoot.”
Then the woman came back, Logan frantically thought 'what the fuck,' and used his own shotgun to shoot her again, watching in quickly rising denial how she disappeared again. The sound of liquid being spilled from a bottle came from behind, then something that sounded like grains shaking inside a canister. His noise twitched at the heavy stink of petrol, too busy shooting the woman as she came flying at him from all corners to look back and see what the hell the kid was getting up too, but Logan still didn't miss the sound of a lighter being flicked on - a sound he intimately knew well - or the roar of flames.
And he also didn't miss the woman - wearing white and stained with blood - scream one final time and burst into flames herself, disappearing into thin wisps of quickly disappearing smoke.
He stood there staring, fingers wrapped tight around the shotgun, waiting for her to flicker into view again. Dean noisily came up beside him, smacking him with too much strength on the back like old friends, prying the gun from his hands.
“Dude, it's over. Come on, I'm freakin' starving.”
But Logan shook his head, looking over the house with a stern eye. Something still felt off, just like it'd done when he'd first seen the house, and there was a scent in the air he hadn't noticed before but was irritating the crap out of him. It was too weak to pinpoint, covered over in thick layers by the heavy cloying smell of petrol and fire, and in the end he just chalked it up to the strangest crap he'd just done in his life (which was really saying a lot) and turned to follow Dean out of the door, questions on his tongue. “Bub, you've got a shit ton to explain.”
The green eyed male spared him a cocky look, shrugging casually. “You saw it didn't you? Not much to explain. Basically, everything that goes-”
“-bump in the night exists. Really, Winchester? That's how you'll explain it?”
The smell was stronger here, a bitter tang that smelt of rotten eggs, and Logan just knew it was coming from the blonde haired woman leaning next to Logan's bike, sprawled all over his ride. Irritation flared in him, hot and strong, only tamped down by Dean tensing behind him. He didn't like this, didn't like having to defer to the kid's obvious knowledge of what the hell was going on, but it was obvious this was an area of expertise that Logan didn't have. And if the kid could grin in the face of some seriously pissed off woman in a white dress and flickering afterthoughts, that probably meant him looking like a trapped fox because of this one - pretty corporeal looking too - woman meant shit was in a whole new ballgame.
And when Dean gritted out, “Christo,” and the woman's flinched, her eyes turning bottomless black, well, Logan took back his shotgun and aimed it at the woman head on.
“Aaw,” the woman cooed, looking barely legal in a red leather jacket and dark skinny jeans as she stared Logan down. “Is the doggy feeling frightened?”
Dean didn't seem impressed, face stony and furious, the calm before the storm, reminding Logan that this was the older Hunter brother, which made him think this was probably where Sam had gotten his bouts of suddenly looking older than he was. “I'm going to send you back to Hell, bitch.”
The woman laughed gleefully, holding the bike as support. “Oh, how cute!” She gasped, wiping a fake tear from her eye. “Little toy soldier wants to be like daddy. Speaking of which, where is good ol' Johnny? In fact, where's little Sammy, too?”
Dean growled, metaphorical hackles raised. “You bitch--”
“--Left you in the ditch, huh?” She continued, interrupting like Dean hadn't even spoken. “Can't blame them. But see here, I have a feeling you still know where they are - especially little Sammy. Never could stay too far from him, could you Dean? Loyal guard dog that you are. And my daddy, who killed your mommy, wants him oh so much.” She waved a hand in the air, distracting herself with her nails, before speaking up again. “Daddy's looking for you, you know.”
Logan turned to look at Dean, eyes tracking the subtle emotions playing over the younger male's face. Dean had a damn good poker face going on, but something the woman said had hit a nerve, maybe the mom comment? Dean swallowed thickly, the only outward display of anything he might be feeling, and slapped a lopsided grin on his face. “Yeah? So you gonna run back and tattle on my location, sweetheart?”
The woman stood up, pushing away from the motorcycle with unassuming grace. “You can call me, Meg, darlin'.” She answered back, smiling coyly at Dean. “And yeah, I'll be doing that. After I have a little... fun, with you.”
Then Dean started chanting, the woman - Meg - jerked back in surprise, and the next thing Logan knew, black smoke erupted from her mouth, streaming upwards in the air before writhing off into the horizon, the woman dropping to the floor like a heavy sack. Dean cursed next to him, running towards the woman and skidding next to her, dropping to his knees to check her pulse. Logan approached the two a hell of a lot more warily, eyeing the night sky in case the black goddamn smoke decided to make a comeback, and frowned when Dean cursed again and stood up.
“We need to leave.” The younger of the two stated hurriedly, grabbing his dropped shotgun and making a jerky move towards his Impala.
Logan glanced down at the woman's body, instantly knowing it was dead - lived too damn long not to know a dead body when he saw one - and instead turned to look at Dean, not missing the 'we' Dean had used. Whatever the hell the black smoke had been, it'd seen Logan, knew Logan was with Dean, and would probably be telling her... its... whatever's daddy. “Damn it,” Logan bitched, fetching a cigarette from his pocket as he moved to his ride. “I knew you were fucking trouble.”
Dean looked surprised at his easy acquiescence, stopping short for a moment before returning to his journey towards the waiting beast, muttering something about a birthday present.
Logan whirled round to face Dean, surprise over his face. “Wait, it's your birthday?”
Dean shrugged, opening up the driver's door of the Impala, looking weary and exhausted by the question. “Happy twentieth birthday, right?”
. . .
January passed, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October and November, and Westchester County was thick in the hold of December. Snow had already fallen, covering untouched ground in a sheet of white, and Christmas was just round the corner.
Also, Sam was the only male in this group.
Next to him, Kitty and Rogue were arguing about the merits of a straightener as opposed to a curler, while Rahne - Wolfsbane - and Amara - Magma - trailed behind them a few steps. Jean led the small group, window shopping past every store they went, and Sam wondered for the sixth time why he was here. All he'd wanted was to see if Dean had sent that book he'd promised to the P.O. Box he had here, or whether he'd have to try and find what he was looking into elsewhere, even if he was worried what the staff at the Westchester mansion would say if they saw his browsing history. Even if he did try his best to get rid of it every few hours. Instead, now he had to trawl through the bright, people filled pandemonium that was the mall at Christmas time, and Sam was the only male present.
Also, probably the tallest.
Jean looked back at him, laughing softly. “I remember the day you first came - you were barely to my arm and only fourteen years old. Now you're sixteen, getting cuter and cuter, and growing taller every night.”
Right. Mind reader. He still sometimes forgot to keep up his shield when around mind readers, even if it didn't make sense how he could do it. Telekinesis only meant being able to move things with the power of one's mind - Sam knew, he'd researched the hell out of it the moment he saw the library they had stocked at the mansion - in no way whatsoever should Sam have been able to figure out a way to block his thoughts from being picked up by Jean and Professor Xavier. Even though they both seemed impressed and curious about it. Sam had a working theory that it was because matters of the mind were all interconnected, all psionic abilities, and thus could be interwoven together if someone had a seriously bad itch to scratch. And the last thing Sam needed was for either Jean or Professor Xavier to pick up about hunting.
Smiling at her, he shrugged awkwardly. “It's long overdue.” He simply said, grinning at the reminder of his age. His sixteenth birthday had been awesome, even if everybody had found out about the anti-possession tattoo he'd gotten done right over his heart. Note for next time: don't play strip poker with anyone. Especially bloodthirsty girls.
“We need to get groceries too.” Amara grumbled up from the back, walking with her hands in the thick hoodie she was wearing. She hated the cold, completely understandable considering she was a fire-based mutant, and completely different from Bobby who was enjoying himself twenty-four-seven in the mansion's grounds. “And hot drinks. I demand hot dri--- ooooh, look.”
The girls grabbed each other, stalking over to a lingerie shop proudly proclaiming to be selling things at 70%. Sam swallowed at the displays, averting his eyes until he saw a conveniently placed bench at the other side, and walked towards it to sit down. This was the tenth store the girls had all run off into, and Sam knew the gig, knew to just wait outside looking pretty until they came out again. Surprisingly, Jean ambled along beside him, sitting next to him and throwing a leg over the other, sighing in exasperation.
“You know the only reason they brought you along was so you could carry their things, right?”
Sam shrugged, a bit embarrassed because he hadn't known, but then again, the last two years had gone by faster than he would've thought possible away from Dean, and he still felt a pang of misery at the idea of how long it'd been since he had seen his brother. If it wasn't for the occasional mutants Dean ran into on hunts and sent over to the Institute, Sam wouldn't have known if Dean was even alive. “It's fine. Needed to check up on my P.O. Box anyway.”
Jean nodded. “What do you plan on doing after finishing your education at the mansion, anyway?” She asked instead, looking over at him.
Sam gave it some thought before deciding answering truthfully would be for the best. “I think... I think I'll go to college. I've been looking at possibilities lately, and I think I might have a chance of getting into a really good school.” 'After helping Dean,' he added on mentally.
“Ooh,” a new voice interrupted behind them. “Go Harvard. I hear that place is teaming with vengeful ghosts.”
Sam jumped from the bench, whirling round to face the voice, and eyed the woman strangely. Jean, confused, stood up and moved to stand beside him, shoulder to shoulder to calm him down, but Sam was too busy staring at the woman. The red leather jacket, the short cropped blonde hair, and the smirk didn't look familiar to him, nothing about her gave him any clues as to her identity, but what she'd said. Damn it, what if she was a hunter? One in contact with Dad? But there was no way she could connect a short fourteen year old with Sam now, except for...
Except for his hair.
Damn it, he should've listened to Dean and cut it.
“Can we help you?” Jean's voice interrupted him, voice upbeat and polite.
The woman, the hunter, whatever she was, shrugged a lone shoulder, eyes not moving away from Sam as she smirked wider. “Oh no, I'm just enjoying the view here. Not everyday you find what you're looking for.” She blinked, and the eyes turned a murky black for a second before blinking back to normal again.
Shit.
Jean's hand clasped Sam's shoulder, fingers digging into the muscles there, the only outward expression of her emotions. “We gotta go.” Her other hand landed on Sam's other shoulder, moving him around in a tight circle and frog marching into the lingerie store the girls had gone into. Sam craned his neck backwards, seeing the woman - demon, eyes blinking black at will or the name of God - still standing there, staring at Sam with hunger.
Jean seemed spooked, a bit more so than Sam would've thought, and then he realised she could hear thoughts, meaning she might have heard something. “Did you... Did you hear something?” He pointed at his head, not willing to say 'with your mind' inside the store filled with women and a few unlucky men.
Jean stared at him for a moment, emotions battling across her face before she grimaced slightly. “No. Just thought she was a bit creepy.” She regretted lying to Sam, especially since it was so obvious the woman had been there for Sam, but thought it'd be better to not scare him before speaking to the Professor about this and come up with something.
She gathered up all the girls, forcing them to drop what they hadn't already paid for, and herded them out of the store's other entrance, replaying over and over again the last trickle of thought the woman had projected right at the end.
'Father will be pleased.'
NEXT CHAPTER
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