Follow One Storm Upon Another (1/3)
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Art Post | Master Post
Jess catches herself as her eyelids start to flutter shut-she's been behind the wheel for more hours than she can remember. The sound of the tires against the rumble strip on the side of the road snaps her into attentiveness, and she jerks the wheel, narrowly avoiding a dangerous careen into the ditch.
Adrenaline rushes to her heart, speeds up her breathing. The week's receipts and maps go flying; the detritus that's built up in the backseat from the long trip shifts audibly as she eases the car back onto the road. She takes a deep breath, trying to calm down; she could've died. She really needs to be more careful, or she'll definitely never see Sam again.
She's been useless since Sam left. She never thought she'd be one of those girls-the ones who needed a man to get by-but maybe she is. He's been gone for a couple weeks, and she feels worse than she did during finals week last year: angry, overly-sensitive, and stressed. Even loud, sarcastic Beth had been walking on eggshells around Jess. Her interviews for post-graduation jobs were supposed to start in early November, but Jess managed them to cancel them all without breaking down, knowing she wouldn't get anything besides a reputation as a nutjob. She and Sam were going to plan their futures together. She's got to find him.
Looking back, it had been a huge mistake not to go with him. His brother had come for him in the middle of the night and whisked him off without so much as meeting her first. That had been weeks ago, and Sam hasn't called or emailed or texted since, and she knows shit about where he is. Her friends and a few of her professors know that he'd just taken off, but school had been a nightmare. When she couldn't focus in class or even paint, she knew she couldn't just sit there and do nothing. Finding Sam gives her something to focus on, and calms her down a little, because she's dealing with the problem. Or trying to, at least.
Jess sighs, and switches on the radio, hoping it'll keep her awake. She adjusts the stations until the static clears up, but when she hears a pounding beat and Lindsay Lohan's over-synthesized voice, she shuts it off again. It'll only make her headache worse.
She has to find somewhere to sleep soon, anyway; there are hardly any working streetlights on this stretch of highway and it's getting late. She desperately needs to pee, and the only exit for fifty miles approaches so fast she hardly has time to switch lanes and slow down to make it.
A few miles after the exit, she sees a bar. It doesn't look like much, and it's definitely not the kind of place she's used to, but it's the only place around. She parks her BMW, out of place next to the motorcycles and trucks.
Harvelle's Roadhouse is written in flickering fluorescent lights above the entrance, and the feeling that she doesn't belong gets even worse once she's inside the bar. It's filled mostly with guys-big, burly men in plaid flannel and ripped jeans, broken up into small groups, laughing and chugging beer. They look like truckers, or maybe hunters, though Jess isn't really sure what there is to hunt in Nebraska. The few women look pretty much the same, tough and hardened, like they could kick her ass, which intimidates Jess a little. For a minute, Jess feels like she should get back in her Beemer, find the nearest big city and spend the night there, before hightailing it back to Palo Alto in the morning. She wants to find Sam, though, and she doesn't want to turn down an opportunity to find some information.
"Is there a restroom I can use?" Jess asks the woman-Jess guesses she's in her early forties-behind the bar.
"Paying customers only," she replies, gesturing to a sign by the cash register that says just that.
"Okay." Jess fishes her wallet out of her bag and takes out a few bills. "Could I get a rum and Coke? And some fries?"
"Sorry, hon," the woman says, giving Jess a slightly pitying look. "We don't serve food."
"Shit," she mutters under her breath, and right on cue, her stomach rumbles, a long, low growl that makes a few of the other patrons turn and look at her. Jess ate the last of her snacks earlier today, and she was looking forward to having some kind of a real meal, but apparently that wasn't going to happen. "Ladies' room?"
The woman points her to a hall in back; when Jess is finished, she swings by the bar to get her drink and picks a quiet corner table to drink it at. A couple guys leer at her, but she ignores them, listening for any information that could help her. She'd had one of Sam's geeky computer science friends check, and for whatever reason, Sam has more than a few PO boxes scattered across the country, and the one in Kansas got a package a couple days ago. She's hoping to catch up with him while he's still on the grid, which happens once every couple of weeks, for a few days at a time.
She takes another long sip of rum and Coke, catching a few random snippets of conversations as she scans the room again-there's no sign of Sam, but if he was there, she would've spotted him first thing. She doesn't mean to listen in on other people, but they're louder than the music playing in the background, so it's kind of hard not to let herself get drawn in by what they're talking about-something involving dogs and scarecrows and...doing something involving rabbit's feet, which is kind of weird (okay, it's really weird), but she's not about to say anything and get thrown out of the only bar, and only possible source of information, in town.
"Listening in, I see," someone says from behind her, and Jess flushes, embarrassed at how obvious she's apparently been.
"I..." Her words feel like they're stuck in her throat, and she doesn't know why. "They're all loud, and it's-" She takes a breath, trying to clear her head, and starts over. "Never mind," she says. "Could I get another rum and Coke?"
The waitress is around the same age as Jess, maybe a little younger; she's blonde and petite, too innocent-looking to be working at a truck stop like this. "Sure thing. Just gimme a sec to get those guys-" she tilts her head towards the quietest group, a few guys sitting in the corner, talking in hushed tones "-their drinks. They get impatient and...grabby sometimes."
The girl makes her rounds, stopping at tables to chat with the guys for a few minutes, and glaring at them when their hands get too close. They look mildly intimidated, even though the girl's a slender little wisp of a person. She swings back around with Jess's drink, sets it on the table. "We don't get many tourists this way." The girl offers her hand for Jess to shake. "I'm Jo."
"Jess. And I'm not a tourist. I'm just passing through."
Jo raises her eyebrows. "What for?"
"I'm kind of looking for someone."
"Yeah?" Jo asks.
"Yeah, I know it's a long shot, but a friend told me he'd been in the area, and I thought maybe he stopped here? His name's Sam," she says, slipping the photo of him out of her wallet, "and, well, this is him." The chance Sam stopped in is probably slim, but it is the only place around, and Jess has been showing his picture everywhere she stops, just in case.
Jo studies the photo for a long minute, eyebrows knitting together in concentration, before shaking her head. "I don't remember him, but a lot of people come through here. Ellen-my mom-is good with faces. I bet she can help you. We'll be closing up pretty soon, if you wanna stick around 'till then."
"Sure, yeah. Um...I know you don't serve food, but I haven't eaten since lunch. No chance you guys have something stashed in the back, right?"
Jo smiles. "Yeah, I'm sure I can find something." She slips over to the bar without any customers noticing her and pulls a bag of pretzels from underneath. On the way back, though, some guy flags her down. She heaves a sigh and strides over to his table, hand on her hip.
Jess yawns, reaches for her phone to check the time, but it's not in her pocket. She must've left it in the car. Figures. She hopes they close soon, because she really needs to find a place to sleep and get back on the road early tomorrow.
"Back!" Jo says cheerfully, and Jess notices the bartender standing beside her, arms folded. "Jess, this is my mom, Ellen. Mom, this is Jess. She's looking for her boyfriend."
"His name's Sam." Jess hands Ellen the photo.
"Sam?" Ellen asks, raising an eyebrow exactly the way Jo did earlier. "We get a lot of people through here, and I don't always know everyone."
"Sam Winchester." Like the gun, she'd joked when they met, but apologized after she felt his stare turn cold and his hand go stiff around hers.
"Winchester," Ellen repeats, rolling the name around in her mouth. "Now there's a name I haven't heard in years." Her eyes glaze over for a minute, but she shakes out of it and asks, "This boyfriend of yours got a brother?"
"Yeah-Dean. He's a mechanic." Ellen doesn't say anything in response, and Jess starts to worry. What if Sam's dead, and Ellen's trying to figure out how to tell her? She does her best to keep her voice from shaking, asks, "Does that...do you know where he is?"
"I've never met him myself, but his dad used to stop by here sometimes." Ellen glares at Jo, long and hard, like she's willing her not to say anything.
"Sam hasn't spoken to his father in years." Jess never could figure out what Sam had done that was so awful, so unforgivable, that his own father would cut him out of their life. She knows Sam's not perfect (stubborn, hot-tempered, and moody); when Sam told her that his dad told him never to come back, she'd been so upset. She'd been raised with the idea that family is everything, and she doesn't understand how Sam's own father could hate him. "What does he have to do with this?" She remembers Sam saying his dad was furious that Sam was going to Stanford, and adds, "Wait, this isn't some bullshit fight about their family business or company or whatever, is it?"
"The family business?"
"Yeah," Jess replies. "'Winchester and Sons' Garage', I think. Sam's dad cut him out because he wouldn't stick around to fix engines all day."
"Oh, is that what they called-ow!" Jo yelps, and rubs her arm where Ellen's pinched it.
"Maybe we should talk about this in private," Ellen says, and Jess is glad. If something has happened to Sam, she doesn't want to find out about it in front of a roomful of strangers.
Ellen gets everyone out of the bar faster than Jess's ever seen anyone do it, though she doesn't bother waking some guy who's lying passed out on a pool table. "That's Ash," Jo says, nods at him, and Jess understands. There's always an Ash; her group of friends is no exception, and neither is Sam's.
"Tell me about Sam," says Ellen, looking Jess up and down. She doesn't let anything on, but Jess feels like she's being judged.
"Um," she starts, not sure how to sum him up in only a few words. "He's twenty-two, and he's-well, he was-pre-law. He hasn't spoken to his dad or Dean in a few years, and he doesn't have any other family. We've been dating for almost a year and a half. He's really shy and quiet, and...really tall. Does that cover it? I mean, I love him. I want him to come home." Her voice wavers, but doesn't crack, and she's glad. She hates showing weakness in front of strangers.
"And when did you say he left again?"
"A few weeks ago. Dean-who I never even met, by the way-broke into our apartment in the middle of the night. Sam went to go see who it was, and when he came back, he said that their dad 'was on a hunting trip and hadn't been home in a few days.' I didn't even know Sam had ever gone hunting, but I guess his dad goes pretty regularly."
"Had he been acting weird recently?" Jo this time, butting in and ignoring her mother's wishes for her to stay out of it. "You know, moody, suspicious, anxious?"
"Not really," she says, thinking back. "I mean, he was so stressed about taking the LSAT, but I didn't notice anything strange." Except for the headaches and the nightmares, she adds silently, unsure if mentioning them is relevant or necessary.
"And do you know anything about his family?"
"His dad's a real piece of work; Sam said his brother looked out for him."
"Jess," Ellen begins cautiously, like she's trying not to startle a wild animal. "Sam told you about what happened to his mom, right?"
"She died when he was a baby." Growing up without a mom must've been hard for him-she couldn't have done it, even though her early teenage years were miserable with her mom nagging at her all the time; she'd brought it up a few times, only to have him brush it off, like he did whenever she tried to talk about his family or his past. "Something was wrong with the wiring in their house. A fire started in his nursery-it's amazing he got out." He always said his brother looked out for him, and there'd been days when he talked about Dean like he was some kind of hero. Especially when he was drunk.
"There was a fire." Ellen nods, light catching her face, an illusion that makes her expression look softer than it probably is. "But nothing was wrong with the wiring."
"Someone set their house-Sam's room-on fire?" It comes out more caustic than she'd meant for it to, but doesn't stop. "Why?"
"John's been trying to figure that out for years. That's one of the reasons why they moved around so much," Ellen says.
"He knew who did it?"
"It wasn't-"
"You tell her about the fire, Mom, you'll have to tell her about everything," Jo protests. "There's a reason it happens under the radar. She doesn't need to know."
She might finally be getting some answers, but Jess is anxious. What if it's bad news for her, or what if Sam's in trouble? She's not even sure how well Ellen and Jo even know the Winchesters, or how much she can trust them. They're all Jess has right now, though. "I'm his girlfriend. I think I deserve to know what's going on."
"Joanna Beth, I know what it's like to wait for someone who's not coming back." Ellen's voice is harsh, but also tight with pain, like a guitar string that's about to break. "She should know the truth."
That worries Jess more-what does Ellen know that makes her think Sam's not coming back?-but she reminds herself that Ellen doesn't know Sam, doesn't know how loyal he is, that she's talking about herself and not Jess. "What is the truth, then?" When Ellen doesn't answer, Jess adds, "I can handle it." Still nothing. "Well, okay, then. Thanks for your help. I guess I'll just try to find Sam myself, and if I go missing just like he did, it'll be on you."
She knows it's a low blow, but she's desperate here, and her other tactics aren't working. Ellen looks taken aback, and Jess feels guilty, but doesn't risk apologizing; it might undo the progress she's worked to make. "No one else is going missing, Jess," Ellen says. "I'll tell you what you want to know. Just keep in mind that you might not believe me."
"I'm listening," Jess says.
"It wasn't a person that killed Sam's mom, Jess."
"You mean it wasn't human or something? Please. I'm blonde, not dumb." If it wasn't an accident, and it wasn't a person, she doesn't know what's left. And she's not in the mood to be made to look like a fool.
"It was a demon," Ellen says flatly, avoiding Jess's gaze. "Exactly six months after Sam was born."
"That's ridiculous. Are you crazy?" Jess counters. She can't believe this is actually happening. "That's bullshit-demons. You can't expect me to think you're telling the truth."
"Why would we lie to you?" Clearly, Ellen's trying to soothe her, but it's a little past that now. It's not until Ellen says, "Just calm down," that Jess realizes she's breathing faster than normal. Jess hiccups quietly, trying to process the situation.
"So...there's a demon-" she pauses, waiting for Jo to nod. It's starting to sink in. "You think it had something to do with his mom's death? The thing was after Sam?" She hopes it wasn't, or isn't-it could be looking for him right now, and Jess can't tell him, or do anything to help.
"Could've been." Jo's nonchalant, somehow. Jess remembers that the Winchesters don't mean much to Ellen, not anymore, and probably even less to Jo. To them, Jess is just some desperate girl on a futile mission. "Don't think too many people know about it, though."
"What, the demon?" Then it hits her. "Wait, other people know about this?"
"Hunters," Ellen tells her. "They've been known to pass through here from time to time. They deal with all those monsters your parents always told you weren't real-they're real. Werewolves, ghosts, poltergeists, demons; you name it, it's probably out there."
Head spinning with the sudden information, all Jess can do is say, "Please tell me you're joking."
Ellen shakes her head. "Wish I was, though. You seem like a nice girl, Jess. Smart. I'm sorry this is happening to you."
"No. No." Her boyfriend's family can't be as fucked-up as Ellen says. The whole thing is just a really long, really vivid nightmare, and Sam will be in soon to wake her, to hold her and tell her everything's okay while she sips a glass of water. "I still don't believe you."
"Just think about it for a minute. Did Sam have any weird scars he couldn't explain? Strange books or objects he kept hidden? Lots of salt or water by the door? He ever explain why he's lived so many places? Bet he didn't talk about his family." Ellen sets a glass and a bottle of Jim Beam in front of Jess. "It's a hard life. We know. Have a drink on the house."
"Thanks." She's never really liked whiskey-the few times she'd tried it, it was like fire in her mouth, burning as it slid down her throat-but now seems like as good a time as any to start drinking. "Y-yeah, he-he had a lot of scars, actually." They didn't look like the ones most people got as kids, from falling off a bike or stepping on a sharp-edged shell at the beach. His scars were unusual: three long scratch marks on his leg, a smattering of silver at the small of his back, a burn on his forearm that left the skin a little distorted. "I just figured...never mind." She doesn't want to explain to one of John's friends that she thought he was an alcoholic (Sam had admitted that, at least) who got angry when he drank and took it out on Sam. "He used to read some...unusual books-just a couple. One was in Latin, one had symbols I'd never seen before on it." She didn't snoop, though; she wouldn't want him to go through her things, and she figured they were just books for one of his mythology classes or something.
"What kind of symbols?" Jo asks.
"Um..." Jess digs around in her bag for a pen, sketches one of them out on a napkin.
"Pentagram." Ellen glances at Jo. "Anything else?"
"Not that I can remember, but he'd draw them all over his notes when he got stressed."
And that's when everything starts to make some sense. She'd been cleaning the apartment one time, and found this weird curved blade hidden behind the headboard, behind their winter clothes and old assignments. He'd never used it, that she knew of, or even acknowledged its existence. She'd wanted to confront him about it, but couldn't bring herself to; now she wishes she had. Maybe if she had, none of this would have happened.
"Holy shit," she breathes, dropping her head into her hands. Sam had been lying to her since they met. She would have...okay, no, she probably wouldn't have believed him if he'd told her the truth, but he should've, before they moved in together. Now she has to hear it from a couple people she doesn't know and who haven't seen Sam in years. "I gotta-" Jess mumbles, rushing for the bathroom; she barely makes it to the toilet before vomiting up everything she's eaten that day, which isn't much. Mostly it's just bile burning her throat, the acidity easier to deal with than what she's just learned.
Afterwards, she washes her face, changes into sweats (Ellen found her after she got sick and offered her a place to sleep for the night, and Jess wasn't going to turn her down), and climbs into bed. Her mind is racing, but she's so exhausted that she gets to sleep within minutes.
*
As tired as Jess was, she couldn't stay asleep for long; now she's waking in fits and starts. There's a knock on the door of Ellen's tiny guest room, and then footsteps as someone-or something-enters, and Jess bolts upright. A few hours ago, she found out that her boyfriend and his family hunt down creepy as shit creatures-ones that probably only come out at night-and now something's coming into her room. For a second, she wishes her pepper spray wasn't in her bag all the way across the room, but realizes, slightly hysterically, that pepper spray probably wouldn't have any effect if the something is non-human. And that only people have the sense to knock on a door before entering.
When a ray of light spills in from the hallway, she can see it's only Jo. It takes a minute for her heart to stop pounding in her chest, but her breathing slows to normal. "What the fuck?" she hisses.
"Sorry," Jo says. "I didn't want to wake my mom up. She has super-hearing." A blanket gets shoved under the door to contain their voices. It reminds Jess of how, before anyone got high on-campus, they'd roll up a towel and put it in the door crack to keep the pot smoke in. "I'm leaving tomorrow," Jo says, hopping up onto the bed and sitting cross-legged atop the comforter.
"Okay? So am I, probably."
"I mean I'm leaving to go back on the road tomorrow. Back to hunting. I tried college for a little bit-University of Nebraska at Omaha-but...it didn't exactly work out. Mom made me come back home again, has me waiting on the same idiots I did before I left. If I stay here any longer, I'll go crazy." Jo pauses for a minute, and then cautiously says, "And you should come with me. Sam's a hunter-it's in his blood. He's moving around a lot, so the best way to find him would be to go on the road, find a few hunts."
"I'm in college," Jess says. "I'm at Stanford. I'm supposed to graduate in May and get a job at an art gallery while I work on my own paintings. Sam was going to go to law school and...propose, I think, and I'm supposed to give all that up and hunt all the things that go bump in the night?" That terrifies her almost as much as the idea of losing Sam.
"You really love him," Jo says. It's not a question. "If he gave up hunting once, it's because he wanted a normal life, and when you find him, you can put everything behind you. You're obviously smart, and it'd be nice not to fight demons alone. Hunters travel the country, and what better way to find Sam than to do what he's doing? Follow his tracks. I think-with some work-you could be a good hunter, but you're not going to learn how by yourself. Besides Sam, I'm the only hunter you know, and I can help you. Someone's got to. What good would it do to get killed looking for him because you don't know how to handle yourself? So here's the deal: you can do whatever it takes to find Sam, or you can go back to college and spend the rest of your life wondering if he's out there. What's it going to be?"
"Can I sleep on it?" Jess asks.
Jo nods. "I'll wake you in the morning and you can give me your answer then. Don't think too hard."
She doesn't sleep right away; instead, she weighs the pros and cons, but that doesn't feel right. She thinks with her heart, not her head, and now isn't the time to make a switch. Jess isn't the kind of person who sits around while life happens around her-Sam had said he liked that about her-and she's not ready to give up on him yet, or on the life they could have together. If Jo thinks hunting is the best way to find him, Jess will do it. She won't necessarily like it, but she'll do it.
Giving up Stanford is big too, but she's already the semester off, and she can always go back. If she can't, which probably isn't likely...well, she doesn't have a plan for that, but she can deal with that later. She wants to find Sam now. Eventually, her worn-out brain shuts off, and she falls asleep.
*
Dawn, and someone-Jo-is shaking Jess out of bed, saying, "In or out?"
Sunlight streams in through the blinds, way too bright for Jess's tired eyes, and she raises a hand to shield them from the glare. "Wha?" She's never been a morning person.
"Are you coming or not? If you are, we gotta go."
Jess takes a deep breath, gathering courage. "Yeah," she says. "Yeah, I am."
"Then get moving. My mom's a light sleeper," Jo explains. "Can you be ready in five minutes?"
"Make it ten?" Jess groans.
Jo sighs, exhales heavily. "Just hurry up."
The shower spray is freezing cold, so she washes her hair and face in the sink, the lukewarm water a poor substitute for the real thing. Afraid of waking Ellen, she doesn't blow-dry, just pins her hair up into a tight bun, and tugs on jeans and a hoodie-Sam's, gray cotton warm and soft against her skin. It smells like him (Ivory soap, clean sweat, Doublemint gum) mixed with the faint trace of her perfume, and it's overwhelming. Inexplicably, it seems like he could be just around the corner, or a few miles down the road. Her brain knows he's not, but her heart hopes he is.
In the kitchen/dining room are her bags and Jo's three duffels, along with a tackle box-filled with what, Jess doesn't know.
"We need to figure out what to do with your car," Jo says, crossing off items from a checklist in her head. "And your credit card bills, and your apartment-"
"Already got a subletter." One of Laura's friends is doing a stint at Dragon Productions Theatre Company, so Jess offered her the apartment for as long as she needs it. (As long as Jess could have it back in the spring, that is, which should be more than enough time to find Sam and get settled in again.)
Jo continues like Jess hasn't interrupted. "A new license and passport, and you should set up a PO box or two. You have a preference of fake names?"
"Not...really?" What's she supposed to say-"yes", and then pull out a list of aliases she's always wanted to use?
"Okay. Hang on." Jo pulls a crappy, beat-up Nokia from her pocket and scrolls through. "I think I might have someone who can take your car off your hands."
Take it off her hands? Since when was that part of the plan? "Can't we just leave it here?" she asks. The Roadhouse is quiet-well, fairly quiet-and there's not much around to disturb it.
"We're going to need cash. I know your parents probably pay for everything you need at college, but they're probably not going to spring for motel rooms and diner food."
That stings a little, but it's true; unlike Sam, Jess doesn't need financial aid, so her job at the gallery is just for experience and spending money. She lets Jo text the contact, who says he'll meet them in Bondurant in a few days.
While she drives, she thinks about Sam. He could be out there. It's not like him to just take off without letting her know, so whatever he left for, it's something massive, beyond imagination. They'd had days when they didn't see each other (finals week, or if one of them had a big test or a project), but he'd leave notes around the apartment for her to find-on her pillow, taped to the carton of orange juice in the fridge, on top of her favorite pair of jeans. She hasn't gotten a call or an email or anything, and it freaks her out. He's fighting monsters out there; all kinds of shit could happen to him.
She focuses on the road instead of worrying, though (or tries to), because the last thing she needs right now is to get into an accident.
*
The rain's coming down practically in sheets by the time they make it to Des Moines. Jess follows Jo's car off the highway, and pulls over after Jo. She doesn't know what time it is, but she does know it's too early to pack it in for the night. "Why are we stopping?" she asks.
"There's a library around here somewhere," Jo says. "About ten miles. Just tail me 'till we get there."
It springs into view after a few minutes-a recently renovated building with huge windows. Jess realizes they're at Wayne State College, which she's never even fucking heard of. They sprint from the car to the library, but managed to get soaked just the same. Covering her head with her hands doesn't do much good; the water flattens her hair into soggy curls and makes her jeans heavier. Jess feels her eyeliner streaking and smudging at the corners of her eyes; she rubs at it until it's either gone or smudged worse, but she's not sure which it is. Jo pays five dollars for a card after having convinced the librarian she's a new student without a student ID yet (well, Marta Browning does, but the photo on the license is one of Jo staring blankly into the distance), turns Jess towards the back of the room and gives her a crumpled-up sheet of paper. "Get any books about subjects on this list; I'll start from the other side and meet you back here when you're done."
The scrawls are almost illegible, but Jess's dad is a doctor, so she's gotten good at deciphering. Jo's handwriting takes a little more effort. Folklore, demonology, and religious literature books quickly pile up into a stack, but there are only so many she can carry to the front desk. Jo's waiting there with even more (if that's possible).
"Research paper?" the librarian asks, and Jo invents something about dissertations and "very demanding course loads" and "the most important year of our lives." She's a natural liar, it seems like, innocent face and open eyes that anyone would trust. She coaxes the librarian into letting them check out five more books than they're alloted. Jess doubts they'll return them.
*
The Holiday Inn is Jess's idea of roughing it, but this motel is much worse: decrepit building, burned-out lights, vaguely horror-movie-ish.
"Uh, two queens," Jess says to the guy behind the counter when he asks king or queen? and leers at them like he thinks he's being subtle about it. He frowns, looking thoroughly disappointed.
The beds are small enough that getting a king and sharing it would have probably been better, but it's too late now. She starts in on the rest of her giant bag of Skittles (bought at some rest stop over a hundred miles back). Jo declines any when Jess offers, which is fine-more for her-and opts for one of those packs of sunflower seeds. Jess watches her crack the shell with her teeth, spit it into the trashcan, which is at least seven feet away, and grind the seed into what's pretty much powder before repeating the process.
"How can you do that?" Jess asks. She usually thinks it's gross when guys spit on the street, but Jo makes it seem kind of cool.
"Do what?" The shell cracks especially loudly this time.
"Spit that far."
Jo smiles. "I'll teach you sometime. We should get to bed, though-I've got someone coming to look at your car tomorrow, and he'll be here early. He's a hunter. A real good one, too. He's a little...gruff, but that's nothing to be afraid of."
"Okay. Just to be clear on this, though, how early is early? This morning was brutal."
"Get used to it," Jo warns.
*
Jo's contact pulls up in a Chevelle that's older than both her and Jess-1971, maybe-and introduces himself as Bobby Singer. He's wearing a baseball cap so beaten-up that the insignia's faded so much Jess can't tell what it was, and a flannel shirt, which seems to be something all hunters wear. He calls Jo an idiot for running off on her mother.
"Ellen know you're here?"
"No, and you better not tell her."
"You think she won't figure it out soon enough? Your mother's not dumb, missy. Shame on you for lying to her," he scolds.
"Whatever you say." Jo rolls her eyes.
Neither of them say anything after that, and Jess feels like she should break the tension. "Um, it's a 2002 BMW. Really good condition."
Bobby just looks at her like she's stupid. "I got eyes."
"Right." Hopefully any more of Jo's contacts Jess meets will be a little less abrasive. "So, are you interested?"
He takes his time, walking around the car, running his hands over it, peering at the features. The paint's a little uneven near the left headlight (Jess hit a mailbox her first time out alone); if he notices it, he doesn't say anything. "Five grand," Bobby offers. "You won't get much more for it around here."
It's worth more, definitely, but she's going to need the money and there's no way it's coming from her trust fund. Her bank account's full enough, but there's only so long that'll last before her parents start noticing the balance declining faster than usual.
"You should do it," Jo says. "We just can't take it on the road. Trunk's not big enough, and we don't wanna draw any extra attention to ourselves by having a nice car. Cops get suspicious."
"Okay, yeah. Let me just grab a couple things from inside." She hands over the keys, and Bobby pays her in a stack of twenties.
"Be careful out there," he warns them.
As soon as he's gone, Jo says, "We should split the cash. If something happens to one of us, at least the other's still got enough to get by for a while."
She hesitates, fingers wrapped right around the bills. She doesn't know Jo that well and she doesn't have a car now, so Jo could just dump her and run. "I, um, I'd rather hold onto it," she says, keeping her voice quiet.
"I'm not just going to leave you out here," Jo says. "You can trust me."
Jess wants to believe her, but given recent events, it's going to take time. She can barely believe what she's learned in the past few days; believing anyone about anything is a stretch right now. Luckily, Jo doesn't insist on dividing the money, instead asking, "How good are you at pool? We'll need to hustle, at some point."
Jess shrugs. "Eh...I'm better at darts."
"That'll do." Jo nods. "And you'll probably be good at hustling-those boobs, a few beers, a dumb blonde act, and you're good to go."
"Really?"
It's comforting to know she could actually be good at the job (or something that helps with the job, at least), because that's a step in the right direction. It feels weird to her that Jo had obviously checked out her boobs at some point, but she reminds herself that they're kind of hard to miss and silently accepts the compliment.
*
Ellen calls that night-Bobby probably tipped her off, because the note Jo had left said that she was going back to UNO for a few days to catch up with some friends-and she's yelling so loudly that Jo has to hold the phone away from her ear. Jess tugs a pillow down over her head, tries not to think about the fights she used to have with her own mother that left both of them seething. It doesn't work, and she pinches the bridge of her nose to hold back the tears forming behind her eyes.
"Joanna Beth Harvelle," Ellen is saying, her voice stern and demanding. "You get your ass back in that truck and you come home right now or I swear to God, I'll-"
"You'll what, Mom? You'll make me? I'm an adult. I want to hunt. I want to save people from dying like-" Jo lowers her voice to a whisper, enough so that Jess has to strain to hear. "You can either deal with it, or cut me out of your life, and I really don't think you want more enemies."
It feels awkward, being in the middle of their fight, so Jess heads for the bathroom. The shower is kind of rank, so she slides into a pair of flip-flops, and the water pressure's crappy, but the temperature is almost hot enough. Her shower gel is cool in her palms, smell of almond-coconut filling her nose and making her think of home-showers with Sam before breakfast or after a long day of classes. She remembers the times he'd pressed her up against the glass door, gotten her off with the vibrating showerhead, one hand over her hip, like he'd been afraid she'd leave if he didn't keep her there. He'd always washed her hair afterwards, massaging the foam into her scalp, combing out the tangles as the water rinsed them clean. Sam was perfect to her, kind and generous and loving. She could never stay mad after they fought (all of their arguments were stupid in retrospect: every so often, she'd ask about Dean or his dad; he'd yell that it was the one part of his life that he needed to keep private.
They'd fight over other stuff, too. Jess hated when his drunk friends ended up crashing on their couch; he'd wanted her parents to stop asking Sam about when he was going to marry their daughter-"We haven't even fucking graduated yet, and I love you, you know I do, I just...need to go to law school first." He'd always brought her something as a token of his apology-a chocolate peppermint cupcake from Sprinkles or a trashy tabloid he said she wasted her brain on-and rest his head in her lap, saying I'm sorry, I'm sorry, over and over until he felt forgiven, or until he forgave himself. She'd cook dinner for him, curl up against him in bed and stroke his hair until he fell asleep.
Jess leans back against the water-warmed tile of the shower wall, not caring that it's grimy, and lets the water wash her tears away.
When she goes back into the bedroom, one towel around her body and another around her hair, Jo's eyes are red-rimmed and bright, but she's smiling a little. "Mom's not happy, but she's not going to track us down and kick my ass." She wipes her nose with a tissue from a box on the table, then sniffles again. "I have to call or write at least once a month, which sucks, but-"
"No, that's great! It's probably better if you're not worrying about her finding out every step of the way."
"Uh-huh. She did tell you to make sure I don't do anything too stupid, though, so she'll probably come looking for you if I die." Jo's stomach growls loudly. "Yeah, I could really go for some dinner right about now."
"I feel like pizza," Jess agrees. "Extra cheese, extra bacon." She finds a phone book in one of the night-table drawers, and asks for it to be delivered to the front office of the motel. Already, she knows to keep their information and whereabouts as private as possible.
The pizza comes with Cinna Stix and a big bottle of Sprite, which is great; she tips the poor kid stuck delivering food a couple extra dollars and deems not to tell Jo about that part.
True Life is on TV. Jess only half-watches; everyone else's problems seem so petty and insignificant.
"Pretty stupid, huh?" Jo laughs. "Like, cry more, it's your own fault you got pregnant at fourteen, and it's your own fault for keeping it."
"Exactly," Jess agrees. With MTV on, and greasy pizza in front of them, it almost seems like Jo could be a roommate or a friend. So just for tonight, she pretends she's normal.
Part Two