Summer of Sam

[not-scully.livejournal.com]

[ Summer of Sam: Ending B ]

Twenty minutes later, when he's washed his hands and put the kit away, Sam is standing in the bathroom again. Confident this time to complete his shave, since he'd threatened to tie Jo to the hotel bed and/or make her use the crutches in the car for the rest of the day - possibly tomorrow - maybe the next day if she didn't stay the hell on the bed at least until he'd finished putting their things to rights.

She's yelling at him, but only over the sound of the television and the water running over his razor. Got the books out, the notebooks, suggesting places to go, people to see. Things to check into. And maybe it's the afterglow talking, but it's the first time he's felt at all ready to address any of it.

"We're not going anywhere near Nebraska until it's been a week since I lied to your mom."



Well, there are still some things going unaddressed.

Comments

[tobeclosetohim]

She meant more the phones.
John's and Dean's specifically.

Even if they traced rare, they'd turn up now and then as used, in places. Had that day with Warren. Great hackers could follow to some point. And depending what her mother was doing now that she knew Jo was here. So many depends.

"It's the last place on earth I think we'll figure out what's going on."

[not-scully.livejournal.com]

He loves how she thinks, after months of hiding from Bobby, he doesn't know how to block even an old number from the usual tracking techniques. And if it gets more complicated - well, he's thought about it.

Ducking back to the mirror to finish up, frowning a little at this new commentary. "At this point, it'd be stupid to count anything out. We're at square one.


"...no, four months ago we were at square one. Now we're at square negative six."

[tobeclosetohim]

"Well, we get new things to research. Walls and the iron."



She tries to make both of them lighter than pointed.

Mostly she's just trying to make them obvious, normal.

Where neither of them could and would and will ever be.

[not-scully.livejournal.com]

Right.

...right.

He came out of the bathroom again, towel over his hands, rubbing them dry. Rubbing the last of the water from his jaw. Not avoiding her gaze, but not looking at her either.

Wondering the some questions he's had for days.

What. Why. When. How.



"Well, the iron's easy enough."

Comes out quiet but not soft. Rumbled but not growled.

Fact. Truth. Things that can't be argued.

"So that's a starting point. But the walls... and whatever was at the grave. That's gonna be trouble."

[tobeclosetohim]

"Almost nothing's ever entirely brand new." Jo was pressing the edge of a bruise, but glanced up when his voice and steps got into the main part of the room.

Look, Sam, her expression reads. Still on the bed.

The rest is remotely passive, trying to be conversation casual.

"There might be something if we started looking into botched spells."

[not-scully.livejournal.com]

When he finally looked to her, casually as he tossed the towel to the empty bed, and caught her gaze, his own expression changed. The far-off pensive, weight of guilt lifted as his eyes narrowed and Sam examined her for a moment.

Her innocence is so much more suspicious than her sunny-smiled guilt.

"...yeah. We can do that." He took a seat on the far edge of her bed, frowning thoughtful with her toes near his leg. "Hard without knowing what the spell is though. And we're without a witch."

A hand lifts sharply, without looking at her. "And that wasn't a complaint."

So please don't blister his ears with Ruby curses.

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo looks -- ironically -- quite smirkily .
Sam just apologized before she said anything.



"We could always locate one."

Witches were not demonskanks.
Well. Not always at least.

[not-scully.livejournal.com]

Sam nods, not looking up. Still frowning.

Blocked at the grave. Blocked at the Gate. Iron bars him back, but not Jo. There should be an argument here, make her promise, together or not at all. But the first three make him tired, not ready for a fight.

"You think Ruby was lying?"

[tobeclosetohim]

"Every time she opened her mouth."
There's a droll look for Sam.

Obvious as the dawn. Demon skank.

[not-scully.livejournal.com]

Sam...

Lifts a hand to rub his eyes.




"About the grave."

[tobeclosetohim]

About everything, Sam.
Jo's expression hardly changed.


Though she set hand around the curve of her knee.
Tapping her fingernails against the skin at the base.



"Probably." Beat. "At least that she didn't tell us everything."

[not-scully.livejournal.com]

"Demons take him, demons keep him in."

It's a mutter, thoughtful. With the realization that if it's true, a witch won't be powerful enough.

Sam drops his hands and frowns at the opposite bed. "Yeah, okay. I guess we need a witch."

[tobeclosetohim]

More things that might have answers.
Or at the least count out another possibility.



Her voice is closer to steel, even if it's low.
"If they can keep getting out, so can he, Sam."




Beat. "Someone new or someone old? You have a contact in mind?"
Or did she need to think of who would be least like to cause more problems.

[not-scully.livejournal.com]

There was silence. He thought he'd told her everything. He'd meant to tell her everything.

"Assuming he's trying. When he had his year... they told him trying to welch out of the deal would reverse it. He'd live but I'd be dead again."

Who knows what happens in Hell, what they've done to him. But there's no certainty Dean is even trying to get free.

"And the only witches I know," Sam continues in a sigh, sitting up to turn toward her, actually look at her with talk of Business, "would be tough to convince."

[tobeclosetohim]

The first part. That first part she's just going to hold inside.
Because the world loves to fuck with hunters. Especially demons.


Her lips thinned as she pressed them together, listening.

"I know one or two people." Not one she really wanted to contact. "They might have a suggestion for whoever was the closest to wherever we are now."

[not-scully.livejournal.com]

The witches of Sam's aquaintance would be tough to convince, considering the last time he spoke to them, they were hexing him.

Painfully.

"We might be past being picky, anyway. And you," he glanced at her, lips curving in the slightest of possible smirks, "need another couple of days."

Quickly: "We can send away. New books, set up some new cards. Prepare."

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo gave him a dirty glare.
Crossing her arm in over her.

She might not say she was 'fine.'
But she could still throw things at him.




Or remind him that he'd caved. ...she might save that one.





Except she frowned at the end. "New phones."

[not-scully.livejournal.com]

Jo is cruel when she wants him to stop smirking.

If successful.

"Yeah," is coupled with the thought - he'll actually have to throw out the phones. His father's. His brother's. Trackable liabilities.

"All right," Sam says, getting to his feet and stretching. "I'll get started."

[tobeclosetohim]

"You don't have to ditch them."

Because she couldn't stop herself, somehow.

She'd just been thinking out loud. About. That. Day.

[not-scully.livejournal.com]

Right.

He pauses, still standing by the bed, then shrugs. "I'll have to keep them turned off. Snap the sim cards to be safe."

The room is heavy, things he doesn't want to say. Whining. Moaning. Bitching. Same old complaints and woes and miseries.

They haven't changed. They aren't excuses.

"No point in keeping empty phones in the glovebox."

[tobeclosetohim]

"You kept them long before now."

Dean and Sam kept John's phone, specifically.

[not-scully.livejournal.com]

"No one tried to track them before now."

Even Bobby knew to keep his distance.

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo's expression twitched.


"You could let me deal with that."

[not-scully.livejournal.com]

She got a look. That might have been a smirk, amused. Maybe fond, too. Laid out and still bleeding and limping, ninety pounds soaking wet, she's offering to stand in front of him.

"I don't mean just her. And I'm not saying she doesn't scare me, but I've definitely faced worse."

[tobeclosetohim]

She'd do it, too. Without blinking.



"You haven't brought it up before."