"And Asa made us go roller skating," Bucky says, telling a story about the deceased after most of the party has left. Sam and I broke apart earlier, now it's dark and Sam and Dean are off in another room. I sit around in the living room with Bucky, Max, Alicia, Jody, and a few others. "Like right after these ghouls almost got us. So there's the three of us, all banged up, with a ton of ironic teenagers skating under these neon lights. You remember this Jody?" Bucky taps the woman's shoulder as he walks around her. I sit next to Max on the couch. He is in a slouched position just like mine, and we are both bored. I don't really care about these stories anymore, honestly I just want to get back to Cas and Crowley.
Jody hums in reply to Bucky's question. "Oh, it was classic," Bucky continues. I wonder if the only reason he is still talking stories is because of the beer in his hand and the countless that came before it. "I mean, you know, until you two snuck off for some sweet, sweet time alone."
I smile a little at Jody as she blushes a little. The male hunters make suggestive noises like 'ooh' and 'oh, yeah.'
"'Sweet, sweet time alone'?" Dean says curiously coming into the room.
"With you, Jody?" Sam says, seeming to have forgotten that I mentioned it earlier. "You didn't tell us you were in a relationship with Asa."
"Uh," Jody says. "It was just, just a casual thing. Sorry, Loraine." She looks to Asa's mother.
Loraine simply shrugs. "Asa was always very popular with the ladies," she agrees.
"Yes, he was," Elvis says.
"Our mom loved him," Max says. "She used to talk about him all the time." I smile a little at him, because honestly, I know the truth about why they're here.
"See?" Loraine says, drinking from her glass.
"And you know, I do have a life when you guys aren't around," Jody says to Sam and Dean.
"Beer anyone?" Randy says, setting his empty bottle down. Nobody else requests one as Randy gets up and leaves.
"And here's a news flash," Jody continues. "Dating is hard."
I barely listen to the conversation until Alicia comes strolling back into the room with a fresh beer in her hand. I furrow my eyebrows at her as she sits on the other side of Max.
Oh no.
I'm getting that itching feeling again. If I could flash my eyes I could tell if what I'm thinking is really true, but what are the chances? Besides, I don't want everybody to see my glowing eyes.
I sit up straight and glance over as I hear the door open and someone start to walk in.
"Come on in, don't hover," Loraine slurs to the person standing in the other room.
"Sorry, I knocked," the woman says. I recognize her immediately as Mary Winchester. Her blonde hair is shorter than it was the last time I saw her. "The door was open."
I wish I could see Sam and Dean's expressions but they have turned to look at their mother who is now under the same roof.
"Hey," Dean says. He doesn't exactly sound happy, which makes me wonder what's going on amongst the Winchester family.
•••
Sam, Dean, Mary, and Jody disappear from the room for a moment, so I decide now it might be a good time to leave. It's after nine and it's dark out.
I slip outside and look around, seeing there's nobody around. I peek in the door once more, everybody is occupied. I sit down on the front steps and take a small pack of cigarettes from my pocket, taking a single one out and putting the pack back in the inside of my coat. I light the cigarette up and take a long drag.
Yeah, I smoke occasionally. Dean and Sam have their drinking, like most hunters, and I have smoking. I've been doing it on and off for years, but only just started up again recently.
I close my eyes and feel the nicotine melt away my stress. That is until the door behind me opens. I put my cigarette out as fast as I can on the pavement and turn around to see the last person I could want to see.
"Oh, it's just you," I say, shrugging, indifferent as I re-light my cigarette. I don't want to deal with Dean's crap right now.
"What the hell? You smoke? Since when?" Dean asks, sitting down next to me. I'm surprised he's not yelling at me. His voice is kind of sad, he probably just had a conversation with his mom, maybe a fight. I sense tension. I don't want to get involved.
I sigh. "Since I left you guys. Since I've been working with a demon and an angel to try and find the devil. Since I have these freaking psycho powers that I don't know how to control."
Dean looks slightly taken at my town as I got up during the little spiel and am walking around in front of the steps. "Hey, you got your whiskey and I got my cigarettes. Leave it at that," I say, putting the thing between my lips again.
"Works for me," Dean says, pulling a flask from the inside of his jacket and screwing the lid off. "So you knew Asa huh?"
I nod, blowing smoke from my mouth. This feels better, easier, talking to Dean while smoking. "Yeah. We hunted a werewolf together. He was a good guy."
"Did you know him the same way, Jody knew him?" Dean asks. I furrow my eyebrows.
"No way, I don't even like most hunters," I tell him honestly.
"Yeah, but Sam—"
"Sam's different," I say, waving my hands a little. Dean smirks a little at my answer. "Oh, shut up." He rolls his eyes and sips his whiskey. "Shouldn't you be in there, you know, with your mom?" I say, gesturing to the door.
"No, she's not here for us," dean responds bitterly. I frown a little. "She came for Asa." He gets up and starts walking around the little lot like I've been doing. "A dead guy. She came all this way for a dead guy. And she won't even answer the phone." I raise my eyebrows a little as Dean gets right in my face. I know he's not mad at me, he's just upset about his mom. It sucks too. I honestly feel for him. I would love to have my mom back, and it would piss me off if she didn't want to spend time around me.
"Sorry," I say as Dean keeps walking. "Wow, Sam didn't seem this upset about it. He didn't even mention her."
"Yeah, well, he thinks she does need time," Dean says. "He says, 'sometimes families do better after time apart'. Yeah, who, the Manson's?"
I raise my eyebrows but don't say anything. I'm not going to argue with Dean, but it seems like he needs to vent. So he can yell all he wants, I know he needs to get it out.
"She also doesn't like the fact that we grew up to be hunters," Dean continues. "She didn't want us raised in this life. And now she doesn't..."
Dean stops talking, looking a little mad as he sighs. I take another cigarette from the pack. "Clearly whiskey isn't doing the trick for you," I say, offering him the cigarette but he only rolls his eyes.
"I'm sorry, Dean," I say a little later. We've been standing in silence for a few minutes, Dean standing against the Impala. He furrows his eyebrows as I come around to stand next to him.
"For what?" He says.
"For... breaking my promise," I say. "For leaving."
Dean is quiet for a moment. "Yeah, I'm not the one you should be apologizing to." He turns to look at me. I furrow my eyebrows.
I hear footsteps behind me. "Go away," I say.
"You're not the boss of me," a strange voice says. Both of us turn and see a dark skinned woman with a brown leather jacket on, her arms crossed over her chest.
"Billie," Dean greets the woman. I furrow my eyebrows. They know each other? "What are you doing here?"
"My job," the woman says. Dean scoffs, playing with the tip of his flask.
"Well, I'm not dead yet," he tells her. Oh, so she's a reaper.
"Shame," She says. Then she steps forward. "But actually, I just finished inside. I was reaping a fresh soul." I feel my heart start to beat faster as Dean and I look at each other, fear for the people we love inside.
Dean goes to the door first. "So, you're a reaper?" I ask Billie as Dean tries the door.
"Yep," Billie says in a bored tone as Dean tries and fails to open the door. It doesn't budge. "And you're Bailey Mitchell. You're almost as famous as him," she gestures to Dean. I smile, tilting my head to the side like I'm flattered.
"What's going on in there?" I say, looking to Billie.
"You can huff and puff but that house is on supernatural lockdown," Billie tells Dean who is pulling at the door handle and yelling for his brother. "They can't even hear you."
"What did you do?" Dean asks lowly as he still can't get the door open.
"Wasn't me," Billie says. "I don't get my hands dirty. Rules. I just clean up the mess. Still, between us, it's always nice to see a Winchester who can't get what he wants."
"Wait," Dean says, and then he looks at me. "Your powers. Can you get us inside?" He comes forward urgently.
"I don't know," I respond. I've hardly used them in actual emergencies. "They've been all over the place lately—"
"Can you try?!" Dean says urgently, almost yelling in my face. I scoff and walk around him, towards the door.
"You could ask nicely, you asshole," I mutter as I raise my hands at the door. I close my eyes, trying to focus, trying to get energy to move down my arms, but nothing happens.
"Sometime today, Bailey!" Dean says urgently from behind me. I feel angry towards him.
"Would you shut up?!" I exclaim.
"Sam's in there!" Dean says, and that flicks a switch in me. I calm down, thinking about how Sam is probably in danger, and then I feel the rush of adrenaline, the rush of my powers moving down my arms and into my hands.
"Ready?" I say, hoping dean will jump through the second I get it open. I hear him mumble something before I open my eyes. The veins in my arms are lit up bright blue all the way to my palms. A surge of blue light shoots at the door from my hands and a hole opens up in the door, so we can see inside. Dean hurries through and then I follow him, crouching over on the floor as we are both inside. I feel out of breath, like I just ran a mile.
I close my eyes and put my hands on my knees, breathing hard. Stupid powers.
"Hey, you good?" Dean puts his hand on my shoulder as he retrieves his demon knife from the inside of his jacket. I nod because I don't think I can talk.
"Find Sam," I point in the general direction of the other room. Dean moves his hand and starts off in another direction.
"Where's my brother?" I hear Dean ask.
"Hold up, how did you—" I hear Elvis say. I finally catch my breath a little and stand straight, seeing Dean, Elvis, and Loraine in the room.
"He's the demon!" Loraine exclaims suddenly, referring to Dean. I furrow my eyebrows. For a moment, I concentrate and flash my eyes blue to see, and sure as hell there's a demon in here, but it's not in Dean, it's in Elvis.
"Demon?" Dean asks, confused.
"Kill him!" Loraine exclaims. Elvis looks alarmed.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, easy lady," Dean says. "Look, I'm not a demon, okay? We're the good guys." He motions to me as well. I pull my angel blade from my coat, staring daggers at Elvis. "Now stick with us, do what we say, and everybody will get out of here."
"Well, not everybody," Elvis says in a sinister voice pulling a long blade from his pocket. I lunge forward and aim to stab him, but using my powers has left me uncoordinated for the moment. I stab in the the side, which is a little too the left than what I meant. I pull my blade right back out, not wanting to lose it. He turns around and faces me slowly, looking deadly.
"Look who we have here," he says smirking a little. I don't want to hear him talk about me, though, so I go to punch him in the face. I hit him square in the jaw. He turns his head straight to look at me, looking amused, but pissed too.
"Ooh, that tickled," the demon says, stepping closer to me. He swings his knife at me, narrowly missing as I swim out of the way. Eventually he punches me in the face and I'm knocked to the ground, blood coming from my nose.
"How about you go to Hell?" Dean is saying to the demon once my ears stop ringing.
"Please. It's a complete train wreck down there. No Lucifer, no Crowley. It's messy," the demon says.
"No, I mean really, go to hell," Dean says, before starting to rattle of the exorcism from memory.
"Exorcism?" The demon smiles and then shakes his head. "Uh-uh. Elvis is leaving the building." The demon uses its power to turn Elvis's head all the way around, snapping his neck before the demon leaves in a cloud of black smoke.
I close my eyes and try not to throw up as Elvis's body hits the ground. Loraine is screaming. Dean pulls Loraine up from her hiding spot next to the railing of the stairs. "Come on," he urges her to stand up. "Bailey, come on," he says. I nod, pushing myself up and wiping my nose and following Dean into the other room.
"Sammy!" Dean calls out.
"Hey," Sam says, coming from another room. Everybody is now in one room, I think. I wipe my nose again.
"Dean?" Mary says. "We though you guys were outside."
"Yeah we got back in," Dean says.
"How?" Sam asks.
Dean turns to look at me for a moment, looking a little concerned that my nose is bleeding but he doesn't say anything about it. He looks back to his family. "It's a one time deal, won't happen again. Is this everybody?"
"Except for Elvis," Jody notices. My throat feels tight and Loraine puts her hand over her mouth to stifle a sob.
"Yeah, demon got him," Dean says, he gestures to the other room where Elvis's dead body lay. Suddenly, the lights go out, making the house dark. Everybody starts getting lights out of their pockets. I don't have a light, but there's one on my phone. Alicia, Max, and I are using are phone lights while everyone else has an actual flashlight.
"Guess we're all prepared," Alicia says.
"Yep," Dean says, holding his demon blade. Alicia notices this.
"Impressive," She says, furrowing her eyebrows.
"Demon blade," Dean explains. "Kills 'em dead."
"Nice," Alicia and Max say.
"We gotta light some candles," Bucky says.
"Yeah," Dean says. "Devil's trap," he looks at his brother.
I move immediately, helping them move furniture around to make the devil's trap. Dean pauses a moment and looks at me, concerned. For a moment I think he's going to tell me to take five, but then he must realize this is an all hands on deck situation.
"How are we gonna lure it inside?" Mary asks.
"We're not," Dean says. "We get in. Everybody's in, everybody's clean. If someone won't get in–"
"They're the demon," Mary finishes.
"Right," Dean says
"Smart," Mary says.
"Thanks," Dean says.
I go around lighting a few candles up. "Hey," Dean is next to me as he's lighting some of them too. "You good?"
"Yeah," I say, because what difference would it make if I wasn't? What could he do about it?
Dean walks away, and I look at Alicia and Max who are helping Sam make a devil's trap. Sam's eyes meet mine for a moment but then I look away. Jody crouches next to him to say something in a hushed tone. I move around the room, standing next to a table.
"No I don't think, I know!" Jody exclaims a few moments later. "She's a demon!" She points to Mary in alarm. Bucky, who is standing next to Mother Winchester, backs up in alarm and reaches for his knife.
"Hey," Mary says, lifting a finger at Bucky. I furrow my eyebrows.
"Kill her! Use the knife!" Jody exclaims. "Kill her now!"
"Wait, wait, wait!" Sam says, stopping Bucky from stabbing Mary. "Hold on a second. Jody, you... you don't sound like yourself."
I realize and reach for my angel blade again. I don't think I could stab Jody though. She means too much to me.
"It's because she's not herself," Dean says. "Are you?"
Jody tilts her head to the side, and then she laughs. The demon laughs. "Can't blame a girl for trying," the demon says. Then her eyes flash red.
"I so hoped you'd kill your mom!" The demon says. I hate the way this demon talks, kind of reminds me of the joker. Only, I want to kill the demon. "Wouldn't that be a riot?!"
"Yeah, super fun," Dean says. Sam lunges forward to attack but the demon uses it's demon strength to push him away, into a table. Then, Dean does the same thing.
"Anybody else?" The demon says. "No?" It says when no one moves.
Mary lunges forward with an angel blade, ready to kill. Sam pulls her away.
"Mom, no," he says, holding Mary away.
"She's a demon, we kill demons!"
"No, she's Jody," Sam tries.
"Boring," the demon says. It claps Jody's hands above her head and then forces us all to the ground. No one can move.
"I've heard so many stories about you Winchesters," the demon says. "And I desperately wanted that Lucifer thing to be true." The demon leans down over Sam as it speaks. I feel my skin crawls. "The idea that he left a meat suit alive is just so deliciously weak."
I sigh a let my head fall back. I need a plan. I need to get him away from Sam at least.
"As for the rest of you, I have been inside your heads," the demon says. "I know all about you! For example, the twins, too frightened to tell anyone that they actually came to say goodbye to their daddy."
I feel my heart sink for them. I already knew this information, of course, but I know they weren't ready to share it.
"Or the grieving Mother who hated the fact that her son was a hunter so much, she'd hide his gear, sabotage his Jeep, anything to keep him from hunting. Not that it worked. Could have tried harder."
I groan and let my head fall back against the floor again. "Are you going to kill us or not?" I say, struggling to lift my head to stare daggers at the demon.
"And you!" The demon comes closer to me, like she only now noticed my presence. "Crazy, killer Bailey Mitchell," the demon cackles, leaning over me this time. At least it's away from Sam. "Not only do I have Lucifer's meat suit, but also, this fine young thing, glowing with power." The demon leans forward. "I can feel it," it says, getting closer to my face.
Then it starts talking about Asa and how Jody fantasized about a life with him. It says something mean about Asa and Bucky rushes forward.
"You shut your filthy mouth!" He yells. The demon grabs him by the neck.
"And you," the demon says. "Bucky. Brave, brave, Bucky. I was there that night. Tell these nice stupid people what you did. Tell them what you took from me. Asa was mine."
Sam suddenly manages to get up on his knees and start chanting an exorcism. He barely starts before the demon shouts 'No' and flings him back into the shelf, stopping the chanting. But then, Dean picks it up where Sam left off. The demon flings Dean away. The twins continue chanting together at the same time, continuing the exorcism.
The demon flings the twins backwards. I'm ready to start chanting the next part when Bucky says something that freezes me. "I killed him! I killed him. I killed Asa," he confesses. The demon makes a noise and then shoves Bucky out of the way. Mary and I both speak up to finish the exorcism at the same time. The demon leaves Jody in a cloud of smoke.
"Jody," I say, going over and crouching next to Jody. "You okay?" I ask her. She breathes heavily.
"That... sucked," she says. I nod and put an arm around her. I hug her a little, trying to comfort her.
"Bucky, what did you do?" Loraine says from the corner of the room.
Everybody turns to Bucky.
"Asa, he was just all, he was always so stubborn," Bucky starts to explain. "Look, we were in the woods. Jael, he was taunting him." That must be the name of the demon. "Asa wanted to chase him but he didn't have the angel blade. I said, 'let's go back'. He called me a coward. Shoved me, so I shoved him back. He fell, and he hit his head. I didn't mean to do it, but... it was a mistake. An accident. I'm sorry. I didn't know what to do. Asa hated that demon so much that I just–"
"But you thought that people would buy that Jael killed him," Dean says bitterly, angrily. "So you hung your best friend to cover your own ass."
Everyone is quiet for a moment. I don't know what to think. Bucky didn't mean to kill Asa, it was an accident. But the part where he framed the demon makes me sick to my stomach.
"What are you gonna do to me?" Bucky says.
"Tell everyone," Alicia says, standing up. "Every hunter we meet, they're gonna know your name, Bucky. Know what you did."
"You like stories," Max says. "This is the story everyone's gonna tell about you. Forever."
As soon as we leave the room, I tend to the wound on Max's head. He sits there quietly while I do so. After I finish, the dead bodies are burning outside and the sky is light again. It's morning. Alicia thanks me for helping Max.
"Hey, I'm gonna take off," I say to the twins. They are standing so close together I can wrap my arms around the both of them. "Love you guys," I say. They both laugh a little. I smile too as I walk away from them and go to my bike. On the way, I look over at Sam and he looks at me. I turn my eyes to the ground and continue walking.
I get on my bike and adjust my helmet. "Wait, Bailey," I look up seeing Sam walk towards me. I don't get off my bike though. "We're getting breakfast. I thought you might want to come."
"I should get back to Cas," I say. "Gotta find Lucifer, you know?"
"Are you sure? We could—"
"Sam, you guys gotta work out your problems," I say, gesturing over go Mary and Dean. "Just, you know, be with your family." Sam frowns a little. "Don't let me get in the way." I look away as I start coasting my bike. Sam rushes forward in front of it, grabbing the handle bars and holding it still.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," he says. "Hey. You don't get in the way. If anything, you make things easier."
"Sam—" I raise my hand to stop him.
"No, you do," he argues. "Just because our mom is back doesn't mean you have to... go away, you know? We need you."
I scoff, not liking his choice of words. "Get out of my way," I say, gesturing for him to move away.
"Bailey—"
"I don't want to do this right now," I say, trying to keep my voice down. "I am tired and I want to kill Lucifer and I don't want to talk about this right now. Will you please move?" I say. He looks a little hurt but finally moves out of my way. I don't say anything else as I ride off.