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With the three bedrooms already occupied, there weren’t many places for Jody to stash two grown men - particularly one Sam’s size. It was a good kind of problem to have, she’d found.
Dean fit the couch well enough, and she’d hidden an air-mattress in the closet for just such an occasion. It had been the largest the manufacturer stocked. Her lips tugged upwards as she watched Sam settle across the plastic, body on the diagonal, ankles dangling over the edge.
She wouldn’t put it past Claire to sneak in and snap a picture during the night.
‘Sweet dreams, you two,’ she said. Dean grumbled something unintelligible from the couch, beating the cushions into submission and throwing himself down face first.
‘Night, Jody,’ said Sam, with a wan little smile.
She switched off the light and padded back along the hall. Blue light seeped underneath Claire’s door, and through the wood she heard the gentle clicking of keys: crime forums, probably. Alex’s room was dark and quiet. Everything was in its place. She cracked her neck. Time she was in hers.
She left her door halfway open, set an alarm, and fell asleep thinking fondly of the eight hours before its siren call would rouse her.
She only got four.
The howl echoed through the house, and Jody shot into consciousness and out of bed in darkness. The clock’s gentle glow observed her through the shadows: quarter past two. She blinked at it, wavering on the spot – then hurtled into the corridor as something crashed inside the house.
One good kick would tear either girl’s door off its hinges.
The doors cracked themselves open before she could test her theory, and two worried young women with matching bed-heads peered through. ‘Jody?’ said Alex, scrubbing a hand across her face. ‘What was that?’
Jody’s knees went weak. Then she heard a muffled moan from the living room and remembered who else she had camping under her roof. ‘Stay in your rooms,’ she ordered, hurrying towards the living area.
She grabbed the umbrella loitering in the mouth of the corridor, wishing Claire could have littered the place with something sturdier – her collection of machetes, preferably – before slamming on the light and orienting herself against the brightness.
The low coffee table lay sprawled on its side in the kitchen’s entry, the victim of the crash. Both Winchesters were on the floor, and she could hear ragged, wheezing breaths. Dean knelt over Sam with his hands clasped to his brother’s chest; but a quick sweep found no visible wounds, no assailants, no bodies, and no blood. Then Sam thrashed beneath his brother’s hands, eyes bolted shut, muttering in a language she’d never heard – and she understood.
She felt the girls skid up behind her and threw out her arms to catch them as Sam grabbed Dean’s hands and tried to pry them loose, tendons training beneath his skin. Unfamiliar, guttural words fell swift and desperate from his tongue. His eyes didn’t open once.
‘Dean?’
‘Nightmare,’ he grunted as Sam’s long legs battered the floor in an attempt to find purchase. Dean grappled with him for a moment, throwing his weight into keeping the bigger man pinned. ‘Bad one. He doesn’t know where he is. Hang on, I’ve gotta wake him before-’
He was cut off by a terrible wail. Sam went slack in his arms, and for a moment she felt relief.
Then she heard the choking.
Dean kicked into overdrive, shaking his brother and swearing. ‘No, no, no, come on, Sammy. Wake up, man. You’re okay. Get back!’
He glared at her until she skidded back a few steps, hands raised, before turning back to the man on the floor with laser-like focus. Panic seemed to have wedged Sam’s breath in his throat, and as Jody watched his face went red, then pale. His eyes remained shut.
‘Come on, Sam!’ Dean cocked back one arm, and her eyes bugged in shock as he hit his brother across the face.
Sam’s head rocked sideways. Claire’s nails sank into the back of her arm. The younger Winchester exploded into motion with a fist through Dean’s jaw, sending him flying into the wall, and Jody’s lungs locked in place as Sam stumbled upright and turned towards her and her daughters.
He looked frightened. He looked hunted. He looked blank.
Jody’s hand dropped to her hip, grasping for the taser she’d left abandoned on her nightstand.
Dean ploughed into his brother with a yell, catching Sam around the waist as the two of them crashed into the floor. The older Winchester threw his body over Sam’s, trying to catch his brother’s flailing limbs and avoid his snapping teeth: but Sam was bigger, and stronger, and retaliated like a man possessed.
And Jody had forgotten her god-damned stun gun.
Glass exploded as Sam surged up and tossed his brother bodily through the television, and behind her Alex screamed.
Sam froze.
Jody’s breath caught as he turned towards the sound, blinking rapidly. His eyes flicked between their group and his brother, moaning in the wreckage of the TV. Suddenly the fight deserted him; he shrank three sizes, ducking his head and cringing away, arms hugging his stomach.
She didn’t quite recognise the person behind those eyes.
‘Sam,’ Alex said, voice small.
Sam’s hand crept up over his mouth, like he thought he might be ill. Some of the darkness bled from his eyes, and he dropped to his knees with a thud.
Jody saw Dean count to ten under his breath before making his way back to his feet, joints creaking. Sam scuttled away from his brother’s approach until his back hit the wall.
‘Dean?’
‘Yeah, Sammy.’
‘I was… dreaming.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Where-?’
‘Topside,’ Dean said. Tired eyes flicked towards her and the girls. This wasn’t meant for them. ‘For two weeks. We just finished up hunting a banshee. Claire called. We came to Jody’s. Ate all her chicken.’
Dean rattled off facts like items on a checklist, and the bewilderment slipped slowly from Sam’s face as he worried his thumb into the palm of one hand.
Dean caught the motion. His eyes went flat. ‘You back with us?’
‘Yeah. Think so.’ Sam’s eyes darted towards her, to the pointless umbrella clenched in her hand, then over her shoulder and away. His face flooded with shame. ‘God. Jody. I’m so sorry.’ He dropped his head into his hands, hair curtaining his face.
‘Girls. Rooms,’ she ordered. The expected resistance didn’t arrive: she glanced back at them and found that her girls looked more spooked than she felt. ‘Now!’
‘Yeah,’ said Claire, disentangling her hands from Jody’s pyjama sleeve. They turned and vanished up the hall, doors clicking shut behind them.
‘Sam,’ Jody said. He didn’t look up; she could hear his uneven breath and feel Dean’s eyes drilling into the side of her head. ‘Sam, can you look at me?’
He uncurled his giant frame: scrubbed a hand over his mouth, worried at his hair. He looked exhausted. She wondered how she’d missed it. ‘I’m so sorry, Jody,’ he said again, earnest and ashamed. ‘We’ll go. I shouldn’t have brought this here. This is your home… and the girls-’
‘Sam.’ She took a step, hesitated; then tossed the umbrella aside and braved the remaining distance to perch on battered air mattress’s edge. Sam watched like he thought she might throw the both of them out the front door. ‘You came because Claire asked for help. So if I didn’t say it before – thank you. Both of you.’
‘I could’ve-’
‘Hey, Sammy, don’t-’
‘Dean,’ said Jody. She’d be having a chat with him in private, in the morning, about the proper ways to wake someone from the middle of a flashback. ‘Tea. Second shelf.’
He observed Sam for a moment, then gave a tired salute. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
He padded out of the room, righting the coffee table as he went. Thankfully it was wooden, not glass, though the TV was a lost cause. Jody turned back to his brother.
‘Anything I can do?’
Sam grimaced and shook his head, hair slipping back over his face like a veil. ‘It’s over.’ He dug his thumb into his palm again, and she caught sight of an old, ugly scar.
‘They’re dead?’
‘No.’ He huffed, eyes distant like he was seeing somewhere other than her living room. Then he shook himself. ‘But he’s… locked away. Forever.’
‘Good.’ She paused. ‘I don’t know all of what you boys have been through, but you’re allowed to not be okay, Sam. If you wanted to talk-’
‘I can’t,’ Sam whispered, that hunted look stealing out across his face, and Jody left it at that.
They listened to the kettle scream until Dean clattered back out of the kitchen, two mugs and a beer balanced in his hands. Jody accepted hers gratefully and Dean dropped down on Sam’s other side with a grunt, cradling the beer against his jaw. He was going to have a mighty hard time speaking in the morning.
Jody chewed over the words until the shape of them felt right. ‘You boys know I don’t just let you in here for the pest control, right?’
Dean’s smile was crooked. There was blood on his teeth. ‘You say the sweetest things, Jody.’
‘I’m serious. Your being here doesn’t… put my family in danger, or whatever it is you’re thinking. You’re a part of this family. Consider yourselves and your problems adopted.’
‘You don’t want these problems,’ Sam whispered.
‘I don’t get to pick and choose when to call you two family, either. You need somewhere to crash, I’m here. You need backup, I’m here. You need someone to talk to… I’m here.’ She took a sip of tea like it was no big deal, watching Sam out of the corner of her eye – and counted it as a win when he mirrored her with steady hands.
‘Thank you, Jody.’
‘Eh, you’ve done the same for me.’
Dean cracked the top off his beer. There was a truly exquisite purple rose blooming over the side of his face. Jody briefly considered tidying the warzone of her living room, then ferreted around for the spare laptop instead.
‘Netflix?’
‘Sure,’ said Sam, and Dean gifted her a smile around the back of his brother’s head.
‘Great. I’ve been meaning to watch that new Zac Efron movie-’
‘Aw, come on, Jodes-’
Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Sam’s mouth twist into a reluctant smile.