Put It All In Bags, Just Call It Charity

She's in a rush to meet up with her mom in Jackson, hoping to avoid another lecture on punctuality and aging the woman another five years for every minute she's late. Momma's been a hard sell when it comes to splitting some of the work down the middle and she really doesn't want to jeopardize her newfound freedom, no matter how fleeting or mundane the mission.

Blip of a siren, and she totally should have been paying better attention to the speed limit. She should have listened to her mom about running off at the mouth too, because the next thing she knows, there's a roadside circus, five squad cars from two towns and one little, old her in handcuffs.

She uses her one phone call to get cussed out, knows there's more where that came from once her mom gets here to clear up this little 'trunkload of unlicensed firearms' misunderstanding, and fuck these podunk cops and their dinky little jailhouses, anyway. It's not her fault the fat jerk had nothing better to do than stare at his speed ray-gun thing, hoping to catch a hot little number looking to ass-wiggle her way out of a ticket.

"Get your goddamn hands offa me, perv." She twists in the big man's grip, and his stacked jowls lower in distaste when she manages to wrench her arm free of his meaty paw.

"Don't go makin' a fuss, now," he grumbles, hand splayed between her shoulderblades to encourage her none-too-gently along the short, rank corridor. His oversized hoop of keys jangle obnoxiously as he detaches them from his belt loop and stops near the end of the line. "I can always add to them charges, little miss."

It's all gloom and doom: cracked and stained concrete and steel bars, blood and urine and mold in the air, a single window set high into the wall and so cramped with steel grating it might as well not be there at all.

She wrinkles her nose up. "What? No maid service?"

The deputy's had his fill of her charming personality, it seems, pushes her inside and slams the gate behind her with an echoing clang. She turns so he can uncuff her through the bars, eyes falling on her only neighbor.

Great. Equal opportunity imprisonment.

The guy in the corner cell looks about as dangerous as a fruit fly until he sees he's got company and vaults to his feet. "Hey! Hey, c'mon, you gotta listen!" he pleads with the cop, who ignores him, and Jo might feel mild sympathy for his desperation if it weren't for the lake of dried blood all along the front of his t-shirt.

She stiffens, fingers itching for the weapons they confiscated, backs up against the bars furthest from the lunatic. "Just 'cause you mighta found some 'suspicious paraphernalia' and think I'm some kinda whacked-out serial killer ain't no reason to stick me back here with the ax-murderer," she gripes.

"I don't even own an ax!" He scowls at her extremely unwelcome contribution before resuming his case with the deputy. The cop's clearly lamenting his position back here with the scum of society today. "Swear to fucking god, I was just visiting my mom—and she—she wasn't her and there were two and then she bit me and then she—then she fucking turned into me and I know it sounds crazy but that's—I never woulda hurt her! They were things! Freaky-ass things, okay? Just. I don't care if you put me in a straitjacket, but you gotta make sure they can't do it again, make sure she's okay! They tried to fucking eat me and I dunno if she's okay and I can't wake up and it's seriously fucked! They're gonna gobble up all the kids or something, and no one believes a goddamn word because it's crazy, I know it's crazy, but I saw it and it still hurts, ya know? I mean, chunks of missing flesh with tooth marks? Where the fuck did that shit come from if I imagined it, huh?"

He flails around in pissed-off terror while he's ranting, and this is about the point that Jo takes notice of the dirty bandages all up and down his arms, frowns at the flecks of red seeping through. She idly wonders if it's legal to keep him in here without medical attention while other bells are clanging out of order in her head, his jeans torn and stiff with mud, flakes of the same in his hair, a longer look at his face and there's something... there's definitely something, aside from the potential monster run-in that's gotten him all in a tizzy.

He's still going, turning a little blue in the face, the deputy just staring at the spectacle with equal parts disgust and intrigue, and Jo cuts in.

"Whoa, hey. Okay, guy, okay. Chill out a sec, alright? Take a breath." His eyes are bruised and bloodshot and wild, like he forgot where he was for a minute there, but he does take a breath, among the other staccato bursts hitching his chest erratically. She spreads her hands in the air, slowly steps up to the bars separating them. "Hey, it's okay. Can I take a look?"

"I—" He glances around like he's looking for a neon cue card. "W-what?"

"Your arms," she says carefully, nods at them. "Can I see?"

He glances down, back up, brows furrowed, and she half-expects him to suddenly claim English as a foreign language for all he seems to understand, his outburst having exhausted his limited range. But then he fumbles his arms up, shaky hands peeling back the bandage around his left wrist, and he holds it out for her inspection, watches her hopefully and not a little warily.

"It bit me," he repeats, and yeah, she can see that. It's pretty damn nasty-looking, all purple-red and flaps of torn flesh underneath clumps of dirt. This ain't no love-bite, that's for sure. It's gotta be hurting something fierce too.

The cop's angling his head so as to get a peek without being too overt, and she snaps a glare at him. "You get a kick outta lettin' people suffer like this? That's gonna get infected." The guy is in no way sympathetic. "At least get him some aspirin. Dick," she mutters as she gives the kid his hand back. She supposes she shouldn't think of him as a kid, can't be that much younger than her, but he looks so far out of his element it's hard not to translate the naivety to youth.

It doesn't make a lick of sense for him to be locked up when he's nothing but a bloody, scared mess, but that's how these things go sometimes. She's run across leads in stranger places. "So, what? You think he mistook himself for prime rib? That's some crack police work there."

The deputy sneers at her, crosses his flabby arms and pulls himself up like some overgrown brat defending his love of Twinkies a little too ferociously. "I'd worry about my own problems if I were you."

"Well, you ain't me, so—"

"I didn't kill anyone!" the kid butts in, grabbing the bars and rattling all around as if to will himself on the right side of them. "You're supposed to help people! This isn't helpful! My mom's out there! She could be... she could..." He doesn't finish that, instead turning that helpless gaze on Jo like she has any say in the matter. "You believe me, right? I'm not crazy!"

"I believe you." It's all she can give him right now, but it seems to be enough.

"That's real sweet," the cop drawls. He smirks sourly as he turns to leave. "I'll see about gettin' some watercolors back here and you two can paint clowns together 'til the Feds come."

"There's gonna be a letter to my congressman about this!" Jo glowers at the answering crash of the outer gate. "Fuckin' Doughboy."

She huffs and plops her ass down on the lumpy cot jutting out of the wall, and her fellow prisoner does the same. There's a short stare-off of mutual assessment, her mind turning over the few facts she plucked from his stream of babble.

"You're not just humoring me, are you?" His face is pinched as he gingerly rewraps his wrist.

"I just got done interrogating a creepy taxidermist so I could dig up his dead daughter and make her stop playing on the freeway at night." She scans her new accommodations with marked disdain. "Not really in a humoring kinda mood."

He gives her a long look, and she meets his gaze, steady.

"You're serious." He shakes his head, but hey, she doesn't see sense in sugarcoating it at this point. "You're fucking nuts."

Jo chuckles wryly at that. "You had a cannibalistic shapeshifter use you as a chew toy, and I'm crazy? Your monster ain't the only one out there, guy."

He doesn't seem to have any response for that, looks entirely displeased at the new knowledge, in fact, hunches in on himself and decides not to look at her anymore. Apparently, coming to his defense only gets her so far. It's nothing new, of course. Denial is a winding, many-layered thing; she's seen it on so many levels and feels confident she's still pretty far from seeing them all.

Unwelcome bucket of reality aside, she can't tolerate the defeated slouch for very long. "I'm Jo, by the way. I might be able to help you, if you think you can put up with my lunacy for a minute."

More silence, and Jo settles in for the long sulk ahead. His pouting is kind of getting on her nerves already, the ungrateful prick, and this? This is familiar; she's always too delicate, too clueless, too eager, too insane. She's used to being underestimated or dismissed out of hand, but it doesn't get any less annoying each time it happens. She doesn't understand why it's perfectly okay for the big, tough men to wander around in the dark with their big guns and not her, why their thirst for vengeance makes them heroes and her desire to do good for the sake of preserving a legacy makes her an idealistic child with no real concept of hardship. If it was Bobby Singer in here, this guy'd be halfway to sung by now, she'd bet on it.

"Adam," he mumbles reluctantly, plucking at a hole in his jeans. He meets her bitter stare, and she deflates a little at how utterly exhausted he looks. "How do you expect to help me from in here?"

And just like that, Jo changes her mind. He isn't looking at an inferior being, just sees her in a position identical to his own, from which he has accomplished all of bupkis.

She grins. "I got a secret weapon."

-:-

Time in the clink is a decrepit, arthritic thing with split tennis balls adorning its walker for traction. Jo taps her nails. Adam does gross stuff.

"Ew! Stop picking at it!"

"It itches!"

"Well, just... run it under some water or something. Maybe that'll help."

"The water's brown. I'll pass on the cholera today, thanks."

"Oh, right, 'cause gangrene is so much better."

"Picking sores doesn't cause gangrene."

"No, but that mysterious substance on the wall might. Hope your hands haven't done too much exploring around here what with you crammin' your fingers in your open wounds and all."

He scoots away from said substance, stops picking.

Silence, silence, boring-ass silence, drip of water and she glares at the puddle that begins to form beneath the rust-streaked sink, looks away after a beat and starts humming. Adam is mildly impressed with her singing voice, and they find they have a mutual appreciation for the eighties. Well, mostly mutual.

"What's wrong with Pat Benatar?"

"Nothing." She clears her throat, fails to stifle her snickering. "Nothing at all."

"What? Her hair's not big enough? Didn't mean to interrupt your ode to Whitesnake there."

"I'm just havin' a hard time picturing you rocking out to Sex As A Weapon."

He glares. "You're kind of sexist, you know that?"

Jo splutters, and Adam chuckles, this round to him, or so he believes.

The pipe drips, drips, drips; it reminds her of the sewer, the things that are navigating underneath them right now, and she mentally labels and files the different species of evil she's come across down there.

"You'd be surprised how many kinds of shapeshifters there are."

"What?" He wriggles uncomfortably, eyes restless.

"Shifters. Most of 'em are humanoid, even the werewolves. They just get extra hairy. Yours have hair?"

"There's no such thing. Science says so."

"Well, damn. If science says it's true, I guess my eyes have just been playin' tricks on me all this time."

"That's tragic." He doesn't miss a beat. "Maybe you should see an optometrist."

She knows when she's been shut down, decides to come back around to it later. Jo chatters idly about life's milder adventures, and they thumb-wrestle through the bars until Adam's scraped hands get too sore. She gets up, stomps over to the sink, turns the valve to shut off the water and tugs at the pipe. A spit of moisture dribbles out of the new hole in the wall as it tears free, and she drags the metal across the concrete, scrape, scrape, clink, scrape.

"What're you doing?"

"Girl shouldn't go too long without a weapon. S'just askin' for trouble."

"You're making a... what do they call those things?"

"Shank."

"You're making a shank?"

Another scrape, and he makes himself as small and nonthreatening as possible.

Jo gets away with scaring the kid for about twenty minutes before her favorite deputy comes back to see what all the racket's about. He confiscates her toy. Adam insists he's the good one and should be rewarded with a deck of cards or a tennis ball, gets the cop's big, fat retreating back in response.

"Suck up."

"Bite me, Hell-Cat Maggie."

Jo nearly chokes on her laugh.

"What?"

"If my teeth were actually filed to points, I just might. Should be careful who you say that to, dude." She glances at his arms.

"Oh, fuck off." Adam goes to lay down on his cot, stares at the wall for a while.

She scrutinizes his back and tries to pin down the pinging familiarity he evokes, wonders how much time has passed out in the world where clocks still exist, how much longer she'll have to play this game of denial tag with her skittish victim as he weaves in and out, pokes the scary topic and runs away again when it gets too slimy or sprouts fangs.

"Quit staring at me."

"Not like there's a whole lot else to look at."

"Little introspection wouldn't hurt. Be careful which stones you turn in that psyche of yours, though. Could get messy."

"You gonna give me the full scoop sometime this century, or are we gonna beat around the spooky bush some more?"

"Depends." He rolls over to look at her, that pissed-off uncertainty shadowing his face again. "You gonna keep tryin' to pass Stephen King's greatest hits off as your life story?"

"Sorry. I just figured I'd see how far I could push it before you came clean. Let me guess..." She makes a show of tapping thoughtfully at her chin. "Hannibal Lecter dosed you with some kinda hallucinogenic to see if it'd add flavor? Oh, or maybe it was hill people."

"This is how you earn trust? Making fun of me?"

"Who's makin' fun? Oh, right. That'd be you. Did ya run out of synonyms for crazy? 'Cause I'm sure Deputy Dawg in there'd be happy to bring you a thesaurus if you ask real nice."

His cold shoulder makes things pretty boring from that point on.

-:-

Jo's secret weapon comes striding in about a million hours later, clad in a smart pantsuit and armed with every bit of maternal indignation in her arsenal. She bullies the deputy the whole way down the corridor, incensed at having her baby treated so poorly, and when she stops in front of Jo's cage, she gives her a look that promises she's not too old to bend over her knee, by God.

Luckily, the mama bear thing contributes pretty well to numerous disguises, and coming off as a no-nonsense Fed that's not about to have her case fucked up on account of yokel law enforcement isn't all that hard.

Momma stands back with her arms crossed, a sharpness in her eyes that compels the cop to hurry it up already, she ain't got all damn night, and he fumbles noisily with the keyring.

Jo does her best to suppress a chuckle, dons the air of a criminal in the presence of the big, head-smashing book. Adam jumps to his feet and turns a bunny stare on the whole lot of them. Ellen barely spares him a glance until Jo gives her a meaningful look, and as her mom works really, really hard at not smacking the deputy upside the head for putting her back in cuffs, she gives Adam a once-over.

Her conclusions are swift and unpleasant, if the hard lines of her face are anything to go by. "What's his story?"

"Oh, um." The deputy shoves Jo at her like it'll appease the grumpy volcano and keep it from drowning him in lava for another year. "Might be linked to those bodies over in Windom. We're lookin' into it."

"I'll be holding my breath for that breakthrough," she mutters, tucking Jo to one side, and Adam clangs himself against the bars in a blur of movement.

"Bodies? What bodies? Nobody said—you didn't—and I was here and you were—There are bodies? Oh, god." He starts hyperventilating a little bit, and Ellen cocks a brow, nonplussed at his spastic panic, tunes him out when Jo lightly elbows her to remind her of the covert issue at hand.

"What a coincidence. Just came in on that case. Suppose I can take him off your hands too." Overbearing she may be at times, but Jo beams with pride at how her momma can project such authority. It's just one of those tones no one but mothers have perfected, she supposes, but damn if she's gonna be spitting out any kids just to get one like it.

"You ain't got any papers for—"

"What the hell is this?" Ellen plows right over his dawning suspicion, gesturing at Adam's wounds. "You lookin' to arm him with a suit for cruel and unusual punishment 'fore we can even build a case, or what? If that boy's seen a real doctor, I'm the fucking tooth fairy. And those clothes oughta be in an evidence bag!"

"Now listen here—"

She pokes him in the chest, and he stumbles back a step. "No, you listen, Mayberry. You march in there and you get your supervisor on the phone, make sure you tell him you woke him up in the middle of the night 'cause the FBI caught you with your Eighth Amendment pants down, and he needs get his ass here now."

"Alright, lady, alright." The deputy throws his hands up in surrender. "Just take him outta here and we'll forget all about—"

"Forget nothin'. What'd they do? Pin a badge on the first idiot that strolled on by? I'll call him my damn self. Open this door."

Jo chokes back laughter behind bound hands while he lets Adam out, sweaty and increasingly red-faced as Ellen practically hauls him up front by his collar and demands every scrap of evidence along with both of their case files, and leaves the station with two kids in tow instead of just the one she came for.

The night is so thick with humidity, Jo swears she could take a bite out of it, a glance at Adam and she feels kinda bad for that thought. Bite-able air is free, less smelly air, all the same, and she breathes deep, relieved.

Adam shuffles along obediently, obviously incredulous but fortunately keeping his mouth shut until they're safely out of earshot. "Holy shit!" he squeaks as Ellen stuffs them into the cab of her truck. She drops the lock-picking kit into Jo's lap, and Jo proceeds to divest herself and her new jail-buddy of the cuffs while her mom settles in behind the wheel. "That was so fucking illegal! Do you even know how illegal that was? It was really, really illegal!"

"Perks of the job," Jo chirps.

"What job? Impersonating law enforcement is a job? You guys are insane! You're gonna go to prison forever! The real kind where they do unpleasant things with broomsticks! Ow, hey!" Adam twists away from her, wide-eyed and grumpy, rubbing at his stinging cheek. She's always wanted to do that to a hysterical person, and it wasn't like she slapped him hard or anything, the big baby.

"Don't start the ranting again, we ain't got time for— hey, you hit me!" She clutches her abused bicep in shock.

"You hit me first."

"Yeah, but I'm a girl."

"Doesn't make my face hurt any less."

Jo smirks. "I'm startin' to like you."

"Alright, children, knock it off," Ellen snaps, and Jo is sadly reminded of the middle-name trouble she's in right now; any grateful, glowing feelings she might have had for getting her mom to follow her lead and break a stranger out of jail are swiftly draining away. Ellen lobs a glare over the both of them, hard frown as her eyes find the road again, and any second now— "Joanna Beth, you best start explaining, and you best start yesterday."

Despicable criminals in serious need of a lecture or not, Adam flattens himself back against the seat, trying to remove himself from the path of projectile admonishments. Smart kid, Jo thinks, a little resentful that he gets to be the bystander here.

"There's a hunt, Momma, and—"

"Despite what you might think, I ain't a damn fool. Figured that out all by myself." She shoots a pointed look at Adam's bloody state. "I done told you about drivin' like a maniac through these backwater towns. You think I'm gettin' your car outta the impound, you better think again."

"You're the one setting impossible deadlines! Who drives across Minnesota in eight hours without breaking a few traffic laws?"

"If you'd get in and out like you're supposed to instead of lollygagging, you wouldn't have any problems!"

"You always do that! It's never you, it's always me! There's no way I can meet your crazy expectations! I can't work like this!"

"Fine with me. Guess we can finally start lookin' for a place to settle down, then."

"Oh, you'd just love that, wouldn't you?"

"Believe I've said as much, over and over."

Jo can't even explain how much it ticks her off when Momma gets all calm and logical on her while she's trying to vent some righteous indignation, so she just stops talking, snatches up the case files, slaps them into her lap, huffs and puffs regularly lest anyone forget her upset as she scans them over.

"Suppose I'm headin' for Windom," Ellen says curtly, and Jo's busy grinding her teeth so Adam takes it upon himself to answer.

"Yes, ma'am." He shifts uncomfortably. Jo snorts at the 'ma'am', elbows the kid for encouraging her. She's not letting him sink back into his brooding like he did at the station while they awaited the calvary; it's way too depressing.

He elbows her back and scoots closer to her mother, doesn't seem to know what else to say.

Momma catches on to his reluctance, tone a degree softer as she presses. "You gonna tell what took a few dozen chunks outta you? I don't relish goin' in blind, kiddo."

"We should stop someplace and get you patched up first," Jo suggests, getting a grunt of agreement from Ellen.

Adam haltingly relays his tale, and Jo's a mite bitter. Fuck knows how many hours poking and prodding at him and her mom gets the whole story almost straight out of the gate.

She huffs again, divides her attention between listening for new details and smirking in derisive amusement at Deputy Fathead's write-up on her eventful traffic stop, squinting under the drive-by lighting of the town's streetlamps, which her mom notices and interrupts Adam to bitch at her for. A roll of the eyes as she digs a penlight from the glovebox, and she moves on to Adam's file, distinctly thicker.

He was found running down the middle of the street, screaming about body-snatching aliens with a craving for human flesh, apparently having started at the most sane conclusion before toning it down. Christ, and he called her a nutjob.

Jo chuffs and flips the page, getting into the meat of the investigation that ultimately led to his confinement. It's not pretty and, as it turns out, a trip to Windom is completely unnecessary. In fact, it will probably do more harm than good at this point. She doesn't look forward to telling Adam that, though, heart climbing sickeningly up her throat with every word she reads.

"It was so freaky, and I don't even... there's a reasonable explanation for all of this, right? Mom's probably hurt, but they wouldn't—I mean, she can't be—"

Jo kind of wants to hug her mom and never let go now, damn it. He needs to shut up.

"Momma, we gotta see to those bites soon." She emphasizes the 'soon', and Ellen interprets it correctly, worried glance and a slow nod.

Adam cottons on to the frog in her throat, but luckily doesn't understand what it means. "It's not that bad, and we're not that far anyway. I can tough it out for another half hour."

"We don't wanna risk an infection."

"It's fine. Look, just—"

"We're stopping, so shut the hell up about it, alright?" Jo snaps, and he must see something terrible on her face because he clacks his mouth shut and goes all dewy-eyed, glances from her to the folders and back again. Too smart for his own damn good.

"What? What is it?" He commandeers them before she can stop him. She tries to wrestle them back, but he twists himself around and gets her hands pinned under his bony ass.

Ellen, seeing the potential catastrophe, pulls over to the side of the road.

"House burned down," Jo mutters for her mother's benefit, because it's too late, he's already seen, the stubborn asshole. She yanks her hands free and squeezes his shoulder awkwardly. "They found some remains inside. Guessing some other hunters got there first."

Adam scrambles over her lap and out of the truck, plunges to his knees and vomits in the ditch.

-:-

It's bad idea. The worst idea.

"You're their prime suspect!" she argues, tossing her hands up. God, he's infuriating, that creeping feeling that she's been aggravated in exactly this manner before coming back on strong. "Don't you have grandparents or aunts or something? Call them, go there, change your name and hide out! Jesus, It's like you want to get arrested again!"

"I have a hard time believing they're gonna be able to make it stick when I'm also one of the crispy, dead people they found in my house!"

"Things turn out too weird, and they'll find a way," Ellen puts in from her position at the table. She pinches the bridge of her nose in a way that tells Jo she's getting one of those headaches with her name all over it. This one totally isn't her fault, though. "Always do."

Adam finishes taping fresh gauze to the last of his bites, starts slamming things back into the med kit he borrowed. He could do it himself, he'd said, and he seems to know his way around first aid, truth be told. He's still a moron.

He pulls in a deep breath, shrugs on the shirt Momma gave him—one of Daddy's old flannels she's kept—buttoning it up. They can't do anything about the jeans, though, a little short on boy clothes. "Look, just 'cause some idiot wrote it down in a report doesn't mean it's true. If I'm dead but not really, then my mom could be too. It could be the other pod-zombie or whatever."

Jo crosses her arms and plants herself in front of the door, doesn't miss the flicker of his gaze toward the salt line at her heels, which had him convinced they were smoking crack when they told him it was for protection. The devil's traps led to satanist accusations, and the whole back-and-forth of disbelief and acceptance has gone beyond tiresome. He can give it a rest anytime now, really.

"And just how do you plan to get there, genius?"

Standing, he gives her a tired, puffy-eyed glare, face still splotched red and streaked with dried tears. "I'll hitchhike, or I'll... I dunno, I'll walk. I don't fucking care, but I'm going."

"Dumbass," Jo huffs, running a hand through her hair. She gives her mom a beseeching look, and Ellen quirks a brow.

She knows what she's thinking. The hunt is over, done before they got into it, and this kid is just another casualty in another battle. They can't save everyone, don't usually stick around to coax people down from whatever crazy they've got going on when all's said and done, not that she hadn't tried at first. That was before she learned that peace of mind sits on a very thin wire over a bubbling tar pit of madness and grief and dangerous, dangerous apathy. But Jo talked to him, joked around with him while they were locked up, and there's still something that niggles when it comes to this hard-headed punk.

"Boy, get back in that bed and get some shut-eye," Momma intervenes, pulling Adam's determined stride for the exit up short. "You'll make it as far as the edge of the lot 'fore you fall, state you're in. We'll drive you in the morning." Ellen gets up and tugs her keys from her pocket. "I'll run and get us some food. Take somethin' for the pain and quit squinchin' your face up like that."

She doesn't give him a chance to argue, pauses in the threshold long enough to say, "You got any family, kiddo, you should probably give 'em a call about now. Lock this door, Jo."

"I already tried," Adam says, directing it at Jo since Ellen's already gone, and she's relieved that he does as he's told and plops back down onto the creaky, old mattress, dry-swallows a Vicodin. "One phone call, right? Guess I wasted it."

"There's no one else?" She settles on the opposite bed with her duffel, yanking out the guns they managed to salvage from the station. She scowls at the nicks and black powder dusted all over them, starts the process of spiffing them up.

"Just my mom and me. My dad once in a blue moon, but he's pretty much useless most of the time." He sweeps an arm out. "Case in point."

"Not around much, huh?"

Adam scoffs. Sensitive subject, Jo figures, and doesn't press. He's not exactly a minor, anyway, so she shouldn't get herself worked up over who's gonna look after him. He's got it covered, or so he keeps insisting even though he looks about as sure of his new situation as a kitten clinging to driftwood in the middle of a hurricane.

He lays back and throws an arm over his eyes, uneasy silence between them as Jo polishes her dad's old sawed-off, then sets to prying some weird-looking gunk from the grooves of his initials on her knife. Adam's peeking at her from beneath his arm, trying to be covert and failing miserably, and she figures he's still coming to terms with the whole monster-hunting gig and all the law-breaking it entails, not to mention the scary yet impressive array of weaponry.

"I'm fucked, aren't I?" he decides, still and weary. "If I'm not legally dead, I'm a murderer. Mom too, if she's—"

It seems rhetorical so Jo doesn't answer; doesn't want to be the one to confirm how very shredded his old life is, in all likelihood. She doesn't want to watch him bust wide open again, either. A girl can only take so much.

Her silence is answer enough. Adam sighs, rolls over and eventually succumbs to the painkillers.

-:-

Adam doesn't wake up to eat, so Ellen plops his share of the food on top of the ice bucket for later. Steam curls out of the bathroom as Jo towel-dries her hair, thoughts stuck on the unmoving lump in the bed.

"Jo, honey, this ain't gonna work, and you know it," Momma says wearily, moving around to pluck up the bits and pieces of her weapon-cleaning. She keeps looking at him too, face clouding over, finally gives in and goes to tug his sneakers off. "We've already kept him on longer than we should. We'll leave him to his decisions tomorrow so don't be gettin' too attached."

Jo just looks at her, and Ellen catches herself in the middle of coaxing the blanket from underneath him so she can drape it over his sprawled, snoring form.

"Well, hell," she mutters, pulling back. Jo doesn't blame her, though. Her mom was the one trying to scrape up the majority of his meltdown—she's just better at that stuff, so Jo had left her to it. Hard not to feel for someone after something like that. "Maybe I'm gettin' senile, but I sweat there's somethin'..."

"Yeah," Jo agrees when she trails off. They move to the vacant bed in tandem, slouching into it, and Jo punches at her pillow. "It's like I''ve met him before, only in pieces." That makes no damn sense, but it's the best she's got at this ungodly hour.

Momma seems to get it, at any rate. "Well, we best solve the mystery soon 'cause you can't keep him."

"Wasn't gonna."

"Uh huh."

-:-

The morning is sticky and gray, a light drizzle misting the rubble draped excessively in bright, yellow crime tape, two squad cars out front to keep watch like they think the charred mess of what used to be a home is gonna get up and start chomping on the rest of the locals any minute. Ellen's gone off to poke around and see what else she can find out about the victims and any possible survivors, and Jo feels obligated to stick around a little while longer, just to make sure the guy doesn't get himself busted again. He's not exactly inconspicuous.

They're squatting behind a row of hedges a little ways down the block, and Adam's got this glazed-over expression that won't let up, eyes gaping and bloodshot. She thinks of the Roadhouse, the galling emptiness she felt when Momma told her it had died an explosive death, taking a friend she'd known so long he may as well have been family along with it. Her whole life gone in one swift and fiery blow while she was off blazing her path of independence, and her gut churns uncomfortably at the memory. This kid's been nothing but unpleasant deja vu since she met him.

It wasn't her whole life, though, she supposes. Not really. She still has her mom, some keepsakes of her dad's, a couple of Ash's gadgets, a stellar poker face and hunting contacts aplenty. If his mom doesn't turn up—and she highly suspects it's gonna be the worst case scenario for this guy—Adam's left with nothing but a murder wrap.

A vibration against her hip distracts her attention from the severe lack of activity at the house, and she pulls her phone free to read the text.

Her face falls. There's no way in hell she's passing along this intel. A person can only bear so much bad news before someone forgets all about the messenger's innocence and starts throwing punches.

Jo snags Adam's arm and gently tugs him up. "C'mon, we're not accomplishing anything here but gettin' wet."

He squints at her for a second, and she thinks maybe that poker face might need some work after all. But then he kind of shakes himself loose and nods, hands crammed into his pockets and his shoulders bunched up against the weather, follows her down the sidewalk.

She has no idea what to do with him now, but her mom's right. The time to cut and run has long passed. Those bright, soft eyes are getting too dangerous to be around.

"You wanna try callin' your dad again?"

He shakes his head, then shrugs before he completes the first gesture, opening his hand toward her. She drops her phone into it and zips her hoodie up higher as the drizzle gains impetus. He's being so quiet now, jaw twitching as he holds the cell to his ear and glares off into the distance like he sees something especially infuriating there. She's not sure she likes this better than his thrashing hyperactivity.

"Hey, John, it's, uh, it's me again," Adam says haltingly, shoulders inching higher. Jo figures the relationship's definitely gotta be rocky if it's a first-name-basis kinda deal. Not her problem, though, she reminds herself. Repeatedly. "Things are... well, ya know, it's still all fucked up but I'm outta jail now. I think maybe... I think it's pretty bad." He cuts an uncertain look over to Jo, who can't suppress the wide-eyed guilt, and he nods tightly. Definitely more perceptive than she gave him credit for. "I, um, I'm kind of running from the law now, I guess. It'd be good if you could call me back soon." He grits his teeth, seems at a loss for anything else to say and hangs up.

"You should go ahead and tell me now," he says flatly, thrusting the cell back at her without meeting her eyes. She hesitates, and Adam stops determinedly as soon as they round the corner of the next block, waiting.

Glancing around in paranoia, Jo nudges him forward, but he won't budge. "This is your neighborhood, jackass," she hisses without much heat. "Someone's bound to recognize you if we're standing here in the rain havin' a pow-wow. I'll talk, just keep walkin'."

Adam goes grudgingly, and she picks up her pace. "Momma's on her way to us." Taking a deep breath, she stuffs her fidgety hands in her jacket, and decides to just get it over with. "There was a crypt that got burned down too. Whoever handled this one was some kinda reckless pyro, or maybe just really pissed. Most of those bodies were dead a long time ago, but they identified a couple of new ones through dental records. Some retired cop that went missing right before your momma and, well, they ID'd the second one as her. Ya know, again."

She blows out a huff and bites her lip, not daring to look at him. She can feel the grief rapidly clogging up her airpace, anyway, so it's just as well. Only so many bodies can be pegged as Kate Milligan before he has to accept it.

There's this choked-off sound and a loud sniffle that instantly blows down all her defenses. "Oh, hell, please don't do that."

"I'm fine," he grates, all anger-masked misery, and then he stops again. "Look, just..."

Jo turns to look at him, a huge mistake because his face is so open and lost, all her accumulated hunting armor cracking to itty, bitty pieces.

Standing there getting soaked under rolling gray skies, Adam swipes at his face, some sleight of hand that banishes the mist in his eyes and leaves him stony. "This is where you get off, right? I gotta... I dunno, I gotta get out of here, and you got shit to do, so." He shrugs stiffly, looking at anything but her. "I'm gonna take off, I think."

Jo crosses her arms tightly over her noisy, swollen chest. "Yeah, okay." This happens all the time—not the instantaneous, I-knew-you-in-another-life-or-something-equally-stupid-and-sappy bonding part, but the leaving. It's part of what she signed up for, she knows that. "Do you know what you're gonna do?"

Another shrug. "Track my dad down or something, I dunno. I mean, I tried a while ago, but that was before I realized he's a dick and I had a life and all. Got nothing better to do now, so maybe I'll have more luck."

She's not going to cry, dammit. "Here," she says on a whim, yanks out her pocket notebook for recording those pesky clues that pop up when you least expect them, writes her number down. "Get a phone as soon as you can and call so I'll have the number. If you don't mind givin' me a name, I know some people who're scary good at tracking the untrackable."

He waggles his fingers at her and she hands him the pencil and book, watches him scribble in it just as the dragging splash of tires announces her mom's arrival.

The horn blares with Ellen's impatience, and Jo quickly takes her stuff back, waving her off. The window comes squeaking down once Momma realizes what's taking place, and there's a brief, distant exchange of 'take care of yourself' between them while Jo shuffles her feet.

"Your mom looks kinda pissed," Adam says, lowering his voice so she won't hear.

It's true. She's sitting behind the wheel looking like someone just crammed a whole bowl of lemons down her throat. Jo smirks. "It's 'cause she likes you."

"Oh." His hands disappear into his pockets again. "Well. Okay, then. Thanks for trying to help me and everything."

"No problem." Jo nods, and they hesitate a second longer, then simultaneously turn on their heels and march in different directions before something embarrassing happens.

She doesn't quite make it inside the cab, however, finds herself being roughly pulled around and enveloped in long, shaky arms. She returns the embrace without much thought, and she's not crying. The rain is fucking acidic or something, is all.

"Word of advice?" Jo says when they pull apart, sniffs. "The alien conspiracies are always last on the list."

His laugh is all jagged edges. "I'll keep that in mind. Try not to drive anymore cops to early retirement, huh? I think that guy was writing up his resignation by the time we left."

"I make no promises."

Adam flashes a wobbly smile and pulls himself straight, spinning to walk away again, almost sprinting this time. Jo climbs into the truck, slamming the door and absolutely not watching the side mirror, and Ellen says sourly, "So what suicide mission you got on the agenda next?" as she guides the truck away from the curb.

Squeezing the notebook in her fist, Jo sighs. "Don't we still need to take care of that freeway haunting?"

The look her mom gives her could dim the sun. "You think I was waitin' around for you when people were dyin'? You gave me the intel, I took care of it."

"Mom!"

"What?"

"You said you weren't gonna do that! Hunting is my thing! I get to set the corpses on fire!"

"Sweetie, don't make me smack you."

Jo puffs harshly and flops down in her seat, seething. It takes her a few minutes to realize what just happened, and she grins. Her mom's an expert at pissing her off when she needs to be distracted from some maudlin funk. "Thanks, Momma."

"Welcome, baby." She flips the radio dial while Jo liberates her cell phone again, glancing at Adam's messy scrawl with the intent to get the hounds on this guy's tail as soon as possible.

"Holy shit!"

Ellen nearly jumps out of her skin. "Jesus, are you tryin' to give me a heart attack? What?"

Stunned, Jo holds the notebook out, and her mom's eyes blow wide. She doesn't quite get the context yet, so Jo elaborates, "I said I'd look for his dad."

"Son of a—"

The brakes shriek, spun momentum smashing Jo into the door. It takes mere seconds to catch up with him, tires throwing up water as they squeal to a stop. Jo hurls her door open, nearly smacking him with it.

"You gonna stand there catchin' flies all day, or what?" is her mom's response to his wide-eyed shock. "Get in the damn truck!"

"Huh?"

Jo scrambles out and forcefully hauls him over, shoving him into the cab. Effectively trapped once Ellen starts driving again, Adam looks between them frantically. "What'd I miss?"

"Shut up," Jo says, twisting her mouth in consternation. She drums her fingers on her leg, glaring out at the passing houses, starts scrolling through her contact list and jabs the call button, the line ringing in her ear as she turns that glare on Adam. A freaking curse, that's what they are. She knew there was something wrong with him. "I'm not tellin' him, Momma. It's your turn."

"Goddamn Winchesters," Ellen mumbles, recklessly speeding for the freeway.

END