Sam is a great hunter. He was raised to be so, and other than a few short breaks here and there, a hunter is all he's ever been. Not an average person, and not just a man. Definitely never really a child.

Though, complaining about the absence of a childhood feels like a betrayal. For he knows he had some semblance of one. The prize of which was Dean's. But he doesn't think about his brother like that, if he can help it. If he can help it, he doesn't think about his brother at all.

He can't help it. It's hard not to think about the person you are looking for. And it is plain suicidal not to think about the thing you are hunting.

Right now, he has made a compromise with himself. Which is why he is extra annoyed to have been thinking of his brother anyway. Sam's not hunting him right now. He's been hunting Dean almost constantly, in one capacity or another, for well over two months. But this hunt, this creature that he is currently looking for; it is decidedly not a demon.

It is not just the lack of both sulphur and the distinct smell of demon in the latest victim's house. It is not only the unbroken salt line in front of the window (the one by the door is broken, though whether that is done by the creature he's hunting, or the locals who'd arrived at the scene first, or even the young man's house mate Sam cannot know).

No, what gives it away definitely has something to do with the empty demon traps he knows are painted on the floor under the rug and on the underside of the now gruesomely red bed. They are perfect traps. Sam would know; he painted them himself less than 24 hours earlier, when he had realised the boy could be the next target.

The reason he is thinking of Dean is sitting in front of him, not crying, surprisingly. Her name is Trace and she found her brother dead in the bed this morning. Their house is small and run-down, on the edge of town. It is (was, Sam carefully mends) just her and her brother. He doesn't know how long they had been on their own for – too long, he is sure, for the girl is only 22. Her brother was 20.

The house is in a state of disrepair, but the siblings have some kind of funds. They both attended the local university, nothing fancy, and they are (were) paying for their educations. Sam suspects they might both have had partial scholarships, though, but he doesn't know for sure. He makes a note is his little black notebook to look into it. It could be important. He has no idea.

Something keeps him from asking Trace outright. The girl is still talking in front of him, relaying some story from her brother's early teen years.

"That was the first time I saw how much ice cream he could eat."

Sam is paying enough attention to her tale for that to comment to set neon flashes off in his head. A 15-year-old, who has never had ice cream before? Or a girl, whose parental protectiveness of the boy had been enough to remind him of Dean, mind, who had never seen her borther eat ice cream before?

"Excuse me, miss," Sam knows he is rude, cutting her off, but he makes his voice soft and soothing. It used to be easier, to seem concerned and empathetic, but even if it is different from what his younger self was capable off, he has still got it. "There is something I don't quite get."

Trace is tilting her head at him. For a short, surreal second he wonders what her smile would look like. She is pretty like this, though. Hurt, but almost defiantly calm. Unbreakable. Sam shoves away the distraction.

"It seems strange that your brother's 15th birthday would be the first time for him to eat ice cream." Sam's voice is still calm and reassuring, and he doesn't think it warrants how the girl's shoulders tense just a fraction, "In your presence."

Completely unintentionally as it was, Sam knows he has hit on something. Trace's entire body goes rigid (though it is still almost imperceptible, as though some instinct is doing it's best to hide the reaction), and her eyes... The look in her eyes, she cannot seem to hide. There's pure fear there.

Sam cannot in any way see how this relates to the supernatural creature that killed her brother last night.

The logic conclusion is that it doesn't.

"Trace?" he prompts softly.

Information is an asset and knowledge is power. Whatever the story is here, Sam knows it might not help him. But there is a story, and he ought to seek it out. Besides, the look in the young woman's eyes – deep brown, nowhere near green – hits a little too close to home. It has always been Sam's belief that talking about things help. Secrets fester, if they are kept inside.

And it's not just a story here; there is a secret. Sam has had (has) enough of them to recognise the signs (not least of the dark, painful ones), when he sees them.

"Please, Tracy." The continued prodding finally gets a reaction out of the young woman, as she abruptly stands. Or maybe it was the unintended diminutive.

"I, uh, it's..." Trace trails off, her mouth opening and closing a couple of times before she seems to give up entirely. She is not running out of the room, but Sam is quite sure at least part of her wants to.

Sam stays sitting. He knows he cuts an imposing figure when standing to full height, and the suit only adds to that. He has also been here long enough, even if it has only been four or five days (depending on whether you count the late evening of his arrival) that he has managed to gain a reputation. The local police sees him as a stern, no-nonsense, efficiency-above-all-else kind off guy. That impression has followed him onto campus, as he investigated the deaths of four, then five and now six, students.

He doesn't want to intimidate this girl.

"It's okay, Trace. I don't mean to pry, I just want to find your brother's killer. Anything, anything you can tell me might be helpful."

"D'you think," she takes a deep breath, "Do you think it is the same guy as did the others?"

"Yes."

Trace is hesitating, obviously debating with herself, "Let me rephrase that. Do you have any evidence that it is the same guy? Motive, common MO, traces left behind? Anything solid?"

Sam observes the girl. Her voice is steady and her gaze has turned hard. She seems calm, and any lingering shock has been repressed. As he watches, she sits back down in the chair across from his.

"It is my firm belief that it is the same perpetrator. That being said, there is of course always the possibility of a copy-cat." Sam only adds the last bit as an afterthought.

He is perfectly sure that it is the same creature that is going around. But a hunter looks for different clues than an FBI agent, and he is quite sure that what he has found out would not hold as evidence in court.

There had been strange phenomena, hallucinations they thought, that two of the first four victim's friends had told him about. When the fifth victim died, her boyfriend mentioned how she had accused her one professor of behaving weirdly. The boyfriend had seen the professor immediately afterwards. He didn't seem any different from usual.

Trace's brother had told him of weird phenomena himself. Sam had guessed demon, and had thought salt and a couple of other (herbal) precautions would be enough for one night. Sam hates being wrong.

"You haven't asked me, if I could think of anyone who would want to hurt Oliver." Trace's eyes seem to go even harder.

"Taking the preceding deaths into consideration, the motive does not seem to be personal..." Sam stops, rewinds, and mentally hits himself, "Is there someone who would hurt your brother?"

Trace is silent for a long moment. "Not like this," she finally concedes.

"Not like this as in not, ah, fatally," Trace is taking the conversation very calmly, and Sam is impressed. And impossibly sad, "Or not in this way?"

"Is there someone who would want him dead? Yes. Would they kill him like this? Possibly. This bloody? Probably. Do I think it was them? No," she sighs, then meets Sam eyes, "Why? 'Cause they wouldn't have left me alive."

Sam is not usually left speechless, but this he doesn't know how to respond to. And he has absolutely no idea how an FBI agent ought to respond to that statement, either.

After a moment he clears his throat, "Is there anything I can do?" If he cannot respond as his persona, he might as well respond as a person.

Trace is shaking her head before the question has even fully left his mouth, "No, agent, thank you."

It's Sam's turn to shake his head, "That wasn't what I meant."

There's that almost imperceptible tensing again, "You are offering me your help. As opposed to the Bureau's." Sam merely lets his eyes stay fixed on hers steadily. "That is not very professional, agent. And you don't even know what this is about. You don't know me."

"Can we ever truly know another person?"

Sam's not sure if he knows himself. He hopes he is not flirting. It might not be over the corpse of Trace's dead brother, but there is a massive amount of blood soaked into the bedding in the room just down the hall, and two of the locals are standing outside the door leaving him in peace to, supposedly, do his job.

At least Trace doesn't seem offended. There is not-quite amusement softening her gaze just slightly, although the smile is still sadly absent. Sam wants to slap himself. If he isn't already flirting, a part of him definitely wants to be. It is wrong on so many levels.

He used to do this when he was younger, didn't he? But usually a little later. When the damsel in distress had realised the exact (super)nature of said distress.

"Usually you start by asking questions, agent Tyler."

"Isn't that what I'm doing here, though?"

"I'd say there's quite some difference between getting to know someone and gathering intelligence."

"I could help you, though," Sam just about manages to suppress his wince at killing what was almost playful banter.

Trace shakes her head, serious again, "I appreciate the sentiment, Steve, I do, but I don't want to drag you into this. It's a big mess. It doesn't matter, though. I grew up in it. I'm used to it," and then, breaking Sam's heart, "It was foolish of me to think I could just walk away."

"Tracy—" Sam doesn't even notice this time, but the young woman is already shaking her head to cut him off.

"No, we had a good run, me and Ol. But this, something was always going to happen. I don't feel safe here, but I know where to find protection. You and the guys earlier both asked, if I had someone I could stay with. I do."

"Trace—"

"No. You don't know me. I don't know you. Maybe this was a freak accident, and maybe Oliver's death doesn't have anything to do with anything. But maybe it does. In which case the message is clear, and I am going to react appropriately."

"You are going to run."

"I'm going home."

This is, Sam reckons, quite possibly one of the most ominous conversations he has ever had, and he used to discuss the end of the world on a regular basis. He wants to do something for this girl who has just lost a brother she clearly loved, but is acting as though it is the natural order of things. He wants to say something, anything, but he has run out of time. Trace stands.

"I have nothing more to tell you. I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help." She makes her way to the front door, and Sam trails after her, helplessly. "Good day, agent Tyler."

She doesn't shove him bodily out of the door, absolutely couldn't with him having more than a foot on her, as well as quite some mass, but she doesn't have to. He hesitates on the doorstep.

"Call me, if you think of anything else." He hands her one of his fake cards. He cannot say anything else, for the local boys are watching from just a few feet in front of the door.

"Of course, agent. And I will take your advise, and go stay with my family. Can probably be ready to leave within the hour." And there it is, the smile that he was so curious about. Even like this, as fake as the card in her hand, it is pretty.

She steps back to close the door, and Sam turns around and walks away.