the magician//d.winchester

6.

Dean answered the phone, " Hello?"

I didn't hear much, but I watched Dean's face freeze, like he didn't want to show any emotions. " Jack, where are you? No, no kiddo. I'm not mad at you. No one is gonna hurt you. Just let us find you. Yes, Sam is here. I don't know where Cas is, he just disappeared when we went on our last hunt. Yes, here's Sam."

Sam eagerly took the phone, not hiding his emotions. The tears fell from his eyes, " Hey Jack. Yes, god I'm so happy to hear your voice, buddy."

Dean grabbed my arm, pulling me into the hallway, " What the hell did you just do?"

I was still shook up, " I-I was doing a ritual the one night, I always do it to calm myself down. Jim and I figured out it kept everything under control. And I just heard this voice when everything went black. He was calling for someone, and it reached me."

" Harper I don't think you understand. Jack is half angel. He's the son of a human and Lucifer. He was dead. He was where angels go, which is NOTHING. How did you bring a kid back from the dead? What's gonna be wrong with him?"

" Nothing!" I said, " Dean, that spell is a MYTH. It's never been performed and it was a total shot in the dark. I knew he needed my help to get away from something bad. He was scared and alone and I-I couldn't leave him..."

Dean's face looked confused as I started to cry. " Hey, hey. It's all good."

My face was a mess of tears and I was mumbling out words I barely even understood, " He was so scared, Dean. He didn't understand what was happening and he just wanted help. I had to help him. He's just a kid, god he's just a little kid!"

" Hey, you're fine," he took my hands, mostly because he saw the skin turning purple and noticed the lights flickering around us, " No accidents tonight, alright? Now, stuff was freaky tonight, but it helped us. Now, we need to find Jack. We're gonna come back to this case, but getting him safe is our priority."

I nodded, trying to calm down, " Okay. Let's find him."

" Guys, Jack is-"

Sam came out of the room and Dean quickly dropped my hands. " -in Ohio. He saw a sign for Toledo. God knows how he ended up there."

" Angels come back in weird places, let's get going."

***

Toledo was a 15 hour drive. Dean was spent, and reluctantly let Sam drive while he slept in the back. I sat up front, reading, listening to the radio as it played quietly. " What's in that one?"

" It's a Grimoire, not THE Black Grimoire, but a better one. For more defensive magic."

" Ya know," He said, " For someone with two very bad witches for parents, you ended up just completely changing your nature. You're like Jack in that way."

" I never met my dad, he could be weak for all I know," I said, " I knew how bad my mom was. Jim said that she did all these crazy rituals on me. Repelling spells, and defensive warding all over my bones and under my skin. We think she was trying to hide me from everyone. Witches, hunters, demons. We got rid of most of it, the ones of my bones being permanent."

" You really are a good person. I hope you forgive Dean for being... well, Dean."

" I do." I looked back at him, " Hunters, we go through a lot. You guys more than anything. With the gates of hell being opened, I'm shocked things are so quiet. Apart from the higher number of monster attacks, there are just so many worse things I'm shocked aren't out of the pit yet."

" We got lucky," Sam said, " We were in a cemetery when it happened, it's where Jack died. After the gates opened, all these ghosts came out of the ground. There were so many. Thankfully Dean thought quickly, and he, Cas and I were able to get out. We set the whole god damn cemetery on fire. It burned a lot of the bones, but not all of them."

" I keep hearing lots about this Cas," I set my book down, " Who and where is he?"

" He's an angel. I have no idea where he is. No calls, nothing. I have to assume the angels are trying to clean up, with Chuck being back around and causing all of this. I just hope he's able to come back. I don't know if Chuck went back to heaven. Frankly I have no idea where he is. And I don't care."

I frowned to myself. We really were in a bad situation. How do you close the gates of hell? What stops Chuck from opening them again? " How do we stop Chuck, Sam? We can't kill God."

Sam's jaw was clenched, and he shook his head, " I haven't thought about it yet."

I shook my head, putting my head against the window, watching Sam pull into a gas station. " I'm gonna get something to eat." I quickly got out of the car.

The situation was stressful, yeah. I had to think of a way to not let the world end. How the hell would we do that? The antichrist was about to be in the back of the car. God wanted to end the world. And it was just me, the Winchesters, and their angels. I wanted to scream. It was scary. You can't scream and cry when you're at a Seven Eleven in the middle of nowhere. I jumped when someone grabbed my shoulder, sighing when I saw it was just Dean. He was still waking himself up, " Someone's on edge."

" Sorry." I shook my head, " Always am. I was just hungry."

" Yeah, Sam thinks pulling Jack out of, wherever took a bad toll on you. You look like you lost 20 pounds in an hour."

" I can eat this whole store."

I was taken aback by the fact he smiled. It was even sarcastic. He actually laughed for a second, shaking his head, " Let's start with a bag of chips, don't need you puking all over the front seat."

$30 later we were back in the car, Sam taking his turn sleeping. I ate most of what we bought, Dean doing his best not to look at me and laugh. " Have we established I'm not a monster?" I said between bites.

" I established that a week ago when you were singing ABBA in the kitchen. I'm just finding I actually don't hate being around you now."

" I despise you."

He shrugged, " Half of women do."

" And the other half you've slept with." I rolled my eyes.

" I mean..." He shook his head, " Besides the point. The worlds at the point where I'm taking the help I can get. And you're an awfully big help apparently. I mean, bringing people back from the dead. That's helpful."

His voice seemed strained on that last sentence. I touched his hand on the wheel, it didn't take long to understand why. " I can't bring everyone back, Dean. Jack... Jack was a special case. I'm sorry about your mom, I am."

His knuckles went white. I knew he wanted to yell at me but he couldn't bring himself too. " Mind reading is a fun party trick."

" The best I can do is the same ritual and talk to her."

" I don't want that. She's... she's okay. I know she is. Unless Chuck screwed that up too."

" I'll check for you," I said softly, " When we're stopped."

He laughed, " For me. Okay."

" I know you like to play the macho man cars, but Jim taught me how to care about people, Dean. You and Sam are cutting me a lot of slack and that's more than I can ever ask for. So for the love of God, let me be nice to you without some shitty comment."

Dean was taken aback by my abruptness, so he just shrugged, and focused on the road. We didn't talk the entire way to Toledo after that.