The Search for John Winchester

18) Something Wicked

"Now that's something wicked," Percy said, staring down at his phone while grinning. Thalia has sent him a picture of this weird couple in Walmart she had seen when buying sponges. Now, Percy didn't know what the sponges were for, and he really didn't want to know, but the couple looked just like a happy, bright Nico and a strangely dark Will. It was probably the most amazing thing he had ever seen.

"You're wicked," Dean shot back, then turned to the frustrated Sam. John had sent them coordinates again, and they were off to another town, but Sam couldn't figure out why. "Yeah. You probably missed something, that's what."

"Dude, I ran LexisNexis, local police reports, newspapers, I couldn't find a single red flag," Sam said. "Are you sure you got the coordinates right."

"Yeah, I double checked," Dean nodded, glancing through the mirror back at Sam (Percy won the rock-paper-scissors Against Sam for once, and got to sit in the front). "It's Fitchburg, Wisconsin. Dad wouldn't have sent us coordinates if it wasn't important, Sammy."

Sam just got more frustrated, "We'll I'm telling you I looked and all I could find was a big steamy pile of nothing. If Dad's sending us hunting for something I don't know what."

"Well maybe he's going to meet us there," Dean proposed (not like that, Percy could only dream).

"Yeah," Sam scoffed. "Cause he's been so easy to find up to this point."

"You're a real smart ass you know that? Don't worry, I'm sure there's something in Fitchburg worth killing."

"Yeah? What makes you so sure?"

"Cause I'm the oldest, which means I'm always right."

"No it doesn't."

"It totally does," Dean glanced at Sammy with a grin, then the Impala passed into Fitchburg.

***

Percy and Sam watched Dean walk into the coffee shop, the two of them leaning against the Impala in wait.

"What the hell is with Dad?" Sam said, covering his little experiment with conversation. A week ago he had noticed that Percy flinched whenever anyone mentioned Hell. "I mean, sending us to the middle of nowhere again."

Percy rubber his arm, frowning at having flinched again, "I'm not sure. Hopefully it's important. Maybe there's a new pair of shoes on sale and he's too busy to get them himself, so he sent us here. That'd be pretty important."

Sam blinked, still unused to how Percy could turn anything into a joke, "Uh, I hope not. Like who the hell would do that anyway?" He watched Percy flinch again.

"I dunno, that seems like something an Aphrodite kid would do," Percy shrugged. "I think that's happened to me before, actually."

"Are there any decent Aphrodite kids?" Sam questioned, having heard many tales about the children of the love goddess.

"Well, I mean, none of them are evil, except for maybe Drew, she was a tyrant," Percy said, shrugging. "But I mean, Piper is an Aphrodite kid, and so was Silena."

"You haven't mentioned Silena before," Sam blinked, a little curious. "And Piper is an outlier."

"Piper is literally the counselor of the Aphrodite cabin, she's not allowed to be an outlier," Percy scrunched his face up. "And Silena was the counselor before Drew. She, uh, died in the second Titan war."