Fake Fan Fiction ❯ The Devil's Sweet Ride ❯ I've Been Travelin'... ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter 2

 

Ryo, Dee and Drake spent the next hours with JJ. Sam and Dean were with them, but they stood back far enough to give at least the illusion of privacy, having their own conversation and tossing around what few ideas they could come up with without the benefit of an Internet connection.

 

For the most part, JJ himself just sat there and listened to the babble. His hand was now clasped—with slightly hesitant permission—in Drake's larger one, and though he looked just slightly uncomfortable, he didn't try to free himself. And he did look genuinely relieved to have the group at his side and so obviously glad to have him back.

 

Every once in a while, though, his eyes would sweep the room until they found Sam, and only when he was certain that the younger Winchester was still there would his gaze return to the three around him.

 

Dean mocked him about that, because that was what Dean did. Sam said “Bite me” because that was what Sam did.

 

But secretly, Sam was a little worried about what those glances implied. He did not want JJ coming to rely on him—not because he cared about being mocked, but because there was no way it could be good for JJ to become attached to him. He didn't really know anything at all about the guy, and right now that was the last thing JJ needed. Right now, he needed to be around people who had actual memories of him.

 

But of course Sam couldn't very well say any of that to him.

 

And so the situation continued to suck.

 

XXX

 

They hung around the hospital until a little after visiting hours (turns out a gay man can charm a pretty nurse with the best of `em, oddly enough) but along about ten even Dee's seemingly endless roguish charm began to wear off and phrases like “late” and “time's up” and “security” began to be thrown around.

 

JJ seemed to get increasingly fidgety the closer they got to springing him, until he was practically jumping up and down as Drake filled out the release forms. It was impossible to say whether this twitchiness sprang from nerves or excitement, but it was probably both—and either emotion would certainly have been reasonable under the circumstances. After a while, though, JJ seemed to get tired of being nervous and actually struck up his first one-on-one conversation with Drake.

 

“So you and I…Sam told me we live together?” he asked.

 

Drake looked up from the clipboard he was holding and nodded. “Yeah. you were my work partner long before you were…more than that…and you moved in with me about six months ago.” He jotted something on a form, then looked up suddenly and said, “But, hey, if you think that's gonna be uncomfortable for you, we can always put you up in a motel or something.”

 

JJ looked saddened by the question, and maybe even a little lost. “I…I don't know,” he whispered.

 

Drake looked at him for a moment, and the flash of hurt was there and gone so quickly that Sam wondered if he'd maybe imagined it. Then the sandy-haired cop leaned over and placed a hand over JJ's, squeezing gently. “It's okay. We'll just see, all right?”

 

JJ smiled wanly and nodded, and Drake took his hand away before things became uncomfortable again, finishing off the forms with an exaggerated flourish.

 

“And you, my friend, are officially a free man,” he said with a grin. “I'll just give these over and then we can get you out of here, `kay?”

 

JJ nodded, and Drake favored him with another smile as he got up and left the room.

 

Sam watched him go, then turned his attention back to the conversation Dean, Dee and Ryo were engaged in.

 

“Okay, so me and Sam will meet you guys in New York in three days,” Dean was saying. “We'll start digging on the road. Hopefully we'll have something more solid next time we see you.”

 

Sam was probably the only one who heard the silent “So I can get out of your city as fast as possible.”

 

Dee rolled his eyes. “I still think you should just come with us. You're making a bigger deal out of flying than you need to.”

 

“Yeah, well you try getting on a plane knowing for a fact that there's a demonically possessed passenger on board that's going to crash the thing exactly forty minutes into the flight, and then we'll talk,” Dean said shortly.

 

Dee looked a little uneasy at that, but the words seemed to remind Ryo of something, and he lowered his voice as he spoke to the brothers.

 

“Speaking of, do you think we should tell him? About your suspicions on this?”

 

Sam shook his head immediately. “Nah, I don't think so. I mean, you guys didn't say anything to anyone the first time, right?”

 

“Yeah…”

 

“So he didn't know the truth about the world before, and neither does Drake. And they've already got enough on their plates, anyway, without us freaking the out with ghost stories. It'll be easier just to keep it between us. At least, until we figure out what's going on.”

 

Dee shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

 

Sam couldn't help but smile at his disgruntled tone. “Look, man, I'm sorry, I know you don't like thinking about this stuff. And to tell you the truth, I wish there were another explanation, too. But…” He shrugged helplessly, and let that speak for him.

 

“So we're just gonna keep JJ in the dark?” Dee asked.

 

Sam shrugged. “I think it's for the best…for now, at least.”

 

Dee thought about it a moment, then asked, “Can I have amnesia, too?”

 

Ryo hit him.

 

XXX

 

Super 8 Motel

12:45 AM

 

“Sam, you're not seriously starting with the geekiness now,” Dean said, staring as Sam pulled out his laptop and set it on the table.

 

“Why not?” Sam asked, looking genuinely confused.

 

Dean quirked an eyebrow. “Dude, it's one in the morning and you've been up since six. Do you ever sleep?”

 

“Sure,” Sam replied, sitting down in front of the computer. “But this is the first high-speed connection I've gotten in a while. I just want to take advantage of it for a while.”

 

Dean stared at him for a moment, then shook his head and muttered, “Whatever” as he threw himself down on the bed closest to the door. “But if I wake up at four and you're still sitting there, I'm confiscating that thing.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“I'm serious, Sammy. Don't stay up all night.”

 

“It's Sam,” Sam said absently, already starting to tune him out.

 

XXX

 

Dean could practically see the tension lift from Sam as they drove across the Palo Alto county line the next morning, and he sighed inwardly. Apparently this place still held the bad memories for Sam that they had a year ago, and being here hadn't gotten any easier for him. And yet, every force in the entire universe seemed intent on drawing them back here.

 

And what about that, anyway? Why did everything happen in or around Stanford? It was like the entire place was a boiling pot of paranormal energy, even though Dean knew for a fact that the nearest node was in Sunnydale, California, some few hundred miles south. This place hurt Sam, and he couldn't stay away from it.

 

“Well, this time we will stay away for a while…”

 

“You say something?” Sam asked, glancing up from the book he was reading to look over at him.

 

Dean momentarily considered repeating his muttered words, then shrugged and reached out to switch on the radio.

 

“Never mind,” he murmured, and the music of Black Sabbath blasted from the speakers.

 

XXX

 

Meanwhile, in New York

 

By the time their plane touched down at five in the morning, Ryo, Dee, Drake and JJ were little more than mindless zombies wandering around the airport, and Ryo, for one, had thanked God several times that they didn't have to worry about driving. They could just pile into a taxi and let the driver take it from there.

 

The cab dropped Drake and JJ first, their building being closest to the airport, and it was as he was climbing out of the cab that Drake's body decided to quit. Dee ended up half-carrying him to the apartment, while Ryo and JJ followed behind, one looking worried and the other confused.

 

“What's wrong with him?” JJ asked Ryo quietly as they entered the apartment and Dee headed for the bedroom.

 

“He's just tired,” Ryo whispered back. “He's been up for days.”

 

JJ didn't seem to know what to say to that.

 

“Nuh-uh…I'm sleepin' on the couch…” Drake muttered as he noticed where they were going, slurring his words. “JJ'll take the bed…”

 

“Shut up,” Dee replied. “You're dead on your feet because you're stupid and you need to get some serious sleep.” As he said it, he shot a look over his shoulder that even JJ, in his confused state, recognized as pleading.

 

Then Ryo nudged him and muttered, “Tell him.”

 

“What…?”

 

“He'll listen to you,” Ryo whispered. “Just tell him we're right. Please?”

 

JJ looked dubious, but he did as he was asked and told Drake he was fine on the couch, and Drake stopped arguing fairly quickly.

 

Fifteen minutes later, Ryo and Dee left Drake and JJ lying in separate beds in separate rooms, and that just seemed so wrong, in its way.

 

But we'll make it right. We will…we have to…

 

XXX

 

Ryo gave a long, slow sigh and leaned his forehead against the door he'd just locked, closing his eyes. He smiled tiredly as a pair of arms slid around his waist and tightened.

 

“You all right?” Dee asked quietly, running a hand lightly up his side.

 

Ryo leaned against him. “Tired…”

 

Dee chuckled and pressed a kiss to the base of his neck. “I know the feeling. Whaddya say we—”

 

“Ryo? Dee? You guys home?” a voice suddenly called from the next room, a second before Dee's arch-nemesis appeared in the doorway.

 

Ryo sighed and reluctantly freed himself from Dee's embrace so that he could turn to face his son. “What are you doing up, Bikky?”

 

Bikky shrugged. “Ya kinda woke me when you came in. You get JJ back?”

 

“Yeah. He's….okay, I guess, but…it's complicated. Listen, Biks, can we talk about this in the morning? It's been a long day.”

 

Bikky studied him for a minute, then muttered, “All right, all right, I'm goin' back to bed,” and retreated to his room again, still grumbling.

 

“Do you feel…weird right now?” Dee asked as he and Ryo went to their own room.

 

Ryo tumbled facedown onto the bed, fully clothed, hugging a pillow to his chest. The mattress dipped a little as Dee joined him, and then the arms were encircling him again.

 

“Yeah, I do,” he murmured. “We haven't done anything but look for him in a month, and now we have him back and it's still not over.” He was quiet for a minute, then suddenly blurted, “It's like I don't even know him.”

 

Dee sighed heavily. “I know. And that's the problem—we don't know him. He's not JJ…not right now.”

 

“But he will be,” Ryo said, suddenly propping himself on one elbow to look down at Dee. “Sam and Dean will come, and we'll figure this out, and we'll make him be JJ again. Right?”

 

Dee smiled comfortingly at him and pulled him down into a kiss.

 

“Yeah,” he whispered against Ryo's lips. “We'll make him be JJ again.”

 

XXX

 

Middle of Nowhere, Iowa

Sometime Later

 

Sam was stretched out on his bed at the motel, flipping through research books and watching Dean throw the last of his stuff in his bag, when someone in New York finally contacted them, via Sam's cell.

 

He dug it out of his pocket with his eyes still on the page and flipped it open. “Hello?”

 

“Sam?”

 

“Oh, hi, Ryo. You guys get back okay?”

 

“Obviously. Where are you?”

 

“Somewhere in Iowa, I think. With Dean behind the wheel we should be there sometime tonight. How's it going over there? How's JJ?”

 

Ryo's sigh echoed over the line. “I don't really know. I haven't seen him or Drake yet this morning. Mostly I've just been making a lot of calls.”

 

“Huh? Like who?” Sam asked, more and more of his attention coming to focus on the phone call.

 

“Mother Maria, for one. Diana Spacey, a friend of ours in the LAPD. She's already decided to fly out. She's also bringing a friend of hers who's crashing at her place—Nikki or something, I think. Commissioner Rose—I told him it was you two who found him, and that you're coming here, and he is pissed. I'd stay away from him when you're here, if I were you.”

 

“Like you even had to warn us. That guy creeps me out.”

 

Ryo chuckled a little. “He seems to have that affect on just about everybody. So anyways, I should probably get down to the precinct pretty soon, but I was wondering if you'd found anything yet. I mean, I know you've only been looking since last night, but—”

 

“Yeah, I get it. But no, I haven't really got any leads yet. About all I have managed to do is rule out demonic possession, and that one was kind of obvious. I'm looking into spirits right now, but basically all I'm finding is an entirely new level of frustration.”

 

“Oh. Well, it has only been a couple of days,” Ryo reminded him.

 

“Yeah…” Sam said absently. “Yeah, that's true…”

 

“Okay, well, I should probably go, then. Just wanted to check in.”

 

“`Kay. Later.”

 

“Bye.”

 

XXX

 

New York City

That Afternoon

 

JJ looked very nervous as Drake led him through the quiet precinct toward the office they shared. His eyes kept darting back and forth like he expected people to start streaming in a jumping him at any moment. But the place was quiet, and Drake, at least, knew that it would stay that way, considering the fact that there were only six people working on their floor anyway.

 

“Go on, sit down,” Drake said as he closed the door behind them. “Want some coffee?”

 

JJ shook his head mutely and gingerly sat down on the couch, like he expected the whole thing to spontaneously combust with no warning.

 

“Well, I'm gonna have some coffee,” Drake said, sighing inwardly as he suited action to words.

 

He'd definitely noticed an increase in JJ's jumpiness since they woke up this morning, but he didn't have a clue as to why. JJ seemed constantly on edge today, all his muscles coiled and tight, as if his body was expecting something his mind could not predict. And another thing—every once in a while, his hand would come up and his fingers would knead lightly into his forehead. But apparently he didn't realize he was doing it, because when Drake asked him if he wanted an aspirin he only looked puzzled.

 

Drake took a pull from the mug he'd just filled, his back to JJ. He had a faint glimmer of hope that the caffeine would do something to relieve the fatigue that had come over him the day JJ disappeared, and hadn't departed even with his partner's return. He'd had this thought the whole time JJ had been missing—this certainty that once he found his love, everything would just magically go back to normal.

 

A foolish hope, a stupid dream, and now JJ was back but not there, and it was time to wake up.

 

Drake turned back to his partner in time to see his eyes sweep the room, and sighed, this time aloud.

 

“It's okay, JJ,” he said patiently. “Ryo and Dee will be here soon, and our Commissioner might decide to turn up, but no one else is here. No one will bother us if you don't want them to—”

 

Before he could finish his reassurances, the door slammed open hard enough to bounce off the wall, and an angrily gleeful voice positively shattered the quiet.

 

“`BOUT DAMN TIME YA POPPED OUTTA YER HOLE AGAIN, YA LITTLE WEASEL!”

 

“…Well, okay, so I lied. Diana most certainly will bother us.”

 

XXX

 

That Evening

 

“Ya know, I don't see why we had to come tonight,” Dean grumbled as he swung into an empty parking space outside the 27th Precinct.

 

Sam shrugged. “Ryo wanted to meet us when we got here.”

 

“But why, though? I mean, what's the difference between tonight and tomorrow morning?”

 

“I dunno, but it's still early anyway, so why does it even matter?”

“It just does, all right?”

 

Sam did try very hard to be annoyed at his brother's attitude, just because he felt he should be, but in truth he'd been expecting it. Dean always got this way in big cities—he had ever since that fateful trip to Manhattan, when they'd met the homeless boy Morgan and his sister Sari—and Sam, for one, thought the outlook completely justified.

 

So, rather than calling him on it, Sam simply ignored his grumblings and climbed out of the car, Dean following him reluctantly.

 

The inside of the building was graveyard-quiet, but Sam actually preferred it that way, and felt relieved as he followed the directions Ryo had given him the last time they'd talked to get to Drake's office.

 

There were voices murmuring inside the room, so Sam knocked and waited for permission before opening the door and looking in curiously.

 

There were actually a lot more people than he'd expected. Drake and JJ, of course, and Dee and Ryo were expected, as well. One of them would be the FBI agent Diana, and maybe the other was her friend?

 

But there was also one more.

 

And Sam recognized him instantly—knew him well, in fact…had images and memories of him burned into his brain that spanned only four years but seemed endless all the same.

 

Just when I'd thought things couldn't get more complicated…

 

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Author's Note: Okay, so I had a helluva time with this chapter, which is why it took so long to come out, and why it's so unbelievably crappy.

 

Actually, I've had a helluva time writing anything lately. My skills seem to be slipping a bit, and I'm starting to run out of new story ideas. Plus, I have three summer jobs this year. So to sum it up, I'm not sure how often I'll be updating before the fall semester. That's not to say I'm going to stop writing completely, of course, `cause it's still my second-favorite pastime. Things will probably just be a little slow during the summer.

So anyways, back to business. I think I should probably apologize to anyone reading this. People who have read FAKE are probably fairly disappointed with my characterization of JJ. I know he's completely OOC, but that's how it's supposed to be, because technically, he isn't JJ right now. So, sadly, it will probably be a while until we get our JJ back. I beg you not to withhold your feedback because of it!

 

Oh, and also, sorry to anyone who wanted Amnesia Boy to be either Dee or Ryo. I didn't want to go that route, so I didn't. There really is no deeper explanation.

 

Okay, now that all that serious stuff is out of the way, we have arrived at the customary plea for SOME kind of response!

 

…Did that count, or should I say it again…?

 

Eh, couldn't hurt.

 

REVIEW, PLEASE!!!!!