Under a blood red sky

This was going to be a busy night.

She'd wrapped up the part that involved feeling feelings with Harry in his kitchen, then put more reasonable clothes on and started to track Lindsey. He shouldn't be too hard to find, and they needed to talk.

Outside the bar where she knew he was, there were people milling around the parking lot. There was talking, laughing, chatting... it was a decent sized crowd. It took Phaedra a minute to realize that the high school football game had just let out, and that was something most of the town went to. She didn't understand football, really. She overheard thoughts about how the bar t.v. would be playing the highlights, and did you SEE that touchdown?

She sighed, getting ready to go inside, when she realized that there was another vampire there. She stopped in her tracks and turned, looking more carefully through the thoughts she was overhearing. Two twentysomething girls pushed past her into the bar, and Phaedra stepped backward to avoid getting knocked into.

She really wasn't in the mood, but that was too bad. That was how this place worked. Okay, I give up. The thought was sent to the other vampire as her eyes kept looking. Come out, come out, wherever you are.

Sam wasn't doing so hot. He could be worse, and compared to where he'd been, he was a whole lot better off. But he had nightmares, which lead to insomnia, and he sometimes got jumpy around other people, if he didn't have something--like a job--to channel his focus. He was dreading what his brother would or wouldn't say when they were finally reunited. 

So he ran. At least once a day, he went out for a run. Sometimes in the early morning, when he couldn't sleep; sometimes in the evening to try and tire himself out.

Sam hadn't shaved since his arrival in York, and his hair hadn't been cut in who knows how long, but he wasn't about to get gussied up just to meet his brother. Dean could take it or leave it. 

Yeah, Sam wanted to see him, on the one hand. But on the other, he was still a little anxious, because he knew that Dean would probably give himself an ulcer if--and when--he found out that his kid brother was back, even if Sam didn't tell him how much of his memory was still intact from his time down below. Dean had been there. Dean had tried to hide it. And if Sam knew his brother, Dean was probably still drinking himself to sleep.

But sometimes it was better to rip off the band-aid (or the duct tape) and get it over with.

Jo still wasn't in control of her mind. Her consciousness was buried somewhere deep. Probably not somewhere pleasant, but she also had no idea as to what she'd been up to for the past week or so. This might have been a good thing as her body had been busy gathering up supplies for a ritual to open the gates of hell.

There was blood on her hands, quite literally. For now, it was only animal blood. They had been washed clean, but would still smell to someone with heightened senses.

She had returned to York to make the final preparations. It would be time soon. She wandered the woods on the outskirts of town, near the gates but not directly in their vicinity. Not yet.