Supernatural: Next Generation

Having their own resident magician certainly came with its advantages, but Claire had made her discomfort with the notion of just getting everything out of thin air very clear. Her issue wasn’t that it didn’t seem natural (which it didn’t), or the implied moral dilemma that came with getting everything from nothing. Claire wasn’t thrilled with the uncertainty that it provided. It’s not that she didn’t trust Jesse’s powers--she just didn’t trust their stability. Call it an instinctive hunch.

Which is why, when she started his crash coarse in Hunting 101 (as he put it) three days ago, she strictly forbade him from using his nifty tricks in order to advance. He had to learn the hard way, which--by the last three days of painful progress had shown--Jesse wasn’t used to, but at least the knowledge would stay with him forever. Claire was confident, and more comfortable with that.

“Okay, one more time...” she warned while tightening her pony tail. The hotel gym was tiny, but deserted, and the vinyl mats on the floor and walls did well for keeping Jesse from bruising to bad. “Strength doesn’t matter if you grab in the right place,” a lesson she’d shown him several times over as she taught him how to defend himself from the speedy attacks common with most supernatural creatures. He had yet to come out on top.

“Yeah, yeah, you just like making me breathless and sweaty,” he said, definitely both by that point. Apparently a nest of vampires was cake compared to the compact blond. He was having more fun than he would ever admit to, though. Claire was quick and fought back against his verbal jabs as easily as his physical ones. She’d been a bit harder when they got started. After being pinned a few times, he’d harmlessly grinded up against her and gotten a right hook for his efforts.

( He kept his flirting to talking after that, mostly, and she seemed to have warmed up, or at least gotten used to it. )

- THEN -

NOW

Two handfuls of Tylenol in one day was enough, but it didn’t seem to do a lick of good against the mounting headache that’d taken residence behind Claire’s eyes. It started as an irritation in the morning, but by nine that night, even the light from the TV was a loud, reverberating roar. Ben and Jesse’s constant snide remarks and shouted retorts hadn’t helped. No, she couldn’t blame them for being upset, frustrated, and angry--but there was a reason why she’d retreated into herself by early evening, and barely said a word throughout the rest of the night, until she finally disappeared into the bathroom to try and burn the migraine away with a shower.

Behind a locked door, she tried to disappear into the steam, and relieve the sudden, surprisingly crippling weight of responsibility for the two men-in-boys-bodies on the other side of the door. It was instinct, pure and simple, but one she had no idea how to handle in this obviously fucked up situation, to the point where she just wanted to sleep and try again in the morning. She passed out half passed ten, with earplugs in her ears, her back turned away from the glow of the TV. There she stayed, unmoving, even as daylight filtered through the cracks in the privacy curtains, and the sound of morning thunder acted as a subtle wake-up call.

( Ben woke up from his place in the club chair with a terrible crick in his neck. )

Jesse didn’t hesitate, not knowing what else to do. He stepped through the door after Ben, and stopped short. They weren’t in the hall. Instead they were in the hotel gym, the mats spread out on the floor. And Jesse standing there with Claire approaching his back. Or at least a Jesse. The younger, real Jesse looked down at himself, then spun around for the door. Only it was gone, replaced by the gym wall.

“What the fuck?”

Ben stared in astonishment, completely confused. Especially when Claire didn’t turn at the sound of Jesse’s sudden explicative. She ‘corrected’ him regularly when he made the same mistakes, and he had a few surface bruises to prove it.

( “You sure you’re ready?” )

Behind the door was a gas station. Ben recognized this place too. It was the gas station the day he’d seen Claire pinning Jesse against the tree. He’d gone in to pay for the gas and pick up a few things. On cue, his older self stepped forward and through them, stopping suddenly at seeing what was taking place in the car. There were Claire and Jesse, sitting close and talking. He couldn’t hear them, but Claire suddenly rested her head on his shoulder.

“Why the fuck are we here of all places?” Jesse said, looking over at Ben, then at grown Ben. The set of his jaw and tension in his eyes spoke volumes. Jesse looked back to himself and Claire. “Is this why you lost your shit at the bar? She was just being friendly, mate. We are friends, you know.”

“Oh yeah?” the younger Ben said, turning to look at him sharply. The older Ben turned back into the gas station, apparently with one more item in mind to purchase and still completely oblivious to them.( “Like how you and I are just friends, but you watched two hookers work me over after I watched you?” )

Loud voices and noise hit him the moment he was through it. They were back in the bar again, mere inches away from where Claire sat at the booth alone. A quick look off to the side found them at the bar in the beginning of their fight, but Claire hadn’t noticed yet. Ben watched the concern blossoming on her face as she looked down at her watch and then out in the direction of the door.

The tension between the three of them had been growing exponentially, especially in the last hour, and Claire was already nearing the end of her rope. There were things she felt that conflicted with everything she’d known as proper and decent through her childhood--things that flew in the face of fears that stemmed from her years on the road and choices she’d made along the way. Confusion and guilt rode alongside happiness and desire in her eyes, as they searched the bar door when it opened and closed.

“Did I hear you order a whiskey?” An extremely tall man with deep brown eyes and a hopeful grin paused in front of the booth, looking down at Claire. She glanced at him briefly.

“Someone already got it; thanks.” She gave him a small smile, but her eyes clearly said move along.

“Looks like you could use a double anyway, darlin’,” he said with a slow smile. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to cut in. ( Just here to remind you there’s good men out there in the world.” )

***

There was just one problem with not telling Claire what had happened: there was so much to not tell. The mystery Trickster had healed his ribs and given him and Jesse a surprising amount of insight on their personal feelings about the past few days in each other’s company. Ben felt a deep conflicting mass settle in his gut as Jesse disappeared into the bathroom to shower for the night, no doubt to give him and Claire a few minutes alone.

All he could think about was Jesse’s face, staring at their sleeping forms in the hotel in Wisconsin. The jealousy and loneliness that had haunted him. It made him ache in empathy. He watched as Claire brushed her hair, sitting on the edge of their bed. Their bed and Jesse’s bed. There wasn’t a couch in the room. This was going to be very uncomfortable.

“I think I’m gonna call the front desk and ask ‘em to bring up a cot,” he said quietly.

After tossing her brush into her bag by the TV, Claire’s fingers were busy weaving her hair into a loose braid over her shoulder. Her eyes had been sleepy and worn from the day--a light one, by their standards, but still a bit on the confusing side. It’d started with tension and then suddenly switched, like a toggle’d been thrown at the dive bar. The absence of tension was good, sure, but the polar shift had been very jarring. Now, with the words spoken over her shoulder, a strange portion of it came back.

She looked at him over her hair, first, then squared her shoulders in Ben’s direction. She met his eyes with a slightly guarded puzzlement. Ben felt a completely different twist, this time in his chest.

“I feel bad,” he said slowly. ( “I mean, I--... how would you feel if you had to share a room with two people and they were sleepin’ next to each other?” )

The bar was crowded, so they had to be careful wending their way in, with Ben’s ribs still sore. Fortunately Jesse had a way with making people move.

“Bar or booth?” he shouted back Claire’s way. The freckles on her nose wrinkled a little in response. Looked like they picked the popular bar; or the only bar. It was an interestingly wild crowd for such a one-horse town. Claire craned her neck to look around and adjusted the bag over her shoulder.

“I don’t think there are any booths open.”

Ben followed a few steps behind, his arms protectively wrapped around his chest to keep from getting nudged particularly hard by the press of bodies. It was like being in a night club. It made him uncomfortable. Why were they even at a bar, when they had Mr. Bartender-on-Speed on tap? He scowled a little, watching as Jesse’s hand drifted around Claire’s hip to pull her away from an elbow geared toward sticking her in the side and stay there.
(  “I can always find an open booth.”  )
***

Claire had tried to get him to speak up all the way to the car and then on the drive back to the hotel, but Ben remained close-lipped to her attempts. He couldn’t remember a time in his recent past where he’d been so angry at any one person.

All he’d wanted was a temporary reprieve from what he knew what was happening, and Jesse had to steal that from him, too. He was useless. It didn’t matter that Claire was sleeping next to him if she was training his replacement.

Ben left the door open as he stepped through it so Claire could follow him in, but he wanted so much to slam or break something. He felt the pent up energy buzzing beneath his skin like a wasp’s nest, and it was hard for Claire to miss. She shut the door behind them and dropped her bag on the arm chair, looking at his back.

“Can you please tell me what’s going on?” She had asked in the car and gotten no response, the atmosphere becoming thick and tense. Nothing had changed when they were locked together in the room.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ben grunted, making his way to his duffel bag to find his flask. Fortunately for him, Jesse had filled it the night before and he’d only had two gulps out of it. He had every intention of finishing it off that night, though.

“I think it does,” she countered with a frown. “I know he was being a tool, but you know better than to flip out in the middle of a crowd...”
(  “Don’t you side with him.”  )
***

Jesse’s head throbbed. He groaned as he gave an attempt at opening his eyes in the pre-dawn light, but he quickly turned his head into his pillow. What the hell was wrong with him? It felt, almost, like he had a hangover, but that was impossible. Sure he’d had a lot last night, but he hadn’t been hungover since he was a teenager, since he learned the tequila shot trick.

He wanted desperately to just fall back into oblivion, but his bladder was screaming to get up or face a wet bed. Gritting his teeth, he crawled out of bed. It was a farther step to the floor than he remembered. In fact, the whole room looked off in some way, distorted. He didn’t focus on that too much, hurrying to a toilet that had seemed to have grown in size. He pulled down his pants, started to pee, and then froze, looking at what was between his legs. And then he screamed. It wasn’t a manly scream either; it sounded not all that different from a girl’s.

The scream cut through what had once been a restless sleep, turned deep by exhaustion only a few hours ago. Claire jerked awake, instantly up against the headboard with instincts blaring. Who was screaming? It was close, but not recognized... In their room. She scrambled from the covers, thinking of nothing besides the source of the scream. She found it when she rounded the open door, then instantly gasped her own half-scream and turned her back, eyes wide with confusion and alarm.

“Who are you?!” she managed to blurt out, trying to calm down. So there wasn’t someone being murdered in their hotel room, but that still left the question as to why a twelve year old boy was pissing in their bathroom.
(  “I’ve shrunk! And my voice sounds like a fucking cartoon mouse!”  )
***

This was, by far, the worst day of his life.

Growing up had sucked the first time, but being 10-years-old and unable to drink, drive, or even put his feet on the floor while sitting in a chair? To Ben, it sucked hardcore.

Jesse had denied having anything to do with what happened, but that didn’t change Ben’s conviction that he was behind it. Who else had this kind of power, if not him? He’s just making himself small too so it looks like he’s the victim, but I know the truth, he thought to himself with an angry scowl, spearing a broccoli floret on his plate and pushing it past his lips before wincing. Everything tasted weird, too. He hated it. His eyes fell on Jesse’s across the table and he glared at him.
(  “Have any bright ideas how to change us back, Szalinski?”  )
***

This would always, without a doubt, be Jesse’s least favorite part about the hunting thing. Claire and Ben still sat diligently at their laptops (Ben had greeted his suggestion of a booster seat with the bird) and were researching away. Jesse had given up on it. They could do it better than him anyhow.

“Is there some sort of Good Manners fairy?” he said from where he laid sprawled on his bed. “That guy had a real stick up his ass about manners.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there was,” Claire replied tiredly. Her head still felt a bit heavy from the atmosphere around the Stranger in the bar and diner. “Or at least something that decided it’s mission in life was along those lines.”

“Or maybe it just likes to fuck with people’s lives,” Ben added bitterly. “Like every other damn creature out there in the world.” He paused a beat, his brows furrowing in thought, then suddenly got up from his computer and went to his duffel bag.

“Except most of those don’t tell us we have to get along,” Jesse said with scowl. “Most of them fuck with our lives in more direct ways.”
(  “So he’s a subtle life-fucker.”  )

TO BE CONTINUED...