Chapter Text
They'd been at Wilderness for three months now, Dad was on a big hunt and wouldn't even leave them in a motel, enrolled in a normal school. Dean hated it here. The Coach was annoying and that Dylan guy was a dick and even his nice roommate Leo was still way too hyper for Dean to be at all calm about anything. Even though he wasn’t hunting, he was just as agitated as if he was.
Maybe it was because Sammy was in a different dorm room, and Dean couldn't keep an eye on his baby brother. "I'm fourteen, Dean! I'm not a baby!" Sam would say. It didn’t matter how old he was though, he could forty and Dean forty-four and he'd still find a reason to worry.
Now he was sat in a bus with Sammy at his side, going all the way to the see the Grand Canyon of all things.
They'd all pilled onto the bus that morning, and Coach Hedge had yelled at them all about keeping their question papers—which Dean was pretty sure he'd used up as a paper aeroplane a week ago—and told each and everyone one them not to cause any trouble, with a pointed look at Dean and the group of three in the back of the bus.
Wait. Three? Dean looked back to confirm. There was Leo Valdez, his roommate, and Piper McLean, a girl he was always hanging out with, and... a black kid with a scar on his lip, eyes closed, maybe sleeping. Dean was sure he'd never seen the guy before.
"Hey, Sammy. You see that kid over there?" Dean whispered to his brother.
Sam looked up from his book and then at the trio. "I've never seen the guy in the middle before." He said when he turned back to Dean, a worried look on his face.
Dean huffed out a sigh. "Yeah, I was worried you'd say that."
The bus ride went without incident. Which was pretty good in Dean's books.
Standards were low.
The museum was sort of interesting, but nothing caught his eye much, not with the nagging feeling that something wasn't right. First the appearance of this guy on the bus, and then everyone acting real normal about him? Yeah, this smelled of monster to Dean. Which one? He didn't know yet. But he knew it was here. And he was sure it was him.
Hedge seemed to be the only other person bar the Winchesters to be miffed by the boy's sudden appearance. He watched him suspiciously, and Dean wondered if he was a hunter too.
Things started getting weird when the storm came.
It was a huge circle of dark clouds hovering over the canon and the museum, and even as Dean looked out as far as he could from the glass skywalk, he could see how easily the clouds dissipated once it was out of reach of the museum.
Something was targeting them. Once again, Hedge seemed to be the only other person to notice it.
"Hey, Coach," Dean called out, walking over to the stout man leaning on his baseball bat. "Weird weather, am I right?"
Coach Hedge pursed his lips and nodded. That's when New Boy walked up to them. Hedge immediately tensed, and Dean was becoming surer and surer that the man was one of Dad's hunting buddies. "Did you do this?" He asked.
New Boy looked taken aback. "Do what?" Dean couldn't tell if he was genuinely confused or that good an actor.
Hedge glared at him, his beady eyes glinting under the brim of his cap. "Look, kiddo, I don’t want you playing games with me. Now, what are you doing here and why are you messing up my job?" He asked.
Yeah, definitely a hunter.
New Boy blinked. "You mean... you don't know me? I'm not one of your students?"
Hedge shook his head lightly but kept his eyes on him. "Nope. Never seen you in my life."
New Boy almost looked confused, and if Dean didn't know better he'd wonder if the boy had been possessed by a demon up until now. "Look, sir, I don't know how I got here. I just woke up on that school bus. All I know is that I'm not supposed to be here."
"Got that right." Dean found himself mumbling. New Boy blinked, turning to Dean like he hadn’t even noticed him. He looked him up and down, assessing him like Dad did other hunters. It was a Marine Corps thing. He wondered why this guy was scanning him in the same way.
"Look, you got a way with the Mist, I'll give you that." Hedge said, bringing both attentions back to him. Mist? Dean thought. What the hell is the guy on? "Making all these people believe they know you, but you can't fool me. I've been smelling monster for days." Smelling? Dean was becoming more distressed by the minute. He scanned the skywalk, where was Sam? He shouldn't have left the kid alone with all these unknowns showing up and putting shinks in the armor of their temporary normal. Hedge continued. "I knew we had an infiltrator, but you don't smell it. You smell of half-blood, so who are you?"
New Boy looked almost frightened. "I—I don't know what you mean. I don't remember anything, ok? Just my name. That's all I know. You've got to help me."
Hedge stared for a moment. Then his face fell and he looked disappointed. "Great," he grumbled. "You’re telling the truth."
"Hey, what the hell does that mean?" Dean demanded just as New Boy said:
"Of course I am!"
Hedge turned to him like he'd forgotten he was there. "What the hell does what mean?" He asked, obviously trying to nudge Dean out of this conversation.
"Hey now," Dean said, "if this kid don't know who he is, that still doesn't explain how he appeared this morning."
Hedge and New Boy both stared at him with wide eyes. "You don't know me either?"
Dean shook his head. "Thought you were trouble. Now I think you've got trouble."
That only seemed to worry New Boy further. He went deathly pale, dark complexion going almost greyish as he stumbled. Both Dean and Hedge launched forward to catch him before he fell. "Hey, hey, you're ok, man. Don't go faintin' on us." Dean said, steadying New Boy on his own two feet again.
Just as Dean's hand left the warm expanse of New Boy's back, lightning cracked in the sky and all three looked up to see that the dark clouds were almost black, covering the sky like a thick fire blanket. Dean remembered the one they had wrapped around him when Mom died.
Hedge reached for his megaphone—the one spewing farm animal noises—and yelled into it. "Everyone off the skywalk! The cow says moo! Get inside!" He yelled, voice booming throughout the museum.
Dean turned to the Coach. "I thought you said this thing was stable!"
"Yeah!" Coach answered. "Under normal circumstances!"
Sam.
Dean had to find Sam. He'd left him on the skywalk while he went to speak to Coach Hedge about New Boy, and now the skywalk was unsafe and Dean couldn't see Sam.
The doors were being held open and people were rushing into the museum. Dylan and Piper were holding the doors open and New Boy had made it over to Leo, holding him back from the edge by his army jacket. Dean kept looking, he needed to find him brother.
He found Sam on the skywalk, helping a girl who'd tripped to stand and make her way to safety. Under any other circumstances, Dean would have whistled and told Sammy he had good taste. These were not any circumstances, Dean kept his mouth shut.
The girl made it inside. Sam did not.
The doors slammed shut, and as Piper shouted and pulled at the doors, trying to get the damn things open, Dylan just smiled his blinding smile, an awful grin that made Dean feel suddenly very disappointed at the chill running down his back. New Boy wasn't their monster. Dylan was.
"Sam!" Dean yelled, "Sammy!"
He caught his brother's attention, and Sam ran over to him. "Dean, I don't think the new kid is our monster." He rattled off, shaking from the sudden cold air.
"Yeah, I deduced that much." Dean deadpanned.
"Help me, Dylan! Open the doors!" Piper yelled. Dylan only turned his grin onto her.
"Sorry, Piper. I'm done helping." With a flick of his wrist, Piper was thrown back.
"Sammy! Rock salt!" Dean yelled. He was glad he never left anywhere without a gun loaded with rock salt. He grabbed the gun from inside his coat, pointed it right at Dylan and pulled the trigger.
Now, Dean didn't think Dylan was a ghost. There was none of the signs of a haunting and the guy was in Dean's class so he would have noticed if he was leaking ectoplasm. But rock salt hurt anything, whether as a repellent or as a simple solid object shot at a very high speed. Rock salt seemed to hurt Dylan more so because of the purity, but it didn't repel like it would for a ghost.
He watched Hedge pull New Boy back, watched Leo's face contort into panic. And then he watched Hedge take off his baseball cap to reveal—
"Dean! Hedge is a goat man!"
"Leave him! Deal with Dylan first!"
Another deafening shot rang out as Dean shot Dylan right in the chest. He heard someone yell, maybe one of the humans, maybe Hedge, something about guns. Dean didn't pay it any mind.
"You—" Dylan began, glaring holes into Dean's head. He flicked his wrist and Dean braced himself for a trip to the other end of the skywalk. But it didn't come. Instead he heard a familiar yell, turned his head just in time to watch Leo be thrown to the side and Sam into the air, falling over the edge of the skywalk right over the Grand Canyon.
Dean froze. "Sammy!" He was running to the railing before he knew he had started moving. Then arms wrapped around him and yanked him back.
"You'll kill yourself! You can't go down there!" New Boy yelled. Dean looked down at the arms around him. Big strong arms, with a tattoo on the forearm. Stripes. An eagle. The letters SPQR.
Dean may not be the walking encyclopedia his brother was, but he knew what SPQR stood for. Senatus Populusque Romanus. New Boy must have had a pretty intense latin teacher. Or they had something else on their hands.
"I've got to save him!" Dean yelled. Then he saw Hedge and immediately ripped himself from New Boy's grasp to launch forward and grab the man—goat?—by the collar of his polo shirt. "You're a fuckin' mountain goat! Go get him! Go save my brother!" Dean yelled, spit flying as he shook Hedge violently.
"Get the others to safety, Winchester. Then I'll deal with you and your guns." Hedge ordered before ripping his trousers off to reveal hairy hindquarters that shocked New Boy and just confirmed Dean's hypotheses.
"You're a faun." New Boy said, voicing both of their thoughts at once.
"A satyr!" Hedge spat back. And then he jumped over the railing and down to where Dean hoped Sam was still alive.
Dylan was back up, the rock salt not having hurt him as much as Dean would have liked. He had to not worry about Sam. Not right now, not when there were normal people in danger because Dean had been too stupid to notice anything supernatural in their midst.
"Isn't that cute," Dylan barked a laugh, watching as Hedge climbed his way down to Sam. Then he turned to New Boy. "Now it's your turn." New Boy grabbed Hedge's baseball bat—which now looked like a bumpy branchy club and threw it right at Dylan. It didn't seem to do much, New Boy's aim was shit, but the club curved and swerved when Dylan tried to dodge, until it hit him in the back of the head, so hard it sent him to his knees.
Piper, the girl his roommate always hung out with, the one who'd been knocked to the ground when Dylan first revealed his monster status, wasn't as dazed as she appeared to be. Her finger curled around the club when it rolled over to her but before she could use it, Dylan rose, blood—golden blood—trickled down his forehead.
"Nice try, boy." Dylan said, "But you'll have to do better than that."
Then his form began to dissolve, as if his every molecule was separating from the others and turning him into something even less human than he already was. Black smoke that reminded Dean too much of a demon until he was a form made up of a hurricane, feathery wings and a human boy's head, fit with his gleaming smile and electric blue eyes.
"You're a ventus," New Boy announced. "A storm spirit."
Dean searched his mind for any mention or a storm spirit, anything in Dad's journal, anything he might have hunted before, he came up empty handed, no idea what that was, no idea how to kill it and no idea how an amnesiac could know it.
"Good, you know things." Dylan laughed, a sound like a tornado ripping off a roof.
"I've known of Leo and Piper for weeks, known of the Winchesters. But you—my mistress told me a third of your kind would show up. She will reward me greatly for your death!"
Dean watched as two ghostly men appeared out of thin air next to Dylan. Immediately he cocked his gun, aimed at the one closer to himself. Piper, still down, still pretending to be dazed, gave New Boy a look, club in hand, and Leo, who had only now regained consciousness, quickly scrambled over to her. They reminded Dean of himself and Sam.
New Boy readied himself, fists clenched, staring Dylan down with a look in his eyes that reminded Dean of himself.
But before New Boy had the chance to attack, Dylan shot arcs of lightning right at him, going through his body, launching him flat on his back, blowing his left shoe off and killing him. Piper and Leo began to scream, and all Dean could think was that this boy would turn into a vengeful spirit if he didn't salt and burn that corpse soon.
That's when New Boy stood up.
Not dead. How in hell was he not dead? But he stood and reached into his pocket, saying something to Dylan that was lost in the wind.
"How are you still alive? That was enough electricity to kill twenty men!" Dylan cried.
"My turn," Was all that New Boy said. Out of his jeans, New Boy pulled out a gold coin that he flipped in the air. As it came down, it changed from a small disc to a long sword that Dean recognized from a textbook he'd once read about the romans. What the hell was this? First the tattoo, now the sword? Why was this guy so obsessed with the romans?
Dylan snarled and backed up. "Well?" He yelled at his comrades. "Kill him!"
The ghostly men next to him didn't seem to take too kindly to the order but they complied anyway. Dean hated how it made him think of Dad.
Before any of them could hurt anyone though, Dean started shooting. Rock salt straight at their heads, even a non-ghost would be knocked out from the impact. One of the ghostly men turned into dust, the other was only knocked back, not having been hit by as many. When Dean was reloading his gun, grabbing buck shots full of salt from his jacket's inner pocket, New Boy swung his sword at it. When it launched lightning at him, the sword absorbed it and, with a perfect golden arc, he turned the ghost into a pile of the same yellow dust.
"How?" Dylan shouted. "Who are you, half-blood?!"
Leo, on the ground, muttered: "Jason, how...?"
New Boy—Jason—looked as shocked as they all felt.
Hedge climbed back up onto the skywalk, and everything fell away.
Sammy was safe. That's all that mattered now.
Dean ran over to them, completely forgetting he was supposed to be protecting these people, supposed to be killing that spirit before they killed anyone else. He ran to his brother, scooped him up into his arms even though he knew Sam would complain about being too old for that. "Sammy, Sam, you're ok." He whispered, ignoring the fight, ignoring everything but his brother in his arms. Safe.
"Dean, I'm fine." Said Sam.
"Fear me!" Said Hedge. He had his arms out like he was trying to appear bigger, like you would in front of a bear or a lion or a new, violent, hunter. Then, when he realized there was only Dylan left, his arms came back down and he frowned. "Curse it!" He said to Jason. "You didn't even leave any for me? I like a challenge!" Leo, now standing, yelled from where he was with Piper. "Yo, Coach Supergoat, whatever you are. A kid just fell down the Grand fucking Canyon! Stop asking for challenges!"
Dylan hissed at them, but Dean could recognize the fear in his eyes as he did so. "You have no idea how much trouble you will be in. How many enemies you shall awaken. My mistress will kill all monster-killers, demigods and mortals. This is a war you cannot win."
The storm that had been brewing above them suddenly exploded. The skywalk shuddered and cracks splintered across its surface. Sheets of rain pounded down on them and Dean, now standing, had to grip tightly onto Sam's shoulders and crouch to keep himself balanced and avoid taking his own trip down the Canyon.
A hole opened up in the sky, a swirling mass that looked like the messy, drunken sketch Dad had once done of a devil trapping circle that he'd never explained to Dean.
"The mistress calls me back," Dylan yelled, "and you, demigod, will come with me!"
He lunged at Jason, but then Piper jumped onto the monster's back. Even though he was made of smoke, she was able to latch on to some physical form, and she held on as they went sprawling. Everyone tensed and Jason, Leo and the Coach all surged forward. Dean reloaded his gun. Just as he began to take aim, Dylan let loose a cry of torment that sent everyone flying. Dean did what he could to shield Sam's head as they crashed, Jason's golden sword skidded against the glass floor, Leo banged his head and curled up, dazed and groaning. Piper got the worst of it. She flew off the monster's back and was thrown off the skywalk, barely hanging onto the edge by her fingertips.
Dylan hit the railing, stumbled, and groaned.
"Help!" Piper yelled. "Somebody help!"
Dean watched Jason pick up his sword and scramble to his feet, pointing it at Dylan. Then the monster growled and grabbed Leo's arm, dragging his limp body with him. "I'll settle for this one!"
Piper slipped.
The storm swirled.
"Jason, go!" Coach yelled. "Save her!"
Dean fired his gun, missing Leo by a hair's length but hurting Dylan enough to slow him down as Coach brought out his unfound martial arts skills. Jason---
"Hey, New Boy! What the hell are you—"
Jason looked over the railing and jumped over the side, taking a dive down the Grand Canyon.
Dean watched as the Coach and Dylan swirled into the clouds and disappeared, Leo dropped to the ground, Sam ran to him. Dean's feet were stuck to the cracked, glass floor. Jason had just jumped off this skywalk and now Dean had just let two civilians die. It was entirely his fault and Dad would kill for it. He should have known there was a monster, and now people had died while he stood by, shooting useless salt rounds at a monster he'd never heard of before.
"Dean! His head's bleeding! You have bandages?" Sam shouted, fingers bloody as he cradled Dean's roommate's head. There didn't seem to be too much blood, and Dean prayed his mom was right about angels. He hoped they'd do what they could to help Leo.
He managed to move his feet, taking heavy steps towards his brother and roommate. "Here," he said, tearing a piece of his T-shirt off. He was lucky it was big, so the winds weren't yet making him too cold. He handed the torn off shirt to Sam who nodded and began to shakily wrap it around Leo's head just like Dean had taught him that one week they were alone in a motel and Dad was out hunting a werewolf.
"Coach is gone." Sam said.
"I know." Dean answered.
"What are we going to do?"
Dean shrugged. Just as he was about to answer, a thud sounded behind them and Sam's eyes went wide, hands stalling on the bandages. Dean turned, gun already raised, and came face first with two people he was sure were dead, running towards him and dropping to their knees at Leo's side.
Piper hesitantly touched Leo's shoulder, and Sam moved out of the way so she could check on her friend. "Stupid...ugly....goat..." Leo muttered.
"Where did he go?" He heard Piper ask.
Dean watched them for a second, then turned his stare onto Jason who was standing slightly off to the side. "New Boy, come here." He ordered. Jason tensed and turned to him, immediately walking over like he'd never dare to disobey a direct order, even from someone only a year older. Not that Jason would even know that.
Jason stood there, lips sealed tight, eyes locked on something just over Dean's shoulder. "What was that?" He asked.
"I don't know, I—" Jason stopped. He kept his eyes set on a point behind Dean and kept it there, not continuing his sentence.
"You jumped into the Grand Canyon. How are you and McLean alive?" Dean asked, voice harder now. If Jason was some mythical monster, he wouldn't forgive himself if people died because of his ignorance. He was lucky Piper and Jason hadn't really died, but that didn't mean people wouldn't, and Dean knew it would be his fault. One way or another, it always seemed to be the truth.
Jason shrugged. "I—the winds just... supported me."
"Supported you?"
With a nod, Jason looked away, tearing his eyes away from that far away point behind Dean and instead turned his head to stare at his shoes.
Shoe.
He only had one shoe on.
"How did you survive when Dylan—or whatever he is—hit you with friggin' lightning?" Dean demanded, eyes fixed on Jason's charred, shoeless, foot. It had flown off when he went down and Dean hadn't paid it much attention, a little preoccupied with the wind demon ghost thing.
Jason didn't answer for a moment, and Dean wondered if it was the first time he'd ever stopped to think instead of answering with the first words that came to mind. A mindless soldier. It was weird to see that in a teenage boy. Dean didn't like the idea that it stared right back at him every morning in the mirror. "A ventus." He finally said. Dean frowned. "Dylan's a ventus. I think. I don't know how I survived though." He admitted. Then he looked back up at Dean. "I didn't mean to."
Something in Dean cracked. The look on Jason's face was vulnerable, almost scared, like he knew this wasn't normal and he was terrified he would get in trouble for it. Didn't seem like very typical monster behavior.
"Whatever, man. Just don't go starting fights, New Boy." Dean said. Jason gave him a weird look but turned away again when Dean pinched the bridge of his nose and waved him off. "Hey, Sammy?" Dean called, Sam looked up from where he was still sat on the floor next to Leo and Piper. His brother stood up and walked over, eyebrows raised like he was waiting for an answer to a question no one had asked yet.
"What it is?"
"I don't think New Boy's our monster here." Dean said. "He protected everyone, and he saved McLean's life. Not very monstrous of him." He explained.
Sam nodded. "He's definitely something though. No human should have been able to survive what he just went through." He said, throwing a look over his shoulder. Dean was suddenly hit with a wave of sympathy for the guy. He couldn't remember anything, and even if he were a monster, if he wasn't doing anything bad, why should they decide whether he lives or dies? Dad would say he was becoming soft like Sam sometimes was. Dean was starting to wonder if maybe his little brother was right.
Above them, the storm dissipated and Dean chanced a glance at Leo, Jason and Piper to make sure they were all conscience. The police were already working on the locks and the skywalk wasn't going to stay in one piece much longer. They needed to get out of here.
"I can't believe he was hitting on me," Piper's voice drifted over to them and both brothers took their eyes off of the sky and turned it back onto them. "And what did he call us? Demigods?"
"I'm not exactly feeling to godly, thanks." Leo said, now lying on his back, staring at the sky. His brown skin carried an almost greenish undertone, and Dean wondered if he felt queasy.
The sound of something snapping filled the air, and everyone shut up. The skywalk was cracked to high heaven and it was becoming even less safe to stay on the damn thing. Jason stood up straight, tensed shoulders pulled back like he was used to taking this kind of role. "We need to get off this thing." He ordered, voice cool and orderly.
Leo's mouth fell open. "Ohhh, tell me I'm hallucinating. Tell me those are flying ponies."
Everyone looked up at the sky and... there were, infact, flying horses getting bigger and bigger. Closer and closer. Four horses, patches of white and black with thick manes flying in the wind and feathered feet, Irish Cobs, Dean remembered from that one girl he knew in one of those schools they went to who was obsessed with horses. They were just like any other horse, other than the fact that they each had at least a six meter long wingspan. The horses—pegasi—carried a chariot with no back, two people on it, one manning the reins and the other holding onto the chariot.
"Who are they?" Piper asked.
"I think they might work with Hedge." Dean muttered. Sam turned to him, a questioning look on his face. Dean waved his hand as if to say I'll explain later. Sam hesitated for a moment, but in the end decided to drop it. Dean watched as the chariot landed on the far edge of the skywalk. The horses folded in their wings and cantered around, whinnying nervously as if they too had noticed how unsafe the ground they were stood on was. Dean could see the two people on the chariot better now. One was a black girl with long, braided hair, tied into a ponytail at the back of her head. She jumped off the chariot before it even stopped, and Dean caught a glimpse of a dagger in her hand. The other was a big, bulky, bald guy, he was the one handling the reins. They both wore the same bright orange T-shirt. Dean wondered who would ever choose to wear colours like that.
The girl charged Jason first, knife out like she wanted them all to know she was dangerous. "Where is he?" She demanded, voice rough like she'd either been screaming or crying a lot recently.
"Where's who?" Jason asked, stepping forward.
The girl frowned, like she didn't appreciate the answer and turned to the others. "What about Gleeson? Where's your protector?" She asked.
Gleeson Hedge. Dean had heard worse names, but they were definitely few. He'd laugh if he weren't so worried about Knife Girl getting near a bunch of kids, especially his brother. Though looking at her, he realized, she couldn't be older than he was. 16 or 17. Maybe she was younger than he was, even.
Sam cleared his throat. "He got taken by those storm spirits." He said.
"Venti." Jason clarified.
The girl frowned again. "You mean anemoi thuellai? That's the Greek term. Who are you, what happened?"
Dean turned to Sam to find his brother already staring at him. Greek. Sam shot him a look as if to ask if he was thinking the same thing. The Greek Pantheon. Dad had only told them bits. Mostly about how every pantheon had its monsters, and almost all of them were real, even the pagan religions. Dad had sneered as he said it, so Dean hadn't been sure if he meant it or not. That is, until now.
These were greek demigods. It all made sense now. Jason was a demigod, which explained how he survived and how the winds had supported him as he'd described. Piper and Leo probably were too.
Jason didn't wait for anyone else to start talking and delved right into the story from waking up on a bus with no memories to Dylan turning into a tornado and kidnapping Coach Hedge. He didn't mention being able to fly, or Dean and Sam's guns. Which was helpful.
About halfway through the story, the other guy from the chariot came over. He stood there glaring at them, his arms crossed. He had a tattoo of a rainbow on his biceps, which was unusual for guys like that. Dean had met his fair share, and most men like that didn't like rainbows. Not in a world and time like this one. Even in 1996, guys and rainbows wasn't exactly something that meshed well. Dean decided not to comment on it though, just in case.
When Jason had finished his story, the blond girl didn’t look satisfied. “No, no, no! She told me he would be here. She told me if I came here, I’d find the answer.”
“Annabeth,” the bald guy grunted. “Check it out.” He pointed at Jason’s feet, the one without a shoe was as black as it was earlier, charred like coal. “The guy with one shoe,” said the bald dude. “He’s the answer.”
“No, Butch,” the girl insisted. “He can’t be. I was tricked.” She glared at the sky as though it had done something wrong. “What do you want from me?” she screamed. “What have you done with him?”
The skywalk shuddered, and the horses whinnied urgently. “Annabeth,” said the bald dude, Butch, “we gotta leave. Let’s get these five to camp and figure it out there. Those storm spirits might come back.”
Dean froze. "Camp?" He grabbed Sam's arm and tugged him behind him, ignoring his brother's protests.
Everyone turned to him.
"What the hell kind of camp are you tryna send us to?" Dean demanded, voice gruff and angry. He didn't let it shake. Even if Dad's words echoed in his mind, even as the smell of burning bodies came back to him, the image of those nuns he had had to hunt rushed into his mind. "You're not taking us anywhere."
The girl, Annabeth, frowned, less annoyed like when she looked at Jason, more concerned, confused. "It's a safe place for people like us. They'll help you there."
They'll fix you, Dean. If I catch you again, I won't hesitate to send you. Sam'll go to Pastor Jim's and you'll go right to camp and they'll help straighten you out.
"You can lie all you want, but I know what you people do to kids in camps. I'll kill you before you even touch me or my brother to bring us there." Dean growled. Sam was still behind him, and now his hand was latched onto the sleeve of Dean's leather jacket, tugging it like he wanted Dean's attention. Dean ignored him, not taking his eyes off of Knife Girl and Rainbow Boy. The rainbow didn't fool him, Dean knew what they could do if he let them take him and Sam.
Then Leo's face loosened and he turned his whole body to Dean, hands out like he always did whenever Dean woke up in cold sweat in their dorm room. "Dude, I don't think it's that kind of camp." He said, voice soft, like he knew Dean wouldn't respond well to harshness right now. Leo always was a good friend. Dean wondered if Leo thinking Jason wasn't new meant he had forgotten some of the things they had gone through to fit these fake memories of Jason in.
"What?"
Knife Girl stepped forward, hands out. She seemed to reconsider when she noticed Dean's eyes flitting to her dagger and how he pushed Sam just a little further behind him. "Look, it's a camp for half-bloods. We'll help keep you safe until your mortal parents can come get you. We can't keep you long anyway, you two aren't like us." She said.
Dean frowned. "What do you mean not like you?" Sam asked from behind him.
"Well, you aren't demigods. You're both mortals."
"Then why are you taking us?"
Annabeth considered. "Because you're clear-sighted. You see the monsters, and our weapons." She said. "And I was told to bring you. I was told two mortal boys would be here and that they would be important to the quest."
Dean clicked his tongue. "I'm not a boy, sweetheart. I'm older than you." He retorted.
Annabeth just rolled her eyes at him. She turned to Jason and fixed him a dangerous look. "We'll settle this later." Then she turned on her heel and marched toward the chariot.
Piper shook her head. “What’s her problem? What’s going on?”
“Seriously,” Leo agreed.
“We have to get you out of here,” Butch said. “I’ll explain on the way.”
Dean frowned. Did these people seriously think any of them would want to go anywhere with them? One of them had pulled a knife on them, and now they were basically trying to kidnap minors. It wasn't exactly a good look.
“I’m not going anywhere with her.” Jason gestured toward Annabeth, voicing Dean's thoughts. “She looks like she wants to kill me.”
Butch hesitated. “Annabeth’s okay. You gotta cut her some slack. She had a vision telling her to come here, to find a guy with one shoe. That was supposed to be the answer to her problem.”
“What problem?” Sam asked.
“She’s been looking for one of our campers, who’s been missing three days,” Butch said. “She’s going out of her mind with worry. She hoped he’d be here.”
“Who?” Jason asked.
“Her boyfriend. A guy called Percy Jackson."