Men In Black - complete

Chapter 23

Dean and Sam were in Lawrence, mostly to visit their mother's grave and bury John's dog tags in the plot. While they might have hated his guts, he did devote most of his life since that day to hunting her killer. That was enough of a reason to at least bury a part of him with his wife, even if he did have a third son with another woman several years later.

Dean laid the flowers while Sam buried the dog tags in the ground...before Bear whined loudly.

"What is it boy?"

The dog barked, and immediately trotted over to a plot of land where there was nothing living. Dean and Sam shared a look. Bear had developed a nose for trouble, and this definitely qualified.

They waited until nightfall to start digging, and what they found had Dean groaning in dismay.

"Undead... just great."

"Not an inferi, you think?"

Dean noticed some runes on the casket's coffin, and shook his head.

"Definitely not. I'm betting someone found a resurrection ritual and didn't know that bringing people back to 'life' always ends badly for everyone. Hey Mort," said Dean off hand.

"I hate necromancy" said Mort sourly.

"If we get this chick back to the graveyard and in her coffin, can you make sure she stays there once she's in? I really don't want to haul a freakin' corpse around," said Dean.

"Find the lost body and get her back where she belongs and I'll insure she returns to wherever she was dragged from. I might send a reaper to haunt whoever was stupid enough to bring her back, if you don't get to him first" said Mort.

If there was one thing that annoyed Death, it was necromancy. He didn't care what the reasoning behind was, if someone was stupid enough to bring another person back from his domain he was going to have words with them. Or at the very least put the idiot on reaper watch.

Fortunately Dean didn't mind acting as Death's hand when it came to cases like these. Mostly because undead souls were always unstable and turned murderous before long.

"Sam get something from the casket so Bear can track her down. The sooner we get her back in the grave, the better," said Dean.

"Right."

Sam took the pillow from the grave and they carefully hid the open hole and the dirt around it with a spell. No way were they digging that up twice.

It took Bear two hours to locate the house, and they had to wait until nightfall. Fortunately the dog kept the undead chick inside so she couldn't go after her cheating ex-boyfriend like she planned. After that it was a matter of herding her towards the cemetery, which was a lot harder than it sounded because she was hella pissed off at them.

Dean had never been more glad that his creature form was apparently bullet (and apparently) zombie proof in his life. He was still going to be a mess of bruises in the morning though.

Once Sam tripped her into the casket, Mort took care of her with just a touch. Because he couldn't affect the physical realm, he couldn't help with getting her to that spot. The body went limp, rigor mortis setting in mere minutes. Sam tiredly closed the casket and a tag-team of Bear and Stitch put the dirt back with their claws.

The only reason Dean didn't have Bear help them dig more often was because the one time he did, it was a total bitch and a half getting the dog out of the hole. He was simply too heavy to levitate.

Both brothers sagged in relief once the job was done. There would be a minor fight over who got the shower first once they got back to the hotel though.

Dean and Sam were not in a good mood. Finding out that there were more people out there who had developed unusual abilities (which for some reason Sam was unfairly immune to) was not something they were happy learning about. Especially since one of those idiots damn near drove off with the Impala simply by coercing Dean to hand over the keys!

(He quickly decided not to try taking the car when Bear objected and also proved immune to whatever mind-control trick the guy used. Bear could be scary if you didn't know the dog!)

But that bad mood only grew worse when, as they came back to what they considered home base when they within quick driving distance, they came into a massive drag-out argument between their 'mother' and Jo.

Dean and Sam looked at each other, then tried to sneak out the door. No way in hell were they getting involved with another cat fight between their mom and little sister.

Unfortunately Jo spotted them before they could make a clean escape.

"Sam, you want to put the 'Closed' sign up before some unlucky idiot walks into this?" said Dean sighing.

Sam nodded and flipped the sign before some tourist family drove into the parking lot. They moved on to the next restaurant without stopping.

"Now what the hell are you guys arguing about this time?" asked Dean.

Jo brought out information for a hunt, and Dean groaned.

"That's what this is about?" he asked Ellen.

Ellen growled.

"First off, Jo, you're an idiot. Second, mom, you of all people know Jo would never drop this without a huge fight," said Dean sitting down.

Both girls glared at them.

Sam took a look at the victim list and winced. No wonder Ellen had gotten all tense about it. Most of the victims would fit Jo's profile!

"Normally I would offer to take this. However, I'm not stupid enough to go on a hunt Jo managed to find by putting clues together when we all know she would find a way to follow us and possibly get caught by whatever the hell this thing is," said Dean flatly.

Sam snorted in agreement. If Jo was the one to pick up on this there was no way in hell she would let them take it without trying to follow them to help.

"So how about a compromise?" asked Jo hopefully. From the way Dean was talking it sounded like he sided with her.

"Mom, would you object to Jo wearing an emergency port key? Or having me act as her back-up in my Stitch form?" he asked Ellen.

They all knew it was pointless for them to try and stop the blond girl from following them. So they might as well make sure she was safe the entire time and then set her up on some easier hunts.

It was less of a massive headache that way for all involved.

"You two idiots charm her up the wazoo and I might consider it," growled Ellen.

Jo perked up.

Under any other circumstances she might not have allowed it at all. If they had been Winchesters, definitely not. But these were her boys, who she had practically raised since they first came to her bar in hopes of sanctuary. They loved Jo like she was their flesh and blood and would never let her get too badly hurt or worse killed.

And if there was one thing Dean was good at, it was protecting those he considered family. He got downright paranoid whenever he thought his family was in danger.