Chapter Text
“Hey, Dean,” Sam said, walking into the war room with his laptop in one hand, scrolling through an article with his other hand. “Caught wind of a case.”
Dean raised an eyebrow before raising the bottle of beer he was drinking to his lips. “Lay it on me.”
“Four people have all been found dead in Dayton, Ohio in the past couple of weeks. The police reports all listed their cause of death as suffocation.”
“Okay, kinda strange.”
“It gets weirder. You wanna know what they suffocated on? Flowers.”
“...Flowers?”
“Yeah. Full grown flowers in their lungs.”
“That’s definitely our kind of thing. So, what’re you thinking?”
“Best guess? It could be some kind sacrifice for a god? Or a witch.”
“Well, let’s remember to check for hex bags when we get there. Come on.”
“Are we just gonna leave Cas and Jack here?”
“I don’t see why not,” Dean shrugged. “Jack can get killed, remember? And someone’s gotta look after him. Besides, this isn’t Michael we’re dealing with. Now, let’s roll. We can be there by noon if we leave now.”
Sam nodded, following Dean up the bunker stairs.
Almost thirteen hours later, Sam and Dean were dressed in their FBI suits and entering the police station. The woman at the front desk took immediate notice.
“Hello, miss,” Dean said, pulling out his badge. Sam did the same and they both flashed them by the blonde. “Agent Mercury, this is my partner, Agent Montgomery. We’re here about the suffocations that’ve been reported here.”
The blonde lady eyed both Sam and Dean suspiciously, “Why’s the FBI in a few suffocations? It’s already been dealt with.”
Dean shrugged, shooting the lady a fake grin, “Just doing what the boss tells us to. And, if I can add, four suffocations in two weeks with all the same thing suffocating them? More than a few.”
“We just want to prevent any more cases like this from happening,” Sam added.
Dean nodded to Sam while the lady sorted her papers before raising to her feet.
“Follow me,” she gestured to the brothers.
They all entered the morgue, and the lady opened up four body lockers. She grabbed four files and handed them all to Sam.
“Good luck, agents,” the blonde lady sighed, walking out of the morgue.
Sam opened up the first file and scanned through it while Dean examined the nearest body.
“Melissa Dean, twenty. Student at the University of Dayton,” Sam read out loud as Dean glanced at the girl’s open lungs and gagged, pulling away from the corpse. Sam’s face dropped to a stern expression “Something was found in her pocket. Check evidence bag 2A.”
Dean walked over to the evidence box and pulled out the plastic bag labeled 2A. Dean’s mouth thinned to a line as he held up the bag to show Sam. Inside was a small, red pouch tied up with a small piece of string.
“Hex bag,” Sam muttered.
“Well, that solves what did it. Question is, who?”
Sam looked back down at Melissa’s file and his eyebrows furrowed, “Evidence bag 2D.”
Dean put the hex bag back into the box and pulled out another bag. This bag contained several petals, stems, and leaves - all coated in blood.
Dean groaned, trying to hold the bag far away, “Is that?-”
“Yep,” Sam answered. “That’s what killed her.”
Sam took the bag away from Dean to try to examine the plant.
“Have you ever heard of a witch killing someone using flowers?” asked Dean.
“Nope, but I guess it’s not impossible,” Sam mumbled. Sam lowered the bag from his face. “These are hyacinths.”
“Of course you would know what kind of flower those are.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re a nerd.”
“I mean,” Sam held up the bag, “it’s kind of clear by the way they’re shaped.”
“Okay, princess. What does it mean?”
Sam exhaled through his nose, “It means you’re stupid and should probably know more about the stuff we’re working a case on.”
Dean scoffed as Sam placed the evidence bag back into the box and pulled out three more: 1C, 3C, and 4B. All of them contained bloody flowers, though they were all different kinds of flowers.
“This one’s dandelions, which aren’t even technically flowers. This one’s daisies. And this one’s carnations.” Sam sighed, lowering the bags back into the box and resting his arms on the cardboard. “I don’t get it. If this is the same spell, wouldn’t they all be the same flower?”
“Unless it’s customizable,” Dean remarked, winning a glare from Sam. “Maybe it’s not the same spell, Sam.”
“...If the witch altered the spell just a bit it could result in a different flower, maybe? Bit of a long shot, though.”
Dean clapped his hands together, “Well, it’s our best shot.”
Sam grimaced, scanning through the files again. Within a couple of seconds, he was cross-examining files with wide eyes.
“They're all from the University of Dayton. How did I miss that?”
Dean raised his eyebrows, “Well then. University of Dayton, here we come.”
Once Sam and Dean arrived at the college, they parked by one of the more commonly used buildings, watching students walk by.
Sam glanced at his phone, “A lot of them should be on lunch break by now.”
“Great, let’s get some answers,” Dean said, climbing out of the Impala.
The brothers walked up to one of the students passing by.
“Excuse me, miss?” Sam exclaimed, getting the student’s attention.
The student had long, straight brown hair that went down to the middle of her back. She wore a white crop top with denim shorts and a black jacket on top.
“Agent Montgomery, that’s my partner, Agent Mercury,” Sam continued. “We’re here to ask you a few questions about the students who’ve died here in Dayton the past few weeks.”
The brunette frowned before nodding, “I know. About Melissa.”
“You knew Melissa?”
“Yeah, we were in the same calc class together. I sat next to her.”
Sam nodded to himself, “Did you notice Melissa acting…weird the days leading up to her death?”
“Yeah, yeah she was. She kept coughing. At first it was nothing noticeable, but right before she was announced dead she kept having to excuse herself to the bathroom so she wouldn’t disrupt the class.”
“Did you notice if she was coughing up anything?” Dean asked.
“Well…blood. But, I could have sworn I saw her holding a flower one time. Like, she coughed and suddenly it just…appeared in her hand.”
Sam nodded again, “Did Melissa have any enemies?”
“Melissa? No-” the student shook her head. “She’s the sweetest girl I’ve known to date. There’s no one she hates and no one to hate her. No crazy exes- well, no exes at all.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed, “What do you mean?”
The student shrugged, “Melissa’s never had a boyfriend. She’s been crushing on this one guy, Connor, in our graduating class since freshman year and never got over it.”
Sam brought a hand up to his chin, as if he was thinking, “Did Melissa have any connection to the other victims?”
“She was friends with Emily and Bella. And the guy, Noland: he was in our calc class, too. Actually, both Emily and Bella were in that class, too.”
Sam bowed to the student, “Thank you for your time, miss.”
The student nodded to Sam before walking off in the direction of the dining hall.
“Dude,” Dean said. “It sounds like that girl is our next vic. That or one of the vic’s other friends in that class.”
“Yeah,” Sam muttered, “I was thinking that, too. We need to get that roster.”
“Agreed.”
Sam found online that all the mathematics classes were hosted in Sherman Hall, so the brothers drove to the nearest parking lot by the building and parked the Impala. They both set off to find one of the calculus professors.
Sam and Dean peeked into the door of the nearest classroom, which ended up being more like an auditorium. Inside was a teacher preparing the projector for a class.
“Excuse me, ma’am?” Sam asked, fully opening the door and allowing Dean and himself to walk in. They both took out their badges and quickly showed them to the professor. “Agents Montgomery and Mercury. We were wondering if you know anything about a calculus class with students Melissa Dean, Emily Patterson, Isabella Waterson, and Noland Davis. We were told that they are all in the same calculus class.”
“Yes, that is my next class,” the teacher said, turning to the brother. She stuck out hand for Sam and Dean to shake. “Leslie Parker. I’m the Calculus III and IV professor.”
“Alright, Professor Parker,” Sam said, nodding, “we both would like to sit in on the class. If not, at least we need the roster.”
“Of course,” Prof. Parker bowed her head. “It’s a shame, really. Those young adults were four of my brightest students. They all had such promising futures.”
As Sam and Leslie continued their conversation, Dean went to examine the room, looking for anything out of the ordinary that could point them in the right direction.
“We’re sorry for your loss,” Sam frowned. “They must have been like children to you.”
Leslie nodded to herself, “I’ve known them since they were in middle school. They were friends with my daughter, Fiona.”
Sam raised an eyebrow, “Your daughter?”
“Oh, yes. She’s in my next class. She really only took it because her friends were and because her mother’s the professor. She’s a bright kid, but I can tell she’s not interested in the subject.”
Dean was at the back of the classroom and Sam still had to either stall or fish more information out of the professor. “What is she interested in?”
“She’s a huge history nerd,” Leslie laughed, walking behind her desk to turn to the correct tab for the class. “Ancient Greek, Ancient Rome, the Trojans, stuff like that.”
“Anything else?” asked the younger brother, glancing over at Dean, who was reaching under the chalk tray at the end of the wall closest to the teacher’s desk.
“Education. Though, she might be a little biased,” Leslie smiled.
Dean didn’t get to search the wall by the teacher’s desk or by the dry-erase board because the professor was still standing behind her desk. The older brother walked up to Sam and shook his head.
“Alright, Mrs. Parker, can we get the roster before the class starts?”
Leslie nodded, grabbing a clipboard with a few pieces of paper on it. She unclipped the paper and pulled out a paper with a list of names.
“It doesn’t have where everyone sits, but hopefully it will do.”
“Of course, thank you, Mrs. Parker,” Sam bowed his head. “Where can we sit?”
Leslie scanned the sea of desks and pointed to a couple chairs on the top couple of rows by the chalk board. “You can take some chairs by there, or take some chairs at the bottom row and replace them with some of those top row chairs.”
Sam and Dean nodded, going to take a pair of chairs from the ocean of chairs.
Suddenly, the door forcefully opened, revealing a young woman with long, wavy naturally red hair. She had a necklace tucked into her shirt and round golden glasses, the lenses turned dark from the sun. She had a half pink, half white jacket, split vertically right down the middle. Her undershirt that was a gray croptop and she wore denim shorts. She took her glasses off and approached the teacher’s desk.
“Hi, mom,” the girl sighed, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Tough morning?” Mrs. Parker smiled.
“Tell me about it,” the redhead groaned. “I don't get why we have to know about every little symbol in every single book. I think as long as I’m literate, I’ll be fine.”
“As a teacher, it’ll be important,” Mrs. Parker pointed out. “Who knows, maybe you’ll be an English teacher one day.”
“Hell no, I’m sticking to history-”
As soon as the girl finished her sentence, she took notice to the two brothers in the room.
“Who are they?” the girl pointed to both Sam and Dean.
“These are FBI agents. They’re investigating the deaths of your friends.” Mrs. Parker turned to the brothers and gestured to the young woman in front of them. “Agents, this is my daughter, Fiona.”
The redhead, Fiona, eyed the two agents before shutting her mouth and going to sit at her desk, right by where Professor Parker said to take chairs from.
Sam went up the raised rows of desk to where Fiona was sitting. He stood right in front of her desk so that they were at eye level. Dean sat to Fiona’s right.
“Ms. Parker-”
“Just…call me Fiona.”
“Alright, Fiona. Were you out with your friends recently?”
Fiona frowned, looking off to the side. “Yeah, but I didn’t murder them. They’re my friends.”
She unknowingly confirmed she knew and was friends with the victim, which was a start, but she seemed unwilling to talk.
Sam sighed, “I get that Fiona, but we need all the information we can get at this point.”
“Like anyone who could have potentially killed those kids,” Dean added, staring Fiona down.
“I’m telling you, I didn’t do anything to them," Fiona said sternly, staring back at Dean.
“We get that,” said Sam, “but we still need something. Anything, really. Where they were, any other possible suspects, or possibly any other students that might fit the killer’s demographic.”
“Why would I know any of that?” Fiona asked, shaking her head. “Location, sure. But possible suspects? Other targets? Are you saying there’s going to be more deaths?”
“It’s possible,” said Dean. “More than likely, really.”
Fiona leaned back in her chair, glancing over to the door where another student entered.
“...Class is gonna start soon. I don’t know anything else, so leave me alone.”
Sam and Dean both sighed.
“Alright, thanks,” Sam said, his mouth thin as a line.
Sam climbed down the raisers and Dean got up from the desk, following Sam. As soon as Sam and Dean were outside the classroom, Dean started up.
“Suspicious, much?” Dean asked, glaring through the window at Fiona, who was staring off at the left wall.
“Really,” Sam raised his eyebrows, taking a quick glance at the redhead before turning back to Dean.
The brothers lowered their voices as more students started flooding in.
“But why would she kill her friends?”
“Witches kill people all the time,” commented Dean. “Hell, Rowena sold Crowley for a couple of pigs.”
“But she didn’t kill him,” Sam exasperated. “Hell, she was crippled with grief after his death; you saw her!”
“Are you defending her?”
“No, I’m not defending Rowena. I’m just saying, they’re human, too.”
“Yeah, sick, twisted humans,” Dean retorted with a scowl.
“Let’s just watch the class. Maybe we can find the witch’s next possible victim.”
“Or the witch,” Dean spat.
“Yeah,” Sam muttered. “Let’s go. I’ll watch that one girl we talked to and I can watch Fiona.”
The brother re-entered the room to find the classroom half full, but the weird part was that all of the chairs by Fiona were empty except for the desk to her right where Melissa’s friend, the student the brothers talked to earlier that day, sat.
“Alright, class,” Professor Parker spoke loudly when the brothers closed the classroom door. “These are Agents Montgomery and Mercury. They’ll be sitting in class today. If they ask you to answer any questions outside or anything of the sort, feel free to leave when necessary. Now, let’s begin-”
As Mrs. Parker began her lecture, Sam and Dean sat next to the projector screen opposite of the professor’s desk. Sam watched the brunette student for any signs of the same spell that the four late students experienced while Dean watched Fiona to see if she had any chance to hex the girl next to her.
“What’s the girl’s name?” Dean muttered to Sam, pointing to the brunette next to Fiona.
“I don’t know, someone on this list,” Sam pointed to the paper in his hands.
Dean stared at the paper before looking up at the class.
“Lauren Carraway?” Dean called out, and the brunette looked up.
Sam raised an eyebrow and Dean shrugged to him. Sam gestured for the brunette, Lauren, to follow him out to the hallway. Dean watched Fiona intensely, but she didn’t move. Dean groaned to himself, hoping he would have caught Fiona in the act.
Sam and Lauren stood right outside the door to the classroom.
“What can you tell me about Fiona?” Sam asked, unsure of what else to ask.
“Parker?” Lauren tilted her head in confusion and Sam nodded. “She’s really big on history. Ancient stuff, especially the Greeks and Romans. Mostly their deities and other…fantastical stuff from their culture.”
“Fantastical?”
“She was obsessed with that one series- with the kid who was the son of the water god.”
“Poseidon?”
“Yeah, that guy. She loved that book series in middle school. There’s a couple popular series she liked, like the one with the witches and wizards that were British. And that other one with the two brothers and the monsters. I never got into it but she’s ranted about it before back when she first read the series.”
Sam nodded to himself, internally groaning at the mention of the Supernatural series Chuck wrote. Now that Sam knew Chuck was really God, he was wondering why he even wrote this books in the first place other than to annoy the two brothers and make their lives harder.
“Alright, anything else? Really, even if you think it’s unimportant, tell me.”
Lauren brought a hand up to her chin, “...She loves happy endings.”
Sam resisted the urge to mutter some remark about irony.
“Romance novels where the two main characters end up together after they’ve been pining over each other for the whole book and they live happily ever after. Really, it’s crazy how much she loves those kind of books. I mean, yeah, I guess I get it, but I can only read a couple of this books in a period of time before they start becoming predictable.”
Sam furrowed his eyebrows in thought before nodding to Lauren, “Alright, thanks, Ms. Carraway.”
Lauren nodded to Sam before walking back in the classroom. Sam followed after her closing the door temporarily.
“Fiona,” Dean called out.
Fiona rolled her eyes before getting up from her desk. She bumped into Lauren on her way down and Dean scowled, now certain Fiona’s had her opportunity to hex the other student.
Both Sam and Dean waited for Fiona to walk out of the classroom before Sam closed the door.
“Okay, Fiona,” Dean shot the young redhead a fake grin. “We can either do this the easy way or the hard way.”
Fiona turned to face Dean with a suddenly nervous face, “What do you mean?”
Dean opened his jacket to reveal a pistol stashed away.
“Witch-killing bullets. Now, unhex that girl you just bumped into, or we’ll do it for you. After killing you.”
Fiona started backing away from the two brothers, “I-I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you do,” Dean growled, storming towards her.
Fiona, in a panic, raised her hands and shouted a spell, sending Sam and Dean flying into the locker-lined wall beside the classroom. Both the brothers hit their heads on the walls and their bodies against the metal doors of the lockers, creating a loud crashing noise and a thud when they fell to the ground. The redhead hesitated before running in the opposite direction.
Moments later, the classroom door burst open, revealing Fiona’s mother frantically looking around for the cause of the noise.
When she spotted Sam and Dean on the ground, her eyes widened, “What happened!?”
“Your daughter happened,” Dean groaned as he placed his arms on the ground and forced himself up.
“What? That’s impossible, I-” Mrs. Parker then seemed to notice her daughter was missing from the scene. “Where is she? My daughter!”
Sam just pointed to the direction Fiona ran off in, and Mrs. Parker did her best to follow her daughter’s trail.
“Fiona!” Mrs. Parker exclaimed, speed-walking in her heels.
Both the brothers got themselves up off the ground and dusted their jackets off.
“You alright?” Sam asked, and Dean nodded.
“Could be better; could be a lot worse,” Dean remarked, groaning to himself.
“Yeah, same here,” Sam sighed, trying to catching his breath. For some reason, it suddenly felt like Sam couldn’t breath as hard as he tried to.
“God, that knocked me out,” Dean slouched over, putting his hands on his knees. Sam also noticed that Dean wasn’t able to breath right either.
It struck Sam that there was a possibility that both of them could have been hexed in the time they talked with Fiona, from their first meeting to their most recent chat.
“Pockets,” was all Sam was able to say before he started coughing.
The brothers slapped their jackets around, trying to look for any hex bags while they were coughing to themselves. Before Dean found anything, he stopped looking, crippled by the fit he was experiencing. Sam did find his and held it out, meaning to burn it, but he soon dropped it, unable to destroy the tiny bag before he wasn’t able to breath.
Sam was the first one to stop coughing. Once his eyes cleared up from the coughing fit, Sam was able to see in his hand splatters of blood along with one single petal of a flower. A tulip, to be exact, golden-yellow in color. His stomach dropped, realizing it reminded him of someone. That someone was recently deceased in an alternate universe, so the petal was basically a punch in the gut for Sam.
Dean eventually stopped trying to spit out the petal and instead reached for the back of his tongue and pulled out the petal from his throat. He gagged as soon as the petal was out, coughing a good amount of blood into the palm of his hand. The petal he held between his thumb and pointer finger was slick was blood, by far more than Sam spat up. Through the blood, Sam could tell the petal belonged to a rose and was dark blue bordering black, though it was still hard to tell the color with the blood coating the petal.
“...Son of a bitch.”