Chapter Text
"Look for anything that creates explosions. Creatures, maybe. Witches. Demons, angels…" Sam instructed him.
"I won't let you down," Jack said determinedly.
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Written on the scrap of notebook pages were instructions from Dean: "Credence, don't panic. When I cough, walk out the front door. Then run. This is a keycard. Address and name of hotel. Sam & Jack are friends."
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Although Jack didn't know the term for it, he was developing a bad case of cabin fever. His internet search was successful: he'd found similar explosions, in this very city, almost one hundred years ago. There were no details and only two accounts on the entirety of the internet, both of which were scans of old newspapers from the 1920s.
One was concerned with the death of one Senator Shaw, and the other about destruction to buildings in the same manner of these explosions.
He had all of this information and research and no one to share it with. He'd tried calling Sam, but there was no answer. He'd also tried Dean (only once. As he was dialing the number, he prayed that Dean wouldn't pick up), but no answer as well. Jack had found something; he could be helpful! But no one was listening. He tried not to feel disappointed, but he supposed disappointment was a human feeling, and maybe he should embrace the times when he felt human.
He scrawled a note and left it on the bed. He had Sam's laptop in his backpack and a phone in his pocket. Resolved that he could do no more, he went to the lobby to escape the claustrophobia of the hotel room, and saw the variety of people beyond the hotel windows. It was sunny and beautiful out there, and maybe he could check out the locations himself...
"I won't go far," he reasoned with himself.
Just as he was crossing the threshold to the outside world, the mobile phone in his pocket started ringing. He fumbled with the obnoxious phone for a solid two seconds before collecting the composure to answer it. How did Sam know? How could he have known that Jack had left the room? Was he being watched?
"Sam?" asked Jack apprehensively.
"Yeah, it's me. Just letting you know I've got a few leads and I'm safe. Have you found anything?" So Sam had no idea that Jack had left the room.
Happy to show off how much he'd discovered, Jack eagerly divulged, "Actually there was a similar incident ninety years ago. The internet had a few newspaper articles. No arrests were made, but strangely they took place at this time of year too." He wondered if the timing was significant.
"Good," Sam said, "and while you're at it, you can do some book research. It's possible we might be dealing with an Obscurus. Don't leave the hotel, though. The book should be in my duffle."
Jack was steadily starting to feel guilty about leaving against Sam's express wishes. At least he'd go back to the room to fetch the book. Maybe read it in the lobby since the room was so confining. "An Obscurus? Really? If I remember, the book said the last one in America was in the 1600s."
"Apparently not. An incident in the 1920s was also an Obscurus, and it was killed."
That was the incident in the papers from 1926. Jack was sure of it. It was too coincidental for it to be anything else!
"From my internet search--"
"Let me know if you find anything," Sam interrupted.
Jack paused. "Sure, I'll do that," he mumbled. He dawdled and wasted time in the lobby for all of half an hour before deciding to follow his gut. What good could he do just reading here, where nothing was happening? He could check out the sites, prove there was something connecting the incidents. He put the phone back in his pocket and sighed. Well, maybe he'd at least get the book.
He trudged back to the elevator and was so distracted by planning the most convenient route between all the explosion locations that it wasn't until he'd arrived at the room that he realized there was someone standing in front of it. He only needed a second to realize it wasn't Dean or Sam.
It was a man, a bit younger than Jack looked. He had a face that reminded him of the young man he had befriended in Washington, but this man was paler and had sharper features. He wore a suit, but his sleeves didn't come close to reaching the wrists, and the pant legs were a touch too short as well. Even Jack knew when a suit didn't fit right, and he was technically only a couple months old.
The young man whirled around, his eyes in a panic. Jack had the opportunity then to note the cropped bangs and the woeful, dark eyes. He didn't say a word, only stared at Jack with an unsettling gaze.
Jack didn't have a weapon. All he had were his unreliable powers and his inexperience with using them.
"Excuse me, why are you standing in front of my room?" Jack asked, hoping this person was simply lost.
The man hunched even more into himself and scanned Jack up and down. "I was sent here by Mr. Winchester," he said. His voice was clear and light. Higher-pitched and more broken than Jack would have guessed for such a tall person. He looked lost and uncomfortable. "I'm looking for Jack or--"
"I'm Jack," he said quickly, giving him a guileless smile.
The boy's shoulders relaxed the slightest bit. "I'm Credence. Mr. Winchester sent me here." He produced a key card proudly displaying the address. "He's in trouble."
Jack furrowed his brow. "What? What happened?"
"We were talking, and he was so kind, but someone had been following us. He--" The man, Credence, was no doubt about to continue the story when Jack realized they were still in the hallway.
"Wait. Come in, then you can tell me what happened." What could have possibly happened to Sam between the phone call and now?
Jack ushered him into the room and closed the door behind them. He looked expectantly at the man.
"Oh, I'm…I'm to tell you-- It was very important that I say the words, 'New York is a real Funkytown.'"
Jack didn't know all of Dean and Sam's codes. He had been with them long enough to know what Poughkeepsie was, but he'd never heard of Funkytown. He pulled out his cell phone and started dialing Sam's number. "Tell me what happened while I try to contact Sam."
Credence looked at him and his phone strangely. "Are you a witch?" he asked, looking at the phone. "How does that allow you to contact this Sam?"
Jack wondered if this man had hit his head. Or if maybe he'd been recently born. "This is a phone. Sam has one too. They communicate with each other."
Credence's snorted in humor first, and then, realizing that Jack was not joking, looked at the mobile phone with eyes widened. "That's a phone?" And then to himself, "It's so small."
Jack lowered the phone from his ear. Sam's phone was going straight to voicemail. "So you're familiar with phones?"
Credence shrugged and turned his head to avoid eye contact. "I remember phones being much bigger and clunkier. And not…like that." As if he knew just what was confusing Jack, Credence added, "The last thing I remember is being home at my church in November, 1926."
1926.
Jack looked at him for a beat. "So, this 'Mr. Winchester' found you?" he settled on asking. He'd never called Dean or Sam by their last name. Maybe that's part of why Dean disliked him so greatly. Jack was starting to wonder if maybe he was supposed to, but thought it would be strange for Sam to be called 'mister.'
Credence nodded. "We talked for quite a bit before things grew complicated."
"You said he's in trouble? I was just on the phone with him a half hour ago."
"You were? I'm glad to hear he's safe. When we were attacked this morning, I was sure he was in great trouble."
Jack was confused. Sam and Jack weren't even in New York this morning. They had been on a plane. "I'm sorry, I don't understand. Can you start from the beginning, when you first met Sam?"
Credence blinked. "No, I met Dean. As I said, he was very kind to me. Kinder than I deserve."
Kind? Jack hadn't known anyone to use that word to describe Dean. No, the Dean in his experience threatened him- 'If I'm right, and it comes to killing you, I'll be the one to do it.'-, drank beer after beer, and knocked him out with solid iron. Yes, that was a shapeshifter, but he looked like Dean and in the back of his mind, Jack wondered if the real Dean would do the same given the right motivation.
A strange fire was burning in his gut as he saw Credence smiling to himself over the perceived kindness from Dean Winchester.
"How are you related to all of this?" asked Jack sharply, trying to quell the embers that were rising in his chest. Why was he growing so angry? What did he care that Dean seemed to warm up to this stranger so easily when he couldn't even bear to look at Jack?
Credence looked to him and wrapped his arms around himself. "I'd rather not say. Are we going to rescue Dean?"
Jack finally shrugged off his backpack, not at all in a rush. He wandered over to the bed and sat on the edge. "Rescue him from what?"
"A witch attacked him. He told me to run, to find this hotel. To tell Sam about New York being a Funkytown."
For the first time, Jack wondered if this man was tricking him. Maybe he had done something to Dean and was now hunting Sam. He really should be more suspicious of people.
Oh!
Jack could admit that sometimes he was a little dense. Of course, Sam and Dean had taught him ways to test if people were monsters. How could he forget so easily? "Just to make sure you're not a demon or something, would you submit to a few tests?" Sam had shown him the basics. Holy water, either thrown at the face or drunk from a glass. Salt…somehow? He wasn't sure how they tested with salt. Maybe he'd just throw it at him? Silver knife to the forearm or hand.
He looked up, realizing that this Credence still hadn't answered him. The boy was hugging himself and still standing awkwardly near the doorway.
"What…what kind of tests?" asked the young man.
Jack felt guilty. He wasn't sure why he was feeling guilty, because tests were part of stranger protocol according to Sam, and he was doing the right thing by doing them. "Well, first this," he said, pulling out a bottle of Holy Water shaped like a woman. He found a salt packet in Sam's duffle and added it to the plastic bottle. "Drink."
Credence looked relieved to see that it was just water. He downed it smoothly, and Jack didn't notice anything worrisome.
Last thing was silver. Jack didn't really have silver around, but there was a foldable knife that he thought was silver or silver-plated, also in the duffle. He flipped the blade open to an audible gasp from the young man.
Credence was looking at him with wide eyes. "Are you…" he started, before swallowing his words and closing in on himself. Silently, he offered his closed hands to Jack.
"Open your fists," Jack instructed, positioning the knife in his own hand so he could make a quick, sharp cut. But as soon as he caught sight of those palms, Jack wished he hadn't. He could have gone his whole life without seeing the crisscrossed pattern of scars on the boy's hands. He wasn't sure what kind of supernatural creature did that to the hands and forearms.
"What thing did that?" his curiosity spurred him to ask aloud before his better judgment could stop his mouth.
Suddenly, Jack was just as sick of the tests as he was sure Credence was.
"A belt," was all Credence said. Jack, for all the social cues he often missed, could tell this was a painful subject. Jack cleared his throat and made the decision to stow the knife for now. He tossed the folded knife back into the open duffle. If Credence crossed him, Jack had powers- unreliable though they were -that seemed to activate when he was threatened. Surely these tests were unnecessary.
"Okay, so you and me. We have to look for Dean. And now also Sam, because he's not answering his phone."
Credence took a few steps forward, gaining confidence. "How do we do that? Do you…" Credence's eyes were wide as he whispered, "Do you have a spell?"
Jack furrowed his brow. Was there a spell they could use? "I don't know. I have a few of Sam's books, but I've never used a tracking spell. If they exist."
Credence sighed. "Does Sam have a book of spells?"
"Sam only brought a few books, and I doubt there's a tracking spell in them. You're welcome to look through them, but I'll start searching the internet." Jack pulled out the laptop and plugged it in, awaiting a long afternoon of trawling through webpages and false leads.
Credence slowly made his way deeper into the hotel room. "You are searching what?" he asked.
Jack then spent the next thirty minutes showing Credence how to 'Google' things and how links led to other 'web' pages or sites.
"You're telling me magic has nothing to do with this?" he asked incredulously. Jack could only shrug. He didn’t know the technology behind it, but Sam had explained it to him once and never used words that implied something supernatural was involved.
"Maybe after all of this, Sam can explain to you how it works. For now, though, maybe take a look in some of those books?"
Credence reluctantly pulled a book out, but his gaze never really left the laptop screen.
Jack closed out of his other tabs to hopefully help the computer run faster, but suddenly Credence's hand was on his arm.
"Wait!" he said with some urgency.
Jack looked up at him. "What?"
Credence loomed over him, gazing intently at the screen. "What is all that?" he asked.
Jack looked at the screen. It was the research he'd been doing for Sam, and it showed the remains of a church on Pike Street. "It's what brought us here in the first place. Explosions. Then I found that explosions just like this had occurred almost a hundred years ago. Sam says it was an Obscurus."
"Is that what I am?" whispered Credence. He pulled the laptop toward himself and starting scrolling down, pictures and text about destruction creating a full picture of what might have happened all those decades ago.
Jack really looked at the boy. Hunched over the laptop, his eyes wide with fear and his jaw clenched tight. Unsure how he would react, but curious all the same, Jack retrieved the large tome about magic users. He knew exactly the page, and set it gently on the laptop's keyboard.
"What--" Credence started, surprised by the sudden weight added to his lap. He put his hand on the page and traced the letters of the chapter. Obscuri and Obscurials.
"Are you same thing that attacked New York?" Jack asked him.
Credence's eyes scanned the page and he flipped to the next one. "Yes," he admitted, still engrossed in the text.
"Sam said it was killed. That it was destroyed." What really happened to Credence? Would Jack have to…stop him? Like Sam and Dean stopped other monsters?
Credence looked up at him. Darkness was seeping in from the corners of the room, roiling and thickening as it drew closer to him. "I was." His eyes were white.
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Credence Barebone is consumed by his obscurus. He is anger and pain and desperation, but here before him stands a woman. He knows there can be cruel women and there can be kind ones. The one talking to him now seems kind and familiar. She says she and Newt will protect him. She makes promises. She tells him that Mr. Graves is using him. He can feel the fear recede, but he doesn't know how to put the monster back. He is coming back to himself, and he remembers that he is human. He is not anger, he is not pain. But suddenly, white lights are bombarding him. He is taken by surprise, he is betrayed, and he is hopeless. He cannot endure. He is no more.
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Credence Barebone awakens in the ruins of the church. He clutches the necklace to himself, wills with all his might for Mr. Graves to come and save him. He cries for a long while, alone in the church. Credence unfolds himself, but he doesn't see Ma or Modesty or Chastity. They are gone. He looks for Modesty at her old home, but no one is there. He wanders the streets of Manhattan, but is inexplicably drawn toward City Hall and the underground. He has always gone to the underground when the world becomes too much for him to handle. He stands on the platform. Something is supposed to happen, but it doesn't. No one is here. He lowers himself onto the tracks, much to strangers' surprise and panic. He is hit. He is no more.
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Credence Barebone awakens in the ruins of the church. He cries and no one comes. He looks for Ma, Modesty, Chastity, Mr. Graves. He wanders until he finds himself on a subway platform. Something is supposed to happen, but it doesn't. He stands there, wondering why he hears echoes of Mr. Graves and that nice lady. He remembers the pain of white lights and lets it consume him. He is no more.
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Credence Barebone awakens in the ruins of the church. He ends up in the underground. He is no more.
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Again, and again, and again. He is no more.
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Credence Barebone awakens in the ruins of the church. He clutches the necklace to himself, wishes for Mr. Graves, but is distracted by cries in the distance.
He blinks and lets go of the symbol hanging from his neck. He stands, realizing that this is not the church at all. He finds a window and becomes witness to something truly horrifying. There are a man, a woman, and a girl who appears a little older than Modesty. She cries silently as the woman shoves her toward the leering man. He has a hungry and cruel face. He holds her possessively to himself and runs a hand down her cheek, much in the same way Mr. Graves once did with Credence.
"Sweet as always," he says in a voice that matches his appearance. The man tosses a small, clear pouch filled with white powder toward the thin woman. She scrabbles for it and spares only a second's glance at the girl.
"Momma, please…" she begs.
"I'll be back for you on Monday, Baby," says the careless woman, already opening the bag and pulling a syringe and other random utensils from her pocket.
Credence doesn't understand the specifics, but he knows a transaction when he sees one.
"Momma…" chokes the girl. The man yanks on her arm and she cries out, only to be met with a hovering backhand. The man looks stunned as his arm is frozen in midair, his muscles stiff as steel.
Once again, Credence becomes anger and pain and destruction.
When he comes back to himself, he finally notices that the city doesn't look right. This is the niggling, burning thought ever irritating the back of his ears. The city, it looks silver, sleek, smooth, boxy. He remembers angles and arches and intricate golden details. He remembers elaborate stonework and beautiful, vaulted ceilings. He remembers bowler hats and full skirts, vests and waistcoats, not…whatever these people are wearing. Some people are wearing single layers, much to Credence's chagrin. They're practically naked! There's the occasional suit, but those are so basic, sleek like the buildings. Even the automobiles have transformed into gaudy, shiny shells. He doesn't understand how New York City could change overnight, and he halfway doubts he's in New York even though the green-topped behemoth known as the Woolworth Building is still looming right in front of him. He's walked all the way here from City Hall, which looks just as it did yesterday. He wonders if magic is responsible for New York's transformation.
He shivers. He knows, he knows that magic is evil, he says to himself like a prayer. He knows that the monster inside him is evil too.
Credence has the necklace tightly in one fist. He realizes slowly that he has it still. Did the necklace transport him to this strange version of New York? Is this what the city looks like to magical people? If he continued squeezing the pendant, would Mr. Graves finally come?
He doesn't go looking for trouble. It finds him. It finds him as he is wandering at night near a shopping center. The lights are all off, except for one location that still has its lights on.
'Massage 1 hour' it reads. He sees people stopping their strange automobiles on the gray slate and then surreptitiously slinking past the door. There's nothing hypnotic about it, and he's fairly certain magic is not involved. He watches as the night continues on, the small cars leave, and then a very large automobile shows itself. It is now very late.
Blood rushes to Credence's head as he sees several young women carted away into the van, looking downtrodden and beaten. He sees men yelling and women cowering. He feels anger swirling around him, and he knows this isn't right. The world has gone wrong. He feels the darkness trying to swallow him, and he lets it.
Credence regains himself and he sees several dead men and no dead women. Hopefully they found somewhere safe. He flees.
The third time he loses himself, it happens because a boy is screaming. Credence cannot abide the screams.
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He has met a few kind faces, but most of them ignore him. Some toss coins at him, so he has learned that he should not sit on streets with foot traffic. Yet some places are dangerous, and he's seen people with knives walking around menacingly. Despite his fear, Credence goes back to the street he knows best. A few of the buildings are familiar, and where the church used to stand is a pile of rubble, but it's the closest thing to home that he has.
His feet take him there in the darkness and he sits in the ruins, wondering whatever happened to Mr. Graves. He doesn't quite sleep and squeezes the symbol ever so tightly, desperately wondering why Mr. Graves would not come to him as promised. Instead, he meets a Mr. Winchester.