COM: Jorogumo

“They’re onto you.”

Aiko’s eyes glittered in the dark as she looked upon her unwelcome visitor. “What makes you say this?” she said, raising up a hand. She was tempted to spring her trap on this woman, but something gave her pause, despite the implied threat.

The blonde shook her head with a throaty chuckle. “Call it a… hunch,” she said, pure confidence in her voice. “I’ve been tracking these boys for some time. They are persistent, if nothing else.”

Aiko sighed. “I’m not worried about any American hunters,” she said dryly. “They don’t know how to handle anything outside of their empty country.”

“Just don’t say I didn’t warn you,” the blonde said. “Though I do have some… tricks you can always use on them. For a price.”

Aiko stiffened to her full height, her cascades of black hair falling to her waist. “What price?” she asked cautiously. “I won’t give up a meal.”

“But you can give me the smaller of the pair,” the blonde said reasonably. “He’s barely even worth your time. Just a mouthful. And for him, I’ll tell you everything I know about them. Every. Last. Bit.”

Aiko’s eyes flashed to the sides, then she beckoned Celeste into her house. Her den. “Step into my lair, said the spider to the fly,” she said teasingly. She did so love the new stories she’d learned since leaving her homeland.

Celeste flicked her hair over her shoulders and strode past the shorter woman, knowing if it came down to a fight, she was the one who would come out on top.

No one on this world could stand up to her.

---

12 hours previously…

“So get this.”

Dean closed his eyes. “Does this mean I need to cut my vacation short?” he grumbled from behind his coffee. He recognized that line from Sam all too well. It meant he was about to find himself given plenty to do for the week, willingly or no.

Sam blinked. “What vacation?” he asked in confusion, looking around.

They were staying in a motel after finishing up their latest case, taking a slow morning of recovery. Sam was antsy to get back on the road to their next job. It felt good to have a mission in front of them.

“The one where we don’t have a case for more than a day.”

Rolling his eyes, Sam batted at the hand he was sitting near. “Be serious. This is a good one.”

Sighing, Dean leaned forward, folding one arm on the table and resting his chin on his arms. “Alright. Shoot.”

Sam tilted his head proudly, stepping on the scroll button on the laptop. “A few towns over, a few of the men have all gone missing. Gone, without a trace, one after the other.”

Dean took another sip of his coffee. “So? Maybe they all hit Vegas for a week without telling the wives.”

“You don’t really believe that.”

Dean groaned. “Does believing it mean I can have another day of sleeping in?”

“No. We’re going, Dean.” Sam gestured at the computer. “Husbands, single men, it doesn’t seem to matter. If you’re a guy, you’re at risk.”

Resigned, Dean sat back up, stretching out his arms and then working the kinks from his neck. “I guess I should go pack and shower,” he muttered.

“You go do that,” Sam said, not about to take any complaints from Dean when there was a possible case on the horizon with multiple victims waiting for them. If they could solve it before more people were taken, all to the better.

Neither of them gave much thought to how the victim profile fit Dean well enough.

---

The day was growing late by the time Dean stood on the doorstep to the wife of the latest victim. Aiko Inoue, the bereaved widow to Ichizo, answered the door without much delay.

“Behave yourself, Dean,” came Sam’s soft voice from his shoulder. “She’s grieving.”

Dean absently nodded as the door swung wide, trusting Sam to hide himself away. They were here to help the woman as much as they could by finding her husband’s kidnapper or killer, but no matter how well a victim reacted to Dean, there was no telling what they would do if they spotted Sam. From screams, to grabbing him, or spreading the word about the man with a tiny companion, nothing would end well. Especially if the word got out about people like Sam existing. They could all be put at risk.

The woman that stood in the doorway was petite, only coming up to Dean’s chest. Her eyes were wide and black, no color showing around the pupil that Dean could spot, and her skin was very fair. She couldn’t have been out of her twenties.

And here she was, a widow at such a young age because of a supernatural menace that they’d sniffed out the trail for too late to help her husband.

“G’day, ma’am,” Dean said, playing up how chivalrous he could be for Sam’s sake. Keep the kid on his toes when he was convinced Dean would screw things up. “I was hoping to ask you a few questions about your husband’s disappearance.”

She blinked, her eyes glassy. “Oh, uh… sure, just follow me…”

In a daze, the woman lead them deeper into the house. Dean took his time strolling along behind her, his eyes expertly searching for any signs of what could have happened when Ichizo went missing. The pattern had shown no signs of stopping. For all they knew, another man would go missing soon and any information Dean could glean from the latest could mean the difference between life and death for the next victim.

That was all he got to think about, as the moment he stepped into the kitchen, a vase smashed down on the back of his head, tossing him into the wall.

The squirming in his pocket as Sam tried to thrash his way out was the last thing Dean heard before the blackness took him, folding over his eyes like a heavy cloth.

Aiko watched Dean lose his fight with consciousness, and smiled. Simple, of course. She took a dignified step forward and reached into Dean’s chest pocket, pulling free the second Winchester. The one Celeste had requested.

“You are such a little morsel, that bitch is lucky,” Aiko murmured. “No reason to eat you when she pays so well.”

Sam scrabbled at her fingers, trying to shove the elegantly painted fingernails away from his chest. “What do you want with us,” he wheezed out, unable to take a full breath with the tight pinch.

“Your brother, well, he’ll be delicious,” Aiko purred, turning away from Dean. The false charade of the house dropped away as some of the witch’s glamor wore off with the new occupants pushing it to the limit. Webbing covered a formerly well kept home, the long strands glistening in the artificial light from above.

Aiko opened up a cabinet, selecting some of the spices she was fond of from her home country. “You… all I know is the one that wants you, wants you bad.”

She pressed Sam into a tangled knot of web, and added more threads to bind his arms and legs. His satchel hung inches from him, similarly caught. He was suspended several feet in the air. Even if he could free his arms and legs, he would fall through several more clumps of spiderweb before reaching the ground. To make sure he stayed stuck, Aiko added more sticky threads to the ones around him. If he struggled, he would wind his trap further and further around him, like a dog tied to a pole.

“Now for you…” she said to Dean’s prostrate form.

Reaching under his arms, she picked him up with inhuman strength. The webbing needed to keep Dean trapped took time to make, and more of her natural form became visible as she worked. Far from her regular ability to shapeshift into a beautiful woman, and masquerading as Aiko, the spider form of her body was not going to bring the men running. Mandibles split from between her teeth, and she manipulated the thread she was creating with hands that slowly became covered in bristles that refused to get stuck.

“Jorōgumo like me gotta eat,” she said gamely to Sam, flipping a finger against one of the foundation threads that held him up. It set his entire web swinging, but was in no danger of snapping. She always knew how to make a proper lair. “Now, stay put. I need to fetch something from the town.”

Flipping her hair over her shoulder, the faint impression of a spider faded, leaving a beautiful woman standing in the kitchen draped with spiderwebs, untouched by them. Dean was stuck to the wall, looking like an overlarge fly that had gotten stuck in the webbing.

While Sam was only a little bigger than a regular spider’s prey.

---

The Jorōgumo remained gone for over an hour. A very long hour, that passed with Sam suspended in midair.

Bored.

He was unable to free his arms from where Aiko had placed them. It felt like he was about to be drawn and quartered, arms and legs all stretched out in different directions. Nothing he did could loosen the webbing.

Sam growled, and relaxed. He needed a better plan for this.

The thread closest to him quivered. Sam blinked, remembering how spiders could set up threads to alert them to possible threats, or prey that was caught in a part of the web they couldn’t see. Was there someone else here…?

The next minute, spent watching that thread with an eagle eye as it bounced and shook, felt like a lifetime. Sam couldn’t twist around to see what was behind him, and he couldn’t see where the thread ended, stretching beyond the countertop and he assumed down to the floor.

A shadow moved. Sam couldn’t stop a flinch, shouting in surprise.

Two familiar eyes met his as someone swung around on the thread to look him in the eyes, revealing herself at last.

“Lira!”

“That’s me,” Lira smiled, her teeth gleaming white in the light. “We heard you and your brother needed help and since I owe you… here I am! Brought my boyfriend with me this time.”

Sam frowned, and looked around. “Is he further up in the web? Wait.” Suddenly things clicked. “You’re in the web. How can you move?” He gave another pull, but couldn’t get his arm free.

He was definitely still stuck, but here she was standing on it like she was taking a walk in the forest.

Lira tilted her head in amusement. "Funny, I don't recall ever telling you what my boyfriend is. How else to get you out of a spider's web than with a spider?"

“Spider…?”

Distantly in the house, he could hear more skittering. Threads close by twitched, and Dean’s cocoon on the wall split away, tossing him to the floor and waking him up.

“Son of a bitch! ” Dean shouted in reaction to the sudden onset of consciousness as he was ripped from sleep. The webs remained stuck around him, binding his arms and legs, but he struggled desperately to reach a weapon. “Sam, where are you?!”

“Up here!” Sam called on instinct.

Another shadow revealed itself, walking on the threads Aiko had created with less effort than Lira had, despite the far-larger size.

Eight long limbs stretched out, anchoring the heavy body so it was suspended in the air. Sam would have believed it was a spider, if not for the man’s torso that rose up from the front. A golden necklace with a charm on it belied the terrifying look, but only by a slight amount. Vibrant amethyst eyes blazed out at the brothers, looking between them as he climbed down from releasing Dean from the web.

Sam blinked, mouth moving a few times with no sound coming out as he searched for a name to put to the thing in the room with them.

“Meet my boyfriend Venom!” Lira declared as she bounced over the threads, landing on Venom’s shoulder as he descended from the ceiling, coming close enough for her to reach.

“Your boyfriend’s the monster?” Dean sputtered in offense. “There are people missing!”

“No, the monster’s a Jorōgumo,” Sam automatically corrected.

“Is that was you call a half spider?” Dean said, trying to push himself to his feet to scramble away. “Because he sure ain’t human!”

Venom let out a long-suffering sigh. "Do I look like a woman to you, or are you just that stupid?"

Dean sent Sam a lost look, and Sam remembered that he had been unconscious for everything since meeting Aiko.

“It’s Aiko,” Sam supplied. “She knocked you out, then tied us up in the web. She’s coming back, and she plans on eating you then.”

Dean went ashen. “What is he then?” he demanded, looking more at Lira this time. Not meeting Venom’s inhuman expression and eyes.

“Drider,” Venom said coldly, refusing to let Dean ignore him. “Do get your facts straight; Jorōgumo are only women, driders can be either.”

Reaching for Sam, it was the work of seconds to cut the threads around him and set him free. Sam found himself on Venom’s palm, brushing away what he could of the remaining webbing.

Then he felt his hair.

“Dammit!” he shouted, feeling the sticky mess. He tried to scrub his hands through, but only made it worse. “Does this stuff come off?”

Venom chuckled in amusement at the borrower’s reaction to his predicament. “It won’t last,” he assured him.

Lira ran down Venom’s arm, joining Sam in his palm. "Venom will free Dean in just a moment," she playfully winked, "Consider it payback for Dean snatching me, dumping water on me, and treating me like I was a threat. Believe me," she gestured to Venom, "He is a much greater threat than I am."

Dean looked dumbfounded. Sam counted down in his head.

3, 2, 1…

“Of course I treated you like a threat!” Dean burst out.

Right on the money.

While Sam congratulated himself on how well he knew his brother, Dean continued his tirade, utterly done. “You pop up out of nowhere, have abilities we’ve never seen before-- and we’ve seen a lot!-- then we send you back to another universe and you show back up with Spiderman! What did you expect?”

Venom arched his eyebrows, uncertain of the reference Dean was using. “You’re lucky you sent her back,” he said, a low threat contained in his voice.

“Whoop-de-frickin-do,” Dean said sarcastically. “I ain’t afraid of spiders.”

Sam debated about bringing up how leery Dean was about putting his hand in dark places, then decided to remain silent while between the two giants. “Maybe we could focus on the actual threat?” he asked mildly, interjecting himself into the conversation. “If you can help us with Aiko, Dean won’t touch you, promise.”

“Sam--!”

Sam shook his head. “We’re still alive,” he reminded Dean. “Lira isn’t going to betray us.”

Dean glowered. “It’s not Lira I’m worried about,” he said grumpily, but he had faded from anger to resignation.

“Now that that’s settled,” Lira said brightly, “How about freeing Dean?”

Venom bent two of his front legs so he was leaning down. “So long as Dane behaves himself around you,” he told her, snapping the webbing that wrapped around Dean’s torso.”

Dean grumbled, “It’s Dean.”

Once Venom had done the same for his legs, Dean brushed what he could off of the web, standing unsteadily on his feet and holding a hand out for Sam.

Sam wasted no time in hopping over to Dean’s hand, but he cringed at the mess Dean’s jacket was. “I think I’ll stay here,” he offered, preferring to avoid getting more webs stuck in his hair.

Dean scowled. “Does this crap come out?” he grumbled.

“Try hot water,” Lira advised.

“Got a plan to deal with Little Miss Muffet?” Dean asked, switching back to the case. Despite everything that happened, he still wanted to focus on the monster. The one they knew was killing people. “Since you went through all this trouble to help us.” The last part he had to grit between his teeth, ill adapted to thanking what he saw as a monster for saving his life.

“Which we’re very thankful for,” Sam put in.

“We do,” Lira said confidently. “We just need to set it up before she gets here.”

---

“You’re sure this will work?” Dean asked dubiously.

On his hastily cleaned shoulder, Sam and Lira were standing while Venom finished setting up a trap for the recently-widowed Aiko. Whether she had been a human before, a monster always, or the monster had killed and eaten the beautiful Aiko to replace her, she was now the most dangerous being in the town.

Almost the most dangerous.

“Venom’s webs are poisonous,” Lira chirped. Dean had started warming up to her, despite how he and Venom continued to eye each other as possible prey. She had an effectively warm and confident personality. “Since the Jorōgumo is from this world and not ours, she’ll be weak to his poisons.”

“Tell Saul to stay away from the webs,” Venom called from where he had put up the last one. “I don’t need to worry about antivenoms here, and I’m sure they don’t want a trip to our world.”

“It’s Sam!” Dean called in annoyance.

Ignoring him, Venom crawled over to where the other three were waiting, spreading out his legs to flatten against the floor and out of sight of the Jorōgumo when she came in. “Any second now…” he breathed. “I can hear her coming.”

They waited, patient in the darkening kitchen. The artificial light from above couldn’t cut through the webs as well as before, and the sun was setting outside.

Aiko walked in, all unknowing that her webs had been replaced by far more sinister versions. “I just can’t wait to see how you taste with… Hey!” She had spotted the very large gap where Dean had once hung. “Shit.”

With a wave of her hand, smaller spiders skittered out from her sleeves. These seemed to glow with an inner light, almost on fire as they set out to search for Dean. Meanwhile, Aiko reached for the place where Dean had been in search of what had cut him free. She knew there was no way that smaller hunter could have done it…

Brushing against one of the hanging threads, she hissed as it burned her skin. Another caught her as she jerked backwards, feeling the unnatural alienness of the webs that covered her kitchen. And other, yanking forward to try and escape, her spider form showing more and more as she tried to control the webs around her like she could earlier.

When the smaller spiders reached them, Venom breathed out. They were thrown back, curled up and twitching from his poison breath.

“Cover your mouth,” Lira suggested quietly as she held her sleeve over hers.

Dean did so, scrunching further back as Venom finished off the last of the Jorōgumo's spiders.

Venom heaved himself up, stretching to his full eight feet as the Jorōgumo twisted herself deeper and deeper into the webs, and they continued to sap her strength.

“Looks like it’s all over for you,” he said, reaching for Aiko to finish her off.

“Wait!” Aiko threw up a hand defensively. Her spider form vanished in an instant, replaced by the beautiful woman cowering in front of him. “You and me… we could be great… a drider? Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen one?” Her voice turned seductive. “This town would only be the start.”

“Not interested,” Venom said, backhanding her.

With the strike, her disguise dropped away completely. The spider on the ground was smaller than Venom’s spider body, black eyes glistening up at him. Nigh-invisible threads connected her to her children, all of which were curled in balls, dead of the poison.

Venom ended the Jorōgumo's life, and put a stop to the nightmare.

---

“You sure you’ll both be able to get home fine?” Sam asked, where they stood in the living room of the house.

Lira nodded with a grin. “You bet! We just reversed that spell you boys gave us last time when we heard what was happening.”

“How’d you know?” Dean asked gruffly, trying to not show any amusement at her. He failed, a warm glint in his green eyes.

“Word travels fast,” she advised. “People are interested in you. Very interested.”

“Do a better job covering your tracks,” Venom said in annoyance. “I don’t want to get dragged back here again because you got stuck in another web.”

“We’ll do our best,” Sam said, amused.

Dean didn’t say another word as they watched the pair leave through the same portal as they’d come. He hadn’t quite come to terms with working with monsters.

Sam sat back with a huff, then shrieked at the warm, sticky clump of spiderweb that anchored to his shoulder that was stuck to Dean’s neck. “Dude, not cool!”

Dean chuckled. “Guess it’s time for a shower,” he commented dryly.

Sam wrung his hands. “I hope it works,” he whined. “My hair is covered.”

Turning on his heel, Dean headed for the door, leaving the decaying corpse of the spider behind. It was already fading into dust, the wind sweeping away the remains of the Jorōgumo.

FIN