Disclaimer... See Chapter One.

7. Shoot First, Apologise Later

Its business doing pleasure with you.

Maybe Dean was right, is your only thought as the demon shoves you up against the wall, his teeth amassing in his maw as you watch, his knife heavy against your jugular. But I'll never admit it.

"I'm going to peel the flesh from your bones, layer by layer, until it's only your eyeballs, your bones and your vital organs looking up at me. You'll still be alive, though, just for daring to come here. What do you think of that?" the demon's threats come, slashing through the air along with lightly acidic saliva that bites your face. Its eyes burn with the familiar fire of the damned.

You wanted to yawn in its face.

"Well, gee, thanks. But, you know, I'd really rather you didn't." You shove against him, but your strength, though it far surpasses many of your gender and age, is not nearly enough to affect the demon's hold.

It smiles, and the knife performs a calculated twitch against the silken, yielding skin of your throat, opening a small cut that leaks ruby life blood onto the blade. It pools there and the demon watches it with the deliberate, sadistic pleasure of a predator. A predator that was looking kind of hungry before its favourite meal jumped into its jaws, clung to its rather large teeth with strong hands and started to shout 'eat me, eat me!'.

You don't move a muscle, ignoring the threat as though it were non-existent. You've gotten yourself out of worse fixes, you're sure. You can't think of any right now that have been worse, but you're sure there must have been at least one.

"Mind the skin, buddy. It's a unique item, shipped all the way from the womb of –"

"Shut up," the demon hisses, and its spittle flicks your face again, along with the knife. He glides its tip over your cheekbone, the metal a cold kiss against the heat of your skin. You close your eyes, and think to yourself, For fuck's sake…

"Dude, okay, fine. But just one last thing? Say it, don't spray it."

The flames in the demon's eyes seem to grow higher and you realise its going to be the last thing you see as it raises the knife above its head, probably planning to use it much as a farmer would a sickle. Except the harvest this spring was your head.

Screw the romantic Titanic death scene, of Rose dying in her bed, old and fulfilled. Screw the going down in glory and freedom, and being buoyed with the reassurance that you'd be blazing forever in the minds of hunters and innocents alike. You were going to die now, here, today, and your last memory was going to be a slobbering demon with a beer belly, a toupee, too many teeth for his fleshy mouth, and a cheap suit. You'd fade into obscurity, and possibly the most anyone would ever say about you would be, 'oh, that – what was it? – Lauren chick? Yeah…what a failure she turned out to be'.

You didn't want to die.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," a familiar voice sounded from across the room, and you could have burst into tears. Not because you were scared or anything…it was just, it had been a long, long time since anyone had had your back like these boys did. Sure, John'd be there to clean up your mess if you were ever idiotic enough to get yourself killed, and you're sure that any other hunter in the area that had known you would have gotten revenge – but Sam and Dean were just there, their frank protectiveness, and the sure, yet surprising, knowledge that practically anything they had they'd give you in a heartbeat – although it was a major feminist bubble burster – kept you loving them. And equally wanting to run as far away as you possibly could.

The last time you'd hunted with someone, had been in a team effort like this – well, it hadn't worked out all that peachy. You weren't ready to open up to anyone yet.

However, in times like this, when they were saving your ass (even though Dean was probably going to whup it, then gloat over it later), came in very handy.

"Oh, and how are you going to stop m–" the demon started monologue-ing slash rhetorically questioning your rescuers. God, you hated it when the bad guy started doing that. Can you say walking stereotype?

He was cut off swiftly by two shots in the back of his head, that due to the slant came out of his head again in the front and the bullets thudded into the wall, leaving impact marks about the size of your fist. They missed you by about half of that width. Looking straight ahead, you saw Dean, his gun still pointed where the demon's head had been scarce two seconds ago. You wondered vaguely if he was going to shoot you too, for being such an idiot. You hoped not, though. Imagine, escaping death from a demon, only to be killed by Dean. Sam was standing behind him, you realised, pretty much as an after thought. Sam didn't look like he was going to kill you. Well, at least not as much.

"So…" you said, looking down at the body sprawled in front of you, and nodding slowly. Saliva started to smoke the wood around its mouth as blood pooled beneath its head. You cleared your throat, and pursed your lips, still nodding awkwardly. "Awesome shot. Are we leaving now?"

Dean stalked inside, gun still held at his side. Don't look away, you coached yourself. Show no fear… It was surprisingly harder to be brave in the face of Dean's anger, as opposed to the demon's threat. Strange. "You're bleeding," Dean said, eyes running over the skin of your neck, where the demon had cut you, and your right cheek, green eyes finally deigning to meet yours. You hadn't even registered it, when the demon had sliced up your cheek. If I get a scar…you thought, horrified, and then Dean held out a big, square, man's handkerchief with the hand that wasn't clutching the gun with white knuckles. It was blue, and at least half clean. "Clean up. We'll talk about this later." You stared at it, until he made an impatient sound in the back of his throat, jerking it up and down in front of your face until you reached for it. You took it from his hand, fingers touching for a millisecond, and – repressing the instinct to stare at it some more – pressed it against your neck wound. He turned, and walked out, neither Sam nor he saying another word. You followed quietly, content for once to stay silent.

Suddenly the thought of the big pay out you were going to get didn't piss you off anymore. It hardly even worried you…

It meant he cared, at least.

000

You wanted to scream. You wanted to kick, and bite and scratch and tear and claw your way out of this situation – the situation that was possibly your very worse nightmare personified.

You'd been flirting. Everyone flirts, right? Everyone does it, it's not like it was something that was taboo, or illegal or demanded strict punishment. It was an innocent pastime that signified interest in a member of your race.

It didn't mean that you wanted to be pressed up against a cold, damp, solid brick alley wall, with a huge body covering yours entirely, and a mouth that was as cold and damp as the wall behind you clamped down on yours.

It had all happened as though in slow motion; the guy had invited you out the back, and you'd thought to yourself, 'why the hell shouldn't I? I deserve fun in my life. I shouldn't keep hounding and harping after something I never even had a chance of getting'. So you'd followed him out here, and thought that even if he did try something funny, you had the upper hand, right? You had weapons, you had training, you had strength. The only thing you didn't have was the element of surprise – he did. He'd shoved you against the brick wall, the impact leaving you winded for that single crucial second it took for him to get the advantage.

And now, here you were.

You squirmed, trying to escape the guy – what was his name? – as he shoved a tongue down the back of your throat, activating gag reflexes and almost choking you. You pushed against his chest, and then pinched and twisted at his skin repeatedly, as powerfully as you could from this angle. Your hands were caught between your bodies, from when you'd realised what was happening and had settled into a pose to protect yourself. You couldn't reach any of your weapons, your knife, your guns, your safety pin even. If you could, you wouldn't hesitate to use them on this man that dared to – that dared to – to use and violate you in this –

He just moaned, grinding himself against your stomach, and ripping your t-shirt so he could get to your breasts. The cold air assaulting your chest made it even more real to you. Gooseflesh rippled all over the exposed skin, and your nipples hardened with the chill.

This was happening. It was really happening. But your mind still couldn't seem to grasp the concept, refusing steadfastly to believe it was happening to you. Things like this couldn't happen to you. You weren't normal. Things like this didn't happen to people like you. You were supposed to be immune from things like this.

His fingers twisting your nipples, cruel, hard, demanding, stripped you of this misconception. You gasped into his mouth, and he seemed to take it as desire on your part, dancing his tongue around your own. You tried to bite it, and when you did, he reared back and slapped you with one open hand, knocking your head back against the bricks behind you, not stars, but flickering red and black dots appearing behind your eyelids.

Suddenly the cool air was back on your body, instead of an overheated, drunken weight. You blinked, shocked, and then saw them on the ground.

Dean was straddling the guy and punching him, over and over and over, repeatedly, one fist then the next smashing his face into a pulp. Dean's fist rearing back, then pummelling forwards, hurtling towards the guy's face and snapping it back repeatedly from where it was held up against the ground by Dean's fist clutching his shirt. The crunch of bones rearranging, the blood flowing freely from his nose and mouth, the cuts appearing from Dean's ring tearing his skin, it was all viewed through a calm, peaceful serenity on your behalf.

You stood there, black t-shirt torn wide open down the front, exposing your breasts enclosed in their serviceable black bra, hair curling around your face in wild, vulnerable disarray, eyebrow bleeding from where the man hit you, hazel gold eyes wide and glazed, viewing the scene before you as though it were all a strange dream.

It was rhythmic – animal and wild, yet strictly disciplined and controlled. Dean was probably operating at the same level of rage that you had been when the guy had first put his hands on you, minus the fear. Even if he wasn't the angriest you'd ever seen him, like that time you'd attracted the attention of a werewolf when you were supposed to be guarding the victim but had swapped places with Sam, or when you'd gotten a hole in your shoulder leaping in front of him to save him from being stabbed in the heart by the poker that one poltergeist had been wielding. This time he was in absolute control of himself, which was really fucking scary – the combination of rage and restraint mixing to create this rationally thinking Dean that had the power to murder without a qualm.

He was going to kill that man.

You couldn't let him.

The man was unconscious and probably going into some happy, painless place he didn't deserve when you pulled Dean off of him as hard as you could – it only resulted in him trying to shrug you off, and as a consequence you tugging harder until you both fell back onto the concrete in a sprawl of limbs and denim and leather.

"Dean," you puffed, breathing in sharply and almost panting. You stared up at him, mouth working. He just waited, raising his eyebrows and inviting you to continue. You knew you had to do it – you knew it but it still rankled, so you sighed and closed your eyes, tightening your grip on the front of his shirt when he ran out of patience and made to climb off you again. You opened your eyes again and said, crankily, but still saying it none the less; "You – well, you saved me. Thank you." He'd better appreciate it – you hardly ever thanked anyone, ever. He was one of the few that weren't random barkeeps or waitresses. And you weren't just saying it to pacify him, to make him calmer and less likely to get off you and back onto the guy. You actually meant it.

He looked down at you, from where he'd lifted himself onto his elbows above you, and his tense, locked jaw almost seemed to soften a little. Almost. His green eyes blinked down at you as he said, completely and succinctly; "God Lauren, I made myself a promise to protect you – but I never knew it was going to be so fucking hard. Okay, I did, but seriously. Trouble just follows you around, doesn't it?"

Your mind just stayed on the first part of what he'd said, instead of clinging to his exasperation in you as it usually would. After all, he'd just almost killed your wanna-be molester. You couldn't really start going off at him, could you? And besides… "When did you make this promise?" And why?

"Doesn't matter." You could almost feel his mental shrug and withdrawal. "Sam's still in there, probably worrying about us by now. You know how he is. Let's go." He got off of you, and you almost felt bereft. His weight pressed against all of you was a completely different experience to the other guy's. Pleasant. Arousing. You felt as though you could have taken him right there on the dirty concrete, the unconscious guy two feet away. But that wasn't surprising really. You wanted Dean almost every second of the day. Even when he was pissing you off. He was just like that.

Besides, now your chest was exposed again, and the night air was really fucking cold. It made you shiver as he offered you a hand to help you up, and you took it, eyes meeting again as your bodies knocked each other's with his still anger-fuelled momentum. "Yeah," you said, letting go of his huge, warm, calloused hand and turning away. You held the front of you shirt together, pointing yourself in the direction of the bar again and trying to smooth your hair down. There was no way Sam wouldn't realise what had happened and freak out; but a girl had to try, right? "Let's go."

000

It was just another seedy bar in another boring town, just like all the rest. You didn't want alcohol, you didn't want companionship, or Sam's diligent researching of your latest case, and you especially didn't want to have to sit there and watch some Twinkie and her best friend, both of them barely over the legal drinking age, proposition Dean, who was flirting back so hard it made your head spin just watching them at it. It wasn't the only part of your anatomy they made churn, either.

You ever noticed how many different ways there are to say 'throwing up'? Heaving, chucking, and vomiting, of course. Hurling, tossing your cookies. Puking. Ralphing. Cascading, perhaps, though it doesn't quite do the actual act justice. Blowing chunks, for instance, captures the precise imagery of it. Spewing your guts. Tangoing with the toilet. Technicolour yawn. Barfing…

So you came outside, and were slumming on the hood of the Impala, thinking of as many more euphemisms for it, and thus, your feelings on the whole Twinkie plus friend plus Dean scenario as you possibly could, when you saw her.

You couldn't believe it. Of all the places, of all the times, of all the people you ever, ever could have seen, noticed, or hoped to have seen – it was her. At least – you thought it was. It might be. It could be. Couldn't it? Or was that just wishful thinking? Did you want to see her? Had it really been so long that you couldn't recognise the way she walked, the way she held herself, carried herself? Had it really been so long that it may be just a random woman that you tricked yourself into thinking was her?

Your throat was dry, your tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth – but somehow you were able to get your mouth running. Jaw working, lips trembling, you mouthed the word – her name – a couple of times, before it came out, croaky, strangled, a half gasp, half tortured supplication to some higher cause.

"Sharika?" you whispered, then again, louder. "Sharika?"

The woman turned around. It was her.

Suddenly the anger hit you, wiping away all the fear and hope that had first hit you when you'd seen her familiar face – no, not the anger, the rage. The white hot, furious, all consuming rage, hurt, betrayal, pain. How many words were there to list all the different emotions you were feeling?

Not nearly enough.

Your jaw was a tense line of feeling, strong and uncompromising, as you tried to hold it back, this redness you felt sweeping over your mind, over your eyes in heated waves. You clenched your fists, nails digging into the skin of your palms and leaving half-moon markings that you would look at later, seeing the bruises and sharp imprints, and wonder how they had come to be. You didn't even realise you were doing it – all you knew was you had to stop yourself from the impulse to wrap your hands around her neck and choke out all the words she should have said to you. Your every atom was focused on her. What would she say? What would she do?

"Lauren?" she whispered back, and you heard her. Barely five feet away from you, she stood, in closer proximity than the two of you had shared in over a year. A whole fucking year.

Your eyes were filling with tears. Tears of confusion, you told yourself, but you weren't sure you believed it. This was plenty confusing of course, even without the added weight of your crazed and tangled thought and emotional patterns. But then you had to take everything else into account. Especially the anger.

You couldn't talk. All you could do was stare at her, heart pounding like a sledge hammer against your ribcage, throat working, right eyebrow twitching. You were trying to keep your face expressionless, but it wasn't working out all that great. You could feel the mask that had kept you safe since she'd left you slip, and you felt closer to – insert your favourite term for heaving here – than you had even while watching Dean.

She was speechless too; eyes wide with shock and confusion, and you knew what she was going to do seconds before she did it. That's what happens when you know someone better than they know themselves. "I'm sorry, so sorry," she whispered, and made to teleport out, but before the idea barely triggered in her brain, you were on top of her, straddling her waist where she lay against the concrete. She wouldn't be going anywhere now, without taking you with her.

"You," you hiss, pressing her shoulders into the ground, fingers digging in against her soft flesh. "You," you say again, tears choking you, clogging your throat. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Working a job. You?"

"Same. Well, that's enough pleasantries, I believe. Why the fuck did you leave me? Where the hell have you been?" These questions had been burning you, torturing you since that fateful day last year when you'd awoken in your motel bed, and all her stuff had been gone. There was no note, no phone call, to tell you what was going on; her numbers had been changed, her car was left behind with you so you couldn't have tracked her that way, and she was far too experienced to ever be brought in by the police. Even her credit cards were cancelled. She was always a one for details, which led you to wonder how long she'd been planning it.

You'd had to face it though, finally; any interaction between the two of you from then on would be on her terms. If it ever came. It hadn't.

Until now.

You were shaking with the intensity of your fury as you stared down at her. Her dark eyes were looking up at you in shock and hurt, black hair splayed against the dirty concrete. She wet her lips and opened her mouth – you had to make an effort to concentrate, to do something other than stare and stare and hold yourself back. You didn't want to hurt her, no matter what she'd done to you. You weren't that kind of person.

"Lauren, I –"

You lost it then. The sound of your name on her lips again, as though nothing had changed, as though everything were the same and she was just berating you over something ordinary, like forgetting to take the dirty socks to the laundry room with the rest of the clothes. You started shaking her by the shoulders, banging her head and body repeatedly back against the pavement Her hair flew up around your face, mingling with your own loose curls, and your eyes were closed, face screwed up as the words were torn out of you. "A whole fucking year, with no contact, Sharika. No contact at all – and no way for me to – do you know what it did to me? Do you? Do you?! Do you even fucking care?!" You were yelling now, and the real words didn't come out. The ones you'd practiced in case this eventuality ever came up – you even practiced in your dreams sometimes, except those were a lot more violent. The ones that weren't all pent up agony and frustration and hate and –

She rolled you over suddenly, and she was on top of you in the exact position you'd just been in, face in your face, hands clutching your shoulders. A single one of your ringlets stayed curled around a lock of her hair, as though it was trying to keep in contact. As though it couldn't bear to let all of her go. You stared at it as she leant closer to you, trying to capture your eye.

"Lauren –"

"Get off me!" you screamed. "Get off me!" Suddenly her touching you was just wrong and too much and you wanted her off you, you wanted her gone, anywhere but here, anywhere you didn't have to see her, to deal with these waves of emotion, feelings like you hadn't felt for –

"Lauren, please –"

"Get off her!" the voice came. You'd half been expecting it; they always show up when you're in the most compromising of positions. When you're in trouble. They must expect it from you by now, too.

You must have blanked for a moment, because she was off you, and Dean was picking you up, and you were staring at her and Sam was trying to say something, trying to ask you something, ask her something, and you could barely hear it over the rushing in your ears.

You're standing now, Dean's body shielding you from most of her view, though you can still see her face from under his arm, as his hands are on your shoulders, shaking you a little, trying to get you to pay attention to what he is saying. You realise he's been speaking for a while now, he must have been, the exasperation on his face shows this.

"Who is she, Lauren?" Dean's face is in your face now, practically pressed up against yours its so close. You stare at the tiny, almost invisible freckles on his nose, trying to register his words. He's trying to break you out of your shock, and you know it, so you try to answer. But all that comes out is a half truth, a once automatic response.

"My best friend."

AN: Hope it wasn't too….anything. Next chapter is a flashback. You'll see – if I get another three reviews! Hey, if it works, why change it? I know, it must be annoying and evil and stuff…but…yeah. Can you really blame me? Ok. Cool. Hope you liked it. BYEEEE.