Number Seven
In the Dark - 07
"You need to change the subject. I mean it Sam." Dean gave Sam the look. It was impossible to see in the dark, so it was a wasted effort.
"Change the subject?! What? Is this like a joke to you?" Sam had his hand out in front of him, slowly moving it back and forth as he tried to touch anything to get an idea of where he was.
"Yeah, a really funny joke. Hear me laughing? Ow, shit!" Dean walked into a desk, banging his foot and leg.
"Damn desk. Who the hell puts a desk out in the middle of a room like that?" Dean mumbled as he rubbed at the pain in his leg. He was just about to ask Sam a question when he heard a soft rattle. He turned his back to the desk and listened as a louder, quicker rattle sounded behind him.
"Sammm…I think we got a slight problem here…"
"Oh, for the love of…" Sam mumbled as he tried to control the irritation that was overwhelming him. "What now, Dean? And just keep the bad jokes to yourself this time."
"I think there's a rattler loose in here somewhere. Well, actually somewhere near me, to be exact." Dean heard another rattle and decided he might be safer standing on the desk.
"Dean, if this is another one of your…" Sam stopped talking as he heard Dean making odd banging noises. "What the hell?"
Sam was about to tell Dean to quit screwing around when he heard him swear.
"You okay, Dean?"
"Yeah, just one of those spike things on the desk. Ow! God, that hurts! You know, the kind the note things get stabbed onto. Ow, shit! Just stuck my hand on it. Damn it, I'm bleeding like a stuck pig here." Dean mumbled a few more choice cuss words under his breath as he applied pressure on the hole in his hand using the bottom of his shirt.
"Sam, I'm telling ya, you need to get off the floor, there's a rattlesnake loose in here." Dean's hand was throbbing in time to his heartbeat. His heart rate was a little high as he heard the rattler send out another warning.
Sam spoke softly to himself. "Damn it, Dean! If this is another one of your lame-ass stunts, you're gonna be walking back to the motel."
Sam tried to look around as he blindly moved forward. He couldn't see a thing.
Finally, his hand hit some sort of metal shelving unit that went way above his head.
"Took long enough." Now it was Sam's turn to hear the rattle. "Oh, shit!"
He had nowhere else to go, so he climbed up a few shelves to get off the floor.
"Dean! Is your snake still over there?"
"Well, hang on a minute, let me check." Dean moved his booted foot to the ground and was answered with a warning rattle. He quickly pulled it up again. "Yup, still here, Sam. Why?"
"I think there might be two of those moving around. I got one over…Oh, damn!"
"Sam! Sam! What's wrong? You get bit? Sam!"
"Damn it! No, not bit. Just had a rat run over my hand. God, I hate surprises."
"How'd ya know it was a rat?"
"Are you serious? You want to know how I know it was a rat? Damn it, Dean! I know, okay, I know. Had one at school I worked with in my lab class, that's how I know." Sam was turning his head trying to hear where the snake might be. Holding onto the shelf was getting a little old.
"You had a pet rat? What the hell were you learning up there, Sam? I mean, a rat? Seriously?"
"It wasn't like that, Dean. She was the rat I used for my 'Behavioral' class experiments. Used her to test the theories from Psych class. It was the lab part of the class. Can we stop talking about rats now and figure out what we're gonna do here, Dean?"
Sam was having a hard time not doing anything, so he decided to work his way along the shelves to see if it would be safe to get down farther away. He started moving slowly.
"You took a Psych class? What, so now you can analyze why I do what I do? Damn it, Sam! You know I hate that voo-doo crap. What's next? You gonna tell me I have a mother complex and a father dissociative pattern of behavior? Is that what I'm gonna be hearing?"
Sam's voice showed the effort he was using trying to move along the shelf.
"No, Dean, no complexes, no patterns." Sam paused for a second. "Although, now that you bring it up, maybe…"
Sam was grinning. Luckily, Dean couldn't see it.
"Sam, so help me, I'm gonna…" Dean's voice was loud, but before he could finish his threat, a door opened and a light switch was flipped. The room lit up. Sam and Dean were temporarily blinded by the bright lights.
The young woman who stood in the doorway was stunned by what she'd walked in on. A guy was hanging on her shelves, and damn, if he wasn't a big 6'5". She knew she wasn't off by an inch. And he looked ridiculous hanging there.
She saw Beanie curled up three feet away from him.
"Aw, for heaven's sake, you poor thing." As she moved to pick up the snake, she spoke to him.
"Scared, huh? Did those big feet scare you?" Holding him in her hands, she turned to face Sam's back. Sam was finally able to see a little and he got off the shelves to face her. Sam noticed she looked a little angry. He stuck out his hand.
"Hi. My name's Sam."
She couldn't believe he was standing there introducing himself as if hanging off of shelves in the dark was the most normal thing in the world.
"Hey! Excuse me. Over here." Dean was still on the desk, he couldn't find the snake that was near him, so he wasn't getting off.
She turned, startled. "Oh, sweet Jesus!" You scared the hell out of me! Who the hell are you? And why are you standing on my desk? Are you bleeding all over it? What the hell?"
Holding the snake, she started toward Dean. She heard a soft rattle as she got near.
"You, too, Jelly? Hang on." She moved to put the first snake into a tank so she could fetch the other one.
Getting down on her hands and knees, she gently pulled the larger snake out and started cooing to it.
Dean, leaning over, watched her as she stretched under the desk. Sam had moved closer so he got a better angle, too.
Sam stopped and took a step back. This snake was huge.
Dean, seeing what she came up with, jumped off the desk and moved to where Sam was standing.
"Damn! Just how big is that thing?"
She paused long enough to give them a "put-upon" look. She moved to a larger empty tank and stood on her toes to gently put the snake on its hot rock.
"You can't be serious? What are you doing here?" She asked her questions with her back to them and when she turned around, she just barely caught them staring at her ass. She kept her smile inside as she moved to the bleeding hand guy.
"Who are you guys? What are you doing here?" She reached Dean and pulled his stuck shirttail off his palm. Holding his hand up, she inspected the slowly seeping hole. She looked up at his face.
"What the hell happened here?! How'd you manage to get a hole in your hand?"
Pushing on the area around it, she inadvertently started the blood flow again. She pulled a black bandana out of her back pocket and pushed it firmly onto his palm. As she looked up, she saw he hadn't shown the least little reaction to the pain she must have caused.
Surprising. She thought, as she looked into the greenest eyes she'd ever seen. Even more surprising. She mentally shook herself.
"Sam, is it? Sam, explain to me what's going on. You two can't possibly be burglars, you've hit the wrong building. Now, start talking so's I don't have to call Officer Burns, my brother. He wouldn't like it that I walked in on two strange guys hanging in my lab."
"Oh, yeah, no! No need to call anybody. Your dad's a friend of Bobby's. Bobby Singer?" Her expression didn't change at all as she waited for her answers.
Might take a while with these guys. Thinking that, she crossed her arms and sighed.
"So, your dad called Bobby and Bobby let us know he needed some help." Sam turned to look at the open door as if the man would walk in at any moment. He was rewarded with the man walking in right then.
Dean turned to watch his approach. His hand had already leaked through her bandana and he didn't notice the blood dripping onto the floor.
"Dad, you know these two yahoos?" Dean turned to look at her. He smiled when he saw her barely concealed grin. "They say Bobby Singer sent them."
Her father laughed as he approached. "Well, you two young fellas must have some sort of death wish, comin' into her lab like this. She's even got a couple of vipers in here somewheres." He stuck out his hand to shake each in turn.
"Jacob. Jacob Burns. I see you've already met my daughter, Kit." He pulled up when he saw Dean's hand.
"Whoa, damn it, Kit! He get bit? Shouldn't we be getting you to the hospital, son?" He started to get them moving to the door.
"No. It's okay, Mr. Burns. It's just a puncture wound. Just a little on the leaky side, that's all. By the way, my name's Dean Winchester and this is my brother, Sam." Dean pointed with his thumb toward Sam, who would have grabbed it and bent it backward as payback for all the trouble he'd put them through already. But, there were too many witnesses.
Kit took Dean's bloody hand, rearranged the soaked bandana so the dry part covered his wound and pulled a hair tie from her hair to put on his hand as a way to hold the cloth in place. Then she took his hand and stuck it in the air above his heart.
"Keep it up there. You're making a mess of everything."
She proceeded to wipe the blood from her fingers onto Dean's shirttail.
All three stared at her. She looked up after finishing.
"What? It's already a bloody mess."
She smiled as she tried to push her hair off her face with the back of her hand. A few stray hairs stuck to her eyelashes and lips, so Sam, standing next to her, offered by way of pointing, to get them out of her way. She nodded, and he gently moved them.
Kit smiled her thanks to Sam.
"Damn hair. I'm gonna get a buzz cut. Maybe like yours, Dean. The hell with this mess." She looked at Dean.
"So, why are you in here, by the way? What is it you guys do? Dad, what are you needing help with?"
All three started talking at once. She understood most of what they were saying, each of them, and although she was listening, she kept getting distracted by Sam's talking hands and sincere expression, and Dean's lips and sparkling green eyes.
Putting her hands in the air, she got them to slow down.
"Okay, okay, I got it, I get it. Stop. Dad, how did you get volunteered to contact these guys for a friend of a friend of a friend? Wait a minute. Is that friend the Widow Perkins? Well, don't worry about answering that one, I get it. Let's go in. We can fix your hand and have some beer or whiskey or…Lemoncellos…whatever."
Kit started toward the door. Dean's look of surprise was mirrored by Sam's. Jacob smiled and turned to lead the way. Whispering as he looked back at them, he asked, "So, seriously guys, what the hell were you doing in here?"
Sam and Dean were distracted for a moment as they watched Kit walk ahead of them, her long hair moving back and forth as they watched her perfect backside in her perfect jeans.
"You boys can just stop staring there. I have my mama's old, cast iron skillet right out where I can reach it. You need to think about that hittin' you upside the head when you feel the need to stare at people."
She turned and grinned at her dad, who was thoroughly enjoying what she was saying, as she repeated almost the same exact words her mom used to tell her dad when they were dating.
Dean and Sam found the entire outdoors they were walking in, most interesting.
