Edgewood, New Mexico

My eyes see words but my brain is too distracted to comprehend their meaning. I've been staring at the same damn web page for close to an hour now and I've retained nothing. Seriously. I know absolutely nothing more about chupacabras now than I did an hour ago.

Fucking demons, man.

"I don't know about this," Dean's voice snaps me back to a reality I haven't been a part of for the past sixty minuets. I blink madly, attempting to moisten my dried out eyeballs as I glance up from my laptop to Dean who sits on top of a red and yellow Southwest patterned bed spread, flipping through the old journals he carries with him like a preacher carries a bible. The fact that he's read through both of them a thousand times before tonight doesn't stop him from searching the hand scrawled pages for something new.

"Did Garth really say chupacabra?"

I let loose a heavy sigh as I sleepily rub my eyes.

"He said it sounded like a chupacabra," I respond as I stretch my arms. Dean has been suspicious about this whole case ever since Garth called us up three days ago and asked us to check it out. While there's no denying that something around these parts is drinking goat's blood, the veteran hunter has his doubts about the monster we're supposedly hunting.

"You ever hunt chupacabra before?" he asks as he unscrews the cap of his flask, giving his eye a break from reading.

"No," I admit, shaking my head as I watch him take a long drink.

"Yeah," he says before wiping whiskey from his lips with the sleeve of his white and blue plaid shirt. "Me either."

"Doesn't mean they don't exist," I point out, but the way he shrugs his shoulders tells me he doesn't buy it.

"Maybe," he begins as his face turns thoughtful. "It's just, you'd think I would have seen one by now. Neither my dad or Bobby mentioned a chupacabra to me or in their journals. Hell, I don't know of any hunter whose actually seen one." He pauses to take another drink from his flask. "Whattcha got so far on them, anyway?"

"A few things," I reply, pretending like I've really been reading this whole time. I glance back at the glowing screen before me and quickly scan over the words my mind refused to absorb. "The first ever reports came out of Puerto Rico in '95. Most sightings of the creature have come from the Caribbean, Central and South America as well as North America with a few reports coming out of the Philippines and Russia. Descriptions of the creature vary, although they are generally reported to be tall, alien looking creatures with spikes that run down their spine. They drink goat or sheep blood, generally leaving three puncture wounds in the neck and supposedly drain the animal of blood. However, over 300 of alleged chupacabra 'victims' were autopsied by veterinarians who discovered not all of the animal's blood was missing."

"The more you read, the more I'm getting the impression chupacabras are just another Big Foot," Dean tells me with a bored voice. "What do the local reports say?"

"Um..." I shuffle through the police reports we picked up earlier in the day, which had been sitting neatly beside my computer at the motel desk. "No autopsies were performed."

"How much you wanna bet we're dealing with a satanic cult?" Dean speculates.

I flip through reports and photographs, attempting to focus but not quite able.

"What's up with you?" Dean questions and I shake my head.

"Nothing," I lie.

"You didn't let Crowley get to you, did you?"

My silence serves as my response while my eyes pretend to study one of the multiple photographs of a dead goat. It has been bothering me, what Crowley said. It's not necessarily the how he knows things about me that I don't, but the what that bugs me.

"I don't know what he said to you," Dean goes on. "But you can't take anything a demon says personally. They'll say just about anything if they know it'll get to you."

My brows fold into a confused frown as I glimpse back up at Dean.

"I thought you said Crowley wasn't that bad?" I say.

"He's not," Dean nods. "For a demon. But he's still a demon and if there's one thing a demon enjoys as much as destruction, it's messing with someone's head."

Yeah, okay. Fine. But what does Crowley know about me?

"Whatever he said, just let it go," Dean says. "There's a chance he's lying."

"But what if he's not?" I propose.

"I wouldn't worry about it," Dean insists. "It's probably nothing."

I try to convince myself Crowley was making a mountain out of a mole hill, but I have a feeling it's going to nag at me for a while.

"Whaddya got?" he asks me, attempting to redirect my focus away from the king and back to the case at hand. "Any of the goats have three puncture wounds?"

"Yes and no," I shake my head as I respond, glancing back down at the pictures in my hand. "Puncture wounds yes. But a lot more than three. Something's definitely been sucking on goats. Something familiar..."

I study the picture more closely, looking at the ring of bite marks embedded in the goat's neck. Dean climbs off of his bed and snatches the photograph from my grasp to study it for himself. The way his face drops tells me he knows exactly what did this.

"Now this makes sense," he begins sincerely. "Looks like there's a vamp in town."

While I know I should be able to identify a simple and obvious thing like the mark of a vampire, I can't help but feel a little mad at Dean for not pointing this out earlier.

"You're telling me I've been researching lore on a creature that probably doesn't even exist for the last hour when you could have just looked at the damn picture yourself?" I question, not bothering to mask the annoyance I feel. Dean frowns, clearly unappreciative of my tone.

"I put you on report duty," he firmly reminds me, tossing the picture back. I snatch the photo before it can flutter to the ground, clutching it so hard I wrinkle its smooth surface. "This is what happens when you let yourself get distracted. You're just lucky you only wasted an hour. It could have been a lot worse."

Great. Now I'm pissed and embarrassed. My jaw clenches as color rises to my face and I glance back down at the photograph gripped between my fingers. I really don't want to ask the question that's at the forefront of my mind, but between Crowley, my anger and my embarrassment, my judgment is too clouded for me to formulate the answer.

"Now what?" I quietly ask.

"What do you mean?" Dean returns harshly, clearly not amused by my tone or the time my distracted mind has wasted for the both of us.

"I mean, if there's a vamp in town, it's obviously not going after people," I point out. "If it's not killing anyone, it's not something to hunt, right? So... what do we do?"

"We check it out," Dean says, his temper soothing some. "Track it down, make sure it's diet is purely animal blood. Just because it's not going after people right now doesn't mean it won't."

Right. Obviously.

Operation: Prove Yourself to Dean isn't going well so far.

Come on, Ben, I psych myself up as we silently collect our vampire slaying gear and prepare for a late night stakeout. Get your shit together. Forget you even met Crowley and track this sucker like a pro. Make Dean proud.

Wait, what? Make Dean proud? Where did that come from?

xXxXxXx

"I'm gonna smell like goat for a week," I complain as I wrinkle my nose in distaste.

"Yeah, well, you're more likely to catch a vamp if you smell more like prey than predator," Dean reminds me, his eye scanning the not too distant farm before us with a pair of heavy black binoculars.

"I know," I nod, shifting in my seat as I gaze out the windshield of Dean's parked Impala. "It's still not a pleasant smell."

A full moon illuminates the arid landscape around us, making it easy to spot anything suspicious or abnormal that might wander into view. As I keep a watch for signs of a supernatural humanoid, my mind wanders to Garth, as it usually does this time of the lunar cycle. I hope he's made it to his cell alright, the one he and his wife built for themselves behind their tavern in an old fall out shelter. I should remember to call him in the morning.

Stifling a yawn, I glance down at the empty cup holders and let loose a small, longing sigh for the coffee I'd love to be drinking right about now. We had to nix the caffeine (and booze) for this stakeout or our efforts to smell like a filthy goat would have been completely fruitless. You never realize how dependent on coffee you become until you're forced to live without it for an evening.

I push my caffeine lust to the back of my mind as I return my gaze to the desert landscape and the goats that sleep under a blanket of stars. Still just a bunch of goats and no sign of vampires. I don't think I've even seen a coyote yet.

I yawn again, this time out of boredom, and glance at Dean. I feel like I should buy him a spyglass. Then again, he'd probably take it the wrong way and kick my ass and I personally like my ass the way it is. You know, comfortable to sit on, lacking in the colors black and/or blue.

"You want me to use those?" I offer. Dean cocks a brow as he slowly puts the lenses down and turns his head towards me.

"Why?" he asks. "Does it bother you to see a man with one eye using binoculars?"

"N-no," I stammer, realizing I should have just kept my mouth shut and my eyes on the goats. "I was just..." I shift uncomfortably in my seat, trying to find the right, inoffensive words to explain my simple offer. "I didn't mean..."

Dean smirks as he watches my cheeks turn a soft shade of embarrassed.

"Relax," he says. "I was joking."

Oh. Dean made a funny. That's... different.

"And no, I don't want you to use the binoculars," he continues as he peers through them once more. "I'm the one missing an eye here. I can use all the help I can get."

Fair enough I guess.

"Looks like we got company," he states. I sit up and search the area he's looking at.

"Where?" I ask, not finding what he sees.

"There," he points as he hands me the binoculars for a better view. "Vampire at ten o'clock."

Looking through the spy gear, I can see who he's talking about. A trim young woman with long, toned legs sneaks around a building with a machete sheathed at her hip. Dressed in shorts, black boots and a black and white plaid button down shirt, she inches through the darkness with a swift silence. Blond hair spills around her shoulders with streaks of black in a reverse highlight fashion. From this distance it's impossible to tell what color her eyes are, but I know they're a bright shade of blue green that can captivate and entrance.

"She's not a vampire," I tell Dean, handing the binoculars back to him. "She's a hunter."

"You know her?" he asks, peering through them again as the woman leaps over the fence.

"Her name's April," I reply as a fond smile finds my lips and my mind wanders. "She's twenty-three. Originally from Salem, Oregon. A gemini and a die hard Mumford and Sons fan. Got into the life after demons possessed her folks when she was sixteen. Her favorite food is pineapple. Her favorite drink is vodka."

"Let me guess," Dean stops me before I can give him too much detail. "You two are 'just friends'?"

"Yes," I grumble, the smile on my face falling at this vocalized fact. "She's got a boyfriend," I add, emphasizing the word 'boyfriend' with a note of disdain. "I don't know what she sees in him. He's a total douche bag and not a very good hunter if you ask me."

"And you're pretty sure you two are just meant to be?" Dean guesses and I shrug.

"We do kind of have a deep connection," I slowly admit, something that causes Dean to sigh and rub the bridge of his nose between his eyes, as if the subject were giving him a headache. It hits me that the topic is probably one of the last things Dean wants to talk about, well, ever. He at least has the courtesy not to roll his eye just yet.

"I donno," I say with a sigh, babbling on before Dean can tell me to shut it. "She's just perfect, you know? She's smart, funny, a great hunter and beautiful on top of it. I've pretty much been in love with her since I met her. I can't believe she's dating that Ryan ass..."

"I'm gonna stop you right there," Dean says, his eye fixed dead ahead. "Not necessarily because the theatrics of the young and the dramatic don't interest me, but your 'not a vampire just a hunter friend' is sucking on a goat's neck."

"What!?"

I snatch the binoculars from Dean's hand and lift them to my eyes. It doesn't take me long to find April who kneels in the dirt with her lips pressed firmly to the neck of a goat as her hands hold the animal still. Just as Dean said.

"She's not into goats, is she?" Dean questions as I press the binoculars back into his grasp. "I don't want to judge if she is, but..."

"Shut up," I mutter absently as I climb out of the Impala. My mind wheels as I race towards her in an attempt to come up with an excuse for what April seems to be doing. My brain doesn't want to believe what my eyes see, but there's no explanation. None other than the obvious, and it's a nauseating thought.

My pace slows greatly as I hop the fence, my feet finding short, cautious steps versus long, hurried strides. April seems oblivious to my presence, keeping her back turned as she feasts. I gag as I inch closer and discover I have difficulty finding my voice.

"A... April?" I choke past the lump that grows in my throat.

The blond drops the poor animal and spins on her heels, wiping blood from her lips as her eyes grow wide at the sight of me.

"Ben?" she asks, clearly surprised to see me. "What... what are you doing here?"

"I'm... on a case," I reply and her gaze falls to the ground. "Are you... are you what we're hunting?"

"I guess that depends on what you're after," she responds before giving me an inquisitive look. "Who's 'we'?"

Her eyes grow wide as she spies the aging hunter that approaches from behind me.

"Winchester," she whispers, taking a frightened step back.

"Chill out, Twilight," Dean assures her. "Your head is safe for now."

April frowns as she studies him, uncertain of the legend's sincerity.

"What happened, April?" I have to ask, still trying to wrap my mind around the fact the woman I've been crushing on for the past five years is standing before me with a mouth full of fangs and blood at the corner of her lips.

"Ryan and I were raiding a nest in San Antonio last month," she begins, keeping a wary eye on Dean as she speaks. "We got most of 'em, but one of 'em got me before I could get him. Occupational hazard, I guess."

I'd laugh if it weren't completely horrible.

Now that I think about it, life in general since I teamed up with Dean has been, more or less, horrible. Not everything or every detail, but the lessons I've slowly been learning along the way are, to say the least, crushing. Sobering. Yet, until now, I haven't really truly asked myself what I'm doing here. And what's more heart breaking than seeing the woman I love transformed is the fact that it's taken just that for me to really start questioning my once eager and completely voluntary involvement in this terrible, awful life.

What am I doing here?


Yes, there is a part deux and I assure you the lesson here is going to get a lot more tough than realizing what "occupational hazard" means in the hunter's world. I will post the second part as soon as I can, but I can't lie, my focus has been a little lax as of late (more so than usual anyway). That and my alter ego (who writes cheesy romance paperbacks with images of a half naked Fabio painted on the front cover... in the universe where I get paid to put words together) is howling for freedom from the cage I've currently got her locked up in. A part of her tried to sneak out here, as you can see, and I don't know how much longer I can hold her back.
Anyway, I hope all who are still reading are still enjoying. Don't forget to make my day and review! :)