So this might be a little late, which I am sorry about. I would love to say that I have been busy but that's a total lie. Mostly I've just been trying to figure out how this story is going to go. I keep planning it out, but when I sit down and write it changes. Ask Chuck, being a God of a world is hard. Anyway, I hope you like this chapter.
Dean's POV
I woke up after a night with no nightmare to find Lou curled up against me. There were worse ways to wake up. She looked… a little bit like a drunk toddler. Her mouth was hanging open, and drool was soaking through my shirt. Her hair was a nest for birds and twisted around her head. She was about a million degrees making me sweat lopsided. I didn't want to ever leave this bed. Even in her current...state, Lou still looked like sunshine with skin.
I brushed my knuckles down her arm lightly, feeling how soft she was against the my rough skin. She groaned slightly. She was never a morning person. I carefully shifted myself out from under her and out of bed. We didn't even have a blanket over us, I realized as I looked at her. Then I realized me staring at her while she was sleeping was vampire douche level creepy.
I went to the kitchen to make some coffee. Lou was the only one who hated drinking black coffee so we always had sugar or honey and cream in the bunker. As the coffee was brewing I wandered to the showers. As I stripped down so that I could shower, I realized that my shirt smelled like Lou. Some flower and vanilla. Sweet, just like her.
I thought about her dancing around in one of my shirts, it hitting just below that perfect little ass of hers. I thought about how she sat on tables instead of in chairs and how every once and a while I could catch a peak at the panties she was wearing. I thought about the night she kissed me and how she moved so slowly, stradling me. Then last night when my hands were roaming her sides as I kissed her. I turned the shower to cold.
I wanted to be a gentleman for her. She deserved someone like that. Someone who wouldn't jerk off in the shower at the thought of her. I bet that if she knew that that's what I was about to do she would never want to talk to me again. I couldn't have that. I needed her in my life. I showered quickly, pulling the shirt that smelled like her back on. I put on boxers and my dead guy robe and strode back into the kitchen. The coffee was done and I poured two cups, one for me and one for Lou. I made her's how she liked it. Sweet enough to send a kid into a frenzy.
I moved slowly back into her room where she was still sleeping. I put the coffees on the nightstand and sat down on the edge of the bed. While I was gone she had curled up into a ball, her knees under her chin. I sighed, running my hand across her messy hair. "Lou," my voice was almost a whisper. "Hey Sunshine." It came a little louder this time, enough to wake her.
She rubbed her sleepy hazel eyes and stared daggers at me. She grumbled out a harsh, "What?" and closed her eyes again. She had never been a morning person.
"Come on Lou, rise and shine." If it had been anyone else, well if it had been Sam, I would have yelled it to get my point across, but I didn't want to date Sam. I extended the coffee towards her as she rose up on her elbows. She took a quick sip, still not looking pleased with the fact she was awake.
"I hate you," she grumbled into her coffee.
"No you don't." I smiled at her and kissed the top of her head.
She didn't look me in the eye, just glared at her coffee. "Yeah maybe you're right. At least you made coffee."
I stood, taking my coffee with me. I had some work to do, a prophet to find. "I know how to take care of my girl," I explained as I kissed her head again. Before I left I looked back at a very grumpy Lou to see her blushing into her coffee. It made me smile.
I get dressed and headed to the war room, determined to find Kevin. That kid was our responsibility and even if he was playing hooky it was still too dangerous for him to be out there on his own. I tired Garth, again, but that bean pole wouldn't answer. I called most of the contacts that Garth knew through Bobby to see if anyone had heard from him but it was still a no.
Sam came in a few minutes later, hugging a blanket to him tightly. He looked really sick today, almost green. "Hey what are you doing?" He asked coughing halfway through the question.
"Just looking for Kevin. You doing alright?" He lifted his head slowly taking a seat at the table I was working at.
"Yeah just want to get to work." He squinted at the papers in front of him.
I sighed. Then I went into the kitchen to fix Sam something to eat. Dad would always make us this horrible stew thing that killed whatever illness we had just out of fear of having to taste it again.
I was cooking it up when Lou walked in looking bright eyed, bushy tailed, and freshly showered. Her hair was still a little wet and it was swung over her shoulder. Her long bangs were moved out of her eyes. She was in jean shorts and a tank top with one of my flannels over it. I smiled at the sight. She looked good. "Whatcha doing Captain?" She asked as if we hadn't slept in the same bed together. I mean we had done that before kinda, falling asleep on the couch or something but it was different because… well it was just different.
"I'm making stew for Sam, he looks like hell, and not the fun kind."
"Is there a fun kind?" She raised an eyebrow at me. Then she was at my side, her arms wrapped themselves around my waist. I snaked an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to me.
"Well there is a strip club called Hell's Angels in Arizona," I quipped. She elbowed me in the side. "Ouch Sunshine." She glared up at me. "Oh come on, I've been going to stripclubs forever." It was like now that I was in a relationship she wanted to change me or something.
"I just thought that you wanting to be with me meant that you didn't need to go to stripclubs anymore." She pushed away to look me in the face. She was mad. Wait she was mad? I didn't freaking do anything!
"I wasn't saying I did want to go to one!" I yelled at her. "And no one needs to go to a stripclub except strippers. I like stripclubs, I like strippers. That's not going to change anytime soon Sunshine!"
She put her hands on her hips and leveled me with her gaze. Fuck. "Oh and I'm just suppose to put up with you misogynistic activities?" Was that a real question?
"You never seemed to have a problem with it before." We were fighting. Over freaking strippers and not in an awesome way.
"Of course not Dean, we weren't together!" She put emphasis on the last word.
"Awesome. So now what huh, you want me to be a freaking gentleman. Go all puppy dog like Sam and stop going to stripclubs? And what about my porn? Am I not allowed to look at that anymore either because I got you attached to my hip?"
"Busty Asian Beauties?" She pushed on my shoulders. "I don't know if you've noticed Deano but I'm not asian and I am a not so proud member of the itty bitty titty committee so yeah it'd be nice to no have to be reminded that you would prefer someone more endowed than me."
That floored me. What the hell was she talking about? She started to turn to walk away. "Hey!" She turned back to look at me. "Is that really what you think?" She just nodded. "Jesus Christ Lou. I like you. B cup and all I like you and I think that your boobs are freaking perfect. They are not the problem so don't drag them into this, they are perfectly innocent." I smiled to myself. "Though in that tank top, they aren't that innocent." I shook my head, getting back on track. "The problem is that you think I need fixing. Well news flash sweetheart, even if we get married, I'm still gonna like stripclubs and porn. That's just how I'm wired. But don't you dare think that means I'm not into you."
"The problem," she wasn't yelling anymore. Her voice just became hard and serious, "isn't that you're a pig, it's that I'm not enough for you." And then she stormed out of the kitchen. Fuck! How could she think that? Of course she was enough. I took a cup off the counter and threw it at the wall. It shattered.
I stacked water, saltine crackers, and the stew on a tray and carried it out to the war room. "Alright, here we go. John Winchester's famous cure-all kitchen sink stew. There you go. Enough cayenne pepper in there to burn your lips off, just like Dad used to make," I announced, putting the tray in front of Sam. He just pushed it away and went back to squinting at different documents relating to prophets and the demon tablet. "You want me to do the whole airplane thing with the spoon?" He only glared at me. "When was the last time you ate?"
"I- I don't…"
"Days, Sam. It's been three days." I pulled out a thermometer I was keeping in my pocket. I tried putting in Sam's mouth but the kid pulled away, looking offended.
"When'd you get that?" He hugged the blanket to himself a little tighter.
"When you started throwing off heat waves. Here." I pushed the thermometer on him again but he stood up, throwing the blanket off of his shoulders. He stumbled on his feet holding on to the edge of the table for support. I shot him a look.
"Enough, Dean. Please." Me, give up? Please.
"The bloody handkerchiefs, the fever, the shaky legs... this is not good." I put away the thermometer just because Sam was being a bitch about it.
"Well, I'm not good. And I'm not going to be good until we can start moving again. Until I can start the third trial," Sam said, trying to convince me all he needed was to work.
He was kidding right? "Trial? I wouldn't let you start a moped. We're on the rails with this thing, okay, and the only way out of it is through it, believe me, I know. And you know how bad I wanna slam the door on all those sons of bitches. But you gotta let me take care of you, man. You gotta let me help you get your strength back." I was practically begging.
"This isn't a cold. Or a fever, or whatever it is you're supposed to feed. This is part of it all. Those first two trials... they're not just things I did. They're doing something to me. They're changing me, Dean." I rolled my eyes, but he nodded anyway, sitting back down. He took a small pity spoon full of the stew and slurped from it. He grimaced and took a drink of the water on the tray. "So, uh, what's going on between you and Lou?" Nice change of subject Sam.
"I don't know what your talking about."
He gave me that look, the one with the tight lip thing and the Idon'tbelieveyou eyes. "Come on dude. I heard the whole argument." I just nodded. "So you two are together?" I shrugged. "She a virgin dude. You can't do this."
I glared at my baby brother. "What do you think I'm gonna do Sammy?"
He leveled me. "I think you're going to sleep with her, get bored, and she is going to run or you are and I will be left trying to pick up the pieces."
"It's not like that. I like Lou, you know that."
"Yeah, but she had a point," Sam argued.
"A point? What the hell are you talking about?"
He sighed. "Dean, you like women, and slutty women at that. Lou is not that kind of girl and we both know it. Is she really going to be enough for you?"
"I don't freaking believe it." I dragged a hand down my face. "Screw you."
"Come on Dean, I'm just saying…" my phone beeped cutting him off and telling me I had an email. I walked over to my computer, Sam followed.
I looked at my phone to see who had sent the email. "It's Kevin."
"Finally," Sam sighed, echoing my thoughts.
I opened the laptop to see the email. It said "WATCH THIS VIDEO NOW" so I clicked on it. Kevin's tired face looked back at me. I pressed play on the video.
"Sam, Lou, Dean," He started. I probably should have called Lou before pressing play, but it was a little late for that. "I've set up this message with some software on a remote server so it'd send itself to you if I didn't reset it with a command once a week. Which means I didn't reset it this week. And there's only one reason I wouldn't. Which means if you're watching this, then I... then I— I'm dead. I'm dead, you bastards!" No. "So screw you, screw God and everybody in between!" Video Kevin took a breath. I don't think I was breathing. "Crowley must've gotten to me. And the one thing I know is that I won't break this time. Not sure how I know, but— but I do. I've been uploading all my notes, the translations, I'm sending you the links so you can get all of it. You guys are gonna have to try to figure out the rest. I'm sorry." The kid was crying at this point. It broke my heart. "I know it was my job, but I— but I couldn't... I'm sorry."
Fuck! I don't know what happened, not really, but all the books and the documents on the table behind me ended up scattered on the floor. "Damn it!" My yell echoed through the bunker. Sam put a hand on my shoulder but I shoved it off.
There were footsteps running towards us and Lou popped into the war room, skidding to a stop. She looked at the stuff on the floor, then she looked at Sam, then she finally looked at me. Her face fell. She was terrible at hiding her emotions, she didn't even try. She looked at me with that pitying gaze she had and walked towards me. I brushed her off just like I did Sam.
"What happened?" She asked Sam. Sam! God, I can't even get a freaking relationship right.
"I think it's better if you watch it for yourself." Sam moved the computer towards Lou. That was a shit idea, she didn't need that. I grabbed the computer before Lou could press play on the video.
"She does not need to see that." My voice was low, and shaking ever so slightly. I pulled Lou in with one are and kissed the top of her head.
She looked up at me, her hazel eyes full of concern, they were also a little red and swollen. Had she been crying? "What's wrong?" She asked me. I breathed through my nose.
"Kevin, he uh…" I started but I couldn't say it. I couldn't break the news to her. She felt things so much, with her whole soul.
I looked to Sam who just nodded. "Kevin sent us an email saying that he was dead. I'm sorry Lou."
She didn't say anything for a long time. She just stood in my arms, perfectly still for a minute, maybe two. Then, so quiet I barely heard it, she whispered, "No." Then she shook her head. "No, he can't be dead." She looked at Sam. "Dead people can't send emails Sam."
He ran a hand along his face. "I know Lou. He put a video message on a timer. If he didn't reset it, it's come to us." She pushed away from me then, moving closer to Sam.
It was an interesting sight. She was so small compared to him, he towered over her, but her pure rage was radiating off of her making Sam slightly nervous. "I want to see the video."
I stepped in. "No. Absolutely not."
'Dean, I don't have time for your alpha male bullshit. I am going to watch that video because he sent it to us." She breathed through her nose. "Kevin was my friend ok? He was in advanced placement." She turned away, her hand on her forehead. "Ms. Tran is going to kill us," she muttered to herself. "Oh my god, we have to tell Ms. Tran." She just kept turning, muttering to herself. I placed my hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look at me. "Show me the video."
I nodded. There was nothing else I could do. Sam got the video up and she sat down in front of the computer to watch it. As it went on tears streamed down her face. She flinched when Kevin yelled from the computer. After it was over, she touched the screen where it showed his face, then slowly, her hands shaking, she closed the computer.
She finally stood up from her chair and looked at the ground. "I um," she started, her hands figiting, "I was going to do this tomorrow, but, since, I," she could barely speak through the tears her voice cracking. All I wanted was to hold her but I didn't know if that was something she would even want right now. She cleared her throat. "Since Kevin is no longer missing, he is just gone, I am going to leave now."
"What?" Sam and I yelled at the same time.
She looked at both of us like we were crazy. "Not forever. Just a week. It's October guys." Then it clicked. Every year like clockwork. The middle of October would roll around and she would take off for a week or so, no explanation, no reason, just gone.
"No." I was putting my foot down. "We need you. This is the home stretch. All hands on deck if we want to slam the gates on all those black eyed sons of bitches."
She spun on me. "You don't think I get that? You don't think I would love to see them all stuffed in hell forever? Sam could finally get better, we could focus more on the typical bump in the night and stop worrying about end of the world bullcrap. This week is mine though. It has been for five years now. The end of the world can wait!"
She tried to storm out but I grabbed her arm. "Hey! I get it. A break would be awesome but you don't see Sam or me trying to catch some r and r right now because we have a freaking job to do so stop acting like some spoiled kid and get with the program Sunshine." That came out harsher than I had meant it too.
Lou's POV
I could not freaking believe him! He was so alpha male sometimes it was infuriating. It was like he couldn't remember anything about me before I turned 18. R and r? That's what he thought. He thought I just wanted a break? Fuck him!
He was right, but I still hated him just a little bit for it. My birthday seclusion was childish especially with everything that had been going on. So I didn't say anything. I just got on board with the plan.
Dean was calling everyone he had ever met, or Bobby had ever met, or John had ever met, to see if anyone had heard from or see Garth. So far no dice. Sam was busy printing out all the data and information that Kevin had up to this point, so that maybe we could try to figure out the third trial by ourselves without a prophet.
Dean was aggressively talking into his phone. "Yeah, I know you haven't seen him, Keel, nobody has. Alright, well, if you talk to Garth, well, just have him call in. Yeah." He hung up and looked at us.
Sam was the only one to answer the look. "Garth still MIA?" It was a very safe assumption.
"Yeah."
"How about the other prophets in line? I mean if Kevin is, uh... is dead," hearing it was like a roundhouse kick to the heart and a gut punch all at the same time, "then won't one of them be activated?" Sam had asked a decent question.
Dean sat back on one of the long tables and crossed his arms over his chest. He looked tired. "Nothing, no, not a peep." There was nothing to say so we all stayed quiet for a bit. "Here we are. No lead, no tablet, squat."
I chimed in, trying to take some weight off of his shoulders. I was mad at him sure, but I still cared about the guy, I wasn't going to let him carry it all by himself. "Well, I mean, we got all this." I picked up a stack of notes. Most of it didn't make much sense but at least it was something.
Dean sighed and then, so quietly, he lemeted in the typical Dean Winchester self blaming kind of way, "We should've moved him here."
After hours of sorting through the notes and three pots of coffee, Sam found something. "Hmm," he lifted different papers. "There it is again, every time."
Dean and I both looked up. My eyes felt like they were bleeding so I couldn't imagine how Dean was feeling when he just asked "Hmm?"
"This symbol? I know it." He showed us this symbol that was an upside down triangle with a hexagon in the middle, a large circle around that and three smaller circles crossing into the large circle at the bases of the triangle. "Now, Kevin has it down as, as sort of like a signature, for the Scribe of God. It appears every time Metatron makes one of his, uh, like, editor's notes."
Dean barley followed that and just shook his head, mumbling "Okay?"
Sam continued, "But I think I've seen it before. I mean, it was a long time ago, it was one of my, uh, humanities courses at Stanford." That's where Sam lost both of us.
Sam got up to look at some of the books behind him, clearly looking for something specific. I mean he was looking in the Native American section of the Men of Letters library. Dean couldn't quite deal. He looked at Sam like he had just said the easter bunny was real and stole candy from a four year old. "They taught Word of God at Stanford?" Dean stood up and walked over to Sam. I did the same, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear and bumping my hip on the edge of the table. I sucked in a swear that crept up my throat.
Sam looked at Dean incredulously, not noticing the table trying to impale me. "No, uh, it was an overview of Native American art—I think it's a petroglyph."
That was a big word. Dean pretended he didn't know big words. "A petro-what-now?" Sam ignored his brother and went back to looking for the right book.
A few minutes later he slammed old, large book on the table, it open to a page with the symbol on it. "This one belonged to a tiny tribe in Colorado, more of a— a clan, really. It says here they held onto their scrap of mountains when all the other tribes fell to the white men. So this glyph was a territorial marker—closest translation: "messenger of God"." He looked over at us with a sudden surprise on his face. "Messenger of God," he beamed at me. When I didn't react he turned to Dean. "Messenger of God—Dean, we have to go there!"
"On that hunch? You can barely function." Dean had his arms crossed over his dark navy blue button up that he wore over his black, tight, t-shirt. Why was it that everything he wore he looked good in? No I was mad at him.
"I'm only gonna get worse." Yeah not a good argument. Dean rubbed a hand on his face while Sam kept spitting crazy. "I mean, until we get back to the real job, until we find the third trial—we're out of prophets! We're not gonna figure out what Kevin couldn't! I'd say we go to this messenger of God who wrote it in the first place!" He moved his hair out of his face. He needed to shave, and maybe sleep, for a month.
"And you think this Metatron is hiding out in the mountains with a bunch of Indians." Dean seemed about as convinced as when I told him I could shoot a target from 50 yards. I was thirteen at the time and it was a total lie, but that's wasn't the point.
"Yeah! Yeah, I do."
I had to say something. "You're not— you're not really supposed to say Indians, it's…" Dean had turned to look at me, a softness in his eyes, but Sam cut me off.
"We should go." Then he just walked off, leaving Dean and me.
"You're delirious," Dean mumbled to the back off Sam. But he followed him anyway. To go grab his bag from his room I guessed. So we were going then. No real discussion. No one asking me what I thought. I sighed and made my way to my room to grab my bag too.
I made my way out of my room, trying not to think about Kevin, or the fact that Sam was just a ticking time bomb, or that Dean was being a jerk, or that my birthday was 5 days away. I ran smack into Dean's chest because I was so busy not thinking about anything that I also managed to not see either.
"Hey Dean." I didn't look him in the eyes. "You ready?"
He put his hands on my shoulders and I finally looked up at him. "Look, I'm really not good at this and I'm sorry for being a dick so yeah." He took his hands off me and I instantly felt cold.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"This morning with the strippers and the porn, I should have handled that better and I know that I can't tell you what to do and you had every right to watch that video from Kevin." He took a breath. "I'm really not good at chick-flick moments."
"I think that went well. And you're right." His ears perked up at this. Egos. "You are a dick." His face fell. "But, I shouldn't try to change who you are, just… I just think that if you need that stuff then I'm not enough for you and I know this moving slow thing is not your speed at all and it's okay if you don't want to try and make this work because I know I'm a lot of work and what if this doesn't work out? I mean, we didn't even think about how this would affect Sam and..." I could have kept going but Dean slammed his lips into mine.
My bag dropped to the floor as he slowly moved me so my back was flush against the wall. The kiss was powerful but slow and almost like he was trying to hold himself back. I moved with him, slowly. But I didn't like the restriction of being caged against the wall so I pushed ever so slightly on his chest, keeping our lips connected as I walked him backwards into the other wall. He groaned slightly into my mouth and I couldn't help but open it to him.
Instantly our tongues started fighting for dominance and he pulled my hips closer to him. I could feel him start to get hard beneath his jeans and heat flowed straight to my core. I pushed into him more, the wall supporting both of us. When his hands started to travel below my shirt I pulled away from him. "Slow down there Captain." I whispered. He moaned softly as though he couldn't stop himself.
"Whatever you say Sunshine." I wanted so badly to never stop kissing him. I wanted to never let go of him, but I pushed myself away from him, feeling empty and cold as I did.
"We should be heading out. Couple hours to Colorado." Neither of us moved for a minute.
Then Dean ran a hand down his face, trying to calm himself down I think, and nodded. He started to walk away and I grabbed my bag from the floor. Then he turned, stopping me in my tracks. He grabbed my bag and throw it over his own shoulder making me blush, then asked, "Do you want to drive?"
Hey everyone. I just want to take this time to thank everyone who had commented on this story for their kind words. It really brings a smile to my face and lets me know that yes, people are in fact reading my story which only makes me want to keep writing, if not for me then for you.
I don't own supernatural or any of their characters. I just own Lou.
Thank you all so much hopefully I will post the next chapter soon.
