Chapter 11.
Present.
Sam sits in the library studying the pictures from Dean's cell phone of the troublesome book, that he has since uploaded to his laptop. While it is definitely text from the book of the damned Sam finds it isn't complete and not the most important parts, the location spell for the original enchanted book is there though.
The Winchester's still don't know where the book of the damned is located. And leave Rowena well enough alone, as she seems disinclined to cause trouble in the newly peaceful universe. Sam is sure more harm will come from the book in the hands of the Stynes than Rowena so they don't want the Stynes tracking it and their fairest, witchiest ally.
Sam thinks it would probably be in their best interest to locate Rowena and the book of the damned, but now more important duties call. He can hear his brother's voice rumbling down the hall from the kitchen highlighted every few moments with Iris' more feminine voice. Heavens knows what they talked about as they cleaned up the kitchen after breakfast but Sam's starting to think they're lagging on purpose.
He sighs, trying not to dwell on the mess Iris Aarons has brought to their door step, so he finds his mind wandering to his brother. He finds himself smiling thinking of Dean falling for the refined woman this Iris obviously is. Her smile is quiet, a little playful when she turns it on Dean, other times her eyes go soft and glistening and he can see the love and worship she has for Dean Winchester.
He catches Dean at it too. When she talks he tends to look a little transfixed with her voice and the way her mouth moves and the way her face lights up and falls. When they're up and about they tend to hover somewhere just too close to each other. Dean with a hand ghosting over Iris' back, Iris letting her hip bump his as she helps clean off the table. They share warmth and space, their sides lined to each other as Dean washes their plates and Iris rinses.
Frankly, they're just too intimate out in the open for Sam so he departs to the library. He supposed they'll learn or he'll become less of a prude. (Dean was right, okay? He admits it.) Sam fled the scene, but he still wants help!
He's pulling out his notes he saved from what he knew about the book of the damned as Dean and Iris make their appearance.
Sam just rolls his eyes as Dean drops his arm from around her shoulders to a less intimate stance, letting his hand rest on her waist. Dean sets up his own laptop after Iris leaves his side to retrieve all the paper work holding everything she knew about the book too. She leaves the file in Sam's hands and then grabs his notes sitting with them beside Dean.
"You got security cameras?" He asks, leaning towards her.
She sends him an incredulous look. "Of course I do."
He just laughs at her short reply, and within seconds has pulled up the feed of the security cameras of the bookshop. He's looking smug as she looks surprised, leaning into his space to look at the video.
"Okay that's a little creepy, how did you do that so fast?"
He just chuckles and pulls his laptop closer to himself, settling in for the long haul. He grabs his coffee cup and takes a long drink, having his work cut out for him. Iris uses Sam's file to slap his knee which only makes him laugh more. She huffs a sigh and turns away him, deliberately turning her back. Sam watches the whole exchange with a smile sneaking it's way to his face, but quickly neutralizes it as she turns her somewhat intimidating gaze on him.
He clears his throat and takes the seat across from her.
"Don't worry Sammy," Dean says flatly, not even looking up from the computer in his lap, "She's all show, but if you piss her off the silent treatment and death glares are not fun."
She slaps him with the file again and turns a sincere smile on Sam, not having been purposefully scary. Sam smirks and flips through Iris' research immediately impressed. "This is pretty good," he says, glancing up at her, before going back to taking in all the amassed information.
Dean snorts into his coffee cup before drinking again and pretending he was paying them no mind as he watched Iris' book shop where the book was still in the safe. Iris and Sam both look over at the elder Winchester, mouths pressed into thin lines before looking back to the paper before them.
"I work in a bookstore," she offers flatly, "I know what I'm doing."
Sam looks a little taken aback, but inclines his head as if to say, "touché."
Dean's sniggering again and both Sam and Iris send him weltering glares so he hunkers down in his seat and shuts up in earnest. Sam and Iris look at each other, smug as they turn back to their paperwork.
The eldest of their trio let's them believe they have won victory over him. Dean continues to silently laugh at them, smiles playing sneakily just on the corners of his lips. They don't know it yet but the two of them were already as thick as thieves. Bent over the dusty, men of letters books, one hand on the page, one wrapped around a cooling cup of coffee, Dean knows they are going to be fast friends.
He winces thinking of himself stuck in the middle, subject to both their mother henning, both of them telling him about healing teas and healthy food. He rolls his eyes, he's going to have to help keep things light around here, or else Iris and Sam would be burning incense and listening to motivational speeches off of YouTube. (Dean's imagination was a little active, but better prepared than not.)
Iris' book shop is most assuredly being watched, the Stynes not even trying to be inconspicuous. The arrogant dicks, Dean thinks, peeved. He's pretty sure he had finished at least one of them the other night, which left them with four. Doable, Dean figures.
It's time to end the line of Frankenstein.
...
It's three hours later when Sam looks up and announces:
"Okay, I've found a way to destroy the book. Holy oil, an extract of angel grace, a few odds and ends."
"Destroy it?" Iris asks, a little skeptically.
"Yeah," Sam nods, "The Stynes won't stop until they find it, if we could we would have long since destroyed the book of the damned but there's strong, old, dark magic protecting it." Sam is already heading down to the store room to gather the ingredients they have on hand, the other two follow him.
"This copy of the book complicates things and threatens everyone's safety, and we need to keep the Stynes from getting their hands on it at any costs. Easiest, surest way; destroy it."
Iris sends him a peeved glare as he quickly starts pulling boxes and bottles from the shelves and placing them into a cardboard box like he's doing some strange grocery shopping.
"But all that information..." She falters, frowning even as Dean tugs her against him, and hugs her from behind.
"All that information NO ONE needs," he says firmly, slightly dark. Sam and his gazes meeting for a tense moment. "Sam's right, the book must be destroyed Iris, even the knowledge used for good in the book of the damned results in evil."
Iris remembers back to Dean's story and what had happened to the Winchester brothers. She understands where they're coming from, and she had asked for their help after all, they were trying to save her bacon.
"So what do we do now?" She asks, realizing the brothers are right in their plan to obliterate the book and it's dark secrets.
"We retrieve the book," Sam says, heading back to the library, Dean and Iris still on his heels.
"And then we lay the trap," Dean says, the smile on his lips and the look in his eyes chilling both Iris and Sam.
"What are you talking about?" Sam asks, slowing his quick movements, watching his brother carefully.
"The Stynes," Dean says simply, "We have to finish the job, completely annihilate them, we have to end their line Sam."
Sam shivers remembering the Dean who had previously slaughtered over fifteen grown men at the Styne plantation in Louisiana, he remembers the three bodies he'd removed from the bunker ...their home. The youngest, just a boy, probably not even graduated from high school, a cold, deliberate, perfect circle in the middle of his forehead where Dean hadn't thought twice about ending him.
They'd never talked about it, Sam had never spoken about how burying the corpses of his brother's victims left behind in their home like garbage had been a thousand times worse than burying a million of his own kills. Now faced with the Stynes again, and cold cunning shining in Dean's eyes Sam is again afraid and feeling sick.
"Dean," he says lowly, "You had your revenge, Charlie is gone. Let's get the book and destroy it, easy and simple."
Dean chuckles dryly, "You think this is about Charlie?"
"Isn't it?" Sam challenges.
"Sam," Dean says softly, noticing the tightness of his brother's shoulders, the quickness of his breaths. "That is over, that is forgotten. It's not between us anymore. But the Stynes are monsters, they will crawl under a rock and they will breed and make more of themselves just like insects until there's so many we'll have another apocalypse on our hands, we've gotta finish them while we have the chance.
"That's why they're here, they're trying to save their line, find the book or its copy and regain some of their power, make more Stynes, build up their dynasty once again."
Dean looks Sam dead in the eye, coldness still glinting there.
"This isn't personal anymore, this is straight and cold cut hunting. They're monsters and they need to be put down."
Sam swallows thickly, looking away from his brother and nods. "Okay, yeah, you're right."
Dean pats him on the shoulder, smiling, but not smugly or cruelly. Iris looks away to give them some privacy as he steps closer to him, hand still resting reassuringly on his shoulder.
"It's not my favorite gig either Sam, but it's got to be done, it sucks, but then it always does."
Sam nods and sends Dean a quick, stretched smile. Dean pats him again on the shoulder smiling fondly at his little brother.
"Okay," he claps his hands together, "Here's the plan, Iris, you got one job and one job only, get the book out of the safe. Me and Sam will have your back. Sam," he glances back towards his little brother, "There's a back door and a coupla windows you watch those, I'll take the front. Iris baby, your gonna have to work fast. We don't wanna get caught with the book, or we'll be goners." The younger two nod at him and Iris swallows thickly.
She's really about to go into battle with the Winchester brothers.
As exhilarating as it is...she's terrified too.
...
She finds Dean in his room sliding a loaded clip into his colt and tucking it into the back of his jeans. She stands in the door for a moment watching him, the sharp lines in his face as he shoves the clip into the gun with a satisfying click, the way his jaw clenches as he tests it weight in his hand before hiding it under his shirt tail.
Watching all that hardness and bitter warrior fade away from him when he spots her.
What is this man doing to her?
What is she doing to him?
She feels a smile turning up her lips as she enters the room, thinks vaguely it should be scaring her stepping into the embrace of a man who had just concealed a firearm in his waistband. But it doesn't, in fact she's pretty sure she feels safer if not a tad bit turned on.
"Hey," he says softly, "You ready for this?"
She shudders with the feeling of his warm breath on her face and shakes her head, wishing they could stay here forever. Her in his strong, safe arms, his smile soft and warm, no cunning coldness in his eyes. Just utter happiness that she gives him, just a steady calmness that Dean is for her. He chuckles deep in his chest and she smiles as it rumbles, she can feel it vibrate between them.
He slips his smiling lips from their place where they're pressed to her hair down behind her ear, and then in soft, tender kisses down the column of her throat. She shivers, arms coming up around his neck, angling her face up for the kiss she knows is coming. His arms slip around her back all the way, pulling her closer, molding them together.
He slips a hand up her back to cup her head and to tangle fingers in brunette locks. Hand controlling her head, their lips meet and Iris sighs into his warm wetness, letting him dominate the kiss. His tongue coating her mouth hotter and wetter somehow as he maps it out, seemingly having already forgotten her never changing anomaly. She always makes his knees weak, she's always the same, she never ceases to make him react different, stronger.
"Hmm," he sighs, as he comes up for air, dilated eyes looking down on her, fingers running down through her hair, then back to the top to start again. "How's it feel to be hunting with Winchesters?" He asks, eyebrow raised smugly.
She snorts a laugh, and her finger tips drift absently down the sharp cheekbone, caress over the crows feet by his eyes she loves so much. "Scary as hell." Is all she supplies.
Dean pouts, "Aw c'mon, we'll keep you safe."
She giggles as he buries his nose in her neck and lays tickling kitten licks on the sensitive skin.
"Okay okay," she concedes, bringing his face up, flushed, in between her hands. "A little exciting, maybe."
He laughs triumphantly lifting her up so she leans down into this kiss with both of their smiles fading fast, smeared into the other's. She licks at his full bottom lip and he opens letting her in, sharing the warmth he had shown her just seconds before. They both taste like coffee and remnants of orange juice from breakfast, and Dean realizes how used he's gotten to all this.
It's normal for him to taste breakfast on Iris' tongue and it scares him. There's so much for him to lose, from coffee he made leaving after tastes for him to find in her mouth, to finding forgotten socks and earrings scattered over his bedroom floor. The smell of her on his sheets, some fancy smancy conditioner in his shower.
The way she blushes and stretches under him in the morning when she wakes to him smiling down at her, the heated look she gives him after a couple of drinks and the a.m. is making her tired enough to be wild...these are all the things he could lose now. And now he's more afraid than ever.
He hugs her close, whispers right against her ear so she only catches bits and pieces, "Gotta be careful, baby girl, kill me if I lose you."
A soft smile turns her lips up and she presses them warm and soft to his face, feeling the roughness of his stubble. "Of course," she promises, "You too, Dean." She sighs a shuddering breath, pulling back to look into his eyes. "Don't know how you did this, how did you become my whole world?"
He smiles and kisses her slowly, sugary sweet and hot as sin. She moans into his mouth and he eats it right up, "We're gonna get through this baby." He promises, "And things are gonna go back to how they were.
"Gonna wake up next to you, not gonna leave bed until I've made love to you a coupla times," she smiles and shivers at the pictures he paints for her between reassuring kisses.
"Sounds like a plan," she mumbles against his spit slick lips, and he looks appreciatively at her pink, swollen ones.
"Let's get this over with then," he whispers, releasing her and grabbing the weapons bag from the bed, leading her out towards the library and the up and coming fight by the hand. They'd be back soon, and they had the rest of the future before them.
tbc...
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