Chapter 25- Catching it

September 18, 2003

"You... don't have a hook or none of that, do you?" Delaney, who was behind Cruz, looked back at the restaurant they were walking away from. She felt a strong attachment to the light radiating from it. It was like the only lighthouse in the middle of a sea of dirt and darkness because, well, it was. Because though the desert hosted unbearable heat during the day, at night it was invaded by a solemn and stifling cold.

Delaney understood that now and regretted not wearing her thicker and therefore warmer sweatshirt. And her boots; the cardboard Cruz had made her tape under her pants and to her calves/ankles was itchy and a corner of it was cutting into the back of her left knee. It also made it harder for her to walk and she had the growing suspicion that as the cardboard caused her to feel more and more uncomfortable, she was walking more and more like the tin-man from The Wizard of Oz.

Cruz, as always, was ignoring her hisses of discomfort and continued walking, Delaney's shadow floating in the distance between her feet and his. His arms were bare as he was only in a white undershirt and blue jeans. Delaney couldn't help but roll her eyes because, as she mentally scoffed, he was totally faking that he wasn't cold.

As they walked further and further away from Victoria's things began to get a little harder to see and Delaney felt a small sense of panic.

She was a hunter. Everyone knew that. But because she was one people assumed that monsters and darkness no longer scared her. The truth wasn't as pretty as that, in all actuality. Delaney couldn't sleep right if she didn't have a knife under her pillow. She couldn't sleep without lining the door of her motel room as well as the windows with a line of rock salt. And she couldn't be in peace in a place that was completely dark.

There was only darkness where Cruz and her were heading.

"You're planning on catching a snake with a machete? By chopping it in half?"

Cruz paid her no attention but continued to walk as if he were taking a leisurely stroll.

"Don't you need those hook-looking thingies?" Delaney muttered quietly before her foot hit a rock and she stumbled forward a little bit. Maybe she should be looking down more, she thought. She'd been avoiding it for fear of any snakes or bugs.

So, as Delaney tried walking forward more confidently and with her head facing downward in search of her courage, Cruz froze and Delaney, not knowing, bumped into him from behind. The top of her head hit his mid-back and she let out an "uummph" sound.

He turned around abruptly and Delaney stumbled back. She couldn't see much anymore but his faint outline. She squinted and he seemed to have the machete raised.

"Sorry." She said instinctively, watching him carefully. "Just a little...uh..."

She heard him sigh and by squinting her eyes she saw his outline move slightly. He'd lowered it. "Scared. And clueless. You're making more noise than an elephant."

He turned around again and seemed to begin walking once more when abruptly, his outline froze.

Delaney tried suppressing the sound of her breathing, knowing he'd heard something.

They remained impossibly still for what felt like five minutes but must have been only twenty seconds. She was about to say that maybe it had just been the wind when he suddenly moved, reaching for the ground. She jumped back and moved to her left, in the opposite direction from where he'd lunged.

He was coming back up when she thought she saw something slip from in between his hands and he lunged again to his left.

Delaney felt like screaming and wished she could levitate. There were snakes but who knew where they could be.

She watched as Cruz remained bent over, arms reaching into a bush of dry bush, pushing it apart. When his arms became more stiff Delaney knew he had caught it.

"Get the sack."

Delaney had heard him of course. And no matter what Cruz said later, she had tried to move her legs and look for that damn sack. But could you really blame her? She'd never had to deal with wild animals before. She'd killed a demon and almost died. She'd sent a ghost flying. But animals. They weren't evil; they were nasty and unfamiliar.

"Didn't you hear me? Get the stupid sack."

Delaney could hear the struggle in his voice so perhaps that was what snapped her out of her thoughts. But once that obstacle had been overcome, the darkness become the next one.

She couldn't see.

"Where'd you drop it?"

That seemed to piss off Cruz so instead of telling her where it was, he suddenly walked towards her and deposited the snake in her hands.

She panicked. But she didn't let go, surprisingly. It felt smooth and long in her hands, cold. Instinctively, her left hand found its oval cleft head and circled the scaly flesh underneath it. Her other hand gripped it halfway through its rope-like body. It was writhing and hissing so a little spooked, Delaney had no other choice but to call for Cruz.

There was no sound and Delaney couldn't see him. He'd disappeared in the darkness. Oh how she hated him, thinking he'd abandoned her.

But all too soon, she saw his shape approaching and when he reached her, his hands circled the snake a little below where hers had been, took the snake from her, and dropped it in the sack. He swung it over his shoulder with a whoosh and continued on like nothing had happened.

Delaney stepped back from his forward-moving figure, her hands seeming like foreign objects to her. She thought she could still feel the unfamiliar unnatural coldness of the snake skin as she raised them up in front of her, attempting to look at her hands in the darkness. She'd held a snake and she felt things were changing again.

"I... held it." She muttered, willing her feet to move. They did, clumsily.

Cruz gave a chuckle, cold air flowing into the air like cigarette smoke and Delaney thought she could hear the sarcasm in it. "Good job, princess."

His words snapped her out of her state of disbelief; had he just called her princess? Is that what he thought she was? Is that what he thought she thought of herself?

The dry ground crunched underneath her converse and she debated going off on him. But she remembered all her times with Casyn and how going off on her hadn't really helped anything. It had just made everything all the more complicated.

Delaney braced herself, readjusting her loose pants. She'd just have to catch some snakes.

She'd already held one after all.

...

Cruz thought she was trying to joke in her non-cute non-funny way when he suddenly felt her stop and rummage at the dry shrubs to their right. The hunter had just been scared minutes before.

But, sure enough, she gave a whoop of excitement and came up with her hands full of snake.

"Come here." He could hear the smugness in her voice. He reluctantly neared her and opened a small hole in the sack. She dropped the snake in and he turned away, holding it shut.

The stars and the moon were the only sources of light. She'd tripped over just a minute ago because of how dark it was. Now she'd caught a snake?

Victoria would be disappointed to realize that the hunter had adapted.

"I don't even know how the hec-" The hunter began to say before cutting herself short and lunging for the ground again. She was breathing hard and he felt like it was more due to excitement than physical exertion.

She rushed towards him, her feet creating dull thuds against the dry ground. He took a step back from her and handed her the sack.

Had she been pretending?

Before he could ask she ran off somewhere else, not even bothering to hand the sack back to him.

Cruz could not say he was starting to like the hunter. She seemed like a ridiculous person. But now that she had "conquered" her fear of snakes, he somehow felt a little speck of dust crumbling off of the wall of dislike for her that he had.

"Cruz!"

But her white-girl accent... she was still annoying.

...

Delaney had been so focused on finding the next snake that when her cell phone vibrated in her pocket, she didn't notice it until it had stopped. She quickly pulled it out and flipped it open, forgetting how light blinds after a while in the darkness. She squinted unpleasantly and tried to figure out the name of her missed caller.

She froze and she felt like her mind went blank when she read Dean on the screen. And all too quickly she realized that she hadn't thought of the Winchester brothers for a whole day. She thought that made her sound like she'd been obsessing with them before but... it was not like she could deny the fact that she'd worried about them almost constantly when she was not with them.

What was Casyn doing to her?

A strong hand pulled her back roughly and a shout built up in her throat but before she let it completely out, she heard the hiss of a snake and heard the soft thud it made when it hit the ground she had just been standing on.

She bewilderingly turned to Cruz and then to his hand that had moved to her right wrist. The light from the cell phone illuminated his smooth brown face and she saw him squint, trying to figure out what she'd been doing on her phone she supposed. She slipped her wrist out of his hand and quickly began walking in the direction of the far-off restaurant.

He didn't say anything for a while but just followed as she found her way.

Her heart thumping with panic or adrenaline or even worry she wondered why Dean would be calling her? Was there an emergency?

"That's why cellphones are dangerous"

Delaney almost laughed,"And snakes aren't? But isn't that why you brought me out here anyway? To give me a sense of danger?" She flashed the light of the cellphone on the ground in front of her like a flashlight.

"Ma told me to bring you out here to scare you not to kill you."

Delaney couldn't say she was surprised. Victoria was seeming more and more like a lunatic. But she'd shown her, hadn't she? "Yeah, yeah. I know I'm not liked. I get it. But you ain't gonna see me cryin' over it."

"Either way, good job."

At that, Delaney slowed down a bit. What was he saying?

"You caught a lot of snakes."

"Three."

"Yeah."

They went quiet for a while, the awkwardness filling the cold desert air.

Was Cruz trying to be nice to her?

Before she could ask him, they reached the porch of the restaurant and Delaney didn't waste a moment before knocking on the door when jiggling the door knob amounted to nothing. No one answered so she turned to Cruz with her hand out.

He gave her a look of confusion when she gave her hand a little expectant shake.

"The keys." She muttered, lifting her eyebrows impatiently.

Cruz crossed his arms as he simultaneously grinned. "No keys, hunter. Guess we'll have to wait until someone wakes up."

Delaney would've cussed under her breath if a brilliant idea hadn't struck her. "We can climb in through the window."

Cruz didn't answer but was already moving to sit in one of the chairs on the porch, his tall frame moving slowly and his face playing on a small smirk.

Delaney spun around to face the restaurant and her stomach dropped in disappointment when she saw why he was smirking. The windows the place had were sealed tight and reinforced. She turned back to Cruz and watched him with a look of annoyance as he made himself comfortable in the same chair she had made herself comfortable in a few hours before

"Alright, Cruz. Lay down to rest." Delaney thought of something and let the sack of snakes rest in front of her. Goosebumps ran up her arms as a cool breeze reached her and she looked out into the part of the desert they had come from. What would happen if she just let the poor snakes go? She didn't think snake sandwiches would be all that pleasing to her digestive system. Cruz wasn't very pleasing to her digestive system.

She smiled at that one and just when she was about to kick the untied sack over she heard Cruz spring up from the chair, stretching his long arm out in an instant and snatching the sack away.

Delaney didn't bother reacting as he sat down with it again but chose to sit on one of the porch steps. She pulled out her phone, feeling Cruz's dislike all the way from the damn chair he was sitting in.

"You got brothers don't you?"

Delaney stared at the phone's background, one of those stupid sample pictures that came with the cheap-ass phone. Hers was a waterfall. She stared at it, trying to tune Cruz out. Guess he grew more talkative after snatching away people's happiness.

"Casyn told me about how you're always whining that they left you."

Delaney tried wondering about the photographer who took the waterfall picture but Cruz's words were gradually pissing her off.

"Alright, alright", she heard him yawn and the chair squeak as he leaned back on it. "Family is off limits."

Delaney quickly turned around and Cruz peeked down at her figure, looking like he was hoping she was irritated. Because of that, Delaney made sure she kept an expressionless face.

"Where are your kids?" She asked, staring him straight in the eye.

"They're dead."

Delaney, who had been trying to get back at him, felt her heart sinking with shame and horror. That was what she got for being so darn vindictive all the time. She'd brought up some dude's dead kids and the thug would start crying any minute. She'd had been proud any other time but now she just felt dirty.

Cruz, watching her eyebrows bend in with guilt and her eyes soften, let a smile spread across his face.

When Delaney noticed this she rolled her eyes, "Fuck you." But she was surprised that the dude could joke. Even if it was a sick joke.

Cruz slowly sat up, pulling something out of his pocket. A few seconds later he brought his hand up to his mouth and she saw a cigarette poke out from it. She watched as he released the first breath of smoke and she tried calculating how many years that would leave him to harass other people. Not very many.

"So you kill monsters." He said it more as a statement than a question and Delaney figured he thought he had her figured out. He could think what he liked, she told herself.

"Boogey-men, chupacabras, vampires. Witches. Any Mexicans?"

"You'd be the first". She muttered, turning back to the desert and away from him. She guessed racial discussions and tags were part of the place's dynamic. She hardly cared for it.

"What does your family think about you doing this? How old are you anyway? Eighteen?"

Delaney smiled, leaning back on her hands and feeling the porch's dirt under her hands. "Twenty-one. And they could care less."

"No wonder you're a bitch."

Delaney wrinkled her nose at the itchy feeling the cigarette smoke gave her nose. It smelled weirder than the ones Casyn smoked on and off. "Not being a bitch isn't my goal in life. Should be yours."

"Right. Your goal in life is killing."

"Damn straight."

"Hey, we do have something in common. 'Cept mine is killing bad bitches like you."

Delaney didn't even respond to that one but when she heard Cruz get up and near her she peeked at her converse, making sure the ever-present knife was there.

All Cruz did was sit down next to her, stretching out his long legs next to hers.

"You're a bad bitch, right?" His face was pointed towards her and she slowly turned to look him in the eye, confused about where all of his stupid words were coming from. She ran her eyes over his face, not even blinking when he exhaled a stream of smoke into her face. She realized he wasn't smoking a cigarette but a joint. His eyes already looked hazy and slightly red, the tip of the joint pointed towards the night sky as he leaned backwards and titled his head up

She looked away from him, shaking her head in disbelief. Pot, of all things.

"How many people you killed?"

"None." She responded curtly, sick of talking. "I kill monsters."

"Oh, come on. Bad bitches don't just kill ghosts. They kill people too." He rolled his head in her direction and she felt his hot breath on her arm. She grimaced disgustedly and scooted over.

"You got it wrong." She responded with a trace of hostility.

"Last time I heard, demons invade people. Isn't that right, hunter?" His voice sounded so cold and calculated, as if it were determinedly striving to find her buttons in order to push them repeatedly. To hurt her.

But Delaney hadn't been accumulating years and years of emotional repression and personal trauma for nothing; she could handle his petty attacks.

"Sure. But there are ways to get it out of them without murdering."

When her phone rang in her pocket, Delaney reached for it, happy thinking it would shut Cruz up. She put it to her ear and waited for the person on the other end to start talking.

"Laney?"

It was Dean and she felt she couldn't take talking to two idiots at one time. "Yeah? Something wrong?"

"No... just calling to see how you're doing."

Delaney was confused. Throughout her whole life, the whole time she had known Dean Winchester, he had never called her for that particular reason. To ask how she was doing. To demand a couple of beers, a burger, some x-rated magazine, sure. She was familiar with that.

"Uh... Fine." Delaney tried to find a way to fill the awkward silence that she felt threatening to take over her phone call but the more she tried to come up with something else to say, the more her mind went blank.

Dean seemed to be experiencing the same predicament.

So as Delaney's mind scrounged through scraps of empty random facts and ill-conceived, ethereally thin thoughts and came up fruitless, it decided to engage it's auto-mode function; she spit out the first thing it came up with, "Are you drunk?"

She regretted it as soon as she asked it.

When her sharp eyes caught a smirk spread on Cruz's face through their peripheral vision, she was reminded he was there. She felt a need to seek privacy but where could she go? No one was opening the damn door and there was no way in hell she was going back into the damn desert, now matter how fun the snake-catching had been.

"No. Do I... seem... drunk? Don't answer that question." He sighed and Delaney tried deciphering what he meant. "I had a... Gatorade?"

"Why are you making everything a question? Are you confused?" By that point, Delaney had given up on her brain. It was clear it had a mind of its own.

"I would say the poor bastard is, considering he took time out of his day to call a bad bitch like you." Cruz muttered, proceeding to blow more pot smoke at her.

She gritted her teeth, wishing with all her heart she could land one on his stupid face but before she could retort at him, Dean asked who he was.

"Nobody. Just some low-life I'm being forced to cohabit with as a result of Casyn's strong affiliations with a Mexican gang."

"Wow. She's a... keeper. But I'm not all that surprised."

"You really think so? You can keep her. I'll box her up and ship her to you in express." She responded a little angrily and was a little surprised when Dean chuckled.

"So I guess everything's better between you too. No more angry whining about the fact that you've found a cousin?"

"Eh. Some days are better than others. Have you talked to Bobby? Has he told you anything about any hunts he's got for me?"

"None. He said you need a break."

"He needs a beak."

"We all need a break. You headed straight over to Sancho's lair after you left my place?"

"Your place? A shitty motel room is your place now?"

"Hasn't it always been?"

"Guess so. No. I ran into Casyn again, as you know. Begged me to bring her here, to the fucking lion's den." At that, Delaney looked over at Cruz who had gone quiet. She was hoping he'd passed out but he was only looking up at the night sky. He seemed to have not heard what she'd said. She continued, "I brought her thinking we'd only stopped by at some random joint for some grub but it turns out she considers the people here family and that they hate hunters and are endlessly plotting ways to get rid of me. I left her the first time after we fought but then Bobby got all serious with me and now I'm here again."

"Some life you're living."

"The only kind worth living." Delaney cleared her throat, debating whether she should mention meeting up with Sam. She decided to spit it out before she could take it back. " I saw Sam. At Stanford... before I came here again."

Dean went silent for what felt like forever and Delaney worried that the joint's fumes were messing with her head.

When she thought he had hung up, she decided mentioning one more thing couldn't hurt. "My father is dead. I found him. In my old backyard."

When Dean still didn't say anything and the phone still hadn't played its one loud dead note of defeat, she added "Things are better. Sort of. I mean, we're all away from each other but old issues are clearing up and I feel ca-"

"Is he happy?"

Dean's one track mind at its finest. Delaney heard herself swallow loudly and her stomach felt light and heavy all at once.

"Yeah."

She didn't remember how they hung up but Dean's tone of voice stuck with her, lingered in her mind and on her skin. Mentioning Sam was like putting Dean's mind on auto-mode, on instinctual-zone. Nothing before or after Sam. Nothing but Sam.

She must have looked extremely bummed out, even in that nighttime darkness because Cruz slowly tried handing her the joint.

She slowly turned to him and their eyes met.

She smacked the joint out of his hand.

...

3:00 A.M.

Cruz was no longer high and that meant he was back to being quiet.

Now he was smoking nicotine cigarettes. They were still on the porch steps and Delaney was cursing herself for not having removed the cardboard from her legs earlier.

"Isn't your mom all about health?" She grunted as she struggled to untie the string holding the cardboard together.

Cruz, not looking at her, " And?"
"AND you're smoking, that's what."

"Are you worrying about me now?"

Delaney looked over at him, finally able to untangle the string and watched him as he smoked his cigarette. She waited until he turned to her with an eyebrow raised and then threw the pieces of cardboard at him. He didn't react as they fell off him.

It wasn't that Delaney was worried about his health, really. She was embarrassed she had to reassure herself, even. It was just that the more she hung out with the cholo, the more she was finding it easier to say stuff. And she figured that rubbing his contradictions to his mother's values in his face might annoy him and she was all for annoying him and getting him away from her.

"I don't worry about you anymore than I worry about myself."

Delaney wasn't entirely sure what she was saying anymore. It was three in the morning and she was tired and just wanted to be back in her bed at Bobby's place.

"Who was that?"

Delaney answered without pause, "My brother."

"Is Sam his girlfriend or what?"

Delaney smirked as she cleaned dirt off her shoes. The dirt around the place was invasive and ever-present. Had Delaney mentioned she hated dirt?

"He's my other brother. They're the ones Casyn told you about...the ones that abandoned me and that I'm always whining about."

"Sounded like you hadn't talked to him in a while."

"Well, they did abandon me."

"Pretty shitty. The whole abandoning you thing. I mean, I can see why they'd want to abandon someone like you but... pretty inhumane. They must be hunters."

Delaney turned to him, watching as the trails of smoke left the end of his cigarette and levitated up into the night sky, fading calmly and slowly into the distance as they became more and more invisible. She centered her eyes on his face and it must have been the perfect lunar position because she could see smooth scars along the right side of his jaw, scars that were lighter than his tan skin and that were at the point of almost fading. They were at the meeting of his jaw and neck. She hadn't seen them during the day. She was about to ask him how he'd gotten them when he abruptly turned to her and she met his eyes.

"Are they?"

For a moment, Delaney couldn't remember what they'd been talking about. He was looking at her with the same cold stare he always had, disinterested. But then why did he keep asking so many questions?

"You're creepy. Your eyes are exactly like a monster's. Expression-less. Emotion-less." She turned away from him and stood up, approaching the door to knock on it again. After a few seconds of waiting, she cursed Casyn's habit of sleeping like the dead.

She was surprised when she heard Cruz chuckle behind her.

"What's so funny?" She asked, but didn't approach him again.

"You have a knack for avoiding questions you don't like."

"You're not much better."

"I've answered all your questions so far."

"Alright, then. Why do you have those scars?"

"Which ones?"

"The ones on your neck."

"I tried to kill myself."

Delaney just rolled her eyes and knocked on the door again.

"I see you also have a knack for believing things as long as they're comforting."

"You know, for a gangster who doesn't talk much, when you do, you don't sound as stupid as I thought you would. Why is that?" Delaney wasn't really expecting an answer to that question as it was meant to be more of an insult than anything else.

"Maybe you're just stupid too."

Delaney gave up on the door when she didn't hear any sound from the inside, no sign of consciousness. She sat in the porch chair and arranged herself so as to sleep comfortably. She was small enough to fit it nicely. She closed her eyes and realized that the night air wasn't as bad as she thought it was. It smelled fresh and lighter than the one in any of the cities she'd stayed at.

She was still sort of scared of snakes but she wasn't finding the desert all that intimidating anymore.

When she began to drift off into sleep, she heard Cruz stand up against the squeak of the porch steps and his footsteps sounded nearer and nearer to her. She ignored him, thinking that if he thought she was asleep he'd leave her alone.

When she heard him stop right in front of her, she maintained her facade.

She felt the end of his rough fingers touch her abdomen and she reacted instinctively, punching him in the nose.

He stumbled backwards, a smirk on his face.

Delaney was a little surprised that he'd tried to touch her but she didn't feel like shouting at him or getting angry. All he had to do was keep trying to touch her and she'd keep hitting him.

He could do the same thing to her if she ever tried to touch him.

She rearranged herself again, facing away from him.

"For someone who hates hunters so much, you don't seem to hate their bodies all that much."

"Who did that to you?"

Delaney opened her eyes at that and looked up at him.

"What?"

"That. The scar you have on your stomach."

Delaney looked down at her abdomen, where her top had slid up and revealed the pale shiny scars.

She swallowed, remembering despite all of her hard mental work to forget that shape-shifter or to bury memories of it so deep that it would be impossible for them to resurface ever again, all of the scars, mental and physical, she had acquired as a result of that run in with the shape-shifter.

She pulled her sweatshirt down and told her lie as sarcastically and annoyingly as possible ,"I tried to kill myself."

Cruz responded seriously, "I wasn't lying."

"Whatever. Leave me alone." Delaney turned away from him again and tried to keep her temper reigned in when she didn't hear him walk away from her.

"When my brothers died, I wanted to die too. So I tried slitting my throat but Casyn found me. I owe Casyn my life and a lot more. So, love her too if you're able." He added the last sentence like an afterthought, as a statement he'd thought about saying but had never really thought he would say.

Delaney caught herself before she rolled her eyes angrily. Was he serious? He sounded serious.

She turned to him again, staring up at him in the decent light the porch offered. She tried to think of something to say, she felt compelled to express how Casyn wasn't as annoying as she had been or how Delaney was liking her more and more everyday but she didn't get why it was any of his business.

"Cruz..." She sighed and it was like she felt wrinkles of exhaustion appear under her eyes, around her mouth, and on her forehead. POOF and they were there. "Please just let me take a nap.

"Do you have nightmares?"

Maybe it was because his sentence sounded so dark and heavy but she finally noticed how deep his voice was.

"Yeah." She answered quietly.

"You have anymore scars?"

She smirked, "You, gangsta, have no idea."

"What kind of hunts you been on?"

"I've met with demons twice, a couple of witches, a heck of a lot of ghosts."

"Satan?"

Delaney laughed and when she saw his serious face she laughed even harder.

"No. No Satan."

"Show me."

She raised an eyebrow, "Satan?"

"Your scars."

Delaney watched him for a few seconds, quietly and seriously.

But for some reason, she lifted her shirt to show him her lower abdomen. The scars from the shapeshifter were thick and they still ached sometimes.

She watched his eyes move over them and when he looked up at her face, she turned and showed him the recently-made scar from the ghost who'd stabbed her with the letter opener.

She had more but she'd have to take off her pants and her sweatshirt.

When she felt his hand on her lower back, she stiffened and pushed past him to get out of the chair.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

"Looks relatively fresh. We have som-"

"Fuck you." She retorted and flew down the porch steps. When she came to her car, she settled in the long front seat and locked the doors.

Delaney had run because something inside of her had fluttered.

So, I am at it again. Trying my best to move out of this writer's block.

Thanks in advance to whoever reads this! Much love!

-mar98