The Road So Far…
"Our dad's gone out on a hunting trip and he hasn't called in a few days."
"I know it seems hard to believe. I really understand that. But you've seen the proof that the supernatural exists now. I'm sorry you've been shoved into it. But yes, that was the murderous ghost of a woman long dead."
"Something's wrong, someone else is in the house, they were waiting for Sam to get home."
"This book – this is Dad's single most valuable possession. Everything he knows about every evil thing is in here, and he's passed it on to us."
"I think he wants us to pick up where he left off. You know – saving people, hunting things. The family business."
"Hey, this stays between us, 'kay?... And don't tell Sam. I don't do chick-flick moments."
"You're awesome, you know that? Sometimes I think I could just kiss you."
I leaned against the side of the car while Sam held up the top of the map in front of us, the bottom hitting the roof of the car and curving in. Our shadows were making it a little hard to see, but it was the middle of the day so we had plenty of natural sunlight overhead. While we were looking at the map, Serenity was playing on her iPod in the Impala. Dean was on the opposite side of the vehicle, talking quietly on his phone with someone else. I assumed it was a hunter pal of their father's.
I pointed out a thin grey line without any major symbol on it that veered slightly away from an interstate going north. "It looks like this road's going to meet up with the highway anyway, so it probably wouldn't take more than half an hour." I suggested. "Unless we just kept on that one until we crossed that state border. That might actually be less road to cover."
Sam nodded. "Okay." He looked over the top of the phone, and I did as well to see what was going on. Dean was just staring at his phone, having hung up sometime in the last couple of minutes. "Dean! I think we've found a way we can bypass that construction just east of here." There had been signs saying that the estimated wait time was approaching the higher side of an hour, so we'd pulled off to find an alternative route. "We might even make it to Pennsylvania faster than we thought."
The oldest hunter flipped the phone in his hand, staring off into the distance across the road from the gas station contemplatively. "Yeah." He shoved his phone back in his pocket and turned around to see over the top of the car. "Problem is, we're not going to Pennsylvania."
Serenity heard from Dean's open car door, and she put her iPod down on her legs while she looked up to the man out the window. "So… what, are you claiming PTSD from being in Pennsylvania on the demon airplane?" She asked, voice a little bit muffled from inside the car, despite the open door.
Not long after meeting the Winchesters, someone they'd helped previously called Dean for help when a plane crashed and there were suspicious eyewitness reports and background noise on the recording tapes. It turned out to have been a demon that had escaped from Hell, walking the Earth for who knew how long before anyone was aware it existed. We had to get on an airplane to exorcise it, and although we succeeded, we had nearly died when the demon got into the machinery after being forced from its human host. Dean turned out to have severe aerophobia, and the almost-crash had only exacerbated that fear.
"Nah, it's got nothing to do with the demon." Dean denied, not even commenting on the PTSD remark. "I just got a call from a… uh, an old friend." I didn't miss the hesitation, and I narrowed my eyes. "Her father was killed last night, and she thinks it might be our kind of thing."
"What?" Sam asked disbelievingly.
"Her?" I echoed to myself, mostly just surprised because the vast majority of the women Dean met he slept with and then left. According to Sam, he'd never really dated and had instead had one-night-stands to satisfy his socialization needs. While I'm a big believer that it's possible for men and women to have totally platonic relationships even without being related (just look at Sam and I, for example), the only friends I've ever heard Dean mention were men that he'd met in the hunting business.
"Yeah," Dean confirmed for both Sam and I. If he was only saying yes to one of us, he didn't clarify whom. "Believe me, she never would've called – never – if she didn't need us." He sounded a little bit bitter there, but what with his phobia of feelings, it was mostly covered up.
Dean ducked down and swung into the driver's side of the car while Sam started to fold up the map, shaking his head incredulously.
I looked to the less irritating Winchester at my side. "Do you have any idea who he's talking about?" I inquired, because Dean just dropping what seemed to definitely be a hunt for what might be a hunt was unlike him. Sam just shook his head, seeming as stunned as I was.
Dean cracked his door open. "Are you coming or not?" He yelled through.
I rolled my eyes. "Keep your boxers on," I snapped in retort, reaching down for my door handle.
To say Dean was being stubborn would be putting it lightly. Getting information out of him was like pulling teeth without Novocain. He wasn't all that tight-lipped about the apparent case that we were checking out – his friend's father had been slammed off of the road by what she believes was another car, although there were no signs of another party at the crash, with a past death in similarly suspicious circumstances – but he was refusing to expand on his friend. Between Sam, Serenity, and I, we barely even got her name out of him.
Cassie. I'll be honest, I liked the name. I always have.
"By 'old friend,'" Sam kept trying to pry, his half-smile still in place because he knew how much this was bothering his brother. "You mean…?"
"A friend that's not new."
Dean refused to look away from the steering wheel, which made it hard to nonviolently use his weaknesses against him – his brother's puppy dog eyes were dangerous enough, but if we added some fake hurt from Serenity and I made myself start crying about how he 'didn't trust us' or something, then I was sure he'd spill. His brother and crying women are his weaknesses, and Serenity and I have shamelessly exploited that in the past. I guess this time he just decided it wasn't worth the risk.
The road was mostly empty, which was kind of strange for it being the afternoon. I'd have thought we'd be in a rush hour by now, but there was a wide lake on one side of the road and a crop field on the other, probably owned by some farm that we'd eventually pass. The road itself was only a two-lane.
"Cassie." I said aloud, to see if that would strike a nerve with Dean. "Hm. Very pretty name… but this is the first time I've ever heard it coming out of your mouth." I gave Dean a sidelong look and called over my shoulder. "Sammy?"
"No, I've not heard it either." Sam was enjoying this far too much, shaking his head with a big grin. "This is the first time he's ever mentioned her."
"Didn't I?" Serenity, Sam, and I all collectively shook our heads while Dean grimaced, realizing that we were by no means going to give this up. He sighed, his shoulders riddled in taut anticipation, and tightened his fingers around the steering wheel. "Yeah…" he coughed. "We went out."
Sam's eyebrows flew up so high that they made friends with his fringe. "You mean, you dated somebody?" He questioned. His smile was smacked straight off of his face, replaced with complete shock. He said 'dated' like it was a totally foreign concept.
"For longer than six hours?" Serenity tacked on, seeming appropriately skeptical of the legitimacy of this claim, looking at Dean through the mirror as if searching for some sort of tell of a lie.
Dean shifted, and the gas slightly increased, the car accelerating a few miles per hour. It was a rural, not busy road, and we were still within five miles of the speed limit, so I didn't tell him to slow down. "Am I speaking a language you're not getting here?" He demanded with growing agitation.
"No, we get it," Serenity assured him quickly, her eyes still wide. "That's the problem! What we're hearing from you, it's just… not… seeming like you."
I agreed. "Right!" I finally thought of a good way to make our bewilderment easier for him to understand. "It's like you suddenly started speaking Italian," I explained in offering. "We'd get it, just… not really believe you hadn't been possessed." On that note, I started trying to recall as much of the exorcism from the plane as I could.
My memories were cut off by Dean's reluctant, edgy explanation, given only to get us to stop bothering him. "Dad and I were working a job in Ohio, she was finishing up college. We went out for a couple of weeks." He looked out the window, where he couldn't risk catching tears or puppy eyes in the rearview mirror.
It was like he was telling us a particularly entertaining story. Serenity leaned forward in her seat, elbows so far forward that they were on her knees, and Sam egged him on. "And…?"
Dean shrugged one shoulder, telling Sam to just let it go, that there wasn't more to it than that. Ha, as if we would just let something like this drop.
"Look," Sam continued, pretending to be ignorant of the fact that this was clearly filed under Dean's 'Do-Not-Discuss-With-Anyone-Even-Under-Threat-of-Death' tab. "It's terrible about her dad, but it kind of sounds like a standard car accident. I'm not seeing how it fits with what we do." I had to agree just a bit. I mean, what was I supposed to think? A ghost was possessing the car just to throw it off of the road? Why? The sentient entities we'd faced so far had at least had a reason. Although, then again, I have probably seen weirder by now. But Sam had already distracted himself onto a different train of thought. "Which, by the way, how does she know what we do?"
Right. She had contacted Dean specifically for his services in hunting, and the boys don't make a habit of letting people know who they are or what they're doing. They put on nice suits, Sam puts on his 'I-Empathize-And-You-Can-Lean-On-My-Shoulder-And-Cry-If-You-Need-To' face, Dean throws a few winks or well-timed lines… but they never explain. The only reason Serenity and I know is because telling us ultimately made us safer after Constance Welch tried to kill us.
"Is she a hunter?" I asked thoughtfully. But then, she'd been in college, so… my guess would be no. Dean's lack of confirmation also seemed like a strong hint. "Is someone else she knows a hunter?" I considered instead. Dean and Sam learned from their father, after all – but still no answer from Dean. I sighed. "Throw us a bone here, Dean. Did she get caught up in it, like Serenity and I did?"
"You told her," Sam suddenly realized from the backseat. I looked over the seat to see his entire posture changing – back straightening, lips pulling into a disapproving frown bordering on anger while his fists clenched and his eyes narrowed. Dean didn't deny it. "You told her the secret! Our big family rule-number-one, we do what we do and we shut up about it!"
Serenity and I both winced. It takes a lot more to piss off Sam than it does Dean, so it's always a little bit more shocking when the younger brother starts to yell. This also seemed like a more private matter, so we didn't really want to get into it, despite literally being right next to it.
"For a year and a half, I do nothing but lie to Jessica, and you go out with this chick in Ohio a couple of times and you tell her everything?" Sam shouted furiously from the backseat. With both Serenity and I having fallen quiet at the sign of trouble, Dean didn't have anything else to do but ignore his brother. Or, at least, try. Sam quickly remedied this. "Dean!"
"Yeah," the driver finally returned curtly. "Looks like it."
Sam threw up his arms irately and tossed himself back against the seat, sinking down and glaring out of the window, levelling his most powerful bitch face at the lake.
For the sake of saving time, I went to the police precinct to find the mayor to ask a little about the suspicious car crashes along the same stretch of road. I figured that the mayor might be able to tell me a little more detail than Cassie had told Dean, and I already looked the part. Rather than making Dean, Sam, and Serenity dress up to do something they never really liked anyway, I had them drop me off at the station while they went on to find a hotel to stop at before Dean called Cassie and we all met up.
I approached an officer who didn't seem to have anything urgent to do, standing and talking next to another. Both were taller than me, which I didn't like. I liked being tall. I've given up on feeling tall next to Sam, but I should still be able to salvage the feeling around other people sometimes. "Excuse me." I held up my badge with my FBI credentials while the doors to the precinct opened again and three people entered, having a loud discussion. "I'm looking for…"
I trailed off when I caught some of the dialogue from the argument, tuning in to my surroundings enough to know what was going on.
"It's a newspaper we put out, not a bulletin for the Mayor's office!" An African American, middle-aged man dressed in more professional attire was walking side-by-side with a middle-aged Caucasian with sandy-colored hair in a grey suit. He had a badge pinned on his shirt naming him as the mayor. Well. That was easy. Behind them both was a young woman, also African American, who was around my height and age – she probably wasn't any more than five years my senior, and she wore a blouse, blazer, and black skirt down to her knees. Her brown hair was long and curly.
The mayor, however, didn't seem very friendly. "Get off your soapbox, Jimmy." The mayor was shooting down whatever the other man – Jimmy – was arguing for. "I'm urging a little discretion is all."
"No," the woman butted in, trying to step in between the two men and be more directly involved. "I think you're telling us what you want us to print and what you want us to sit on." I had to praise her for not being afraid to speak up against the mayor.
The mayor himself half-turned to her while he kept walking. "I know you're upset, Cassie." Oh. Jimmy, Cassie, and the mayor kept walking, heading through the desks and towards the office at the back of the precinct, probably where the sheriff or chief of police kept their own desk and things. It took less than a second for me to make the connection between Dean's Cassie and this Cassie. If I'd been doubting it, then it seemed unlikely that Dean's Cassie had a sister named Cassie, or that there were two Cassies whose fathers had died. "I liked your dad a lot, but I think your grief is clouding your judgment."
"Excuse me, Agent." The officer that I had approached waved at me for my attention again and I realized I'd just stopped talking midsentence. "Who're you after?"
"Um…" I looked away from Cassie and up to the officer again, dragging my eyes away with effort. Jesus, what were the odds of this? "Never mind," I said with a slightly smile, stepping away to the side. "I think I just found her. Thank you, though."
I moved away from the officer before I could be asked any questions or spoken to about something else, and I tuned in intently to the rest of the conversation. The mayor stopped in between two desks and turned around to face Jimmy and Cassie, who were still pushing him for their point.
"Two black people were killed on the same stretch of road in the same way in two weeks." Jimmy reminded the mayor with a disgruntled glower.
The mayor waved a hand at Jimmy, like he was telling him to take a chill pill or knock it off. "Jimmy, you're too close to this," he said insistently, like this was an argument which had ceased to be new a long time ago. "Those guys were friends of yours. Again, Cassie, I'm very sorry for your loss."
It was spoken with a note of finality, and while people who work in the media can be pushy sometimes to get what they need, Cassie and Jimmy both knew better than to follow the mayor when he took that tone and left them to go into the back office without them.
Jimmy threw one hand up into the air, shaking his head in annoyance and turning to walk in the opposite direction. Cassie sighed, audibly to me, her shoulders slumping down in temporary defeat before she turned around, moving to leave much slower than her colleague.
"Cassie?" I asked, though I was certain that I'd heard her name correctly.
It was weird to think that I was meeting a girl that Dean had cared enough about to spend more than a night with in a romantic and/or sexual capacity. The girl responded to her name, seeming a little bit surprised when she didn't recognize me upon turning around, and I stayed back by another desk, giving her space because I wasn't sure how well she'd respond to me.
She was beautiful. There were a few pins in her hair that were hard to see keeping it somewhat neat and out of her face. Her complexion was clear and the way she held herself was confident. Her eyes were deep, shining hazel irises, and though she was wearing heels, they were only a couple of inches, not stilettos.
"Sorry," I said, waving slightly. "I know you were probably expecting Dean, but he and the others are getting a hotel room. We thought we'd meet up and he'd call you, but… this works, too."
Assuming Dean doesn't flip, I added silently to myself, but I'm an adult, and so is he, and so is Cassie. If we can't all interact civilly with each other, then we really need to rethink our levels of responsibility and maturity.
She frowned, but listened and didn't leave. She probably recognized Dean's name, but not me. "Who're you?"
It occurred to me a little late that I might have creeped her out a little bit, so I offered a hurried, apologetic smile and held up my badge of credentials. "SSA Holly Kasakabe," I introduced, using my whole name before pushing my badge away into my pocket again. "I'm here with Dean. And his brother, and my sister," I explained. "We're all sort of traveling together."
Her suspicion seemed to dull and she sighed, more frustrated than relieved, which hadn't been what I was going for. I frowned in confusion while she looked down and brushed back her hair, despite the fact that it hadn't been in the way. "So, he just sent you instead of coming to me himself? I'm sorry he got you involved."
No, I'm supposed to be involved! Hunting is- Oh, wait. I'd introduced myself as an FBI agent. Last time I'd done that to someone requesting help with a hunt, the civilian hadn't realized that I was also a hunter.
I took a guess that that was what had happened here, too, and tried to correct her quickly before she became too angry with Dean. "When I said that we were traveling together, I mean that we're all… working together, too." I used the emphasis to hint at it without outright saying it, because we were in a public place and Cassie seemed skeptical about me.
I think she got what I was trying to say, though, because her legs moved, carrying her over to me. She looked furtively to the side and dropped her voice only a couple of feet away from me. "Like… on that whole 'chasing ghosts' thing?" I nodded, pleased that she'd gotten it, and her shoulders visibly drained. "Would you mind taking this to my house?" She asked, holding out a hand towards the doors across the precinct. "It's more private."
I nodded, prepared to be amiable and get along with her. "Wherever you'd prefer," I said courteously, resisting the urge to reach for my phone and call Dean. I thought that I'd at least give her the option of doing it herself. The idea of sharing rights to contact the man put me a little on edge, but she knew and trusted him more than she did me, so it only seemed right.
That doesn't necessarily mean I want to share him, though, I complained mentally, already beginning to get this scene in my head where once Dean and Cassie saw each other, they'd pick up where they left off. My relationship with him got frustrating really fast!
Cassie and I rode in her car back to a big, two-story country house with a huge yard out in the outskirts of the town. The car ride was sort of awkward, what with her just asking basic questions – like how long I've been traveling with the brothers – and me trying to answer them. The radio was turned off, which I think didn't really help, but after she finally turned it on, we found out that we both liked a song and that sort of broke a bit of the ice, and from that point it didn't feel as uncomfortable.
But when Dean first saw Cassie and I together talking companionably, I swear he turned a dozen shades paler and shuffled slightly further away from both of us. Sam had laughed.
Cassie carried in a hot pitcher of water, just boiled, to pour out tea into several cups while still talking to us as we sat in the living room – the four hunters on one long couch, and another recliner open for Cassie at the end of the coffee table in front of the sofa. "My mother's in pretty bad shape. I've been staying with her." Nervously, she looked out the window, like she was waiting for someone else to get home. "I wish she wouldn't go off by herself. She's been so nervous and frightened. She was worried about Dad."
"Why?" Dean asked.
Cassie lifted her shoulders up in a shrug as she tipped the pitcher and started half filling up the individual cups of tea with water still steaming from the kitchen. "He was scared. He was seeing things."
"Did he ever tell you what?" I asked, wondering if he had been paranoid or if he'd been seeing something unearthly.
The woman put down the pitcher on a hot pad on the bookshelf. "He swore he saw an awful-looking black truck following him."
"A truck?" Sam repeated, straightening up in surprise while Cassie picked up two of the saucers securely by the edges, sliding her hands underneath as she lifted them off of the counter and turned to carry them back. "Who was the driver?"
Cassie handed Dean and I teacups and saucers first because we were closer on the sofa than our siblings. "He didn't talk about a driver," she said, passing them off to us before going to return for Serenity and Sam's. "Just the truck."
"Is it possible that he was hallucinating? Because the alternative is that there's a hunt involving a violent, driverless truck." Serenity wrinkled her nose unhappily and shook her head firmly. "That's a bit too Scooby Doo for my tastes."
I wasn't the only one reminded of the episode when the Mystery Machine is taken over by remote control and seems to have been turned evil against the gang! Oh thank God, I was worried for minute there.
"No way," Cassie replied flatly, picking up two more and carrying them back to Sam and Serenity. "My dad had perfect health. And he knew he wasn't hallucinating, because that was the only thing out of place he ever saw." I frowned slightly and bit down on my lower lip, because that wasn't necessarily a sign that it wasn't a hallucination. When your mind plays tricks on you, it doesn't have to have more than one card up its proverbial sleeve for it to be a real issue. "He said it would appear and disappear. And, in the accident, Dad's car was dented, like it had been slammed into by something big."
"Thanks," Sam said to Cassie quickly, taking the saucer and setting it on his leg before bringing down the teacup slower. "Now, you're sure this dent wasn't there before?" He asked her back as she moved back to the counter, picking up her own cup and carrying it back to the chair in front of the short edge of the coffee table.
Dean raised the edge of the teacup to his lips and took a drink, made a face, and quickly brought it back down onto the saucer. "This is the worst coffee I've ever tasted," he coughed, hastily getting rid of it by putting it on the side table.
I rolled my eyes and resisted the urge to double over and smack my head on the coffee table. "That's because it's not coffee."
"It's tea, dumbass," Serenity informed him in irritation, being a fan of tea as well as coffee.
Cassie dismissed us and our interaction with her ex. "He sold cars," she told Sam, answering his question. "Always drove a new one. There wasn't a scratch on that thing!" She took a deep breath and drank some tea to calm herself down. There was still steam rising from the glasses. "It had rained hard that night," she said, more composed. "There was mud everywhere. There was a distinct set of muddy tracks leading from dad's car…" She stopped and swallowed firmly. "… Leading right to the edge, where he went over. One set of tracks. His."
I would have put my own tea down, but was a little more polite than that. Dean leaned forward without his own on his lap, and he crossed his arms on his knees. "The first was a friend of your father's?"
"Best friend," Cassie corrected. "Clayton Soames. They owned the car dealership together. Same thing. Dent, no tracks." She was vehement and fierce in her point, stubborn almost to a fault. Her certainty could be her refusing to accept and adapt, but it could also be her refusing to deafen herself to her intuition. "And the cops said exactly what they said about dad – he 'lost control of his car.'" She quoted bitterly.
Dean, I noticed, was carefully not looking at Cassie. In fact, he was willing to look almost anywhere else – the cup he'd discarded to the table, my hand as I drummed my fingers absently on my thigh, the carpet design of interlocking circles on the floor.
"Can you think of any reason why your father and his partner might be targets?" He asked Cassie while focusing on my hand. As I realized what he was paying attention to, I switched my soft tapping to the tune of a Led Zeppelin track, hoping that he would appreciate it.
Dean relaxed slightly, holding himself with less stiffness and letting our legs press together. Cassie eyed the exchange but looked down to her hands while she shook her head, and it bothered me a little that I couldn't tell how she felt about what she'd seen. "No."
"And you think this… vanishing truck… ran them off the road?" Sam asked, eyebrows raised. It wasn't supposed to make her feel stupid, just to put it in perspective. If she realized what she suggested was ridiculous, then either she'd still be confident something's up or she'd back down.
Cassie rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and her shoulders fell. "When you say it aloud like that…" she groaned miserably, before forcing herself to look back to Sam. "Listen, I'm a little skeptical about this… ghost… stuff… or whatever it is you guys are into-"
It sounded like she wasn't done talking, but Dean interrupted, scoffing and not bothering to cover up the sound or back down when she looked at him again. "Skeptical," he repeated callously. "If I remember, I think you said I was nuts."
"That was then," Cassie stated, staring defiantly into his eyes like she was daring him to really make this into a thing, right here, with company.
"I thought I was going crazy," I blurted out, getting in the tension before it could devolve or build up. I didn't want Dean to fight with his ex. Obviously it would be counterproductive for me to want them to get together again, but I don't want him to be upset, either, and fighting with Cassie would definitely bode badly for his emotions. So that left me with running interference.
Cassie looked away from Dean first, her eyes darting to me and silently asking me to continue. I nodded to the side, at my sister. "Serenity and I started hunting when we got caught in a hunt," I explained, showing that she shouldn't feel too awful for doubting herself. It was a really wacky situation to be in, when you questioned everything you knew about reality. "A ghost nearly ran us over with Dean's car. Then Sam and I got trapped in the car with it." I gave her an attempt at a smile and breathed deeply. "Half of the time when you say it out loud, it sounds a little insane, so we get it. It seems unrealistic, or like it has to be in your head, but then when it's real, it almost seems worse."
Cassie exhaled. "I don't know about ghosts or monsters or things like what you do. I just know that I can't explain what happened to my dad." She shifted, carefully not spilling her tea, and held onto the teacup tightly like a vice. "So I called you," she finished, again to Dean.
The front door creaked before the hunter could respond. The living room was set off from the main entryway, so I leaned forward to see around Serenity and Sam. A white woman whose hair was beginning to turn white, maybe in her fifties, was stepping through a foyer, wearing a long shawl over her top and slacks. Her heels were plain wedges, and her hair was held back by pins.
"Mom!" Cassie exclaimed, the breath leaving her in a rush as she stood up hurriedly, pushing her tea onto the coffee table and all but forgetting it. I blinked, a little surprised, but quickly figured the rest out for myself – Cassie's parents were interracial, which explained the difference in skin color. I really don't have a problem with it, honestly, it just threw me for a second. "Where have you been?" She turned around the chair to approach her mom hurriedly. "I was so-"
"I had no idea you'd invited friends over," Mrs. Robinson cut in, looking over her busy living room with wide eyes like she'd almost just had a heart attack. Cassie stopped halfway to her mother and looked back at the four of us, seeming almost guilty for not warning her mother about our presence.
"Mom, this is Dean." It made sense she introduced the person she knew best first. The woman pointed to Dean, then at Sam, myself, and Serenity. "A… friend of mine from… college." It was half-truthful, anyway, although Dean sure hadn't been a student. "And his brother Sam, and their partners Holly and Serenity."
Well, calling us partners seemed a little more professional than our job actually was, but okay. We do work together in our hunting, so it's not completely inaccurate. Serenity cocked her head at Cassie and started to slowly shake her head, disagreeing with the way she'd phrased it, but neither of the Robinsons were paying any attention to us anymore.
"Well, I won't interrupt you." Cassie's mom ducked her head and pulled her small purse off of her arm, carrying it by her chest and turning towards the stairs.
Dean put a hand on my thigh and stood up from the couch, turning to face the front door and the two women. "Mrs. Robinson, we're sorry for your loss." He called, trying to be courteous before probably asking for some sort of information.
While his polite condolence fell upon seemingly deaf ears, I reached up with my free hand and took Dean's wrist, giving him a light tug. Dean looked between the woman clearly trying to escape as fast as possible to the second floor and then to me before sighing and sitting down again. We could talk to Cassie's mother at a time when she wasn't racing to get away, or overwhelmed by so much company.
I looked over at Cassie to say something, but forgot what it was when I noticed her eyes flicker away swiftly from my hand, where I was still holding onto Dean's wrist and he hadn't made any move to make me let go, and then felt as if my hand had been burned by her gaze.
My wakeup call the next day was AC/DC playing from Dean's phone as Cassie called early in the morning. When I heard the ringtone, I rolled over and smacked Dean's chest to wake him up so that I didn't have to talk to anyone.
Of course, then we all had to wake up, too, so that we could go to a crime scene to investigate another murder-slash-suspicious-accidental-death on the same road that the other two victims had died on. Incidentally, Serenity had to point out that this was the same road we'd driven into town on the day before, and neither Sam nor I appreciated this.
It was a long, two-lane highway that connected the town to the rest of the world. To the right of the road was a huge lake, and there were spots of barren trees on either side. There was a curve in the road that went to the left, and this was the spot where the red car had gone over. It was halfway into a ditch, glass shattered and metal bent and warped, and there was a coroner's van being loaded up with a body bag on a gurney.
Cassie had beat us there, dressed similarly to yesterday except in slacks rather than a skirt. Her blazer was left open and her hair was held back. She followed after the mayor, who was already trying to leave the scene after making his initial evaluation.
Sam, Serenity, and Dean let me run ahead to try to catch up with Cassie and the mayor, trying to force my way into the conversation to figure out what was going on. The mayor was trying to console the journalist.
"Jimmy meant something to this town," he assured her, sounding as if he was hardly grieving. He wasn't too convincing. Jimmy? Is that… the man Cassie was with at the precinct yesterday? "He was one of our best. We won't be the same without him."
The two were still moving, pacing closer to the road and away from the crash site. While we were getting closer to the Impala and Cassie's car, I turned around and fell into step next to Cassie. Although we were going back to the place I'd come from, I was now involved in the dialogue.
"Our best seem to be dropping like flies." Cassie responded heatedly in what seemed far more like a challenge than a simple statement. "Clayton, my father, Jimmy."
"What is it exactly you want me to do?" The mayor asked her, stopping in his steps and crossing his arms at Cassie.
Cassie and I both turned around so that we were facing the mayor. She glanced at me once, like she was asking me what we could do legally, and then went back to glaring at the man.
"Obviously it's suspicious that so many people have died in this mile," I told the mayor, trying to be reasonable and diplomatic at the same time. Stirring up issues with the locals would never, ever be a good idea, but at the same time, I had to agree with Cassie that the mayor should take some action. "And in such a short time. You could put further investigation into the victim's cars – look for tampering. You could close down this section in hopes to prevent more crashes."
"Close the main road." The mayor raised his eyebrows at me and scoffed. I felt like I was being mocked. Dean, Sam, and Serenity caught up and stood behind us while the main authority figure of the town laughed. "The only road in and out of town? Sorry – who are you, anyway?"
"FBI Agent Holly Kasakabe." Serenity answered proudly for me, raising one arm and settling her elbow on my shoulder. I nodded in confirmation and crossed my arms, now more comfortable with both Cassie and Serenity on either side.
"We don't need the FBI here." The mayor told me with no small amount of certainty. I raised my chin, irritated, and narrowed my eyes. "A rash of road accidents is tragic, but it's no cause for the federal bureau to get involved." Maybe I'm not here as the bureau, huh? I hate people who talk to me with his attitude. "Accidents do happen, Cassie, and that's what these are. Accidents."
I looked at Serenity and she nodded once, raising her fingers up and snapping in cue for the boys.
"Did the cops check for additional denting on Jimmy's car to see if it was pushed?" Dean asked the mayor over Cassie's shoulder.
The mayor ignored him for the time being, looking straight back to Cassie. "Who're these?"
"We're friends of Cassie's," Serenity answered, very clearly annoyed while she glared at the mayor. "That's Dean and Sam Winchester, and I'm Serenity, Holly's sister. We're not here on official federal business, but she is still an SSA, so maybe you should think twice about how much respect you give her and maybe you should actually rub those tiny, tiny brain cells together and consider the valid points that Cassie is trying to make about suspicious deaths in your community."
My eyes were wide. Damn. I sure appreciated the support, but I hadn't expected it to be so fierce. Actually, I think that made it better. Dean nodded in agreement and Sam stared at Serenity, like that was one of the very last things he'd expected her to respond with.
Unlike the three of us, Cassie was more abashed by my sister's blunt and rude behavior. Serenity has never been happy with treating anyone with any more respect than she thinks that they deserve, and while that works for her, most of the world has to at least feign deference to authority figures like the mayor. "This is Mayor Harold Todd," she said with an uncomfortable note in her voice, waiting for Todd to react to Serenity and probably hoping that it wouldn't be too bad.
"Our community takes care of its own." Todd looked over Serenity icily. "And these deaths aren't of any concern to you. If you're friends of Cassie's, then I advise you to keep in mind that you're guests in this town, and problematic guests don't tend to stay very long."
Well, I thought with a sigh. Barely twelve hours in a new town and we're already threatened with being kicked out.
"There is one car, one victim, and one set of tire tracks." Todd was now answering Dean's question, although he wasn't exactly doing it willingly or happily. "One. It doesn't point to foul play."
"Mayor, the police and town officials take their cues from you." Cassie tried to argue her case again, despite the turn of the mood to become much less indulgent. "If you're indifferent about-"
"Indifferent!" Todd scoffed.
The journalist stood her ground proudly. "Would you close the road if the victims were white?" She demanded with a cock of her head.
For a second, Todd was totally blown away, like he wasn't even sure what was he was being accused of, and then he stopped and paused and narrowed his eyes. Even though Cassie was taller, he still managed to gather himself up and seem more intimidating.
"Are you suggesting I'm racist, Cassie?" He asked, dangerously lowly. For a minute I honestly thought he would threaten her, and though obviously we weren't best friends, I wouldn't let that stand. "I'm the last person you should talk to like that."
Cassie, for her part, remained visibly undaunted. "And why is that?" Neither of the boys or Serenity tried to get in the way of this, almost like it was a car crash they just couldn't bring themselves to look away from and holy hell, I can't believe I just made that analogy in this context.
What the fuck is wrong with me?!
Internally I scolded myself for my abhorrent mental train of thought, hoping that my face wasn't showing exactly how disgusted I was with my own mind. Meanwhile, Todd let out a breath while fixing Cassie with a strong, angry glower. "Why don't you ask your mother?" He growled lowly before turning his back to her and, by extension, the rest of us.
I pulled the blazer up my arms and fixed the collar around my neck. My tie was askew down the front of my blouse, but I figured that could be fixed when I was done being pissed at the kitchenette equipment for having set it off in the first place. Dean stood in front of the mirror, one hand pulling down to straighten his tie and the other pushing the knot up to the collar front of his shirt.
"I'll say this for her," Sam started to say, dressed casually and kicking his sneakers off as he settled on the mattress. "She's fearless." And that made it obvious we were back to talking about Cassie again. Well, that and the stupid silly grin on his face as he stared at Dean, waiting to get a rise out of his brother. Sam wasn't wrong. Outright asking the mayor if he was influenced by the race of the victims was ridiculously reckless, but it was necessary and took courage. "And Holly," Sam added, with less of an I-live-to-annoy-you tone. "Your tie's crooked."
Serenity dropped her phone onto the blankets and fell backwards on the bed, laughing so hard that she could barely breathe. Dean stopped and looked at her through the mirror, and Sam twisted to look down at her in alarm.
Furiously, I reached to my neck and readjusted my tie. "The microwave has a hook that latches when the door shuts, and this hook can get caught on clothes, and who actually watches to make sure their clothes don't get caught in the microwave?!" I hissed, cheeks burning in embarrassment.
Dean snorted. "For most people, that isn't an actual problem."
"Shut up!" I snapped, pulling again at my blazer and walking across the room to get my shoes. Then, I was hit with a sudden moment of brilliance and got back at Dean in a much better way. "Sammy, go back to talking about Cassie."
Sam went back to grinning like a smug fool. "Anything to save your pride, Holly," he joked without sting. I rolled my eyes, but made a 'go on' motion towards Dean's back while bending over and picking up my black flats. "Hey Dean, I bet she kicked your ass a couple of times."
Dean studied Sam in the mirror before going back to his own reflection. He pulled at a loose thread on his jacket, invested in his appearance only as a distraction.
"What's interesting," Sam continued gleefully, "Is that you guys never really look at each other at the same time." I pulled the back of one shoe to get my heel in, bouncing on my other foot to keep my balance. "You look at her when she's not looking… she checks you out when you look away… when you know she's looking, you look to Holly…" Suddenly finding myself a part of the couple's drama, I whipped my head up to stare at Sam and lost my balance, falling down onto the carpet with only one shoe on. "… And sometimes she catches herself looking at both of you."
"Wait, why is Holly involved in their couples' drama?" Serenity objected, sitting up and recovering from laughing her ass off at my misfortune with microwaves.
"Seconded," I squeaked from the carpet, pushing myself up into a sitting position. I decided to go ahead and fix my second shoe while I was sitting. "I feel uncomfortable now."
Dean cleared his throat. "What's your point, Sam?" He asked somewhat defensively.
My God, the boy looked like he'd still won the lottery. "It's just a…" he started shaking his head while racking his brain for the right words to use. "Just an interesting observation, in a… you know…" he shrugged, trying and failing to look totally casual. "Observationally interesting way."
I scoffed. Suddenly, Dean being teased about Cassie – especially with me somehow becoming a part of it – wasn't as funny. "For a Stanford man, your vocabulary is shockingly limited." Sam shrugged apologetically but he still seemed to think that this was the funniest incident he'd been involved in in years.
"Don't you think we might have more pressing issues here?" Dean demanded with his voice defensive, slightly rougher than normal out of stress.
Sam held up his hands. "Hey, if I'm hitting a nerve-"
"Let's go, Holls," Dean interrupted to command. Looking between Sam and Dean and then shrugging, I got up from the floor, with both shoes on, and followed the older brother to the door.
"Excuse me. Are you Ron Stubbins?"
Dean called for the attention of the two men sitting in rocking chairs in front of a checkers table outside of a retirement home. Both were seniors, at least in their thirties, and had little hair. What they did have was greying. Both wore button-ups and casual clothing, and seemed content to frown while conversing.
The one closest to us looked both of us up and down – twice – before reluctantly deciding to fess up to his identity and nodded. There was a scar on his jaw, like he'd been burned or gotten a deep gash sometime in the past.
"You were friends with Jimmy Anderson?" Dean confirmed just to be certain, reaching into his jacket pocket to fish out his falsified credentials just in case he needed them. He kept his hand in his pocket.
"Who are you?" Although that was a rather rude way to answer the question, it seemed like a noncommittal agreement and he didn't correct us. We'd gotten the information from Cassie, and I was pretty sure that she'd know her family's friends better than we would. I should hope so, anyway.
Dean didn't let the disrespect or the irritability throw him. "I'm with Mr. Anderson's insurance company, this is Agent Holly Kasakabe, FBI." I knew that I probably wouldn't be very welcome with the two – hell, welcome in the town in general, because I'm federal and this is a small community – but I gave a wave to be polite. "We're just here to dot some "I"s and cross some "T"s."
That phrase has always seemed weird to me. I get what it means, it's just… weird.
I cleared my throat with a light cough before beginning to ask the question to lead into the rest. "Could you tell us if Jimmy had ever mentioned anything out of the norm in the past week?" I inquired, trying not to seem as professional as I was trying to be respectful. I looked between the two men hopefully.
"What do you mean, unusual?" Ron's voice was rough, like he'd smoked cigarettes for a long time, and it almost made me wonder if it hurt to talk sometimes, especially in the allergy season. I dismissed this thought almost immediately, because it had no relevance and I actually didn't care that much.
I started to shake my head but opened my mouth and started to offer exactly what I meant while sounding uncertain, like I was just throwing out anything I thought of. "Seeing or hearing anything out of the ordinary, acting strangely, et cetera." I raised my shoulders in a shrug and smiled charismatically. "It's part of a medical evaluation for mental state. Believe me, I know the question sounds weird," I forced a small laugh, "But it's totally standard."
Ron narrowed his eyes. He wasn't buying into my I'm-sweet-and-innocent façade as well as I had hoped. "What company did you say you were with?" He asked Dean suspiciously.
Dean reached into his jacket and showed him his billfold again, the falsified insurance business card only on display for a couple of seconds. "All National Mutual," he lied smoothly, not even hesitating. "Tell me, did he ever mention seeing a truck? A big, black truck?"
Stubbins glared, becoming only more aggressive the longer that we lingered. I was beginning to get the impression that he didn't like us. I wondered if it was because we were bothering him after his friend died, if it was because we were a different race in a very ethnicity-conscious community, or because he was just naturally not a very sociable person.
"What the hell're you talking about?" He demanded gruffly, looking between Dean and I unhappily. "You even speaking English?"
I knew I shouldn't, but my mouth didn't wait for permission from my brain before I blinked and answered, "Sí."
Before I managed to get my ass either verbally abused or chased off of the property, I offered a bright smile and Ron's chair neighbor intervened.
"Son, this truck…" Dean looked to him instead of Stubbins. He seemed more docile – or at least less likely to bite our throats out. "A big, scary, monster-looking thing?" I hoped by that he meant that it looked like a monster truck rather than a wendigo, because otherwise we have a whole new set of problems – where do we find lore on a monster that doubles as a car?
But what he'd offered for clarification seemed a lot like what Cassie had relayed from her deceased father. Dean nodded, slightly surprised. "Yeah, actually. I think so."
Stubbins' friend hummed.
I fought back the urge to roll my eyes. Are you going to grace us with your wisdom, oh wise one? "Did he ever mention it to you?" I asked with whatever scraps of patience I managed to scrape up together into one place.
"Not him," the second man answered, more forthcoming with the information now that a question had been directly asked rather than just implied. "But I have heard of a truck like that."
Interesting. "Where from?"
"Not where," the man told me, looking up and squinting against the sun as if he was just now really seeing me or what I looked like. "When." He corrected. I blinked, then frowned and cocked my head. I'm listening. "Back in the sixties, there was a string of deaths," he started to tell. He didn't sound too invested in the story, but he did seem confident in what he said. "Black men. Story goes, they disappeared in a big, nasty, black truck."
Dean started to look at me, but stopped himself before we seemed conspiratorial. "They ever catch the guy who did it?" He questioned.
"Never found him." Stubbins' friend shrugged his shoulders lamely. It seemed like he didn't feel any personal compassion for the people who had been involved. Maybe he just didn't care anymore. It had been about forty years ago, and who knew what the demographic had been like towards African Americans then? Myself being a white, European female, I'd probably never experience the same prejudice. "Hell, I'm not sure they even really looked. See, there was a time when this town wasn't too friendly to all its' citizens."
Racism seemed to be a common theme within this particular hunt, and while sometimes it made for an interesting plot device, it was never good in reality. In halfway decent human beings, it brought with it negative emotions, be it because they're ashamed of their ancestors or bitter about how their ethnic group was treated.
"Well, times have changed," I told the men both calmly, with a slight smile. It was honest. Some people were always going to believe that black men and women were inferior, but the better majority knew better by now. "Thank you both for your time."
The two of us left to go back to the Impala soon after talking to Stubbins and his friend and getting their opinions (one was helpful, the other just suggested we were nuts). Dean and I ditched the false polite attitudes and took up our own natural behaviors with each other, walking side-by-side and talking too quietly to be heard by anyone else.
"A… monster truck." I summarized slowly, coming to the conclusion of everything else we'd managed to come up with in the last twenty-four hours. "Am I the only one thinking that we're hunting the ghost… of a car?"
"You know, I was thinking." Deliberately not looking to the side at Dean, I resisted the so obvious dig he'd just made present itself. "You ever heard of the Flying Dutchman?"
Who hasn't? However, beyond the cartoony version of the glowing green ghost ship, I didn't know anything even a little bit accurate. "Beyond what's in SpongeBob?" I asked, laughing. "Not really. An eerie ghost ship, animated by the captain's lingering, tormented spirit." I lifted my hands and waved my fingers at him like I was telling a spooky story, aiming for his sides teasingly.
"Right, the evil spirit was so attached to the boat, that instead of just being a specter, it made the entire ship appear to its victims. Stop that." He batted away my hands, smacking my wrists. I laughed again. "So what if we're dealing with the same thing? You know, a phantom truck, an extension of some bastard's ghost, re-enacting past crimes."
It made as much sense as could really be expected from any theory about the supernatural hunts we went on. "Both times, the victims have been adult black men," I remarked, comparing the victimology.
"I think it's more than that. They all seem connected to Cassie and her family." Dean specified thoughtfully, with a sort of twist between concern and irritation that I didn't remember hearing too often.
Back to Cassie. I carried myself with a more rigid posture and we split up as we reached the car, walking around different sides so that he was by the driver's side and I was at the passenger's. Cassie's at the root of this hunt, not just the person who called it in.
"Do you want us both to go talk to her about it, or should I just throw some condoms at you and let you go alone?" I offered sarcastically with a scowl, looking at him over the car before I opened my door.
He held out his arms as if I were throwing shots at him. Maybe to him I was. "Hey! What the hell?"
"I'm not blind, Dean, or stupid." I took my lecturing tone with him to get the point through. Though he hated being treated anything like a child, he listened when I took this voice with him, and that was what I needed him to do. "Sam's right. The way you two are acting around each other… it's weird." I'd never seen anyone act the way that Cassie and Dean did. "And I don't know why I got caught in the middle more than Sam or Serenity, but I don't want to be in some clichéd love triangle.
"You and I don't operate like that. I just met Cassie. I like her well enough, but I don't think I'm that into her." I crossed my arms over the top of the Impala. I was tall enough to look over the top at Dean, who was still throwing me a weaker version of his brother's bitch face. "The tension is so thick I felt like I was drowning in it at her house, and because you're so opposed to talking about feelings, I'm pretty confident that the only way the two of you would work out your relationship issues is through angry sex!" Although I was expecting him to be indignant, Dean's carefully neutral expression changed to become reluctant agreement, and he nodded. I'd laugh about it later. "Hence the condoms. And the being alone," I added on second thought. "Because I'm not into the whole voyeurism thing."
He raised an eyebrow and me and shook his head. "I'm not an exhibitionist," he told me. Then he ruined it by waggling his eyebrows suggestively, his go-to method of lessening the tension when he felt like he was getting too close to something he wanted to avoid.
I dropped my head down onto my forearms. The thud gave me a slight headache, but it felt totally necessary… "That wasn't the point, but, uh… good to know…?" Even I wasn't sure whether that was a question or a statement. I shook my head quickly, trying to forget about the moment of awkwardness. "What went on with the two of you? I get she didn't take the hunting well, but you act like it's so much more than being called crazy."
Dean blinked and stubbornly refused to look at me. He flipped up the collar of his dad's jacket, still too big for him, and raised his shoulder up defensively, probably without even knowing that he was doing it. "Alright, so… maybe we were a little bit more involved than I said." Jesus, getting even that much from him was like trying to pull out his teeth (not that I'd ever actually try). He seemed grudging, unwilling to explain.
Alright, so getting him to talk was working. I leaned into the side of the car, my arms warmed by the sun-heated roof. "How much more?" I asked, prompting him but being patient at the same time. Pushing too far would get me nowhere. I wasn't just trying to get myself out of an uncomfortable situation – I wanted to help my friend, too.
Dean rolled his eyes. He looked away from me. Maybe that's what he needed in order to open up – to not feel under constant scrutiny. "A lot more," he admitted. "Maybe." I nodded slightly. More serious than casual dating. Okay. "And I… told her our secret, about what we do… and I shouldn't have." He confessed uneasily. Obviously he regretted telling her… judging by their back-and-forth earlier about Cassie calling him insane, she took it badly.
"Don't beat yourself up for that, Dean." I advised over the top of the car. "Not everyone can take it. Not everyone can believe it without proof. I had to have my heart nearly ripped out to believe you guys were sane. Cassie wasn't in that danger, and that's probably for the best because she's a journalist, Dean, not someone who already fought to stay alive."
"Yeah, you still question your sanity." Dean scoffed. I didn't deny it. Sometimes I had to wonder about it all. I have an invisible, supernatural protector, an apparent inclination for precognitive dreams, my mother was murdered by a demon, and I've been living with two men in a dysfunctional, half-wrecked family unit. "It was stupid to get that close. I mean, look at how it ended, why don't you?"
"You've let me get close." I had to remind him, remembering the times we'd played around and talked and shared music. We may not be in a relationship, but we were still close. And I haven't backfired in his face yet. He can trust me. Showing people how you feel isn't always a mistake. "There's more to a relationship than sex, Dean, you know that. Otherwise you wouldn't have admitted you were dating her. You wanted to be close to her. You-"
-Are so upset you don't want to talk about it to anyone. Are still seriously hurt by it years later. Wanted to let her in. Wanted her to know the truth about your life. Wanted to trust her and vice versa. Cared enough to put yourself on the line for her.
I felt as if my brain had suddenly short circuited, coming to a conclusion that made me feel like the world was spinning a little too fast.
Dean snapped his fingers and started waving his hand at me, trying to snap me out of it. "Would you stop!" He bit, glaring. "Blink or something! God, what are you, a statue?"
I blinked, still shocked, although I probably shouldn't have been. With everything I knew, it's not like I was being introduced to an entirely foreign concept.
"You thought you were in love with her," I whispered across the car, stunned.
"Oh, God." Dean groaned, throwing his head back and complaining. "Not this…" He's not denying it, a rebellious part of my head pointed out in a stupor. "Look, I'm only gonna say this once. If you tell Sam, or Serenity, I will kick your ass, got it?" He pointed across the top of the car at me. I nodded wordlessly. Anything he told me in confidence, I'd keep to myself. "I was in love with her," he declared, then grit his teeth furiously. "I wasn't just thinking about it. I do know my own freaking emotions, Holls."
He used the past tense… and he's angry. While part of me was hurting that he'd been in love with Cassie, I was also pleased he was willing to trust me with the information, and against my better judgment I was trying to read too far into him saying 'was' rather than 'am.'
Once I realized why he was angry, I started shaking my head and my jaw dropped open. I hadn't meant to offend him, but I hadn't realized how the words would sound. "I'm sorry, Dean, that's not what I meant," I tried to apologize.
"Yeah?" Dean snorted. Though he heard, now I knew he wasn't listening to me, just taking it as it sounded rather than listening to my intonation. "Well." He gave me a falsely sugared smile across the car. "I think I'm a little irritated."
"Dean!" I snapped, getting rude for a second just to get his attention so that I could keep talking and not end this on such a bad note. The hunter glowered, his gaze not letting up on the agitation, but at least he wasn't making shots. "Emotions like… love and hate aren't quantifiable, okay?" And now I'm launching into this whole spiel Dean's not going to care about, but if I don't, then he won't get that I didn't mean it like it sounded.
I shifted. "Neither is happiness or anger or sadness, but they're simpler, more understandable. It's… being in love with someone is complicated. It involves lust, and then there's adrenaline, dopamine, seratonin." I listed them off as I came up with them, the main chemicals involved in the cocktail that resulted in the feeling of being head-over-heels. "Then after you're through that, you have to go through another wave of chemicals, like oxytocin and vasopressin, which are primarily released through sex, which is why couples tend to be healthier if they have good sex lives. It… sounds all clinical and foreign to you, I know, but people feel through chemical reactions, not with their hearts." I waved off to the side. I'd somehow slipped a little off track.
I was going to fix that, but Dean shot me a look over his car. "You can't tell me you watch cheesy flicks like The Princess Bride and now you suddenly don't believe in really being in love," he stated, trying to shut me down.
This was frustrating. "That's not what I'm saying, either," I protested, throwing my head back for a minute and staring at the clouds. I took a deep breath and then lowered my head again to look back at him. "Look, this is hard to explain, okay? Love is real, but it's complex. When it's for another person, platonically, it's simpler. When it's romantic and sexual, there are so many factors involved it's hard to stay on top of it.
"I believe you can know when you're in love with someone, I just don't believe that there's only one person for everyone." Here I go, shattering the dreams and fantasies of half the children on the planet. "I think people can fall out of love just as easily as they can fall in. I think there's a distinct difference between love and lust that not everyone can identify.
"Plato came up with a theory rooted in Greek mythos that everyone has one soul mate. I believe that there are many people in the world who can inspire the same chemical releases in one person, all resulting in being so deeply in love they can't even think straight." Dean frowned at me. He had been for the last several minutes, so I tried not to let it bother me too much. "So when I said that you thought you were in love with her, I didn't mean that you don't know how you feel. I meant that you really thought she was the one person."
I tried to just shrug it off, but having explained all of that made it hard to stay empirical and straight-faced when really it was just hurting a bit to have to explain all of this to the unknowing person of my affection that I still couldn't do anything about. And if there were a chance that he could rekindle with Cassie, then I wasn't going to get in the way of that. I'd get over it eventually, and I'm not generally a needy person. I don't have to have other peoples' attention or affection to thrive.
Dean seemed to take an unusually long time to respond to me, and what was even more off was that he didn't just seem angry, which seemed like his default when he was becoming emotionally vulnerable. He just stared at the roof of his car, and after a minute I was beginning to think that I had gone too far, put too much analysis into emotions.
He popped open his door by the handle. "Holls," he said, totally even and his face almost frighteningly blank. "Get in the car. I'm taking you back to the hotel."
Going to see Cassie alone, then. I nodded once, feeling strangely defeated even though I'd gotten what I wanted and explained myself.
After nightfall, Serenity and Sam went out to go find pizza while I was left alone at the hotel. Dean had gone to go meet Cassie at her house a couple of hours ago. I wasn't feeling all that hungry so I let them go ahead without me, even though they were insistent I could join.
I had Scrubs playing on the television. It was just playing a re-run, like most channels are at ten thirty at night. It felt kind of weird to be alone in a two-bed hotel room, even with the TV turned on. I had decided to take a break on the hunt for the night, so I had already put on my pajamas and gotten comfortable on the bed with my computer, checking my e-mail while listening to Dr. Cox go on one of his ridiculous, crazy, and hilarious rants again.
The volume was down enough for me to hear if anyone came to the door, although I hadn't been expecting it when it sounded like something thumped on the outside, like a fist. It wasn't a very nice way to knock, and if it were Sam, Dean, or Serenity, then they all have cards. I paused the television before J.D. went out into one of his ludicrous daydreams and set the remote down, shoving my computer off of my lap and looking after the door, fixing my eyes on the handle.
Who'd be coming by this late?
No worries, I didn't have to wonder for long. There was a mumbled curse outside that made me frown, and then the door clicked as it unlocked from the card. It was pushed open by none other than Dean Winchester, who was using his weight to open the door rather than his arm, and stumbled inside.
"Dean?" I would have thought his apparent lack of energy meant that my earlier guesses about using sex to avoid communication were correct, except his jacket had the scent of smoke and booze clinging to the material and all of his clothes seemed to be on correctly. I raised an eyebrow, somehow determining that he hadn't been with Cassie the whole time he'd been gone. "What'd Cassie say?"
"She's doing a tribute to Jimmy." The third victim… Cassie had known him. I was pretty sure he'd been working with her at the newspaper. "Writing." Dean looked around, unfocused, and seemed to realize I was the only other person in the room. He didn't react when the door slammed shut upon his failure to stop it from closing with so much momentum. "Where're the girls?"
The second eyebrow joined the first up higher. "Well, one of them is talking to you." I gestured to myself and with my other hand, I pushed down the screen of my laptop, putting it to sleep.
"No, I mean the other girls," he denied, shaking his head insistently, looking around and trying to find them. "Serenity and Sammy." He clarified.
I smirked, holding back a laugh. Poor Sam. "I am so telling them you said that," I told him with no small amount of amusement. "They're feeding themselves. She's writing this late?"
He waved his arm and threw the keys of the Impala onto the counter the TV was on. My smile faded and became an anxious frown. "Nah," he mumbled, while I fixated on the keys and then looked at him raptly. "I went to a bar first." His words slurred together enough for me to finally get the entire picture, and I jumped up from the bed.
"Are you drunk?" I asked, hoping I didn't sound as irritated as I felt. He'd driven back here while inebriated?! What was he, insane?! If he wanted to drink, then he should have bought liquor at a store and brought it back beforehand, or he should have gotten someone to go with him for safety. I nearly gave myself a heart attack trying to imagine what could have happened from him driving with a high alcoholic content.
He groaned when I raised my voice. "God, yes."
I bit down on my lip, forcing myself to stay calm. Drinking was how he drowned out the world when something was wrong. Something had obviously happened, or the stress had gotten to be too much. Either way, stressing him further would only get us both worked up.
"What happened when you went to see Cassie?" I started to question instead, in a gentle voice like I was talking to a kid. I walked slowly around the bed so that he could see where I was while he hovered halfway between our designated mattress and the door, swaying slightly from being upright for too long.
"We fought," he answered vaguely. Up close, I could really smell the alcohol. I ignored it and started to push his father's jacket off of his shoulders. He let me, holding out his arms so I could pull on the sleeves to get it off. "I tried to talk, but we ended up fighting… again. We did that a lot."
"I'm sorry," I offered automatically, tossing his jacket next to the TV and over his keys. "Why don't you go to bed?" It was an order in the clever guise of a kind suggestion, and I planted my hand on his back, giving him a light push over his spine. "I'll turn off the television."
Dean's legs moved with the push, dragging his shoes on the carpet and not seeming to realize he was even doing it. "'S not your fault," he assured me drunkenly. Given that 'drunkenly' was the adjective I had to use, I wasn't too sure if I should take it for truth or not. "Was only a little about you, anyways."
Sliding my hand up from his back and to his shoulder, I gave him a push onto the bed. Dean let himself fall down, bouncing on top, and I sat down next to him while he reached to the top of the mattress and grabbed a pillow, clutching it tightly and holding it against his stomach. Eyeing him sympathetically, I doubled over to untie his boots.
"That you were fighting about me even a little bit bothers me." I said, matter-of-factly so that he wouldn't think he could argue with me about it. Dean 'mmm'-ed, not committing to understanding. He seemed dazed. I'd never seen him get so inebriated that he could barely follow along with a conversation, even a simple one.
I slipped his shoes off of his feet and threw them towards the wall by the laces. "Why was I involved, anyway?" I wasn't sure that I'd get an answer to it, but as I was sitting up straight again, I had to try to find out.
Dean threw an arm around me instead of answering and drew me in. I didn't even realize he wasn't just leaning on me until he was crushing me to his chest and his lips were on mine.
Although this was kind of what I'd been wanting for a while now, I didn't want a hook-up from anyone. I'm the type of person who prefers an actual relationship, and while Dean's totally intoxicated and having drama of his own, this doesn't seem like an ideal time to start one. Especially because he's only kissing me while drunk.
He was uncoordinated and awkward, but insistent in spite of the fact that I was too surprised to respond. His skin was too hot – bordering almost on feverish. Though he was chaste compared to what he could have been trying for, the taste and scent of the beer he'd had was almost overwhelming. I slipped one hand between us and pushed back on his chest, forcing him to stop. He was too weak to fight it.
"That's why…" he mumbled so quietly that I almost missed it, his arm heavily draped across my back. He bent his neck so his forehead was against my hair and he breathed deeply.
"You're hammered," I told him as evenly as I could, but even I could tell that my voice was higher than usual. I felt like my heart was trying to beat its way right out of my chest. "Try to go to sleep. I'll tell the girls to pick up some aspirin for the hangover." With the hand on his chest, I pushed back some more until he let himself fall back against the bed, his head cushioned by the other pillows. I let him hold onto the one he was still holding possessively with his other hand and stood up, drawing the sheets up to his throat.
"… Not hungover," he protested, even as his eyes closed and he struggled through a yawn.
I smiled as he rolled so he was facing my side of the bed, which was empty aside from my laptop. "If you're this drunk, then you will be." I was wondering what his blood-alcohol level was, and why the hell he'd been possessed to kiss me, but I wasn't going to make a big deal of it. Not when he's clearly exhausted, or when he's sober and hunting.
I value our friendship too much to compromise it by bringing it up once he's sober. If he only pursues me when he's drunk, then what does that say about his feelings? It seemed like a better idea to just keep it to myself, and if he remembered, then he could act on what he wanted to do when he could walk straight.
A/N: Well. Love it? Hate it? Let me know!