Dean pulled the car gracefully into the gas station and parked it expertly beside a pump. He leaned over the bench seat, grabbed Violet's knee, and shook it vigorously.
"Wake up, sunshine. Pit stop."
"Whoa!" Violet yelped, her whole body jumping off the seat as she jerked awake. Immediately she discovered the source of the attack and stared him down. "Dean! Don't do that!"
"What? Why?" he asked, his voice lacking emotion as he stepped out of the car to begin replenishing the impala's depleted supply of gasoline. Violet righted her jacket around her, ran her fingers through her knotted tresses, and proceeded to nondexterously get out of the car. Dean chuckled unashamedly while Violet righted herself once again, giving him a frumpish look.
"My knees are ticklish if you put pressure on the right spots. And besides, there are much better ways to wake up a sleeping person." Violet strutted up to him and punched him in the shoulder for good measure. Dean chuckled again.
"Yes, there are, but that's never any fun, now, is it? Just be glad I didn't wake you like I wake up Sam. I could have slapped your chest."
They looked at each other strangely as Dean processed what it would mean to slap Violet on the chest. His face was sucked of all emotion.
"Never mind. Just be grateful."
Violet's reply was to stick her tongue out. Sam came up behind them with a paper bag in his hand and a grin on his face.
"Kissing and making up, are we?"
Dean and Violet exchanged a quick, ambiguous glance, both wondering whether Sam had somehow known about the night they shared in Dean's bed and this was his way of bringing it up. Sam's gaze shifted between them, his own expression equally as uncertain before he shook his head, disregarding it all completely. It wasn't worth it to crack that one open. Yet.
"Anyway, it's someone else's turn to hit the can."
"Oh, it's definitely my turn," Violet put in.
"That's fine, I'm good for the road. Just don't get into any trouble this time, all right?" Dean warned Violet with a hint of humor tied into his tone. "You've got quite a track record with gas station bathrooms."
"Yeah, yeah, I hear ya," Violet said, spinning to saunter away and waving a hand over her shoulder.
Dean slid his card into the reader and punched in the gas type before withdrawing the nozzle from its holster to fill up the gas tank.
"She sure is sassy when she first wakes up, huh?" Sam commented, leaning back against the car with his arms crossed lazily over his chest. Dean laughed shortly.
"Yeah, and childish too. She stuck her tongue out at me."
Sam smiled to himself out of Dean's peripheral.
"Maybe she was feeling flirtatious."
Dean gave an amused sound.
"Nope. I know flirting when I see it."
"Oh you do, huh?"
Dean turned to him then.
"Yes, Sam, I do. How many times have I been rejected by a woman I've approached? Close to none. That's because I can read them and can tell when they want it. And more importantly when they want it from me," Dean explained. "I mean, just look at me," he finished with a smirk. Sam shoved his shoulder and laughed.
"I suppose there's reason for everything."
"Yeah, and tell me it's not my dashing good looks," Dean exaggerated, spinning back to face the pump and read the steadily climbing numbers on the screen.
"Yeah. So I've noticed you haven't been practicing your charm a whole lot lately, even when we were visiting bars every other night," Sam commented innocently, but simultaneously with curiosities to fulfill. He wasn't blind to the way Dean looked at Violet when she wasn't paying attention. He wasn't oblivious to Violet's wandering gaze and the glimmer in her eyes when Dean talked directly to her. Apparently, though, they were either both honestly ignorant of the other's subtle hints, or simply decided to pretend they didn't exist. Regardless, Sam was determined to get to the bottom of it. He knew how this game played out if done incorrectly or it ended up neglected.
Sam could see the slight change in Dean's demeanor as he rapidly figured out how to neutrally answer the question. Sam smiled to himself. Gotcha.
"Just haven't been in the game, that's all. Too busy and too worried about keeping track of everyone and everything to really think about that," Dean replied evenly, deciding last minute not to face Sam for fear of somehow giving something away.
"You've had many, many years dealing with taking care of me on the road, though. Why's it so different now?" He knew he was being evil with that one. He already knew the exact reason why and yet he was practically forcing Dean to voice it himself.
It took him longer than Sam thought necessary to process and spit out his answer. He was still reeling from the first question. Obviously he didn't think he was ever going to be confronted like this.
"I know that. It's just been different since Violet loaded up with us. Trying to keep myself and her alive is a task."
"Was a task."
"Whatever. I'm just not in it. Things are different. Why the hell does it even matter?" Dean finally lashed. Sam had just been waiting for it. Typical reaction. Dean shoves himself back into his shell and snaps at anyone who asks him about it. Sam had been expecting it much earlier than this, however. Absently he wondered if Violet was somehow softening his heart.
"Just curious. I just noticed you had decreased drastically on your usual Dean-bar behavior. Wondered if maybe someone was in your sights. That's all," Sam summarized innocently, beginning to make his way around the car to slip in while they waited for Violet to return. Plant the seed and run away.
Dean decided to not respond. He removed the nozzle from the gas filler hole and waited impatiently for the receipt to print. Sam drummed his fingers on the dash between glances at the entrance to the gas station. His mind floated to memories of the last time Violet had gone inside alone and come out demon-possessed. He knew it wasn't possible that she could be possessed again, but demons seemed magnetized to her even when they knew they couldn't take her for a joyride. Besides, they were most likely ordered to capture her than kill her. Though that scared both brothers equally, and there isn't much that they're afraid of.
"Hey, Dean, is it just me or does it seem like-"
"Violet's taking longer than usual? Yeah. I was just thinking that," Dean muttered in a tone that portrayed him as pensive in a concerned way. When it was about Violet, that type of voice tended to pop up more often, Sam had noticed.
"We should go check on her," Sam said. Without hesitation, he stepped from the car, fell in stride with Dean, and they headed in with murderous intent. If anything or anyone was preventing Violet from returning to the impala, they were going to deal with it with in any means possible.
Just minutes before, Violet found herself backed up against the grimy, broken tile walls of the bathroom with a man possessing strange eyes holding her gaze like it was an object one could grab. She felt no fear; in fact she felt rather nothing. It was as if an obstruction was preventing the response to process throughout her body. She wondered vaguely if the man's eyes were the cause. Such bizarre eyes he had.
"Oh, my dear Violet. That is what your mother named you, isn't it?" he purred with a subtle maliciousness. Violet gulped and nodded, that dandelion lodged in her throat once again and the pain radiated behind her eyes like smoldering smoke. It was all so acute it was almost numbing.
The man smiled with one side of his mouth and brought up a hand to caress her cheek. For the life of her, she simply could not tear her eyes away from his. What is happening to me?
His hands weren't forcing her back against the wall; he wasn't close enough to achieve such a thing with his body and yet she felt pressure on her chest, seeming to restrain her, hold her back.
"You are just as beautiful as I pictured. You will suit your role as queen perfectly beside Lucifer. All the females will no doubt envy you immensely, seated at the right hand of their king and with unmatchable beauty," he continued, his tone low and enticing yet laced with poison.
"Why are you here?" Violet asked, her voice sounding ridiculous and stupid. It was as difficult to force words from her throat as it was to chop a tree down with a butter knife.
"You already know the answer to that, my dear. I'm here to make sure certain steps were taken and that you are being prepared for your seat next to our devil. I see that the demons I sent after Lily met up with you and Vanessa delivered what she needed to. Everything is going according to plan. Oh it's all shaping up marvelously."
"What?" Violet murmured, unable to bring her voice louder than a few notches above silent. No way could she scream for Dean or Sam. "Lily was a ploy?"
"Oh yes, she was never in any real danger. I had to attract you to a certain place I knew you'd show up and that the package would be transferred to the intended receiver." He was sly and he knew it. Her resistance to him was gradually weathering away; she knew if she didn't get away soon, she'd irrevocably be under his control and power and nothing Dean or Sam could do would change that.
"Package?"
He nodded languidly, abiding the eye contact.
"Your power is not mature enough. The seed was nurtured later than intended. Thus we had to further the process by other less natural means. That burning behind your eyes and feeling in your throat? That is the work of us within you. We are turning you to us, beginning on the inside and working our way out. You are still too weak; soon, however, you will be able to use your ability without strong emotion propelling you. In time, with a simple thought, you could bring someone to their knees. Doesn't that sound fantastic?"
Violet had just enough strength left to shake her head slowly at his appalling words.
"No. I will not. Lucifer will never be my king," she breathed.
The man seized her throat then, baring his teeth at her blasphemous comment.
"You will bow to him one day and call him yours, I assure you."
"No," Violet gasped, her vision thinning and eyelids fluttering.
Then she felt her feet leave the floor.