When Dean and Rayan finally find a hotel (that's not frog-infested, much to Rayan's pleasure), the father-daughter pair quickly make their way into their new home slash center of operations for the duration of their stay in Savannah. It's a nice room this time around, and it even comes with a sizeable couch and TV.
"Not too shabby," Rayan comments jokingly as she tosses her duffel bag onto the bed farthest from the door, King hoping up directly after. The teen pats the dogs head gently before turning towards her father, who is grumbling quietly by the door. "What are you mumbling about now?"
"Eighty five bucks a night!" Dean exclaims as soon as he realizes Rayan is addressing him. "That's ridiculous for cheap sheets and a small bathroom."
"You know, I sometimes forget that credit card scams were once a staple in your life," Rayan remarks with a laugh. "Even if it has been years since you've used one."
Dean just huffs and throws his own duffel onto the floor beside the other bed dramatically before making his way over to stand in front of Rayan. Without saying a word, Dean wraps his daughter into a tight hug, and Rayan is left stunned at her father's actions.
"You are sure you're all right?" Dean asks into Rayan's hair, and immediately the teen wraps her own arms around her father's middle and squeezes right back.
"I'm fine, really," Rayan reassures as she nods her head up and down. "My arms are just a little sore, and my head hurts a little bit. But it's nothing life threatening."
"You let me decide that," Dean argues as he pulls away from Rayan. "Now the headache I can understand considering dead, and soon to be dead, people are all deciding to take up residency in your skull. But why do your arms hurt?"
Rayan mentally kicks herself, because she hadn't intended on telling Dean that Carrie was actually capable of reaching out and touching her. But now the young Winchester can't figure out a way to convince her father that there's no particular reason her arms are killing her without Dean knowing that she's lying through her teeth.
So with a sigh, Rayan slowly lifts up the right sleeve of her back t-shirt to reveal and solid purple and black handprint across her upper arm. It's sore, and Rayan can feel an identical handprint on her upper left arm, twitching in pain every time she moves wrong. Rayan almost wonders if Carrie didn't mean to purposely leave reminders of her presence when she grabbed onto the young Winchester's arms.
"What the hell?" Dean gasps out as he reaches forward and gently grabs onto the lower half of his daughter's right arm to exam the bruises more closely. "Did that ghost lady grab onto you like this?"
"Yeah, she was really insistent on capturing my attention," Rayan tries to joke as she looks up at her father's face with a small smile. When he doesn't respond with anything but a frown, she quickly drops her expression. "So, joking around is currently not acceptable."
"Of course it's not acceptable," Dean growls out as he lifts the t-shirt's left sleeve to exam Rayan's other arm. An odd noise escapes Dean's throat when he sees the other handprint on his daughter's upper arm. "How in the hell did you let it get that close to you?"
Rayan tugs her arms free of her father's grasp and folds them across her chest in indignation. "Well it's not like I was planning on my sixth sense kicking in tonight," Rayan demands in anger. "And then I really didn't think she'd be able to touch me. But I'll remember that the next time I'm being ninja brained by a damn ghost."
Rayan's outburst is enough to gain back Dean's attention, and he's quickly shaking his head back and forth in apology. "I didn't mean for it to sound like that," he apologizes softly. "This just freaks me out, okay? You're my daughter and I don't like seeing you hurt."
"Well it's no walk in the park for me either," Rayan bites out as she sits down on the end of her bed and wraps an arm around King. The dog lazily lifts itself up and licks Rayan's forehead right along the stitches from the cut Alabama gave her. The teen knows that it's his way of saying he doesn't like his family getting hurt either.
"Wait a minute," Dean says as he cuts through the pause and turns his face towards Rayan. "Isn't Lucas supposed to be keeping all of this away from you? That is his purpose for hanging around, after all."
"Don't mention that good-for-nothing asshole of a reaper to me," Rayan growls out as she clenches her left hand into a fist. "He's been missing for weeks. Although I'm pretty sure he still shows up at night, because something is always out of place when I wake up."
"So he hasn't been around lately?"
"That's what I just said," Rayan sighs in annoyance. Then she gestures wildly around her upper body and head before continuing. "And I mean really, what good is having a reaper bodyguard if he's not even going to guard my body?
Dean just looks at his daughter with a wicked smirk on his face, and Rayan glares back in confusion before realizing exactly what she has just said. Then her face screws up into a look of disgust and she throws the nearest pillow she can grab at her father.
"Not like that, you freak!"
Dean lets out a loud bark of laughter as he raises his arms in front of his face to block the pillow that has been thrown at him. Once he manages to catch his breath, he sends a last mocking smile in his daughter's direction before puling out a few random books from his duffel bag. From her position on the bed, Rayan can see that they all involve ghost possession and being able to communicate with spirits who aren't technically haunting anyone or anything. They're from Bobby's library back home, and Rayan has read them all several times.
"And you weren't coming to Savannah expecting a hunt," Rayan mocks as she reaches over to her own duffel and pulls out the small Colt that Dean gave her for her fifteenth birthday last year.
"Never mind my expectations for this trip," Dean demands as he eyes the gun in his daughter's grasp. "Why in the world did you bring that?"
"You're the one who's always saying be prepared for anything. I'm just sticking with the life lessons."
"You're a real smartass, you know that?" Dean accuses as he shakes his head back and forth in astonishment.
"I get it from you," Rayan shoots right back at her father with a grin. Dean mumbles something about Cas being a bad influence, but Rayan can't quite make out what he's saying over the sound of "Smoke on the Water" pouring from her cell phone.
She quickly pulls the device out of a pocket and flips the phone open, pressing it to her ear. Before Rayan can even utter a hello, Andy is yelling into her ear like a mad man.
"Rayan Elizabeth Winchester, where on God's green earth are you?"
"I'm in Georgia, just like I told you," Rayan answers in a much calmer tone. "I sent you that text yesterday morning."
"Exactly!" Andy once again screeches, and his voice is so loud through the receiver that both Dean and King turn their heads towards the noise being emitted from the phone. "All I got was a text saying that you were talking a trip to Savannah with Papa Winchester."
Rayan pauses for a moment, pulling the phone away from her ear and staring at it like Andy will get the message that she thinks he's crazy for freaking out. Then Rayan puts the phone back up to her ear and continues talking. "I'm not seeing a problem here, Andy."
"Of course you wouldn't see the problem," Andy seethes on the other end. "You're a Winchester, and none of you every think there's a problem unless the world in ending. And even then I'm not sure I'd get a phone call with a simple 'we're not dead yet.' You're all just so incons-"
"Andy!" Rayan cuts her best friend off quickly with something in between an order and a laugh. When the young man on the other line goes quiet, Rayan let's her own voice tone down a notch. "We miss you too. And we're sorry that we worried you by not checking in. It won't happen again, I promise."
Rayan can hear Andy sigh on the other end of the line, and she knows all of the fight has left his system. "You and your dad…well, you guys are all I really have anymore, you know? I was worried when you guys hadn't talked to anyone since yesterday morning."
Dean had moved close enough to his daughter where he was still able to catch the last part of Andy's statement on the phone, and the oldest Winchester can feel his heart swell a little bit with pride at the young man's words. Andy might not have been a Winchester by blood, but not many people in his family were. And Dean had, in a way, gotten a son out of Andy that he'd never imagined he'd have.
Dean signals to Rayan to hand the phone over, and the teen does so reluctantly. It's hard for Rayan to judge what's running through her father's mind, but she's assuming it can't be anything too crazy.
"Andy, you still there?" Dean says gruffly into the receiver, and he can hear Andy's muffled grunt of surprise on the other end of the line.
"Uh, yes sir, I'm here," the teen mumbles out in response, obviously perplexed by the appearance of Dean on the other line.
"Listen Andy, I need you to do something for me while Ray and I are gone," Dean says into the phone. "I'd appreciate it if you could stay at the house until we get back. Bobby's going to need some help out in the garage, plus Alabama might get lonely being the only teenager. I need a man I can trust to watch over things."
"Yeah, yeah of course," Andy quickly agrees, and Dean can just picture his head nodding up and down furiously. "But there's something I need you to do in return."
Dean is surprised by Andy's bold statement, and a smirk flies up onto his face all on its own. Normally, the teen is so polite and well mannered around the oldest Winchester that he would never make a request, let alone make one right after Dean has given him a job to do.
Andy doesn't wait for Dean to respond verbally, and instead hammers forward before he can completely lose his nerve. "You need to watch after Rayan. And I know that you're her father so of course you're going to watch out for her. But we both know that she's amazingly good at getting into trouble, even when all precautions have been taken. So just, don't let her do something stupid like find trouble when there's no trouble to be found, okay?"
There's another silence from Dean, only this time it's due to shock. Because as quiet and respectful as Andy is, the teen is also incredibly perceptive and in tune with his daughter. Hell, if Andy wasn't gay, Dean is pretty sure he'd believe that the two were meant for each other. It's like the young man has already picked up on Rayan's little run in with Carrie Fisher.
Andy misinterprets Dean silence as anger, and it doesn't take long for the teen to start muttering out apologies to the oldest Winchester about overstepping his bounds and being rude. "Andy, relax. I'm not mad," Dean reassures as he interrupts the string of apologies from the other end of the line. "I'm glad you're concerned about our girl. And don't worry, she's not getting into any trouble this week. Now, I'm going to give you back to Ray, okay? "
Dean doesn't wait for a response and instead removes the phone from his ear and tosses it back to his daughter who is looking at her father with a mix of annoyance and amusement. She knows that the two of them were just talking about her, because she's no one else's girl but theirs. However, it's still mildly frustrating for her to be talked about while she's in the room.
With a few quick parting words, Rayan is off the phone and unpacking the rest of her stuff from her duffel bag. Dean has finished with his, and is now pathetically trying to connect his laptop to the Internet the hotel provides. Taking pity on her father, Rayan grabs the silver computer from her father's hands and quickly taps a few buttons before handing the machine back to Dean with a Google Chrome browser up and running.
"Show off," Dean mumbles with a pout and he begins search information on Savannah and any other strange deaths that have occurred in the last few weeks.
"You're just jealous that I have mad skills," Rayan shoots back with a smirk as she bounces down on the bed next to her father and begins to read over his shoulder. Nothing very interesting is popping up from their search, and Rayan quickly looses interest. It doesn't take long for her to start brainstorming ideas on how to gather information about Carrie Fisher's personal life in the most efficient and unobtrusive manner.
"I think we should go talk to Maybelle again tomorrow," Rayan blurts out suddenly.
"I thought you wanted to work on this case," Dean says as his eyes never leave the computer screen. "We can't do that if we're visiting with old neighbors, even if they do bake amazing pies."
"We would be working on the case," Rayan insists as she stands from the bed and begins to pace in front of Dean. "Think about it. Maybelle obviously knew Carrie, and we need to learn more about her. We could find out what apartment she lived in, if she had any friends, if anything suspicious was going on prior to her death. And we can do it all under the pretense of you visiting an old friend who helped you out when you needed it the most."
"That's not a half bad idea," Dean concedes as he finally looks up from the screen. "But like I said earlier, there are going to be ground rules. You can come with me to see May, but if anything fishy starts going on, or I tell you to get out, you get out. Understand? You're not going to get in the middle of something and get hurt."
"Dad, we're on a hunt," Rayan argues with a glare. "There's always a chance of someone getting hurt on a hunt, and I shouldn't be any different."
"You're right," Dean replies with a smirk, and Rayan knows that her father already has a retort planned out. "But you see, you're not on a hunt. I am. You're more of a…cute distraction for the old lady."
"That's not fair!"
"Life's not fair, short stuff," Dean responds more seriously this time. "And I'm serious when I say that this life. This hunting and traveling shit is not what you're going to do. I won't let that happen. So you can research, and interview, and do whatever the hell else doesn't involve danger. But when it comes to the shooting and fighting, well…you're sitting out."
"That's so stupid!" Rayan demands angrily as she throws her hands into the air. "I'm sixteen and perfectly capable of taking care of myself. You're were so much younger than me when John took you hunting."
"And look at how I ended up, Rayan. I dropped out of high school, ended up taking care of a baby when I was twenty-two, and went to hell and started the apocalypse all before I was thirty," Dean's suddenly half-shouting at his daughter, standing tall beside the bed as he tries to make Rayan understand. "That's what happens when you're raised a hunter, and I refuse to allow my daughter to become that whether you think it's stupid or not. My job is to keep you safe, Rayan."
The young Winchester stares at her father for a moment before slowly taking a step towards Dean and squaring her shoulders. She takes in a deep breathe once before opening her mouth. "You can't protect me forever, Dad."
"I can damn well try."
And that's the end of the conversation, because Dean gathers up a change of clothes and his shampoo before storming into the bathroom and closing the door resolutely behind him, leaving Rayan standing alone between the two beds with King staring at her with sad, blue eyes.
Hello all!
Just wanted to write a quick note to say thank you for all the lovely reviews, and that I love to hear from you. (And I'd love to hear from even more people, if you feel so inclined!) Okay, shameless review plug over.
I'd also like to say that I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter and...YAY FOR SEASON SEVEN CONFIRMATION!
Haha. =]
Well, everyone have a lovely week/weekend!
Fallen.
