It took way too long to finally get this out. I'm sorry for the length. Promise it's worth it.

FORTY-FIVE: There's a Beauty to this Mess

"Hey. Kat. Up an' at 'em."

My eyes slowly opened to dust mites spread across the arid bedding, ignited by the new morning light sneaking in through the broken blinds. My consciousness swayed, nose still filled with the stench of lake water and putrid black blood. I smelled him before I saw him.

"Dean?" I croaked, voice heavy with sleep. He was sitting beside me on the bed, a mug of coffee in his right hand and the other still resting on me knee which he had prodded to wake me.

"You were havin' a nightmare."

I waited for my heart to calm before rising from the mattress, rubbing the crust from my eyes. "Time is it?"

"One. Thirteen hours enough for your beauty sleep? Here," he added, handing me the mug. "Cream and two bags of sugar. Just how you like it."

"I slept for thirteen hours?" I was still exhausted to all hell.

"Yeah, you zoinked out a little after midnight. I got up 'round nine and started workin' on the Impala but when I came back you were still sleeping."

"Sweet of you. Making me coffee, I mean. Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

"Does this mean you're going to start making me bacon and eggs smiley faces in the morning? Maybe we can start arguing over what color to paint the bathroom walls."

"Hey, let's not get crazy. Baby steps." He absently scratched the small scruff of his chin. "Y'know I remember when you were a kid, you would, uh," he smiled at an apparent silly memory, "well, most of the time you were a pain in the ass. Obviously not much has changed. But, uh, when you had nightmares, you just get really still. Never twitched a muscle."

I sipped my drink.

"How are you doin', Kat?"

"I'll eat the heart of the next person who asks me that."

He bumped up his eyebrows with a small shrug, glancing down into his lap and then out the window before back down at me."I'm not grillin'. We just have a thing called concern. Seem to be doin' it a lot these days."

I rubbed my right eye, scratching my ankle with the toes of my other foot. My eyes flickered back to his, trying to put as much sincerity in my gaze as I could. "Will you believe me if I honestly say that I'm getting along okay?"

"You tell me."

"Just keep doing what you're doing. I don't want a counselor, just you and the others—and your excellent coffee-making abilities." Dean's eye roll told me he wasn't in the mood for jokes. "I know why you're worried and I understand, but treating me like a fragile doll makes me feel like one, too. Treat me like Kat and I'll start feeling like her again."

He stared back, running his tongue along the front of his teeth is search of stuck food. He shook his head lightly.

"Just need to know if you're really okay, is all. I feel like—I mean, I feel friggin' useless when the best thing I can do is make you coffee."

I sat more upright, shifting out from under the sheets and accidentally spilling some coffee on the bedding. I nudged him with my knee, unconsciously squeezing the end of his forefinger.

"And that's all I need right now. Little things like that." I considered. "And maybe a foot massage. You can't go wrong with milk chocolate, either."

It was clear to me he was fighting to remain serious, but his grin betrayed him as he lifted an eyebrow down at me.

"I should confess now that the whole reason we went through all of that was so I could get a foot massage," I said.

"You little vixen, you."

My lips quivered into a small smile, sensing a glow behind Dean's eyes as he looked at me. I smiled at him, linking my arm with his and resting the side of my face on his shoulder. I breathed him in, smelling his aftershave, and a hint of peppermint. He must have showered this morning.

There certainly were times where I fully appreciated my heightened senses, which were like eyes to the past. On his fingers, the pungent whiff of solvent; he had been cleaning his gun. The vague undertone of oil indicated he had been working on the car. He had permanently inherited the Impala's leather interior aroma, which was oddly just as intoxicating as whiskey to me. Like I so often loved to do, I listened to his heart. Healthy, strong, currently a little fast. The ability to listen to heartbeats only made me cherish every single one of them.

I pressed myself lightly against him and elevated myself on my knees toes to kiss him tenderly on the left eyebrow. Then on the nose, 'accidentally' brushing his lips on the way back down. He had a smile to match mine perfectly as he applied small amounts of pressure in the kiss. It was just a sweet morning smooch, somehow exactly what I needed. Nightmares didn't mean shit to me as long as Dean was here when I woke up.

A creak of floorboards outside the room brought hesitance to both our lips.

"Just Sam," I said quietly.

"What, 'cause you can 'smell' him?" he whispered back.

"Yeah."

"Still weird."

"I feel like we're teenagers whispering like this."

When Sam could be heard walking away Dean kissed me again, his hand trailing down my arm and to my hand where he, still not pulling away, took the coffee and set it aside on the nightstand. The kiss was controlled, meant to soothe, but on the brim I could feel, taste, something of a much wilder aspect. Lying on the bed, we only made out for about ten blissful minutes until I started to wriggle beneath him. He 'Mmph'ed with displeasure into the kiss, breaking an inch away to narrow his eyes in annoyance at me.

"I've got to shower; I feel gross," I said.

With a grumble he rolled onto his side, leaning on his elbow to allow me to get up, except the second I rose from the mattress he grabbed my wrist and pulled me right back to his mouth.

After another five minutes, I mumbled out, "You're kissing lips that haven't showered in three days."

He gently bit my bottom lip before finally allowing me to depart, smirking.

I picked up a towel before slapping his butt. "And I want to help you with the Impala."

"Under tight surveillance!" he called after me as I left the room, rubbing his right butt cheek.

To my slight dismay, the skies were a lot clearer than the were the previous day. The chilly wind carried the scent of burning leaves, moist bark, and fresh pine. It hit me with cold nostalgia I knew what must have been from our time as children spent at Bobby's in past autumns.

Ten minutes into our time into repairing the Impala, Dean was already expressing his doubts on my mechanic skills.

"Kat, I could do it less than a minute; just scoot over."

"No," I mumbled, voice muffled due to an oil splattered wash cloth wedged between my teeth. "I know how to change a tire, Dean."

He grinned nervously as he sipped his beer, leaning against the door of the Impala and watching me position the jack. My brow was furrowed in concentration, skin already red splotched from our time spent out in the weak fall sun. I began to crank the jack enough so that the car was fully supported by it.

Dean patted the door. "Don't worry, baby. We're gonna get you spic and span in no time. Still gotta replace the windshield. Hey!" he added. "Don't raise the jack too much."

"I will crank it to the heavens if you don't—just shh. I got this." I spit out the cloth, latching the wrench over one of the lug nuts on the tire, turning it counterclockwise. "Who's got superhuman strength here?"

"That's what I'm worried about."

"If I successfully get this tire off and put on a new one, you owe me that massage or something."

Dean laughed. "Or somethin'?"

"Or something," I confirmed.

The nut easily became loose and I proceeded to the other four, sticking out my tongue. The prickle on the back of my neck told me Dean was still eying me, and as I glanced at him he smiled lazily. He pulled at the collar of his leather jacket, wrinkling his nose at the next bite of wind and sighing out a cloud of mist.

"What's the date?" he asked absently.

"Uh . . ." I cranked the jack so that the tire was now completely off the ground. "October . . . twenty-something? Haven't looked at a calender in a while. Why?"

"Huh." He laughed lightly, shaking his head slightly as he took a deep sip from his beer.

"What?"

"Your birthday's comin' up."

"Oh, great," I said, wiping my nose as I stood up, cracking my back and waggling my eyebrows at him. "I want a luau party. D'you think I can get Bobby to wear a leis and hula skirt? Maybe Sam can play the banjo while wearing a coconut bra."

Dean looked like he swallowed a lemon. "Now that image is seared into my brain."

"Will you jump out of a cake wearing a bikini?"

"Gimme a scenario of the persuasion you'd use to make me do that."

"For Halloween we could dress up as sexy Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf." Dean peeked up his eyebrows. "But to be more character appropriate I think I should be the wolf. I have some stockings you can borrow that would look great with a red dress and hood."

Dean almost choked on his next sip of beer. He opened his mouth, second guessed it, and then raised his eyebrows even further before saying with forced indifference, "Oh, Kit-Kat, I don't do skirts."

"Good, because I lied; I don't have any stockings. But I do have some black stilettos that will make any guy gawk at your calves."

"Pain in the ass," he muttered, fingers ensnaring my wrist, giving a small pull of annoyance, but he was grinning.

He looked me over, eyes dropping to my lips before a small smirk swept over his own. He didn't kiss me, only allowing our breath to mingle in the few inches between our lips, keeping direct eye-contact.

I studied his face swiftly, as if trying to remember every pore, every line and every freckle in a very short space of time. The corners of my mouth were literally quivering in pain from how badly I was fighting a smile. I licked my lips and met his eyes.

"Hand me that tire, Don Juan," I said quietly.

Dean took his time in obeying, his lips curling another half-smile at me. He bent down before me, taking a long time in picking up the spare. As he stood up, he still looked like the cat that ate the canary. He gingerly pushed it into my hands, winking.

"All done," I stated proudly ten minutes later, slinging the washcloth over my shoulder and eying Dean as he bent before the tire, making sure that it was fastened securely. "Eat my dust."

"Okay, not bad."

"How likely is it that you'll let me do regular touch ups on her?"

"About as likely as it is that you'll see me in a red hood, black stockings and stilettos on the 31st."

It nearly took us a full hour to find each and every last shard of glass which was wedged in the back of the seats, spread on the flooring, and some had even managed to scatter along the backseat. It was still fun; Dean prodded me to sing along with him to his many AC/DC tapes and his attempt at the high notes left me in such a hysteric fit of giggles that I had to stuff my sweatshirt sleeve in my mouth to muffle it.

Replacing the windshield took another forty-five minutes, but when done Dean let me drive the Impala around the backyard to test out the new tires.

When we finally retreated back to the house around three, it looked as though Bobby and Jack had just walked in the front door. Both of them were pink in the face from the cold and were shrugging off their heavy coats. Plucking off his wool gloves finger by finger, Bobby was saying to my father, "Mean, seems like last I looked he was pullin' on her ponytail and was 'fraid of catchin' cooties. How th' hell did this manage to fall in with her recent demon puberty?"

"Your answer is as good as mine."

"Meanwhile, I've got another demon in my kitchen rootin' through my cupboards. Soon there's gonna be more yellow eyes 'round here than not. Hey, Bonnie and Clyde," he added as he spotted Dean and me in the doorway. "Were you able to stay out of trouble for one day?"

"We just got back from selling hardcore drugs," I said.

"Good. You can start helpin' with the mortgage," he said as he hung his jacket on the coat hanger.

"Where've you two been?" asked Dean.

Bobby indicated a pail of white paint by the door. "Hardware store. Workin' on the deck."

"Then stopped by the police station to get the latest update," said Jack.

"And?"

"And you're bein' blamed for a mass homicide, whaddya think?" Bobby said with his brows raised at Dean. "You've got everyone all riled up, but strangely no sign of the Order yet. Luckily for you guys, fer some reason they think you took off to the West Coast. Which is why you're goin' East."

"We are?"

Bobby dug in the inner pocket of his jacket on the coat hanger, withdrawing a manila envelope and wiggling it before Dean's and my eyes. "An' got somethin' to keep ya busy while you're down there. Got wind of 'bout five animal attacks last week down in Damariscotta, Maine."

"Last week; full moon," said Dean.

"A coinkydink? Wouldn't bet on it." Bobby handed me the folder. "All the usual werewolf trademarks; ripped to shreds, organs missin', the whole gore galore."

"What happened to lying low? Silver handcuffs aren't my color," I said.

Dean snickered but quickly transitioned it into a loud and unconvincing cough, taking the envelope from me and avoiding Jack's gaze.

"Well first off, the pictures of you on the news looked like it was taken with a potato," said Bobby. "All you gotta do is keep your heads down and keep your tails tucked between your legs, if you idjits can manage."

"Plus the waitress at the diner saw us leave in a green Jeep, not a '67 Impala," added Jack. He paused to rub his temple, glancing at Bobby. "How about that Tylenol?"

"Headache?" I asked.

"Eh, small one. Biggy small one."

"Humans!" Bree's voice beckoned from the kitchen. "And Kat."

"It keeps getting bigger."

Bree was rooting through one of the kitchen cabinets, looking over the labels impatiently. Sam was sitting nearby at the table on his laptop, sipping a glass of water and glancing up as we entered.

"Do you have nutmeg?" Bree shot at Bobby.

"No. Get outta my cabinet."

"Who doesn't have nutmeg?"

"What the hell do you need nutmeg for?"

"I'm having a craving for . . . pumpkin spice pancakes and . . ." She flipped over a piece of paper and frowned down at it. " . . . it calls for one teaspoon of ground nutmeg. Do you by any chance have any plastic silverware? I can't take a bite without getting a third degree burn on my tongue."

"I ain't your errand boy and you sure as hell ain't my problem. You're only under my roof 'cause Kat insists that you won't try an' do us in in our sleep."

"Did you know that nutmeg has been proven to decrease homicidal thoughts by sixty percent?"

"And runnin' your trap the way you are increases them by a hundred. For Pete's sake get on the road as quick as you brainiacs can," Bobby said to Dean, me, and a mildly amused Sam. "This place is goin' to the dogs."

There was a tap on my shoulder and my father's voice beckoned me away. "Hey, Kat. Wanna talk to you for a sec. C'mere."

After a moment I followed Jack out into the hall, out of earshot from the others. Now that I really looked at him, I saw that the dark circles under his eyes had turned into something more like purple bruises within the past week. His clothes were starting to look loose again.

"What's up?"

He was patting his pockets, smiling nervously.

"Bobby did me a favor the other day, I, uh . . . I had some stuff stored here in his warehouse. Really, really old stuff. He spent over an hour finding some of it under tons of other crap. When I was rootin' through one of the boxes, I found . . . well, um . . . here, take it."

I couldn't tell whether his smile was painful or just merely emotional. From his deep pocket he withdrew what looked like a small rectangular picture frame, shorter than my whole hand. I took it, blinking down at the photograph, the picture seeming to take a very long time for my eyes and brain to compute.

The only person I recognized was my father, over twenty years younger, hair darker, eyes brighter, smile wider, a man's face that said his happiness was complete. The baby that held his right hand couldn't have been more than a few months old, red hair barely grown, eyes an innocent brownish hazel to match her father's. A smile that meant nothing but a moment of joy. She wore a little purple velvet dress complete with glittering red slippers, like from 'The Wizard of Oz'.

And the woman that held the baby's other hand . . . I was surprised at how much I didn't look like her. There was the hair, perhaps a shade lighter than mine, but more curly and thick. And yet there were some similarities; the high cheekbones, and her amber eyes. Her square jaw was supported by full lips and thick eyebrows. Her nose might have been straight at some point but in the picture it looked broken. She was the most proudest looking woman I had ever seen.

I touched the cool glass as if hoping I could recall the moment this picture was taken, to remember her smell, what she sounded like, but the truth being she was an absolute stranger. I pressed the back of my fingers to my lips.

I wiped my nose, my nostrils and sinuses burning. Clearing my throat, I looked up into my father's eyes. "Thank you." The words seemed so disproportionate in comparison with the gift.

Jack scratched his dark peppered beard, glancing toward the kitchen where we could hear Dean's voice. "Was taken at Christmas. You were three months old. I looked, but—this was the only one of all three of us together. Took us 'bout twenty minutes to get ya to wear that dumb dress."

He coughed out a laugh and shook his head at the silliness. Listening to this, hearing about a life where there was no evidence that said I had actually lived it, was like listening to a fascinating echo of my past. Up until now, I had no idea of what my mother had even looked like.

"Thank you," I said again.

His eyes sparkled with something that wasn't tears, almost guilt.

"I love you, baby girl. More than—you know that, right?"

I smiled for some reason. I thought I knew why he was acting this way; my father had been the one to introduce me to Angel, who had encouraged me that he was a nice man and would treat me right. The reason why I held no blame for my father wasn't just because he was my father, but because I was the one who stayed Angel for those three years and had always thought him just as my father described. If it was anyone's fault, it was mine.

"I love you too, Dad."

"You be careful on this case."

"You're not coming?"

"No, I'm gonna hang around Bobby's for awhile. But call me. When you can, I mean."

I eyed him carefully, absently smoothing my thumb along the cool glass of the photo.

"I will."

When we returned to the kitchen, Dean was making his doubts clear about taking Bree with us on the case, but was shot down when Bobby said that we most certainly would not be dumping her on him. Bree didn't seem affected by the conversation in the slightest and was still on the hunt for nutmeg.

Sam, Dean, and I spent most of the remaining hours of daylight packing up for the voyage the next day, but mainly goofing off and drinking beer. Come nighttime, we all leaned back against the Impala to star gaze in comfortable silence.

I missed this. I missed hanging around Sam and Dean like we did when we were kids, how we would stop on the side of some random highway, no matter the time, and watch the stars with our fathers for as long as we pleased.

Later as I sat in my room, which was more like a closet-sized library with a twin bed squished in the corner, I was packing up my belongings when I sensed Bree's presence outside my door.

"Are you gonna dance in the hallway all night? Come in," I said.

She entered, holding a steaming mug of tea which was more like a small bowl.

"Are you ever going to change your clothes?" I asked, for she was wearing the same slacks and purple blouse I saw her wearing at the beginning of the week.

"Possessing someone isn't like 'buy one body and get one free wardrobe.'"

"I have some clothes you can borrow."

She frowned. "Thank you."

". . . What did you do with the other girl you were possessing?"

"Dropped her off on the side of the road with a card saying 'Sorry I Took Over Your Body.'"
I raised my eyebrows; with Bree, I never knew.

"I'm kidding; they were all out of those at the store. No, I bought her a ticket back to Atlanta. She thinks she was in a car accident that resulted in total amnesia for the past month. I take the ones who no one would miss, like this one was homeless for example. It's like I'm some nun who takes in orphans. Except I take their bodies. And use it to lure humans into my sheets so I can drink their blood."

"I always knew you were a charity worker at heart."

"I'm the one that never ceases to amaze." She drank her tea deeply, leaning against the door frame. "I was dropping in to—wanted to say that you seem to being doing okay."

"I'm surprised you're asking."

"Well, it was more of a statement. But also remember I wasn't taught to have a heart, only eat them." She breathed out. "So you are? Doing okay?"

"I killed my ex last week."

"Congratulations. I'm sure many people have threatened to do just that, but you are one of the few to actually do it."

There was a pause.

"Thank you," I said, my voice cracking uncertainly.

"I'm getting the gist of what happened after you killed Angel, as to how Dean is still alive. Just . . . nice thinking. On the spot. Considering I never told you that when Cor blood is ingested it can heal major physical wounds, or get the heart pumping again."

I shifted on the bed so that the springs squeaked. "Bree—what would happen if someone were to continuously drink our blood?"

Her eyebrows rose. "Are you thinkin' of givin' the Deanster some daily health benefits or something?"

"No. This is—Deanster?" I shook my head vigorously. "No, this is something completely different. Would it like . . . increase their lifespan—make them hulk-like?"

"You know I don't really know, to be honest. I've heard of humans paying Cors to bite them, but to bite us? Well first off, I can't see just any human being able to take one out long enough to get some blood. You're talking about transferring a completely different, higher, much more mystical being's blood into a fragile human body, which can barely handle a night of hard drinking. As a regular diet? I can't imagine anyone being able to handle it."

"I see."

Her mind was obviously elsewhere as she said abruptly, "When's the last time you ate?"

"Uh . . ."

"Hearts."

"One week, maybe two. I don't know."

"Any stomach pains?"

"Not really."

"I don't think you need hearts as much as a normal Cor. We need them about once every two to three weeks. Just let me know when you get the craving, alright? I'll take care of it."

I looked up at her, just as I was stuffing a shirt into my bag. I sniffed the air lightly.

"Is that jasmine tea?" I asked.

"It is."

The tea that had been outside the bathroom while I had been showering was also jasmine. The others had denied to leaving it there, which now showed what I thought had been a ridiculous booby trap was now apparently revealing itself as a shocking gesture of kindness from my older sister.

"Well, thanks. I guess," I said.

She gave a tight smile, sipping her tea once more before leaving.

.

Dean didn't get a lot of sleep that night. He kept having nightmares of climbing an endless spiraling staircase, dizzy and exhausted, a sense of something chasing him. When he awoke abruptly after what felt like ten minutes of rest, there was the bitter, dull tinge of dawn light hanging in the atmosphere, along with the sound of Sam's snores from the other side of their shared room.

After five minutes of staring at the ceiling he got up, left the room, and crept soundlessly through the hallway and into Kat's room. She slept like a log so he didn't feel bad about all the groans and creaks the springs were making as he shifted himself beside her under the sheets. The moment he settled himself in she rolled right beside him, still unconscious but closely snuggling. Holding her hand to his chest, his eyes fluttered shut to her sleeping face, immediately drifting off into staircase-free dreams.

"This feels—So. Weird," Dean murmured as they drove down the road three hours later, eying Bree in the backseat who didn't seem to think much more of the situation than he did. "It goes against the natural order of things, like if you were to say jelly and peanut butter. I just got used to one pair of yellow eyes starin' up at me."

"I'll ride on the roof if you want."

"Yeah, that won't attract the cops."

"An ungodly amount of time jacked inside of a thirty-eight year old box on wheels listening to the same album twenty times over. This is how people end up in insane asylums."

"Box on wheels . . .!?" Dean almost swerved off the road as his eyes darted to Bree in the rear view mirror again. "If you ride in the car, you respect her. House rules."

"This is gonna be a long drive," Sam muttered.

He was right. If Dean and Bree had bickered before, it was nothing compared to how they acted after several hours of being confined together in the Impala. Dean was sure to play Zeppelin extra loud and sang along with much more vigor than usual. When they stopped for gas and food in Iowa, Kat had a map laid out on the hood of the Impala, practically yelling over Dean and Bree shouts who were arguing over directions and music.

Things finally started quieting down a few more hours into the drive. Sam was going over the case file, Bree was silently reading the It novel, and Kat was completely passed out, using her leather jacket as a pillow against the window. Dean eyed her in the rear-view mirror, smiling to himself.

By the time they reached the border of Illinois and Indiana it was late evening. Red hung heavily in the atmosphere, like a ruby screen had been placed over the setting sun. The waning moon, big as a silver dollar hanging in the lowest corner of the lusty scarlet sky, glowed a blood orange color, awaiting darkness to shine its brightest.

An hour into Indiana, they drove on through a light snowfall until they reached a sleepy town where the weather was clearer. It was around eleven-thirty when they checked in the nearest motel, Come On Inn.

"I'll never get over how you all have adapted to being in one position for such a long of time," said Bree. She cracked her back. "Or how fragile your bodies are. There's a crick in my neck and my bum's gone numb."

After settling in, the four of them relaxed in the bar connecting to the motel, which was surprisingly busy for a Thursday night. Though Bree did not sit with them at their table in the shadowed corner, she did immediately strike up a conversation with the cute brunette bartender.

"Maybe the reason you two don't get along is 'cause—you're too much alike?" said Sam to Dean as he sipped his beer, licking the foam from his upper lip.

Dean stared at his brother with a straight face, glancing over his shoulder just as Kat laughed.

"Immature to throw insults like that, Sammy," Dean mumbled, dabbing his fry in ketchup.

Although the other men of the bar tried to capture Bree's attention, it was rather obvious she had already found her target. Consumed with mixed feelings on the older sister as he was, Dean had to give her pointers for how successful the chat with the bartender seemed to be going.

Kat's ankle brushed his leg under the table and he caught her grinning eyes.

"What?" he said.

"Nothin'."

Her knee nudged his as she shifted but excusing the action with a long sip of her rum and Coke, still smiling in an almost smug way. He bit his lip, eyes wavering briefly over the front of her shirt before rubbing his nose, drinking his beer as he kicked her foot. She didn't look at him but her widening smile wasn't lost to his peripheral vision. Her ankle rode slowly up his leg, bringing up the end of his jeans so that their ankles caressed. He tightened his grip over his beer a little, licking his lips as he looked her, but her gaze was still sailing just past him. She ended her tease by lightly stamping on his toe. He nudged her knee with the front of his boot.

"Okay, what are you guys doing?" said Sam.

"Hey, look, pool," said Dean, scooching away from the table and waggling his eyebrows. "How 'bout it, Kit-Kat? Little one on one?"

She leaned back in her seat, arm resting on the back of her chair as she watched him get to his feet. The playful flicker in her eyes gave him his answer.

Fifteen minutes into their game, Dean noticed something. It was not unusual for men to regularly hit on Kat in a bar, even if Sam and Dean were ever around her, yet there must have been something different about the way he presented himself around her tonight. Something different that told the sleazy men around them that there was no opening for them to try anything. Even their gazes avoided her, purely seeing Dean as an obstacle, which made him feel strangely proud and happy.

It was hard not to feel a little possessive after everything they had just been through. He felt best when she was in his sight, when he had an excuse to touch her, or when he was close enough to be completely overwhelmed by her pine scent.

In the end, Kat won by a few points and it was Dean stating that it was a stupid game anyways. Sam had evidently gone back to the room but Bree was still talking to the bartender who looked as though her shift was just ending. She gave the two a meek goodnight along with a vague note to Kat that she would be returning to the room shortly.

"Am I the only one wonderin' when the other shoes is gonna drop with her?" Dean was saying as they walked past the many rooms, adjusting the collar of his jacket and rubbing his hands together as the bitter night air bit at him.

"I've had completely mixed feelings on her so far, but—God, I think she's growing on me." She pulled out her room key, folding it uncertainly against her palm as the two hesitated outside of the doors. They looked at each other and Dean watched her breath ghost thickly before her lips. He bounced a little on the balls of his feet, pushing out his lower lip. He couldn't think of anything less appealing than the thought of that door closing between them.

"One more drink with me. C'mon," he said, pleased at the sight of her smile.

He got two more beers from the cooler inside the car and both leaning back on the hood, clinked the ends of their bottles together. But Dean hesitated with the drink a centimeter from his lips, watching Kat for a few moments and smiling for no reason. When she looked at him, he glanced away and drank.

They were silent for at least a minute, occasionally looking up at the sky, but the snow clouds dominated most of the stars, save for a naked circle of dark indigo where the moon's light was streaming down from.

"So," he said finally, raising and dropping his shoulders, "feels good, doesn't it? Soothin' back into the way things used to be? Preppin' for a good ol' fashion werewolf hunt? Man, we haven't seen one of those things since we were kids."

He couldn't see her very well but the shadow across her face showed she was giving a small smile. She drank her beer, shrugged, then a moment later responding, "I suppose so."

"Calm down, you might pull a muscle."

"Think of how poetic I am; a monster hunting down monsters in hopes of saving humanity!" she said in a deep voice, dramatically waving out her arms so that her beer spilled. She gave a forced laugh. "I don't know, Dean. I'm trying not to think about how similar I am to a werewolf. Changes into a rampaging killer once every month but never wanted to become what it is, is still a person for the majority of the time. And I get off scot-free."

Dean mulled over her words for a moment. "They're plenty'a reasons why you're not like them. For one you seem to have actually learned how to control yourself on the full moon. They killed people. There any particular reason you're tryna make this a lot harder on you than it needs to be?"

She shook her head. "It's only something I've been thinking about."

"Such a thing as overthinkin' somethin'."

"You've been wanting me to tell you what I've been feeling, so I thought I'd share."

After a pause, he asked, "How long has this been eatin' at you?"

"Just since yesterday. I don't have any doubt in where my priorities lie, so don't worry about me having a bleeding heart. I'm okay, Dean, and I'll do my job."

"I believe you."

She looked at him again, her smile returning in a fuller version. She set aside her beer. "Gimme your hands."

"What?"

"Aren't you cold?"

"Jack Frost is bitin' my ass."

"Would your ass like my jacket?"

"Oh, yeah. Rub it in. Friggin' hundred an' twenty blood temperatured showoff."

She outstretched her hand. "Gimme."

He eyed her for half a second, grinning a little to himself as he set his beer on the hood of the car, extending all ten of his frigid fingers for her to grab. He vaguely saw her fighting a small smile as she cupped her hands over his, rubbing them, creating a hot friction that thawed out his fingers immediately. He licked his lips as they met eyes again. Her thumb haunted circles in his palm, smoothing briefly up his middle finger before locking a gentle hold over his wrist.

"Better?" she said quietly.

He nodded slowly, chuckling out just as quietly, "About five percent of my body is, yeah."

Her indignant smirk wrinkled her nose. "Any suggestions as to how I should warm the rest of you?"

Dean opened his mouth, second guessed it, then snapped it shut.

She stared at him for a few more seconds, her thumb making absent brushes on the back of his hand. His fingers curled lightly over hers, biting his cheek, leaning in slightly, about to say something. But she was already talking over him."I have something I wanna show you."

Dean was still shivering when he closed the door behind them, glancing around the room as Kat flicked on the light and started rooting through her backpack. There was a stuffed owl hanging above a fireplace that had been filled with red bricks and all of the furniture was mismatched and smelled like cats. Dean sneezed.

"Bless you," she said as she withdrew a small object. She plopped down on the bed, kicking off her boots, lying on her side and patting the spot beside her for him to join her.

"Did Norman Bates pass through to do a little decorating?" he said, eying the owl, then glancing down at her and then the bed. He took off his own boots before easing his way beside her on the soft mattress, resting his head on the pillow and focusing on what she was holding up for his examination. He took it and rolled onto his back, frowning at the photograph.

"My mom," she said unnecessarily. "I was apparently three months old."

"You sure were a fat little squirt."

"Yes, that was what I wanted to show you." She kicked his shin again and he grinned.

He shifted an arm behind his head, his eyes set on Kestrel's face. "Jack give this to ya?"

"Just yesterday."

"You look a lot more like him."

"I thought that too. But I thought maybe the cheekbones and lips?"

Dean held up the photograph side-by-side with her face, comparing. "Yeah. Definitely. But I thought that Cors were forced outta their meat suits every full moon? How can ya have any similarities at all since this woulda been three moons after you were born? How th' hell does any of this stuff work?"

Kat frowned, taking back the picture and studying it for another ten seconds. "I didn't think about that."

"I can't exactly imagine Jack canoodlin' with someone who had more than one person in their body, either. Maybe there's some way to inherit your own."

Kat drifted off into thoughtful silence, her feet with the mismatched socks entangling with his. Her eyes eventually flickered up to his. "You can shower if you wanna warm up. Then maybe we can watch a bad movie until Bree gets back."

"I was hopin' to have a battle royal over the bed or somethin'."

"You really wanna make Sam be roomies with Bree for the night?"

He got to his feet, shrugging. "The best we can say is that they most likely wouldn't kill each other."

"Sam hasn't had much of a problem with her."

"That's because he's all about puppies and rainbows, world peace, yoga before sunrise, and drinkin' water outta Mason Jars filled with berries an' twigs."

"Because that sums up Bree entirely."

Right before entering the bathroom, he fisted the air in response. He showered in steaming hot water for only ten minutes or so; he didn't want to encounter Bree when he got out. When he emerged with just his jeans on, Kat was sitting at the desk where dismembered parts of her gun spread out on a towel. She was cleaning the barrel, doing a double take between him and the weapon.

"I had to use your girly shampoo," he informed her, pulling on his black T-shirt. "Now I smell like a friggin' lotus flower picked by monks from the Himalayas."

"You smell pretty masculine to me."

As they met eyes, another smirk swept across his face but he didn't say anything. He ruffled his damp hair, resting his hands on the back of Kat's chair, watching her fingers smooth with graceful delicacy over the steel of the shining weapon. He absently wrapped one of his fingers through the end of her hair, withdrawing and creating a perfect ringlet. She looked like she was shying the action of looking up at him, but eventually did. Her lower lip was red and swollen, possibly from unconsciously biting down on it.

"Your muscles are as stiff as rocks," he mumbled as he pressed his fingers into her right shoulder.

"Well, I wouldn't say no to that massage right now."

He smiled to himself, thumbing the thin strap of her tank top. After a moment of hesitance, he smoothed his hands down between her shoulder blades, simultaneously pressing his thumbs on either side of her spine, kneading upward into the tight knot of muscle. There was a dull thud as Kat dropped the gun on the table. He heard her small intake of breath when his forefinger tread the lowest scar on her right shoulder blade. Her chin lifted uncertainly, turning her head an inch to the right toward him. In the dim light, Dean could still see a shimmer of saliva on her lips, see the reflection of the cat-like glimmer in her eyes as they flickered upward to the ceiling. He even saw the shadow of her eyelashes on the opposite wall, long and curved, fluttering lightly with every movement his hands made across her back.

She turned, eyes cast to the floor as she reached behind her to place a hand on his that rested on her right shoulder. She leaned the side of her face against his hand, closing her eyes almost painfully. She opened them abruptly, and her gaze didn't suggest she was seeing the room around them. Dean narrowed his eyes as she now grabbed both his hands, as if checking if he was still there and then leaned her head back on his stomach, eyes closed again and face upturned to him.

"Kat?" He saw her eyes rolling behind her lids which again, opened to look straight up at him. "Think I lost you for a second there."

She secured her hold over his wrists, wetting her lips, but not breaking their gaze. "You two are what really kept me goin'."

"Kept you goin' when?"

She was silent for another few moments. Her eyes definitely were not in the present. She squeezed his fingers before sitting up straight and turning to sit sideways in her chair without releasing his hand. She had her knees pressed to her chest, chin resting on her knee as she stared up at him.

"There was a bridge. Just like in Sam's vision. Angel also had a gun to my chest. D'you know what I thought was a brilliant plan?" She didn't exactly wait for him to answer, "Pulling him over the side with me. Over fifty foot drop. I broke every bone in my body and Angel was just—skinless."

It was so hard for Dean to decipher her expression. It wasn't exactly pain, more like cold indifference. But her second squeeze to his hand reassured him she was okay. Gingerly, he took the seat beside her, scooching closer so that their fingers could remain laced together.

"When I became strong enough to drag him to shore, he still had enough life in him to talk to me one last time. I think he would have lived if I let him go." She shook her head as if to dismiss this possibility. "He was so—so, so fucking crazy, Dean. The things he was talking about—"

This time Dean squeezed her hand, listening intently, a soft pound in his eardrums. Kat hadn't spoken about what happened until now, not a word about how she had triumphed over Angel or how she had made her way back to him. He hadn't been exactly keen on asking; Kat being alive was enough for him. He wasn't sure why she thought now was a good time, yet when she willingly opened up to him about a subject that clearly wasn't easy for her, Dean was, although he might never admit it, touched.

"I crushed his chest in and he drowned on his blood from the inside out," she continued, looking as though every following word put a bolder taste of rot in her mouth. "I threw him into the lake and the crocs chewed him up like leftover meat. I wandered aimlessly through a forest, thinking about you and Sam, my dad, not having a clue if you were still alive. Or maybe I did. I think I would have felt if you died."

They met eyes again, and Dean watched her muscles visibly relax, not realizing her fingers had tightened considerably over his until her grip loosened. He stared at her, a burning glow rising so generously in his chest that he wouldn't have been surprised if their temperatures finally matched.

"Sounds to me like you kept yourself goin'," he said finally.

She didn't seem to have an opinion on the matter. "I keep telling myself, it's over . . . it's over . . . but God, he's everywhere. Every time I dream, close my eyes." Her gaze drowned out to somewhere dark, but she recovered herself almost at once. "I'm okay. I really believe that I'm going to be okay, it's just going to take a lot longer to kill him in my mind than it did in real life."

Dean studied her face for a long time.

"Kat—"

But as she looked at him, he had no idea what he had planned to say. He rubbed his fingers together, his tongue slipping out to wet his lips out of nervous habit. Although she waited, she didn't seem like she really expected him to know what he wanted to tell her. Maybe he said her name just to summon her eyes back to his.

"I screwed everythin' up," said Dean quietly with something that barely sufficed as a bitter laugh. He could no longer meet her eyes. "I shoulda' known that sonofabitch only got me there so you would come. I was tryin' to protect you . . . guess I should know by now every time I do that almost the exact opposite happens."

"He still lost. All of them did. We're alive. Any one of us would have done the same thing given the choice."

He stared at her for a solid ten seconds.

"When you did what you did, and I almost—when you died for over a minute," she went on quietly, the silence so loud that her whisper was almost too clear to his ringing ear drums, "I thought over everything. I had less than a second to think over all my regrets. I really thought I lost you for good, and when you came back to me—" She stared at him for all of eternity.

Dean wondered if she was listening to his heart which seemed to be suffering to some degree. She reached up to smooth back his hair until the tips of her nails trailed the length of his cheek and temple. His eyes closed, her gentleness scalding him, yet still leaning gently into her hand.

"Dean."

He swallowed very hard, his saliva seeming to turn to tar at the tone she had used to speak his name. He wanted to hear her say it again. He opened his eyes, feeling a large lurch in his chest as he took in the sudden small space between their faces, as though he had missed a step on a staircase. His tongue slipped out to moisten his bottom lip again and he watched Kat's yellow eyes flicker down to it, her gaze returning to his with much more fire than it held a moment ago. A literal fire, heat waves coursing across every line of amber, like it was reflecting the heat of her skin.

He never wanted her stop staring at him like that. Again he swallowed his glue-like saliva as her fingers, still barely touching him, trickled up his jawline and down the side of his neck, her unblinking eyes never leaving his. She was close enough for him to count her eyelashes, hear every intake of breath that feathered his parted lips. His heart dropped back down into his chest with a hard splat. He swallowed hard again.

He felt very light, like he had been hollowed out and his skin had turned to a carapace as delicate as china. In comparison his heart was like a bouncing bowling ball, heavy and hard, bound to crack his surface at any given moment.

"Dean, ever since that night I've never been less afraid to admit what I want."

Like the breath that carried the whisper was a flame that ignited every one of his untold desires he had been feeling for months, he broke. Every piece of him shattered in beautiful slices, glistening pieces of millions, every thought and care abandoning him save for the beautiful woman in front of him. Nothing else mattered, his sense of brokenness pure ecstasy.

He kissed her so hard that their teeth clanked, her lips literally stealing away all his breath. He almost fell off his chair as he leaned forward in violent effort to deepen the kiss. With his hands on her sides, he smoothed them roughly down the length of her firm body until sneaking around her lower back where he felt the indent of her tail bone. He pulled her into his lap, her body responding beautifully to his every touch; tightening her thighs over his legs and wrapping one arm around his neck, applying the right amount of delicious pressure.

He fisted her hair, every sweet, pine-smelling strand tightening over his fingers as he pulled at her scalp. Intense rhythms of utter desperation were played between their sloppy kisses, his jaw forcing her lips open so that her hot breath swarmed his mouth. With one hand she clenched the collar of his shirt, pulling their chests flat together, grinding into him as her fingers pulled at his hair. His groan of hunger died in her mouth.

He acted on dominant instinct, breaking their kiss, demanding to meet the inhuman yellow eyes as he gripped her strong thighs, hoisting her up into his arms as he stood up. Automatically, her legs tightened around his waist, one set of fingers tightly clenching his shoulder, the other taking him by the jaw, applying pressure so that he couldn't close it, as if stopping the bite of a viper. Thin strands of saliva hung from their lips which her tongue flicked at. Dean could actually feel his pupils casting out the green of his eyes.

They fell backward a couple of paces, enough for his back to hit the door hard, blindly reaching behind him as their lips slammed back together. Struggling to keep Kat up with one arm, he furiously patted the door behind him until he found the lock and violently twisted it.

As he walked backwards again, his calves met the bed which caused them both to tumble down onto the mattress, Kat nipping at his jaw, fingers weaving roughly through his still-drying hair. He meant to roll on top of her, but as her legs tightened possessively over either side of him he realized that would not be happening until she wanted it to. Something about that excited him. Greatly.

But Jesus she was strong. He had never been in the position to experience her strength, but even her hands sliding down his arms or her thighs clenching around his waist was pleasurably bruising. His lips were already throbbing from the force of hers, his tongue breaking the seam of their lips to tangle with hers. He groaned again, hips bucking slightly as an electrical current shot to his groin, making his jeans increasingly uncomfortable.

She laced the fingers of her right hand with his left, pushing it hard into the mattress beside his head. With his other set of fingers, he brushed away her hair to keep it from their lips.

Then, very much all of a sudden, there was a lock of hesitance in his muscles. His mouth ceased movement and she withdrew, frowning her inquiry.

"I . . . shit. I don't have any condoms," he mumbled, feeling like he wanted to shoot himself.

She laughed so genuinely that it dropped in a pig-like snort and Dean blushed angrily. "Impeccable timing, Dean. Really."

"I'm just sayin'."

"Well, Bree told me I can't get pregnant," Dean shifted a little, "and my body's immune to diseases. Number one benefit of the Cor Comedenti package. So shut up and kiss me, foolish human."

He blissfully obeyed her, gripping her hair and tugging, her lips temporarily paralyzed as a soft moan traveled from her mouth to his.

His tongue caressed her lower lip until outlining them completely. Her saliva must have had liquor in it because he could feel the burn of intoxication rising up from his stomach.

He tugged at the brim of her shirt.

"This thing . . . need to get it off," he panted, as if her clothing didn't have enough respect from him to label it as a shirt. She reached for the straps but his fingers swatted hers away, feverishly replacing them. "I want to . . ."

She straightened her spine so that she sat up on him, combing her hair from her face as she waited for him. He sat upright, holding her tightly by the shoulders and bringing his lips to her chest. He nuzzled his nose briefly on the swell of her breast, kissing it so gently that she gasped silently in pain. He pulled down at the stretchy material of the tank top, revealing most of her left breast, which he licked and then kissed with bruising gentleness. He pulled it over her head with little to no difficulty.

Her fingers continued to go crazy weaving through his hair, gently grazing her nails along his scalp. Her shirt soon lay forgotten on the floor.

Dean's head hit the pillow, watching raptly as she lowered herself over him, lifting the brim of his shirt to reveal his abdomen. His breath hitched at the sensation and sight of her hot, swollen lips kissing and licking their way up his tightened body. Occasionally, her fingers would teasingly hover the area between his legs, caress her breasts against his stomach, rub her thigh against his, 'accidents'. Her hands might have been previously resting on hot coals from how they seemed to brand his flesh.

He held his arms above him as she lifted his shirt over his head, kissing right beside his mouth before biting and then drawing back his lower lip, keeping hard eye-contact. The yellow of her eyes was so pronounced that the white seemed gray and hers pupils so huge that it was an onyx stone in center of an amber fossil. He pulled her back into him, lightly squeezing her right ass cheek. His fingers tightened over her inner thigh, arousal pounding at his nerves like they had their own heartbeat. She quietly moaned her content into his mouth, his response being to latch his teeth over her plump bottom lip.

His hands were possessed with the desire to discover every inch of her body, simultaneously bringing his hands firmly up along her thighs, rear, waist, stomach, ribs, breasts, collar bone until his fingers dove into her hair again.

His name seemed to stir on the surface of her tongue, but it was stolen away with a short gasp as he pulled her hair, allowing him access to bite the crook of her neck. As if to mend the invisible wound, he gently licked the bite mark and brought his nose directly to the center of her throat, breathing hard against her skin. He felt her swallow against his lips.

"You're so warm . . ." he whispered hoarsely into her ear, voice rough with hunger. "God, I fuckin' love how warm your skin is . . ."

"Don't stop," she said in a voice that was clearly intended to be an order, but escaped as a plea. "Don't stop touching me."

His lips met hers with a slower but truly enticing kiss, tongues embracing as his fingers latched around the back of her bra. The smacking of lips completely dominated his sense of hearing. From the corner of his eye he could see their reflections in the large vanity mirror, see them moving together, touching each other.

They just barely broke apart as the bra was slid off into the ever growing pile of clothing on the floor.

She brushed her nose against the scruff of his unshaven chin, nuzzling the area of his pulse, breathing down his throat. His hands on her waist tightened considerably as she grazed her swollen wet lips over his neck. She nosed the prickle of his facial hair until finally planting her mouth directly over his pulse. His blood pumped hard against her tender lips, setting his veins on fire. His mouth moved soundlessly, clenching his eyes shut, waiting.

She parted her lips, letting the tips of her razor-sharp canines feather a light trail upward against the flesh of his throat, which was constricting the more she drew on the process. He swallowed and she only just gently nibbled a portion of his skin before feeling he was reaching his limit.

"Don't fuckin' do that," he gasped into the room. "I'm goin' crazy, Kat. Either—either do it or don't."

"Sorry," she said, retracting, but he tensed up, realizing he didn't really want her to retreat.

He took her by the shoulders, flipping her easily over on her back so that the mattress bounced their bodies and lips together again. He placed himself between her legs, grinding into her as he kissed down her neck and collarbone, kissing, nipping, sucking every place his lips traveled in attempt to leave dark hickeys.

With the tips of her nails, she outlined the shape of his anti-possession tattoo on his chest, licking her red lips and looking back up at him. Simultaneously, she brought her hands down either of his arms, creating inflamed red lines in the trail of her nails that dragged across his flesh. She led his hands where he wanted them to go, meeting him dead in the eye as she placed them over each breast. Her nipples were hard against the rough skin of his palms, but at the sensation there was a literal shudder that wildly zigzagged itself all the way up his legs. He had to resist bucking forward again as blood rushed to his swollen cock. With her hands still over his, they continued to keep eye contact as he gingerly began to massage the abundant swell of each breast, increasing his tempo with every other heartbeat.

Dean rolled his thumb over her left nipple, hardening it, twirling it between his fingers while tightly squeezing her other breast. He lowered his face to her chest, sliding his tongue up the valley between her breasts, planting his lips over her boob, his tongue circling the dark skin around her erect nipple. He twirled his tongue again and again over it, sucking hard and biting gently into her breast. He felt her ankle twitch, and he looked up in time to see her close her eyes as a helpless whimper of praise haunted her lips. Again, she clenched a handful of his hair, pressing his face deeper into her breast. She went crazy feeling his body, feeling the firmness of his abdomen and ever muscle he knew to possess, his shoulder blades, and the dip of his spine.

He pressed himself harder into her as he returned his lips abruptly to hers, forcing her to spread her legs around him.

He spread his fingers down her navel, pulling at her belt so hard that it tightened considerably around her waist. It became undone in an instant. He used his middle finger to drag a firm and vertical line upward between her legs, feeling her warmth. The tips of his fingers and toes tingled with anticipation. He nipped the tip of her tongue as he unbuttoned her jeans, the zipper soon following.

Dean paused, sitting upright between her legs, still gently pulling on her belt. His knuckles gently brushed against her breast, taking in every beautiful pale curve there was to see. He looked back at her. They met eyes for a long time, all the while his fingers made a feather light trail up her soft body, up her neck, caressing her flushed cheeks and curling a lock of red hair behind her ear. She took his hand in hers, pressing her thumb to the center of his palm and gently kissing the tips of every one of his five fingers. Her eyes flickered back up to his, sliding her fingers through the spaces between his and squeezing.

Dean's heart missed a beat, swallowing thickly as he stared down at her, lips parted. He sat up straighter, eying her jeans that had never looked so unappealing on a human body. He looped his thumbs through the belt loops and pulled them off slowly, not even blinking to break eye-contact. She raised her legs so that they were almost completely vertical, kicking the pants off so that they landed on the end bed post. He had to smile at her underwear that looked to be a faded black pair, now dark brown. It wasn't them he was interested in, though.

The surprising tug she gave his belt slammed the length of his body back into hers, her breasts suffocating his chest. French kissing furiously, his belt became undone with a metallic tinkle and he had to get at an awkward position to impatiently kick his jeans off his legs. Her back found the mattress again, a small bounce to her breasts that captured his eye.

With his hand under her right thigh, Dean lifted her leg so that her ankle almost rested on his shoulder. He closed his eyes as he pressed his lips against her calf with aching tenderness, pausing for a moment to breathe heavily against her skin. He kissed, licked, and nipped his way up her inner thigh, her chest starting to raise up and down with strained breaths.

His left hand was snaking its mischievous trail along her leg, finger looping around the side of her underwear and pulling, but not enough to take them off. Every muscle in her body tensed, toes curling against the mattress. At first he only drew imaginary lines up and down the muscles of her inner thighs, which quivered under his touch. He swallowed, his own teasing killing him, feeling like he had spikes shooting out of his pores, icy hot spikes of anticipation and almost desperation.

His smirk was as wicked as his fingers which were inching their way down her pelvis and when her legs fell open, dove his hand under her panties, cupping her. She actually gasped at the sudden sensation. He slipped three flat fingers against her clit, the hot wetness making it easier for him to rub up and down in rhythmic, circular motions. She spread her legs further for him, using one hand to grip the sheets and the other to wrap around Dean's neck, digging her nails into his shoulder blade and pulling herself up to eye-level with him. He pressed his forehead to hers, his kiss sloppy and hard she rocked against his fingers, finding his silver ring.

And he suddenly worried; silver. But maybe it wasn't pure silver because her face only showed burning pleasure. She swallowed heavily, closing her eyes and biting on her lower lip as she fucked herself against his palm, moving her clit against his ring, intensifying the friction. And God, he could have gotten off just watching her, feeling her grind against his fingers, hearing her breathy moans that sometimes escaped as his name. His cheeks were turning red just looking at her; her bouncing breasts that captivated him, her parted lips where he could see her tongue struggling to form a coherent word. She clawed at his chest, panting into his shoulder.

Abruptly, he withdrew his hand, and she made a breathless sort of protesting sound up until he pushed her back into the mattress. Done with playing games, Dean jerked her panties so harshly off her that they almost ripped in his fingers. His breath seemed too big for his lungs and throat as he was overthrown by her completely naked figure, so transfixed he forgot to blink and his eyes started to water. She tugged weakly at the end of his boxers, mutely ordering him to dispose of them. He did so, his excitement almost getting the better of him as he wasted no time in releasing his throbbing erection, sighing out in jubilation from the lack of restraint.

He smiled as Kat's eyes flickered down to it, returning it as she looked back up at him, digging her thumb nail lightly into his hip bone. Again, he lowered himself over her on all fours, supported by his elbows, the head of his dick brushing her stomach. He stared down into her eyes, shaking his head incredulously, as if he just didn't understand the situation. Or more so why it took so long to get here.

"Katarina, you're so fucking beautiful," he whispered. She pressed her finger to his bottom lip which his tongue flicked at, tasting the salt. Her eyes were hooded, blinking slowly up at him as she smiled.

"So are you."

With a feather-light touch, he smoothed both his thumbs along her closed eyelids, leaning over to gently kiss them. He then lowered his face to her collarbone, sucking a hickey on her left breast. He trailed his kisses and nips all the way down her body, against her ribs that expanded with each breath she took, down to her navel, leaving another hickey just under her belly button. He looked up at her again as he lowered himself between her legs, spreading them. She rested them on either side of him as he began to rub her clit again, listening to her sharp moan of approval, but he wanted it to be an out of control moan, one that half-screamed his name. He used both his thumbs to gently open the slick folds of her pussy, mentally hyperventilating a bit as the arousing scent wafted toward him.

With his tongue he teased a half-circle around the tumid bud, getting the first sweet taste of her, but the desire to have much more than a taste consumed him. He had waited too long for this and by Jesus he was gonna give this woman all he had to give. His entire mouth mounted her slit, flattening his tongue back and forth from clit to hot center. If he hadn't been holding her leg he was pretty sure Kat might have accidentally kneed him in the face, but he held her down firmly, flicking his tongue upwards and downwards, long and drawn out circular motions that made Kat suddenly reach down and fist his hair. It made him moan into her, increasing his tempo, using his bottom lip as a second tongue as he brushed it upward. He couldn't see her but his ears were flooded by her moans rebounding off the thin motel walls, and he swore the sound of her pleasure was all it took for him to come then and there.

"Dean, Dean, Je-sus—C-Christ, oh fuck!"

He was raising his face up into her now, sucking her clit hard and absorbing her sweet flavor that left him just as drunk as her saliva. He turned his tongue to a sharp point, using it to fuck her dripping pussy, reaching up to squeeze her left breast.

"There," she gasped, her breasts heaving with every struggled effort to deliver breath to her lungs. "Stay there. If you stop, I'll—"

Dean was surprised by the sudden command in her tone, but immediately challenged her by mumbling, "You'll what?" into her.

She sounded like she was trying to reply but too desperately needed air for her lungs and could spare none for words. She tightened around him, and he licked everything up, retracting before she could come. She was staring down at him almost furiously, face flushed, red splotches covering her chest, white feathers in her hair. One hand was gripping her breast where he could see the red marks of where she had clawed herself. Her other hand was gripping a ripped pillow which was evidently where the feathers came from. He smirked at the beautiful mess before him, smug that it was his doing. She looked like she wanted to kick it off his face but he gave her no chance as he slipped two fingers into her pussy, pumping them deeply up into her, curving in search for that one sweet spot, increasing the speed and depth with every other moan she made.

He lowered his face again, lightly swirling his tongue across her clit again. She was letting out a breathless string of "Dean, Jesus Fuck, oh G-God . . .!" She tightened over his pumping fingers, coming so hard that her juices flooded down his fingers to form a very small pool in the center of his palm. Even when he withdrew his fingers, he still continued to lightly rub her throbbing clit.

He thought he might have just died with how fucking euphoric it had been to see her orgasm. She was still panting, tremors shocking throughout her body, raising her cramped fingers to her face as though about to sob into them.

"Jesus Christ." Now she sounded like she was laughing. She peeked up at him through her fingers and he saw her distinct smile of mirth.

"You're . . ." Dean swallowed, giving an uncertain grin of his own, spreading her essence across her lower stomach as he crawled up beside her. His sticky fingers lightly gripped her thigh as she rolled onto her side to look at him. "You're amazing, Kat. I . . ." But he wanted to stop talking, a dirty thought forming in his mind.

He kissed her hard to end the sweetness of the moment, dragging back her lower lip and biting her jaw hard. She moaned again, her hands creeping up his left leg to brush against the shaft of his cock, which twitched at the hot sensation of her fingers. Dean crept his own fingers that had pleasured her up along her breasts, up her neck and chin, nudging her lips. She looked into his eyes, giving absolutely no reaction to his mute question, but her tongue slowly slid out to meet the tips of his fingers. He watched her intently as she wrapped her lips around his middle finger, swirling her tongue around it, nipping at his knuckles just as she started to pump his shaft. He pressed the bottom of his finger hard against her left canine, drawing blood immediately. It felt like he had pricked his finger against a thick needle.

It was nothing like it had been when he sliced his forearm open with the knife. This time her poison coated fangs were breaking his skin and it was most unlike Dean had ever experienced. A charge of flaming electricity shot directly to his groin. It was like if ice had been made into fire and became liquid, pouring and pumping all throughout his veins, burning and freezing at the same time. Every one of his pores was pounding and there didn't seem to be any weight in his body. It sent waves of indescribable pleasure that almost hurt, and the sensation mingled with Kat still jacking him off almost made his eyes roll back into his skull.

He couldn't even imagine what he would have felt if she bit him on the neck.

She sucked up the combined mix of cum and blood, moaning over his fingers. He watched her without daring to blink once, not wanting to miss a second. He groaned loudly as she massaged his entire length, increasing the tempo with a firm twist at the head.

"J-Jesus, Kat," he growled hoarsely, yet he couldn't keep a small whimper from his tone.

He held her head from behind, pulling her hair so that her face was at the position for her sharp breath to hit his sweaty neck. He sucked at her collarbone, nuzzling his way up her throat until his face was engulfed in her hair. His nose caressed the curve of her ear, sharply taking the lobe between his teeth, then laving it with his tongue.

"Dean," she gasped. Every hair on his body stood on end on how she had moaned his name. She gripped his bicep, her sharp thumb nail tracing bold red lines along his muscles. "I need you inside me. Now."

He crushed their lips back together, climbing over her and between her legs once more, his will meeting the end of the rope. He positioned his member over her slick entrance, their kisses so rough that their noses were being repeatedly slammed together. He gripped her hair, seeing a blinding flash of gold in her eyes as he penetrated her. The kiss fell apart as her jaw slackened with pleasure. He pushed himself gingerly in, Kat gripping his shoulders so tightly he was sure blood was being drawn. His tongue collided with hers just as he thrust himself deeper, then withdrawing, then penetrating again, giving her time to adjust to his size. She spread her legs further for him, her fingers trembling to keep touching him.

Dean breathed out sharply in time with her gasp as he thrust again, this time slipping in the entire length of his cock. Kat's gasp cracked as he pulled out completely again, then returning with a hard slap. He pressed their foreheads together, eyes flickering back to hers as his entire body started to ease into an easy rhythm of thrusts. His entire torso gently heaved forward with every hard push his hips gave. Her hot, wet walls tightening around his cock were making his breaths shorter, and his gasps more like moans in the shape of Kat's name.

He began fucking her harder, deeper, faster, enthralled by her shudders, enticed by her tugs and scratches. His face buried in the crook of her neck, he bit into her hot flesh, licking away her salty sweat that drugged him. She moaned his name nearly with every thrust he made and Jesus Christ his ears were addicted to her voice, like liquor burning his insides.

There was a hard smack as Kat's hand slapped onto the headboard, drawing her nails across the wood, leaving five deep claw indents as she panted into his mouth. She did the same with the bed, dragging her fingers across the blankets and sheets, a distinct ripping sound as she clawed through the mattress, revealing the white foam. It seemed like she was trying so hard not to accidentally do that to him that she had no mercy against innocent beds.

Dean was no longer sure whose tongue was whose as they kissed, gripping her shoulders from behind to elevate her slightly, heaving her upward to pound up into her. It was so hard to think of little more than how fucking good it felt to be so deep inside her. She was so hot, so wet, so perfect around his dick, and he was working so hard not to release at just the mere sounds she was making.

"Dean, Dean, Dean," she was continuously gasping into the room.

God, those noises. Those little high-pitched whimpers that were stitched to the end of every moan, those moans that told him she needed him, wanted him, loved him.

A white flame burned his insides, just as her muscles started to constrict around him, and she was just getting louder, and wetter and tighter and Jesus Christ he let out a drawn out desperate moan as he gave a hard, deep thrust, wanting to drag it on for as long as possible, pleasure her into infinity. Kat tightly held the side of his sweaty face, bringing his gaze back to hers, her hot breath puffing against his face.

"Come with me, Dean," she breathed, completely winded. She barely got out the words before she shrieked, her entire body beginning to quiver beneath him, throwing back her head, her back arching, breasts planting against his chest, furiously grinding his cock deeper into her. A shuddering yell erupted from the back of his throat, giving one last final thrust before he exploded inside her with a shivering surge, his arms completely giving way as he collapsed over her, trembling.

His face was buried in her shoulder, his body rising up in down with the combination of both his and Kat's fast breaths. Her heart was pounding like a drum against his ear. He had to wait several minutes before his own calmed down, wait until he regained enough strength to even lift up his face a few inches to look at her. She stared back, smoothing back his hair, an aftershock or two of her orgasm still coursing through her. His eyes fell briefly closed, drawing imaginary circles with his thumbs on either side of her shoulders.

He rolled off her and onto his side, pulling her close to him so that their foreheads pressed together again, kissing her. It was not as it had been moments ago; fiery, passionate, and rough, but tender, slow, loving. She traced his jawline as she stared into his eyes, her fingers succeeding at such a high state of gentleness it was hard to believe what he had seen her do to the headboard and mattress.

Serenity hung generously in the air. Dean was so blissfully calm. His heart felt like a cloud, its only weight the heavy affection he felt for Kat as they looked into each others eyes for eons.

I've known you all my life.

She caressed circles across his cheek with her thumb.

I've watched you grow up from a squirt to an amazing and badass woman.

She kissed the spot just above his ear.

Taught you everything I know, from weapons to why guys are dicks.

She trailed her fingers up and down his spine with an almost nonexistent touch.

We've always had each others' backs.

Her touch could cure misery.

Where along the lines did I get to be so damn in love you?

Her eyes flickered, like she had heard him. For a moment Dean wondered if he had actually said the words aloud, wondered if he cared, but Kat remained silent. She kissed him once more before lacing their fingers together, her eyes fluttering shut as she lowered her head to his chest, a hand over his heart, breathing softly against his skin.

He leaned forward, planting a prolonging kiss to her forehead, combing a red lock from her face. He continued to stroke her hair, pulling her tightly against him with an arm draped around her, combining their body heat, and resting his chin on her head.

There didn't seem to be a world out there that had other people in it, other people outside this room that weren't Dean and Kat, falling asleep in each others' arms. For once in his life, he felt fucking sorry for all those who weren't him, because Dean Winchester was one happy sonofabitch.