Sam called Dean the next morning as we were busy putting the mattress away. "Yeah?"

"You know what day it is, right?"

I lifted an eyebrow as Dean gave a groan. "Oh, man. I almost forgot!"

"Listen, before we do our thing, I'm gonna take this hike. You know, through the desert?"

The springs gave a final, grating clang as they went back into the frame. "Why the hell do you wanna do that?" Dean asked incredulously.

"It'll be good for me. Clear my head."

Dean and I exchanged worried looks. "It's not because… you know…"

"It's just something I've wanted to do for a while. Don't worry, head's still screwed on straight."

"Uh, okay. See you, what, in two, three days?"

"Sounds good. See you then."

The call ended. I plopped down on the cushions. "What's 'your thing'?" I asked.

Dean joined me and stretched one arm across my shoulders. "Me and Sam, we do this Vegas trip once a year. Blow off steam."

"Tits and alcohol, got it."

"Hey, it's not like—"

My lips stretched in a feral grin. "Yes it is."

"Okay, okay! Yes it is, but now I got you…"

I waved my hand dismissively. "Go. Free the monster."

"More like, wanna tag along? I mean, if Sammy's going on his granola-munching peyote hike then maybe you and me can go have our own fun for a bit."

Huh. Maybe. "The last time I was in Vegas I got kicked out of the Bellagio for counting cards. Long as we steer clear of there, I'm good."

He leaned in and touched my lips with his. "That's my girl," he murmured.

I pulled him back to me and gave him a lengthier kiss, one that ended abruptly when I heard, "Aww! You guys are so cute!"

We separated with a soft smack. I glared over the couch back. "Can't give us a bit of privacy?"

"Pff," Josie snorted, "you're in grandma's living room. Besides, I gotta get going." She swiveled the keys around her fingers. "I can still borrow your ride, right?"

"Hey," Dean said as he turned us away. "Can we switch?"

"What, let her have my bike? No way!"

"Come on. Otherwise one of us is gonna be real uncomfortable on this haul to Nevada."

I sighed. There was another thing I missed about Castiel; his ability to instantaneously transport. "Can you drive a motorcycle?" I asked my sister.

"Yes. One of my boyfriends showed me."

One of her boyfriends. I didn't want her to elaborate. "Fine. You can have the bike, I need the Corvette back."

Josie began slipping the car key off of her keyring as I bent over and dug into my bag. After doing the same, we tossed each other the requisite keys. "Thanks!" she beamed. "Gotta go."

My sister was out of the door in seconds, almost catching her scrubs top on the latch. Mournfully, I listened to her rev the bike a few times before the sound of its engine peeled away.

"Ready to go?" Dean wondered.

"No," grandma abruptly inserted, making us both jerk in surprise. "We talk. Now." Without waiting for an acknowledgement, she shuffled into the kitchen.

With a good dollop off trepidation I followed. I'd seen that look in her eyes before. It was the same one she'd given my father the time she'd caught him yelling at my sister for a B on an Algebra test. Then, she'd reprimanded her son-in-law for being a hardass for no reason. Now…

"You're not following that boy around," grandma declared forbiddingly, her arms folded. "In fact, you're done with this hunting business."

She was speaking in Korean, I suppose to keep Dean from interrupting. That didn't stop me from responding in English. "Excuse me?"

"You said it yourself: you got the monster who killed my daughter and my grandson. Therefore, there's no reason to be hunting any longer."

Technically true, as I had begun all of this in order to get my revenge. I switched languages. "You want me to just go back to being normal old me. Like, going to school and getting married and all that other shit?"

"Of course."

"No!"

"Is it because of him?" Grandma pointed angrily towards Dean. He, in turn, stared back from his seat on the couch, bewildered. "That boy is just another hunter. One day he will die, and it will happen far sooner than you think. Then what will you do?"

"What makes you think he's going to die?" I yelled.

"Because that is the fate of everyone who hunts!"

I was taken aback at her vehemence. This was new territory between us, both in the face of the revelations about my family history, and the fact that we were now screaming at each other.

Growing up, I'd been taught to respect my elders. It's Confucianism at its most insidious; blind filial piety over logic or love. That's not to say that I didn't love my grandmother. Quite the opposite. But I had never confronted her before, never argued, and I don't think she was prepared to face how much I'd changed.

"You're alive," I countered. "Dean's alive, hell, Bobby Singer is well into his goddam fifties! I've got plenty of years left to sit on my ass and I'm not wasting my youth on some normal apple-pie life."

"No!" Grandma barked. "I refuse to accept this. You will do as I say!"

"No, I won't."

"Yes, you will! Don't you dare embarrass this family by being an idiot. You will stay here and you will have a future!"

In my fury, I went back to English, startling Dean when I shouted, "NO, I WON'T!"

Grandma Park's lips set in a thin line. "Then go," she said, converting to the same language. "Go! Go! But do not think it will change anything."

"You okay?" Dean asked as he approached from behind.

No, no I was not. Tears sprung up in my eyes. "Let's get out of here," I muttered.

Through my peripherals (as water logged as they were) I could make out Dean and my grandmother exchanging furious looks. I'm honestly not sure who would have won that particular tussle if it had come to blows; grandma might have been old, but she still had her wiles. Rather than tempt fate, however, I yanked on Dean's sleeve, grabbed out bags, and pulled us out the front door. It slammed shut behind me. I froze, the sound serving as a marker to remind me I might have just broken off with the only family I had left.

The keys were gently pulled from my grasp. I was steered into the passenger seat and buckled in. In fact, we were taking one of the steeper downhill streets towards the freeway before I snapped myself out of my funk. Screaming, I pulled at my hair, kicked the glove compartment, and cried, "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!"

"What? The fuck is going on, Eva?"

Through gritted teeth I told him. Afterwards, he waited, gliding through the maze of freeways towards I–5 and giving me time to really calm down. "She ain't wrong," he said finally.

"What?" I snapped.

"She ain't wrong. You really thing me and Sam are gonna live long enough to let our hairs go gray? Don't think so."

"And?"

He shrugged. "I'm just saying."

"And? What, you want me to go back there? Pretend like none of this shit is out there? Read some fucking news article and know there's some monster out there killing people and I could do something about it?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Chill out. I get it, I really do. I just don't think you should shut that door all the way. You just never know."

I huffed out a dissension and lapsed into sullen silence. Vineyards whipped by as Dean pushed my Corvette, and I thought about what he said. The Winchesters had no one, really, other than Bobby and each other, and Bobby was a hunter. To them, having a normal life was probably as out of reach as becoming president, and when Dean had tried with Lisa it had ended disastrously. Maybe I was being a hardass, stubborn for no reason other than to just be stubborn. "Do you think it's even possible?" I asked quietly.

Dean shrugged. "I wanna think so. Maybe. But like you said, we've seen the shit that's out there. We know. Ain't no way to take that back."

Unless you asked an angel for help, at least. "It's not fair," I whispered.

"I know."

I'm not sure what we were expecting when we got into Vegas, but it certainly wasn't this.

We stopped right outside of the strip for a drink and a meal. Both of us were about to gesture the bartender for a second beer when Dean's phone pinged. 348 Twain Ave. WEAR FED SUIT!

"A case?" I wondered.

"Dunno."

Dean left a wad of cash and we left. I had left my own monkey suit in his possession back in St. Louis, but when he held it out to me I shook my head. No need to bring up those memories when they were barely a month old.

The place ended up being one of those quickie wedding joints. A lightbulb flickered as we waited in the entry area, causing Dean to withdraw his gun and me to unsheathe my sword. The double doors banged open and Sam came rushing in. "No no, you guys won't need those," he said. His hand landed on his brother's shoulders and the pair of them headed into the chapel proper.

"I thought you were out, uh, becoming one with the land or some crap," Dean grumbled as he was pulled down the aisle.

At the front, Sam pushed his brother to one side and me to the other. A bouquet of cheap flowers was shoved into my hands while a pink carnation boutonnière was pinned on Dean. "What is this?"

"Uh, apparently, pink is for loyalty."

They argued about the supposed case for a bit while I looked around the room, thoroughly nonplussed. A man and a woman were sitting in the front row of the pews, their nonchalance eliminating the chance that this was about a ghost. No blood spatters anywhere to indicate a victim, nothing weird at all, in fact, other than Sam's sudden declaration of, "I'm in love. And I'm getting married."

"Wait, what?" I asked incredulously.

"I'm in love," Sam repeated, his dewy gaze resting on me. "I'm-I'm sorry, you know, with all that went on between us, but—"

Wagner's bridal chorus interrupted whatever nonsensical apology the man had been trying to spew. We all stared at the diminutive woman striding down the aisle, Dean and I with trepidation and Sam with the same sort of expression I'd seen on people watching puppies. Once she was in arm's length, Sam reached out and pulled her veil back.

Dean was aghast. "Becky?"

"Dean," crooned the homely looking blonde underneath the lace. "I'm so glad you're here!"

The Winchesters had a quiet, furious exchange shortly after the ceremony that ended with Sam walking away, disappointed. Dean came storming back towards the pew where I'd been sitting, still doing my best to try and reconcile the Sam I knew with the lovestruck idiot we'd met up with. "C'mon. We need to go drive up to Delaware."

"Are you kidding me?" I exclaimed as I shot to my feet. "That's, like, almost a two day's drive!"

"If we don't, then Sam might do something stupid. Stupider."

I threw my hands up. "Fine."

We sped across the United States with a single-minded intensity. On the way, Dean filled me in on the wackiness that was Becky Rosen, superfan extraordinaire of the Chuck Shurley books. This whole situation stank of either witchcraft or crossroads deal and Dean didn't disagree.

Unfortunately, Sam did.

"You know what, Dean?" Sam said, standing protectively in front of his beaming bride. "What Becky and I have is real. And if you can't accept that, that's your problem, not ours."

"Or maybe she's part of it. Because for whatever reason, you're her dream."

"You realize," I inserted, "that all the people in this town who have gotten their wishes are dead, right?"

"You know, I went after her. Maybe that's what's bugging you two; that I'm moving on with my life." Sam glared at us in turn. "Look," he said to me, "I'm sorry for what happened between us. I can't take it back, but now I've got someone who can help me heal. And Dean," Sam sighed as he turned towards his brother, "I mean, you took care of me all my life, and that's great. But I don't need you anymore."

We stared at Becky and her beau for another few moments, dumbfounded. Before I could make any number of snippy remarks, Dean grabbed my elbow and pulled me from the apartment. Outside he immediately opened his phone and placed a call to Bobby and asked for his assistance. I glowered at him the entire call. As soon as he hung up, I asked, "What am I, chopped liver?"

"No, but you and Sam? C'mon, think about it for a sec. You really think you could get through to him without wanting to break his nose?"

I paused. "No."

"There you go."

Apparently Bobby was mired in a vamp nest on the other side of the country, but his replacement, Garth, left much to be desired. The man epitomized awkward, a lanky, smiling mess who seemed as dangerous as a banana. He came through, however, when Dean's short fuse nearly prevented us from protecting a second victim by calming the woman down and offering her a place to lay low with a "tri-racial paraplegic sniper" (I never found out if this was a real person).

We actually lost Sam at one point. He told us later that the love potion Becky been doling had finally run out and Sam had become livid about his situation. She whacked him over the head and transported him upstate, apparently to convince him that their union was meant to be. Thankfully, she somewhat came to her senses, and contacted Dean before the demon who was behind this whole mess snared her into a deal.

The perpetrator was collecting souls early through what he claimed was a "loophole." Unfortunately for him, Crowley was having none of it. The King appeared after we'd done all the work of capturing his wayward hellspawn and promptly dressed him down.

"This isn't Wall Street! This is Hell! We have a little something called integrity."

Cleansed the deals from the town in exchange for the demon, and Crowley was gone, but not before shooting Dean and I a glance that was really fucking suspicious. Goddamnit, I didn't want to be more bait. Needed to get my tats retouched before the King decided to do whatever it was he had in mind.

We walked out of the restaurant, Sam and Dean making small talk with Garth while Becky trailed behind. I cocked an eyebrow up at her. "What the fuck were you thinking?"

The woman gave me a sad smile. "You don't get it."

"Get what?"

"I mean, look at you!" She gestured at my figure and face. "All pretty and fit and-and-and I bet you could have anyone you want. Girls like me? What could I possibly hope for?" Becky folded her arms and pouted. "Bet in high school you were the one with the boys hanging on you and the girls wanting to be you. Little mice like me never had a chance."

I laughed, the tone sharp enough it caused the Winchesters to look back at me in concern. I waved them off. "Becky, I was the mouse. It took a lot of shit happening to me before I became like this, and you don't want any of it."

"Then how am I supposed to find someone to love me?" Her voice hushed. "I've seen how Dean looks at you. In time won't Sam look like that at me?"

Maybe because you're a nutjob that drugged him into marrying you? "Because he's not for you. Girl, do you even know him?"

"I've read all the books," Becky proclaimed proudly. "I know everything."

"No, you don't." It was my turn to give her an unhappy look. "You really don't."

"I… oh." Her eyes widened. "Oh. Oh. No no no. I mean, I read about you kissing him before he went to Hell and I knew about you and Castiel and—"

"Stop," I snapped. "It's not what you think." My heart gave a sharp pang at hearing the angel's name. "When he asks for the divorce, just give it to him, okay?"

Becky glared at me mulishly. "Why?"

"You owe him." Her expression changed only slightly. "Fine. You don't? I'll carve his initials into your forehead." My lips split in a feral grin. "Then you'll neverstop thinking about him."

The woman's eyes filled with frightened tears. I almost felt sorry for her. Almost. She hurried on ahead of me and used Sam's bulk to hide herself.

Sam got his annulment, and we moved on (to never speak of this again, he hoped). My car was too small to fit three, and Dean missed his brother, but we headed in the same direction: north to New Jersey where Bobby said he wanted to meet up. Apparently they'd abandoned Rufus' cabin for the time being. No telling whether or not the Leviathan Bobby had worked over could tell his gloopy friends where it was at.

The Winchesters got there first, holing up in a foreclosed mountainside home outside of a little town called Hammonton. My nose wrinkled at the smell of the place as soon as I walked in. "Fuck me," I muttered as my stomach started to rebel.

Dean's face brightened at the expression. However, there was no way in hell I was going to indulge in anything so intimate in these surroundings. Water was dripping off of blackened timbers above us. A couch of questionable material had Dean's sleeping bag plunked down on it. Everything else was some mixture of moldy, dirty, or broken. At least the lights were on and the table was sturdy.

"Cozy," Bobby remarked.

"Yeah," Sam agreed lugubriously as he sat down. "Well, Motel 6 just ain't leaving the light on anymore."

As if by providence, the bulbs in the dilapidated whatever-it-was shorted out. Immediately, Sam brought up a battery-powered lamp from the floor. Guess he'd been planning ahead.

"Fuck!" Dean cursed. He stomped around the table, his hands fisted into his hair. "This fucking SUCKS!"

"What does?" I asked, surprised.

"EVERYTHING! We got Purgatory's least wanted everywhere, and we're on our third 'The World's Screwed' issue in, what, three years? We've steered the bus away from the cliff twice already."

"Someone's got to do it," Sam refuted.

Dean glared down at his brother. "What if the bus wantsto go over the cliff?"

Sam twisted around to stare at Dean incredulously. "You think the world wants to end?"

I grabbed Dean's bicep. "Excuse us," I said as sweet as I could and steered him outside. We stopped between my car and Bobby's truck. "What the fuck, Dean?"

"What?"

I waved my hand at the door. "That! 'The bus wants to go over the cliff'? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Dean's shoulders slumped, and the mask he'd been wearing ever since we'd gone to my grandmother's house finally slipped. I'd been too wrapped up in my own little dramas to notice how he'd been white-knuckling the days away. Now Dean was finally letting me see just how very disheartened and frustrated he was with everything going on, from Cass dying to Sam's on again/off again sanity, not to mention Leviathan on our asses. All the shit swirling around me didn't help anything, especially after I'd taken off and nearly gotten myself killed.

Dean wiped a hand down his face and sighed. "I'm just tired. I mean, would a break in the goddamn apocalypses be too much to ask?"

It wasn't the right time to be thinking of it, but I couldn't help but admire how his profile shined in the moonlight. I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around his torso. Dean vented a bit of his feelings by squeezing me nearly breathless before putting his nose into my hair.

The man smelled so good. There was no way to stop my heart from quickening, or my fingers from tracing the muscles on his back. "Let's go somewhere."

"Where?"

"Away. Just you and me. Just for a while."

He pulled back to give me a knowing smirk. "Got somewhere in mind?"

I gestured out into the surrounding trees. He nodded and let me go to walk back to the door. He stuck his head into the doorway and called, "Hey. Me and Eva are gonna go do a perimeter sweep, make sure we're really alone out here."

Sam blinked in confusion, but Bobby's lifted eyebrows told me he knew what we were up to. "Don't be goin' too far," the old hunter warned.

Dean rolled his eyes, pulled out his handgun, and cocked it just to make sure. "I'm good." I flipped a knife out from one sleeve and waved it.

However, Sam wasn't convinced. "There's a thing eating people in the woods, Dean. Remember?"

"Wendigo?" I asked.

"We don't know."

"Well, until we do, then there's nothing to worry about." I tromped down the gravel driveway. "We'll be back."

Yeah, not really the best of assurances, but neither Sam nor Bobby stopped us from going. We really were going to check the surrounding area. Maybe not exactly for what they thought we were going to look for, but a check of your surroundings is never a bad thing.

After a circuitous route going half a mile away from the home Dean asked, "Think we're good?"

I swept my flashlight back and forth one final time. "Yeah, seems like—"

My back thumped into a large tree and I found myself being quite thoroughly kissed. Our unfinished session from before, combined with somewhat celibate close quarters, had unknowingly ratcheted the desire between us to a fever pitch. It exploded as I returned the kiss with all the passion left unfulfilled, one hand carding through his hair while the other gripped the front of his jacket.

Dean released my lips. "Do you want to stop?" he murmured, his mouth marking a delicious trail down my neck.

"Don't you dare," I whispered, my head leaning back against the bark.

His hand found my breast, kneading softly while his palm teased the tip. I reached down for his belt and slid it from the buckle. When I pulled gently at the top of his boxers he unbuttoned my jeans. Our hands slid into each other's pants almost simultaneously, my fingers wrapping around his shaft, his dipping slowly into my sex.

I wrapped my free arm around Dean's neck to pull his lips onto mine as I stroked him to fullness. Two of his fingers were sliding back and forth, skillfully manipulating me nearly to climax. When one entered me I couldn't help gasping his name.

That was the end of self-control as far as Dean was concerned. He pulled his hand from me, grasped the hems of both my pants and underwear, and knelt to pull them down. I helped him tug them both over my boots and he tossed them a short distance away.

Dean shot back up and his mouth was back on mine, stealing my breath as his hands worked to free himself. Once I felt his cock bump gently onto my belly I wrapped my legs around his waist, bracing myself against the bark. As wet as I was he slid in easily, my back arching once he was buried; then, with one hand gripping the underside of my thigh, he began to move.

My hand gripped his hair as he grunted into my neck, small gasps and cries punctuating each deep, steady thrust. God, it felt so good, so absolutely wonderful, I forgot about everything that wasn't Dean fucking Winchester. There were no Leviathan, no psychologically damaged brother, no haunting deaths. Just the love and pleasure that came from satisfying a passion so long denied.

He managed to keep his pace through my peak, my grip on his hair tightening so hard it had to be painful, waiting until the arm and legs wrapped around him loosened before aiming for his own end. The sound and feel of Dean finishing inside of me felt like home, like the missing piece of my heart falling into place. I couldn't help but smile.

Slowly, Dean used quivering arms to lower me to the ground. Our lips met softly. "We should be getting back," I whispered.

He kissed me again. "No."

I groaned as his hands began wandering. "Dean…"

Both of us froze when leaves rustled nearby. It turned out to be nothing more than a curious raccoon, but it reminded us that we were out here for a reason. "Yeah, okay," Dean said, disappointed.

My smile grew wider. I batted his chest with the back of my hand. "You're such a big baby." I walked on shaky legs over to where he'd tossed my pants and bent down to yank them over my boots.

Arms were around me from behind when I stood. "But I'm your big baby, right?"

I reached back to tilt his head closer. "Yes," I murmured before giving him one more kiss.

"Always?" His arms tightened.

"Always."

I swear, I never meant to lie.

Acknowledgement : Some lines of dialogue are taken directly from the episodes "Season Seven, Time for a Wedding!" (SPN 7.08) and "How to Win Friends and Influence Monsters" (SPN 7.09).