AN: Two chapters for you guys! Enjoy!

Chapter Six

Smile-Mikky Ekko

Smile, the worst is yet to come

We'll be lucky if we ever see the sun

Got nowhere to go, we could be here for a while

But the future is forgiven, so smile

We're trying so hard to get it all right

But only feel lonely at the end of the night

And I wanna be somewhere away from this place

Yeah, somewhere just a little closer to grace

Cassidy had been living with them for a few days when Elain woke to find him filling the chair next to the couch in the living room. It was after noon and she'd fallen asleep binge watching Supernatural.

"Oy, look at you, you missed the last three episodes. Dean's done been to hell and back and everythin,' but judgin' by the fact that you have the seasons on DVD you've probably already seen them. I hope you don't mind but I took the liberty of changing out the discs," Cassidy said.

She pulled herself up and stretched. "I don't mind," she said as she kicked the purple blanket she was wrapped up in off of her. Her stomach grumbled and she rose from the couch.

"Are you hungry?" She pulled out a pan and set it on the stove to pre-heat on low as she buttered two slices of bread to make a grilled cheese sandwich.

"Sure."

"So are you a vampire? I mean, staying in the attic. Total vampire-y move there."

Cassidy's face flushed but he just laughed and she laughed back, missing the sigh of relief he let out when he realized that she had just been joking. Of course she was, there was no way she would know what he was.

Jesse came into the living room a few hours later to find his sister and Cassidy sitting on opposite ends of the couch, their eyes glued to the screen.

"Oh no," Jesse groaned. "She's pulled you in."

Cassidy got up from the couch and crossed in front of her. "It's a good show! Have you seen Sam's hair? It's glorious! And that Dean Winchester could charm the pants off me any day, I tell ya."

She laughed at Cassidy's words and he looked back to flash a grin at her as he followed her brother out of the room.

She and Cassidy spent the rest of the week watching all ten seasons of Supernatural and when Dean opened his eyes and they were black, Cassidy literally jumped off the couch and started yelling profanities at the TV. A couple minutes later and he sat back down, running a hand through his hair.

"Are you okay Cassidy?" she asked, grinning at his enthusiasm. It wasn't exactly new, he'd been up and down and flinging his arms out and cursing throughout their binge watching. She might have had more fun watching him react to the show than watching the actual show.

He rested his elbows on his knees and dragged his hands down his face. "This show is a roller coaster. I feel...I feel like I'm hungover or somethin' now. I mean, how in the bloody hell are they goin' to fix that?" He motioned to the TV.

"I guess you'll have to start the next season and see."

~O.o~

Elain opened her eyes and froze. Cassidy was comfortably slumped down on the couch and her head was resting on his shoulder. She slowly raised her head up and looked at Cassidy.

"Sorry," she said sheepishly, not sure if her face was hot from being wrapped up in the blanket or from the realization that she'd used the shoulder of someone that was practically a stranger as a pillow.

"Oh I don't mind. I do need to take a piss somethin' fierce though."

She chuckled and moved back over to her side of the couch. "You could have moved me or woke me."

"Nah. It was kinda nice actually," he admitted.

She regarded him and the smile he was now giving her for a moment before moving her gaze to the TV to see what episode he was watching. "Geeze I missed the whole episode?"

"That's the second time you've fallin' asleep watchin' the show. Maybe it's all that readin' you do at night. Are you sure you aren't the vampire here?"

He raised a questioning eyebrow at her and she laughed but then it turned into a cough, and she couldn't get the coughing to stop. Cassidy rose from the couch and came back with a glass of water which she took with a grateful smile. She drank deeply and patted her chest a bit, as if that would help. It seemed like the water did the trick and Cassidy headed out of the room. She waited for a little bit so they could finish the season but after about ten minutes she realized that he hadn't gone to the bathroom, he'd left. Not being sure why he'd done so all of a sudden or why it even seemed to bother her she turned off the TV and went to take a shower. Exhausted, despite the nap, she went to bed after her shower and woke for a second in the middle of the night when her door creaked open. She squinted an eye in the darkness to see her definitely not a ninja brother checking on her. He'd probably heard her coughing fit earlier and gotten worried.

She didn't see Cassidy again until the next afternoon when they resumed their places on opposite ends of the couch and finished the rest of season ten.

"So what are your plans for the evenin'?" Cassidy asked her as he stretched.

She shrugged. "Probably just read for the rest of the night."

"Oh, come on," Cassidy started, placing his arm on the back of the couch and turning to face her. "You've gotta' do somethin' other than binge watch and read."

She looked away from his gaze. "I'm not a very interesting person."

"Oh that's not true. You've got nothin' to do in town? People to hang out with?"

"I hang out with Jesse. Sometimes I watch Emily's kids." She hesitated. "I don't really have any friends."

"Oh that's not true. You got me," Cassidy said, motioning to himself. His eyes flicked to her mouth as she bit her lip, trying to hide her smile. "Come on. Let's you and me do somethin'."

"What do you have in mind?"

"Well you tell me. What is there to do in this place?"

"Well, there's a movie theater and a bowling alley."

"Bowling! That's it!" Cassidy hopped up from the couch.

"What? Really?"

"Yeah, come on."

"Right now?" Was he serious?

"Yeah, right now. We vampires are wastin' precious moonlight."

She laughed at what seemed to have become their own inside joke, not knowing that for Cassidy it was the truth.

"At least let me change into somethin' else real quick," she said as she got up from the couch.

She changed from her soft cloth shorts into a pair of skinny jeans and exchanged her t-shirt for a white cami under a soft, loose burgundy tank top. She stared at herself in the mirror over her dresser and even though she usually only wore them on Sunday mornings she decided to wear her pearl earrings and a swipe of pinky-nude lipstick. As she was slipping on her shoes she realized she was pretty excited about actually going out and doing something, but then she stopped as a wave of anxiety washed over her. She looked to the door, hesitating. Did she really want to go? Should she? What if Cassidy didn't really want to hang out with her and was just being nice? What if they hung out and he ended up just finding her annoying? She shook her head to try and clear away the negative thoughts and took a few deep breaths, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth. They'd finished watching Supernatural together and she realized that she enjoyed spending time with him, even if they didn't do much talking. There was something about him, although she wasn't sure what exactly that something was, that she liked. She finished tying her shoes and headed back out to the living room.

Cassidy was waiting, twirling the keys to the church van around his finger.

"Speaking of bowling, have you ever seen The Big Lebowski?"

"Once. I didn't really like it."

Cassidy put his arm around her shoulders as they left the living room. "I think you and I are gonna' get along real well."

~O.o~

Jesse was in the kitchen when Cassidy and Elain entered the house through the kitchen door, both of them caught up in a fit of laughter.

"Where have you two been? It's ten o'clock." Jesse's voice was stern but Elain easily detected the worry in it.

Elain and Cassidy stopped laughing and glanced at one another as Jesse watched them from his seat at the kitchen table, a beer in his hand.

"We were bowlin' padre."

Jesse's eyebrows practically shot into his hairline. "You went bowlin'?"

Elain and Cassidy nodded.

Jesse looked at Elain. "You…went out."

"Yeah. It was Cassidy's idea."

Jesse watched as his sister smiled up at Cassidy and asked, "Well did you have fun?"

"Yes. It was great." She turned to Cassidy and wrapped her arms around his waist for just a few seconds. "Thanks Cassidy. Night."

"Night," Cassidy said back, smiling at her as she headed to her room.

"You could have at least left a note or took your phone with you!" Jesse yelled after her.

She stopped in the hallway and cringed a bit. Of course he'd be worried when he came home and found her gone and she'd left her cell phone on her dresser. She'd been so wrapped up in going out that it hadn't occurred to her.

"Sorry Jesse! I promise I'll let you know next time!" Elain yelled back.

Jesse shook his head and Cassidy pulled out a chair after getting a beer from the fridge. "Thank you Cassidy."

"For what padre?"

"For gettin' her outta the house. I've had a hard time doin' that lately."

"Well I figured she's been cooped up in here since I got here. And you know most people just tolerate me, but she's actually nice to me." He looked down the hallway towards her room. "Real nice," he said to himself. He looked back at Jesse. "For a preacher's sister she sure does laugh hard at my dirty jokes. Soda literally came out of her nose at one point!"

Jesse laughed. "Are you serious right now?"

"Yeah! I mean soda all over our score cards. The game was pretty much over at that point anyway, but it was the funniest thing I've seen in a while."

Jesse shook his head. He would have liked to have seen that. He hadn't seen her get lost in laughter in a while. Perhaps Cassidy wasn't quite what Jesse had first assumed. "Well as long as you two are just friends I don't have a problem with you two spendin' time together," he told Cassidy.

"Oh, yeah. Of course. No funny business with your sister Jesse." He waved a hand in front of him, dismissing the idea. "Wouldn't dream of it."

Jesse eyed Cassidy for a second before taking his word for it.