Content to hang back and follow the others for the moment, Sam pressed his lips firmly together and choked down a laugh as he watched Skye shake her hands free from Dean's too-long sleeves, looking like a little kid playing dressed up in big brother's clothes. Somehow he didn't think she'd appreciate the comparison.
Lengthening his stride, Sam easily caught up as Dean approached the dark-haired and equally dark-lipsticked young woman, his brother's bass rumble getting her attention, "You must be Amy."
"Yeah?" As Amy turned toward them, Sam couldn't help but note the lines of exhaustion around her eyes and the defeated sag of her shoulders. The girl looked like hell, but most people did when a loved one went missing or turned up violently dead. Not a part of the job Sam had ever gotten used to. Clutching a thick stack of flyers to her chest, Amy blinked up at them and nodded, confirming Dean's assumption, "I'm Amy."
"Our nephew Troy told us about you." Pulling out his hundred watt smile, Dean turned up the charm as he lied through his teeth. Sam had to admit Dean was pretty smooth when he tried, but then, he'd had a lot of practice. "I'm Dean, and this is Sam and our little sister, Skye."
"He never mentioned you to me." Shaking her head, Amy dismissed them as she pulled a flyer from the stack and moved to tape it up on a vacant store window.
"Yeah, well, that's Troy, I guess." She didn't look the least bit interested in anything they had to say and if she walked off, their only solid lead went with her. Half-laughing, Dean brushed off the brush-off, quickening his steps to catch up as Amy started to walk away. It didn't do any good, she didn't even glance back at him as he continued to try to catch her attention, "We're not around much, we're up around Modesto now."
Poor Dean, just no luck with women lately. Shaking his hair out of his face and turning up the puppy-dog eyes, Sam stepped in, trying to see if he could do better. Hands tucked into his pockets, he flashed Amy the friendliest smile he could muster, "We're looking for him too. We were just kind of asking around."
...and nothing. Damn. It's like Amy barely heard them, their words going right in one ear and out the other.
"I'm so sorry about my brothers, they're a little single-minded sometimes." Backing up a step Sam raised a brow and looked at Skye as she finally spoke up. She'd been hanging back up to now, so quiet it was easy to forget she was there. "This must be so hard for you."
Making her way past the boys, Skye rolled her eyes at the deathglare Dean gave her before turning to Amy. Gone was the snappy little brat that had been tormenting Dean all day and in her place was a warm, caring young woman offering a sympathetic smile and a shoulder to lean on. Whether it was just a tactic to get what she wanted or a genuine facet of her personality was the question, though Sam was heavily leaning toward the latter. Either that, or she was a much better actress than he'd given her credit for.
"Are you hungry? I bet you haven't eaten today. Personally, I could use about six cups of coffee and a dozen eggs." Inclining her head toward the diner across the street, Skye held out a hand, leaving it up to Amy whether or not she'd take Skye's offer of coffee and comfort. "Come on, our treat. I'm sure Troy wouldn't want you goin' hungry."
"...your cruel device...your blood, like ice...One look could kill...my pain, your thrill…"
Leaning back against the dark blue Naugahyde , Dean took a long drink of his coffee, the rich scent of it a welcome relief after having Tinkerbell shoved up his nose all afternoon. The diner was exactly what he'd expected, right down to the formica tabletops and the classic rock playing low in the background. Could have gone with a different song, though. Not that there was anything wrong with Alice Cooper, but Poison was just a little much.
"...I wanna love you but I better not touch, I wanna touch you but my senses tell me to stop…"
Picking up the badly laminated single-page menu, he tried to read the words written in faded blue ink on yellowing paper. Okay, so actually he was trying to pay attention to absolutely anything but the girl fidgeting across the table from him, which was probably why he now knew exactly how many cacti were sitting on the windowsills and that the couple sitting behind him were having some pretty intense compatibility issues. TMI, guys, thanks.
"...I wanna kiss you but I want it too much, I wanna taste you but your lips are venomous poison…"
"Would you stop that."
"Stop what?" The only sign he'd suprised her was the faintest twitch when she looked up, quickly suppressed. She was good, he had to give her that, rarely letting on what she was really thinking, though the way she was ripping her napkin into pieces of confetti-like she was pulling tiny bodies limb-from-limb might have been a clue. Not the easiest task when his too-long sleeves kept creeping up over her hands, tangling her fingers and getting in the way. Seven times now she'd had to shake them back. Not that he was counting.
"Let me see your hands."
"What? Why?"
"Would you just-" Reaching for her, he felt her flinch when he wrapped his fingers around her wrist, trying to pull away again. Everything was a fight, she couldn't just sit still and trust him for two minutes… "Fucks sake, Skye, I don't bite."
"...your mouth, so hot...your web, I'm caught...your skin, so wet...black lace, on sweat…"
"I don't believe that for a second."
"Fine, I do, but only if you ask nicely." Folding up one sleeve, Dean's mental processes were mostly preoccupied with ignoring the last reluctant twitch of her hand in his before she went still. The flutter of her pulse and the warmth of soft skin under his fingertips was a little more difficult and that stupid song wasn't helping a damn thing. How long was this version? Was it the super-extended edition? ...and was she blushing again? Wait, what had he just said?
"In your dreams, Winchester."
Nightly, actually, but that was really something Dean preferred not to think about, for a variety of reasons. Was it getting warm in here?
"...I hear you calling and it's needles and pins, I wanna hurt you just to hear you screaming my name. Don't wanna touch you but you're under my skin…"
"Am I interrupting something here or…?"
"Sam. Amy." Oh, thank god. Clearing his throat, Dean hastily relinquished the hold he had on Skye's hand as Sam and Amy returned from the bathroom, feeling a rush of heat flood through him. Great, now he was blushing. Sammy was never going to let him hear the end of this. Shoving himself up, he let Sam back into his spot, Skye doing the same with Amy on the other side, "I was starting to think you fell in.."
"Sorry, no such luck."
With a grin that spoke volumes, Sam slid in, giving Dean a knowing look that really just made Dean want to hit something. Namely Sam. Luckily for him, the waitress chose that moment to appear, notepad in hand, sparing Sam from grievous bodily injury. Or at least a punch on the arm.
"You guys know what you want to order or do you need another minute?"
Wrapping her hands around her newly-filled cup of coffee, Skye tried to perch as close to the edge of her seat as she could, the booths uncomfortably small. Or maybe it was just that she couldn't pull her legs up under her with Amy sitting right there and was thus forced to tuck them under the table, snug up against Dean's. Yay. She could feel the heat of him even through two layers of denim. No wonder his jacket had been so warm when she'd been forced to put it on.
"Amy, when is the last time you talked to Troy?"
Oh yeah, she was supposed to be paying attention. Or something. Not that they really needed any help or input from her. As soon as she'd talked Amy into the diner, the young woman had relaxed, her reluctance to talk to them fading with each sip of her coffee.
"The day he disappeared. I was actually on the phone with him right before-" Voice thickening, Amy's eyes flooded as she tried to speak past the lump in her throat. Without thinking about it, Skye reached over and laid a reassuring hand on Amy's, getting a wan smile in return. Giving Skye's fingers a tight squeeze, Amy cleared her throat and went on. "I was on the phone with him and he was driving home. He said he would call me right back but— but he never did."
"He didn't say anything strange or out of the ordinary?" Sam leaned forward, one arm on the table as he gave Amy a sympathetic smile. Dude really did just give off this super-sweet friendly-giant kind of vibe. The longer Skye spent around him, the more she liked him. It was really too bad she couldn't have been cursed with his constant presence instead, there wasn't a doubt in her mind he'd be easier to live with. She was actually going to miss Sam when they dropped him back off at Stanford and that was a little surprising.
"No, nothing I can remember."
"Here's the deal, Amy." Leaning back, Dean smiled, and not the pleasantly charming All-American Boy smile either but more of a 'I'm getting tired of being dicked around' kind of smile. Did he really need to be so suspicious of everything? Couldn't just take someone at their word, nope, always had to give intimidation a try. Dick move, man.
Shifting, Skye managed to 'accidentally' kick Dean right in the shin, though you wouldn't have known it to look at him. Didn't so much as flinch, the ass, though a minor war under the table ended with Skye's ankles trapped firmly between his so she couldn't do it again. Welp, that backfired.
"What is it?" Too busy trying to extricate herself, Skye didn't note the look on Amy's face, only looking up when Sam spoke, "Whatever it is, I promise we'll listen."
"Well it's just-I mean, with all these guys going missing, people talk."
"Small town, people latch onto anything that might provide some entertainment value." Speaking up for the first time in a while, Skye avoided both Dean's reproachful gaze and Sam's interested one, instead focusing her attention on the dark-haired woman sitting next to her, "People disappearing? That's big news in a place like this."
"Exactly. You guys from a small town?"
"Empire, just outside of Modesto." Smiling, Skye ignored the look of surprise on the boys faces. A week chattering in the car with Dean, pulling random bits of information out at the least opportunity, and still, that expression never got old. This was actually almost kind of fun, or at least not boring, which to her was basically the same thing. "Everybody knew everything about everybody else. You couldn't spit without the neighbor two blocks away reportin' it to everyone at church on Sunday."
"Ladies."
Did they often speak in unison like that? Because that wasn't disconcerting at all. Funny, but disconcerting. And weird.
"Amy, you were saying?"
"It's kind of this local legend. This one girl, she got murdered out on Centennial like decades ago." Nearly inaudible at first, as if she were afraid they'd think she was crazy for even bringing it up, Amy's voice gained a little strength when Skye laid a reassuring hand on her arm. With a grateful smile, Amy straightened and cleared her throat, finishing her thought, "...supposedly, she's still out there hitching along the highway and whoever picks up her disappears forever."
"I think every little town has a story or two like that. Back home, we had a couple. I think Cry Baby Bridge was probably the most locally famous." If Dean didn't quit giving her 'shut the hell up' looks, she was going to end up stabbing him with a fork. It's not like she couldn't read a room, she wasn't going to say anything that would upset his precious investigation into John's disappearance. Besides, she was the one that had gotten Amy to talk in the first place. "Supposedly a Native American woman threw her baby off a bridge and then tossed herself in after and now you can hear a baby crying and a sobbing woman whenever there's a full moon." If he could quit trying to stare her down, that would be great and did his eyes really have to be that green..."Not that there's ever anything to stories like that but you wouldn't happen to remember the hitchhiker's name, would you?"
"Courtney? Karlee maybe? I don't really know."
