Dean sighed. They'd stayed in the cabin for three weeks as they rested and healed. Bobby had left a week before that. He'd mumbled something about helping out an old friend who was in trouble, at which point Sam and Tyler had exchanged a meaningful glance. Bobby was out before they could start teasing him. Dean rolled his shoulders, waiting for the stabs of pain he was sure would come, but there was no more pain. He was healed. Physically anyways. There was still a gaping hole in his soul. The first lead they'd had on Cas in months turned out to be a dead-end.
What was that thing? Dean looked out of the window. Sam was cutting wood. Tyler was leaning against the Impala, drinking a soda, watching Sam and apparently directing his swings. Sam was getting annoyed. Dean saw it in his face. Tyler saw it too, he noticed, as she smirked and downed her soda before going back inside. Watching his little brother hacking away at the wood, and hearing Tyler enter the cabin, Dean found himself smiling. If they hadn't been raised as hunters, this might have been their life. He and Sam, living a quiet life. Sam would have been a lawyer. And he would have been…what? A mechanic maybe. Or maybe a professional wrestler? Dean chuckled. A wrestler, him?
He pictured himself in those speedos professional wrestlers always seemed to wear. He shuddered. No. Better to think of himself as a mechanic. Or a private detective. He might even have gone into the army. Be a Navy Seal or something. Tyler would be their good friend and neighbor, coming around whenever it pleased her to borrow stuff she didn't really need. And he was sure some of them would have had kids by now. Tyler coming into the bedroom disturbed his train of thought. He looked up. "Hot outside," Tyler said as a way of greeting as she handed him a coke.
He hadn't been outside today yet, but he found himself nodding. It did look hot outside. "Might go outside for a while later, when the temperature drops," he replied. Tyler settled on the nightstand. Dean opened his coke can and took a few sips. He was getting uncomfortable as her eyes didn't leave him. He thought about breaking the silence, when she spoke. "You seemed a mile away when I came in." "Yeah, I was just thinking how life would be if we hadn't been raised aware of all the things that go bump in the night." Tyler lifted an eyebrow. "You'd be a mechanic, right? Fixing old cars?" she said. Dean smiled. "Yeah. Maybe."
"I'd be a professional surfer." This surprised him. She didn't look like a surfer chick to him. She saw the questioning look on his face and sniggered. "Spent some of my childhood in Hawaii, before I met the General. We still went back there every summer. Maybe when I'm retired, I'll move back there." "It certainly explains your laid back attitude," Dean said. "Island people. We're a different breed." Sam entering the bedroom, all sweaty and panting, startled the both of them. It took him a while to catch his breath. "Well, we have enough firewood to get us through a harsh winter."
Dean clapped his hands. "We ain't going to need it. We're leaving." "We are?" Sam and Tyler asked. "Yup, found us a case." "Where?" Sam inquired as he wiped the sweat of his brow. "Oregon."