Author's note: As I'm going through Season three, (I love that I have to watch Supernatural obsessively and repeatedly and can call it "research") I'm realizing this is going to diverge from it and go off on its own pretty soon. So hang on tight and be ready for sudden changes in direction (just, not during this chapter).
***NOTE: no breakfast foods were harmed during the upcoming scene.***
CHAPTER TWO
It took longer than usual to get the job done because we needed to fix the wall by rebuilding it, yet making it look old and grungy at the same time. Fortunately, we were able to call Magda, who runs what's kind of like Cleaner Central Intelligence, and, as usual, she was able to give us a good incantation to move the job along.
I cast a final scrying spell to make sure we didn't miss anything. It was a good thing I did. One of Kieran's gold beads had come off and rolled under a workbench, and the spell revealed it with a little flash of blue light. I had to lay flat on the freshly bleached and then re-grunged floor to reach under and grab it. There are some—like my cousin—who would argue that might have been overkill, but I was my mother's daughter. Details were important. Even the little ones. Still, I probably took longer than I should have because the sun was just coming up by the time I got out to the van.
"Where were you?" Kieran started the engine and pulled away from the building.
"Here. You dropped this." I let the bead fall from between my fingers and into one of the cup holders.
"Damn it." Kieran replied. "Duck." He grabbed the back of my head and pushed my face to my knees, which really a response I wasn't expecting.
"What the hell, Kier?" I said from my lap, struggling to get out of his grip.
"Shhh!" My cousin didn't answer until he'd pulled out of the lot and away. Then he let me go. "Someone pulled into the lot!"
Okay. Not good. Nothing to get hysterical about, either. "So?"
"So, they were looking at the van. We almost got caught."
"But we didn't."
"This time." He slid his sunglasses onto his face and slid one of his favorite CDs into the slot in the dashboard. Thumping bass and chanted lyrics filled the van, making the bottles of unguents and cleaning potions rattle and ring on their custom-built shelves and making me twitch in my seat.
"Dude. Seriously? It's like, five a.m. It's too early for crap music." Honestly, I could feel the muscles in my cheeks contracting. "I think I'm getting a nosebleed. Can't we listen to something that doesn't vibrate my insides?"
"Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts her yap. Deal with it." He settled behind the wheel and—naturally—cranked up the volume. And the bass. "Let's go get some breakfast. I'm starved."
0—0—0—0—0
"Carb up, Sweetie." Kieran grinned and poured syrup over my waffle. He was always cheerful after a job, something I found...incredibly annoying. Of course.
"Leave my food alone, you freak." I told him, peering down at his plate of fresh fruit and a bran muffin. "Why don't you eat like a normal guy?"
"Gotta watch my girlish figure." He grinned and stole a piece of bacon from my plate. "Unlike you."
"Eff off, Shirley." My figure was fine, thank you very much. Shorter than I would have liked, but curvy in the right places and not unpleasing. At least, I didn't think so. "Just because you won't order stuff you like doesn't mean you get to eat mine."
He wiggled his dark brows and his blue-green eyes twinkled. Seriously annoying. And grossly inappropriate. He opened his mouth and showed me the remains of my bacon.
"You're sick." I picked up the newspaper I'd dropped next to my plate and unfolded it wide as I could. Finally. Some privacy.
Can I just say, right here, that I like newspapers? They're getting harder and harder to find, except at little diners like this one. No one uses them anymore. But the thing is-you can't block the view of the giant idiot across the table from you with a smart phone. Which isn't to say I hadn't tried. And failed.
Newspapers, however, are the perfect moron blockers and this morning, I needed one. I started reading, looking for any weirdness that we might be called to clean up after later.
Someone settled into the booth behind me. Actually, it was more like they threw themselves into it, because my side of the furniture wiggled. I tossed a "hey, watch it, doofus" look over my shoulder.
"Sorry." The guy behind me said—not unpleasantly, despite my bitchiness.
I grunted and went back to my paper.
Suddenly, Kieran made a hissing noise and banged the table. "Sonuvabitching a-holes!"
I ignored him. I just wanted to be quiet for just a few seconds. Was that too much to ask?
There were sounds of a laptop being opened and booting up, and the diner's perky waitress asking, "Would you guys like some coffee?"
"Sure, sweetie. And keep it coming," another guy—who must have been on the other side of the table—said, in a deep, gravelly voice.
I shivered as goosebumps patterned my skin. Wow. That voice. It was sandpaper-sexy and bedroomy, making me envision all kinds of things which I had never experienced but could still somehow imagine. Sweet merciful yummy. I wondered what Mr Gravel Voice looked like.
Did it matter?
Still…maybe I could go to the ladies' room, and catch a glimpse, I thought. But then—he'd know I went to the bathroom.
Seriously? Sometimes I wondered if my responses to men had been permanently forged and locked in adolescence. Man up, I told my inner girl. Everyone poops.
I lowered the paper. Across the table from me, Kieran sat scowling and spreading margarine over his bran muffin. A second glance showed the muffin to be mostly mashed. He wasn't spreading it, he was shredding it as he glared over my shoulder.
"That muffin deserve to die a painful death?" I pushed the plate with my fingertips. "Told you to order a waffle."
"Don't turn around," Kieran said through gritted teeth. "It's them."
"Them? Them who?" All of a sudden, I knew who them was. No one else would make Kieran destroy his own breakfast like that.
Better, I knew whose voice I'd heard. No wonder my inner adolescent had emerged; she'd recognized Yummyboy even before I did. Like he had pheromones casting out around him, saying, Smell me! I'm delicious! And you want to sleep with me. Right now!
"Oh my God. Dean Winchester is sitting behind me?" My voice came out all squeaky.
Kieran glowered, lowered his knife and leaned back in his seat. "I have half a mind —"
"Well, yeah. I already know that," I told him. "Put the knife down, you moron, and stop acting stupid. They don't even know you." I should have been busy counseling myself with pretty much the same advice, but I was too busy wondering if Dean would recognize me. I hoped he did. I prayed I didn't. I desperately wished for a mirror but for that, I needed to go to the ladies' room.
But then Dean would know I went to the ladies' room.
I don't want Dean to know I went to the ladies' room. He'll think I went to the bathroom to...go! I don't want him to think about me and toilets in the same...thought. Never. No! Nooooo! I could feel my face growing hot.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Kieran hissed, his eyes narrowed. "Why are you twitching? You look like you're about to have a seizure."
"Shut up!" I hissed. "He might hear you!"
The thought was mortifying. Dean Winchester would hear my giant ape cousin telling me I'm having a seizure and he'd know I used the toilet! Oh my God. Oh my God! I'm going to die of embarrassment, right here in this diner and Dean will see me, and I don't think I even brushed my hair! "I think I'm going to faint. I feel sick. Oh my God…"
We were saved—or something—from further damage when the first man, the man behind me, who I now knew to be Sam Winchester—he of the giant stuffed dick-banana—said in my ear, "I'm sorry. I couldn't help but overhear you. Are you okay?"
His voice was also deep and kind of whiskey-smooth; he wasn't a kid anymore. He, too, was a grown man, just like Dean.
And I could feel his breath on my neck.
"Waaaaugh!" Is what I think I said, and slid under the table.
In retrospect, it probably wasn't my best course of action. But I never said I was good in a crisis. Mostly I am an act-first-think-later kind of gal, which always got me into trouble. Still does, actually.
This time, it resulted in three huge men sort of clustered around the table with concern for the crazy lady. Let me say this—six-foot-something-tall men have very long legs. And if you think you can just somehow slip past them when they're blocking your only escape—like if you're under a table in a crowded diner, for example—think again. These things are huge.
"Izza!" Kieran was the first to bend his body; I have to say it was kind of sweet the way he tried to wedge his giant self under the table to reach me. "Are you okay?"
"I—I—I'm—" Dean Winchester. Dean Winchester! Dean! Winchester! "I dropped my phone!"
"What?" He made the pouty lip face he always made when I confused him. "One minute you're having some kind of…episode, the next you're...wait. You left your phone in the van. It's on the charger."
"Shut up!" I said, scrambling for another excuse, and scrambling to slide out from under the table, too, using the hole Kieran had made in the leg-forest when he tried to fit under the table. For once, I appreciated my diminutive stature, because it made escaping from under the table that much faster. I popped out into the light—which really was bright compared to the darkened space under the table—and said the first thing that popped into my head. (I swear, it really was.) "Phew! There's a lot of gum under there."
I tried not to look at either of the Winchesters, who were staring down at me (I think) as I reached into my pocket and pulled out my fake ID and badge to flash at the waitress staring at me from behind the counter. "Health Inspector! You've been warned! Scrape your tables, or you'll be cited for excess waddage!"
And then I pushed past them and ran from the diner only to realize the van was locked. So I was forced to stand there, waiting for my cousin to come out. Fortunately, he emerged only a few moments later, followed—oh my God!—by the Winchester brothers.
It's been my experience that extremely tall, good-looking men are somewhat rare; while it's true that there are plenty of tall men in the world, it's also an unfortunate truth that many of them suffer from gangliness or goofiness, as if they're accidentally going to get one of their giant feet tangled in one of their dangling arms and end up sprawled on the ground in a twisted knot of stick-like limbs. I know that's a mean thing to say, and you can hate me if you want, but I know—you know— it's true. Long limbs can look coltish and awkward.
But at this moment—well. I know I wasn't the only woman wiping drool off her chin at the sight of the Winchesters and Kiera, King-of-the-Annoying-Idiots leaving the restaurant in a tall-guy cluster. Kieran was in the lead (somewhere in the back of my mind, I muttered of course) with Dean and Sam flanking him on either side. I wondered how Kieran would feel if he knew he was as pretty as the Hunters he hated, something I would have to point out to him later. When he wasn't about to kill me. Because it was kind of funny.
It was also kind of funny to notice how they'd gone in order from tallest (Sam) to shortest (Dean). Dean looked a lot like he had at eighteen, but the arrogance he'd emanated then had matured into a quiet confidence; it radiated from him with each step he took. He was a man who had seen some battles and who was ready for whatever came his way. Little did he know that "whatever" might soon be me. Although at the time, I wasn't thinking about much but escape.
His eyes zeroed in on me as he followed Kieran, who appeared ready to strangle me for not only making him walk with Winchesters (the horror!) but also causing him break the rules (because there was supposed to be no contact with Hunters). When he got close, he sort of hoisted me over his shoulder with my ass in the air, then carried me to the front of the van closer to the building and hidden from the sight of onlookers, restaurant patrons and epsecially, Hunter brothers.
"I ought to tell your father what you just did!" He said through gritted teeth as he put me down. "What is wrong with you?"
"Nothing's wrong with me!" I held my ground. "I fell under the table."
"You slipped under the table! You went there on purpose. Why?"
"Gum!" I blurted.
He glared at me, his chest heaving. "Don't lie to me, Isolde."
"Why would I be lying? There's no reason I'd do that on purpose," I lied.
I'm a really bad liar.
Kieran's eyes sparked and he made a growling noise as his nostrils finely flared. I'd never seen him so angry before. He spun then and punched the concrete wall of the building-right next to my head. There was the wet slap of skin on concrete, and the snap of bones-blood splattered on the brick and my face, and began to drip down the white painted wall.
"Kieran!" I stared as cousin cradled his mangled fist in with his other arm. "What is wrong with you?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he panted and he stared at me. "You know, Izza. What this could mean."
"Hey. Let me look at that." Sam Winchester appeared from around the front of the van and moved to Kieran's side, reaching out to help.
"No." Kieran answered, pulling his broken hand from the Hunter's grasp. He didn't drop his gaze from my face, and I knew he was waiting for me to walk to the passenger side door and then wait for him to unlock it.
I turned, hurrying to do what he wanted. Because in this moment, my annoying cousin Kieran was actually scary—and I was going to do whatever it took to wipe that look of fury from his face. But then Dean was there, blocking my way. "Hey. Are you going to be okay? Is this mook hurting you?"
I shivered, and realized that didn't happen because I feared my cousin but because the sound of Dean's sandpaper-sexy voice sent thrills over my skin. He didn't realize that, however-he just cast a furious glare Kieran's way. "Because if you need me to keelhaul Captain Jack over there, I'd be happy to hoist him up the mast. No problem."
"I'm fine. He's never been like this before," I told him. "Um...Could you just...get out of my way."
"You're not lying to me now, are you?" He touched my chin with his index finger and forced me look at his face. Tingles and thrills again, big time. I think my hair even stood on end. Dean's green eyes burrowed into mine intently for a moment, then they widened. "Hey. I know you."
"No you don't," I told him before he gave Kieran something to really be angry about.
"I never forget a face," he insisted, leaning closer, peering more intently. "Or a pair of pretty lips." He tilted his head. "But...wait. Have we ever...?" He moved his index finger between the two of us.
Only in my dreams, Yum Yum Boy.
He touched my cheek, and I actually felt my nipples puckering. Great. All this and headlights, too? There was no end to the indignities. I stepped back, shaking my head no, and hoped the look in my eyes was enough to show him he needed to let this go. "Someone's going to see us."
I could see that he understood just from the way his expression flickered. He nodded then and let his hand fall back to his side; I could still feel heat in the place where he'd touched my chin. He jerked his head toward Kieran. "You and him. You're our Cleaners, aren't you?"
"I have to go," I told him.
"You can go—but I'll be looking for you," he answered. "I need to figure out how I know you."
There was a thunk as Kieran unlocked the door. "Don't strain yourself," I said, and hurried to climb into the van.