Kat was in the shower as Sam Dean and Cas huddled around the small table in the middle of the room. Cas had erased the garbage from the floor with a simple wave of his hand. He saw the despair on Kat's face as she had been sick and felt compelled to alleviate some of the stress.
"What exactly was she saying Cas?" asked Sam who was leaning forward in his seat attentively focused on him.
"She was conversing with herself, or rather the witch possessing her was conversing with someone. She said something about a cauldron. An old one, carved with some sort of spell work, they need it for a mixture of some kind. The mixture seems to be necessary for 'an eye to open'…whatever that means."
Sam nodded his head and started punching away on his keyboard.
"What are you looking for?" asked Castiel moving his seat closer so he too, could look at the screen.
"Just looking for lore on cauldrons. Gotta start somewhere." Sam mumbled.
The shower stopped and Dean straightened in his seat, shooting a furtive glance back at the bathroom door. He was lost in thought and didn't participate in the conversation. There were theories bouncing around in his brain and he was anxious. Every bone in his body telling him that there was something big coming their way. It was the fact that the opposing side seemed to be carelessly giving up information that was setting his teeth on edge. He might not be the researcher, knowing every detail about lore; but he certainly was a strategist and this…was too easy.
"Here's something…"Sam started "So cauldrons were a pretty common object in early Irish history. But they were used by druids and that led me to this article on Balor. Didn't you mention him yesterday Cas?" Sam asked gaining fervor. Without waiting for a response he continued, "His father was a druid and used a cauldron like the one you described. It's what gave this guy Balor his power." Sam surmised.
"Oh yeah, and what was that?" Dean scoffed, "Mind control?"
"The evil eye. He had the evil eye." Kat corrected. She had appeared from the bathroom behind the boys followed by a cloud of steam, looking much more herself. She stood still timidly, in a tight pair of leggings and an oversized AC/DC band tee shirt. Her hair was air drying so that frizzy pieces sprung out from the bun perched precariously at the top of her head. Her large brown eyes looked much healthier but were still wide and retained a childlike innocence.
In the instant Dean noticed all of these things about her demeanor she had made her way to the table and stood next to him all the while speaking firmly. "He's a legend…part of the Mythological Cycle which precedes the Fenian Cycle of kings in Gaelic history. He's the leader of an army called the Fomorians. They were essentially humans but with super strength and what killed them was his third eye. His grandson Lugh shot a spear so hard through it, that it pushed the eye backwards and it opened on his army behind him essentially killing them all." She listed. The men around her stared for a moment until Cas interrupted the silence
"His grandson is actually something we should talk abo—" until Dean thrust out a hand to shut him up. Kat had been through enough for the moment and he felt like he needed to protect her for just a few more minutes.
Sam jumped in on the abrupt silence and asked, "Do you know anything about a cauldron?"
Kat picked up on the tense moment between Dean and the angel but chose to ignore it and handle one thing at a time. "Yes. The reason his father was mixing 'a potion'…" she made air quotes around those words "…and its fumes are what gave Balor the third eye as a child. The contents of it are never said in the stories because they were mostly recorded by monks and they toned down the paganism. But it is agreed upon by most scholars that whatever mixture was in there fits with the motif of natural elements having some sort of supernatural connotation." She finished, slightly out of breath.
"Something tells me you have a theory about what it was." Sam prodded.
"It's what my dissertation was on… until that witch made me delete it and write nonsense over it..." She shook her head utterly defeated and Dean wanted to reach out and touch her but he didn't. "I think it was ash of the Rowan tree. It was sometimes called mountain ash. It didn't kill Balor, because he wasn't supernatural and precision is often very important in folklore, which in layman terms was my thesis. But…it did kill his army because they had 'super strength'. Which is weird by any standard" she held up her hands and shook them when she said super strength to emphasize how ridiculous she felt saying it.
This time Dean did move, holding out a seat for her and she sat quickly, as if she had just realized she was standing.
"I could feel the witch…Carman…like picking around in my brain. Kind of rifling around in information I didn't even knew I had, you know?" Kat said making her eyes smaller, scrutinizing the memory. Her mouth curled up in distaste.
"Maybe Rowena is using this guy's army for something. And you said the cauldron is what created this extra eye or whatever, that could be her fail safe?" Dean suggested. "Who says this army even wants to follow her? If she's dealing with a group of creatures with super juice who's to say they won't turn on her, and if they do she needs a way to kill them and save herself."
Kat saw the cogs turning in Dean's mind and jumped on the brainstorm that seemed to be growing.
"That's probably what is in St. Louis. She was talking about it in my head that they were looking for something here maybe that's it." She guessed
"Well that's all we have to go on, so let's try and find it."
After a day, Kat had been filled in on what had happened while she was empty to the world. The news that her family traced all the way back to pre-Christian Ireland was as intriguing as it was terrifying, because she was well acquainted with the tale of her far removed ancestor and she had believed it was simply legend. The roller coaster of discovering everything she had ever explored and worked towards, theorizing and searching for a scrap of truth amongst the squabbling of scholars. Castiel had been popping in and out all day, trying to use any means he had beyond their disposal to locate the cauldron. Each time he came back and told the group that he had nothing new; Kat became more and more frustrated.
After his latest departure she slammed her computer closed and nearly shouted, "I can't do this anymore!" She pushed herself up from the table and went to the bedroom smashing around in irritation looking for her belongings hidden from her in plain sight by her anger.
"Ok, Incredible Hulk…" said Dean appearing in the door of the room that they had frequently inhabited together, "Where do you think you're going?"
He stood with his arms crossed across his chest, surveying her like a parent surveys a child having a temper tantrum.
She stopped flailing shoes around and looked up at his stern green eyes and almost pouted. Kat threw her arms down and put all her weight on one leg, shortening herself another inch and throwing her head slightly back as she sighed out her anxieties.
"I have to get some air." She said by way of explanation.
He pursed his lips and dropped his arms as well. "Well, you can't go alone." He motioned to the mess strewn across the room which traced the path she'd taken. "Come on… grab your stuff." He ordered.
Twenty minutes later the impala had pulled up to the destination that Kat had directed Dean to. She leapt out of her seat drawn in by her apparent familiarity but Dean hung back, somewhat put off by its appearance. It was a small building sandwiched between two larger corporate looking ones. Its siding was falling off in bits and little racks and signs were placed haphazardly outside.
"Is this where you take all the guys?" he snapped, not entirely enjoying being dragged around.
"Yes. This is where I keep their bodies." She said in a false, happy, high pitch and shot back an annoyed glance as she stepped up to the door.
"Very funny." He replied dryly as he followed her.
The door creaked so loudly he thought it might shatter and a small bell jingled to signal its opening. Although the loudness of the creak rendered the bell useless, because there was no way whoever was working there hadn't heard the door open.
Kat's eyes widened knowingly and the softest smile spread across her face. Dean noticed how she seemed to lighten ten pounds as the grief and stress of the day left her, absorbed by the record lined walls.
The store was tiny but each wall was stacked to the top with vinyl. Kat skipped from stack to stack that formed a labyrinth of rows leading back to a small counter with old coffee machines puttering away like a locomotive.
Kat moved through the stacks her hands laden with colorful sleeves. Dean followed, somewhat relaxed from before because of the musty smell of the records. He watched as Kat placed her burden down on a small table next to a battered turn table. Two sets of headphones protruded from the archaic machine and Kat placed on a modern looking album.
She placed on her own headphones and went to hand the other pair to Dean but he shook his head.
"Why?" she inquired.
"Because I only listen to good music." He scoffed. She looked back at him, purely offended and he was caught off guard by the fierceness of her gaze.
"How do you know what good music is if you only listen to one kind? What's your basis of comparison?" she pressed.
Dean hadn't expected her to defend herself so strongly and had no response for her immediately. Her eyes glowed with passion and they dared him to answer. They stood close together pressed in by the music surrounding them. Dean took a half step forward as he asked, "Was that a threat?" he growled.
Kat raised one eyebrow and tilted her head with it as a devilish smile spread across her face. It encouraged Dean to slowly and deliberately return to the racks, making a show of how casually he was picking each record. Kat watched him for a moment and wondered how he managed to be rigid and relaxed at the same time. His body slouched and uninhibited but still so precise.
When he returned she had closed her eyes and she bit the corner of her lip, enjoying the music she was hearing. He dropped his records on top of hers so they made a light thud. She opened her eyes and in a split second Dean saw her take in all of her surroundings for a second time, almost like she was reliving seeing them for the first time.
They went on swapping records for 20 minutes. He'd reached deep into his memory to find obscure LP's like Maggie Bell's Queen of the Night. The only reason Dean even knew about her was because she had worked with Jimmy Page but he pretended like he'd found her on his own. Kat's taste ranged from Otis Redding to Imagine Dragons, who Dean passively agreed to being, "Not bad…".
Kat picked the needle up off Smoke and Mirrors and removed her headphones.
"I feel better now." She sighed smiling fully at Dean who was wrapping the cord around his own headphones.
"Yeah…well… I have that effect on people." Dean said quickly.
Kat punched him lightly in the arm and scoffed, grinning as she did. A silence that Dean couldn't decide was comfortable fell as she collected the records to return to their shelves. Dean smiled sideways at her as he saw that she kept Queen of the Night along with Otis Redding.
"Coffee?" he asked gesturing to the small setup about ten feet away.
"Always." Kat replied while starting to walk ahead of him. She placed the records in a return bin and ordered two black coffees from the man waiting there. "So…considering I've got a huge target on my back, I guess we have to come up with new ways for me to protect myself."
"You say that like you're in this alone." Dean argued. Regarding her with interest but also admiration.
"This is bigger than just me Dean. There's going to be a time when you or Sam can't be there and I should be prepared for that. I've never been the person who had to rely on someone." She admitted. She hid the frank honesty of her statement by taking a sip of coffee; all the while looking at him over the rim of her paper cup.
Dean shrugged by way of comfort and agreed, "Can't argue with that. But we will try…to be there, I mean." He added hastily.
She looked into his eyes which seemed radioactive in the light shining in from the window. The dust mites in the air hung around their heads like all the words that were left unsaid. The silence hung for a few seconds longer than was necessary.
"Cas had an idea about anti-possession though. How opposed are you to a tattoo?" He broke in, reaching one hand up and scratching the back of his head absentmindedly.
"What's one more?" Kat asked, knowing Dean had seen her other tattoos in their nights together.
Dean smiled, remembering running his hands over the pieces on her thigh and sternum. Feeling awkward on the course his mind was taking him he placed his hand at the small of her back and pushed her towards the register.
They found a tattoo parlor only a couple of miles away and Dean had shown the image of his anti-possession tattoo. Kat was positioned calmly on the artist's table, machine buzzing away as she looked at Dean with clear eyes.
"So this will…?" Kat left the sentence unfinished as she laughed internally at the appalled look on Dean's face as he looked at the tattoo artist who remained seemingly unphased as he continued to work on Kat's forearm. Dean looked back at Kat, willing her to say more on the true reason behind her spur of the moment tattoo. She smiled at him, enjoying his discomfort.
"Be Permanent." He evaded in a joking manner to keep the artist in the dark. She winced as the needle drew closer to the crook her elbow. She had chosen a navy blue ink, rather than straight black. Kat was not opposed to tattoos but always relished the chance to stand out from the crowd so she had chosen a different color to separate her from Sam and Dean and in some way, from their world, even if It only was noticeable to her.
Dean's phone rang and he stepped past the waist height wall that separated the lobby from the shop. It was Sam. Dean checked his phone to check how long they'd been gone. Only two hours…but Dean felt the anxiety rise in his chest whenever he received an unexpected call from his little brother.
"What's up?" said Dean without missing a beat
"Hey. So we might have a case." began Sam.
A/N: A little bit of a slow one but I felt like Dean and Kat needed to spend more quality time together. Thanks to anyone and everyone out there reading! Please if you like it, review. I'm flying somewhat blind here lol. To those of you that have gotten to me (you know who you are) THANKS!. In honor of tonight's mid -season finale, here's Chapter 8. -Kelly