Luckily, she was saved from explaining by Dean showing up.
Sam was frowning at the half of a sword that Dean presented proudly. "And what are we supposed to do with this, Dean? Give it a booster shot?"
Dean shrugged. "It's what we got. All right? We're just gonna have to get a little closer. That's all. Where are we on the caves?"
"Not caves, sewers," Chrys said, pointing at the map they were using. "Here, look at this. Two of the disappearances happened within a mile of here. So I think we should start there."
Dean made a face. "Awesome. Who doesn't love sewers?" He sighed. "Let's go."
Chrys stood to get her things ready, but paused when Dean spoke.
"What?" He snapped.
She turned to see Sam standing in the middle of the room awkwardly, looking like he wanted to say something. "Uh, nothing. Let's go."
Chrys rolled her eyes. She despised when they kept secrets from one another. Idiots. "Let me get changed."
When she came out of the bathroom, Sam's mouth almost dropped open. It didn't, but it definitely went dry.
Chrys was wearing a pair of tight jeans, worn leather boots, and a flannel with the sleeves rolled up. He tried to recall if he'd ever seen her in a pair of jeans before, but he was having difficulty thinking around the heat rising in him.
The light denim highlighted and hugged every curve and nuance in her lovely legs. The flannel brought attention to her breasts, and made him want to rip it off of her. She was slipping on a leather jacket when she noticed him staring. She frowned. "What?"
Sam looked over at Dean, who was looking a little stricken himself. "Just, ah, just never seen you dressed appropriately for a hunt, C," he said faintly.
Sam nodded. "Yeah. I didn't even know you owned jeans."
She smirked and pulled the jacket on the rest of the way, then flipped her hair from beneath the collar in a move that, for some reason, sent all of the blood rushing from his brain. She sauntered toward him, smiled up at him, then at the last second moved past him completely to head toward the door.
"Wipe the drool off your chin, Sammy. Let's go hunt us a dragon."
He followed her without a second thought, and without even a look toward his brother.
"Ugh!" Dean made a noise of disgust behind them. "God, just when I get used to the smell. Guys, we have been down here for hours. There is nothing. I think the lore is off."
Chrys snorted and kept moving forward, but Dean was right. Not only was it disgusting down here, she was going to have to shower four times to get the smell out of her hair, and they had found jack squat in the way of kidnapped virgins.
"Hey, what if, uh," Dean said hopefully, "What if dragons like nice hotels?"
Chrys chuckled and watched as Sam swung the light around them. He shot her a smirk, which was why she was the only one who saw what the light hit. She put a hand on his arm. "What's that?" She took Sam's hand in hers and pointed the light behind Dean.
Dean swung and shone his flashlight in the same direction. It was a pile of gold.
"Holy shit," the eldest Winchester said softly. He stepped toward the pile and knelt, lifting what looked like a very nice gold watch from the pile. "Okay, maybe there are dragons here."
When he started to shove stuff in his pockets, Chrys rolled her eyes. "Dean, is now really the time?"
"Guys," Sam called, "Come check this out."
She turned to see him examining an altar nearby. She joined him, looking down at the leather-bound book resting atop it.
"A little arts-and-crafty for a giant bat, right?" he asked her. She nodded absently, trying to make sense of the writing on the book.
Before she could get far, a woman's voice sounded through the tunnel. "Hello? Is someone out there? Hello?"
They set off down the hall, Dean following quickly behind. They crossed what appeared to be an iron catwalk, then found a huge cage beneath them, filled with girls. Chrys tried for a reassuring smile as she knelt, her fingers touching the captive girl's. "Hey, we're gonna get you out, okay?"
"Quick! He's coming back!"
Sam started trying to jimmy the door of the cage open, and Chrys could just watch anxiously. Fuck, fuck, we're so fucking fucked.
Before he got far, he was tossed backward. Chrys turned and her eyes widened at the man standing behind them. She jumped to her feet and backed away, looking for a weapon while the thing advanced on Sam.
Dean was quicker. He pulled the dragon sword out of his bag and started to square off with the dragon.
"Where do you think you're gonna stick that?" it sneered.
Dean lunged forward and sliced into its arm. Chrys smiled when the cut started to pulse purple and the dragon began to hiss. "Where did you get that?"
"Comic-Con."
She rolled her eyes at her friend's sass, and it brought her gaze to a pile of tools sitting in the corner. She grabbed two crowbars, kept one, and tossed the other to Sam as she stepped forward, into the battle.
The dragon had somehow disarmed Dean, and was now approaching him with a glowing hand. Chrys stepped forward and brought the crowbar down on its head as hard as she could, then jumped back when it twirled and growled at her. "Get the sword!" she called, stepping back and tilting her head up. "Come on, big boy, let's play."
She and the dragon circled each other. He lunged for her and she jumped back, bringing the crowbar down on his shoulder again. It snarled, and its hand started to glow. "Hey, some sword action would be nice right about now!" she called, backing up again.
Just as her ass hit the railing, signalling that she had run out of space to hide, the dragon snarled and arched it's back. Tendrils of smoke came from his mouth, his eyes flashed white, and it slumped forward.
Sam stood behind it, the sword still in his hand, breathing hard.
Chrys smiled. "My hero."
He turned to deal with the other dragon, but it was already gone. He turned back and held his hand out to her, over the dead creature's body. She took it, because she would always take Sam's hand.
"Let's get the fuck out of here, beautiful."
They had come back to Bobby's house. Chrys was watching Dean play with one of the many gold watches he'd taken with a fond smile. Nerd.
Sam came out and Dean grinned. "Hey, Sam. Ask me what time it is." He shook the watch in his hand.
Sam chuckled and came to stand next to her. "Why don't you cut to the chase and just roll in it?"
Dean scoffed. "I rarely have wealth." He ignored both of them to continue to mess with it.
Sam took a deep breath. "Dean…"
Dean looked up from the treasure in his hand. "Yeah?"
"I am so… So sorry. I can't even begin to say.
Chrys rolled her eyes. Here we go. At least he was being honest about knowing now. She stayed silent and watched their exchange.
Dean was frowning. "For what?"
"You know what."
Dean's expression became thunderous. "Did Bobby-"
"It was Cass," Chrys supplied gently.
Dean scowled. "Cass. Fucking child."
Sam was shaking his head. "You should have told me, Dean." He glanced over at her. "You, too." She shrugged.
Dean shook his head. "You weren't supposed to know."
"What I did?" Sam exclaimed. "To Bobby? To you? Of course I should know!"
"Sam, Death didn't just shove your soul back in, okay?" Dean ran his hands through his hair, frustrated. "He put up the great wall of Sam between you and the things that you don't remember. And trust me when I say that the things you don't know could kill you. That's not a joke."
Sam nodded. "All right. But I have to set things right. Or what I can, anyway."
"Absolutely not," Chrys snapped, tired of being on the sidelines of the conversation as fury and fear simultaneously overwhelmed her.
Sam looked down at her woefully. "Chrys, I-"
She stepped in front of him and took his chin in her hand, looking up into those incredible hazel eyes, letting her anger at him for his stupid nobility and her absolute love for him guide her. "No," she said softly, fiercely. "Absolutely not. I am putting my foot down. We are not going to go try to 'right wrongs,' or 'set things right,' or whatever it is that the stupid Winchester code of whatever dictates we have to do. Understood?"
"Chrys, I hurt people," he said softly, his voice rough with emotion.
"Sam, you were hurt," she hissed. "When you were in the cage, he… I mean, you can't know what he did to you in there. But Cass described what…" She was struggling to maintain her composure. "The damage, he described the damage." Tears pooled in her eyes. "He does not get to win," she whispered fiercely. "Do you understand me, Samuel Winchester? He does not get you a second time. I watched you go once, and I can't do it again." Her tears started to fall down her face. She ignored them. "I won't do it again. And I won't let you put Dean or Bobby through that again, either."
She dashed the tears away angrily then, but kept her hand on his chin, making him keep looking at her. "So I don't care what you did. I don't care who you hurt. I took a backseat when the prize fight came up, and I was all right with that, but no more. You are going to let this go. You're gonna shut up and we're going to hunt and we're going to be fine. Got it?"
He slowly put a hand cup to cup her face, then nodded, swallowing hard. "Got it, beautiful. Whatever you want."
She took the last step forward and wrapped her arms around him. "You're goddamn right whatever I want," she muttered, pressing her face into his chest.
Later, lying on his back in bed with her head on his bare chest, Sam ran his fingers through her hair and, once again, savored the feel of her back in his arms.
He didn't know what he'd done for that year and a half. He was certain it had been awful, he was certain that people had been hurt. Bobby was still treating him like he might explode at any moment, which was bad enough, but not knowing what he'd done was killing him. He burned to find out.
But Chrys's fierce blue eyes, looking up at him, demanding that he let it go, that image was burned into his mind forever. She was right. He'd had to put her (and the baby, his mind insisted on providing painfully) in second place. He'd put the safety of humanity and the world before her, and she had never said a word about it. She had understood, as he had, that what they had wasn't more important than everything.
But now he was starting to… Maybe… Rethink that.
The way she felt in his arms was powerful. Powerful enough that the rest of the day after they'd gotten back to Bobby's, he'd kept her there, pulling her into his lap or tucking her into his side. She'd gone willingly, seeming to need it as much as he did.
He loved her. Her fighting spirit, her biting words, her bitchy, "go fuck yourself" attitude. He loved the way she moved, the way she could be still. The scars on her lovely flesh, the way her hair now brushed her shoulders, little flashes of blue showing when she turned to look at him.
He adored Chrys Summers.
And maybe that was more important than everything.
**Short chapter, I know, I'm sorry.
**Feedback gives me the warm fuzzies and keeps me going.
