Deanna, Caleb
Mary Winchester slapped the bills into Caleb Bailey's hands. "Eyes up, kid. She's only 17."
"Right." Caleb folded the bills into his pocket but his eyes still followed Deanna around the room. She was grown and grown well. Mary poked him in the shoulder with her finger. "Right."
"I have a hard enough time keeping the football players and soccer players out of her room, I had best not find you in there either." Mary leveled him with a gaze. He nodded and held his hands up. "Don't make me shoot you, Caleb."
Caleb unloaded the rest of Mary's order and started a wrestling match with Sam. He forgot that 13 year olds were quick and had unending endurance. He ended up on the ground with a proud Sam sitting on his chest. He heard the women laughing. Mary was the loudest. "First sign of getting old, Caleb. It just happened."
"Did you just call me old?" Caleb tilted his head back. "I'll have you know that I'm a young strapping man."
"Darling, I love you like a first cousin instead of a fourth but yes. You're getting old." Mary poured out tea for everyone and handed Deanna her gun. "Come on, boys, lunch is on."
They crowded around the card table and ate heartily of Winchester chili and cornbread. Deanna clearedher throat. "So, how are we related to Caleb again?"
"My great-grandfather was his great-grandmother's uncle. I think." Mary shook her head.
"Our great-great-grandfather was Caleb's great-great-great-grandfather." Sam supplied. "Mom is Caleb's third cousin once removed. Which makes Caleb our fourth cousin once removed."
"Your brain is frightening." Deanna told him.
Mary stared at her daughter. "It's not illegal, Deanna but it's in bad taste."
"What is?" Deanna blinked at her mother.
"Don't, with the eyes. I invented that move." Mary sighed and looked to Caleb. His eyes were on his plate.
The conversation moved on to Sam's favorites, science and magic. Caleb kept up with him and didn't move a muscle when he felt the toes on his ankle. Later, he and Mary took some guns out to the far field and did some target shooting. He waited and as usual, Mary just started talking. "It's teenage hormones. I cannot remember being this way when I was her age. I trust you to follow my rules. I don't trust her. I trust her with a gun, with a job, with her brother. I have no idea when she started having sex. None. Could have been six months ago, could have been six years ago. I am serious. What am I going to do? I'll be lucky if I'm not a grandmother by next year."
"You don't think you're overreacting?" Caleb offered lamely. She let out a dry laugh and gave him a helpless look. "She's pretty and she knows it. She's... dangerous. Yes. Am I scared of her? Yes."
"She's decided to get her GED and drop out of school. She already hustles like a woman double her age." Mary set her shotgun down and leaned on the fence. "If I cut her loose and let her run wild. I'll never find her again. She'll end up in a ditch."
"Now, you're being crazy. She's careful. You said football players and soccer players. You didn't say bikers. I'm not going to risk your rage. She's safe with me. I'm not going to touch so long as you say no." He promised. "Seems to me that maybe she cats around with guys she can take down. I'd worry when she starts hiding hunters in the closet."
"She should have been born a boy." Mary sighed. "John would have loved her even more than he did."
"I'm sure he would have taken the kid either way."
"She confused him. Tea parties and dolls. He didn't know what to do with her. He was just starting to really shine on having a daddy's girl. Then came Sam and he had all kinds of plans for T-ball and all that jazz. Too bad he hadn't tried harder with her. She would've loved T-ball. She would have torn that field up. Sam took you down, he can't take Deanna down. I can't take her down. She fights dirty."
"I noticed."
"She took downa werewolf by herself last year. She was 16 and she took down a werewolf before I had even got my feet out of the car." Mary crossed her arms and stared over the field. "I'm gonna lose her."
"You won't."
"I know." Mary sighed. "Is it terribly unfeminist of me to wish for a sweeter girl or a boy instead?"
"You don't want Deanna to be a boy. She'd impregnate half the country."
"You're absolutely right, Caleb." She sighed and glanced in the direction of the house. "Do me a favor, you start fucking my daughter, you never let me find out. I don't doubt her deviousness for a second. I know she was trying to play footsie. Thanks for not giving in this time."
"Why do you think a 17 year old girl has any power over me?" Caleb laughed.
"She's my daughter but she's also John's daughter. She's so much his daughter." She laughed and grabbed her guns and ammo. "John was a force. Deanna... she's a wild wind. She'll knock you over if you're not prepared."
"I'm sure I'm stronger than a hormonal teenager." Caleb reassured her and they made their way back to the house.
Dinner, laughter and a movie. Caleb took his pillow to the couch. He let Mary have his room so she could talk to her contacts without the little ears underfoot. Deanna and Sam always shared his spare room. It was quiet and dark and he was ready to fall asleep though his muscles complained about the wrestling match. He needed to get back in shape if a 13 year old had taken him down. Groaning, he got up to find his stash of pain pills.
He wished he was surprised that Deanna "accidentally" bumped into him in the hallway, in her underwear. He let her pass, then opted for whiskey instead. She found him in the kitchen and hopped up on the table. "Can't sleep?"
"I'm more of a night owl." She shrugged.
"You mind? People eat on that table." He motioned to her underwear clad bottom. He pointedly ignored her smirk. Maybe Mary was right to worry about Deanna. She hopped off and sat in a chair. "Thanks."
"Can I have one of those?"
"No." He told her even as he poured himself another.
"Mom lets me."
"That's a lie." He laughed. "I've known your mom my whole life. I think I met your dad once."
"Really. You did?" The smile slipped off her face.
"I was a kid, of course. He's been gone 13 years, right? I was nine or so, you were still a baby. Your dad scared the shit out of me and I'd seen scarier shit than some Marine who married my cousin." He laughed to himself. "I remember thinking that he was the tallest man I ever met. When he lied, he had this smile. Big and bright. Like he was daring you to call him on the carpet for his words."
She grinned and ducked her head. "Mom says the same thing. Only... I mostly remember him telling me to go play with Mom. I'd try to hang out with him in the garage but he wouldn't let me help. I stayed out of the way. I listened. I tell Mom when the car needs fixing. Autoshop taught me what he wouldn't. He never wanted girls."
"I'm sure, given time, he would have seen what you were trying to give him."
"That's what Mom says." She brushed her hair out of her face. She made a face at Caleb when he poured her a glass of milk but grinned when he poured himself one. "I miss him, though. Sam... never knew him."
"No, but you can always tell him stories."
"Mom talks all the time but not about what I remember. I remember fighting. I remember him ignoring me. I remember her crying."
"You were four." He pointed out.
"Yeah but it's what I remember."
"Know what I remember about my folks? Guns. Homemade chicken pot pie. Grossest van known to man and that they loved each other." He grinned at the thoughts, and flashes of memories that flew through his head.
"The important stuff." She gulped her milk and leaned on her hand. "You're not human."
"I'm very human."
"What gives?" She bit her lip and tilted her head and those big green eyes had only one thing in them.
"I promised your mom."
She made a face at her glass of milk. "Ugh. Gross."
"She thinks you'll make her a grandmother inside of a year."
"Super gross. I'm horny, not stupid."
"What do you think is going happen if your evil plot succeeds?"
"A good time."
"And then?"
"What "and then?"" She shrugged and avoided his eyes.
"There's always a tomorrow, Deanna. Always."
"Why do you listen to her? She doesn't know the half of what's going on with me."
"She might know more than you think."
"Tell, the truth. Was she a subject of gossip when she was my age?"
"Sure was. Dating the civilian was a hot topic. When her folks died and she turned up engaged, everyone was counting down to your emergence. They all figured out she was secretly a shark." He nodded when she shook her head at him. "They don't give birth til two to three years after mating."
"You're stupid." She laughed.
"I'm completely serious. I was a kid, sitting under this table and Mom and her sister were gossiping like no tomorrow. "When she got married so young, I just figured there was a baby on the way. We waited and waited. Honeymoon came and went. John was such a handsome man and you know Mary is such an active girl. You know they have to be banging away their lives. Where is the baby?""
Deanna laughed and covered her face with her hands. When she sobered, she leaned on the table. "Thanks. I forget that Mom is human sometimes."
"When you did show up, they talked about it non-stop. "It's about damn time." All that shit, it was great."
"That's a little weird. People were waiting for me to be born."
"And look at you. Tough as nails hunter. Mary told me about the werewolf last year. Not bad, little one."
"Shut up." She tilted her head at him. "Are you gay?"
"No."
"But you're not going to succumb to my wiles?"
"Nope."
"Because you're scared of my mom?"
"Because I like to think I'm a good guy."
"Liar." She narrowed her eyes at him and polished off her milk. "When you lie, your upper lip disappears."
"How do you know?"
"I've been watching you all day." She sat up and stared at him. "Mom says Dad could seduce a nun out of her habit. You think I'm capable of the same?"
"I think it's not out of your wheelhouse."
"If I were older, would you? Sleep with me?"
"It's not up for discussion." He took her glass and his to the sink. "It's not going to happen."
"Cause I'm disgusting?"
"Cause you're the daughter of my third cousin once removed."
"You guys are so weird." She shoved herself away from the table and disappeared down the hallway.
He rinsed out the glasses and set them aside for the morning wash. He found Mary in the hallway when he made his way to the couch. He sighed and shrugged at her. She shook her head and leaned on the wall. "Thanks for that."
"Don't say I never did you any favors." He pointed his finger at her. "I don't exactly get propositioned by hot young things often."
"Then, thanks for that, too." She took a breath and touched the closed door of her children's room before heading to bed. She knew Caleb and even if he didn't show a thing, it didn't mean he didn't feel it. He'd made a promise and she believed he'd try to keep it. They all knew that promises were broken too easily. John had promised to take care of her and he had while he could. John's daughter had declared war on a grown man's libido. Mary knew that she could expect strange silences if she didn't take her kids and go. She had a job to do and her attention was split. Her kids or the demon who killed her husband.