"Ow! Dean!" Sam exclaimed, rubbing the smarting, red area where his brother just smacked his hand.

"No," Dean said flatly and firmly, the way one would to a misbehaving puppy, " What's the rule? We do not listen to No Doubt. We watch the videos- muted, and only when Gwen Stefani is wearing half-tops… Hehe… Gwen Stefani…." He trailed contently, looking at the road, but looking at Gwen Stefani in his head.

"We've been listening to Lynyrd Skynard for an hour and a half!"

"And we'll be listening to it for another goddamn hour and a half. My car, my tunes. Deal with it. Baby."

"Douchebag!" he shot back indignantly.

"Ass-jockey."

"Short."

"Jolly White Giant."

"Dean…" Lory trailed tentatively from the back seat, "I have to use the bathroom…"

"Goddamnit, Lory!" he ejected in frustration, "I told you to use it back at the motel!"

"I did, but I just had a Big Gulp."

"Why didn't you pee at 7-Eleven?"

"I didn't finish it until thirty minutes after we left 7-Eleven."

"Sammy… You done with that water bottle?"

"What?" Sam replied in disgust, "Come on!"

"I told you guys," Dean justified, "I'm not getting off the freeway!"

"I can't pee in a bottle, Dean. My parts don't work that way," she quipped in her innocent voice.

"I believe in you," he replied flatly.

"Yeah, Dean, be real," assisted Sam, "There's an exit coming up in a mile," he said as he pointed at the indicative sign through the windshield.

"No, it's okay, Sam, " Lory relented, dropping her head sadly before picking it back up again and continuing, "I mean, I can try. What's a couple of drops on the seat between friends, huh, Dean?" she said, patting him on the shoulder briefly with a sweet smile.

Patting hers, he turned around with a brief, forced smile.

"If you pee in my car, I'll rip out your bladder."

"Oh, but, Dean" she exclaimed dramatically, beginning to squirm and twist her thighs about, "I don't know if I can hold it much longer! I wouldn't take my chances. That wrap I had for lunch had asparagus in it…"

Sam bit his lip in a failed attempt to hold back a chuckle as Dean let out a throaty growl, rolling his eyes.

"I fucking hate girls!" he grunted finally before punching the gas.

It was a few minutes before Dean pulled up in front of the most dilapidated gas station/shack any of them had ever seen.

"Here?" Lory peeped softly.

"Either here or the bushes behind it, sweet cheeks," he grunted, turning around and showing her his stoniest poker face.

"I'll go…" she sighed, opening the car door and crawling out.

"Sammy, you better go, too…" Dean advised, turning to his brother.

"Naw, I'm good."

"All right, but don't bug me in another forty-five minutes telling me you have to tinkle."

"Tinkle?" smirked Sam.

"I mean it. I will push you out of this car and keep going."

"If you want some alone time with Lory…" he teased, beginning to step out of the car, "all you gotta do is just let me know…"

"I hope some herpes jumps on you from the toilets," he sneered, "you and your little dog, too."

"Screw that. I'm not using these toilets," he scoffed, finally closing the car door, "but I could use a soda. You want anything?" he asked, leaning through the open window.

"From this place? Fuck no, unless it comes with a shot of penicillin."

"Suit yourself. BRB…" Sam trailed, hiking toward the station's store.

"'BRB'?" Dean scoffed to himself, "What are you, a sixteen year old girl? Mmmm, Miley Cyrus... Billy Ray was good for something."

The second Lory walked into the bathroom (cesspool would be a more appropriate term), the odor just about smacked her in the face. Not only was it smelly, but it was dank and the walls dripped. Her skin tingled as the little bumps on it began to rise. She chalked it up to the cold.

"Ugh," she cringed to herself, covering her nose and mouth with her sleeve. She looked around for a stall, but there was none- only a drain in the middle of the floor.

She stood there for a good four seconds, her face completely blank before grumbling to herself, "You have got to be kidding me… Ugh."

She rolled her eyes before doubling back, making sure the door was completely locked before she shimmied out of her pants and underwear, careful not to remove her sneakers. Bundling them beneath her arm, she proceeded to squat over the hole to do her business, freeing herself of both her water and her self-respect in one fell swoop.

When she finished, she took a look around.

"Toilet paper, toilet paper…"

None.

She dug in the pocket of her pants, finding a crumpled napkin. As she wiped, one hand braced against the tile wall, she just suddenly stopped. She felt something- like she was being watched, and it hit her suddenly, out of almost nowhere.

"Shit…" she said to herself, dropping the napkin on the floor and attempting to jump into her underwear, "Shit shit shit…."

As she got one leg in her pants, halfway to the door, she was knocked against the wall.

"Christ!"

Her arms were flung directly above her head and pinned to the wall. A man- a spirit- wearing a trucker cap and a plaid shirt (not the pleasant, lumberjack-esque kind the boys were known to attractively sport; this one was sleeveless and filthy) was the assailant. His stringy hair hung in his beady, black eyes as he grinned at her, baring his half-rotted teeth.

"Spirit, I see you! I can see you! Leave me alone."

His grin only widened before he opened his mouth wide, his slimy tongue writhing just beneath the gaping hole where the back of his throat should have been- where Lory could see clean through to the green tile on the other side of the room.

"DEAN! DEAN! SAM!" she began to scream, writhing fervently, but barely moving, almost paralyzed.

The youngest Winchester cocked his head to the side for a split second, taking in the cries. He dropped the jug of sweet tea he had just been holding and darted straight out the door, leaving the bell chiming furiously and the clerk only half-curious at his post behind the counter.

Dean, however, had the car windows up and the radio blasting, drumming on the steering wheel.

"Hey, baby! There ain't no easy way out! Hey yeah! I'll stand my ground and I won't back down!"

The adjoining shack beside the mini-mart shack held the bathroom. Sam grabbed hold of the handle, shaking it furiously.

"DEAN!" he called, his booming voice carrying to the car, unlike Lory's, unrestricted by any walls

The eldest Winchester lifted his head, and his eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.

"Shit!" he said to himself, hopping out the car.

"The salt gun, Sam!" Lory called through the door before enduring the most devastating slap she had ever felt in her young life.

She felt dizzy as she began to swallow her own blood, unable to do much about her underwear being tugged down her round thighs.

"I can't get it open!" she just barely heard Sam shout to Dean, just a second after he relayed her message.

The thumps of their two heavy bodies flinging against the door grew even more faint as she felt her legs rise in the air, her back smashed against the wall so hard that breathing against it began to hurt. And then came the rip of her panties.

And then the dark.

When she came-to, she was laying in the back seat of the Impala, Dean's voice just barely audible to her cloudy head.

"… the kind of liability we have having her with us! You do realize we're responsible for her now, right?"

Sam, more hushed, but still heated, grunted, "Is that all you can think about? That you were right? She just almost- I hope just 'almost' got raped by a ghost!"

"Yes, almost, Sam, she wasn't bleeding."

"Oh, and that's conclusive," Sam snorted.

"Yeah, she should have been bleeding. I'm pretty sure she's a virgin."

Silence.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? After what just happened to her?! What is your problem?" Sam snapped.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Dean defended indignantly, "I wasn't insulting her!"

"Oh right, Dean."

"Why are you so defensive of her? What, is she like your pet?"

"Dean, just stop talking," Sam warned with a dangerous tone in his voice.

"Or what?" challenged the eldest, raising an eyebrow.

"Or so help-"

He was cut off by Lory's light and (unbeknownst to the brothers) deliberate coughing and groaning. Sam turned to her, smiling softly.

"Hey… You all right?"

"I'll live…" she croaked, weakly returning the smile.

"You, uhm, you had us worried," Dean tentatively, sounding slightly apologetic for whatever reason, but mostly put-off.

"Sorry…" she replied instinctively.

"No, I am. I shouldn't have made a big deal about the bathroom. Really, it was my bad. If I would have thought-"

"Dean, it's okay. I'm fine. He didn't r-… he didn't do anything."

"Glad to hear that," the eldest nodded, "but from now on, we use the goddamn buddy system. These legion fuckers aren't dicking around anymore. We gotta…"

And she zoned, smiling softly. She had lost some blood but gained an apology.

Perhaps she would win him yet.

.