Chapter Eight- The Gun

They had found another motel in town and were making themselves comfortable in their rooms. The Winchesters weren't ready to let their weapon out of sight just yet, but they knew asking Naomi to stay in their room would be a bad idea. Dean still felt like he and Sam were walking on eggshells around her, trying not to scare her from helping them end the apocalypse. Strangely enough, one of those eggshells they were avoiding was explaining that she was the key to ending the apocalypse.

Sam went out to grab some food for the next few days. They didn't know how long it would be until Castiel would tell them the next step of the plan, so they decided to prepare for a wait. Dean and Naomi stayed behind at the motel room to unpack. Dean never unloaded much from the car, so he began checking their weapons as Naomi entered the room, toting a single suitcase and backpack. Dean glanced up from the shotgun he was cleaning, taking note of her luggage. "You travel light for a girl."

Naomi smiled at him as she hefted the backpack onto the bed. "I try to. As much as I travel, I can't really afford to pay for lots of luggage every time I fly."

He stopped scrubbing the barrel with the cleaning cloth. "You flew here? What about your car?"

She unzipped her backpack, rifling through it. "It's a rental I got from the airport. Between insurance and maintenance, my ministry doesn't really support the money necessary to keep a car."

As Dean took a closer look, he noticed the old airport tags attached to different parts of her suitcase. Several were faded and shredded to a point of being indecipherable. He would have let the matter go, but his curiosity got the better of him. "Where all have you been?"

Naomi paused from unpacking, meeting Dean's eyes. He felt the corner of his mouth twitch at the sight of the spark in her eyes. Her love for what she did was evident in the way her smile slowly spread across her face. He could tell she had had adventures, exploring as she made her way across the States. Dean had missed out on the tourism aspect of traveling over the years. When they visited a new place, the focus was always to get the job done, then move on to the next small town in trouble. There were very few times he could ever recall doing his own exploring beyond a case.

She suddenly jumped onto the bed Dean was sitting on and scooted close to him. "Where do you want to hear about first? I once exorcised seven demons out of a teenage boy in New Orleans. Best birthday present I've ever gotten. I also gave a woman CPR by Mount Rushmore after she had collapsed after hiking for a few hours."

Dean found himself leaning in close, her excitement magnetizing him, drawing him closer. "Definitely giving a woman CPR. I wouldn't expect you to be so dirty as to put your mouth on another woman's, Mother Teresa." He winked at her.

She gasped and shoved him playfully away. "I was saving her life! Get your head out of the sewer!"

He smirked. "I think the expression you're thinking of is 'get your mind out of the gutter'."

She smirked. "I think the expression I'm thinking of is not appropriate to say out loud."

Dean found himself grinning. She smelled like vanilla, but it was so faint that Dean had to lean even closer to smell it again. "You know, after all the demons you've come across, I'd think you'd be more equipped with better comebacks than that."

She laughed so loud, Dean didn't hear the key turning the lock on the door. Sam opened the door, carrying several plastic bags in each hand. The pair turned towards him and Dean watched a look cross over Sam's face, disappearing as quickly as it came.

Sam looked between the two as he closed the door behind him. "Did I miss something?"

Naomi wiped at her eyes as she climbed off the bed. "No, no. Dean was just being snarky."

Sam turned to his brother, his voice subtly quieter. "Yeah, he does that."

Naomi walked towards Sam and took a few of the bags from him. "Here, let me help you with these." A smile returned to Sam's face as he obliged. "Thank you."

Dean watched Naomi and Sam crouched by the mini-fridge, sorting through the groceries and placing them where they belonged. He noticed how they didn't have to talk much as they slowly put the groceries away. They seemed to be in sync, knowing what went where, passing beer bottles and cracker boxes back and forth. A flash of an image of them doing the same in the kitchen of a house with toys strewn across a hardwood floor passed through Dean's head. He scowled down at the shotgun he had abandoned and began scrubbing at it, not noticing how hard he was rubbing.