Knocking on the door.
Go away. Sunday… sleep in…
Mai rolls her head under her feather pillow. The knocking persists. She moans into the sheets, feeling that whatever time it is, it's far too early to be awake. When the door clicks open without her consent, what sounds like a growl forms in her throat.
"What!?" she snaps not bothering to remove her head from under the pillow.
"Breakfast, come on." Dean, unmistakably Dean by the way he charges through his words.
"Fifteen minutes." She informs him.
"Nope. Come on, Sammy made you pancakes, your favorite."
Mai shrinks at the sureness in his voice. She's preferred waffles for over a year now, which they would know, if her uncles were around for more than a day at a time. Although it's still a sweet gesture as Sam's ever-burnt biscuit-mix pancakes were the highlight of her Sunday mornings in years past. She recalls an entire week spent begging every night to have them for dinner, to no avail of course. It makes sense that her family will assume that pancakes are still her thing. Preference for waffles is rather new, whereas pancakes have a history of happier times.
Still not getting up.
"What's that?" Dean asks, his voice hovering above the pillow.
She sighs, pulling her head out. She must have been thinking out loud again. It's amazing how much a person will begin to involuntarily verbalize their thoughts after spending a great deal of time alone. Mai has caught herself talking to herself a lot recently. Out from under the pillow, the sunshine is bright on her face, making her squint up at the man. Dean is stubbly faced and draws a blank expression, awaiting her to remove herself from the bed. The stubble looks good on him she thinks and secretly hopes he'll grow it out to be a full beard. Dean raises his eyebrows. 'Well?' he doesn't say.
"Nothing…" she shakes her head causing her hair to cluster and bedhead to grow.
"Food's getting cold, get up."
"Dean…" Agitation is evident in her voice. She closes her eyes again hiding her face in the crook of her arm as shelter from the light, "I'll get some later, leave me to alone."
"Coffee." He states, tugging on the sheet in an attempt to stir her, "Coffee is good. Maybe it'll knock the bitchy out of you."
"I'm not bitchy!" she snaps back throwing her arm back to the side.
"Get up. Sam made you breakfast." He crosses his arms.
"Dean…" she moans again.
"What?"
"I'm a teenager, I'm allowed to be selfish, emotional, and tethered to my bed." Mai glares at him.
Today he is an ass hole. Words said two years ago still feel like fresh scrapes and she can't believe he's coming into her home and disrupting her chances at extra sleep. He's a hunter; he should know a thing or two about the importance of rest. But Dean crouches by her bed, leaning in. For a second her heart stops, her hands fist into the sheets, every muscle tenses. The last time he was in her face, Mai was slammed against the entranceway wall with the wind knocked out of her and blood dripping down her hands.
"Cut the teenager crap and get up because he made breakfast and I'm not allowed to eat anything without your ass at the table."
Her young arrogance is lost. She knows what he's capable of if he snaps, and right now it not a moment to be poking the bear. His tone is disgruntled and his face is screwed up with frown lines.
"Okay…" Mai breathes out hoping he will back off, "I'll be down in a minute. Let me throw on some clothes."
Dean nods, his expression unchanging when he rolls back onto his heels to stand. He moves to leave the room, but as he touches the door, he turns back. His face is softer, but contemplative, like he's running over the facts of a difficult case. Mai waits, uncertain of what he'll say.
"Is that…" he trails off midsentence, hovering in the doorway. He sniffs the air, "…Do you smell cigars?"
Jett.
"What are you talking about?" Mai tires for sardonic confusion, hoping her words will pass as kosher. Dean lingers only a moment longer in her room. He looks as if he's about to say something, but he drops it.
"Ah, never mind. Just get your butt downstairs." And with that, he's gone.
Mai's out of her bed faster than shifter burns under silver. Jett is gone, just gone. He's not under the bed, he's not behind her door, and he can't possibly fit in her closet. She lifts the window that she doesn't remember closing last night and leans over the sill. He's not outside, but the rope ladder is still hitched to the tree house. She wonders if he just left.
Without saying goodbye? Is there a note at least?
She searches the room arrant, not content until some form of communication is found. She finds nothing message-like in her meticulously organized space. It appears that Jett has simply up and left in the middle of the night. She sighs and figures the only thing left to do is go downstairs for pancakes. Hooking on a bra under her oversized shirt, she pulls her bedhead up with a claw clip, and retreats down the step. Phone in hand she walks into the kitchen. Dean sits at the table with his coffee. Sam flips a pancake over on the stove and adds it to the towering stack to his left.
"Good morning sunshine." She hears Bobby say from his spot behind a newspaper.
"Morning…" This is weird.
She's had these kinds of family-like experiences before; often growing up actually. But after a year on her own it feels strange to see these men acting so domestic, so apple pie. It's almost surreal to think that people like them can have moments like this. The killers of the dark and creepy can sit in a white farmhouse kitchen, reading the paper, drinking coffee, and flipping pancakes. Their lives are too messy for this to be unfolding before her.
"Looks like a string of cattle mutilations in Oklahoma." Bobby says giving the news a shake.
The apple pie moment is short lived.
"You thinking demons?" Dean sips at his coffee.
"Nope, the paper's calling it 'grotesque vandalism', but they were drained of their blood… so vampire nest?"
Sam sets the plate of pancakes down at the table and Dean grabs four off the top greedily.
"I'll send someone to check things out, make sure there's no foul play going on." Bobby reassures grabbing two pancakes for himself.
"We can do it." Dean muffles through a mouthful of food. His eyes are intent on drenching the contents of his plate in a river of syrup.
"Hell no. You're on vacation, Idjit." Bobby gestures his butter knife over to Mai, who's taken her seat at the table in silence, "I'll put some fresh hunter on it, it's a decent case for someone lacking experience."
Dean mumbles a grunt through his food, clearly too enthralled with breakfast to debate. Mai gives a tight lipped smile to no one in particular and serves herself a couple pancakes. In a boarder house reach for the butter Mai's cell phone slips out of her hand onto the table. She snatches it instantly and presses the unlock button to make sure it's okay.
'1 New Messages'
"Hey, no phones at the table." Sam pipes in.
"Okay." She returns, mostly ignoring him.
Jett Rhone (4:06 A.M.) I'll be in town. Family first, I will come back.
"What are you smiling at?" Dean asks, swallowing another giant bite of pancake.
"I was smiling?" Mai asks, honestly not noticing, "nothing… just… remembering yesterday I guess."
"Good birthday?" Sam enquires.
"I think so…"
"Hey! Are you listening?"
Dean's words snap Mai out of a blank stare at the dashboard.
"Yeah, sorry."
"Just start the truck." He instructs, wiping his dirty hands on his jeans.
Mai grimaces. She's the one who will have to scrub those jeans. She turns the key in the ignition and struggles to get it going, but after another try the engine grunts and jitters to a rough sounding start.
"Son of a bitch!" She hears through the smoke forming around the windows.
Mai cuts the engine and hops out, fanning away the choking fumes of burnt oil.
"What was that?" she says coughing a bit, hovering towards the back of the barn to avoid the smog. Dean breaks waving some cardboard in the air and tosses it aside.
"The damn thing!" He shouts.
Mai observes his body langue; tense, knotted, jittery almost. Standing in front of the smoldering truck, stone cold until…
"SHIT!"
Dean rams his boot into the front bumper causing the hood to slam down and the toolset at his feet to clatter. Everything in Mai's body jumps at the outburst. He kicks it again and again each time with the same aggression. With his final kick, he rolls his neck and sighs.
"Go get Bobby." He says sullenly, walking away from the green hunk of metal and grabbing his beer.
Dean takes a long sip out of the brassy bottle, but Mai doesn't move. The beer in his hand brings back Mai's flashes of broken glass and bloody hands. The sharp memory of a night she's justified in her mind time after time since Dean's come home. She's can't bring herself to blame him really, but it still makes her shiver at recollection. This surge of aggression in her uncle makes her subconsciously brace herself for something more. The last time she saw him this keyed up, was two years ago on the night she won't admit scared her.
We're fine now. We're okay… he's frustrated about the car, you didn't do anything…
"Hey!" He grabs her attention by snapping his fingers, "Are you going to get Bobby or not?" His tone unamused and impatient.
"Yes." Mai nods at him and forcing herself to pace her steps as she leaves the barn.
Her boots drag against the dirt floor with each calculated movement. Every little motion controlled and thought out, from her pace, to her hand placement, to the expression on her face because anyone in her family could be watching and she has to portray "fine".
I am fine! Just shaken… just… get over it Mai, that was two years ago. He came back and things are fine!
Reaching the steps of the porch, she breaks her composed stride, and pauses. Dean is clamoring around in the barn, banging things, opening heavy metal draws full of tools, making more noise than necessary. She hears him swear faintly. Returning to composure, she takes the steps two at a time, and pushes through the front door.
Bobby and Sam are in the study as usual. When Mai asks, they give her some spieled about looking up something for a connection of Bobby's. Mai is more inclined to believe they are researching something for a case of their own. She knows that even Sam can't walk away from the job, despite the "vacation" of sorts they are supposed to be on for her seventeenth. Mai doesn't hold it against them, there isn't much else to do here but read those elderly leather-bounds.
"Anyway, what's up?" Sam asks closing his current book and spinning in his chair to face her.
A cloud of dust rises from the shut pages. Mai watches as the sunlight catches each little speck.
"Dean needs Uncle Bobby's help with the truck. It's smoking." She says, breathing through her words, controlling her facial expressions.
"So that's what the banging was about." Bobby says leaning back in his chair.
In that moment, another outburst is heard through the open window. Mai clenches her toes in her boots, working very hard to remain stoic.
"Yes." She feeds after the jump in her heart smoothed out, "He… uh, kicked the front bumper a couple times…" She gave a smile; a tight lipped and essentially out of place smile.
Bobby and Sam exchange glances, the expressions on their face communicating a silent conversation. She curls her toes again, hoping to god that they won't ask her about her feelings or something. One more distantly loud blow drifts in the window.
"Ah, shoot. I better help the Idjit before he breaks something." With that Bobby leaves the room.
"So are you going back out to help?" Sam asks when Mai doesn't follow.
"Well, Dean has Bobby to help him out now so… too many pairs of hands can crowd a workspace." She shrugs her shoulders as nonchalantly as possible.
Don't ask about Dean. I don't want to fight you today.
Sam simply turns back to his book,
"So what are you going to do now?" he asks, slowly flipping through the pages.
Mai takes Bobby's seat opposite him at the desk.
"I don't know," She fingers through a small journal sitting open, "What are you guys researching?"
"A birthmark." Sam sighs.
"What's the case?"
"People keep dying and their only connection is a tiny identical birthmark… on their lungs." His face creases.
"Sounds weird," Mai says, "as usual."
"Yep."
Mai thumbs through another five pages until something peaks her interest. An entry labeled "Celestial Healing". She darts a quick glance at her uncle before reading on, but he's engrossed in his text. She lifts the book to her face to further shelter its information from prying eyes. The entry bears no new knowledge but it the gears in her brain begin to churn.
'Call it an act of God.'
"Hey, Uncle Sammy?" She tests
He lifts his drooped head, "Yes?"
"What happened to the angels after the Apocalypse?" She knows an out of the blue question about the Apocalypse is going to get her questions.
"Oh. Well, um…" He readjusts himself in the chair, "Most of them went back to heaven I guess."
'most'
"What about the others?"
"Well some still roam Earth… why do you ask?" He inspects her expression, clearly looking for her motive. Mai works to control her body langue even further under his scrutiny.
"Curiosity," That's not a lie, "there's an entry here about angels, got me wondering" That's not a lie either.
"Oh, okay, yeah. Most went home." He recaps nodding his head as if to shake off doubt.
Mai hums acknowledgement.
Jett isn't an angel. He would have healed himself, not even bothered to show up at my door.
"So how's school?" Sam prods
"Good, we'll be done on the fifth next month." She shrugs, still looking over the journal.
"You'll be a senior." He smiles at her.
"Yeah." She smiles back. Talking to Uncle Sammy has always been easier than Dean, even before the fight.
"Any idea on what you want to do after you graduate?" He asks lightly.
"No, not really." She hasn't given it much thought.
"Get a job? Maybe go to school somewhere?" he suggests.
"I don't know." She returns.
"Okay, just wondering. Whatever you want to do is cool." He nods.
So patient and accepting.
That's always been Sam's way; patient, understanding, accepting, listening. Her whole life with these men Sam's always been the one she can talk to. In moments like these, where they sit and discuss something other than her quarrel with Dean or hunting, it almost feels like before, back when everyone was easier.
"So who's this Walter kid?" Sam pries with relaxed interest.
Of course they are going to make this into a thing.
"My friend from school."
"You're friend huh?"
"Yes."
"Does he like you?"
"What!? God no! We're just friends."
"Mmhmm…" he nods his head.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Then stop with that face."
"What face?"
"That, 'I don't believe you' face."
"I never said I didn't believe you."
"It's what you don't say…" She glares over at him.
Sam holds up his hands in defense, but drops it. They both return to their research.
A few minutes later, "So what's he like?"
"Sam."
"You're friend; what is your friend like?" he corrects himself.
Mai closes the journal.
"He's nice." She says while picking at a hole in her cut-offs
"That all, just 'nice'?"
"…He's smart."
"And?" Sam grins but Mai shrugs. "Oh come on, I want to know about your friends." He pleads
There's only one …Well, technically two.
After a few moments of puppy dog eyes on Sam's part, she relinquishes.
"Fine. He's… He's nice, I think you'd like him. He wants to illustrate graphic novels for a living. Right now he works at the Speedy Hut."
"The one down the hill?"
"Yeah." She nods, "And… I don't know. He looks out for me I guess and he always smells like slushies."
Sam chuckles.
"What?"
"Just you… classifying everyone by smell."
"I don't classify everyone by smell."
"That's how you describe people, by what they smell like."
"Smell is important."
"Apparently." He chuckles.
She doesn't bother responding in hopes that he will move onto another topic and forget about Walt. But her uncle doesn't get the memo.
"What do you think about him?"
"Who?" she fakes ignorance.
"Your friend Walter."
Again she doesn't respond. When she looks out the bay window her eyes see forest, but her mind thinks about the ginger from school. Her best friend is someone she knew she couldn't keep from her family. She has to display him to them. She has to talk about him, explain that he's not a threat. She's no fool, she sees what Sam's doing. He may be acting casually towards this, but he still feels the need to protect his niece. So though easy conversation and simple questions he'll identify whether or not Walt is a safe friend for Mai.
In the girl's experience though, Dean has been less easygoing about things of this nature. He criticizes, scrutinizes, judges, and tests anyone she mentions. Doing the best to keep her protected, she knows. She's never fought her family on their antics for keeping her shielded; maybe she was too afraid of what's out there to argue, but being alone for a year changes her attitude. She doesn't want to give them Walter. Mai doesn't want to have them decide behind her back if she's allowed to have him as a friend. She has so few and can't afford to lose any.
I only have Walter and Jett. And you will never have Jett. He's my decision. I get to choose if he's good for me or not.
"Do you like him?" Sam's voice is all too serious for her comfort level.
"Walt?" She can't believe he's even asking, but he nods, "He's…" She sighs, "He's a really good friend, but we are far from romantically involved so you don't even have to worry about it." she brushes him off with a wave of the hand.
"I'm not worried about it." Sam responds assuredly, "but that isn't exactly an answer to my question."
"No." She stresses, "I don't think of him like that. He's my friend, I'm his friend. End of story."
"Okay, I believe you."
No you don't. She can never get away from this lingering feeling that they never trust her.
"Just be careful though." He pulls himself out of the seat, returning a book to the shelf.
"About what?" She lifts an eyebrow.
He turns to Mai, standing square in the room with his arms crossed over his plaid button up. The way he looks down on her with wisdom and concern in his eyes, makes her feel so small. So of course, she'll roll her eyes at this 'I know things' look of his. She's nearly an adult; she's too old to still feel small under his gaze.
"About who you get close to." He says, "About this boy, this friend of yours." He must read the irritation and defense on her face, "I'm saying in general, Mai."
"What do you mean?"
"I know you're not naïve. But I just want you to be …aware of people. Because I'm sure Walter is a great guy, good friend. I mean, you chose to be friends with him and I trust your decision."
Why do I have a hard time believing that?
"But, as general advice, I guess… just be smart about people; they aren't always who they first appear to be."
Sam pulls a few books off the shelf, returning to the desk. From somewhere outside Bobby and Dean are heard shouting. It's muffled enough that the conversation can't be deciphered. Judging by the tone of their shouting, it's not peaceful. Mai can hear their voices drifting towards the front of the house, becoming softer and softer until the front door blows open. Mai and Sam look at each other, listening to Bobby and Dean still going at it.
Dean's boots clomp through the kitchen, the fridge opens, bottles of presumably beer clatter, the fridge slams shut. Bobby says something, Dean responds, Bobby yells at him, Dean yells back. For a second Mai thinks Dean says, "We're fine". Then Bobby can be heard heading back out to the barn, shouting profanities loud and clear. Dean's boots stomp out of the kitchen, their sound fading a little, then growing as he walks down the hall towards his room. Mai and Sam quickly return to their books and Dean's door shuts with a hinge screeching bang.
Yeah, not everyone is who they say they are...
A/N: A little more Sam, Dean, and Bobby action for you guys.
I will not be posting a new chapter next week because I will be away, and between finishing school and getting ready to ship out next week, I had to put writing on the back burner. But School is completely done with for the summer, so I can hopefully focus on Safest at Home! (That is assuming that writers block doesn't set in like it has this week)