[h3] Dean [/h3]

Dean stepped through the living room, barely glancing up at Esme as he passed. He didn’t want her judgement or her chiming in on his relationship with Duke. He and Duke had a complicated one, and Esme knew that. The fought. They came back together. They fought more. They came back together, and while Dean wasn’t the best at smoothing things over in an actually constructive way, they never seemed to lose each other. At least in Dean’s mind, that is.

He stepped into the kitchen and sighed, walking up to stand beside Mika. He crossed his arms, just leaning back against the wall. He glanced over at her before staring at the floor, as a memory came into his mind like a freight train, just seeing Mika zoned out.

[I][b] Autumn - 3 years ago[/b][/i]

Dean laughed at a joke that Esme had made, their relationship at probably the most calm it had ever been, since Duke had left and left both of them with no one to worry about but themselves. Dean pulled Esme closer, and touched a trinket on one of the magic shop shelves. The clerk behind the counter sighed, as Dean’s hands seemed to land on just about everything, like a teenager that was planning to steal them blind.

“This one is cute. Means nothing…but it’s cute.” He chuckled, as he made the necklace swing against the shelf it was hung above. Absentmindedly, Dean glanced out the window, and his heart stopped as he saw what he could only assume was a false memory standing there. Mika stood, looking a bit roughed up, but beautiful to him as her hair blew in the light breeze outside. As she turned her head, Dean panicked and turned his head back down, clearing his throat awkwardly as he pulled Esme close. If it was a visage of some sort, he had to get it out of his head. He tilted his head down, pulling her chin up and passionately kissed her out of nowhere. 

It took a moment for him to convince himself it was enough to make Mika disappear and sure enough, when he broke the kiss and glanced back up to the window, she was gone. His heart fell into his stomach, and he was instantly tempted to run out that door and see where she went, try to stop her, try to convince her to talk to him…but he didn’t. He stood there, the way the wind blew her hair playing over and over in his mind, until the clerk cleared her throat again and asked if he and Esme were going to buy anything.

——

Coming out of the memory, Dean suddenly turned and placed a hand on Mika’s cheek, kissing her out of nowhere as if they were the only people in the room.

[h3] Cason and Anna [/h3]

Anna nearly broke out in a giggle when Nat told her she was awesome for putting up with Sam. Truth was, Sam was pretty amazing for putting up with her. She had been a mess from the moment that she had come back into his life, and she knew there were times it had to be too much. She nodded her head and sighed, “Noted. I’m glad that at least I fit in with the mess…”

Cason opened his mouth to speak when Nat said she was going to grab her boots. He was tempted to follow her, or pop into the room without her permission or asking, but he decided against it, dropping his shoulders, “I will be here. Don’t be too long.”

Sam speaking to him caught him off guard, and he raised an eyebrow as he looked up at Sam. He couldn’t see Sam being polite to him in any way and was half expecting the threats to start, but the guy was being legitimately polite. Cason smiled and chuckled, shaking his head, “I’ll take the quirks. As long as she’s safe. That’s what I’m here for. I know it’s hard to believe, but there’s no ulterior motive…”

“He knows. We know.” Anna spoke up, looking into Cason’s eyes with a small raise of the corners of her mouth. Cason rolled his eyes at her but he matched her almost smile, and looked across to the living room door, waiting patiently for Nat to come back. Something about being alone with the Winchesters would never be comfortable.

As Nat showed back up, Cason reached for her, pulling her in close as they prepared to leave. He didn’t wait for Sam to follow, just wrapping his arm around Nat and stepping out the back door. He was rather excited for Nat to see that he had managed to call in some favors to retrieve her car. The last thing he had wanted to do was walk out to the parking lot and for her to be reminded about it.

[h3] Duke [/h3]

Duke almost cringed away from Esme as she brought her hands up to his face, and wiped the tears away from his cheeks. He still wasn’t sure how he wanted to bridge the gap of letting her see him cry. He wasn’t an overly emotional person, and he was the fixer…the one who made other people laugh when they were down. He didn’t ask that anyone returned the favor. Her words, requesting that he didn’t hide those emotions elicited a thick swallow from him, but he nodded obediently without speaking.

He sighed through his nose as she agreed to leave with him, leaning up and kissing his lips. It was the first time he had ever asked her to run away with him, and he had a feeling that she wasn’t actually planning to leave the group, even if he asked her to. He would take any separation he could, even if it meant just going for a walk to get his feet back underneath him, and run some of the frustration out. 

Unfortunately, the kitchen was crowded, and the last thing Duke wanted to do was make eye contact with Dean after the conversation they had just had. It would be awkward, and there was no way Dean couldn’t read all over his face that he was not completely okay with the outcome. Thankfully, Esme dragged him toward the front door, and he followed, stepping out onto the porch. The Hellhound bark caused him to flinch really hard, and he brought a hand up to his chest, as if he could calm his heart while watching Esme talk to the dog.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that…” he muttered breathlessly, glancing back at the open door of the house as it moved a bit, and the Hellhound entered and exited with their bags. Duke wrapped his arm around Esme’s back as she came back to him, and took his own deep breath of the cold night air. It reminded him of a time that he came back to Bobby’s around this time of year, and the air was just beginning to get cold enough for a jacket. He could still hear Esme’s laugh and the crunch of the leaves under her boots, during a brief couple of weeks they were alone…without Dean.

Esme’s hands on his hips stopped him in his tracks and he shook himself out of the vivid memory as her boots crunched the leaves at his feet. He turned his eyes down to her, sniffling and dropped his shoulders at her assessment. He didn’t want her to worry about him. He had made that clear to her, and yet here she was…worrying, “I’m fine…”

But she was right with her next words. She could read him like a book. She always could. Duke tilted his head to the side and then looked at the ground with a nod. It was the same cycle, all over again. He turned his eyes back to hers and squinted in frustration, “I would like to agree with the whole tyin’ him to a chair and makin’ him listen thing…but I don’t think it would work. He would wait patiently until you finished and took the tape off, and then he would tell you all the reasons he’s not wrong. It’s just who he is and I gotta stop tryin’, man…”

Duke shook his head sadly, glancing up over Esme’s head briefly, before back down at her eyes, “But that ain’t your problem. You know how this goes. For me and him…this is fine. This is as good as it gets.”

It was then that he was tempted to ask her to run away with him. But he couldn’t. She was in no state to travel, really and with everything going on, both of them were targets that would drag Dean into a trap…especially if they were together. He sighed and reached up, cupping both her cheeks as he pressed his forehead to hers, “I wish we could run away together. I wish this whole Angels and Demons battle wasn’t goin’ on and we could just run away. Would you run away with me?”