[h3] Dean [/h3]

Dean walked over to the library briefly, pressing on one of the books in the front shelf. As he did so, the bookshelf opened to reveal a liquor cabinet with plenty of bottles and glasses. He grabbed a couple of glasses in case Lexi needed a drink and then snatched a cheap screw top whiskey from the bottom shelf, before closing the door and strolling back up the steps to the war room.

“Oh Denver…” Dean sighed as he approached the table again, and sat the bottle and glasses down. He pulled one of the rolling chairs to sit in, and groaned as he sat back and unscrewed the lid of the bottle. “Denver is Sam’s big bad one big mistake, regret, emotional atomic bomb…all of it wrapped into one. To put it mildly, I think that my brother was going to marry that girl, if our life had slowed down long enough.”

Dean truly believed it, too. If he had managed to get Anna and Sam out of the life, like some of the others had managed, he would have fully endorsed them tying the knot and living happily ever after in the most boring life possible. He would have died to give that to them. They deserved it after being demon toys their entire lives.

“See, sometime before you met up with Sam, there were these trials. The idea was that we could slam the gates shut on Hell…forever. It seemed easy enough. Each trial was pretty straight forward. The first one, I was going to take on.” Dean explained, pouring a tall glass of whiskey for himself. “Sam…being Sam, put himself in there, and got saddled with all of it.”

Dean took a drink of his whiskey as he shook his head, “And then he started getting sick. The girl, Anna, walked in on him one day. He was having a…a seizure. He was sick. His fever was more than any human could take. We’re talking brain melting heat. Anna was scared to death. She called me and we managed to get him back to a somewhat safe spot, but after that, something in Sam snapped. The second he got to feeling okay enough to travel, he made me drive them to Denver under the guise of ‘checking in with family’.”

The memories of Anna’s face, when Sam explained to her that she couldn’t leave with them, and he wasn’t going to let her watch him die made Dean shudder, and he closed his eyes to push down emotions that he didn’t even realize were still there, under the surface. 

“She was everything to him. He walked away from her, practically threatened to kill me if I spoke her name out loud, and swore that he would never go to Colorado again. Even after he…well…after the trials, and everything he dealt with, it’s been rough on him. Then…then we lost Mika, and I can’t even begin to talk about that.” Dean’s voice cracked and he finished off his glass of whiskey, spilling his guts to Lexi in a way that he obviously had needed to…to someone, anyone for months.

Dean reached across the table, where John’s journal sat, wrapped up and stuffed full of papers and photos. He pulled it toward him, and flipped it open, pulling a few photos of the group, Sam and Anna smiling together at Bobby’s, Duke and Anna hugging, and finally, one of Sam and Anna, all busted up but happy, cuddling on a couch. He slid the photos across the table to Lexi, and tapped his finger on Anna in the group photo.

“Let’s just say that the few times they have run into each other, things have been a little more than chaotic and toxic. They fall back into old habits. They wrap up in each other’s emotions, and then they leave…He eventually ends up within a hundred miles of Denver and it all starts over. God forbid she ever showed up here.”

[h3] Anya [/h3]

Anya’s eyes widened as Sam explained the reason why demons were after Dean. No matter what idea she might have had about what he was going to say, his actual words trumped it completely. She thought back to seeing Dean shirtless in the hall, and the weird brand that she had seen on his forearm. She had assumed it was some sort of scar, or other hazard of hunting. Maybe he had been branded by a random hunter or had been involved in something she didn’t know about. Never had she thought it would have something to do with…Cain and Abel. Jesus.

She almost suggested that they just go back to the bunker and tell Dean about what had happened on the outside, but Sam didn’t seem to agree as he suggested that they go ahead with their plans. Anya tapped her finger against her phone, trying to decide on an argument, but maybe the demons couldn’t find Dean. That might explain why they hadn’t already found him, this close to the bunker. Maybe that was why they were looking for someone connected to him, so that person would take them back to the bunker.

Anya sighed, not quite sure she agreed with leaving Dean and Lexi with no information, and she nodded. She opened her door and stepped out of the car, with a slump of her shoulders. As they walked up to the door of the tattoo shop, Anya scanned the parking lot with a bit of nervousness, but there were no people outside, only a random assortment of empty cars. They were safe, for the time being.

She allowed Sam to show the artist at the counter what they were wanting to have done, and the artist turned to Anya, “Where you want it sweetheart?”

Anya carefully lifted her shirt, and realized that her hip bone was bruised, so she turned her back to the artist and pulled her hair to the side, showing him the back of her neck. He gestured for her to follow him back to his table, and began to set up his station. Anya held up a finger at him, and he nodded, telling her to take her time.

She turned to Sam and typed a message, before lowering the volume on her phone and holding it close to Sam, “If we need to save our fun time for another night to make sure that Dean is okay, we can. Maybe check in with them and make sure he’s okay?”