JustAnna

"From out of Nowhere" - SPN

Dean furrowed his brow when Sam patted his arm and explained that Lexi had ended up more on the wrong side of the hunt. Things must have gone really South, if Sam got out in better shape than anyone he was hunting with, but judging by his own appearance, Dean had to assume his head had taken a nice little knock….as usual.

“Alright, come here…”, Dean grumbled, backing up and holding his hands out to her as she walked over to the table. He pulled a rolling chair right beside her, and turned the chair to face her before sitting down. As Sam walked into the kitchen, he stood again and strolled over to the library, pulling a flashlight off the top of one of the bookshelves. Strolling back over to the table, he leaned his knee on his chair and reached a careful hand out to place a finger on the bottom of Lexi’s chin, pulling her eyes up to his.

“Look at me.”, he grumbled, turning the flashlight on and shining it over her left eye a couple of times in flashes, and then her right with a sigh. He frowned and sat the flashlight down on the table, “Not the worst I’ve seen. But I think you do have a little concussion. Keep that up and you’ll have a calloused brain like Sam.”

As he teased her slightly, he traced his fingers over any blood stains he could see, making sure none of them were actual skin breaks, other than the one on her head. To his relief, it seemed to just be her lip and her head. He sighed, and leaned back a bit, “Stand up. Hold onto me if you need to.”

As he helped her stand, he brushed his hands gently over her shoulders, shoving her jacket down her arms, and then reached his hands down to her wrists, tugging the sleeves free of her hands. He tossed her jacket on the table and did the same with her overshirt. He winced externally as the bruising of her shoulder, from being dislocated. He reached his hand up and gently brushed his fingers over the bruises.

“You know this is gonna suck, right?”, he asked her with a sad smirk. He walked around to her back, and pushed on her lower back to have her stand straighter, he took a deep breath. Bringing a hand around to the front of her shoulder, he placed the heel of his palm against the front, and brought his other hand around to wrap his fingers around the top of her shoulder, as his wrist rested against her skin, “One…two…”

Without saying three, he suddenly tensed, her shoulder popping loudly as it fell back into place. He held her for a moment, wrapping one of his arms around her body to hold her tight against his chest and let her relax from what he knew had to be a horrible jolt of pain, and at the closeness, he pressed his nose against the back of her head, inhaling deeply as he closed his eyes. On one hand, he was glad he fixed her shoulder, on the other hand, his stomach cramped painfully at the fact that he had hurt her. But breathing so close to her, his heart rate steadied, and he relaxed, “I’m sorry."

"From out of Nowhere" - SPN

Dean felt the presence grow a bit stronger as Mika sat on the bed beside him and touched his shoulder. He couldn’t quite feel her touch, but in a way, he knew she was touching him. He closed his eyes, just breathing in the presence and turned his head toward his shoulder, “If you’re here. Just stay for a while? Please?”

He sniffled and scooted himself back on the bed, leaving his boots on as he laid his head back against his pillows and turned over onto his side. He stared at the wall, turned toward the side of the bed that she would normally rest against, and he settled, sniffling as he pushed the grief down, with the help of a decent amount of whiskey.

---

After a little bit, Dean was starting to drift in and out of sleep, seemingly for the first time in months. But at the sound of the bunker door closing, and Sam’s voice calling out through the large and echoing room, Dean sat up and stared at the door. He gave some thought to whether he wanted to walk out, and face Lexi again, with Mika heavy on his mind. He shuddered, the pang of guilt that he had managed to avoid earlier in the day creeping back up.

After a few moments of thought, he rolled off the bed, and walked to his door, holding his hand against the doorknob. He paused, and held it tightly in his hand, as something in the back of his mind told him it was okay. They needed him.

He pulled the door open and stepped into the hall, walking quickly toward the war room, toward Sam’s voice. He stepped into the open room, and turned his gaze up the stairs, “Hey! You guys okay…Holy crap you both look like crap. What happened?”

Dean rushed over to the stairs and reached his hand out for Sam’s arm as he stepped into the room. He checked Sam’s demeanor and the way he walked, and after a moment, his shoulders relaxed. He didn’t seem hurt bad enough to fall over, or for his giant head to be damaged too much, “You okay? You gonna make it?”

His eyes then fell on Lexi, who looked worse. He didn’t want to rush to her, and make her uncomfortable, especially after what had happened in the armory. He stared at her for a moment, trying to assess her injuries without his hands, “What can I do?”

Supernatural - Hell On The Horizon

Duke

Duke concentrated on the road for a bit, as he heard Esme taking deep breaths, almost concerned that the drive itself was causing her pain. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel at the thought, rushing through some painful memories of the last time they were in a dire situation, and he was behind the wheel. Unfortunately, for him, Dean was also in the car with them. Between the gravel road being bumpy and aggressively shaking the car, and Dean’s screaming from the backseat as he panicked over her injuries, the memory didn’t settle well in the back of Duke’s mind.

He swallowed the memory down, quickly pulling the corners of his eyes back into their signature smirk and watched center line of the road intently. He pulled the words ‘of course I missed you’ into his mind and swirled them around, letting them wash over his heart a bit. The fact that she had even thought about him, after he fell off the map was exciting, and that was after the break up with Dean had complicated their relationship. Dean was his brother, by choice, and when she left, he was stuck with a decision.

The decision wasn’t fair, but it was morally obvious. He chose Dean. He stayed behind with him, and he and Esme just…fell apart. Then Dean went through various existential crises, between meeting up with Mika again, and then essentially kidnapping his brother from college. Duke just kind of bowed out. He silently wondered if Mika was still around, or how things were after Dean had come back from Hell. Word got around in the hunter’s circles…

Esme’s voice shook him from his thoughts and he flinched, turning to look at her with a soft smile. Her fading smile caused him to furrow his brow, keeping an eye on the road, but glancing often back to her face as she finally asked her question. Shrugging his shoulders, he turned back toward the road and took a deep breath, “Yes and no.”

He paused, and glanced back over at her, “I made it as far as New York City, ready to get on the next flight out of the country, straight to Cairo, and I kept seeing signs everywhere. You know, fate stuff. It started with a husky, of all things. He was a super sweet dog, lovin’ on me and begging to be petted while he sat out on the sidewalk with his owner. He looked so much like a wolf that I couldn’t help but think of you, you know?”

Duke tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, nodding his head to encourage himself to keep speaking, “And then I was in the airport, drinking some overpriced but super strong coffee, and this blonde girl sat down at the table next to me. At first, while she sat there, I thought nothing of it…but then it hit me. I didn’t want to go alone. I mean, sure, Cairo and Giza and all the curses and mummies would have been a blast to see. I’ve been obsessed since I was a kid.”

He turned his gaze back to hers with a small smile, tilting his head to the side, “But it just didn’t seem so tempting, being on my own. That was our little pipe dream adventure.”

Duke shrugged his shoulders, a little scoff escaping his chest as he wiped a hand across the stubble on his chin, self soothing himself from the admission. He kept his eyes on the road, until they pulled close to the parking lot, and he carefully drove the truck over the lip in the pavement, and parked it next to Dean’s all too familiar Impala.

"From out of Nowhere" - SPN

Dean stood at the door, his head pressed almost painfully against the wood as he steadied his breathing. Taking a deep breath through his nose, he furrowed his brow as a familiar smell washed over him. His eyes shot open and he whipped around, turning toward the area he assumed the smell was coming from, due to its intensity.

“Mika?”, he asked in a whisper, looking around the room with wide eyes. Sure, he still had things of hers. And they smelled like her. But, this didn’t feel like a thing. It felt like she was standing in the room with him…like a ghost.

“If you’re um…if you’re here, I really need you, right now. I don’t know how you would be here. I mean…I watched you burn. I know you’re gone.”, his voice broke with his words, but he took a deep breath, opening his mouth to take in air in what seemed more like a gasp, “But I can’t do this. I can’t do this alone. Please…”

He turned a complete circle, feeling like a total idiot. Obviously she wasn’t in the room with him. Obviously she wouldn’t be able to haunt the bunker. The place was warded against everything the Men of Letters had ever fought against, ghosts being one of those things. Reminding himself of that fact, he stepped over to his bed and sat down at the foot, placing his head in his hands as the pain moved from his stomach to wash over his body, “What the hell is going on?”

Dean glanced over at his tv stand, which sat close to the end of his bed, and he reached out, grabbing an almost empty whiskey bottle. Giving it a moment’s thought, he unscrewed the cap and polished off the bottle as tears streamed down his face, his eyes still staring at the corner he had suspected Mika was haunting.

"From out of Nowhere" - SPN

Dean stood quietly near Sam, folding his arms awkwardly across his chest as Sam and Lexi talked over the case they were working on. His heart rate was beginning to slow back to normal, but he could feel the tension coming off of Sam, wanting to ask questions. Dean didn’t offer to clear the air, only stayed quiet until they finished their conversation, and Lexi grabbed her stuff.

As she passed him, he took a deep breath, and moved back out of her way to let her pass him without another touch. He turned to his brother, shooting him dagger eyes to tell him not to ask, and then turned as Lexi glanced back at him. His eyes softened into a bit of a dreamy gaze as he met her eyes, noticing how bright they were, and how much they seemed to glitter with a different light of the harsh industrial lighting.

“Y=Yeah. I’ll um…I’ll see you when you get back. I’ll just be in my room.”, he stammered out, scooting around his brother, “You guys be safe. I’ll just um…”

As he opened his bedroom door, walking backward, he stumbled into the heavy wood and caught himself on the doorknob, waving at Lexi, “I’ll be in my room.”

He stepped into his room, quickly closing the door behind him. He leaned his forehead against the door and panted, taking slow and deliberate breaths to attempt to calm his anxiety. It wasn’t arousal. It was guilt. It was anxiety for feeling any sort of attraction to another female in what felt like ‘too soon’. He pressed his palm flat against the cool wood and closed his eyes, “it was just a weird close moment. She’s just a guest. She’s a guest, and she’s in a rough spot. Just keep your hands to yourself, and she’ll be gone in a few days.”

Yet the thought of her leaving in a few days tugged at his stomach, and he sighed. He didn’t want her to leave. Truthfully, he wanted her around. He wanted to see her smile as she came down the hall every morning, and see her standing in the kitchen in his apron, cooking whatever meal she came up with that day.

But he couldn’t allow himself to be comfortable around her, if it meant that he might be attracted to her. She had to go…or he had to toughen up.

Supernatural - Hell On The Horizon

Dean Winchester

Dean sighed, feeling completely irrational as Mika explained that she didn’t see Anna as a threat, and also thought that Anna was just worried about his reactions to her existence. He had to admit that he had been cold to her, and that he had essentially threatened her behind her back, without even feeling her out, first. It was something that was starting to nag at his stomach a bit, “Yeah. I guess you’re right. I’ll um…I’ll have a talk with her when we finish here. I’ll just…talk to her.”

As Mika stepped back up to him, he placed his phone back into his pocket and sighed, staring cross eyed down at her finger as she tapped it on his nose. He shook his head and tilted it to the side with a smirk, “Since when are you all work? Once upon a time, you would have played fun before work. One bed. Time to ourselves. Eh?”

He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to her lips, before pulling back, “Besides, all options are taken care of. I just sent Sam a text, after receiving a weird one from Cason. We’re gonna take the house, since it’s just hitting up the wife and shouldn’t be too much trouble. Sam and Nat can take the school, and Cason and Esme are apparently in one piece. They got stopped by that demon army, we might have failed to mention to them. At least he said something about demons. They’re on their way here.”

“But Esme’s out of commission…”, he started again, staring at the ceiling to make sure he had remembered everything. He then turned his eyes back to hers with a smile, “Just like the old days. Partners…”

Anna

Annabeth nodded with a small smile at Sam’s reassurance. Mika did seem like the type to leave things alone, even if she felt the need to talk about them with Dean. If she was concerned, Anna felt like maybe she could be friends with Mika, and maybe Dean would come around too. She nodded once again, and stepped closer to Sam as he brought up the night they met.

Mika was the one who wanted to let her go, and wanted Sam to make his own decisions. Shew as the one who had talked Dean down, when Sam couldn’t. Taking a deep breath, she glanced over at Natalia and matched her smile. She felt safe around Nat, as she seemed to also be a good adversary to Dean, if it was needed. They got along but she could see that Nat would be formidable at holding Dean’s emotions at bay, if he was going to hurt someone.

“I have noticed that she smiles at me sometimes. So, I guess that’s a start, along with the free ride.”, she quipped back at Nat, her shoulders loosening up the more she thought about things being okay. When Nat suggested they go back to their room and relax, she couldn’t help smile and let a small chuckle through her nose, still a bit surprised that Dean had let her and Sam have a private room. She turned to Sam, as Nat stepped away from him, reaching her arm out to brush against Nat’s, and then dropped her hand to lace fingers with Sam.

“So, um…we’re bunkmates. I was a little too tired the other night to notice, but you better not snore.”, she teased him, as she pulled him toward their room. She slipped the key into the lock and opened the door, pulling him inside. Tossing her bag on the ground, she looked around the room and raised her eyebrows, “And only one bed?”

Duke

Duke lowered his eyes to scan Esme’s face, as she placed his hat back onto his head. His face broke into a bright smile and he leaned his cheek against the top of her head as she laid her head back down against his shoulder. After a few moments, he saw her face tilt back to look at him again, and he met her gaze as they made it almost to his truck.

At her use of his old nickname, his heart fluttered in his chest, and his smile widened. He shrugged his shoulders at her question, glancing up at the truck as they approached and he answered, “Everywhere, really. I go where I’m needed. I take care of problems, track down hunters that use way too many aliases, and mostly, I just hunt when I find weird things that have absolutely nothing to do with demons. I’ve been trying not to go down that road again, yet here I am.”

“But from the sound of it, you missed me a little bit.”, he chuckled, tightening her elbow around her back as he pulled his hand away from her, to open the passenger door of his truck. Swinging it open a bit more, he stepped forward and gently sat her on the seat, careful with her thigh. As he sat her down, he brought a hand up to brush her hair away from her face, smoothing it behind her ears on both sides, before running his fingers gently over the deep bruise that had formed over her eye, “Let’s get you back to the motel, so I can clean you up. Sound good?”

He smiled, staring at her for a moment, as he scanned her eyes. He then stepped back quickly, as if snapping himself out of a memory, and pulled the seatbelt across her body, clicking it into place, and putting the strap behind her body, so he didn’t hurt her injured shoulder.

Walking around to the drivers door, he opened it and brought the old truck to life with a loud roar, peeling out of the gravel parking lot.

"From out of Nowhere" - SPN

Dean couldn’t help wanting to offer to let her stay for a bit longer, just so they could have a real conversation about…well anything. She just seemed infinitely interesting, and he was surprised that Sam wasn’t more interested in her. While she wasn’t totally his type, the stories her eyes could tell, without a single word was definitely something Sam was into.

“I would love to.”, he said a bit quieter then he meant to, when she asked to hear more about the Bunker and the Men of Letters. The fact that she was the one that mentioned the conversation caused his eyebrows to raise as it landed hard in his brain. She said ‘one day’. She planned to come back. She specifically wanted to spend time with him.

His heart fluttered once again in his chest, followed by a small but fleeting tinge of guilt.

As she stepped closer to him, her smile not fading, Dean’s intense green eyes locked onto hers, and he smiled back at her. He attempted to get out of her way, as he stared at her, but neither of their bodies seemed in much of a hurry to move. So, he made the first move, bringing a hand down to her hip to steady her, so he could get by.

His thumb brushing the skin of her hip caused his breath to hitch in his throat, and he leaned in close to her face, scooting himself to the side, just as Sam showed up at the door and Dean turned his head, his eyes wide, “Um. NO! No no no. It’s a little um…a little tight in here. We really should widen this little walkway. Here…”

Pressing Lexi’s hips against the counter, he scooted past her and raised his hands, as if to try and prove to his brother that he had no ulterior motives behind the small touch, but his heart was still racing wildly in his chest as he stood by the door and crossed his arms, “Lexi um…she found the weapons you need and stuff.”

"From out of Nowhere" - SPN

Dean raised his eyebrows a bit confused when Lexi said she wasn’t uncomfortable, pressed up against him in the tight corridor of the armory. He stopped trying to move past her, momentarily, turning his face to hers. He scanned her face, noticing their height difference, and the way her auburn hair framed her face. His heart rate picked up uncomfortably in his chest, and he took a deep breath.

“Nah. I’m not un-uncomfortable. We just don’t know each other very well and being pressed up against a total stranger, well…almost total stranger in the middle of a tiny room just seems a bit um…pers-personal.”, he stammered out, stepping to the side enough to let her step into the deeper parts of the armory alone.

He watched her as she pushed the hair behind her ear, following her fingers with his eyes carefully, and then took another deep breath, clearing his throat. He placed his hand on one of the counters, turning his lower body to the side as she commented on the bunker again. He nodded his head, biting his lip, “It was kinda passed down to us by our grandfather. That’s a long story. It’s become a pretty good home, and we have actual beds.”

Dean laughed softly, as her smile pierced through him and caused his heart to race again. Coming here alone with her, while he was sober was a horrible idea. His brain was looking for some sort of human on human contact that wasn’t Sam, and he was finding it. Yet, he felt like his chest was going to explode with nervous energy. As he stared at her with a little more intention, he reiterated his thoughts from earlier in the night, his face serious, “And we have plenty of room.”

"From out of Nowhere" - SPN

Dean stepped toward the doorway, shooting a glance back at Sam, before walking out into the war room, and turning to let Lexi catch up to him. As she approached his side, he looked down at her with a small smile, “You know Sam knows the way to the armory, too, right? This is his house too.”

He chuckled and walked up the steps into the corridor that led down to the rooms, and the various work areas that made up the bunker. After a few moments, they made it to a large metal door, and Dean reached out to turn the wheel that locked it, turning it and with some effort, he wrenched door open.

“The armory. There’s shotguns, land mines, all the holy water you could need, if you had a demon problem…these guys planned for everything. We just make sure it’s clean.”, Dean said proudly as they stepped into the tight corridor of the armory. Along the walls were various weapons and tools. Different sizes of ropes and chains hung on one wall, along with handcuffs with different sigils and symbols carved into them. On the other two walls were various guns, knives, and grenades.

“It’s a little tight in here. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, if you um…if you want me to wait out in the hall.”, Dean muttered awkwardly, barely looking up at her as he spoke the words. They were already pressed pretty tightly together, as he tried to get past her to walk toward the door of the vault.

Supernatural - Hell On The Horizon

Dean Winchester

Dean frowned when Mika admitted that Anna hadn’t spoken to her much in the car. With her texting Sam, and no one really knowing what they were talking about, it made Dean nervous. Sam had seemed a lot more secretive since Dean had been back from Hell. He was happy however, to hear how normal Anna seemed. Anna was anything but normal, but yet, so was Sam. He was drawn to people like himself, or just…outcasts and wayward monsters in general, and Dean never denied that.

“You think she’ll protect him.”, he stated more than questioned, as he let his vision zone out for a moment, thinking back to the night that Sam had shielded her, when Dean got a little too aggressive, after he disappeared. Even after only knowing each other a few hours, Sam had been fiercely protective of her, and from the look in her eyes, as she tried to decide whether to run, Anna seemed the same way with him, as if they had clicked, and a hundred years had gone by in the short time they were in that dingy old house.

“Well. If she’s willing to protect him, maybe she’ll stay on the straight and narrow.”, he said softly, taking another deep breath as they arrived at their room, “That’s honestly all I’m asking for at this point, since she hates me…and he most likely won’t let me near her, if I did want to handle things.”

Anna

A brighter smile crept up in the corners of Anna’s lips as Sam responded to her joking with a smile and a more upbeat response than she had expected. She walked around to the trunk of the Impala, staying close to him, as he grabbed his stuff.

“I heard a bit of what they were talking about. I think I was a little too quiet in the car and now Mika thinks I’m weird…”, Anna muttered, looking down into the trunk as she spoke. She tilted her head up to look across to Nat, “I think you and Nat are the only two who really get it. You know? I guess on the drive back, I’ll try to talk more.”

She looked up at Sam with a small smile, and then glanced over to Mika, “I don’t want everyone to think I’m some kind of freak.”

Cason and Duke

Cason laughed softly as Esme managed to joke through all of the injuries she was stuck with, and he leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead, before picking up a knife from the table, and working on the ropes that held her to the chair. As he worked on the ropes, with one hand, he kept her chin resting against his hand, helping her hold herself up.

“You’re going to hate me in a few minutes when I take that knife out of your leg.”, he said softly, finishing with the ropes, just as she spoke to the other man in the room, and Cason furrowed his brow in confusion, turning to look back as the man turned and raised his own eyebrows under his hat.

Duke turned and his eyebrows raised, before his eyes widened and he bolted over to stand beside Esme, “Well holy shit! It’s been forever and I find you like this? I was just in the area lookin’ into some demon stuff, and this place had omens all around it. I figured I’d check it out and here you are.”

He turned his eyes down toward the knife in her thigh, “Here. Move. I got this…we’ve done this before, haven’t we babydoll?”

Cason furrowed his brow even further, stumbling back as Duke settled in front of Esme, pulling a bandana from his back pocket. He looked up into her eyes, taking his hat off for a moment. He placed his hat carefully on the ground beside the chair, and kept her gaze, “You know what? You look about as beautiful as ever. Little blood never turned me away.”

He laughed softly, his signature smile lighting up his face as he gently lifted her leg while trying to distract her with his light conversation. He maneuvered the bandana under her leg, bringing the ends up to the top of her thigh, “Hey. You remember that time out in Vegas? You took a bullet for me that night. Possessed hunters are never fun. Anyway, look at me darlin’. We’re gonna play that same game, alright?”

Cason reached over to the table next to the chair he had been sat in, and he sighed in frustration. Apparently Esme knew this guy, and apparently the guy knew her well enough to charm her. A foreign pang of jealousy bubbled in his pocket as he texted Dean Winchester to get them a room, and a vague explanation of what had happened. He ended the text with “under control” and put his phone away, wiping his hand over his mouth.

Dean picked up the phone and glanced at Mika as he closed their motel room door behind him, “Apparently Cason and Esme got stopped by some demons. All he says is under control…”

As he muttered the words, he narrowed his eyes, wondering if it had anything to do with their case.

Duke sighed as he pulled the sides of the bandana out to the sides, “Alright. Repeat them…Red…Blue…Green…Purple…”

With every color he spoke, he slowly tied the bandana ends together as his hands covered with Esme’s blood. He began to slowly tighten the bandana against her thigh and hissed.

“And Pink.”, he grunted the last color, pulling the bandana tight and tying a knot to stop the blood flow to the knife wound. He gave it a few moments, and allowed her to collect herself. He tugged his white t-shirt off over his head, bringing it down to her thigh as he wrapped his fingers around the knife.

“Eyes on me. Eyes on me babydoll.”, he whispered quickly, bringing his hand up to her cheek. He cradled her face carefully in one hand, and roughly tugged upward on the knife, quickly tossing it to the side, “There we go. All done. All done…”

He quickly tied his t-shirt around the wound, pulling it tight to stem the blood flowing from the newly opened flesh. He quickly stood to his feet and slid his arm under her legs carefully, while his other wrapped around her back. With a groan, he picked her up and cradled her to his chest, walking toward the door.

“I’ll just grab…everything.”, Cason sighed, throwing his hand up as he received the address to the motel from Dean, “808 West Pine! That’s where she’s going!”

As he started looking around for all of their things the demons had taken from them, Duke answered back with a loud, “Got it!”

After he found everything, Cason disappeared and reappeared next to the Impala, outside of the motel. He leaned against the car, holding all of their stuff in his hands, and sighed, what had just happened would be hard to explain away, to Esme. Hopefully, she would be so distracted with this Duke character that she wouldn’t even remember any of it.