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“This is great, just fucking great. Thank you, Dean, this is exactly how I imagined dying.”
“Can you stop pacing? This is not my fault!”
Dean was tense. He was fidgeting with his gun and walking around the cabin.
“Help me get the cabin ready, we just have to make it through the night.”
“We should have left, when I told you to. I had a bad feeling about this and now we’re stuck, because of you!”
“Ok, calm down Kelly Clarkson, we can talk about what is who’s fault when we get out of here alive.”
You grabbed one of the books next to you and threw it at him.
“I hate you. I don’t even know why I keep saying yes to working these cases with you, I always get screwed.”
Dean and you had gone through the whole stack covering the desk. It had taken the whole afternoon to find the little piece of information that now kept you from leaving.
A few days earlier you parked your car in front of the Silent Cove Motel. You took a second to yourself, breathing in, breathing out, then stepping out of the car. It could only be biblical stupidity that made you come back for more every time Dean called and asked for help.
Dean Winchester pushed your buttons like no one else. He was ridiculously good looking, funny and a damn near perfect hunter. All those attributes would make the perfect man, if they weren’t combined in Dean. He added a certain something that made you want to climb a wall.
You knocked. You waited. Of course he made you wait.
“You know it’s rude to make people wait where I come from.” As soon as he opened the door, you pushed past him.
“Where I come from, it’s costume to greet a person when you see them.”
You ignored him and turned to Sam.
“Hi Sam, how are you?”
He greeted you with a weak smile.
“I would be better if we could figure out what we’re dealing with. It’s been almost two weeks and we’re not a step closer.”
“No problem boys, amateur hour is over, the expert is here now.”
Dean made a mocking face, imitating you.
“So, what are we dealing with?” You sat down on the edge of the run-down motel bed.
“Something’s in the lake, we don’t know what. Actually, we are not even sure it’s in the lake. People disappear in the woods but the whole thing is huge it took us days to comb through it. There are almost no records of the area, no recorded local history, no survivors, not even bodies.” Sam handed you a folder of the scarce information they did find.
Too much coffee and a night later you had figured it out. The lake had probably been cursed. The problem was, you had no clue about the exact nature of the curse, who had cursed it and why.
“Next time I have to check out the creepy, abandoned cabin, I’ll take Sam.”
“Stop nagging and help me!”
Dean moved from window to window, sealing them with salt. You took a spray can from your bag. Just to be prepared you had packed lots of different supplies. You joined Dean in moving around the cabin, putting protective symbols up.
You were done just in time as the last rays of sunshine disappeared behind the mountain ridge.
“Now we wait.” Dean sat at the table and so did you. The books covering the table were grimoires. After searching through them you had discovered the one where you found your answers. The cabin seemed to have been a kind of safe house for a witch some years ago. No one had been here since at least the 80s. It worked like a mouse trap, once you entered, the curse was triggered and, in the night, the lake took care of whomever had entered. You had also figured out that the curse was somehow bound to the night. The theory so far was, that by sunrise you’d be allowed to leave again. Strong emphasis on theory. It was Dean’s theory.
You looked around the room. All in all, it was a nice cabin. Dried lavender spread a nice smell, the furniture was cozy and big fireplace completed the whole look.
“Now that we’ve got some time, maybe we could talk about your temper.” Dean leaned back on his chair raising his eyebrows expectantly at you.
“My temper?” You laughed. “I don’t have a temper, maybe we could talk about your stupidity. If I’d have a dime for every time, you almost got me killed, I could retire.”
“And if I got a dime for every time I saved your sorry ass, I could buy five more Impalas.”
“Shut up. When did you ever save my life?”
“Six weeks ago, that vamp nest in Tacoma?”
“Ok, right, but you were also the one who wanted to use me as bait and put me in danger in the first place so that kind of doesn’t count.”
“Doesn’t count? I killed six guys and got you out of there mostly unharmed. I was awesome in Tacoma.”
You stood up and started pacing again.
“Doesn’t this tire you out?”
“What do you mean?”
“The fighting. Why do you keep calling me? There are so many other people you could call for help. You could have called Rowena for example. I bet she would have been a lot more useful.”
The anger had disappeared from Dean’s face.
“I call you, because you’re a hunter and Rowena is a witch. I call you because I trust you and although you are annoying as fuck most of the time, you are good at what you do.”
“What about the fighting?”
“I don’t care about the fighting. Family fights.”
You raised an eyebrow. “Family?”
Dean started fidgeting with his gun again. “Yeah, you know as in the hunter…family?”
Before you could answer, you heard a window shatter in the back of the cabin. Both of you drew your guns. Slowly you made your way into the next room, and the next. The sight that greeted you almost made you drop your gun. It resembled a human, but it was only skin and bone, looking like it had been laying in water for too long. It smelled like it too. The floor underneath the creature was wet from the lake water dripping from its long limbs.
Dean shot three silver bullets at its head. The creature tensed up and then jumped at you, revealing sharp teeth.
You barely dodged it and it crashed into the wall.
“Ok, so silver doesn’t work, salt doesn’t bother it, what’s next?” You couldn’t repress the panic in your voice. Dean was right, you were good at what you did, but what you mostly did was research, not fight.
A fight had ensued between Dean and the creature. “Start a fire! Next is fire, and hurry!”
“Fuck.” There was only a half burnt down log in the fireplace with nothing to get a fire going. Your eyes fell on the stack of grimoires.
“Fuck!” Frantically you searched your pockets for a lighter or matches or something. Nothing. You could hear the fight and Dean making a sound that send cold terror down your spine. You sprinted over to Dean’s bag. There it was. Your fingers too shaky to get the Zippo to light up.
Finally.
A spark.
A flame.
Without thinking twice, you took one of the grimoires and held it into the flames until it caught on fire. You ran back to the room Dean was fighting the creature in. Not a second to early, by the looks of it, Dean was losing. You threw the book at the creature, and it retreated.
You gave Dean a grin. “Who is saving who’s ass now?” You extended your hand to help him up.
“Did you just throw a burning book at me?” The book in question had luckily gone out in the meantime. He took a second look at it. “Did you throw a burning grimoire at me!?”
“I think what you meant to say was thank you.”
“Tell me you didn’t throw the other ones in the fire.”
“Some of them, I needed to get a fire going, there was nothing else here!”
“Did you check which ones you burned?”
“No, I didn’t fucking check, you were getting killed, I needed to do something!”
“I was handling myself!”
Dean stormed off and from the sound he made from the main room you knew, you fucked up.
“You burned the one where the spell was written down. How are we going to find out how to break it or reverse it or whatever?”
“I’m sorry, alright?”
“Fuck!” He turned to you. “Burning literally anything else would have been better, your clothes or something else!”
“I’m sorry! I wasn’t thinking, also, typical for you to say I should get rid of my clothes.”
“What the hell do you mean ‘typical’, I have never ever in my life hit on you.”
“You do seem to hit on everyone else, though.”
“Do you have a problem with that?”
“I don’t, it just makes me wonder why.”
You were both furious and somehow neither of you realized how the fight had derailed.
“Why don’t you hit on me?” You stood in the middle of the room, arms crossed in front of you.
“It kind of hurts my feelings, you know, every waitress, motel employee, everyone gets something, and I, who have been putting my ass on the line for you time and time again get nothing. I get that sometimes I make mistakes, but I do deserve a nice something from time to time!”
“You’re saying, me not hitting on you with cheap lines and superficial compliments hurt your feelings.”
Hearing him say it like that made you pause for a moment. It sounded ridiculous. But you straightened your shoulders and looked straight at him.
“Yeah, it hurt my feelings.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
“Yeah, alright, let’s not do this right now. You can let me down easy after we make it through the night, and I can leave immediately so I don’t have to keep looking at you and die of embarrassment.”
Dean opened his mouth but before he could answer, there were more sounds coming from the room the first creature had broken into. He looked around the room and landed over the dry flowers and herbs hanging over the doorframes.
“Could’ve used that for the fire.”
“God, do you ever shut up.”
Not only did the creatures back off, when they saw the flames, they also didn’t seem to like the smell of burning lavender and sage. After Dean and you had hot boxed the whole cabin you sat back at the table, exhausted. It was almost three in the morning, and you had trouble keeping your eyes open. You drifted off for some time until Dean’s voice woke you up again.
“Do you want to know why I never hit on you?” Dean couldn’t look at you.
You sat up straight. Even for Dean this was weird. You half expected him to tell you something along the lines of he didn’t do romance and he wanted to keep it professional.
“I never hit on you because I actually like you and I was afraid, if I did that you would catch on.”
“Stop fucking with me, this isn’t funny.”
Now he looked up.
“I’m not fucking with you, I’m dead serious. Why do you think I call you for help all the time? And even then, it’s just half the time I actually want to call. Most of the time I don’t have a case as an excuse, so I don’t. And the fighting? I don’t know. I tried to change my feelings about you, believe me I tried. I can’t and I guess that makes me mad sometimes. It’s frustrating to have you right in front of me, and you get on my nerves all the time when you’re reckless and I don’t know how to protect you, and I know you hunt on your own and I am not there most of the time. Maybe that’s another reason I call so often, to check on you, if you’re still alive and if you hunt with us, at least I can keep an eye on you.”
You stared at him. “I really thought you just didn’t like me.”
Dean stood up. “Because your fucking dense sometimes.” He walked over to you until he was right in front of you. “We both know the life. This is probably a bad idea.”
“It probably is.” You could hear the words come out of your mouth, but you didn’t believe a single one.
“I don’t care.” He was barely whispering. Dean cupped your face with his hands pulling you in. His lips hovered over yours, his eyes wandering over your face. The electricity and anticipation were killing you. And you didn’t want to be the first to give in, but the pull was too strong. You closed the distance between you two and it was like something in Dean’s head disconnected. He moved one hand to your neck pulling you even closer, deepening the kiss, which was getting more and more heated by the second. You grabbed his shirt. For a good few seconds, you forgot where you were. The only thing on your mind was Dean, his smell mixed with burning lavender, how his lips felt, his grip holding you tight.
The sound of the front door crashing open made you jump apart. The faint sunrise shone through the trees.
Sam raised an eyebrow. “You guys ok?” He turned to Dean. “I got your message about the spell. I called Rowena.”
Rowena followed him into the cabin. Immediately she made a face. “Nasty spell. Do you have the grimoire? I need to look at the original spell.”
“Sadly, we don’t.” Dean shot you a look. “Because someone didn’t use their brain and burned it.”
“Are you serious? I saved your ass!” You threw your hands in the air.
Rowena let out a sight. “Stop fighting, children. It’ll take a bit longer, but I can make it work. But I need some privacy to concentrate, so, shush!” She made a gesture for you to leave the cabin.
In the fresh morning light, the lake house looked so peaceful. A white frosty layer covered the grass.
“So, what happened?” Sam let his gaze wander over the lake.
You told him about the grimoires, the creatures and how you managed to ward them off.
“Anything else?” Sam shot you and Dean an amused look.
Dean shook his head. “Nope.”
Sam raised his eyebrows at you.
You shook your head as well. “No, nothing, except for this one being a massive pain in the ass as always.” You pointed at Dean.
Shortly after, Rowena left the cabin. “You should be good now.”
Back at the motel, Rowena had taken off and Sam was busy inside gathering their things.
Dean and you stood in the parking lot.
“Call me next time you need help.” You gave him a smile.
“Can I call you even if we don’t have a case?”
“As I said, call me when you need help, didn’t say anything about a case.”
You were ready to turn around and get into your car when Dean grabbed your arm.
“Wait.” A smirk worked its way onto his face. “Where I come from, we say goodbye to people.”
Before you could respond with a snarky comment, Dean had wrapped his hand around your waist pulling you into a kiss. Your body melted into his touch. “You can call me for this too, just to be clear.” You whispered between kisses against his lips.
“Will do.”