[h3] Dean Winchester [/h3]

Dean couldn’t help but feel that her tears were all too familiar, and even the cause of the tears being himself wasn’t unfamiliar.  That was what he was good at, with her, and what he eventually blamed for her leaving the first time.  He pressed his lips together in a searing pang of regret and reached a hand up to whisk the tears from her cheeks with his thumb, one by one.  He then leaned forward, placing one hand around the back of her neck, and pressed his lips against her forehead with a long and shuddered sigh escaping his nose.  

“I couldn’t control anything…”, he muttered against her forehead, before pulling back and looking her in the eyes.  He peered between both her eyes, trying to drive home the fact that nothing he did was out of malice, or even…as far as he knew, romance.  But the feelings he had during the song hadn’t changed, only his willpower over them had.  His eyes sank into a pleading look, as he let his hand drop first from the back of her neck to her collar bone, and then down her arm to pick up her hand again.

“Just don’t go.  Wise or not, I don’t want to lose you again…”, he said quietly, squeezing her hands, “I’ll be there every step of the way.  We can teach the others to stay out of your way when you have moments…but don’t run away again.  It didn’t make your life easier the first time.  You just removed me from the equation…I need to um. I need to go and check on m-my car…”

It was an excuse, but it was an excuse he had used with her before, signaling that he needed to think about something he had said.  She had worked with him on controlling his anger issues, and his emotions.  They had worked that out together, and one of those coping mechanisms was simply having space…

“I’ll see you back inside, alright?”, he whispered, fighting a tear that threatened his right eye.  He gave a sad smile, and released her hands, walking across the gravel lot.

As he reached the garage, where he had parked the Impala to keep it out of the weather, he stepped in, running his fingers along the hood.  Biting his lip to keep from crying at both his own stupidity and the feelings he had repressed completely for years, he stepped up onto Baby’s bumper, and sat on the hood, cradling his head with his hands, his elbows resting on his knees.  He wasn’t even aware that Mika was in the kitchen, or that she or Nat could probably see him.


[h3] Cason [/h3]

Cason had paced around the living room, after the attack.  He was both terrified to be a sitting piece of meat for his ex-girlfriend, who was currently screeching in the basement, and aggravated at the situation with Esme.  Whatever was going on between her and Dean was not something he was prepared to get in the middle of, for fear of being killed.

He stepped up near Sam, realizing instantly that he should have gone after Esme.  His heart sank as he watched the two, but noticed Esme wasn’t exactly submissive to the idea of Dean being so close to her.  He had felt the attraction between the two from the moment they had met her, but had brushed it off as the typical ‘Winchester charm’.  This…didn’t look like a simple crush.  This was history.

Cason didn’t even realize he was holding his breath, as Dean finished the song and he noticed the tension in his shoulders.  This was completely involuntary, the singing.  None of them were going to have a choice, and it seemed like it could strike even the most reluctant of them.

“C’mon Cason…don’t fuck this up.  She needs a distraction, and you’re one hell of a distraction…”, he muttered to himself as Dean kissed Esme’s forehead, before stepping onto the porch and clapping his hands, “Everything okay out here?  That looked intense!”


Dean’s shoulders tensed as Cason’s voice rang out in the dark, not turning to him or speaking back.  He watched as Dean whispered something and stepped away from Esme, a small sigh of relief leaving his chest.  Crisis averted for now…

[h3] Annabeth [/h3]

Annabeth stopped screaming for just a second when she heard the music playing outside, through the devil's trap vent on the ceiling.  She listened closely, recognizing Dean’s voice as the music played.  She quietly wondered who he was singing to, as she didn’t hear a second voice.  

However, another searing pain hit her forehead, and she screamed out once more.  Pulling on the handcuffs that had now made deep cuts in her wrists from spinning and pulling her hands in them.

“Sam?!  Please!”, she screamed out, hoping to catch his attention and his sympathy at the same time, “LET ME OUT!”

She heard footsteps coming down the stairs, wondering if it was one of the many hallucinations she had been subjected to since he left her there.  But when she heard his voice, she sighed, her eyes still wide.

“Sam!  Sam, please…I didn’t do anything to deserve this…”, she cried out to him, leaning her head against the leg of the table, “I can come out.  I’ll stay away from Cason.  I promise.  Just…I’m seeing things.  My brain is torturing me and I’m scared…”

She let out a small sob, staring at the door of the panic room, “I don’t want to die.”

Anna rattled the handcuffs, adjusting herself to sit as close to the door as she could, even though it hurt her wrists.  She wanted to touch him, or just be near him, after everything that had happened.  She needed to touch his skin, feel his hair against her palm, anything…