[h3] Dean Winchester [/h3]

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.”

[h3] Anna [/h3]

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.”

[h3] Cason and Duke [/h3]

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 [i]under control[/i]…”

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.