[h3] Cason [/h3]

Cason raised his eyebrows and he stifled a quiet laugh as Natalia responded to his voice exactly as he had expected.  He was happy she didn’t have a gun in her hand at that moment, but as she turned and scolded him for entering the room, he raised his hands with a shrug and wide eyes, “What do you mean?  I said I was taking you out.  I can be anywhere I want, any time I want.  I chose to be here.  It’s not my fault that your spatial awareness is shit…”, he said simply, tapping his fingers on the table casually.

He straightened and frowned a bit, almost offended when she asked him what his troubles could possibly be, as if he wasn’t allowed to have feelings as a demon, “Ouch.  That’s rude.  It just so happens that a friendly Winchester squad cowboy with a washboard smuggled under his skin decided to show up and flip my entire life upside down, and now I’m stuck with you.  So, yeah.  Real problems.”

He took another drink of his whiskey, watching carefully as Nat laid out her clothes and then turned her back to him, undressing.  He raised his eyebrows, scanning over her back, and turned his eyes down to his glass, as if she could see that he was trying to be respectful.  He couldn’t help his eyes from scanning back up, tracing over the scars on her back.  As she sat down on the bed to pull her pants off, and replace them, Cason flipped over the second glass that he had brought with him, and he poured a bit of whiskey into the glass, quietly standing from the chair.  He waltzed over to her, his feet nearly silent against the carpet, and as he stepped up behind her, he leaned in close to breathe against her neck.

“Have some whiskey.  It’ll relax you a bit…you know, for the hunt.”, he whispered, brushing a few strands of her hair to the side with his nose, and a wide smile, “We need to make this look real.”

[h3] Dean Winchester [/h3]

Dean waved Sam off before Sam left the room, and turned back to Mika.  He watched her for a moment as she walked over to her bag, but after a moment, he picked his own bag up from the floor and rummaged through it for a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt.  Finding them, he stripped his pants off, tossing them over the back of one of the chairs in the room, and unfolded his jeans, slipping them on quickly.  He slowly unbuttoned his shirt as he watched Mika get ready, a lot faster than he managed to.

As she spoke up, Dean sighed, “I um…i don’t know.  I think we have as much of a shot as we ever did.  We don’t have much of a choice.  I mean, the angels seem pretty adamant about the consequences of our failure, you know?”

He pulled his jacket and white shirt off, tossing them over the chair with his pants, and pulled his t-shirt over his head.  He stepped back over to the bag and pulled a flannel, shoving his arms through it and then stepped over to his boots, stepping into them.

“What I do know, is that we’re all coming out of this safe.  Even if we fail, and we have to go at it with every angel in the universe, we’re gonna come out of this.  Just…please stay close to me.  Don’t do anything stupid, and help me keep an eye on the demon.”, he finally finished, almost grumbling as he thought of Cason just having free reign with the other girls.  He didn’t like him with Esme any more, but at least with Esme, he knew Cason would stay out of trouble.

[h3] Annabeth [/h3]

By the time Sam arrived back at the room, Anna was already dressed in a plain black sun dress, her curly hair bouncing effortlessly over her shoulders as she stepped into her boots.  When he started digging through his bag for clothing and repeated his and Dean’s paranoid orders, Anna sighed and leaned against the table.

“I promise.  If anything happens, you’ll be the first name I call.  Okay?  You don’t have to worry about me with Cason.  He’s not going to hurt me, and if I remember him the way I think I do, he won’t let me get hurt either.”, she explained softly, pasting on the convincing smile that always seemed to warm Sam up to her ideas.  She turned and glanced at the wall behind Sam, and sighed.

“He might have technically kidnapped me when I was a kid…but if he hadn’t, I would probably be dead.  Bait, or worse.  I think you can trust him.  I can’t even believe I’m saying that…”

[h3] Duke [/h3]

Duke couldn’t help the sad grimace that covered his face as Esme essentially doubled down, almost silently about her fear of him not being able to take the news she was about to lay on him.  He squared his shoulders, and nodded his head, giving her the go ahead to just tell him.  He watched her face carefully.  He nodded once more as she began speaking, and glanced down at their hands, tightening his own grip as she did. 

As she leaned into him, he furrowed his brow.  She seemed to be trying to get as close to him as possible, as if she could hold him steady and keep him from running to the door.  He simply stayed still, and let her pull herself into him, as she continued.  He raised his eyebrows with a small nod at the word ‘psychic’, taking a deep breath.  He knew a few psychics, and not all of them were bad people.  They were actually pretty helpful, depending on their brand of powers, which he had a feeling he was about to learn about Esme, “Alright.  That’s not so bad…”

But as she continued, he frowned at the story.  Part of his brain wished he could have been there as an extra set of hands during the battle.  It seemed brutal.  He brought his hand up to brush his thumb across her cheek as she broke off her words, and gripped his arm, before continuing.  He wrapped his fingers around her jaw, keeping her close to him as he sighed through his nose.  Dean had died.  Esme had been injured pretty bad.  Why hadn’t he been called about the whole thing?  At least Bobby could have called him.

But then she began to speak about her skin heating up, and her burning a demon, and as she kept describing what had happened, he realized that her psychic powers went way beyond just being able to see the future, or find someone on a map.  He took a deep breath and held it in, his heart speeding up with a bit of fear.  This was beyond anything he had ever heard of, and part of him wanted to call her a liar, and scold her for pranking him.  But judging by her body language, and the sound of her voice as she finished, this was no prank.  She could kill demons with…her mind?  But she needed provocation.  Her powers didn’t work on humans.  They didn’t work on humans.

“But you can’t hurt humans…”, he muttered suddenly, not pulling away from her.  He didn’t look down at her face for a moment, just staring off into the distance as he rolled all of the information over in his mind.  His heart hammered against his chest, and he swore she would be able to hear it, if he didn’t calm himself.

“I um…I don’t know what to say.  I mean…you’re a demon nuke.  I can’t see a downside to that, other than it has to mess with you.  If you get too mad you get super tired and stuff.”, he rationalized out loud, staring around the room randomly, before turning his eyes down to her, “What am I supposed to make of that?  If I know you, I know you’re expecting me to run, or whatever, but…I can’t do that.  I need…I need to take a short walk, if that’s okay.  I need to take a deep breath, and kind of wrap my head around everything because…I love you.  I do.  But I haven’t seen you in years and then…this is all…and…”

Duke broke off, and he leaned forward, pressing a tight kiss to Esme’s forehead, closing his eyes as he released a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding in, “ I’m not leavin’.  Don’t get that in your head, alright?  I need a drink.  I need to order pizza and get a drink, and then let’s talk about this.  I got some questions..”

Duke felt guilty stammering everything out so fast, but it was a lot for his brain to handle.  He untangled himself from Esme, and slowly stepped out of the bed, before he walked over to the dresser.  He picked up his phone, and stepped into the bathroom, to both order food and take a deep breath, closing the door behind him.