[h3] Anna, Anya and Cason [/h3]

Anya laughed silently at Natalia making it clear that Cason would likely hover around her, due to his own worry and guilt. Anya could feel it oozing off Cason, even as he flipped Anna and Nat the bird and walked over to the stove, beginning to gather things for breakfast. 

As Sam walked into the kitchen, Anna looked up at him, watching him walk to the table. Knowing Sam as well as she did, and knowing how to read every bit of his body language, Anna could tell that he was nervous about her sitting with Anya, as if she was going to air their dirty laundry to the poor girl. That was on Sam. Anna didn’t know the girl well enough to just dump a potentially upsetting tell all on her at the breakfast table.

She turned her eyes down to the table as Sam sat down and instantly checked on Anya. Anya turned and looked at him, causing Anna to lift her eyes to watch them together, only a small pang of jealousy tugging at her stomach. Anya almost seemed to be speaking to Sam with just her eyes, but then picked up the medicine bottle next to her coffee mug, rattling it side to side. She sat the bottle down and signed with one hand, “Better.”

Anna smiled softly and turned to look at Cason, who had stopped his own movements and was now watching her intently. Widening her eyes, she shot him a ‘what?!’ Look, to which Cason nodded his head to tell her to come over and help him.

“I’ll be back.” Anna sighed, standing from the table and walking over to Cason, who went back to poking at bacon in a pan, “Yes?”

“I just thought it might be awkward for you, over there. I know that look anywhere.” Cason mumbled, glancing up from the pan only briefly.

“It wasn’t that awkward.”

“Your ex…whom I could smell all over you, yesterday…is staring longingly into the eyes of a girl that looks like you, before you dyed your hair. She’s sweet. She’s innocent to the hunter life and she believes that Sam Winchester is this ‘do no wrong’, Prince Charming. You’re going to try to look me in the eyes and tell me that there’s not a single part of you who wants to sabotage that?” Cason whispered, raising his eyebrows in judgement and disbelief.

“I wouldn’t use the word sabotage…” Anna grumbled, nudging Cason, “I would say something closer to ‘heavily tempted to just come home because being here makes me miss the hunter life, but I have a home in Colorado, now…where I was dumped’.”

As Anna whispered the words, she shrugged and Cason narrowed his eyes in confusion, “How is that not potential sabotage?”

At the table, Anya was simply scanning over Sam’s face and she could see that there was a bit of tension in his shoulders, like something was hiding behind his eyes. She figured it had to be related to the hunt going horribly wrong the night before, a conversation that even Dean felt tense about.

Anya typed out a message and then turned her phone so that Sam could see it, a neutral smile on her face as she watched his face, “What about you? You seem really tense, but happy. I’m not sure what to make of that.”


[h3] Dean [/h3]

Dean watched the rest of the crew step into the kitchen, after he managed to pull his gaze away from Lexi. Without skipping much of a beat, Nat crossed the room and wrapped her arms around him. Dean smiled softly and pulled her into a tight hug, just thankful to have her near him while he could. It felt like it had been forever since he could just be the overprotective older brother that he had been so used to, by the time the girls left the bunker.

He was about to ask how she slept when Lexi chimed in, much to his surprise. Only then did it dawn on him how disheveled (and not just ‘I just woke up’ disheveled) both Nat and Cason looked. Dean narrowed his eyes as a million ways to make Natalia uncomfortable bounced around in his head, but for once, he was waiting for the right moment. Nat and Lexi were having a conversation. Nat was actually attempting to get along with Lexi, something he had wanted to beg her for, since she had arrived.

The conversation wasn’t as awkward as Dean was expecting. He wrapped one of his arms around Nat’s back, brushing his fingers up and down her spine, the way he normally would when she would curl up beside him in the bunker. It was his way of trying to encourage her to keep things light and not hostile. But things never even tried to move into hostility, other than the awkward conversation about Lexi’s life outside the bunker.

Dean sadly nodded, glancing between them as it dawned on Nat that Lexi was a lot like the rest of them. Lexi was just a hunter that Dean clicked with. She wasn’t an outsider who was a liability, or taking up space in the bunker. There was no way Nat couldn’t relate to her…

“So, I would say that you slept a bit harder than you’re admitting…judging by your hair…” Dean blurted out, looking down at Nat with a judgmental look, “Either that or we’re back in our ‘teenager that can’t keep their hands off their boyfriend’ phase.”

“It’s natural, Dean!” Cason chimed in, to which Dean rolled his eyes dramatically.

“And no one asked you…” Dean sang back to him.