Forever, Always, and Right Now

Note: Bad day? Bad week? iIfeel ya. But hey, it's saturday (technically). I figured after posting so late in the day for the past three or four weeks in a row, it was about time I post one in the ungodly hours of saturday morning again, nice and early.


So, here's your one a.m. chapter. I cannot stress how much I appreciate all of you-- you're always so supportive when I'm late/when I fall short, and it means so much to me ๐Ÿ’œ This week, the chapter is nice and long-- last week was awfully short, I know. Hopefully that's a bonus for you guys. If you hate long chapters... sorry.


This chapter actually fills two requests. Supreme_Doritos (a username which instills fear in me with its perfection) wanted to see Kate get wrapped up in a hunt and the Winchesters get her out of it. They requested this forever ago, and I'm just now posting it. Hope it's worth the wait ;)


The second request was more informal-- Musicpotterhead (who I happen to think is incredible) was musing in the comments of "my friend who is a boy" about how the boys would really have reacted to Anna's first date. It focuses much more on Dean's than Sam's as that's just how the chapter turned out. Hope you like it, mon amie ๐Ÿ’œ


Anna is sixteen (as is Kate, in case you're curious).




Forever, Always, and Right Now


"I demolished that history test is all I'm saying."


Kate smiled and rolled her eyes and shifted her backpack on her shoulders as she walked beside Anna. "I'm very happy for you," she said. "But I'm not celebrating by ditching class."


"Why not? It's our thing. We're good at it."


"I have a math test."


Anna made a face, but they did usually try not to miss tests and stuff when they skipped class, unless the reason they were ditching was to miss a test. They were strategic like that. So she understood why Kate didn't want to go today. She narrowly missed bumping into a tall, thin kid as they turned the corner toward the math hallway. Anna had this block free, but Kate didn't. "Well, we should hang out or something after school then. Just for, like, an hour."


"That I can do."


"Cool, I'll ask Dean." She pulled out her phone to do just that and deflated when she saw his text telling her they'd found a hunt and were leaving town. To make things better, he'd said the hunt was closeby and they'd still be coming back to the bunker every night. But to make things colossally worse, he'd told her to take the bus. "Nevermind. I won't ask Dean," she sighed and put her phone in her pocket.


"What?" Kate asked, catching the change in Anna's mood easily. "You look like you just started your period."


"You saying I have acne, or that I look miserable?"


"Miserable," Kate snorted. "If you had acne, I wouldn't point it out. I'm not a total jerk."


Anna had to acknowledge that with a nod. Kate was nice enough to point out anything that would make her feel self-conscious unless it was something that could be fixed in just a few quick seconds. Acne did not fall into that category. "The boys just left."


"I should've guessed that," Kate murmured. "That's literally the only reason your face ever falls like that when you check your phone."


"Did your mom drop you off today?"


"No, I drove. She got called into work early. An appointment moved up. Why?"


"We could still hang out after school, if you wanna drive me home after."


"I'm not technically supposed to drive other people for another month or so," Kate said, but she shrugged, seeming like she genuinely didn't care. "But whatever. Who's gonna know."


Anna's eyebrows popped up in surprise. She'd been expecting an anxious reply about how she wasn't supposed to. She was expecting to have to resign herself to taking the bus. Kate had a guilt complex a mile wide, had since the day Anna met her. And it had only gotten worse since her parents split up for good last year. "Are you serious?"


"Sure. I don't care. It's only, like, a month. And I'm not a terrible driver, right? What could possibly happen?"


Anna shrugged one shoulder. "I mean, yeah, that's my take too, but I totally thought you were about to say no."


Kate shrugged and pulled her own phone out of her pocket. "I'm sick of following every rule to the T all the time. I'm not gonna lie, my conscience is crying a little, but..." Anna smiled at the admission and the way Kate had phrased it. "Whatever. Nothing's gonna happen."


They got to Kate's classroom and stood outside the door while other people filed in and out of classrooms around them in handfuls.


"Whatever will you do with your free block now?" Kate asked cynically.


"I don't know," Anna said dejectedly. "I followed Ethan to his Creative Writing class yesterday, and his teacher didn't say anything. But, like, it feels a little weird to go to a class when you don't have to. Nerdy."


"Creative Writing is fun, though. You so should've taken it." The second bell rang above their heads, and Kate sidled toward the classroom door. "Go sit in on it again."


Anna shrugged and sighed. She had nothing better to do, but it was gonna be even weirder than it had been the first time if she walked into a class she didn't belong in five minutes late. She figured instead that she would just find someplace to sit and spend the period practicing what she'd learned yesterday.


She was surprised when she turned around to find a boy with ruffled sandy brown hair and gray-blue eyes standing a few feet away and looking right at her. He looked vaguely familiar in the way that most kids at the school did. Like she'd seen him around but never learned his name. She smiled politely at him and started down the hallway, but when she would've passed him, he said, "Anna," like he wanted her attention. She was surprised that he even knew her name, but she suppressed all the hunter warning bells in her head. She was at school in Lebanon. This was just a kid who'd probably shared a class with her last year or something.


"I know you from somewhere?" she asked a little guardedly, hooking her thumbs in the bottoms of her backpack straps.


"Probably not," the kid admitted, then swallowed. He was shifting his feet back and forth, trying to smile at her, but his eyes kept shying toward the floor. He was nervous, Anna realized. Who the hell got nervous talking to her? She had to be one of the least intimidating people on the planet. She was sixteen and had freckles, for Pete's sake. "I'm Ian," he said. His hand twitched like he was going to offer it to her to shake but thought better of it. "I... I've just, like, seen you around, you know?"


"Sure," Anna said. "I mean, we go to the same school. I've probably seen you too."


Ian chuckled awkwardly. "Yeah. Right. Anyway, I wanted to introduce myself. I think you're... you know, really... pretty and, like, smart and funny." He looked up at her as if to gauge her reaction.


It was the last thing Anna had been expecting, but her heart suddenly started to pound. Was he doing what she thought he was doing? It definitely explained why he was acting all nervous and awkward, but... she'd never been formally asked out before... well, not really. She'd been hit on. And cat-called. Perks of being a woman, she thought sarcastically. But this was different. It made her feel... good? The same question from earlier niggled at her, though. Why her? Why was he asking her out, and more significantly, why was he nervous about it? She was no one.


Anna could feel her own face tingeing pink. "Thanks," she said shyly. Her thumbs curled more tightly around the straps of her backpack, and the toes of her Converse sneakers turned inward nervously.


"I was wondering if you'd want to, like, go out with me? On a date? This weekend?"


He'd gotten the words out, and now it was her turn. Anna's mouth still fell open just a little at the question. There was still a part of her that was in disbelief. She knew, on some level, that she was sort of attractive. After all, she got hit on and cat-called more and more the older she got. But, again, there was just something different about this. He hadn't just called her pretty. He'd called her smart. And funny. It was those parts of what he'd said that made her smile widen.


"Sure," she said.


Ian's whole face brightened. "Sure?" he repeated.


"Sure," Anna said again.


"Wow. Wow. Cool," Ian said again, nodding awkwardly. "Uh, thanks."


Anna laughed out loud at that. "You're welcome," she told him humorously. He started to back away, still smiling. "You want my phone number, Sport?" she asked. "So we can actually follow through on this thing?"


Ian stumbled and then stepped back toward her again. "Right. Yeah. Of course. Sorry."


Anna smirked and pulled out her phone. "Here," she said. "Put your number in. I'll text you."


"Okay," Ian said. Their hands brushed together as she passed him the phone. Both of their fingers were cold and clammy. It was gross and awkward, and Anna still felt on top of the world at the simple brush of skin on skin. Ian fumbled a little putting in his number, making it take a little longer than it would have if he hadn't been so nervous. "There," he said and handed the phone back.


Anna typed in a quick message, her wit and sarcasm returning as the initial nerves of their exchange began to fade a little.


Ian read the message and grinned again. He ran his fingers through his hair, which ruffled it further. "I'll text you later," he said, sounding so ecstatic that Anna knew he wasn't lying. She just smiled, watching him go. The second he'd turned the corner out of the hallway she turned on her heel and made a whaaaat?!!! face for just herself. The shock and excitement faded slowly into a casual, confident smile, and she walked coolly down the hallway toward the English department. She was tempted to run right into Kate's math class and start squealing like a moron, but there was a test happening, and anyway, she had a bigger problem.


She hit the back arrow on her phone and scrolled to her convo with the boys. The last message was still that text from Dean and her simple reply of aight. She should probably tell them she'd just been asked out, but she wasn't sure how they'd respond. She was sixteen now, and they'd been telling her forever that she could date when she was sixteen. So, they had to let her go. And she didn't doubt that they would. What she did doubt, though, was that Ian would still have the nerve to so much as hold her hand the second he met eyes with an overprotective Dean or Sam Winchester.


She stopped walking just before the end of the math hallway, hesitating. She didn't want to see that happen, but she knew what the right thing to do was. And the worst that could happen was that Ian turned tail and ran. He would have to meet the boys sooner or later if this date was going to turn into anything anyway. She might just as well get it over with.


you guys busy? she typed and hit send.


Instead of going to the English hallway like she'd planned, she just left the school building and decided to sit on one of the benches out front. There were a couple of other kids on the school's lawn, laying in the grass and studying or talking. Two boys on the far side of the lawn were throwing things at each other and arguing about who knew what.


Just as she'd expected, her phone buzzed with an answering text before she was even fully through the front doors. Sam, asking What's wrong?


nothing i was just gonna call, she replied. She didn't want to make it sound like something was wrong, but she wanted to have an actual conversation via call. Usually, she was a texter no matter what the situation, though, so she wasn't surprised when her worry-wart brother had her phone ringing in the next second. She rolled her eyes and answered the phone as she sat on her feet on a faded wooden bench.


"Dude, you're like Speedy Gonzalez."


"Ha ha. Why did you want to call in the middle of the school day?" Sam asked.


"You better not be in the headmaster's office again."


"Hi, Dean. I actually have good news. So, I resent the pessimism."


"Smells fishy."


"If it's such good news, why couldn't it wait until tonight?"


"I didn't know what time you'd be home tonight. And I'm excited. Shut up. Don't you want to know what it is?"


"Yes, Rugrat. Share the big news," Dean said, and she could hear the smile in his voice.


She got the feeling that this was one of those moments where he was smiling down at her. Like she was still a kid. He did it whenever she got excited or started rambling nonstop or couldn't reach the top shelf or said something naive. He would smile, and there would just be something about it that said he thought she was being cute. And it always annoyed the crap out of her. But now she had other things to think about, so she let it slide without remark.


Here goes nothing, she thought. "I have a date this weekend."


The dead silence on the other end of the line left her caught somewhere between amused and nervous. They couldn't say no anymore... but at the same time, they kind of could? But she knew they wouldn't... but they weren't saying anything at all at the moment, so maybe they would?


"So... no one's gonna say anything?" she asked. Her hand moved toward her mouth, but she stopped herself from biting her nails, looking around herself self-consciously. There were a lot of other kids around, and she didn't want to look childish or gross. She shoved her hand in her hoodie pocket where it couldn't embarrass her.


"Can you repeat that?"


Anna sighed, her embarrassing bad habit forgotten. She knew her brother had heard her, and she'd been hoping to avoid any actual argument about this. "Dean, come on," she complained.


"I just want to make sure I heard you right," came the defensive reply.


"We both know you heard me right, but fine. I said, I have a date this weekend."


It was quiet again for a second.


"With a boy?" Dean asked. He sounded like he was still trying to wrap his mind around the whole thing.


It made Anna want to punch him, but unfortunately he wasn't within her reach. So she answered verbally, and let her tone communicate how irritated she was. "Yes, with a boy."


"What boy?"


This, she'd been expecting. But this was also where things could get trickier. "His name is Ian."


There was a pause. This time it was Sam's voice that came through the phone. "You've never mentioned an Ian before, Ladybug."


Anna took a measured breath, braced herself. "That's because I just met him." There was another pause, and it felt even worse than the first one had. She didn't let it drag on. It was too unbearable. "But he's super sweet," she insisted. She stopped herself from saying and cute, because that would only earn her a feigned gag or an eyeroll-- not that she would be able to see either one of those things actually play out since this was a phone call rather than an in-person conversation.


"Am I crazy, or did you say you just met this guy?"


"He goes to Leb. I've seen him around."


"Anna, did you just meet him?"


"Yes," she admitted for the second time. "But he's nice." There was yet one more pause.


"You realize he could be anybody. Hell, he could be a demon."


Her face took on a hurt look. "Am I that hideous that no normal kid could possibly just want to go out with me?"


"That's not what he meant, Anna, come on."


"I'm just sayin' it could be dangerous to just jump on board and trust this guy you've never met."


Anna felt ganged up on. She huffed out a frustrated breath and rolled her eyes up to the sky, trying to force herself to stay patient. "He's, like, sixteen."


"So?"


"So, he's not a frickin' axe-murderer."


"You don't know that."


"Dean." Anna was grateful for the slight bit of rationality and wasn't surprised that it was coming from Sam. But she was disappointed by his next remark. "Why don't we talk about this tonight." Anna made a frustrated sound. "What?" Sam asked like he couldn't think of a single reason she might be annoyed with that idea.


"You're making it a thing," she complained.


"Anna."


"Fine," she grumbled. "We'll talk about it tonight," she said, imitating his voice inaccurately on the last four words. She rolled her eyes even as she spoke, though. She still thought it was stupid that this had to be such a big deal. She was about ninety percent sure that no other kid had to put up with this level of bullshit when they went on their first date. Then again, though, she didn't really know.


"Try and stay outta trouble for the rest of the day, will you?"


Anna bristled a little at the insinuation that she'd done any trouble-making today. It wasn't trouble to be asked out on a date, nor was it trouble to accept said invitation. "I don't even know what trouble means," she said, using her best saintly voice.


Dean gave her a dry laugh and hung up.


Anna sighed, staring down at her phone in her lap. She knew they didn't intend anything but the best... but that one phone call had taken her from ecstatic to tired.


()()()


It was almost midnight already. Anna tucked her hands into the ends of her sweater sleeves and curled up in the armchair in the map room. From here, she would know the minute the boys walked through the door. But it was also super cozy. She had her headphones in even though she was the only one in the bunker. She'd just always felt there was something more intimate about listening to music with headphones in. It meant the songs were just for her. It meant she could feel them somewhere deeper. Tonight's hit? Stay Away From My Friends. She'd been playing it on repeat for days, intermingling it with only a few other Pierce the Veil songs. It was her anthem for the time being. In a couple days, she would undoubtedly find a new song to blare over and over.


She leaned her head to the side so it was resting against the chair back and curled her feet up so her toes were against the armrest, her knees bent up, and she let Vic Fuentes sing to her for well over an hour until the ins and outs of it lulled her to sleep.


The bunker door didn't swing open until after three in the morning, and by that point, Anna was out cold, turned toward the chair's backrest, her headphones still in her ears as her song played for what had to be the fiftieth time that night.


Anna blinked sluggishly awake to a gentle hand on her head. When she was alert enough to register her surroundings, she realized she was looking at equally gentle eyes. "Hey," she murmured, moving one hand up to tug her earbuds out with one yank. Her other hand curled more tightly around her phone, still in her lap, and she pressed one finger against the lower-volume button until there the indistinct sound of metal music blaring in her headphones was no longer audible.


"Hey," Sam replied softly, crouched beside the chair so he was at eye level with her. "You didn't have to wait up. We told you we'd be home late."


"I thought late meant one, not-" She hit the power button on her phone and her lock screen came to life. Anna squinted at the brightness of it and read the time. "Almost three-thirty. Dude. You shoulda just slept in Mankato."


"If we'd slept in Mankato, you'd have slept in the armchair all night."


Anna unfurled herself and dropped her feet to the floor. "Must've been a hell of a lead."


"Actually, we've got squat. We had to break into the courthouse to get some files, and then a call came in on the police radio saying they found another body when we were halfway home, so we had to go back."


Anna wrinkled her nose. Sounded like their night had sucked total ass. She was too tired to offer any helpful feedback, though.


"Exactly," Sam said at the look on her face.


Anna looked around, tired, but feeling more awake now that she'd spoken to an actual human being. "Where's Dean?" she asked.


Sam smirked. "He had to pee."


Anna made a face. "It's a twenty minute drive."


"Which is why he didn't go before we left."


Anna shook her head at Dean even though he wasn't in the room. And he thought she made bad decisions. She yawned widely, and Sam stood up and took her arm to pull her to her feet. Anna barely caught her phone before it would have hit the floor.


"Go to bed, alright? No coffee and Rick and Morty just because you're awake now."


Anna pursed her lips at that. It was totally something she would do. And it had even crossed her mind. But she hadn't been intending to do it. "I wasn't going to."


"Good," Sam said, no remorse in his voice or his face. He hugged her briefly but tightly and gave her a kiss on the forehead. It felt like the kind of hug that said he was glad this day was over and he frickin' needed the hug. "'Night, Anna," he told her.


She murmured back a sleep, "'Night," and squeezed him back before she stumbled off to bed. She thought about watching an episode of Rick and Morty solely because she'd been warned not to. But there would have been no point, and she was tired. So she set her phone on the nightstand, unplugged the headphones from it, and played Stay Away From My Friends on low volume.


It made an even better lullaby when it was so quiet.


()()()


"Why?"


"Because this hunt is taking longer than expected, and we probably won't be here Friday night. Not at seven o'clock anyway."


"So what?" Anna grouched.


"So..." Dean scoffed. "If you think I'm gonna let you spend an hour with this little twit without talking to him about a few things first, Rugrat, I hate to disappoint you."


It was exactly what she'd feared. Anna moved her coffee out of the way, crossed her arms on the table in front of her, and let her forehead hit her forearms. She was going to be single forever.


"What?" Sam asked, sitting across from her with his own cup of coffee and bags under his eyes. None of them had gotten enough sleep last night, but the boys had both gotten only three hours whereas Anna had snagged a couple more in that armchair before they'd gotten home.


Still, her temper was shorter than theirs were, and she was already getting irritated. "What do you mean what? You guys are gonna stand there looking tall and angry, and he's gonna chicken out, and I'm gonna be alone forever."


Sam snorted. "That's a little dramatic," he said, then got that little smirk Anna hated. He was about to make a not-funny joke. "You'll have us."


She made an unimpressed face at the brother in front of her and then caught the other one smiling and glared at him too. "You're hilarious," she deadpanned. "But if you scare my date off, I'm gonna start climbing out my bedroom window at night instead of telling you when someone asks me out."


Dean slid a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon in front of her and said, "That would be such a scary threat if you had a window in your bedroom, Anna."


"And the front door is louder than that band you keep trying to make me listen to," Sam added.


Anna's pout only grew. They were right. There were no good escape routes. Well, there was the garage.


"Don't worry, Rugrat, I'll be sure and put a baby monitor by the garage door too. No stone unturned."


The words 'baby monitor' made her expression sour even though she knew he wouldn't put an actual baby monitor in the garage. But he would probably do some clever mechanical shit like make an alarm system or make the hinges squeak or something. Whatever he did, the garage wouldn't be a valid escape route. Her shoulders fell. It was only logical that if she'd thought of a solution, her crazy smart brothers would have thought of it first. But for real. She was going to be forever alone.


"He's kidding," Sam told her, shooting Dean a disapproving look. "We'll both be very nice to your date when we meet him."


Anna didn't think for a second that the boys had to try in order to be intimidating. But if they were trying extra hard to be nice-- or if at least one of them was, since she knew Sam had it in him but wasn't so sure that Dean did-- maybe Ian wouldn't run away with his tail tucked between his legs.


"Two weeks from now," she sighed, knowing that was where this was going. It was the very remark that had started their miniature argument. They'd told her they wanted her to postpone the date by two weeks.


"Knew you'd come around," Dean said with a winning smile. He reached over and ruffled her hair, another move Anna didn't appreciate. These guys made her feel like a toddler some days.


She pulled her phone out of her pocket and texted Ian. Fortunately, they'd talked a little more last night, so she didn't feel totally weird about messaging him to say they needed to wait a couple weeks and could talk more in the meantime to get to know each other a little. The little notification that he'd seen her message popped up almost immediately. He sent a sad face. But it was quickly followed by an acquiescence. Anna felt a little guilty and a little surprised. Every time he did something like this-- like agreeing to wait even two weeks for her--, something that indicated he had a genuine interest in her, it surprised her. She still didn't understand what he saw in her. But she wanted to know. And she wanted to keep feeling this feeling that she got whenever he said he liked her-- or did something that said he liked her. So she wanted to go on this date.


"Put your phone away and eat something."


Anna rolled her eyes, but they did need to leave soon so they could drop her off at school and return to their hunt in Mankato, so she set her phone face-down on the table and picked up her fork.


()()()


Friday night saw Anna and Kate hanging out at the bunker as usual instead of Anna having her big first date. The boys were still hunting in Mankato, and last night had finally caved and gotten a motel room and stayed the night. Things were taking that long. Yesterday, though, they'd also finally pinned down what it was they were hunting-- a shifter... and suddenly the run-around they'd been getting for five days made sense. Shifters were tricky sons-of-bitches.


The news had left Anna a little jittery. She knew shifters could be dangerous-- not that there was anything they hunted that wasn't dangerous-- and it made her itch to know what was happening with the boys. It made her wish she could be there. Which was precisely what she'd said over the phone last night that had made Dean tell her to invite Kate over to keep her distracted.


Hence, the sleepover. Anna tossed her backpack to the floor beside the table in the map room and gestured for Kate to do the same. Kate had taken her shoes off by the door, because she was polite like that, so Anna's footsteps were the only audible ones as they moved through the doorway into the kitchen.


"You want food?" she offered. "I think there's pizza in the fridge. And we always have mac n' cheese."


"Ooh," Kate reacted. "Mac n' cheese sounds good right now."


"And we don't buy that off-brand shit," Anna pointed out. She casually planted her palms on the counter and hopped up to kneel on top of it. She couldn't reach the cupboards otherwise. She opened the door and tossed Kate a box of Kraft, which rattled unsubtly as it sailed downward.


"That 'off-brand shit' is creamy and delicious."


Anna looked over her shoulder at Kate with disapproval and climbed back off the counter. "Kate, that is objectively the most garbage opinion to ever exist, and I'm not changing my mind."


Kate laughed aloud at Anna's delivery more so than the comment itself. "What's objective about that?"


Anna snatched the kraft box back out of her friend's hands. "It's Kraft. It's the mac n' cheese brand. It's got history on its side."


"That sounds like you're misquoting Hamilton. Can you just make the mac n' cheese, please?"


"Yes, but you have to admit it's better."


"Annaaaaa." Kate groaned, her eyes displaying some combination of amusement and exasperation.


There was a quiet clink as Anna set a pan half-full of water on the stove. The burner made a clicking sound before starting with a soft whoosh, and a little blue flame appeared under the pan. Anna turned to look at Kate, and was surprised to see her friend looking over her shoulder toward the war room where they'd just come from. Stranger yet was the look on her face. Kate looked confused and... a little scared, maybe?


"What?" she asked, keeping her voice low without really making the conscious choice to do so. Maybe it was a hunter's instinct-- one of the few she had-- or maybe it was just something in Kate's eyes that made her own vocal cords seize with fear.


Kate's voice came back so soft she barely did more than exhale each word. "You didn't hear that?"


It was exactly the kind of answer she'd feared. Anna reached back behind her to the stove and turned the burner off. She signalled with her hands for Kate to get to move toward the library even as she listened intently, trying to hear whatever it was that Kate had heard.


If there was someone or something in the bunker with them that shouldn't be, she had one advantage to rely on, and that was her knowledge of the bunker's layout-- and of where all the weapons were hidden.


When Kate didn't move, she realized that her friend wouldn't understand hand signals without having been trained to use them like she had been. Anna could have slapped herself. But she wasn't going to talk anymore. She needed to get her hands on a weapon before she invited whoever or whatever was in the bunker into any kind of confrontation, especially since she had Kate with her.


Anna knew how to defend herself. But protecting other people raised the stakes by a lot, and it required a whole different set of moves that were considered the right ones. If Kate weren't with her, she would have already bolted for the library and gotten a gun from under the table in there before making a break for the garage. She'd have tried to get the hell out of the bunker without any confrontation at all. Now... priority was to make sure Kate got out alive, and a quick, stealthy get-away was out of the question since Kate wasn't a hunter and wasn't trained to be quiet or know the nearest, safest exit or grab a hidden weapon so she could shoot something if she needed to.


As it were, she couldn't wait to get to the library before getting her hands on a weapon, but the kitchen table was closer to the war room than the library, so she eased a knife out of the sink where it lay dirty-- it had been used to chop onions several days ago, and Anna thought smugly that maybe it would sting a little worse to whatever was intruding on their Friday night. She nodded toward the library, looking Kate in the eyes, and the message was received this time. Anna waited until Kate was almost there-- thankfully, she was moving soundlessly since she was only wearing socks and being careful not to bump into anything-- and started backing up, careful to balance her weight and not make a sound, toward the same doorway. She had her knife held so that she could throw it if anything came around the corner.


But they had another problem. Anna hadn't heard anything to indicate where the intruder could be. If they were in the library instead of the war room? She needed to visually sweep the library before they actually entered-- a big room like that with a ton of hiding places... even if she didn't see anything, they would have to move fast and low from there to the hallway where all the bedrooms were. Anna would shove Kate in the nearest one with a gun, a quick lesson on how to use it, and orders to deadbolt the door before coming back out to face the shifter.


But they had to get there first. And to get there, she had to check the library. And to check the library, she would have to turn her back on the war room and the kitchen. She snatched Kate's sleeve before her friend could step into the library. If she'd been with Claire or somebody else who understood her hand signals, it would have been easy to silently communicate that she needed Kate to watch her six while she determined the next room was clear.


But as it were... Anna decided she had to just take a risk-- it was better than giving away their location by speaking. She turned quickly around and scanned the library, knife ready to leave her hand in a second if it needed to, and then she heard a sound from behind her. She was facing the kitchen again in a flash, stepping in front of Kate.


Across the kitchen, a guy who was Sam's height but much bulkier smiled widely at her and tilted his head.ย  "Now it isn't too hard to guess which one of you is the Winchester." He narrowed his eyes at Anna predatorially. "You look just like your brother."


He smiled again, and before their eyes, his shape changed. Anna's heart began to race at the sight of short hair, green eyes, and faded jeans.


"And now so do I."


This wasn't just any monster. It was the shapeshifter the boys were after.


Anna pushed Kate behind her. "Run," she said. "My room, and lock the door." She could feel Kate's hesitation, especially as the shifter started toward her, looking pissed. "Now!" she yelled. She'd never spoken like that to Kate, and it was enough to send her friend running.


Anna turned back to the shifter, plan fucked, and felt her heart skip a beat. She knew it wasn't Dean. She did. She'd just watched it change shape in front of her. But throwing a knife into her brother's heart...


She grit her teeth and told herself to just do it. She imagined the knife burrowing itself in the thing's shoulder.


But the knife wouldn't hurt this bastard anyway. It wasn't made of silver. None of the guns or knives in their immediate proximity were.


She had to get to Dean's room or the garage if she wanted silver. But a distraction would help.


Her decision was made too late, and Anna found herself on her back on the floor, head throbbing, the ceiling blurry above her. She brought up the arm with the knife, but the shifter predicted the move-- probably because it knew her like Dean knew her-- and blocked her.


"Sorry, Rugrat," It said teasingly, leaning down in her face, way too close for comfort. The nickname sounded wrong coming out of its mouth. This thing may have looked like Dean, but it wasn't similar in any other respect. Its fingers moved to her knife-wielding hand, and a sharp pain at the base of her thumb made her release her grip on it. The shifter smiled menacingly down at her. "But I thought, what better way to win a fight with Sam and Dean Winchester-" Its breath on her face made Anna shiver, "-than to take something they can't do without?" Its smile widened, and it laughed in her face. Anna felt her stomach tighten in fear. "And you know what?" the shifter goaded. "They made it so easy for me. Led me right to their cleverly hidden little home and their pretty little sister."


Anna heard the metallic scrape of the knife against the ground as the shifter picked it up, and she wondered with a pang of heart-stopping panic whether this thing was about to kill her. Would the boys come home to find her dead? Would Kate step out of Anna's room in an hour, shaking with fear, and find her best friend with her eyes glazed over, lying in a puddle of her own blood?


"Let's make this quick anyway," the thing said, straightening its spine. Anna felt like she could breathe again now that there was space. But her breath was stolen again when the blade poked against the skin of her cheek. "Can't have your little friend running off and alerting the cavalry, now can we?"


The blade slid down her cheek, and Anna gasped at the stinging cut it left. It couldn't be very long or even very deep, but she felt blood trickle down the side of her face and watched the shifter smile with Dean's mouth. It sent a shiver down her spine as her mind conjured up old images of hammers stuck in stone walls and green eyes blurring into black.


The shifter chuckled low, sounding so much like Dean that it made Anna shiver a second time. She tried to bring her knee up and hit it somewhere that would count, but she couldn't move. It had her pinned. And it was about to go after Kate. And the nearest weapon she could think of that would do anything to hurt a shifter was in Dean's room-- she knew for a fact that there was a case of silver bullets on the desk by his wall of displayed firearms. She'd seen them just last night when she sat on his bed with him while he walked her through disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling some of the guns she'd only held and worked with a couple times. She had to get there, and she had to get to Kate, and she didn't feel confident that she could do either of those things when she couldn't even freaking move.


All thoughts were cut off when the blade slammed home in her shoulder, and Anna let out a short but loud scream. Her ears rang, the blood drained from her face, and her vision went white. She came back to herself to find her chest heaving and her ears buzzing. The fingers of her right hand crawled toward the knife buried in her left shoulder. The pain kicked her into a sitting position, and she gripped her shoulder tighter around the blade. She wanted to pull it. Everything in her screamed that she should pull it. But there was Sam's voice in her head, a memory from a day he gave her a crash course in field medicine-- I can tell you from experience anybody with a knife in their gut is gonna want it out ASAP. But if you pull the knife, they bleed out, so you can't pull it until you have everything you need to stitch the wound up. If it's really bad, you don't pull it at all. You get them to the hospital. Anna eased her right hand away from the wound and looked around, trying to wrap her mind around the panic in her stomach. What was she supposed to be doing? But the kitchen was empty.


The kitchen was empty. No shifter. No Kate. Anna scrambled forward and surged to her feet so quickly that she stumbled forward until her hip hit the counter and had to grab her shoulder around the handle of the knife again to stabilize the wound. There was blood dribbling around the knife, but she knew the trickle would become a stream if she jostled it too much more. Not to mention there was a dull burn deep in her shoulder, but it was mostly numb, and any more movement to the knife could change that. Anna couldn't afford to be immobilized. Not when she was the only hope Kate had of getting out alive. Well, not only.


The thought had Anna's hand digging into the deep pocket of her sweatpants. She was already moving toward the kitchen doorway as she held the phone to her ear and let it ring. There was an eerie quiet to the bunker that made it feel like anything but home, and the feeling was exacerbated when Anna looked down at her feet to see the toe of her OSIRIS sneaker coated by her own blood which had formed a tiny puddle on the floor, about the size of a nickel.


On the second ring, Dean picked up. "He-"


She didn't even let him finish before she started speaking, trying to keep her voice low even as she spoke fast and fearful. "I dunno what happened, but your shifter's at the bunker. He just popped up outta freakin' nowhere, and I tried to fight it off, but now there's a knife in my shoulder, and it hurts, and I told Kate to run, but it went to find her, and I-"


"Woah woah woah," Dean soothed, effectively cutting off Anna's rambling. She'd tripped over her words so severely that most of what she'd said probably hadn't even been comprehensible. "One more time. Slower. Take a deep breath."


Letting his voice ground her, Anna breathed in through her nose and released it. "The shifter is in the bunker," she repeated, speaking more slowly this time. "I think it has Kate."


She could hear her own panic in her voice, and Dean's instinctive, "Alright. It's okay," that was meant to calm her down didn't surprise her in the least. But it wasn't helpful either. Nothing was okay. Anna heard the Impala's engine roar to life, heard the vague sound of Sam's voice but couldn't make out what he was saying. They were on their way. That was all she needed to know. "Where are you?"


"I'm in the kitchen, I- I have to get to your room. I need silver. But I told Kate to go to my room, and the shifter's probably down there with her."


"Okay, take another deep breath." Anna did as she was told. "Listen to me, you're not goin' anywhere near that thing without a decent weapon. Get the gun from under the table, so you at least have something to slow it down with if you see it."


Anna moved toward the table, but she couldn't hold the phone and grab the gun at the same time since she was working one-handed. "Okay, but one more question."


"What?"


"I know I should know, but my brain is all foggy and I just, like... how do I stabilize a knife so I don't make everything worse when I go to all blam blam on this bitch."


"What are you talkin' about, a knife?"


"I told you, Dean, there's a knife in my shoulder."


"You didn't tell me that."


She had too, but that was so beside the point. Just thinking so much about the wound in her shoulder made it hurt ten times worse, and she didn't have time for that. "Nevermind, I gotta get to K-"


"Don't you dare hang up on me," Dean snapped at her. She didn't take it too personally, though it did make her freeze. That was a tone she didn't argue with, even on her worst days. "Where's the knife?"


"Shoulder," Anna mumbled, feeling small but also still shaky with fear. She had to get to Kate. What if the shifter was about to kill her friend? What if it had already hurt her? What if it had already killed her? Anna felt so nauseous and light-headed at that thought that she found herself on her knees on the kitchen floor, knees inches from her little puddle of blood.


"Okay, that's good," Dean said, sounding genuinely relieved. "That's not too dangerous. You're gonna be shootin' one-handed, though. You're not moving that arm. Understood?"


"Yes," Anna said tersely. "Can I go find my friend now before she gets murdered by your doppelganger?"


"Hang on," Dean demanded, somehow sounding equal parts gentle and stern. "You need to fashion something to keep your arm still. You got sneakers on?"


"Yeah?" Anna answered, confused enough that it sounded more like a question. She blinked a few times, her head clearing.


"Is that a yes? Are you up for this?"


"Yes," Anna said more surely. "Yes, I got my OSIRISes and I'm golden."


"Unlace one of 'em and use the laces to secure your arm, just like a sling you would wear if you broke your arm. You're gonna wrap it three times around the middle of your forearm and triple knot it. Make sure it's secure. It's gonna take a minute since you only got one hand, but this is non-negotiable. You're gonna do ten times more damage if you ignore that wound. You got all that?"


"Yeah."


"Alright, put the phone down, I'll wait for you."


Anna swallowed hard. "Okay."


She set the phone down on the ground, screen up. Her entire being tingled with the need to forget about this first-aid bullcrap. She wanted nothing more than to make a mad dash for Dean's room, grab a gun loaded with silver, and shoot the holy hell out of that shifter like a badass. But that wouldn't be badass; it would be stupid. She had to play it safe and smart, or she and Kate would both get dead. And in the meantime, she could only pray to all the forces she knew weren't worth relying on that Kate would survive long enough for Anna to help her.


She shifted so she was on one knee with the other against her chest and leaned over to tug the laces swiftly out of her shoe. It was so loose after she finished that she knew it was smarter to get rid of her sneakers altogether than to try and wear them into a fight, even if she did look way cooler with them on. Cool was the least of her worries now. She moved her left arm a little too quickly away from her stomach so she could wrap the lace around it three times as Dean had said, and it hurt so bad, it stole her breath. She counted herself lucky there was enough adrenaline pumping through her veins that the wound didn't hurt this bad perpetually.


She knotted the laces three times, satisfied when she tried to move her arm and it stayed mostly trapped. She snatched the phone off the ground, standing up so quickly that she got dizzy and couldn't speak for a second. "Okay," she said in a rush. "I'm good. It's stable. I'm goin' after Kate."


"Hey," Dean called before she could hang up.


"What?" Anna asked impatiently.


"Get the gun from under the table. Shoot first, ask questions later. And when you get the silver bullets, put a suppressor on the gun so you don't go deaf shooting that thing inside. Got it?"


Feeling the weight of her responsibility hit her full force, Anna swallowed hard. "Yeah," she promised.


"Be careful, Sweetheart."


Anna nodded, her throat closing at the instruction. She'd been peripherally aware all along that she could be killed in this fight, but suddenly the possibility felt much more real. "I will." She hung up, dropped her phone into her pocket, and didn't give herself time to do anymore thinking. It was go-time.


She snatched the gun from under the table, flicked her wrist to check whether it was loaded, and flicked it back in place when she saw that it was. Her Rick and Morty socks allowed her to move silently through the bunker. With her right hand, she held her gun at the ready, close to her hip, but poised so that she could get off a quick shot if necessary. She turned cautiously into the library, listening intently for any noises that could alert her to where the shifter was and what, if anything, was happening between it and Kate.


She scanned the room quickly and, when she saw nothing worrisome, moved efficiently to the doorway across the room which would lead to the maze of hallways she'd hated so much when she'd first moved into the bunker. A small, sly smile crawled across her face. Kate knew the bunker and had probably been able to get to Anna's bedroom quickly. But the shifter- Her smile fell away. The shifter had Dean's memories. It knew the bunker as well as she did.


She moved down each hallway quickly, wasting no time but being careful about how she balanced her weight so as not to make even the softest sound. Her heart was still pounding away in her chest the way it did whenever she stood up to give a presentation in class or when she drank three energy drinks in a row and started to feel like maybe she'd unknowingly self-induced cardiac arrest. She knew her pulse wouldn't slow back down until the shifter was dead and Kate was alive and breathing and smiling next to her.


She turned each corner with cautious ease, peeking around it before committing to the turn. She reached the hallway full of bedrooms and was puzzled. There was nobody nearby, and all the bedroom doors were closed. She couldn't walk down that hallway without anybody watching her six. That was asking to get jumped. But her gut was telling her there was nobody there anyway. In fact, the hairs on the back of her neck were prickling with another instinct, one that said she needed to turn around. Anna did, and she instantly realized why she'd felt that way. It was barely there, but she could hear it now... Kate... and she was breathing shallowly, making tiny sounds of fear.


The sound was coming from a doorway nearby, and Anna swallowed nervously, backing away to the other end of the hallway. The shifter was expecting her to come from the other direction, and it was probably expecting to be able to hear her footsteps if it listened closely enough. Well, it had no such luck.


Anna moved fast and quiet down the hallway toward Dean's room. Fortunately for her, the doors in the bunker didn't squeak-- aside from the front door, which was loud as hell-- despite their age. She eased the door silently open and slipped into Dean's room.


She took great care in loading one of the guns off Dean's wall with silver bullets and putting a suppressor on it-- no suppressor would have fit the tiny handgun from the kitchen-- so that she wouldn't make even the smallest sound. It took way longer than she was comfortable with, because she was shaking with nerves and pain, but now that she knew for a fact that Kate was alive, she knew taking the time to not give herself away was more important to helping Kate than moving as fast as possible.


As Anna stepped back out into the hallway, her socks scuffing soundlessly against the cold bunker floor, she silently thanked the writers of Castle for teaching her the trick she was about to use and made sure she was a good eight feet from the doorway before crouching low to the ground. She eased her gun to the floor, because she only had one hand to work with, and pulled her phone from her pocket. She focused for a minute, making sure she could still hear Kate, and she could, but she had to really strain to hear anything. Not only that, but Kate breathing didn't mean she was okay.


Anna set a timer on her phone, and thanked God that a recent prank by Ethan had meant changing every ringtone and alarm on her phone to the same sound: Happy by Pharell Williams, the most hated song to one Anna Winchester, which Ethan knew. The shifter, having Dean's knowledge, would probably think one of her brothers was calling her and that her position had been given away by accident.


Anna set the timer for two minutes. It was going to either feel like forever or be barely enough time for her to get in position, depending on how smoothly things went.


She had to leave her gun on the floor, because she only had one hand, so she felt vulnerable as she moved carefully to the other side of the door and set her phone carefully on the ground. She hit start on the timer, and her shoulder screamed bloody murder as she stood back up too fast for her aching body to handle. She hurried back to her position about eight feet away from the door on the other side. She picked up her gun and raised her arm. She had to be ready to fire the second that thing opened the door.


If she could get in a headshot, quick and dirty, this could be over just seconds after the timer went off.


If she was too slow or, God forbid, if she missed... things could go in another direction, a much worse direction.


Her phone made its telltale vibrating sound half a second before Pharrell's voice blurted cheerfully, Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof. Any other time she heard it, she would cringe with her entire body. Today, she narrowed her eyes at the door to the room she knew the shifter and her best friend were in. It swung open, and the shifter stepped out. Anna could see Kate's DC sneakers scrabbling against the floor as the shifter pulled her out in front of itself. They were facing away from Anna, toward the phone. Her distraction had worked as planned.


But Anna couldn't fire at the shifter's head. It was hunched, gripping Kate, and she couldn't see where Kate's head or shoulders were. The odds that she would hit her friend if she fired at the things head were low... but they weren't low enough-- not when Anna was firing one-handed and injured, and her shot wasn't perfectly clear. She made all these calculations in the split second the shifter's back was to her. And her only option was clear. Even if she couldn't get off a killing-shot, she could get off a distracting, painful one.


She lowered her aim, and the muted sound of a silver bullet spiralling out of the chamber of her gun was followed by a grunt of pain that sounded so much like Dean's it left Anna clenching her jaw. Kate's head whipped around, and she lurched out of the shifter's grip as it hit one knee on the floor. By the time the thing was struggling back to its feet, Kate was safely behind Anna.


She was planning to fire a second time and had even aimed for the thing's heart already, but Kate had other ideas. She gripped Anna's arm hard and yanked, throwing the shot off inadvertently. The shifter yelled one more time as another silver bullet buried itself in the thing's arm, and Anna let Kate pull her around corner after corner until they had looped back to the warm room.


She hadn't realized just how well Kate knew the bunker until then. But she did stay the night pretty often, and they'd done a lot of exploring-- not touching anything, just exploring, though obviously this was unbeknownst to the boys-- of the depths of the bunker together when they were Freshman and the bunker was new to both of them.


Both of them were breathing heavily by the time they stopped moving, pressed against the wall where whichever hallway the shifter came from, they would see it before it saw them. Anna could feel her entire body shaking. Her wound was catching up to her, as was the adrenaline she'd been running on for the last twenty plus minutes. She was running on empty.


Anna's legs gave out, and Kate looked over at her in unadulterated terror as she slid down the wall into a crouch, her gun hitting the floor more noisily than they could afford. Even if she hadn't been able to feel her wound for the most part-- thank you, endorphins-- it had been wreaking havoc on her body. She had to get the knife out, but she couldn't do that. She couldn't remember why, but she knew she couldn't pull it.


Kate moved around so she was in front of Anna and gripped her good arm close to her shoulder. She opened her mouth, then cut off whatever she'd been about to say with a shake of the head. "Girl, there's a knife in your shoulder, and I almost asked you if you were okay."


Anna nodded mutely, but her heart was hammering threadily in her chest. She sank lower, hitting her ass on the floor. She wound up slumped, her legs straight out in front of her, body mostly limp, her shoulders and head resting against the wall. She felt like she had no control over her body, and it wasn't fair for the damn thing to quit on her now. How much training did she do every Sunday morning-- well, when the boys were home-- so her body would be in shape for moments like this, and it here it was giving out over a little stab wound.


Kate's eyes were brimming with panic, and she moved her hand against Anna's, which was holding the gun. Anna found her own fear multiplying as she realized just how weak her own body was. Kate moved her right hand to Anna's good-- also right-- one. It was still wrapped around the gun, however weak her grip was. Kate lifted it, her own hand covering Anna's.


All Anna could think for a second was how cold Kate's fingers were. Fear did that to you. Anna's own fingers were frozen and tingling almost to the point of numbness. But there was more than fear at the root of that.


Kate pointed their hands and the gun toward the closer doorway. "You better not die," she whispered to Anna, voice trembling in a way Anna rarely heard from her.


Kate was a buzzing ball of anxiety on a good day, but she was damn strong too. Anna could count on one hand the times she'd seen her friend really cry. She wished she could tell Kate that a knife to the shoulder wouldn't take her out, had just knocked her on her ass for the time being. She was in danger of passing out but not of dying.


"You're gonna have to help me aim," the whisper was shaky and small. "I mean, the basics of this seem self-explanatory. Cock it. Squeeze the trigger. Don't jerk-" she flashed Anna a tiny, watery smile, but it was somehow also genuine. "I really did learn something from all that Bonanza you made me watch."


Anna shivered once, and she saw Kate's expression go rigid, her face whitening. She wished Kate would stop talking-- the shifter was probably going to hear them, and it had to know Anna would be running out of steam soon since it had put the knife in her shoulder itself. But it was Kate's way to ramble when she was well and truly freaked.


"M'kay," she breathed. "Be okay."


Kate didn't look as reassured as Anna had hoped, but she stopped talking. They watched the doorways, Anna's gaze alternating frequently between the two they were covering. She could barely keep her brain working well enough to remember what she was watching for as her shoulder seemed to hurt worse with every minute that her body lay motionless, but at least she was awake. The softest sound of footsteps had Kate tensing, and Anna's heart picking up speed. The gun was angled toward the doorway to their right.


Kate looked ready to puke. She'd never fired a gun before, Anna realized. Was she about to watch her friend fell a monster for the first-- hopefully only-- time?


The blur of color as Dean stepped through the doorway nearly startled Kate into pulling the trigger. Anna knew, because she had to push back against Kate's finger with the last bit of her strength. But she'd instantly known it was Dean. He wasn't wearing the cargo jacket the shifter had on, and he didn't have bullet wounds in his arm or leg. Shifters had healing abilities, but they couldn't heal from wounds caused by silver, at least not that quickly.


Her belief was affirmed when Dean held his hands up in an easy surrender. "Woah," he said, voice low. "It's me." Anna couldn't speak, or she'd have told Kate he was telling the truth. But her friend didn't move the gun from where it was aimed at Dean's chest. Kate continued to stare piercingly at Dean's face, her brown eyes dangerously panicked considering she had a gun in her hand-- well, hers and Anna's hands. "Take it easy, Kate," Dean said calmly. Anna could feel Kate's hand start to shake over hers. She hadn't realized how incredibly steady it had been until the moment it began to waver. "I'll prove it, alright? I got a silver knife in my boot. Alright? I'll nick myself with it, and then you put down the gun."


Anna's vision blurred. She wanted to pass out now that Dean was here. Her Dean. But she couldn't until she knew he was okay too. She'd have used her grip on the gun to pull it down to the floor, but her arm had been limply held in Kate's grip since she'd lifted the gun. Anna had no control.


Dean crouched low, and Kate leaned slightly toward Anna-- whether the gesture was protective or defensive, Anna didn't know. Dean's hand moved into his boot, and he pulled a small silver dagger from his boot. He moved it up and made a small cut on the side of his hand. There was no burning, no reaction.


"Can you put down the gun?" Dean requested, setting the knife down on the floor.


Anna felt Kate's hand start to shake even worse, and both their hands hit the floor simultaneously. Kate's knuckles would probably bruise later from the impact.


Anna was surprised when Kate's next move was to launch herself at Dean. But it wasn't an attack. She wrapped her arms tight around his waist, her face hit his shoulder, and she squeezed him tightly. Anna would have done the same if she'd been able to move. As it were, she watched Dean's face register surprise and then calm. He hugged her back with one arm and put his other hand on the back of her head. Kate pulled back after just a few seconds and sniffled inconspicuously, angling her body toward Anna.


"Who the hell gets stabbed and keeps walking?" she whispered. It was a joke, and it made Dean and Anna snort at the same time, though Anna's smile was much weaker. But Kate was visibly shaken too. She met Anna's eyes, and when she blinked, Anna watched silent tears spill over red-rimmed eyelids.


"It's a Winchester thing," Dean said softly, but he had a subdued worry in his eyes as he moved forward, still crouched low, until he could rest his palm against Anna's forehead. "You gonna pass out?" he asked. Anna was grateful for the question. It was all she'd been wanting for someone to give her the option. She shook her head anyway. "Yes, you are," Dean said knowingly. He slid an arm under knees and the other under her shoulders. "I don't think you'll have to use it, but I need you to get that gun, Kate," he requested, his voice returning to the kind but commanding tone Anna was used to hearing from him pretty much twenty-four seven. "You see that thing, shoot. Only thing we're not aiming for is anything that looks like Sam, okay?"


Kate nodded, standing over them. It was clear that Dean's calm, in-control voice was as helpful to Kate in putting away her fear as it always was to Anna. She gripped the gun, and her hold on it wasn't perfect or professional, but it would do if they ran into anything.


Anna's vision blurred when Dean stood up, scooping her up with him. Her head hit his shoulder, and Anna counted it a mercy when the world went away.


()()()


Anna smiled shyly at her own reflection in the mirror. She had a real sling on now, a black one that she was hoping to shed any day now despite her brothers' insistence that she would be wearing it for the full four weeks. But for the first time since the incident two weeks ago, the sling wasn't what she was noticing about her own appearance, nor was the slit on her cheek that was still healing and had, just a few days ago, been covered with the ugliest scab but was now pink and fading.


Instead, Anna was looking at her hair. She'd taken extra care to make sure it didn't look frizzy tonight-- which was even more telling because she'd had to ask Sam for help thanks to her bum shoulder. It fell over her shoulders nicely tonight. She'd parted it in a way that made her look more grown-up, in her opinion. She'd been careful applying her makeup-- again, it was difficult one-handed, but she'd simply avoided eye-liner, and things had gone relatively well. She looked good, she thought. She'd even put on a skirt, a rare occurrence despite that she liked feeling cute.


Usually, to Anna, feeling cute meant ripped jeans and a crop top. But tonight she wore a high-waisted black denim skirt with five buttons and a tiny slit in each side. Tonight, she had on a baby pink smocked crop top with puffy sleeves and an old pair of white converse sneakers that were worn but not dirty-- she'd found a really good DIY video on pinterest on how to clean white shoes. She turned so she could look at her side profile in the mirror, and Anna smiled again, blushing at her own appearance, nose wrinkling and mouth twisting to the side.


Tonight, she felt like a pretty girl.


She smiled bigger and turned to her bed where her phone lay. She told Siri to play Pretty Girl by Clair-o and thought highly of her own cynicism. She was all ready to go, and Ian wasn't supposed to arrive for another ten minutes-- and that was an extra fifteen minutes before they were planning to leave, because Dean and Sam had insisted they needed to talk to him first. Anna still thought that was beyond stupid. But it had been the only way for them to let her date a kid they didn't know and that she'd only just met.


She moved back to the mirror and picked self-consciously at the buckle on her cast. She thought about taking it off. She didn't think she really needed it anymore. She had pain meds that kept the wound from hurting her too bad, and the wound was well on its way to healing up by this point. But she'd removed the sling at school yesterday-- she hated standing out, and that sling definitely made her stand out-- and not two hours later, when she got out of school, she'd been hurting badly enough that she hadn't even argued when Dean made her put it back on and proceeded to lecture her on the importance of putting her health over her appearance, etc.


Anna thought that, if ever there was a call to put her appearance first, it was on the night of her first date. But she didn't want to ruin anything by pissing her brothers off or aggravating her wound enough that they had to end their date early or something. Her fingers fell away from the sling, and Anna pursed her lips, feeling self-conscious again. She looked herself up and down. She really needed to step away from the mirror before she worked herself into a frazzle. She looked good. There was no reason to pick out all the features she hated, however tempting it was. The knock at her door was a welcome distraction.


"What?" she called.


"You decent, or was outfit number twelve unsatisfactory too?"


Anna rolled her eyes. "You can come in, jerkwad."


Dean leaned into the room with a grin on his face, and Anna was surprised to see it even though she knew he was merely smiling at his own stupid joke. His expression altered when his eyes landed on her, though. There was a wistfulness in his eyes that made Anna smile softly at him.


"Realizing that I'm all grown up?" she teased.


Dean looked at her and shook his head fondly. "Can't let me have my moment, can you?" Anna's smile only broadened at what she took as an admission that he really was realizing she wasn't a kid anymore. She watched him walk across the room and sit down on the edge of her bed. "Sit down for a minute. I need to talk to you."


Anna rolled her eyes. Even as she obediently walked over to sit beside him, she was saying, "I understood the speech the first ten times. Don't let him make me uncomfortable. Punch first, ask questions later. Leave if it feels weird. I don't owe anyone anything just because they pay for my mea-"


"Rugrat," Dean interrupted, stopping her rant. He patted the mattress beside him, and Anna sat down. "I know you got that part. Alright? If I thought you didn't get that stuff, you wouldn't be going anywhere tonight." Anna wrinkled her nose briefly, feeling touched for a second about his concern for her. "I was actually gonna say, uh... have fun tonight, okay?"


Anna frowned in confusion, tilting her head at him. He wasn't looking at her. In fact, he was looking at her desk beside the door, at the framed pictures there-- she was four years old in the closest one, and she was sitting on Dean's shoulders, her hands holding tightly onto the sides of his head, her hair pulled into two curly pigtails. Looking at Dean now, she could see a nostalgia in his eyes that made her feel sad and warm all at once... which, she supposed, meant that his nostalgia was contagious since sad and warm was basically what nostalgia felt like.


Dean turned to look at her eyes flicking up and down her face before settling on the scar on her cheek. It made Anna feel self-conscious, and her own eyes flicked downard, her face tilting toward the floor. She felt her brother's hand settle on the back of her head, and the moment felt so important, so grown up and young all at once, that she couldn't even bring herself to scold him for messing up her hair. He kissed the side of her head.


"I know you don't get to... you don't get to have nights like this very often," Dean told her. Anna turned her head just enough so she could see his face. He wasn't the type for chick-flick moments, but when he decided on having one, Dean always committed. And he'd clearly decided that this conversation was going to happen. "You know... normal crap."


Anna chuckled at the way he'd phrased it, at the bluntness of it. He kept looking at her for a minute, wistful again. Anna felt herself growing sad right along with him, though she wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because she loved him so much, and appreciated him so much. Or maybe it was because she'd almost died two weeks ago, because if she had died two weeks ago, she'd have died without ever going on her first date.


"I always wanted better for you," Dean said sincerely. "I always wanted you to have stuff like this."


"I know," Anna said softly. She did. And that didn't make the rest of her life any easier, but it did make her want to hug her brother more than ever now.


They sat for another few seconds before Dean wrapped his arm around Anna's shoulders and pulled her sideways until her head hit his collarbone. He tucked his chin on top of her head, and Anna couldn't have cared any less about her hair. She was happy just to be where she was, safe, happy even if it was a little bittersweet, and loved, well and truly. What was love if not wanting the best for somebody, no matter how hard it was for you to let them have it or to lead them to it.


Pretty Girl had ended, and another song had come on, one she'd never heard before but would never forget after tonight. As she sat there, curled against her brother, the soothing cadence of a female voice she'd never heard sang,


I buried a hatchet,


It's coming up lavender.


The future's unwritten,


The past is a corridor.


I'm at the exit looking back through the hall.


"Keep that sling on tonight," Dean said, speaking over the last couple lines of the unknown song.


Anna nodded against his shoulder, sat up, and watched him stand and head toward the door.


She'd always thought, in that sad, orphaned corner of her brain, that Dean was her father in every way but the biological. But it was moments like this that she let herself really, shamelessly believe that. It didn't even make her feel guilty like usual.


La Fin

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