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Free Supernatural Fanfiction – Chapter Summary:

Analina takes a reluctant Dean on a “date”, leading to an honest discussion about their fears, relationship potential, and a new lead on the Apocalypse from the Horsemen’s rings.

Rating: PG-13
Contains:  Implied Romance/Kiss, Emotional Depth, Supernatural Elements, Mild Language
No Explicit Content: The kiss is described without graphic detail.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:  
A Distraction and Horsemen

“IT’S THE FAMILY FUN PARK,” I pointed out.

He gave me an “are you serious” look before pulling into the parking lot.

“I tried to pick the most uncomfortable thing to do together,” I said casually. “Miniature golf sounded perfect for it. Plus, it’s a fairly standard date activity among ‘normal’ couples.”

“Really?”

“Yep.” I opened the door. “Come on. Let’s be embarrassed together. I’m sure you’ll win because I suck at this… and I haven’t played in years.”

I heard him groan as he got out of the car.

“Don’t worry. This is the worst part of my plans.”

“Do I even want to know what else you want to do?”

I just smiled at him and walked over to pick out a club.

I wasn’t lying. I seriously and utterly stunk at playing miniature golf. At first, Dean just went through the motions. I let him keep score. By the third hole, the obstacles started to get more complex.

“You weren’t joking, were you?” He chuckled as he marked 5 on the card next to my name.

“What?”

“You really do suck at this.” He laughed harder as we headed towards Hole Four.

“Hey! That’s not nice.”

“You said it first,” he called back.

“True, but it’s a little different when you say it about yourself.” I caught up to him.

Dean lined up the ball. “Sure.” He took a swing and just barely missed the hole before the ball rolled back in. He looked up, and I stuck my tongue out at him.

“Show-off,” I muttered.

He laughed. Yeah, I didn’t get a hole in one there—or any of them. Going to Hole Five, I looked down at the card.

“Wait a second! That hole I got six not eight,” I pointed to the score on the card.

“It was eight. Just because the ball didn’t stop, doesn’t mean that swing didn’t count.” He smiled mischievously.

I sighed loudly.

“This was your idea,” he pointed out. Apparently, he was beginning to enjoy himself—at my expense. But, it was working! I thought he was starting to relax.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s your turn,” I said.

He lined up the ball.

“Have you ever mini-golfed before?” I asked him.

He hit the ball. Not a hole in one this time, but still very close. “Nope. Well, once or twice when I was a kid. There was a miniature golf next to the motel where my dad left us to work a job. I took Sammy over there one day.”

He went over and tapped the ball into the hole like it was nothing.

“How often have you golfed?”

“I guess you can’t tell by my exceptional playing skills, but not very often… although bowling is worse.”

“We’re not doing that after this, are we?” He actually cringed!

“Ah, no. One horrifying event per day is enough for me, thanks.”

“Good.” He paused. Swing number three for me. “And what is the next thing planned? Can I get a clue?”

“Food.”

“That I can deal with.” He watched me. “That was what? Six? Seven?”

“Don’t ask.” I picked the ball out of the hole and started to walk to the next one. “It’s safe to say that you’ll win this game.”

“Do you want me to take a few extra swings? Is that what a normal guy on a date would do?” he teased.

“Nah, honesty is probably a good thing to start off with in a relationship. Besides, I can fully admit with great confidence that I will never be gifted at playing miniature golf.”

Again, he got a hole in one!

“Perhaps, you should have taken up this as your career choice,” I suggested.

“Sweetheart, there are probably a lot of things I should have taken up. Miniature golf is not one of them.”

And the rest of the holes went about the same way. I won’t even write down the score. It was just… terrible. Well, for me. I did keep the card as a memento for my scrapbook that I ended up making later. (Traveling all over the United States like we did was something not many people did. I wanted to remember the good times—not so much the hunting/saving the world parts—later on. That was assuming we survived everything.)

For the next part of our “date,” I had him drive me to a nearby deli. I said that we would need to pick a few things up to have a late lunch. We bought items to make sandwiches, bags of chips, drinks, and pie. (It’s probably just easier to assume that pie should always be included if Dean was involved.) Much to my disappointment, they didn’t have any cheesecake. We took our groceries to a nearby park to have a picnic. Thankfully, the day stayed dry even though it was slightly overcast.

We found a spot with a picnic table by the small lake that the park surrounded. Lunch was calm. We talked about nothing in particular at first. Eventually, a few ducks realized that we were eating and made their way up to us. With the leftover bread, I started to break up some bits to feed to them.

“Tell me something,” Dean said, growing serious. “Do you really think we’re going to stop this apocalypse?”

So much for avoiding the subject for the whole time, but I was actually surprised that we didn’t even bring it up for this long.

I stared at the ducks fighting over the pieces of bread. Could we do it? We were nowhere close to figuring out how to stop it. The only idea that seemed like it would work was sending Lucifer back to Hell, and that did not seem like an easy task considering that it took Michael to do it in the first place. It almost seemed like Dean would have to say yes to Michael to accomplish at least that, but he wouldn’t have control over what he did while possessed. And, more than likely, that meant that the battle would take place. So that option was out.

After a moment, I looked up. “I think there’s a chance.”

His eyebrows shot up.

“I mean we made it this far. We kind of have a plan. We just have to… fine-tune it.”

He snorted. “And we’re nowhere near to doing that.”

“Yet,” I corrected. “We still have time. You’re not giving up on me already, are you?”

He squinted in the briefly displayed sunshine to look at me. He sighed a little, “I guess not. Sometimes I just….”

He didn’t continue but just looked out at the lake.

“Get tired of it all?” I finished.

He studied his hands for a moment before answering. “Yeah, sometimes.”

We had a short pause in the conversation. Dean was not one to share his feelings on things very easily. He tended to bottle things up inside until they basically exploded out of him—which was close to where we were yesterday with this whole plan. It wasn’t that he was upset with anyone in particular, but more so that he didn’t have the control he wanted over the situation. I couldn’t change his personality that much, but I could at least try to get him to talk about it a little. For some reason, he seemed to talk to me more when we were alone, as brief as that usually was.

“You do realize that’s completely normal, even if the situation is bizarre.”

“Yeah.”

I can see him mentally shutting down. “Dean,” I waited until he looked at me before I continued, “you’re not in this by yourself. And, if you’re thinking about saying yes to Michael because we have no other options, I would have to personally beat the crap out of you.”

I managed to get a weak smile.

“You could take on an archangel?” he asked skeptically.

I shrugged. “Don’t base my abilities solely on my miniature golf skills. Of course, I can… I think. Well, I can at least take on a regular angel. Besides, I’m smart. I can make things work.”

“Oh yeah?” he challenged.

“Yep,” I smiled. I paused for a moment. “I think I got it. See, you’ll be in there somewhere so all I have to do is bring out a pie. That should cause enough of a distraction that I could use my ninja skills on you or him… whatever. Tada!”

“You know something. I think all this angel/demon ability learning is starting to rattle your brain.”

I grinned widely like that was the plan.

“See,” he pointed a finger at me. “A complete nutcase. I knew we would get to you eventually.”

I laughed. “Sorry to break this to you, but I was already nuts before I met you.”

“That would explain why you stayed.”

“What? And miss the end of the world? How boring would that be?”

Another short pause.

“And you don’t miss your family or friends at all?” he asked.

“Yeah, sometimes more than others. But, we still talk. You know, you can still have relationships with this life. It’s just different. That’s all.”

“Yeah, well, from my experience, I don’t see how it works out. Eventually, everyone dies.” He glanced over like this would scare me away. I held back my comment that eventually everyone dies anyway. I could understand where he was coming from. His mother and father died by the same demon. He lost a lot of friends—not to mention Sam and himself at some point. He never really talked about his time in hell, and I didn’t want to ask him.

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m not that easy to get rid of.”

“It’s not that I want to get rid of you. It’s just that I don’t think you realize how serious this stuff can get.”

“But, people can die very often from ‘normal’ circumstances,” I countered. “I mean, I lost plenty of people over the years.”

Throughout the years, I had a lot of family members die for various reasons. I shared some of the closer ones with him. Perhaps he could relate, I figured.

“So you’re an expert on angels, demons, ghosts, and now death?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say an expert on any of those, especially death. I’m just saying things can happen to those you love even outside this business. People handle things differently, too. For me, you probably don’t want to be around me for the first… oh, twelve to twenty-four hours after a close death.”

He arched an eyebrow and waited for me to continue.

“I would probably just make you uncomfortable is all,” I shrugged. “My grieving tends to hit hard and fast, and then I’m usually okay enough to pass as normal.”

He looked out again at the lake. “You’re probably better at it than me. I don’t usually deal well with that sort of thing.”

“Most people don’t. Like I said before, I’m not normal.”

“Yeah, well, normal is overrated,” he glanced over and smiled. I smiled back.

I looked out at the lake. “Do you see that?” I asked calmly.

“What?” He looked out, tensing a little.

“We took a few hours off and the world is still there.” I looked back at him.

“So it is.” He smiled.

“It’s nice just taking a short break. I know we can’t do it often, but it’s good. Just forget everything for a little while… It might also be nice to let Sam and Bobby have some time off, too.”

“One date and you’re already planning to cheat on me? With my brother no less? And Bobby?” he scoffed.

I rolled my eyes. “Geez, Dean. What kind of girl do you take me for?” I smiled to let him know I was joking, too. “Besides, I didn’t think you liked my itinerary.”

“I think your miniature golf plan backfired on you.”

No, not really, I thought. But, I wasn’t going to tell him that.

“Yeah, I should be good with miniature golf for another few years or so.”

“So how bad are you at bowling?” he teased.

I threw the rest of the bread crumbs at him. He was about to retaliate when his phone rang. He almost ignored it but answered it when he saw who it was from.

“Yeah?” he asked.

It was Sam just checking in. We had nothing new to report on either end. I suggested that we pick up some dinner to take back with us. I guessed that was the end of our little time off.

The ride back was quieter. We picked up pizzas on the way back to Bobby’s. Dean wasn’t drastically changed, but it seemed like he was better. It would be back to the old grind now.

We pulled up to the house with the car smelling like pizza. I wasn’t that hungry yet.

“I’m going to check in with my family,” I told Dean as we got out. I pulled out my cell phone as Dean carried the pizzas. “Save me a piece.”

“It’s about time,” Bobby grumbled as we entered the house.

I just smiled in response. “I’ll be right back,” I said as I headed upstairs to make my call. I got to the top and was about to enter the room where I was staying when I heard Dean call my name.

I stopped and turned. He came down the hall towards me.

“I know you haven’t been on a date in a while, but you forgot something.”

“What?”

He stopped in front of me. With a grin, he placed his one hand at the nape of my neck and dipped his head down to kiss me.

I hadn’t kissed a guy in a long time. Granted, it started out as a simple kiss to go with the mock date that we went on. However, it was like there was a small spark and then we both moved closer together, deepening the kiss. It turned more serious, or rather, realistic. I lost all sense of what was around me, which was probably why I jumped at the sound of a throat being cleared behind Dean.

“Sorry,” Cas said, looking away for a moment.

Gathering ourselves, I took one step to the side.

“I thought she would sense me,” he explained with a slight shrug.

Dean turned to me. “You’re losing your touch.”

I almost rolled my eyes, but I caught myself. “I wasn’t exactly concentrating on that at the time,” I replied.

In the corner of my eye, I swore he smirked at that before we turned our attention back to Cas.

THAT WAS TECHNICALLY OUR FIRST DATE, even though at the time we didn’t seriously think of it as such. We didn’t talk about the date or the kiss immediately after that. Cas stopped by to check in on things. He was unable to find anything else new on the prophecy. He didn’t think there was anything else that would be found, but he kept trying in between his search for God. The next day, we hit the books harder than before. With no immediate job that looked promising, we continued to look for a way to get Lucifer back home without causing the end of the world.

Even with the day off, tempers were still a bit high in the Singer household. I took a book and decided to sit outside on the porch. It wasn’t that comfortable, but it was some quiet solitude that I craved. I paged through the book on my lap. We had to be missing something that would at least set us on the right path.

The book was about the Book of Revelation and the different interpretations people had considered throughout history. I had to admit it was interesting. However, nothing jumped out at me that would help us. I held in a sigh. I heard footsteps coming up from behind me. It was Dean. I could tell without looking.

“Anything?” he asked.

“Lots of things, just nothing that would really help us at the moment,” I answered, looking up at him. He was tall when I was standing. Looking up while sitting was unsettling.

I guessed he took notice of my strained neck and sat down beside me. It looked like he wanted to talk about something. He was slightly uncomfortable. It must be something personal or having to do with his emotions. Ah, it must have to do with yesterday, I thought. I was surprised that he would take the initiative with it.

“So, uh,” he started and cleared his throat. He looked out at the yard, or rather the tons of non-working cars in the yard.

I closed the book and held it in my lap. I turned to face him better, resting my back against the side wall of the steps. I waited.

I could see his mind thinking of what he wanted to say. It was like everything he planned quickly fled. “You’re not going awkward on me now, are you?” I asked, to break the ice a little.

He grinned for a moment. “No. I just thought after yesterday… and we had a moment alone… that…”

I felt my eyebrows rise up a fraction. “You wanted to talk?” I couldn’t mask the skepticism in my voice.

He contemplated me for a moment. “I think you’ve been hanging around me too much.”

I smiled. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. We’ve only been stuck together for the majority of every day that I met you.” That helped release the tension.

“Anyway,” I continued, “we can talk.”

He just sat there. Obviously, ‘talk’ was not so easy.

“Let me see if I got this straight from your silence,” I said, figuring I could do most of the talking. “You had a nice time yesterday—despite the fact that you were forced to miniature golf with me. And, you’re conflicted.” I glanced at him for a moment to make sure I was making some kind of sense. “You would like to see where this could go, but you’re also concerned that it could end badly—as it usually does, according to you. In addition, you would rather not cause a bad strain in the current friendship, especially since we are working together to save the world—which kind of seems like it should be in the forefront of everything.”

“You’re very observant. What are you, a mind reader?” he noted. I noticed he didn’t deny what I said. “Or maybe you’re thinking of the same thing, hmm?”

“Possibly,” I replied. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I was thinking about yesterday—especially the kiss—in every spare moment I had. I sucked in a breath to stop a slight blush that was forming from the thought.

“Well, in that case,” he shifted with a smirk still plastered on his face, “what do you suggest?”

“Nothing. I mean, if something becomes of it, that’s great. But, let’s not push it—at least not right now. I think going slow would be good at this moment.”

“I can go slow,” he said, scooting closer to me.

My heart rate spiked for a second as I caught his second meaning. I didn’t back down. I managed a smile. “I’m sure you can.”

We stared at each other for a moment.

“Slow, huh?” he asked. I watched his emotions in his eyes. It wasn’t a rejection, but it wasn’t necessarily what he wanted to hear. It was too responsible. Something he couldn’t argue his way with at the moment. It was also a potential relationship that he never had before. Sam had mentioned in one of our talks that Dean always went for one-night stands. He never had a relationship longer than a month or two. Life was too hard, and people had the tendency to die around them.

“For now… or until we stop the apocalypse—whichever comes first.” I tried to smile a little. I wanted to see where this could go. Dean was like no one I ever met before. But, I also had fears. Like I had said to him, I didn’t want this to distract us from the apocalypse because things didn’t work out. I wasn’t scared that I would die around him. I had managed about half a year without coming close to dying. Rather, I was afraid because this was something new. I didn’t really date before or really had a relationship with anyone. It never felt right. It was always just too awkward, like something was wrong. I denied it at the time, but I didn’t feel that with Dean. It was different, and just being different stopped me.

He glanced at me and then the book in my lap and back up to me. “I guess we should get to work.”

“Right,” I said, picking up the book and handing it to him. “Be my guest. The only thing that I can see related to our apocalypse is the four horsemen part—although they’re technically saying there are seven seals—three coming after them.”

“We already ganked two of them,” he muttered, leafing through the book.

I thought about this for a moment. “So, wait. One of the first things you came across when Lucifer was freed was a horseman?”

“Yep, War and then Famine.”

I ignored the fact that Pestilence was supposed to emerge first—or perhaps he did and was unnoticed. Death was supposed to be the last horseman to emerge.

“Maybe they have something more to do with the apocalypse? I mean they are listed as the first four seals…. And you stopped them by?”

“Their rings. Their power came from the rings,” Dean said, fishing in his pocket. He pulled them out. He held them in his palm to show me. It was like a soft humming noise. Almost like they were vibrating, but they remained still.

I wanted to touch them so I could look more closely at them, but it was like the air around them would shock me.

“Do you feel that?” I whispered. I put my hand nearer to the rings. Dean stared down intently.

“They haven’t done that before.”

“Do you think we got a lead on something?” I asked.

“Maybe.” He closed his hand, ending the weird sensation. I let out my breath that I didn’t even know I was holding.

“There’s something with those rings,” I said.

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