Cherry Pie

Friday Night Fever

[Dean]

"Dean!" Sam pounded on the bathroom door. "Dean, if you don't get out of the shower in the next two minutes, I'm gonna kick your ass."

Ignoring him, I remained standing under the hot stream of water for exactly three more minutes until it started to get colder and only then did I get out. I put on some fresh boxers, a pair of jeans, and came out of the bathroom, rubbing a towel through my wet hair.

Sam was standing in front of me in his running gear, his arms crossed over his chest, looking very annoyed. "You used up all the hot water again, didn't you?"

I smirked and Sam punched me in the arm as he headed into the bathroom, closing and locking the door before I could get him back. It was 6:45 in the morning and Rayne was still sleeping; her knees were pulled up into her chest and the blanket was scrunched up under her chin. She rarely, if ever, slept in, but I figured she was just finally coming down from her sugar high.

Everything had changed so drastically in the last two months that I still sometimes had to take a moment to adjust to it. All my life it had just been Sam and I — sometimes our dad, sometimes the odd hunter or two; but mostly just me and my little brother.

Now, Rayne was a part of our lives. And a pretty big part at that. If someone had asked me before if we would've ever let anyone else join us, I'd have laughed in their face in reply. Our job was to protect people...letting them into the hunter's universe was doing the exact opposite of that.

If I'd known Rayne as well as I do now when we first met her, I probably would've never told her about the monsters and the dirty ghosts of the world. Hunting was perhaps the most dangerous job anyone could have; it was not a question of if you would die, but a question of when.

If I had any say in it, I'd still rather Rayne not know anything about it. But the girl was good at the job and getting better with every hunt. She could hold her own; the bruise across the sheriff's face was testimony to that. But I still hated myself a bit more every time she came with us on a new case.

With the connection between us, I knew I didn't really have a choice, but the random thought of quitting hunting altogether had occasionally crossed my mind in recent weeks. For instance, right in that moment, as I was looking at Rayne curled up on the bed, her small body barely taking up half the mattress, I once again entertained the idea of just walking away from it all.

Rayne made me consider doing what even Sam could never convince me of. Suddenly, living a normal life, complete with the white picket fence, did not repulse me as much. Was I selfish enough to drop everything and live in ignorant bliss with Rayne? If I thought that she'd be safer that way, then maybe.

But I knew better than anyone that hunting was a lifestyle one did not simply walk away from. It had a way of finding you and punishing you for ever trying to leave it in the first place. And that is why I got up every morning to gank the next sonuvabitch that poked its head out and why I'd continue to make sure that Rayne was by my side each and every time that I did so.

My thoughts were interrupted a few minutes later when Sam came out of the bathroom in clean clothes. "Next time, you're showering second."

"You're the one who decided to go jogging this morning," I said, taking a sip of the coffee that Sam brought back with him after his run. "It's your own fault."

He snatched back the cup from me. "Whatever, you didn't have to use up all the hot water."

"And what fun would that be?" I smiled at him.

Sam shot me a dirty look as he sat on his bed and started to put on his shoes. He glanced over at Rayne and his eyebrows lowered. "She's still sleeping?"