Who you gonna call? {Annali, Sam}

[Sam Winchester (NPC)]

Sam

Sam gave Dean a look as his brother was suddenly standing next to him. Wanting to go down to the basement with him. But Dean couldn't even get the words out before Sam saw the expression on his face change and Dean moved back closer to Annali admitting defeat that he'd have to stay.

"Don't worry Dean, I can take care of myself. Plus, I'm pretty sure the spirits are gone. We'd probably know by now if they were still here, especially if we have the locket with us."

Annali gave her consent for Sam to go to the basement but asked if he wouldn't rather eat first. She seemed to have a sort of disappointed look on her face.

"Sure,if it's all ready I could eat. It smells delicious by the way. Is there anything I can do to help you?"

Sam gave her a smile and moved into the kitchen. A good meal sounded great.

[ZZZ - Dean - RETIRED]

Dean had to agree, the food smelled delicious and since he had yet to eat that day - he was still sad about the fate of his cookies - he was very thankful that Annali had offered to cook them anything. She could have served up grilled Wendigo and Dean probably would have eaten it.

Okay, maybe not quite...

"You got anything to drink?" Dean asked her, wandering over the fridge while she was nearby. It occured to him he was going to have to start planning his actions a little more now that they were tethered together.

God, how's this gonna work if we have to hunt?

[The Preceptor]

Annali smiled happily, showing a row of perfect white teeth when they both agreed to put off the investigation long enough to eat. In her family, they had always looked at mealtime as the most important time of the day, because it was when they all gathered together and talked about their days. She knew that wouldn't be the case here, as they all pretty much were filled in on the events of the past few hours, but these were two guys that she was dying to know more about. As much as they claimed to know about spirits and curses and the like, she had a feeling they might have stories that could even rival her father's.

When Sam offered to help, she gestured toward a cabinet above the sink and then to a drawer next to it. "If you don't mind, could you grab us some plates and silverware?" she asked politely as she began to collect the meal on serving dishes and arrange it in the center of the table. Dean had gone to the refrigerator for drinks and she smiled to herself, considering making a sarcastic comment about only drinking bathwater in her home, but she refrained.

"Sure, there's mmm... Pepsi I think, some root beer, iced tea and milk," she told him, biting her lip as she tried to recall the contents of the fridge. "Pretty sure there's a few stray beers in the back on the top shelf too. And there are glasses in the cabinet by the refrigerator if you need them. Would you please grab me a root beer?" Annali grabbed a few napkins from the napkin holder and arranged them on the table at each place setting, and then she gestured for the brothers to have a seat. Hopefully they would enjoy the lunch of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and baked beans she had prepared... at least, she mused, she was a pretty good cook, so she didn't expect anyone would die of food poisoning today.

[Sam Winchester (NPC)]

Sam

Sam nodded and moved to the cupboard that Annali pointed out. He pulled out three plates. He went to the drawer and pulled out silverware. A weird kind of feeling hit Sam. How long had it actually been since they sat down in someone home, in a kitchen for a home cooked meal. It seemed strange.

Sam shook off the feeling and went about setting the table. Putting down a plate then placing the silverware, forks on the left, knives on the right. He set three places and stood back from the table as Annali finished setting the food out in the center.

Annali gestured for them to sit down and he took a seat. Waiting for Dean and Annali to get situated at the table.

"It all looks amazing Annali. Thanks for cooking."

[ZZZ - Dean - RETIRED]

It only took Dean a moment to track down the root beer for Annali and he picked up a Pepsi for Sam, holding both in one hand while he reached further back to fish out a beer for himself. He almost put it back again in favour of a soda, wondering what Annali might think of him drinking so early in the day, but then she had offered and after all that had happened that morning, he figured he'd deserved at least one. Even Sam couldn't begrudge him one beer, just so long as it didn't turn into one crate followed swiftly by one bottle of whiskey.

"It all looks amazing Annali. Thanks for cooking."

Dean snapped his attention back to what was going on around him, closing the door of the fridge now he'd stopped staring blankly into it. The drinks were set down on the table before Dean took his own seat accross from Sam.

"You really didn't have to go to all this trouble just for us y'know." Dean added, feeling a little humbled by the effort Annali had put into preparing the food.

[The Preceptor]

Annali blushed and smiled, pleased by their praise. "It's no trouble," she said, shyly avoiding their gazes as she took her own seat next to Dean at the table. "I love to cook, and it's just me here. Doesn't really make sense to go through the trouble of preparing an entire meal just for me." She grabbed the bottled root beer and, after thanking Dean for grabbing it for her, twisted off the cap and set it back on the table, and then waited patiently for the brothers to load up their plates before preparing her own.

It was such a difficult situation. She felt as though she were keeping Dean and Sam trapped here, like it was all her fault, even though Dean had assured her that it wasn't. But the fact was that they wouldn't even be in this situation if she hadn't made that phone call in the first place. Now all she could think to do was try to make them as comfortable as possible until they could get things figured out. This would have been difficult even for someone who wasn't socially awkward... for her it was a nightmare. At least they were polite enough... for the most part.

"So did you find any information Sam?" she asked, trying to start the conversation, but finding the topic uncomfortable. What she really wanted to know right then was more about them... where they were from, how they got into this whole ghost business... whether they had any idea how their father had known hers... but she felt it might be too soon to ask questions of such a personal nature.

[Sam Winchester (NPC)]

Sam

Sam waited politely for someone to make the first move toward the food. He felt a little uncomfortable and nervous since they hadn't sat down for a proper mean like this in a long time. He just wanted to mind his manners.

Finally, and not surprisingly Dean reached out and started grabbing the serving dishes and piling food onto his plate. After watching Dean jump on the food like he hadn't eaten in a week, Sam figured it was safe for him to start serving himself. Sam got himself some chicken, mashed potatoes and baked beans. Then he sat back and waited until Annali had served herself as well. He opened his soda and took a sip before he started to eat. Shaking his head as Dean had already started to devour the food on his own plate.

Sam ate quietly, the food was delicious. Annali was an awesome cook. The homemade fried chicken was excellent and Sam was glad that she had made the offer.

"Annali, the food is delicious. It's amazing. Thank you for fixing all this."

Sam wiped his face on a napkin and gave her a small smile. Looking over at Dean again he rolled his eyes as his brother continued to cram the food in as fast as he could.

[ZZZ - Dean - RETIRED]

Come to papa... Dean thought to himself as he spooned out a heathly serving of the mashed potato onto his plate. He'd stacked chicken on one side and beans on the other too making his plate look more like a food mountain than a meal. He was so hungry he didn't care right now that Sam was looking at him as though they weren't related. He picked up his fork and tucked right in making intermittant happy noises as the flavours rocked his tatsebuds.

"You can't beat home cooking!" Dean added around a mouthful of chicken. "Unless it's one of Bobby's mixed grills. I swear that man uses engine oil in his frying pan." He chuckled over at Sam then turned back to Annali.

"Bobby's an old family friend. He owns a junk yard, lives and breaths engines, knows anything and everything about hunting but can't cook worth a damn." A thought occured to him and he nudged Sam's leg under the table with his knee.

"Hey, maybe we should give him a call, see if he can shed some light on this Cupid's Promise thing? The old guy did make those curse boxes for Dad, he might be able to help."

[The Preceptor]

Annali was a little put off by the fact that Sam ignored her question, but she tried not to think much of it. He didn't seem the type to do something so rude, and she considered the possibility that he simply hadn't heard her ask. It wasn't like she had the loudest voice around.

Dean's enthusiasm over the food was hard not to enjoy. She noticed the way his brother looked at him, as though embarrassed by his display, but Annali didn't mind it one bit. In fact, it gave her a much-needed boost of confidence... so far she hadn't felt like she had anything worthwhile to offer them.

Dean's description of their friend's cooking, however, made her cringe slightly. "Engine oil?" she asked, taking a long drink of her root beer as if she needed to wash a bad taste from her mouth. "Sounds um... appetizing." She continued to eat, focusing her attention on her plate and nodding in acknowledgment as Dean explained to her about the friend he had been referring to. When he brought up an idea to Sam, however, she couldn't help looking up in curiosity. "Curse boxes?"

[Sam Winchester (NPC)]

Sam

Sam had been so focused on watching Dean eat that he hadn't even realized that Annali had asked him a question. Then Dean started talking about Bobby and his cooking. Sam shuddered a bit at the thought. Dean brought up the curse boxes and that made Sam start to think again.

Sam turned to Annali and remembered she had asked him something. The poor girl. The look on her face she kind of seemed lost in this whole mess. Curses, curse boxes, ghosts and everything else. Her whole world turned upside down. Not to mention, she had to stay within five feet of Dean at all times.

"Uh sorry Annali, I didn't mean to ignore you. I'm haven't found out much so far. Didn't have much time to work on it. I have a couple searches running and a couple messages out to some contacts. Hopefully when I get back to it I'll have some leads to go on. Oh, and the curse boxes. Basically they are special boxes build to keep cursed items in. So that they don't get accidentally used. It's supposed to keep them safe. Though, sometimes idiots like us come around and open them anyway and find a cursed rabbit's foot. Yeah, that was a fun one."

Sam glanced over at Dean and shook his head at the memory. That one ended up a huge mess and Sam didn't feel like reliving that one at all.

"Yeah, maybe we should call Bobby, get him in on this. I'd like to have something more to tell him but maybe he has some ideas. We could give him a call in the morning you think?"

Bobby knew a lot about a lot of things. Especially when it came to the supernatural. He had study the subject for a long time now. In the hunting circle he was highly regarded as the best research man in the bunch. Sam considered himself lucky to call the man a close friend. He was like a father to him and Dean.

[ZZZ - Dean - RETIRED]

"I reckon Bobby'll have something to say even if it's only to call me a moron for opening that damned locket in the first place." Dean commented around a mouthful of chicken. He'd made a bit of a well in the middle of the potato and had filled it with beans, some spilling down the side of the mash to make it look like an erupting volcano. No wonder Sam thought he was the more mature of the two of them.

"Well we burnt the rabbits foot, you think we can just burn this locket to break the curse? Like melt it down or something?"

Yeah, so it was grasping at straws but Dean was thinking that life would get a hell of a lot more complicated than it already was if he couldn't ever leave Annali's side. For her things would get a infintely more dangerous being invisibly tied to a walking trouble manget.

[The Preceptor]

"I could try to call my father in the morning but I have no idea where he is. It's not always easy to get good reception for a phone call but it's worth a shot. Surely he knows something about this locket," she offered, wanting desperately to be helpful and not just a liability to the brothers. Still she did recognize that Sam and Dean knew what they were doing and she was, for the most part, just an innocent bystander. She spent most of the meal eating and listening, and sometimes she wanted to ask questions but refrained... she'd find out more later.

Then the boys were discussing burning a rabbit's foot and melting down the locket. Annali's eyes widened and she put down her fork with a loud clang, looking at the brothers in alarm. Surely there was a way to solve this problem without destroying a priceless artifact. "How could that work?" she asked. "I mean wouldn't the curse remain in tact? Melting down a metal just reshapes it... it doesn't destroy it..."

[Sam Winchester (NPC)]

Sam

Sam continued to eat and watch Dean as he not only ate but made a circus of his meal. They talked back and forth about what they could do about the curse. Dean mentioned melting it down since they had burned the rabbit's foot and Annali brought up a good point about melting it down wasn't destroying it.

The look on her face though told Sam that she didn't like that idea anyway. For a quick moment it did remind him of the rabbit's foot incident. When Bela didn't want them to destroy the foot because it was worth a lot of money to her. There was that same kind of look in Annali's eyes, except with less greed and more of the worried about an irreplaceable piece of history.

"Yeah, I don't think melting it down would work anyway. I really think we're going to have to find some kind of hoodoo magic thing to take the spell off the locket. I think it's the only way."

Sam shrugged. Magic seemed to be what they needed, either that or locking it away in a curse box but that wouldn't actually break the curse that was already on Dean and Annali. They would have to do that before they figured out what to do with the locket long term. If they got the curse off the locket, then it would be a harmless relic with an amazing story to go with it.

[ZZZ - Dean - RETIRED]

Dean had pretty much cleared his plate in record time and was now sitting back in his chair swigging on his beer with a happy, satiated look on his face.

"Ok, no melting of the locket." Dean agreed with a nod, formulating a plan of action in his head to get them a little more organised.

"I think then, we should see if we can find any kind of clue back in the vault this afternoon. If not, Annali, if you can try and get in touch with your Dad, see if he can shed some light on things. I'll have a look through our Dad's journal, see if there's anyone in that who can help us out. Sam, call Bobby. At the very least, he can start working on a curse box to stop this happening to anyone else."

It crossed his mind that breaking the curse on himself and Annali might be possible if they found two other people to open the locket. In the same way Dean had removed the curse from the ghosts haunting the MacPherson house, it could transfer the curse to them instead. Of course Dean would never let that happen. The thought of having anyone else take his place like that again just reminded him of what he'd done in Hell. That was a road he wasn't ever going to take again if he could help it.

[The Preceptor]

The rest of the meal was spent in light conversation. Annali tried to squeeze whatever information she could out of the brothers while trying her best not to be annoying. She found their stories fascinating, some of them resembling the tall tales her father would tell when he would come back from a trip. She found them absolutely fascinating and by the end of the meal, she considered herself a full-fledged Winchester fan.

After lunch, Annali gave Sam her keys and gave him full permission to take a look around both her house and the house of her parents'. Dean was, unfortunately for him, stuck in the kitchen for her while she cleaned up the mess. He had attempted to help, honestly he had, but Annali was the sort of person who was so used to doing housework on her own that he soon realized he was more of a hinderance to her routine than anything. He did help to towel-dry the dishes, but otherwise he waited seated at the table while she cleaned the counters, stove and table and put everything back in its place.

Once things were cleaned up, Annali and Dean went to her parents' house to meet up with Sam. They searched and researched throughout the afternoon and into the early evening before stopping for another home-cooked meal of spaghetti and meatballs. By now, they were exhausted, and though Dean and Annali opted to watch reruns of old sitcoms on the television downstairs, Sam remained hard at work in the office until the later hours. Annali admired his endurance, but she didn't envy him.

By the time it was late evening, poor Dean had yawned so many times that Annali was trying not to make jokes about him catching flies. She could tell that he was fighting exhaustion, and insisted that they turn in for the night. He didn't exactly put up much of a fight, and after bidding Sam good night and making sure that he had everything he needed in the guest room on the ground floor, she and Dean headed upstairs for bed. It was going to be an interesting night...