The Morning After (Sam, Dean)

[ZZZ - Dean - RETIRED]

There were screams echoing in his head, souls begging and pleading with him to stop, begging for mercy that Dean did not want to give them. No-one had shown him mercy when it had been him on the rack, why would he give it to anyone else? He could see himself wielding a large, blood covered knife, taunting his victim with it, pressing it closer and closer to their eyeball before-

"Dean...?"

"Huh?" Annali's voice brought him back to the present and he blinked a couple of times and turned to face her, speedily building up his psychological walls again to hide whatever she might have thought she'd just seen. He backtracked what he had subliminally heard and tried to figure out what it was she'd said to him.

"Uh...oh breakfast? I don't mind. Whatever you wanna make is fine by me, everything you cook tastes great anyway." He gave her a smile and hoped that she wouldn't ask him what planet he'd just been on when he was staring in the mirror.

[Sam Winchester (NPC)]

Sam

Sam went to the living room where they had left their bags last night.He grabbed up Dean's bag and slung it over his shoulder. Then he picked up his own bag and headed back up the stairs to the main floor.

Dropping his own bag off in the guest room he shut the door and headed up the stairs to the next level. As he got to the top he saw the bathroom door was now closed and could hear the shower running. For a moment a smirk crossed his face and he wondered if Dean had maybe convinced Annali to 'conserve water' by showering together. Then he shook his head thinking she wouldn't go for it even if he had asked. He still felt a little uncomfortable interrupting them in the bathroom.

Finally he sighed and moved to the door and pounded on it with his fist to make sure they could hear it.

"Dean... Dean... I have your stuff. I'm just gonna leave it here by the door."

Sam stood outside the door for a few minutes waiting to see if Dean answered him.

[The Preceptor]

Annali furrowed her brow a bit and pulled her head back into the shower. Something was definitely odd about the terrified way Dean had been staring at his own reflection, but for now, she chose to ignore it for two reasons. One, judging by the smile he had plastered on his face when he looked at her, he didn't WANT her to ask, and it really wasn't her business to pry into his personal thoughts anyhow. And two, because the shower water was rapidly cooling and she hadn't even shaved her legs yet.

She poured a fairly decent amount of conditioner into the palm of her hand and began to work it gently into her hair before starting to work on her legs, leaving the conditioner in to work its magic for a few minutes. As she was lathering up one leg with shaving lotion, she heard the knock on the door and glanced up briefly, straining to hear what Sam was saying. Unfortunately, through the thunder of the shower water and the barrier of the door, she was only able to make out his voice and not what he was actually saying. "Tell him I'll be down shortly to make him breakfast," she told Dean as she propped her foot up on the side of the tub and began to gently drag her razor up her calf and thigh.

[ZZZ - Dean - RETIRED]

"Dean... Dean... I have your stuff. I'm just gonna leave it here by the door."

Sammy, your timing is awesome...

That thought could have been reversed had Annali not just caught him looking like Hell. Things had been going pretty well between the two of them so far, even after the rude awakening earlier. Spending this much time with such a good looking member of the opposite sex with the fantastic excuse that he was cursed to do it was almost like a dream come true. Or it would have been but for the near fatal heart spasms they both got when seperated.

Right now they were both naked (save for a towel and a shower curtain) and sharing a steamy bathroom. So Dean should have been ignoring Sam and hopping into the running water with her, but after his little trip down memory lane, he just wanted to get dressed, eat breakfast and get on the road. It was hard enough keeping the truth from Sam when they lived in each other's pockets twenty four hours a day, but at least they could get a little time apart to take a break from lying to each other. With Annali, he'd have to take extra care to not let his vulnerabilities show.

"Tell him I'll be down shortly to make him breakfast,"

"Yeah okay, I'm going over to the door so you might feel a little..." Right on cue as he crossed the room, Dean felt the now annoyingly familiar twinge of separation and heard Annali had felt it too.

"Yeah...that. Sorry, I'll be back over in a sec."

Dean opened the door with a look of discomfort but smiled when he saw Sam anyway.

"Hey, thanks for bringing this up." He said as he took the duffel from him and pawwed through it there and then for his toothbrush. The bad taste of a night's sleep on top of a stale taste of puke was still lingering and he was pretty desperate to brush it away.

"Whadda you want for breakfast? Li says she'll make you anything you like." He stood up and grinned at Sam as best he could when his rib cage was slowly trying to crush his internal organs. "Dude, it's like having a chef on call twenty four seven. I gotta say, this curse sucks but at least it's got it's perks."

[Sam Winchester (NPC)]

Sam

Sam smirked, nodded then crossed his arms over his chest when Dean opened the door and thanked him for bringing up his bag. Sam could see the somewhat painful look on Dean's face and knew that he had moved a little to far away from Annali.
He stood in front of the door as Dean asked him what he wanted for breakfast. Informing him that Li would fix him whatever he wanted.

"Whatever she makes is fine with me. I'm sure you'll have plenty of requests for her."

"Dude, it's like having a chef on call twenty four seven. I gotta say, this curse sucks but at least it's got it's perks."

Sam grinned as he rolled his eyes and shook his head. His brother was predictable where food was concerned. Chuckling Sam waved at Dean as he turned to head back down the stairs.

((I think Sam is out of here then... Unless we are going to do breakfast?))

[The Preceptor]

Annali barely had time to register Dean's warning before she felt a sudden jolt of pain in her chest. "Gah!" she blurted out, startled by the sensation, her hand slipping slightly and causing the razor to slice her thigh. She barely noticed the blood streaming into the running water before she realized that shaving her legs was impossible right now. She pressed herself against the shower wall nearest the door, the shower head spraying her full on in the face. "Dean! Would--" She paused to turn her head, spitting out a bit of excess water that had gotten into her mouth. "Would you hurry up?" she called.

Once she felt the pain subside slowly, she relaxed with a deep sigh and went back to shaving her legs. The cut on her thigh kept coming up red just to be washed away by the shower spray. She knew that once the water was turned off she was going to be bleeding all over the bathroom floor, and she frowned at the thought of it. It was a small cut and nothing serious, but razor cuts on the leg, she knew from experience, had a tendancy to bleed ridiculously.

Eventually, Annali finished her shower, and she turned off the water. Drawing back the curtain enough to stick out her arm, she retrieved the two towels she had set aside and pulled them into the shower with her. The larger towel was draped over the shower curtain rod while she wrapped her hair in the smaller towel in a turban-style. She then pulled down the larger towel and wrapped it around her body, making sure it was tucked into itself securely three times before pulling back the curtain all the way.

The moment her eyes fell on Dean again, her cheeks turned pink, especially as it all sort of hit her at once that the two of them were wearing only towels. Annali held one hand over the closure of her own towel, not wanting to risk it coming undone and dropping to the floor as she stepped out of the shower/tub and moved to the sink. She looked over at Dean and gave him a shy smile before returning her attention to the sink, where she retrieved her toothbrush from a cup on the counter and the toothpaste from the medicine cabinet. The cut on her thigh, momentarily forgotten, was streaming a thin line of blood down her leg.

[ZZZ - Dean - RETIRED]

"Would you hurry up?"

Dean nodded his thanks to Sam again then pulled his head back inside the bathroom and closed the door. Annali sounded like she was getting a face full of water, no doubt she was hugging the shower wall in much the same way Dean had been hugging the otherside of the door earlier and in a small, childish way, Dean found that kind of amusing. It made him feel less foolish about being seen anyway.

"Okay I'm back." He said pointlessly as he pulled out his toothbrush and dumped his duffel on the floor by the sink. Even if the room had been pitch black and silent, Annali would have known how close he was by the easing of the pain in her chest. Kind of like an inbuilt GPS locating chip under the skin, only a hell of a lot more uncomfortable.

The sound of the shower abruptly stopped just as Dean was squeezing out a blob of toothpaste onto his brush. He enthusiastically shoved it into his mouth and began scrubbing away the bad taste he still had from the night before, pausing once to watch an arm creep out of the curtain in search of towels and again when Annali finally stepped out properly. And boy did she look divine in nothing but a towel.

Dean was standing in front of the sink, glad that the mirror had fogged up again with steam so he didn't have to look at his own face while he brushed his teeth, though he wasn't looking at himself right now. No, he appeared to be having a major problem tearing his eyes away from shower-damp Li. He also seemed to have forgotten he was supposed to be cleaning his teeth, because while his hand was still attached to the brush, it was mostly just hanging out of his half open mouth not doing much of anything.

Annali blushed and Dean realised he was staring so he smiled and turned back to face the fogged up mirror again. The brush in his hands went back to work. She came over and stood beside him, the pair of them quietly just going about their mornings activities. When Dean finished up returning his breath to non-toxic levels, he crouched down to get his clothes from his duffel and noticed a thin trail of red had trickled down Annali's leg, turning slightly pinker where it had mingled with the water from the shower.

"You're bleeding." He stated, a look of worry and slight confusion on his face as he followed the coloured trail back up her leg to where it disappeared under the towel.

[The Preceptor]

Annali paused, mid-toothbrushing, and looked down at Dean curiously. "Mmm?" she questioned around a mouthful of toothpaste and followed his gaze to the thin trail of blood. She frowned slightly and held up one finger to him, and then bent over the sink to spit and rinse out her mouth and toothbrush.

"Yeah... just a little razor cut," she said as though it were no big deal, but she was embarrassed enough to avoid looking at him as she opened the medicine cabinet and found a band-aid. Annali propped her foot up on the closed toilet lid and, though she used one hand to keep the towel closed, she used the other to dab away at the water on her thigh. She was probably showing a lot more thigh than she would have been comfortable with, had she been consciously aware that she was doing so, but her focus was on drying the area and then applying the bandage.

"There. All better," she said with a sweet smile as she tossed the wrapper into the little trash can in the corner. Annali reached into one of the drawers in the bathroom vanity and pulled out a bottle of facial moisturizer, poured a small bit into her palm and then rubbed it into her face until it blended smoothly into her skin. She then took a deep breath and looked at Dean, who looked like he had his clothes all ready to put on. Annali bent down quickly and retrieved the clothing she had worn before, bunching it up and holding it against her chest. "Ready?" she asked, trying her very best to stay calm... as though this entire situation was normal.

[ZZZ - Dean - RETIRED]

And now I know there really is a God.... Dean mused to himself as he watched Li lift her towel a little further up her thigh. Without consciously realising he was doing it, he'd tilted his head to one side to get a better angle on the impressive view. Fortunately, Annali was too busy cleaning up her leg to notice.

Those legs really do go all the way up too...

"There. All better,"

You can say that again...

Snapping his head up again when she turned to look at him, he gave her a smile, glad that it had only been something simple. Usually when someone in his vicinity was bleeding, it tended to be for far more violent reasons. He went to speak, but his throat had suddenly gone very dry and he had to swallow a couple of times before answering her when she asked if he was ready to go.

"Uh, oh yeah. Sure." He nodded, opening the door for her so they could return to the bedroom and get dressed.

[The Preceptor]

Annali moved past him and led the way back to the bedroom, where she dropped the dirty laundry in a hamper near her armoire and then retrieved the jeans and white button-down that she had carelessly dropped on the floor earlier in the morning. She went through her armoire and found underclothes, socks, and a navy blue tank top, and once she had all of her clothing gathered she realized that there was no subtle way to get dressed around a towel really.

She looked over her shoulder at Dean for a moment, blushing as she watched him, obviously waiting for him to turn his back. And then she once again faced forward, deciding that there wasn't any way around this and that she needed to just get dressed and try to forget that there was a man in the room. She closed her eyes tight for a moment and took a deep breath, preparing herself for something that might have been nothing to a lot of women, but it was extremely difficult for her. The towel dropped to the hardwood floor with a soft thud, and she proceeded to get dressed as quickly as she could without falling all over herself in the process.

[ZZZ - Dean - RETIRED]

Ok Dean, you can do it. Just be a gentleman and don't turn around to look. That's it, keep your eyes on what you're doing. No need to turn around and look at the incredibly hot woman standing behind you with no clothes on....

Gah! Dammit! This is almost as bad as being tortured in Hell!

Well not really, there weren't any hot women in Hell, but c'mon! Maybe if I just take a peak....NO Dean! Down boy! No peaking or else you're just gonna get yourself into trouble and if you wanna survive this curse for more than a day, you better damn well behave or it's gonna get really awkward.

It'd be so easy to just take a glance though....

Dean mentally slapped himself several times and concentrated on getting dressed himself, pulling on a pair of jeans that were slightly torn at the knees, a dark brown long sleeved shirt and a plaid button down he couldn't remember buying and assumed had come from Sam at some point.

When he'd returned from Hell, the only clothes he had were the ones he'd been buried in and Sam insisted that he burn them as soon as possible. Dean could understand and quite frankly, he didn't ever want to wear them again either. So some of what he wore now was passed on from Sam, a couple of shirts he'd borrowed from Bobby and the rest he'd had to relent to paying money for. Of course it was someone else's money to begin with, but it still felt like an unnecessary waste of cash they could use for more important things like food or gas. Or ammo.

"Lemme know when I can turn around again." He said as he rolled up his sleeves and patiently waited for her to finish dressing too.

[The Preceptor]

Annali could have easily glanced up at the mirror that hung on the inside door of the armoire to see if Dean had looked or not but she honestly wasn't sure she wanted to know if he did. So now she just had to assume that he hadn't, but not knowing for sure made her feel a little uneasy. She tried to brush those feelings aside as she tucked the navy tank top into her jeans and then pulled on the white button-down, tying it in a knot at her waist rather than buttoning it.

"It's safe," she told him in her quiet voice. Assuming that, by Dean requesting she let him know when she was dressed, that meant that he was decent as well, she grabbed up her socks and her brown hiking boots and moved over to sit on the bed, where she proceeded to finish getting dressed. She spared a brief glance up at Dean, and she smiled a little at him as she ran a hand into her damp locks. "Great shirt," she complimented, moving off the bed and going to sit down at her vanity.

It was here that she started to work on her hair... brushing it, working smoothing cream into it, blow-drying it. And, of course, her makeup. She couldn't help smiling to herself a little as she switched on the hair dryer, imagining what Dean was thinking. She was quite sure that Sam didn't take nearly as long to get ready... but she couldn't just go out looking like death warmed over. Besides, she was fairly certain that she was low maintenance in comparison to other women. Her hair didn't really require a lot of attention and she didn't pile on the makeup like some.

[ZZZ - Dean - RETIRED]

Dean sat down on the end of the bed beside Annali and pulled clean socks on too, smiling over in a goofy way to her when they both bent down to fasten their boots at the same time. He assumed that with them both being dressed now, they'd be off downstairs next so that he could turn his attention to any of the leads Sam hadn't managed to work through yet while Li called her father. So when she stood up from the bed, Dean automatically did too, heading straight for the door.

Of course, Annali wasn't done getting ready for the day which made Dean frown and turn to see where she had gone. He gave her a look as though he should have known she'd want to dry her hair first and returned to his spot on the bed to wait again.

Ok great. Hair's done. We can go now....

Once again, when it looked as though she was finished, Dean - ever the master of anticipating someone's next move - stood back up again and took a couple of steps to the door. Only Annali wasn't done yet, she still had make up to apply, which Dean considered a little pointless because to him she looked stunning without it.

"Oh sorry...I thought you were done." He said, trying not to let his lack of patience show. He wasn't very good at waiting and soon realised why women in general had a reputation for taking ages to get ready. Yet again he returned to the bed, flopping back on it to stare at the ceiling as though it might make the time pass quicker. When that got boring he started clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth and drumming his fingers on his stomach to the beat of some old rock tune he had in his head. Surely that would make this hanging around more interesting. It didn't though and in the end he found himself mesmerised by the whole ritual of how a woman applied her makeup and all the little tricks she used to get the desired affect.

Huh...I wonder if that's why Sam takes so long in the morning..?

[The Preceptor]

Finally... hair was dry and makeup was applied. Annali just took a minute to sweep her brown hair up into a ponytail to get it out of her face and then she stood, turning her attention to Dean, whom she smiled at apologetically as she shyly tucked back a stray hair.

He was lying on the bed and she hated to ask him to get up, but she was a clean freak and couldn't stand the idea of leaving the room messy. So she moved to the other side of the bed and began straightening and smoothing things as best as she could until the bed looked presentable enough. It would have to do for now.

"Okay then," she said with a sigh as she took a look around the room and then picked up her watch and a few random pieces of jewelry from a small wooden box on the vanity. She started slipping them on... a pair of earrings, a bracelet, couple of rings... and asked, "Ready? You two are probably starving."

[ZZZ - Dean - RETIRED]

Well this is a new experience...making the bed? I never do that...though technically, I usually have a maid to do it for me...

Dean watched with idle curiousity as Annali proceeded to go just a tiny bit OCD on him with making the bed. He'd have thought that given the circumstances, she would have more important things on her mind, but clearly she liked her home to be tidy and that applied in times of crisis too.

He sat up but stayed where he was with his hands loosely resting in his lap, waiting for her to ask him to move and when she didn't the rebellious, untidy side of him decided that her home needed just a little part to be messy to keep the balance and that part was right under his butt. So he stayed there until she announced that she was ready to go, guessing that he (and Sam) were probably hungry by now.

"I was thinking about eating the pillow for a moment back there." He teased, getting up to finally leave the bedroom. In truth, it hadn't taken Annali that long to get ready, but the whole concept of having to think before acting was pretty new to him. He relied heavily on instinct and since tossing his cookies last night, his stomach was feeling very empty indeed. If he hadn't been cursed to stay by Li's side, instinct would have lead him to the refridgerator hours ago.

Downstairs, Dean heard the familiar sound of Sam tapping away on his laptop and as they passed by the office and he caught Li's elbow to stop her from wandering off while he poked his head in. Naturally, Sam was hard at work, seemingly he'd only stopped to shower and change clothes and Dean felt a tug of pride in his chest at how dilligent his kid brother was when it came to saving Dean from the messes he got into.

He gave Sam a long look and glanced around the office, noticing the pillow and the comforter that Annali had brought down for him to use on the couch hadn't moved from the night before. Clearly if he'd gotten any sleep at all, it was at the desk, most likely hunched over his research.

"You look like you slept well." Dean said sarcastically, his tone tinged with a little bit of worry and guilt, especially since he'd gotten to sleep in a nice comfy bed last night. Hooking a thumb over his shoulder he smoothly changed the subject.

"We're in the kitchen, Li's making breakfast. If you won't take a break, at least bring that thing in there so I can talk to you. I fear I'm gonna get roped into making pancakes or something otherwise. And you know what happened the last time I did that." The corner of his mouth twisted up in a goofy half smirk, knowing full well that Annali could probably hear him.

The last time he'd attempted to make pancakes, it was using one of those crappy store bought ready mix packets and the hood of Bobby's car in one hundred and six degree, Utah heat. The pancakes, the few that didn't stick to the body work, all tasted of engine oil and smoke and Bobby had not been best pleased. Of course, the last time Dean made pancakes, he was fourteen and had simply been trying to entertain a bored ten year old while his Dad and Bobby had been cleaning up after a hunt.