El Paso, TX

Don't Call Me Sunshine

Dean leaned against the door to the hotel room, unable to turn the knob. He let out a long sigh in the empty hallway. The Laredo Inn in El Paso, Texas looked like any of the others he’d been in over the past few weeks - a bar with cream colored walls, yellowed menus and tables that rocked slightly from side to side. The hunt was done and the urge to see Cassie again seized in his chest.

It had been two months since she’d flown out to meet him outside of Boston. Up until then, their dates had been fun. They’d eat, drink too much and have great sex for two days straight.

A little peace in his world and then he’d hunt. Those six months had been the best in his life and then she’d told him that she’d love him through anything.

Anything? She had no idea what she what she was talking about and he had no right to test that belief. He hadn’t called her since. Fuck, he thought as he opened the door. Maybe he should have had another drink at the bar.

Or maybe he should have come upstairs sooner.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Dean eased his hand into his jacket and gripped the butt of his gun.

The young woman rifling through his bag stood up to face him. “Would you believe housekeeping?” She smiled and tilted her head to the side so that her brownish blond hair waved into her face.

“Try again.” Dean pulled the gun out and pointed. The woman’s pale green eyes never left his.  Even from across the room, he felt the weight of her fearless stare. “I’m going to ask you again, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Now, that’s no way to speak to a lady.” A male voice came from behind him and Dean felt the metal of a gun bumping against his scalp.

“It’s okay, brother, we both know I’m not a lady.” The woman laughed and pointed to the chair against the wall. “Why don’t you have a seat uhmm...Dean? And hand that over to my brother.”

Dean released his gun and sat down. He looked at a young man now sitting across from him on the bed. Like the woman, he had light skin kissed with brown, wavy dark blond hair and those strange unwavering green eyes.

“We just need one thing and then we’ll let you get back to your evening.”

“Well you got a hell of-” Dean stopped as the door flung open. The young man remained focused on him with the cold, unflinching glare of a hunter. Briefly, he wondered if he’d had that look at such a young age. “Hey, Sammy, glad you could join the party. Meet my new friends.”

“Shit, what happened to having a few drinks? Get the fuck over there.” The woman now pointed a gun at Sam and directed him to the chair closest to her. “This is really pissing me off.”

“I can see that you’re upset so why don’t we talk about this? My name is Sam…”

“I know who you are.” She shouted. “This was not the plan.”

“Calm, down, sis. What do we do?”

“First, why don’t you put down the guns and we’ll figure it out together.”

Dean caught the nod of Sam’s head and added one of his own. “Yeah, let’s hug it out and we’ll all feel better.”

The young man across from him smiled and for a moment his expression softened. Then the woman spoke and his eyes glazed over once more.

“Alright, here’s whats going to happen. My brother is going to holster his gun. I’m going to sit on this bed and my gun is the only one showing. My brother is going to tell you who we are and what we’re looking for. And if…if I get that warm and fuzzy feeling like we’re all best friends, I’ll put my gun away and we can hug it out. Agreed?”

“And if you don’t get that warm and fuzzy feeling?”

“Then I’m the only one walking out of here with a living brother, Dean. Agreed?”

Dean looked over at Sam whose face registered disbelief and amusement. “Agreed.” Both he and Sam said at the same time.

Immediately, the young man put his gun away and smiled at them both. “It’s really cool to see you two. I want to say that first. I apologize about the guns but…”

The woman cleared her throat.

“Right, right. We got to town yesterday and according to the date. Well, we haven’t been born for another few years.”

Dean groaned and dropped his head into his hands. “I hate time travel.”

“We know.” The two said together, but the young man continued. “You see I was kinda seeing this girl and I may have slept with her step-mom. Turns out they’re witches. Who knew?” The young man chuckled, raking his hand through the wavy curls that had flopped into his face.

“Witches that zapped his ass back to never never land and because I’m his twin, I’m along for the ride. And I actually have a purpose for being born besides some plastic surgeon's wet dream.”

“I’ve been apologizing all day. Let it go, okay! Honestly if Mom wasn’t alive, I’d stab you right now. I really would.”

“Ohhhh, you’d never try." The woman laughed taking her eyes away from Sam for the first time. "You spineless lizard, I'd kill you before your hand touched--"

“Hey.” Dean yelled. “Cut the chatter and get back to the story.”

Both of them looked at him and smiled.

“Anyway we need to get back to our own time. We’re messing with our timeline by being here. Everything we do could jeopardize our lives and the life of our little sister. She’s not a hunter and she needs us.” The young man pulled his lips in and closed his eyes. “We need your dad’s book. It’s famous. Maybe something in there could help us.”

Dean saw the pain in the man’s eyes. The desperation. He looked to Sam.

Sam met his gaze then looked at the woman still pointing the gun on him. “The book is in the car.”

“We’re helping, Sunshine, why don’t put the gun down?” Dean asked.

He was surprised by the weak nod of the woman’s head as she holstered the gun. “Don’t call me that,” she whispered.

For the first time since he’d seen her, a deep sadness flittered across her face and the room was filled with it.

So What Was He Like, Your Old Man?

Hours later, Dean sat in the room alone with the woman while Sam and the young man made a run for tacos. Dean took another swig from his beer, studying the raised whelp on her arm while she sat hunched over his dad’s journal. “How did you get that?”

“Hmmm…” She grazed her fingers across it and frowned. “A ghoul outside of Tucson. Shit, my mom is gonna be pissed. She still thinks there is hope for me.”

“What about your dad?”

“He knew there was no hope for me.”

“Knew?”

“Yeah, he died a year ago in my time.” She blew out a long breath.

“You miss him?”

“Every fucking day. Growing up I didn’t see him more than a few months in a year, but everyday was Christmas. And even when he embarrassed me, I loved him.” She let out a laugh that trilled through the air. “He shows up the night of my senior prom and I hadn’t seen him for three months. And he takes my date into the kitchen and when the poor boy comes out. I swear I could smell urine and Dad just smiles. I so went off on him the next day, but that’s what we did. We yelled. And he loved me through it and I loved him. So yeah, I miss that. I miss that so much.” She swiped at her eyes and then returned to the book.

“How did they do it? Your parents. Have a family?”

“I knew monsters existed when I was six. I could shoot by the time I was nine. I had my first hunt when I was twelve. Our family wasn’t typical. I was a hunter born to a hunter. That’s how it worked. Just like yours did.”

Her eerily crystal clear eyes met his and he thought of Cassie.

Of home.

```

The spell seemed simple enough.

The nameless twins should be on their way back to their own time in a matter of minutes. Sam poured the last of the lighter fluid in its required shape and their own dear Castiel provided the feathers each held in their hands.

“It really was cool meeting you like this,” said the male with a lopsided grin on his face.

“This was the best. Like Christmas,” the woman said as her image faded from his view.

Sam finished his incantation and the shapes on the floor blazed before them.

“You think they made it?” Dean heard his voice crack in the empty barn.

“I hope so. They seem like good kids.” Sam gripped his shoulder and then began walking toward the door. “You coming?”

“Yeah,” Dean answered absently. His focus remained on the shimmering after image of the twins – blonde hair, green eyes and faint brown skin.

Willing to Take the Ride

Two days later as the sun’s last rays dimmed in the North Texas sky, Dean rang Cassie’s doorbell.

It took a few minutes before she opened the door wearing a light blue sundress. A lifetime later when his life flashed before him he'd remember the blaze of her eyes flashing against that dress.

“You weren’t dead were you?”

“No.” He shuffled past her and immediately noticed the man sitting on the couch in her living room. “Get rid of him or I will.” Dean slumped against the wall and thumped his head.

“Two months of silence and you think you can just walk in here--”

“You got thrity seconds to get him out of here or I start shooting. Thirty…Twenty-nine…Twenty-eight...”

“The only reason I’m doing this is because I want to tell you how big of an asshole you are and I don’t want to do it in front of a guest.”

An awkward few minutes passed as the man moved to the front door where Cassie gave him a shaky hug before she closed it.

“You fucking bastard. I share one thing with you that isn’t physical and you go ghost on me. So fuck you.” Cassie jabbed her fingers into his chest. “You aren’t special you know? Hell doesn’t only follow you. It follows us all. You don’t think I realize that every time I visit my mother in a mental institution or feel the indentation of my ring finger? I only wanted to love you. I wanted you to love me back. You fucking-”

Dean swallowed her venom in a kiss, pushing her into the opposite wall until her body melted against his. “I love you, Cassie. And you’re right, I’m a fucking bastard because that’s gonna get one of us killed. I know it and I can’t stop it.”

“I’m willing to take the ride, Dean,” she whispered before kissing him again.

Not Exactly

“I’m dreaming.” Dean felt Castiel’s presence before the angel appeared in front of him.

“Not exactly.” Cas answered.

Dean turned his attention to the two children running in front of the porch. “Hen! Henry, don’t hit your sister. I know she’s pissing you off, but don’t hit her.”

The young boy looked up at him and immediately dropped the stick, then stalked off in the opposite direction.

Johnna smiled, pulling her wispy dark blonde curls behind her ears. “Thanks, Daddy.” She traipsed after her brother.

“Sunshine, don’t bother him,” he called after her and took another swig from his beer. “So what’s not exactly a dream?”

“They will be born, Dean. They’ll have to be taught and you don’t have much time. They along with one other have a destiny to fulfill.”

“How long do I have with them?”

“Twenty-five years from today.”

“They’ll be ready.” He nodded and watched the two dissolve into a fit of giggles at the edge of the pond. After all as his daughter had told him, she and her brother were born to hunt.