Supernatural: Dean's Witch Ch. 03

"Dean and you got me into this," she said flatly before taking a gulp from her glass.

"Yeah. If we'd known..." Sam didn't bother finishing his sentence. They hadn't known, about how the coven would react or about her mother's spell, but it was too late to change any of that. "Look, Calla, I know me 'n Dean are probably the last people you want to be around, but considering that you're still here and don't seem to have anyone else waiting in line to help, I'd say we're your best options."

"And what, I'm supposed to come be your slave instead of the coven's? Is that it? What's the plan here, Sam?" she asked, meaning the word to come out accusingly. Instead, her voice cracked from the beginning, and before she knew it there were tears running down her cheeks again. "Fuck," she muttered, swinging around so that she faced the window.

Behind her, Sam had frozen with the coffee halfway to his lips. It hadn't occurred to him that that's what she'd be thinking, though he guessed it should have. Putting down the coffee, he walked over to her and gently tugged the cup of liquor from her fist, though he didn't make a move to touch her. "No. That's not the plan. But you coming to our bunker, which is safe, will give us time to come up with something. You can't stay here because I don't know if we can come up with anything in the few days we've got. If we get you to the bunker now, you can be settled in before the coven even realizes you're gone, and then we'll figure out the next step. Right now, though, you need coffee, and then we'll get you packed. We can have a moving company come store the rest of your stuff after we're out."

Calla shrugged, still looking out the window. "There's a junk company coming Friday—the landlord's supposed to let them in to take anything I haven't already gotten out. Figured I wouldn't need it."

"Okay, so we pack your clothes into the Impala and we get out, right? Alright?" he prodded her when she remained silent.

After a moment, she nodded. Sam didn't try to argue when she took her glass back from his hand and slugged down the rest of it before heading toward her bedroom, where he heard her opening a drawer. Listening, he went back to his coffee, and tried to decide whether or not to warn his brother of who he was bringing back with him.

* * * * *

Calla had let herself fall asleep soon after getting into the Impala, its back seat and trunk filled with the few things she'd cared enough for to pack, or felt she needed—mostly clothing, along with the box Sam had packed and one other that contained similar items. Everything else had either been given away before he arrived or would wait for the junk crew, but for the packed dishes and a few other items left outside of her door for a charity. She'd had some paintings she'd cared about which had been given to friends, but beyond that, few of her possessions had warranted special favor. A few favorite blankets she'd bought from a local artisan's shop were all that finished off what was being moved now, and she'd tucked these into the space beside her feet, and between herself and the door so that she could use them as a pillow. She'd cleaned out and closed her bank account days ago, so this collapsing of her life into the Impala had just been the last stage in leaving things behind.

Sleep had come easily, too, with her bloodstream full of alcohol. and exhaustion already slowing her down.

When she woke, it was dark, trees flying by through the window and suggesting that they were on some country highway instead of any major road. She hadn't asked where the bunker was or exactly where they were going, figuring there wasn't much point. Lately, it had been hard to think about the future.

Sam had called it slavery, what he'd referenced, but she knew this wasn't quite what she was in for, should her mother's coven find her. What they would do would be to take her free will, so that she'd have no desire to do anything but help them, and to her this was something worse than slavery—she'd lose her self, her identity. Enough of that had already been lost, gone with her magic and the education and the job she'd hoped to take on, the life she'd hoped to live, but to add to that the idea of actually losing even the memory of those desires, so that she was just an automaton who would do whatever it was told... She'd been trying to figure out whether that was a fate worse than death ever since the letter came.

They were only about ten miles from the bunker when Sam realized she was awake, dazedly looking out the window.

"We're kind of in the middle of nowhere. It's safe," he told her quietly. "How do you feel?"

"Asking if I'm still drunk?"

"Something like that," he admitted, taking a quick glance her way. He still wasn't sure how far over the line from buzzed to drunk she'd been when they'd gotten into the car, but he'd had plenty more to think about than how much she'd been drinking, even while packing.

"Probably," she answered honestly, still looking out the window.

Sam nodded and kept driving. If he was lucky, maybe he could get parked in the garage and get her into a guest room before he had to explain any of this to Dean.

Luck held. Within thirty minutes, Sam was parked and unpacking the Impala, having settled Calla in the nicest of the guest rooms with one of her suitcases so that she could begin unpacking; when he'd gone back to deliver her second suitcase, she'd already been passed out. Meanwhile, his brother was MIA, which was fine, as Sam had half expected he'd have found his way to a bar by this time in the evening. With Calla implanted in a room that was only a few doors down from his, this time would at least give him some space to figure out what to say. He'd thought he'd have hours, though, and instead Dean pulled in while Sam was just getting the last box from the Impala, the blankets Calla had crammed into the backseat set on top of it.

Setting the items down, he watched Dean step from their truck and reach into the back for a case of beer with one hand, his other holding a brown bag that Sam knew would have come from the closest liquor store, twenty minutes down the road.

"No food to go with the booze?" Sam asked.

"Food's overrated, but I'll go out for a pizza later if you want me to," Dean answered. "You didn't eat while you were out? And what's that stuff?" he added before Sam had had the chance to answer his first question.

Sam stared for a moment, and then shook his head. "We need to talk. Meet you at the table?" he offered.

"Make it the kitchen," Dean answered. "I gotta get these in the fridge." With that, he hefted the case of beer and passed his brother by, leaving Sam to follow him into the heart of what they called home.

* * * * *

Calla came awake slowly, and it took her a few minutes to realign with where she was. In the dim light, she made out a lumped up mountain of stuff by the door—the rest of her things, she realized, before she pushed herself to sit up and groggily take in the room Sam had led her to. He'd apologized for the lack of windows, in the room as well as in what he called their bunker, in general, but she'd found the darkness of the sprawling bunker to be something of a relief, more so than foreboding. After weeks spent worrying about what came next and where she'd end up, and having been reluctant to leave her apartment for the few days past, having someone else step in to dictate decisions—even if that someone had helped Dean to hurt her and put her in this situation—took a level of pressure off. She no longer had choice, or responsibility to try to figure out how to survive the next week and longer. Still halfway drunk as she was, that was its own kind of blessing.

A look at her watch told her that only a half hour or so had passed since she'd been led to the room; no wonder she still felt drunken and tired. First order of things now, she wanted a drink to help her face whatever was to come. Without giving it much thought, she moved over to her backpack, into which she'd slipped a full bottle of Jack when Sam hadn't been looking. A few gulps in, things seemed easier, and she began unpacking.

* * * * *

Sam was a half-step behind his brother as he stormed toward the bedrooms, headed for Calla. Getting the run-down, he'd managed to go from being annoyed with Sam to being annoyed with Calla, and then concerned. Now, though, Dean was just pissed.

Hitting her door hard, he didn't bother knocking for entry, and swung the door open to see her sitting by the dresser with an open suitcase by her side, a three-fifths full bottle of Jack in her hand.

"You couldn't call, you were in that much trouble? What the hell were you thinking?" he demanded, stepping far enough into the room that she had to look up at a steep angle to see him, and so that he could get a good look at her.

She looked bleary, drunken, and like she'd lost going on twenty pounds since he'd seen her a month before. With circles under her eyes and paler skin, she looked nothing like the girl he'd been thinking about over the past weeks. When she didn't answer, he crouched down so they were more at eye-level. "What the hell were you thinking, Calla?" he asked again.

Calla shook her head at the man in front of her, unable to speak for the moment. Dean looked the same as he had when last she'd seen him, if a bit more rumpled. Instead of answering him, she made a move to pull the bottle of Jack to her lips again, but he grabbed it from her and slammed it down behind him, out of her reach.

"What was I thinking, not calling the guy who seduced me, took my virginity, killed my mother, and ruined my life? When I needed help? Makes a lot of sense, Dean." Calla slumped back against the dresser and glared between him and his brother, who stood frozen near the door.

"She called you?" Dean asked of his brother, standing and turning backward rather than dealing with the girl before him, who looked closer to passing out than anything.

Sam shrugged. "She didn't call me—the way you'd been acting, what we did, I just thought I'd check on her. I tried to call and didn't get any answer; figured it was worth a drive when I found out she dropped out of school."

Dean turned back to Calla, staring down at her. "You dropped out. How stubborn are you, you thought being a slave to some witches was a better life than asking us if we'd goddamned help you? I know you had my number—I left it in a half dozen spots in your place."

"Like I said, choosing between being enslaved to you guys and humiliating myself before your mighty feet kind of seemed like an even bet with losing my free will to the coven, so fuck off," Calla said, impressed that the Jack was allowing her voice to remain steady, if a bit slurred. There were a lot of things she wanted to do at the moment—hiding under the bed and punching the man in front of her were both high on the list, as were passing out and sobbing—but arguing with Dean wasn't something she had the energy for. Seeing him, much a she'd been thinking of him, was itself a lot to take in, and despite all of the other feelings swimming within her, there were snatches of desire in her blood now, being this close to him, and they were hard to ignore.

She'd thought, in the car, that she'd readied herself for seeing him, but instead... she shook her head. Why had she let Sam bring her here? She couldn't remember, at the moment, why it had seemed like her only choice.

Dean was scowling at her when Sam stepped forward, picking up the bottle of liquor that had been set aside and looking for its top. "You don't need more of this," he told her, gesturing with the bottle. In response, she plucked the cap from one of her pockets and threw it hard so that it bounced between the brothers and out of the room, landing somewhere in the hall.

"Real mature, Calla; you wanna stomp your feet next?" Dean asked.

"Lay off it, Dean," Sam interrupted as he stepped into the hall to retrieve the cap. "She's had a rough few weeks; we'll give her some space."

"Space?" Calla echoed. "Space?" She glared between the two men, trying to keep her vision straight, but only got angrier when she saw Dean roll his eyes. "You fuck me and practically move in with me so that you can drug me at your convenience and fuck me some more, and now you want to talk about space? Hell, you probably had the guy attack me, didn't you, so that you could swoop in to the rescue and make me lower my guard for..." she broke off then, biting her tongue to keep herself from crying as she let herself bring her knees up so that she could rest her arms on them, and then put her head down in case the tears did come. She knew she was going to cry, but she thought she was also close to fainting or throwing up, neither of which she wanted to do in front of these men.

"You fucking kidding me?" Dean asked from above her. Before he could stop himself, he'd grabbed both of her arms to jerk her to her feet, ignoring Sam's protests and the heavy hand his brother placed on his bicep to pull him away. Shaking his brother off, Dean shook Calla instead until she looked straight back at him, her eyes wet and unfocused. "You think we'd do that? You think I'd do that?"

"How do I fucking know?" Calla asked, hearing the slur in her own words. She was having trouble seeing straight, and Dean's face just inches from hers was making it harder. There were two of him now. And what right did he have to be angry, anyway?

"Let her go, Dean, you're gonna hurt her," Sam said, both of his hands on his brothers where they gripped Calla's arms so tightly that he knew they had to be leaving bruises. "She's drunk and you're both pissed. Save it."

"Fucking hell, I will," Dean cursed, and swung Calla around to push her in front of him as he pulled away from Sam, who followed behind as he marched Calla from the room. If she wanted to drink more, he'd let her, but they needed to talk first, and that meant she had to sober the fuck up.

Two doors from the room they'd been in, Dean pushed her ahead of him into the bathroom and then pushed her into the shower with one hand as he turned the water on with his other, keeping one hand on her shoulder as she pushed against him and protested, yelling and cursing unintelligibly. He only let her go when she suddenly shrank back from him instead of trying to move forward, and leaned against the tile of the shower before sliding downward to land in the same curled-up position she'd found her way into just before he'd pulled her to her feet.

Stepping back, sobering from his anger and the drink that had been running through his own blood, he forced himself to take one deep breath and then another when her tears became audible, and then he took another step back when Sam pushed past him to turn off the water.

"Go away," Calla muttered when she felt a hand on her arm, and then another on her head, both resting gently. She didn't even care whether it was Dean or Sam at this point. She just wished she'd been gone before Sam had come looking for her. "Go away," she said again when the hand on her hair petted her as if trying to comfort her, then coming to rest on the nape of her neck. When she heard Sam's voice, she realized it was him kneeling next to her.

"Calla, we're not going away. We're gonna help—Dean's not a whole lot more sober than you are and he lost it there for a minute, but we're going to find a way to help you," he promised.

Calla shook her head beneath Sam's hand. She was wet, cold, and dizzy from the drinking she'd done, and her thoughts were all jumbled. When she'd seen Dean, her every instinct had told her to jump up and leap into his arms rather than pull away, and that killed her, that she could feel like that after what he'd done.

Watching his brother crouch beside the shower, beside Calla, pushed Dean to the edge of the room, where he closed his eyes and tried to get it together. He hadn't meant to lose it. "I'm sorry," he finally said, standing across the room. Seeing his brother trying to comfort her had brought him back to himself, though he was fighting still to keep from screaming at the situation. "When you said... you thought we planted that guy at the bar... I lost it. I'm sorry. That's not something we'd ever have done, I swear to God," he finished, cringing at the idea that she could have been thinking this for weeks. Thinking that they would have arranged for that guy to attack her like that, just so she'd trust him, so that he could play protector. It made his skin crawl, to realize it.

Feeling her body loosen with his brother's words, Sam made another effort to get her to uncurl, and this time she did. And even if she was soaked and shivering, she did look slightly more sober. He and Dean had both given each other similar treatments in the past, though it wasn't something he'd have recommended in this situation. Coffee might have served the purpose just as well, he thought with annoyance, but forced himself to smile at her. The last thing any of them needed was for her to be frightened of them.

"Once you sober up, we'll all talk, alright?" he offered, glancing back to his brother and then Calla. His hand still on her shoulder, he felt her shrug against him before she spoke.

"Whatever. I mean, it's pretty obvious, right, why you came to get me? What you want? I'm not stupid, and I can't say no, so here I am. You wanna talk, though, we'll talk."

"Obvious?" Sam asked, trying to catch up with her. As soon as she began speaking again, however, he realized what a mistake it had been to say anything in response, and what she'd been talking about.

"The spell, Dean, me... I'm either the coven's or I'm his, right? And I guess if I'm his, I'm yours, too, because it's not like I can say no, right? So you guys came to get me," Calla said. In her mind, drunken as it was, the logic had become clear. Sam had told Dean about the spell, and that's why they wanted her here, so she'd serve them instead of the coven, now that she was tied to Dean and wouldn't be able to resist him, for better or worse. Sam had said at her apartment that she wouldn't be their slave because, to his mind, she already was. And hell, at least she'd have her free will if she were here, she thought, though the realization brought a sudden burning back to her throat and her eyes so that she had to choke back a sudden sob.

Sam closed his eyes even as he heard his brother step forward. Fuck. Of course that's where her mind went to.

"The spell, Dean, me? You know what the fuck she's talking about, Sammy?" Dean asked, pressing forward so that he stood beside the shower, over his brother and Calla.

Calla's eyes jerked open at the confusion in Dean's voice, her body tensing. Swallowing her tears, she looked dizzily between the brothers. "You didn't..." she began, staring at Sam, suddenly more sober than she'd been in weeks. Oh my God, he didn't know.

Sam just shook his head, cringing at the anger he could feel radiating off of his brother. So much for no secrets between them, again. "I didn't tell him."

What the fuck? Dean crouched down alongside his brother and stared back and forth between him and the girl who still sat curled up in the shower he'd pushed her into just minutes before. "Somebody want to fill me in?" he asked finally.

Calla stared back at him, and realized she was just drunk enough to tell him, if she just let her anger and the booze do the talking. She closed her eyes, trying to catch her breath and beat down the sudden nerves rushing over her skin.

Sam stayed quiet, looking at Calla and figuring he'd tell him if she didn't, but finally she spoke, softly enough that both men had to struggle to hear her, even close as they were. She kept her eyes down, her body tight and clenched to the wall, away from them.