𝐃𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐕𝐀𝐍

𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐘-𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄

"Katherine, your jokes are the worst," Dean proclaims. "Literally, the worst."

Katherine squawks in protest. "The worst?!" She cries. "The worse the puns are, the better! That's what makes them so great!" She takes a violent bite of her burger, glowering playfully out the window. "Just say you're uncultured and move on."

Dean laughs. 

They're having fun for the first time since deperation shoved him towards her. He still doesn't know if enlisting her to help him find Sam was a moment of weakness or not. Whatever the reason, whatever the rhyme, in this moment, he's glad he did.

And probably all other moments, too. He'll take the long, sappy phone calls to Charlie. He'll take the short replies and the quick temper. He'll take it all if it means he can sleep at night knowing she's here, knowing she's safe.

Even if it means she's back in the Winchester Family Mess. 

It was a constant internal war. Does he want her in all of this? Does he want her fighting all of this nastiness? Doesn't she deserve happiness, normalcy?

She seems happy now, though. They've been laying low for a little over a week now, using new aliases and burners, keeping their noses out of hunts. Katherine fielded them to other hunters in the area, something she's becoming a little too good at doing. It makes her itch. Her legs are restless and she has too much energy, even after going for a run in whatever town they're in.

Naturally, Dean was all too happy to jump in the car with her when she found a potential lead for the first case they've taken since the prison. Somehow, between crawling all over town and looking into persons of interest, they've managed to laugh it up. Blow off steam. Talk. Be humans.

Friends. Happy.

Katherine barely hears Dean's cellphone ringing over the music. She reaches over to crank the radio down and hands Dean his phone before picking up a small handful of fries and dropping them into her mouth. She lets out a content sigh, leaning against the framework of the Impala with closed eyes. Dean smiles and answers his phone.

"Yeah?"

Sam replies softly, paranoid. Worried. "There's a cop car outside."

Dean's heart constricts, and his grip tightens on the steering wheel. He shoots a side-eyed glance to Katherine. She's oblivious. "You think it's for us?"

"I don't know."

"I don't see how," Dean tells him. "We ditched the plates, the credit cards, got new burners."

Silence looms between the two for a moment. Then Sam lets out a sigh when the patrol car rolls down the street. "False alarm," he murmurs, moving away from the window. His chest hurts with the sudden decrease in blood volume his heart is pumping.

"See?" Dean chirps, cheerfullness coloring his tone. "Nothin' to worry about."

"Yeah," Sam quips, sitting at the desk with a heavy sigh. He stares at the book on the surface, opened up to a page about djinns. "Being fugitives is a damn dance party."

"Hey, man," Dean chukles. "Chicks dig the danger vibe." Katherine glances over to him with a raised brow.

"Did you get anything?" Sam asks.

"How could we?" Dean scoffs. "You sent us to scour through, like, fifty square miles of real estate."

"Well that's where all the victims disappeared," Sam points out.

"Yeah, well, we got diddly-squat," Dean tells him.

"Well, we also took a break," Katherine hums.

Dean shoots her a look and she smirks, eyes glinting mischievously.