The Runt of the Litter

no dancing, just dvds

Note: Thank you so much for all the comments and votes! Everybody seemed to really like the last chapter, which made me very happy because it was both important and time-consuming. I really appreciate all the comments that were left!

So, it's been an intense group of chapters for the last few weeks. I'm opting for an actual one-shot this week. It's pretty short, but it's not intense and sad, so that should be a bonus. In this chapter, Anna is fourteen.

no dancing, just dvds

"Please."

"No."

"Please."

"No."

"Please."

"Anna."

Anna groaned and looked back down at her phone where she was texting the only group chat she would ever be a part of that had people other than Sam and Dean in it. Mila, Ethan, Finn, Kate. Her not-friend, sorta-friends, and best friend. She typed a stalling message Can I ask later? He's not in a good mood. She didn't bother mentioning that she'd already asked and he'd said no even though he was in a great mood. It was movie night. You couldn't catch Dean in a better mood.

Tossing her phone on the sofa behind her, Anna lifted the top DVD off one of the stacks surrounding her. She was sitting on the floor in their makeshift family room in the Men of Letters bunker, and it was finally her turn to pick the movies for movie night. Immediately placing Die Hard in the not tonight and not ever again if I can help it pile, Anna looked up at Dean again and tilted her head. She knew there was a way to get him to say she could go, but she just wasn't sure what that way was yet. She did know that anything involving teenage boys was bound to make him react poorly, though, so it was crucial that she not let the detail about Ian slip out.

"Why do you even like this movie?" she questioned while putting Super Troopers in her not unless held at gunpoint pile.

"It's hilarious," Dean answered, looking disappointed that she'd thrown in the same stack as several of the horror movies they owned.

Anna hated horror movies, because-- though she didn't like to admit it-- she was easily scared by them. It wasn't so much the blood and gore that would get her as it was the suspense and the knowledge that there was always something bad coming. Instead of startling at the carefully placed jump scares, Anna would hide her face in Sam's shirt when threatening music started playing in the background, because that was when she got scared. Still, she always insisted that she didn't like horror movies because they were lame, and not because they scared her. Sam and Dean teased her mercilessly about it, but when she inevitably grabbed onto one of them in the middle of a scary movie's climax, neither of them pushed her away. They were, in fact, embarrassingly nice about it.

"That one's good," Dean said, looking at the movie Anna was about to pick up. "'S directed by Clint Eastwood, too.

"Yeah, but it's sad," Anna said and put in the second choice stack.

"You don't want scary, you don't want sad, and you just tossed out one of the best comedies ever made. Is there anything you will watch?"

"The Proposal."

Dean pulled a face at mention of the rom-com starring Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock.

"It's funny. Don't pretend you don't like it."

Dean gave her a sideways glare. "It's funny, but a rewatch would kill what's left of my manhood."

"You're such a dick," Anna mumbled while shaking her head in amusement. "We rented it anyway," she said of the movie in question. "We don't have the DVD anymore."