Don the Demon Hunter by Spikedluv (Challenge #43: Fusion)
Title: Three Teams Don Eppes Never Led: Don the Demon Hunter
Pairing/Characters: Don/Charlie (David/Colby mentioned)
Rating/Category: R
Word Count: 4215 words
Spoilers: Through season two, to be safe.
Summary: Don and Charlie are on the trail of something potentially more dangerous than demons.
Notes/Warning: Fusion with Supernatural. Spoilers through season two.
Written: July 24, 2007
When Don came back from the bathroom -- cleaner than he’d expected in a dive like The Roadhouse, which was located this far off the beaten track -- there were already two bottles of beer sitting on their table. They weren’t in the corner, as Don would prefer, but they’d managed to find a table that put his back to the wall. Charlie leaned back in his chair, eyes closed, fingers wrapped loosely around one of the bottles. In this lighting the dark circles beneath Charlie’s eyes were more prominent.
Don slid his hand over Charlie’s shoulder before he took his seat, careful not to squeeze too hard. He’d doctored the bruises Charlie’s clothes hid, washed away the blood and stitched up the cut on his arm. One more scar Don could add to the tally he kept in his head.
Charlie opened his eyes and smiled up at Don, eyelids half closed, cheeks flushed from the beer. Even as he kicked into protective mode and thought that they should have stopped for something to eat so Charlie wasn’t drinking on an empty stomach, Don’s libido kicked into another mode entirely. His cock reacted to the sight of Charlie looking as blissed out as he had that morning when Don had woken him by taking selfish advantage of Charlie’s morning hard-on and sucking him off. A method of waking up that Charlie insisted was his very favorite in spite of the moans of approval when Don got up early and went for a run, leaving Charlie to sleep in, and returned to their room with an offering of coffee and glazed chocolate donuts to ease Charlie out of sleep.
Don forced himself to look away from Charlie and pick up the beer bottle in front of him. Condensation had already left a ring around a handful of the scars that liberally decorated the table top. Despite the dings from years of use, what veneer was left shone from the scrubbing the tables apparently received each day before the bar opened for business. Don took a long drag off his beer before asking Charlie if he’d heard from Megan yet.
Charlie gave Don a tired grin around the mouth of his beer. “Not since the last time you asked. Don’t worry, they’ll be here. And they’ll be fine.”
They. David, Colby and Megan. After their father had died hunting the demon that had killed their mother, Don had sworn to himself that he wasn’t going to take on the responsibility for anyone else. From that moment on it was just him and Charlie.
Not long after that they’d run into David.
Don and Charlie had been between hunts, resting up from the last, gearing up for the next. One night in some small town in Colorado that Don couldn’t even remember the name of now, walking back to their motel from the neighboring diner, they’d heard the sound of a scuffle in the shadows at the back corner of the parking lot behind the diner. Before Don had been able to stop him, Charlie had veered off and followed the noises.
Don had sworn softly as Charlie rushed off, and automatically reached for the gun that wasn’t tucked at the small of his back, but safely locked in their motel room, hidden in Don’s duffel bag beneath all the dirty clothes they hadn’t had time to stop and wash, as he followed Charlie into the shadows.
David had been bleeding from a cut on his forehead and carried his right arm at an awkward angle while trying to hold off a vampire with a stick of wood he brandished in his left hand, apparently picked up from the pile of broken wooden chairs that had been carelessly tossed beside the overflowing dumpster.
Don swore some more. They weren’t armed to take out a vampire, but that didn’t stop Charlie from charging it. The vamp heard him coming and turned on Charlie, but before Don could get to him David brought the chair leg down across the back of its neck. The blow only served to anger the vamp, and it tore the piece of wood from David’s hand and raised its arm. Before it could strike at David, Charlie whipped the chain out of his belt loops and wrapped it around the vamp’s wrist with a practiced flick of his own.
Don dove for the pike of broken chair pieces and came up with a broken chair back and the curved rocker from a rocking chair. He brought the heavy rocker down on the vamp’s wrist and heard the sharp snap as something broke. Don hoped it was the vamp’s wrist and not the rocker.
The vampire wasn’t giving up, nor was it going down without a fight despite the fact that it was outnumbered three to one. It reached for Charlie, which reawakened the ever present ball of fear in Don’s gut and gave a burst of speed to his movements. He swung the chair back into the vamp’s head and sent it careening to the ground.
Before Don could follow up with another wack with the rocker, a thin, sharp blade had whizzed past his eyes and bit into the flesh of the vampire’s neck. David hacked awkwardly at the neck with his left hand, right arm dangling uselessly at his side.
When he was done David slumped back against the nearest vertical surface, not caring that the stuff spilling out of the dumpster was more disgusting than the headless vampire which lay at his feet, and struggled to regain his breath. “You’re probably wondering what just happened here,” he panted.
“Yeah,” Don said, voice tinged with fear-based anger from Charlie rushing headlong into danger. “How the hell did you let it get the drop on you like that?”
Even through the pain and weariness, David had managed to look surprised. Charlie ignored Don’s anger and just unwound his chain from the vampire’s arm and checked it over. It was speckled with blood and would need to be cleaned off before he could wear it again.
“Nice sword,” Charlie said, which surprised David even more. “Katana, right?”
David snapped his mouth shut and just nodded, then said, “I’ve been tracking it. I can’t believe it made me.”
“Well, believe it,” Don said, but his anger was cooling because Charlie hadn’t been injured and these days that’s all Don could hope for.
“Is that broken?” Charlie indicated David’s wrist.
David held it up, tried to make a fist. “I think it’s just sprained.”
“You’re bleeding,” Charlie said, and, despite David’s protests that he was fine and could take care of himself, led David back to their motel room and proceeded to clean the blood off his face. While Charlie spread antibiotic ointment and applied butterfly bandages, Don cleaned the blood off Charlie’s chain. He did the same with David’s katana while Charlie wrapped David’s wrist. It had nice balance, and was sharper than hell.
Charlie fed David aspirin and asked him how long he’d been hunting, and when David fell asleep on one double bed, Charlie crawled into the other with Don. While David enjoyed the sleep of the dead not three feet away from them, Charlie proved to Don that he was still in one piece and capable of making Don forget that he was angry with Charlie for making him worry, if only for that moment.
That was the night Charlie adopted David.
Instead of going their separate ways the next morning, as Don has expected, Charlie invited David to breakfast with them. Then the two of them sat at the small round table in Don and Charlie’s room, laptops in front of them, and searched for the anomalies that would lead them to their next hunt, while Don did their long overdue laundry. And when Don and Charlie left that no-name town two days later, David rode in the backseat of the SUV. What little cash he’d gotten from selling his beaten up car had been added to the small stash they kept hidden with the weapons, along with David’s katana and a Glock that Don couldn’t wait to get his hands on.
From then on, their cash situation (Charlie was an ace at poker and one good game a week kept them from having to sleep in the SUV, plus whenever they were near Las Vegas or Atlantic City they swung by to pad their pockets), or how badly the last hunt had gone, would determine whether they got one room or two. The nights they got one room, David took one double bed, Don and Charlie the other. On those nights, they did nothing more than hold each other in an effort to convince themselves that they were both still alive, yet Don thought that maybe David knew about him and Charlie. Knew they were closer than two brothers should be. He never said anything, though, so Don didn’t either.
Six months later they were tracking a werewolf through Arizona. What they found was Megan and Colby surrounded by a pack of five weres. Colby’s shirt had been shredded by claws, and blood oozed from the deep scratches across his chest to stain the ruined material. Blood spattered Megan’s face, but Don guessed that it belonged to the werewolf at her feet. Dead, if the number of holes perforating it were any indication. Right before his eyes, the were transformed back to its human form, frothy blood spilling from its mouth. The remaining weres went into a frenzy and attacked.
Charlie dove into the melee, David following right behind him. Don swore at Charlie’s careless disregard for his own life and waded in to pull a werewolf off his brother’s back and skewer it with the silver blade he carried.
The fight took a good ten minutes, though it felt like hours. Despite being outnumbered, the weres put up a hell of a fight, and Don was covered with blood and gore before it was over.
Once again, Charlie-the-mother-hen dragged everyone back to their room to get bandaged up. Don would have had to have been blind not to notice the way David looked at Colby. And the way Colby looked back. While Charlie made sure that Megan was cleaned up and bandaged, David carefully removed what remained of Colby’s shirt and tended to the ugly scratches on his chest. Don washed the blood off his hands and face in the bathroom, the majority of his attention still focused on Charlie.
When the others finally left to find their own rooms, Don figured that David would soon be leaving them to join up with Megan and Colby. But instead of decreasing by one, as he’d anticipated, his team had grown by two. Two more people he was responsible for. Two more friends to care about.
Don remembered that Charlie had also been covered with blood, and how, despite Charlie’s protests that none of it was his, Don had carefully stripped the bloodied clothes off and checked every inch of him to make sure he hadn’t been hurt. Once he was certain that Charlie would live, at least until Don killed him for giving him a heart attack, Don dragged him into the shower and washed the blood away, his own worry drying up as the pink water ran down the drain.
And when Charlie slipped to his knees and promised Don he’d be more careful, just before he took Don into his mouth, Don wanted to believe him.
Charlie was staring at him when Don surfaced from the memories. Don reached for the cell at his waist. “Maybe we should call them.”
“They’re here.” Charlie smiled at Don’s worry, but he couldn’t hide the relief in his voice.
Don followed Charlie’s gaze towards the front door and saw Megan leading the way to their table, David and Colby lagging behind, arguing about something. Who’d win the game that night, Don figured. Or who could burp the most times after chugging a soda; you never knew with those two.
Megan gave Don and Charlie each a kiss on the cheek before sliding into the chair beside Charlie.
“What are they arguing about now?” Don asked as he raised his hand to catch the bartender’s attention and request three more beers. He’d barely touched his, and Charlie was already nearly asleep in his chair.
Megan laughed and Don felt some of the tension in his gut unfurl. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
When David and Colby finally sat down, Don looked each one of them over carefully, said, “Hey, guys, how’d it go?” He tried to make it sound casual, but by now they all knew how he worried when they went on separate hunts.
Colby rolled his eyes at David, then smiled at Don. “We’re all right, Dad.”
“Just some minor cuts and bruises,” Megan clarified.
Just then the young blonde from behind the bar arrived with their drinks. Don waited until she’d set the bottles down before asking if they served food, then looked around the table and asked if anyone else was hungry. A rumble of agreement met his question, and so she went off and returned with a handful of menus.
“Just call when you’re ready to order,” she said.
“What do we call?” Charlie asked, smiling the smile that made Don forget his own name.
It apparently had the same affect on the young lady, because she blushed before she said, “Jo,” then gave her hair a careless toss over her shoulder as she returned to the bar.
Don ruffled his fingers through Charlie’s hair, because he could, and not because he was staking any sort of claim on his brother. The menu held a short list of bar food, mozzarella sticks, chicken tenders, burgers, and a few other things along those lines, but Don stopped reading when he got to the burgers.
Don looked around the table. “Burgers?”
Everyone nodded, and Don just realized that they all looked as tired as he felt. He made Charlie call Jo over, and then he ordered five burgers with fries, medium, no onions on three of them. Jo looked at him oddly, and he just shrugged. They’d done this enough for Don to know what everyone liked, and it saved time. He was not being a mother hen, making sure his brood had been fed. That was Charlie’s department.
“Can we have another drink, Dad?” Megan asked after she drained her beer and set the empty bottle on the table.
“Who’s driving?” Don asked, and Jo had the nerve to snort.
After she’d left, with strict instructions from Megan to bring her another beer, Don turned to David and Colby. “What were you two talking about when you came in?”
“It’s nothing,” David said, but Colby insisted, “No, man, let’s ask Don.”
David shrugged. “All right. Who do you think would win if cavemen and astronauts got into a fight?”
Don just stared at him, then turned a glare on Charlie. “I told you not to get them that portable DVD player for Christmas.”
Charlie laughed, and he sounded a little bit less tired now that they were all reunited.
They’d only been separated for a few days, but they took this time for easy conversation, getting used to being back together again. They talked about the game that night, the movies Colby wanted to buy, the chances of their next hunt being at the beach. Anything but the reason they were there.
The burgers came and they all dug in. Don could almost believe that they were just five friends sharing a night out, rather than demon hunters recovering from one hunt even as they made plans for the next.
Only after they were done eating, the empty plates and bottles cleared way, fresh beers replacing the empties despite Don’s misgivings, did Don look around the bar, then over at Megan. “Is he here?”
“I think that’s him at the end of the bar,” Megan said without turning her head. Don wondered how she did that, but he’d stopped asking when all she did was give him that enigmatic little smile.
“All right,” Don said, “I’ll . . . .”
“Let me,” Megan said. Before she left the table she turned to Charlie. “How’s the headache, Charlie?”
“Fine,” Charlie said, blinking owlishly in an effort to keep his eyes open.
“No more visions?”
Charlie shook his head. “Not since the last one.”
The one that had forced them to separate a few days ago.
They’d been headed to Memphis when Charlie had a vision that left him writhing in pain, and which had split them up so Don and Charlie could head up to Cleveland while the others continued on to Memphis. That was when Don decided that they needed to follow up on this guy Ash they’d heard about. A hunter they’d run into a couple weeks ago had mentioned a rumor about a group of people who were having visions and exhibiting other mental powers, such as telekinesis, and a place called The Roadhouse.
They’d put off coming here, at first, but Charlie’s visions were coming with more frequency, and the headaches were getting worse, and Don had known that they couldn’t put it off any longer.
Don nodded at Megan and reached out to squeeze Charlie’s hand as he watched her walk over to the bar. Megan smiled and leaned her elbow on the bar top, and the man beside her -- hair that was long in the back, short on top, and stuck up as if he styled it by running his fingers through it; eyes that showed the effects of lack of sleep, or too much weed, which didn’t inspire much confidence in Don -- looked her over with an expression of surprise that was dulled by whatever he’d ingested that evening.
As they spoke, the man -- Ash, Don presumed -- looked over Megan’s shoulder to their table, his eyes focused on Charlie with surprising clarity. Don hated the idea that this guy was staring at Charlie, maybe judging him, and he hated that they needed to trust this information about Charlie to someone they didn’t know.
A few minutes later Megan returned to their table. She handed a folded piece of paper to Don as she took her seat.
“What’s this?”
“A name and a number. Ash says this guy can help us.”
Don was irritated that they’d come all this way for answers, only to get another name. “I thought this Ash was the guy who could help us?”
Megan shrugged. “He said he’s just the go-between.”
Don shoved the paper into his pocket without looking at it and hoped that they weren’t being sent on a wild goose chase. “All right, what do you say we go find someplace to stay the night?”
Don paid the bill and they headed out to their vehicles. Megan climbed into the back of the SUV with Don and Charlie. Either she thought Don needed the additional emotional support, or she was tired of listening to David and Colby argue, and then make up just as noisily.
They stopped at the first motel that didn’t look like its sole purpose was to rent rooms by the hour and checked in. Megan requested three rooms, which assured Don that the hunt hadn’t gone badly. Or hadn’t gone badly enough to require a shared room two nights in a row. Just as Don, Charlie and David had occasionally shared a room when the hunt had been a rough one, Megan sometimes stayed with David and Colby. Don told himself that, as in their case, the three-to-a-room arrangement on those nights was purely platonic. And if it wasn’t, he really didn’t want to know.
They unloaded their bags -- clothes and laptops, weapons and salt -- and Megan gave them each a hug and a kiss, and then they all disappeared behind their own closed doors. Don was the last one to go in, as usual. When he shut the door behind him, making sure the lock clicked before he turned the deadbolt and clipped the chain, Charlie had already tossed his bags onto one of the beds, and was in the process of throwing his jacket over top of them.
Charlie jumped onto the other bed, stretched his arms over his head and wiggled around a little bit to get comfortable, and then he looked at Don through lowered eyelashes. “Hi.”
Don’s breath caught in his throat. “Hi.”
Charlie slid his hand down his chest. “Know what would be nice?”
“What?” Don said, unable to take his eyes off Charlie’s roaming hand.
Charlie patted the empty space beside him. “If you were here, too.”
“You’re drunk,” Don said. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you drink that beer before you ate.”
Charlie laughed. “Let me?” His voice had deepened, and he arched his back and pressed his hand against himself through his jeans. “I could have had you begging me to drink that beer.”
“Yeah, well . . . .” Don knew that was true. Charlie’d had him begging for things a lot nastier, and a lot sweeter, than drinking a beer.
He got his feet moving and dropped his bag on the bed beside Charlie’s bags, then took his own jacket off. He tried to ignore Charlie, who was still wriggling around on the bed. When Don turned to look at him, Charlie was contorted, reaching behind himself as he tried to remove the button-down shirt he wore over his t-shirt. As he tugged one sleeve off his arm his t-shirt rode up, exposing a sliver of tanned belly.
Don’s brain disengaged and his body took over, stepping closer to the bed, reaching out and touching the warm skin. Charlie froze when he realized that Don was that close, and then he looked up at Don and reached for him with the arm still wrapped in the cotton shirt. The material bunched up around Don’s neck as Charlie pulled him down onto the bed and into a kiss, his free hand going to Don’s zipper.
“Charlie,” Don tried one last time. “You’re tired, you don’t feel well.”
“Then make me feel better,” Charlie breathed against Don’s skin.
Don did his very best.
It was nine o’clock the next morning before Megan knocked on their door. Don undid the locks, then stepped back to let her in.
“You guys ready for breakfast?”
“Charlie’s still in the shower,” Don said as he folded his dirty t-shirt. He’d given Charlie shit about folding dirty clothes until he’d realized that a folded pair of jeans took up a lot less space than a wadded-up pair, and living out of an SUV meant that space was at a premium. “Ten minutes? We’ll meet you there.”
“Okay.” Megan smiled, and Don couldn’t help but smile back at her. He was much more relaxed now that they were all back together. The two orgasms the night before hadn’t hurt, either. “We’ll be at that diner we passed when we came into town last night.”
“All right. Hey, order me coffee!” Don called as Megan pulled the door shut behind her.
After tucking the t-shirt into their dirty laundry bag, Don found his jeans, which had somehow been tossed onto the other side of the second double bed. Out of habit he emptied the pockets before folding them, and found the folded piece of paper he’d stuffed in there last night. He tucked his jeans under his arm, unfolded it. There was a cell phone number and an e-mail address written beneath a name. Sam Winchester.
The pipes continued to clank and clatter for a few seconds after Charlie turned the shower off. When he opened the door, a billow of steam preceded him. Charlie liked to take hot showers. He didn’t even bother with a towel around his waist, just the one he was still using to dry his hair.
“Hey, buddy, you hungry? Megan stopped by to tell us to meet them at that diner.”
“Yeah, I could eat,” Charlie said through the towel. He lowered the towel and smiled at Don. “I worked up an appetite last night.”
“Oh, please,” Don said as he slipped the paper into his pocket, “I did all the work.”
Charlie laughed, punched Don in the shoulder. “Hey, man, I was tired. You took advantage of me in my weakened state.”
“I’ll give you a weakened state,” Don said as he pushed Charlie onto the bed and followed him down.
Charlie just grinned up at him. He wrapped his legs around Don’s waist, pulled Don against him until Don could feel the moist heat of Charlie’s body through his t-shirt. Seeing Charlie like this Don could almost forget the visions, and the headaches that came with them. And the fear. But he knew they’d have to call that number. Today. After breakfast. Before Charlie sat down with his laptop and looked for another hunt.
Don rubbed his nose against Charlie’s. “Let’s go get something to eat so you’ll have the strength to take advantage of me later.”
Charlie slid his hand over Don’s head. “You don’t worry about me, Donny. I’ll be fine.”
Don would believe that when he saw it, but he just said, “I know.”
The End
Pairing/Characters: Don/Charlie (David/Colby mentioned)
Rating/Category: R
Word Count: 4215 words
Spoilers: Through season two, to be safe.
Summary: Don and Charlie are on the trail of something potentially more dangerous than demons.
Notes/Warning: Fusion with Supernatural. Spoilers through season two.
Written: July 24, 2007
When Don came back from the bathroom -- cleaner than he’d expected in a dive like The Roadhouse, which was located this far off the beaten track -- there were already two bottles of beer sitting on their table. They weren’t in the corner, as Don would prefer, but they’d managed to find a table that put his back to the wall. Charlie leaned back in his chair, eyes closed, fingers wrapped loosely around one of the bottles. In this lighting the dark circles beneath Charlie’s eyes were more prominent.
Don slid his hand over Charlie’s shoulder before he took his seat, careful not to squeeze too hard. He’d doctored the bruises Charlie’s clothes hid, washed away the blood and stitched up the cut on his arm. One more scar Don could add to the tally he kept in his head.
Charlie opened his eyes and smiled up at Don, eyelids half closed, cheeks flushed from the beer. Even as he kicked into protective mode and thought that they should have stopped for something to eat so Charlie wasn’t drinking on an empty stomach, Don’s libido kicked into another mode entirely. His cock reacted to the sight of Charlie looking as blissed out as he had that morning when Don had woken him by taking selfish advantage of Charlie’s morning hard-on and sucking him off. A method of waking up that Charlie insisted was his very favorite in spite of the moans of approval when Don got up early and went for a run, leaving Charlie to sleep in, and returned to their room with an offering of coffee and glazed chocolate donuts to ease Charlie out of sleep.
Don forced himself to look away from Charlie and pick up the beer bottle in front of him. Condensation had already left a ring around a handful of the scars that liberally decorated the table top. Despite the dings from years of use, what veneer was left shone from the scrubbing the tables apparently received each day before the bar opened for business. Don took a long drag off his beer before asking Charlie if he’d heard from Megan yet.
Charlie gave Don a tired grin around the mouth of his beer. “Not since the last time you asked. Don’t worry, they’ll be here. And they’ll be fine.”
They. David, Colby and Megan. After their father had died hunting the demon that had killed their mother, Don had sworn to himself that he wasn’t going to take on the responsibility for anyone else. From that moment on it was just him and Charlie.
Not long after that they’d run into David.
Don and Charlie had been between hunts, resting up from the last, gearing up for the next. One night in some small town in Colorado that Don couldn’t even remember the name of now, walking back to their motel from the neighboring diner, they’d heard the sound of a scuffle in the shadows at the back corner of the parking lot behind the diner. Before Don had been able to stop him, Charlie had veered off and followed the noises.
Don had sworn softly as Charlie rushed off, and automatically reached for the gun that wasn’t tucked at the small of his back, but safely locked in their motel room, hidden in Don’s duffel bag beneath all the dirty clothes they hadn’t had time to stop and wash, as he followed Charlie into the shadows.
David had been bleeding from a cut on his forehead and carried his right arm at an awkward angle while trying to hold off a vampire with a stick of wood he brandished in his left hand, apparently picked up from the pile of broken wooden chairs that had been carelessly tossed beside the overflowing dumpster.
Don swore some more. They weren’t armed to take out a vampire, but that didn’t stop Charlie from charging it. The vamp heard him coming and turned on Charlie, but before Don could get to him David brought the chair leg down across the back of its neck. The blow only served to anger the vamp, and it tore the piece of wood from David’s hand and raised its arm. Before it could strike at David, Charlie whipped the chain out of his belt loops and wrapped it around the vamp’s wrist with a practiced flick of his own.
Don dove for the pike of broken chair pieces and came up with a broken chair back and the curved rocker from a rocking chair. He brought the heavy rocker down on the vamp’s wrist and heard the sharp snap as something broke. Don hoped it was the vamp’s wrist and not the rocker.
The vampire wasn’t giving up, nor was it going down without a fight despite the fact that it was outnumbered three to one. It reached for Charlie, which reawakened the ever present ball of fear in Don’s gut and gave a burst of speed to his movements. He swung the chair back into the vamp’s head and sent it careening to the ground.
Before Don could follow up with another wack with the rocker, a thin, sharp blade had whizzed past his eyes and bit into the flesh of the vampire’s neck. David hacked awkwardly at the neck with his left hand, right arm dangling uselessly at his side.
When he was done David slumped back against the nearest vertical surface, not caring that the stuff spilling out of the dumpster was more disgusting than the headless vampire which lay at his feet, and struggled to regain his breath. “You’re probably wondering what just happened here,” he panted.
“Yeah,” Don said, voice tinged with fear-based anger from Charlie rushing headlong into danger. “How the hell did you let it get the drop on you like that?”
Even through the pain and weariness, David had managed to look surprised. Charlie ignored Don’s anger and just unwound his chain from the vampire’s arm and checked it over. It was speckled with blood and would need to be cleaned off before he could wear it again.
“Nice sword,” Charlie said, which surprised David even more. “Katana, right?”
David snapped his mouth shut and just nodded, then said, “I’ve been tracking it. I can’t believe it made me.”
“Well, believe it,” Don said, but his anger was cooling because Charlie hadn’t been injured and these days that’s all Don could hope for.
“Is that broken?” Charlie indicated David’s wrist.
David held it up, tried to make a fist. “I think it’s just sprained.”
“You’re bleeding,” Charlie said, and, despite David’s protests that he was fine and could take care of himself, led David back to their motel room and proceeded to clean the blood off his face. While Charlie spread antibiotic ointment and applied butterfly bandages, Don cleaned the blood off Charlie’s chain. He did the same with David’s katana while Charlie wrapped David’s wrist. It had nice balance, and was sharper than hell.
Charlie fed David aspirin and asked him how long he’d been hunting, and when David fell asleep on one double bed, Charlie crawled into the other with Don. While David enjoyed the sleep of the dead not three feet away from them, Charlie proved to Don that he was still in one piece and capable of making Don forget that he was angry with Charlie for making him worry, if only for that moment.
That was the night Charlie adopted David.
Instead of going their separate ways the next morning, as Don has expected, Charlie invited David to breakfast with them. Then the two of them sat at the small round table in Don and Charlie’s room, laptops in front of them, and searched for the anomalies that would lead them to their next hunt, while Don did their long overdue laundry. And when Don and Charlie left that no-name town two days later, David rode in the backseat of the SUV. What little cash he’d gotten from selling his beaten up car had been added to the small stash they kept hidden with the weapons, along with David’s katana and a Glock that Don couldn’t wait to get his hands on.
From then on, their cash situation (Charlie was an ace at poker and one good game a week kept them from having to sleep in the SUV, plus whenever they were near Las Vegas or Atlantic City they swung by to pad their pockets), or how badly the last hunt had gone, would determine whether they got one room or two. The nights they got one room, David took one double bed, Don and Charlie the other. On those nights, they did nothing more than hold each other in an effort to convince themselves that they were both still alive, yet Don thought that maybe David knew about him and Charlie. Knew they were closer than two brothers should be. He never said anything, though, so Don didn’t either.
Six months later they were tracking a werewolf through Arizona. What they found was Megan and Colby surrounded by a pack of five weres. Colby’s shirt had been shredded by claws, and blood oozed from the deep scratches across his chest to stain the ruined material. Blood spattered Megan’s face, but Don guessed that it belonged to the werewolf at her feet. Dead, if the number of holes perforating it were any indication. Right before his eyes, the were transformed back to its human form, frothy blood spilling from its mouth. The remaining weres went into a frenzy and attacked.
Charlie dove into the melee, David following right behind him. Don swore at Charlie’s careless disregard for his own life and waded in to pull a werewolf off his brother’s back and skewer it with the silver blade he carried.
The fight took a good ten minutes, though it felt like hours. Despite being outnumbered, the weres put up a hell of a fight, and Don was covered with blood and gore before it was over.
Once again, Charlie-the-mother-hen dragged everyone back to their room to get bandaged up. Don would have had to have been blind not to notice the way David looked at Colby. And the way Colby looked back. While Charlie made sure that Megan was cleaned up and bandaged, David carefully removed what remained of Colby’s shirt and tended to the ugly scratches on his chest. Don washed the blood off his hands and face in the bathroom, the majority of his attention still focused on Charlie.
When the others finally left to find their own rooms, Don figured that David would soon be leaving them to join up with Megan and Colby. But instead of decreasing by one, as he’d anticipated, his team had grown by two. Two more people he was responsible for. Two more friends to care about.
Don remembered that Charlie had also been covered with blood, and how, despite Charlie’s protests that none of it was his, Don had carefully stripped the bloodied clothes off and checked every inch of him to make sure he hadn’t been hurt. Once he was certain that Charlie would live, at least until Don killed him for giving him a heart attack, Don dragged him into the shower and washed the blood away, his own worry drying up as the pink water ran down the drain.
And when Charlie slipped to his knees and promised Don he’d be more careful, just before he took Don into his mouth, Don wanted to believe him.
Charlie was staring at him when Don surfaced from the memories. Don reached for the cell at his waist. “Maybe we should call them.”
“They’re here.” Charlie smiled at Don’s worry, but he couldn’t hide the relief in his voice.
Don followed Charlie’s gaze towards the front door and saw Megan leading the way to their table, David and Colby lagging behind, arguing about something. Who’d win the game that night, Don figured. Or who could burp the most times after chugging a soda; you never knew with those two.
Megan gave Don and Charlie each a kiss on the cheek before sliding into the chair beside Charlie.
“What are they arguing about now?” Don asked as he raised his hand to catch the bartender’s attention and request three more beers. He’d barely touched his, and Charlie was already nearly asleep in his chair.
Megan laughed and Don felt some of the tension in his gut unfurl. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
When David and Colby finally sat down, Don looked each one of them over carefully, said, “Hey, guys, how’d it go?” He tried to make it sound casual, but by now they all knew how he worried when they went on separate hunts.
Colby rolled his eyes at David, then smiled at Don. “We’re all right, Dad.”
“Just some minor cuts and bruises,” Megan clarified.
Just then the young blonde from behind the bar arrived with their drinks. Don waited until she’d set the bottles down before asking if they served food, then looked around the table and asked if anyone else was hungry. A rumble of agreement met his question, and so she went off and returned with a handful of menus.
“Just call when you’re ready to order,” she said.
“What do we call?” Charlie asked, smiling the smile that made Don forget his own name.
It apparently had the same affect on the young lady, because she blushed before she said, “Jo,” then gave her hair a careless toss over her shoulder as she returned to the bar.
Don ruffled his fingers through Charlie’s hair, because he could, and not because he was staking any sort of claim on his brother. The menu held a short list of bar food, mozzarella sticks, chicken tenders, burgers, and a few other things along those lines, but Don stopped reading when he got to the burgers.
Don looked around the table. “Burgers?”
Everyone nodded, and Don just realized that they all looked as tired as he felt. He made Charlie call Jo over, and then he ordered five burgers with fries, medium, no onions on three of them. Jo looked at him oddly, and he just shrugged. They’d done this enough for Don to know what everyone liked, and it saved time. He was not being a mother hen, making sure his brood had been fed. That was Charlie’s department.
“Can we have another drink, Dad?” Megan asked after she drained her beer and set the empty bottle on the table.
“Who’s driving?” Don asked, and Jo had the nerve to snort.
After she’d left, with strict instructions from Megan to bring her another beer, Don turned to David and Colby. “What were you two talking about when you came in?”
“It’s nothing,” David said, but Colby insisted, “No, man, let’s ask Don.”
David shrugged. “All right. Who do you think would win if cavemen and astronauts got into a fight?”
Don just stared at him, then turned a glare on Charlie. “I told you not to get them that portable DVD player for Christmas.”
Charlie laughed, and he sounded a little bit less tired now that they were all reunited.
They’d only been separated for a few days, but they took this time for easy conversation, getting used to being back together again. They talked about the game that night, the movies Colby wanted to buy, the chances of their next hunt being at the beach. Anything but the reason they were there.
The burgers came and they all dug in. Don could almost believe that they were just five friends sharing a night out, rather than demon hunters recovering from one hunt even as they made plans for the next.
Only after they were done eating, the empty plates and bottles cleared way, fresh beers replacing the empties despite Don’s misgivings, did Don look around the bar, then over at Megan. “Is he here?”
“I think that’s him at the end of the bar,” Megan said without turning her head. Don wondered how she did that, but he’d stopped asking when all she did was give him that enigmatic little smile.
“All right,” Don said, “I’ll . . . .”
“Let me,” Megan said. Before she left the table she turned to Charlie. “How’s the headache, Charlie?”
“Fine,” Charlie said, blinking owlishly in an effort to keep his eyes open.
“No more visions?”
Charlie shook his head. “Not since the last one.”
The one that had forced them to separate a few days ago.
They’d been headed to Memphis when Charlie had a vision that left him writhing in pain, and which had split them up so Don and Charlie could head up to Cleveland while the others continued on to Memphis. That was when Don decided that they needed to follow up on this guy Ash they’d heard about. A hunter they’d run into a couple weeks ago had mentioned a rumor about a group of people who were having visions and exhibiting other mental powers, such as telekinesis, and a place called The Roadhouse.
They’d put off coming here, at first, but Charlie’s visions were coming with more frequency, and the headaches were getting worse, and Don had known that they couldn’t put it off any longer.
Don nodded at Megan and reached out to squeeze Charlie’s hand as he watched her walk over to the bar. Megan smiled and leaned her elbow on the bar top, and the man beside her -- hair that was long in the back, short on top, and stuck up as if he styled it by running his fingers through it; eyes that showed the effects of lack of sleep, or too much weed, which didn’t inspire much confidence in Don -- looked her over with an expression of surprise that was dulled by whatever he’d ingested that evening.
As they spoke, the man -- Ash, Don presumed -- looked over Megan’s shoulder to their table, his eyes focused on Charlie with surprising clarity. Don hated the idea that this guy was staring at Charlie, maybe judging him, and he hated that they needed to trust this information about Charlie to someone they didn’t know.
A few minutes later Megan returned to their table. She handed a folded piece of paper to Don as she took her seat.
“What’s this?”
“A name and a number. Ash says this guy can help us.”
Don was irritated that they’d come all this way for answers, only to get another name. “I thought this Ash was the guy who could help us?”
Megan shrugged. “He said he’s just the go-between.”
Don shoved the paper into his pocket without looking at it and hoped that they weren’t being sent on a wild goose chase. “All right, what do you say we go find someplace to stay the night?”
Don paid the bill and they headed out to their vehicles. Megan climbed into the back of the SUV with Don and Charlie. Either she thought Don needed the additional emotional support, or she was tired of listening to David and Colby argue, and then make up just as noisily.
They stopped at the first motel that didn’t look like its sole purpose was to rent rooms by the hour and checked in. Megan requested three rooms, which assured Don that the hunt hadn’t gone badly. Or hadn’t gone badly enough to require a shared room two nights in a row. Just as Don, Charlie and David had occasionally shared a room when the hunt had been a rough one, Megan sometimes stayed with David and Colby. Don told himself that, as in their case, the three-to-a-room arrangement on those nights was purely platonic. And if it wasn’t, he really didn’t want to know.
They unloaded their bags -- clothes and laptops, weapons and salt -- and Megan gave them each a hug and a kiss, and then they all disappeared behind their own closed doors. Don was the last one to go in, as usual. When he shut the door behind him, making sure the lock clicked before he turned the deadbolt and clipped the chain, Charlie had already tossed his bags onto one of the beds, and was in the process of throwing his jacket over top of them.
Charlie jumped onto the other bed, stretched his arms over his head and wiggled around a little bit to get comfortable, and then he looked at Don through lowered eyelashes. “Hi.”
Don’s breath caught in his throat. “Hi.”
Charlie slid his hand down his chest. “Know what would be nice?”
“What?” Don said, unable to take his eyes off Charlie’s roaming hand.
Charlie patted the empty space beside him. “If you were here, too.”
“You’re drunk,” Don said. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you drink that beer before you ate.”
Charlie laughed. “Let me?” His voice had deepened, and he arched his back and pressed his hand against himself through his jeans. “I could have had you begging me to drink that beer.”
“Yeah, well . . . .” Don knew that was true. Charlie’d had him begging for things a lot nastier, and a lot sweeter, than drinking a beer.
He got his feet moving and dropped his bag on the bed beside Charlie’s bags, then took his own jacket off. He tried to ignore Charlie, who was still wriggling around on the bed. When Don turned to look at him, Charlie was contorted, reaching behind himself as he tried to remove the button-down shirt he wore over his t-shirt. As he tugged one sleeve off his arm his t-shirt rode up, exposing a sliver of tanned belly.
Don’s brain disengaged and his body took over, stepping closer to the bed, reaching out and touching the warm skin. Charlie froze when he realized that Don was that close, and then he looked up at Don and reached for him with the arm still wrapped in the cotton shirt. The material bunched up around Don’s neck as Charlie pulled him down onto the bed and into a kiss, his free hand going to Don’s zipper.
“Charlie,” Don tried one last time. “You’re tired, you don’t feel well.”
“Then make me feel better,” Charlie breathed against Don’s skin.
Don did his very best.
It was nine o’clock the next morning before Megan knocked on their door. Don undid the locks, then stepped back to let her in.
“You guys ready for breakfast?”
“Charlie’s still in the shower,” Don said as he folded his dirty t-shirt. He’d given Charlie shit about folding dirty clothes until he’d realized that a folded pair of jeans took up a lot less space than a wadded-up pair, and living out of an SUV meant that space was at a premium. “Ten minutes? We’ll meet you there.”
“Okay.” Megan smiled, and Don couldn’t help but smile back at her. He was much more relaxed now that they were all back together. The two orgasms the night before hadn’t hurt, either. “We’ll be at that diner we passed when we came into town last night.”
“All right. Hey, order me coffee!” Don called as Megan pulled the door shut behind her.
After tucking the t-shirt into their dirty laundry bag, Don found his jeans, which had somehow been tossed onto the other side of the second double bed. Out of habit he emptied the pockets before folding them, and found the folded piece of paper he’d stuffed in there last night. He tucked his jeans under his arm, unfolded it. There was a cell phone number and an e-mail address written beneath a name. Sam Winchester.
The pipes continued to clank and clatter for a few seconds after Charlie turned the shower off. When he opened the door, a billow of steam preceded him. Charlie liked to take hot showers. He didn’t even bother with a towel around his waist, just the one he was still using to dry his hair.
“Hey, buddy, you hungry? Megan stopped by to tell us to meet them at that diner.”
“Yeah, I could eat,” Charlie said through the towel. He lowered the towel and smiled at Don. “I worked up an appetite last night.”
“Oh, please,” Don said as he slipped the paper into his pocket, “I did all the work.”
Charlie laughed, punched Don in the shoulder. “Hey, man, I was tired. You took advantage of me in my weakened state.”
“I’ll give you a weakened state,” Don said as he pushed Charlie onto the bed and followed him down.
Charlie just grinned up at him. He wrapped his legs around Don’s waist, pulled Don against him until Don could feel the moist heat of Charlie’s body through his t-shirt. Seeing Charlie like this Don could almost forget the visions, and the headaches that came with them. And the fear. But he knew they’d have to call that number. Today. After breakfast. Before Charlie sat down with his laptop and looked for another hunt.
Don rubbed his nose against Charlie’s. “Let’s go get something to eat so you’ll have the strength to take advantage of me later.”
Charlie slid his hand over Don’s head. “You don’t worry about me, Donny. I’ll be fine.”
Don would believe that when he saw it, but he just said, “I know.”
The End