Little Ball of Snow

You were just about done putting the final touches on your new pet’s home, which was positioned as far from your door as possible and safely on top of your dresser in the far corner of your room.

You heard the heavy metal door close, the sound echoing through the bunker, followed by heavy footsteps that you immediately recognized as Dean’s boots and ran out of your room, shutting your door behind you on the way out.

You wanted to talk to him first before he could see for himself and freak out, you knew he probably wouldn’t be happy.

Seeing you made Dean smile' he didn’t think you’d be back yet from your "weekend off from death and destruction" as you had called it before you left early Friday morning.

You had just needed to take a breather for a couple days to try and relax after the hunt the three of you had been on the whole week before, which hadn’t quite gone as planned…

*begin flashback*

Luckily Cas had shown up in time or you wouldn’t be standing here right now.

That bitch of a witch had pinned both Sam and Dean against a wall, at the same time she jabbed a dagger into your side, leaving them helpless, screaming, and yelling, as they watched you crumble to the floor, a small pool of blood forming around your wound.

Cas had appeared out of nowhere as he usually does. Upon realizing what had happened he flung the witch into the wall behind her, knocking her unconscious and allowing Sam and Dean to fall to the floor.

After finally regaining the ability to move they immediately scrambled over to you calling your name.

“Nikki!! Wake up! You need to keep your eyes open for me, alright?” Sam shouted, shaking you a little.

“Come on, stay with us, Sweetheart. Not like this, come on.” Dean whispered to you while brushing the hair out of your face gently, before turning to holler at Cas, “What are you standing around for?? Heal her already!”

“Of course, my apologies..” he mumbled back, quickly healing any ailments you may have had. The boys quickly dealt with the witch while Cas did his thing.

“Nikki will wake in an hour or two perfectly healthy,” he stated calmly before you all suddenly appeared back in the bunker with you lying on a couch sleeping soundly and the boys and Cas all standing by the table.

There was a slight fluttering sound and Cas was gone.

“Hey... You alright?” Dean questioned worriedly when your eyes finally fluttered open and scrunched shut again adjusting to the bright lights around you.

You let out a groan and covered your face with your hands, stretching a little as you did so causing the oldest Winchester to chuckle.

“Yeah I’m fine,” you replied. Moving your hands away from your face you noticed he still looked worried.

Sitting up you looked him directly in the eyes. “I’m OK, Dean, really. I’m just a little sore and tired that’s all.” You said, a genuine smile gracing your features making him smile too.

“Alright, I believe you,” he replied, his smile growing a bit. He quickly added, “But you really should eat, you were out for over two hours and I’m pretty sure you didn’t eat anything before we left so in other words you haven’t eaten all day and it’s 8 PM. Therefore I’m not gonna move an inch until you get down at least half of this,” sliding a to-go box into your lap which contained a nice juicy burger and a whole bunch of fries.

Dean knew how much you really loved fries, and the fact that he remembered to order extra just for that reason made you smile to yourself. He really does care about you.

*end flashback*

Every time Dean looked at you he just couldn’t help but smile, everything about you made him happy. You were his best friend and he didn’t know what he would do if you weren’t around.

And if he was being honest with himself, which he usually wasn’t, you meant a lot more to him than as "just a friend."

“Hey, you’re back early,” Dean said happily, “Did everything go alright?” Worry tinged his voice now.

“Yeah!” you say enthusiastically, your voice raising a bit. “Everything went great!” You almost couldn’t contain your excitement at the moment.

“That was exactly what I needed. I feel so much better, sorry for just kinda running off like that, I know I didn’t explain very well when I left.”

He responded by pulling you into a hug saying, “It’s alright, don’t worry about it. I’m just glad that you are OK and that you had a good time”.

You lingered in his arms for a couple minutes relishing in the heat of his embrace and trying not to focus too much on how safe it felt to be in your current position, knowing you couldn’t have more because there’s no way he could feel the same way about you as you did about him.

Little did you know that he was thinking the same way, just wishing he could claim you as his.

You reluctantly pulled back after a while, remembering you needed to talk to him about the happy little creature contently hiding in your room.

“Alright, so don’t be mad, OK?”

There was a long pause as Dean stared at you suspiciously, “First off, you know that is the worst possible thing to say if you don’t want me to be upset about something, and secondly… What did you do this time?”

“W-well... I... Uh..” you stuttered out, wanting to tell him about it and how excited you were but not wanting to upset him either.

“Spit it out, Sneaky, what did you do?” he questioned, his tone a little lighter now, seeing how nervous you were.

“I, um, got a pet on my way back...” you mumbled nervously. “And I don’t think you’re going to be very happy about what it is... But she’s beautiful and a total sweetheart, and I have to have her!! Please don’t make me get rid of her...??” You pleaded, hoping it would make a difference.

There was another pause as the two of you stared at each other. “...What is it?” Dean asked hesitantly.

He wanted to accept your pet because he could see how attached you were to it already. However, thinking back on it, the last conversation about pets the three of you had had was based around the fact that you had really really wanted a snake and even though Sam had been surprisingly on board with the idea, he himself had been very much against it.

Snakes reminded him of that time when they had ganked some ghost who had been literally scaring people to death, he and Sam had been questioning some guy who owned several snakes and lizards when his own fears had started, being amplified by the massive yellow boa that had started creeping over the back of the couch and across his shoulder.

Ever since then snakes had creeped him out, they gave him the heebie-jeebies. So now he was thinking that it better not be what he was assuming it was.

Unfortunately for him, that’s exactly what it was. You had grabbed Dean's wrist and lead him towards your room with your head down, knowing how he was going to react.

“Please, just don’t freak out.” You said, pausing before slowly opening your door and taking a few steps into the room, waiting for the yelling to start.

You closed your eyes preparing yourself for the lecture, but to your surprise none came.

You cracked one of your eyes open slightly to look over at Dean who was surprisingly calm, and that made you a little more nervous than you already were, nothing good ever happened after Dean goes silent.

Then he turned towards you a little, giving you a better view of his face, suddenly you could see the war going on inside him.

So many emotions swirling on his face, curiosity, anger, and fear were most prominent, and it all melted into an almost emotionless expression in a matter of seconds when he took a few quick steps towards the tank you had your new pet snake in.

“It looks like a little ball of snow...” Dean said quietly, more to himself than anything, but you heard it.

“Yeah, you’re right, she kinda does, huh?” you laughed, smiling at him. You couldn’t help but notice the slight hint of interest in his voice.

Dean whipped his head up, “It’s a she? I-I mean, so it’s a female?” he asked, almost sounding like a child who just got a new puppy, all excited and curious.

This is a good sign, you thought to yourself; he’s actually taking interest. You looked at him with a smile.

“Yes, she is a female,” you laughed. ”And her name is Freya. She is a white rat snake with grey eyes, they’re really pretty but her head is tucked against her body so you can’t see them right now.”

Dean looked at you with wide eyes and then quickly turned back to the tank and walked right up to it, looking in at Freya in awe. “I can’t wait to see!” he whispered, excitedly but still quietly, trying not to disturb her. “I didn’t know their eyes could be grey,” he almost mumbled still looking in at her.

“I’m really glad that you’re taking such an interest in her, I thought you were going to be furious with me but you seem to like her,” you stated happily.

“Well she’s the prettiest snake I’ve ever seen. She looks so smooth and she literally looks like a ball of snow when she’s all curled up like that,” Dean stated chuckling a bit.

“I can’t believe I’m actually about to say this about a snake but... She is actually kinda cute... And I suppose if you really want to keep her then I’d be OK with that.” Dean smiled down at you.

“Really?! Oh yay! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” You squealed enthusiastically, jumping up and down. “Oh my goodness, I am so glad you said that because I am in love with this little beauty and getting rid of her would break my heart.” You sighed in relief.

“Yeah I think I could definitely get used to this little cutie being around,” you looked up when he said that to find his face glued to the side of the tank watching Freya slither around, the sight making your heart swell a little and bringing a huge smile to your face. Two of the things you loved the most were sitting right in front of you and you couldn’t be happier.

Suddenly Dean stands up and whirls around grabbing your wrist and pulling you along behind him so you follow, if only to avoid falling, because it doesn’t feel like he’s gonna let go at the moment.

He leads you out of your room and over to where the stereo is by the couch, you just looked at him confused and were about to question him when he holds up his finger in a "hold on a second" kind of motion.

“Before I realized you were home earlier, since I knew Sammy was going to be gone, my plan had been to come in here, crank up the radio, and be a weirdo, dance around, you know shake away the stress of today.”

Dean turned a little red and laughed at what he had just admitted “Anyway, since you got home early and were stressing about me being upset, I just figured you could use this time to relax and shake it all off too.”

He looked at you smiling before turning and hitting the power button on the stereo.

You started laughing because the song that had just started was one of both of your favorites, "Life is a Highway" by Tom Cochrane, and Dean had immediately started singing along to it like he always does.

At first, you just stood there listening to him sing along with all his heart and watching him dance around while he did it, which made you laugh even harder, but pretty soon you were singing along with it too.

He went first, “Life is a highway...”

Then it was your turn, “I want to ride it all night long...”

Him again, “If you’re goin’ my way...”

Your turn again, “I want to drive it all night long...”

And then you were singing at the same time, “Gimme gimme gimme gimme yeah,” you both laughed and started dancing feeling any tension or stress just kind of melt away.

Several songs went by and suddenly you both heard Sam walk into the bunker, neither of you cared if he saw you being goofs though, so you both just kept dancing around, soon enough he came in and greeted you both.

“Hey Dean,” “Hey Nikki,” Sam said cheerfully smiling at the two of you and not saying a word about the goofiness he had walked in on knowing it would embarrass you.

You both smiled back at Sam and gave a wave and a quick hello before going back to having fun.

Walking over you reached up and gave Sam a quick hug which he returned happily. Using the hug as a cover he leaned in and whispered, “So I take it he’s alright with Freya?”

Chuckling you whispered back, “Yeah, he actually thinks she’s really cute and totally fell in love with her just like I did, I was surprised."

Sam just chuckled quietly in response shaking his head a bit releasing you from his grip and turned to his brother.

Clapping Dean on the shoulder a couple times Sam chuckled and said, “Glad you’re on board bro, she’s been working on her puppy dog face.”

“I couldn’t even say no, I’d hate to see you crumble at that look.”

“Wait, but you just got home... You knew about this and didn’t tell me?” Dean questioned trying to look pissed but failing and instead smirking slightly.

“Yep,” Sam said matter-of-factly followed by, “That was something you two needed to talk out, wasn’t my place.“

“Alright, fair enough,” Dean mumbled.

Sam started walking away mumbling something about being hungry, you and Dean just laughed and went back to what you were doing before Sam had gotten home.

You still couldn’t believe things had went so well, you thought your afternoon was going to go in a completely different direction. “I’m really glad you liked my little ball of snow,” you laughed.