AUTOPSY: multi-fandom blog (expect lots of jumping around) // currently obsessed with true detective and twin peaks // slashers flicks // anime // video games // strawberry desserts // the cardigans // dark writing
trying to get back into writing but I am very slow. please feel free to drop a request and I'll try my best to answer. I'm always down to chat
LATEST KILL: "IN HEAVEN'S NAME (WHY ARE YOU WALKING AWAY) Part 1: HOLE IN THE EARTH" (L Lawliet x gn!reader)
after your horrible breakup with Ryuzaki, you move from your small town to the big city to start a new life without him. but a serial killer comes to the city too, changing your life forever.
multi chapter, slow burn, angst
"MOVIES DON'T CREATE PSYCHOS. MOVIES MAKE PSYCHOS MORE CREATIVE."
this blog contains dark content // 18+ only // don't interact if you're racist, a bigot, or really any kind of asshole variety
CONTACT YOUR LOCAL AUTHORITIES IF YOU SEE SOMETHING (1-800-ASK-RITA)
you want to know what i'm scared of, spike? me. right now, glory thinks tara's the key. but, i'm the key, spike. i am. and anything that happens to tara... is 'cause of me. your bruises, your limp -- that's all me, too. i'm like a lightning rod for pain and hurt.
mad scientist!machine herald viktor x gn!reader, medplay, kidnapping, knife (scalpel?) play, blood play, bondage, wound fucking (fingering), dubious consent
18+, minors dni
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"Poor little thing," Viktor coos. He isn't even trying to sound concerned. "You will be good for me, yes?" His voice lowers. Smooth, dead-serious. "Or will I need to catch you once more?"
Your breathing comes in quick, sharp pants, like that of a panicked animal. Beneath the squished press of your cheek, the operating table you're sprawled over is ice cold. Viktor's body, metal, impossibly heavy, keeps you pinned in place. His chest is pressing against your back, where you can feel his artificial warmth, his mechanics, rhythmically thrumming. The gears of his heart, the pistons of his lungs. Vibrations reverberating to a methodical, unsettling tune. He has your wrists pinned to the table, held down with both of his hands, and his third arm, the Hexclaw, is pushing with moderate force at the back of your skull.
Still, you shake your head as best you can manage.
Viktor goes silent, considering. Then, he guides your hands up, pulling them above your head. With great care and precision, he presses your wrists together, securing them with a leather binding, and fastening them to a curved metal hook that juts out at the end of the table.
He hums to himself, and when it seems evident that he's restrained you properly, that you won't — or can't — move, he pats your shoulder, approving.
"I can forgive you, as you do not understand what is truly necessary, nor can you grasp the entire extent of your contributions to progress." Viktor's metal hand snakes under you to grasp your chin. He squeezes your jaw, more firm than affectionate, he lifts your head and holds it at a near awkward angle. "You are my research subject, the most glorious lab mouse to have ever graced me, in fact. You are cherished. Even if you do not believe it."
In front of you, a large steel canister acts as a makeshift mirror. Wires lace from its edges to its open core. It drones idly, murmuring electricity. In it, you can see a curved picture: the dirty walls of Viktor's lab, hollow machine-bodies littering the floor, and a nearby side table, strewn with syringes and tools. Something twists tightly in your chest. Is he- is this what he plans to use on you, this time?
You can barely make out Viktor's shape, all metal armor, inhuman and daunting. He seems even larger when you're underneath him. His eyes, burning pools of amber light, fixed to his mask, meet yours in the reflection.
"I will only say this once more." Viktor leans in close. "You know that I am stronger than you, I am more knowledgeable, more perceptive. Do not run from me. There is no reality where I will not find you. Do you understand?"
You nod feverishly. (Your imperfect heart is thumping, you're stumbling over your feet like a helpless fawn; a laser, precise and burning hot, slices a line in front and behind you, cutting off all escape paths. Maybe you only ran from the Machine Herald because you knew you'd be caught. And subsequently praised, or even punished. You'd be pleased with both.)
You've never felt so pathetic.
The Machine Herald laughs, victorious. "Good pet. Hold still. I would hate to have to restrain you any more than this, after you have shown such sublime obedience."
He reaches for the small table. Overhead, the lights flicker, dull, sizzling. Your heart batters your ribs. Your eyes must be wide, pupils blown into fearful dark moons. Viktor adjusts his hand, he cradles your cheek, tilting your head to the side.
A needle kisses your neck. Thick, crimson liquid fills a silver syringe, held deftly between patient metal fingers. Small particles swirl inside, like dotted stars, like shards of sharp glass.
"Breathe in for me. Excellent. Breathe out, now." Viktor brushes his thumb over your cheek. You could almost mistake it for tenderness. "The lack of anesthesia should serve as an adequate form of punishment."
You close your eyes tight, until you can't see anything at all — just vague colors, pulsating like veins.
"Ah, you are shaking… there is no need to be afraid." Viktor's velvet voice, the curl of his accent is electric; you can't help but go limp. Relaxed, and waiting. "I will be with you. I will always be right here."
He injects you.
A gasp breaks on your lungs; you twitch, you writhe for a moment. All at once, a strange feeling comes over you, heat blooming at the base of your neck. Vines gush down your skin, causing shivers to patter along your spine. You feel… insistent. Viktor's third arm grasps the base of your neck, to hold you still.
"Hm." Viktor examines you, verbally taking notes. "Accelerated breathing. Heightened body heat. Arrhythmia, synonymous with an irregular heartbeat."
He taps your cheek. "Open wide."
Metal fingers slide inside your open mouth. They taste bitter and metallic, segmented with intricate joints, exposed bolts. You resist the urge to lap at them, or to close your mouth and suck. Viktor rubs his fingers in a small circle onto the flat of your tongue, in a rather practical motion. He is careful to not push them back too far, but you begin to gag anyway.
"And an excess of saliva. How peculiar." Viktor wipes his hand off on your nape, cooling your skin with your own slick drool. "I assumed this mixture would incite a conflicting response. I designed it with the average human body in mind, but evidently, that was not good enough. There are many inconsistent factors at play… the potency of the drug… your precise level of endorphins, or perhaps it is the oxytocin… Ah, no matter. I suppose I cannot declare it a complete failure, quite yet."
While he's been busy monologing, your breathing has grown heavy. "V- Vik…"
Viktor's voice gets a touch softer. "Are you alright?"
"I think… I- I don't know…"
"That is just fine, sweet thing. Perhaps you would like an antidote."
(There is none, but you, poor, precious, unevolved and unaugmented you, certainly can go without knowing that.)
"Yes- please?"
"Then listen to me carefully." The Machine Herald settles his weight atop yours, pressing closer. A flicker of steam, his breath, exhales from beneath his mask to brush your face. "I am sure my little rabbit can accomplish this much."
You nod. Dumbly.
The lights are fizzling again. "Now, could you tell me the answer to eleven plus four?"
"Fifteen…" Your head is spinning — no, the whole room is spinning… "Ah-"
"Good. Very good job. And what colors are you currently able to see? Simple observations such as red, or blue, will do just fine."
"Grey." (Almost the entirety of his lab is the color of steel, of cold fog rolling through Zaun, of smoke brimming from busy machinery.) "Purple." (Beakers, bubbling with shimmer.) "Blue." (Formaldehyde. The liquid he typically uses to embalm hearts and livers, brains and small organisms, suspended in jars, in translucent receptacles.) "And… orange, maybe?"
"I see. Your cognitive functions are decent. That is good, at least."
A stab at your head. Your headache is trying to escape the confines of your bones. "Did I mess something up?"
"Oh no, no, of course not," Viktor purrs; he leans into your cheek, like a cat's headbutt. "You have been nothing but sweet to me, and I simply cannot express how proud I am of you. I will not give you anything more for now, but… I believe I should perform more testing before I administer this particular solution again. Perhaps on your blood, as well as your skin."
He sits up, and he touches your nape, where the needle mark is quickly bruising. You wince, to his satisfaction. (Hopefully, you will wear this mark for a long, long while.)
"And in order to accomplish that, I will need a piece of your flesh."
"Okay… okay…" You say, only slightly over-eager. "You can do whatever you want, Doctor Viktor…"
"Ahaha, there you go. I am incredibly pleased to hear that." His Hexclaw ruffles your hair, before it releases you. A small mercy. "I will be gentle. So please, do not worry."
Viktor makes certain everything is in order first. On the table, he's organized some bandages, some cotton pads to soak up the bleeding. Forceps, he may need those. Scissors, meat saw, bone chisel, no, that won't be necessary. Not yet. Not tonight.
He grabs his scalpel very carefully, inspecting the shiny, sterile blade. (The shape is nothing short of delightful, a perfect grip, measured approximately to his hand, and a lightly curved edge, like a delicate half-moon. Admittedly, Viktor has always cared little for simplistic inventions such as these — they are mere tools to accomplish a task, drops in the ocean, the bits and pieces that help to form the basis of techmaturgy.
And yet, he finds himself longing to indulge more and more these days. Is this the sort of madness that you inspire?)
He acquired this scalpel in particular just for this, just for you, after all. Light catches on its surface as he tilts it. Fish scales. Or polished ironwork, he thinks, yes, that is more appropriate. How divine.
A feeling the Machine Herald had long since forgotten, a sense of excitement boils deep in the forge of his heartbeat.
"Left or right?" He twirls the scalpel. "Choose quickly."
"Right."
Viktor hikes up your shirt. He brings the tip of the scalpel to your right side, beneath your ribs, but above your hip. It only takes him a moment to settle on the exact position. His free palm presses to the small of your back — to hold you still.
"Do you trust me?" Viktor asks. It's hardly a question at all, because there's only one way you can answer.
Once again, you nod, but Viktor seems unsatisfied.
"Say it."
"I do, I trust you…"
A breath, in unison. These conditions are hardly appropriate to perform a proper biopsy, but he shouldn't pay that any mind.
As long as you have placed your faith in him, your trust, in his vision, as long as he has you; more accurately, he owns you. You are his responsibility. And so —
Viktor begins with a small, loving incision, barely a centimeter in length. You tense, expectedly, but you do not cry. Not to start with, but you will. The blade cleaves your flesh like silk. Nothing compares to the sight of it. He cuts as far into the tissue as the scalpel will allow.
"It must be painful… poor sweetheart." Viktor removes the scalpel, if only to prolong the process. He leans a bit closer, wiping tear droplets from your cheeks with a warm metal thumb. "But you can be strong for me. I know it is possible. You may not see what I see, but I promise you, this is wonderful. You still possess such potent emotions. Pain, fear, adoration, and to be able to witness them on display… Oh. Your pulse is spiking. Look at you… you are exquisite."
You plead, stuck on the V of his name, for a moment: "Viktor… V-Viktor…"
"Yes, my dear? Ah, fuck me, I should not have answered. It is so much more enjoyable to hear the way you beg for me."
It's no use. Spiked and quick, pain lances out from your side. Your shoulder blades go tense, pretty wings grinding together; you grit your teeth, and for him, you bear it.
"Oh, you cannot answer? That is okay… yes, if you feel the need to bite your tongue, that is more than okay."
Viktor returns to cutting. He is experienced enough to do this blind, and so he does, he focuses on you. On your weak body trembling beneath his metal-mass, a toy for his examinations, your chest heaving, your bottom lip shaking so pitifully.
And to think, you were once one of his colleagues, worthy of his respect in your own right — but you will never need to use that lovely head of yours ever again, unless he asks you to, unless he plans to cut it open.
Blood, love-red plasma, drips down your skin and pools onto the table, vivid with oxygen — and Viktor is enamored, beside himself with ecstasy. He shudders, though his working hand remains steady.
"You have no idea how much it satisfies me to be inside you." Viktor huffs, and the air in front of him clouds with the release of pressurized steam. You resist the need to cough. "I think you are beautiful, you have always been entirely perfect. In truth, my infatuation is… unyielding."
But oh, you'd be just as beautiful with a few metal augmentations. Viktor rambles, "My little love. If you would allow me to open your pretty body, I could provide you with more efficient, self-sustaining organs- it would be such a sight to behold. Ah, or perhaps I could give you a set of metal joints, they would function very well for you- of that, I am certain. No other scientist nor mechanic is able to grant you such an upgrade. Their minds are too feeble, too enclosed to understand true potential. I am the only one capable, and I would give you anything, everything you desire."
He laments, briefly, that you are still fully clothed. He would have loved the opportunity to examine you even closer, to open up your ribcage, or perhaps he could thoroughly inspect the wet warmth between your legs —
Dizzy with affection, Viktor glides his gloved hand up your back, he presses firmly enough to feel the ladder of bones beneath.
"A design signed with my name, proof that you have given yourself to me, to the newly realized future of humanity… haha, or maybe… I think you might prefer a metal collar for you to wear, one you are unable to remove without my assistance. Perhaps we could start there. You would not get lost again, yes?"
"Viktor, please…" You sob, you are begging without knowing what for — for him, for Viktor to adore you in every way possible: the tangible, the surgical, the cannibalistic.
Viktor can no longer help himself. His free hand prods his neck. A puff of stream unfurls to greet him. Here, he finds a familiar coupling of thick, exposed wires, kinked and curling from his nape to his throat. He teases them with the end of one finger, then begins rubbing and pulling with two. The stimulation is acute, instant. It feels good. So good. Arousal melts along his body, gnawing at his inner systems; a closed circuit, lapping at itself.
When you arch your back, metal jingling as your wrists pull at their restraints, your ass presses into him; Viktor grabs your waist to keep you steady.
"Dear…" He clicks his tongue: "Tch, I have not dressed your wound yet." Shaky, exhilarated, he gently cups your side. Brushes his palm to his work, the perfectly circular cut, the sticky still-oozing of blood, and his head goes heavy, just at the sight of it. "What am I to do with you?"
A constant ringing persists in your eardrums.
Two metal digits begin to probe your open wound, toying with it, or perhaps attempting to dig out the circle of flesh. Your blood slicks the steel. The perpetual brain-noise swallows you whole.
You scream so sweetly for him. The Machine Herald doesn't doubt that your cries can be heard from halfway down Emberflit Alley.
"Shhh. Such trouble you are making for me once again." Viktor's Hexclaw, with the clumsiness of an untrained machine, gives your head a few stiff pats. "Quiet, now. I am the only one who needs to hear you. Yes, well done. The pain is merely a temporary hindrance. Eventually, you will learn to control its impulses."
He then glides his gloved hand up, beneath your shirt. It presses to your soft bare skin, where he feels the thump, thumping of your heart. So adorable, so precious. So needy.
Malfunctions are running rampant within his brain. Fractals fraying from emotion blocking chips, prefrontal enhancement devices instead choosing to bend to Viktor's ardent desires. In the simplest of terms: he wants to claim this heart, wants to feel you even closer than this, a beating thing in the curve of his palm.
You will be pliant for him, will you not?
"It's alright. Once we are done, I will take good care of you." A gross, wet sound echoes through the Machine Herald's lab. His mechanics are beginning to purr, inner gear belts grinding, cooling fans whirring to unreliable speeds.
"Rest assured that I am intimately familiar with how this must feel for you. The rippling pain. The pervasive sense of dizziness, the way it threatens to conquer what remains of your composure. But do you not understand, now? I am making you into something far better. You are loved so dearly. That is why I must do this."
"Mhmm…" You sigh, glassy-eyed. The air has turned humid, almost stifling. I am loved, I am loved, I am loved.
"Precisely." Were you speaking aloud? Viktor hums, pleased, as he admires the newfound lump of flesh in his palm: "What a good little test subject you are. You have impressed me, but we are not yet done. Let us continue with something more… gratifying, shall we?"
𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐬 (dean winchester)
Part 5 ✧ In Bad Faith
summary: Dean is not in the habit of accepting help - especially not from rich, pretty college girls - but this time it really can't be helped. Badly injured and without his Baby, he is forced to take a lift from you for one long road trip to try to save Sam. He finds there are worse things than playing passenger princess.
pairing: dean winchester x f!reader
warnings for part 5: mentions of winchester family dynamics (ouch), yearning galore, minor angst, dean has anxiety!
word count for part 5: 7.6k words
Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist
You don’t sleep that night. When Dean wakes up, you’re still watching him from the sofa, freshly showered and dressed.
It makes him feel slightly sick to see the caution in your eyes and in your every movement, but he had half-expected to wake up with a SWAT team in his face so he’s aware that this isn’t the worst case scenario.
He had gotten used to talking with you in the mornings. Now, you move around each other silently. He showers and dresses and you’re keeping your distance rather than jabbering on to him or speaking to him through the bathroom door as you usually do. You throw your bag over your shoulder while you wait for him to get ready, hands jammed into the pockets of your shorts self-consciously.
It’s the first frosty morning there has been for a while. He can see his breath puff out in front of him as soon as he steps outside the door of the motel. The cold attacks his cheeks and knuckles. You let out a shivery burring noise while you close the door behind him.
You hesitate before getting into the car and he feels like some sort of kicked dog all over again. He supposes he shouldn't blame you. He’s aware himself of how all of this looks and sounds. But there’s a less rational side of his brain that is screaming that you should know him better than this.
You’re like some sort of trapped insect in the car, jittery and panicked. He pretends not to notice all the nervous glances you throw his way, but they irk him.
You pass a grey, congested city that could be anywhere in America and cross a bridge into a dirt road bordered by fields. He looks out to the tall, yellowish grass coated in frost and tries to loosen the knot of irritation and restlessness in his stomach.
He hasn’t taken any painkillers today because you have them and he hadn’t wanted to ask, so his calf is pulsing with pain. He wants to fight. It doesn’t even matter what - he’d just like to jam his fist into something. It has been too long without a proper hunt.
“So what’s really happening with Sam?” you ask him quietly.
He looks over at you. You seem absorbed in the road in front of you, rubbing the wheel idly with your thumb. You’re trying to look casual, but your eyes move to the right every so often, as if you’re trying to catch him in your peripherals.
“If I were to believe your whole story about hunting,” you continue. He doesn’t like the way you say it. Like you’re trying to make a joke out of it just to prove that he absolutely has not gotten the jump on you. “What does that mean for Sam?”
He pauses. “I don’t wanna lie.”
“You’ve been lying this whole damn time. Why stop now?” Your voice is suddenly very cold.
“I stopped lying to you a few days ago. There was no use in it.”
“And what about all that shit you said about being a scammer?”
“I never said that I did it as a career,” he says, irritated. “I said that’s how I make my money. Which is true. You don’t exactly get a pension plan and healthcare as a hunter.”
“So why do it?” You’re still using that same grating tone - like you’re trying to prove that he can’t trick you into believing him.
He considers spoofing. Saying something about ‘helping people’. And he wouldn’t be lying - that’s part of it - but you’re annoyingly exacting about this kind of thing. You’d probably scoff.
“I grew up in it. My dad became a hunter after my mom died.”
You glance sideways at him. “And you never tried to get out? You’re never tempted to tell your dad that you’re gonna go do something else?”
“My dad died a few months back,” he says and looks away to avoid seeing whatever pity or shock crosses your face. “But no.”
“Why not?”
He looks back over to you. He notices that you’ve lost that jovial tone, the one that makes it sound like you’re indulging him on some joke that you’re not stupid enough to fall for. You just look slightly uncomfortable.
“Sammy tried to get out. Went to go be a lawyer. I think he could have done it too, ‘cause he really wasn’t built for all this. I always thought about him getting out and being some sort of local historian or doin’ something like you. Not me, though. I think I was built for it.”
“Built for it how?”
He heaves a sigh. “Let it alone, would you?”
He doesn’t expect that to work, but it does. You go very quiet, eyes focused firmly on the road, and he instantly regrets it. He knows you well enough at this point to know this silence will likely last all the way to Duluth. It’s only another couple of days but he doesn’t think he can do it.
“You can’t do this kinda job without gettin’ your hands a bit dirty, yeah? I think that’s what I was built for. Dirty hands. If I wasn’t doin’ this, I’d be out getting my hands dirty somewhere else. At least this way I can make myself useful. Do something that’s not all bad.”
Your frown deepens. “So you never thought about it? Just having a normal life?”
Of course he’s thought about it. He thinks about it often.
It’s funny what happens when he thinks about it. He starts to feel an itching, lacerating guilt until his brain forces him to give it up. Beyond the influence of his dad, it might be why he never reached out to Sam when he was in Stanford. Because he had learned to associate a normal life with something morally wrong and so, in his head at least, Sam was doing something unforgivable.
He knows it’s all backwards. He’s got the whole thing twisted in his head. Other people - people who were raised in normal, five-person families with a mom and dad, three aunts, two uncles and grandparents - might feel guilt for wanting to do what he does. Live on the road, fuck who he wants, drink when he wants, go where he wants. He imagines that his life probably holds some captivating, secret allure for someone else. There’s probably some sorry bastard out there that secretly dreams about hopping in a car without a word to his wife and kids and hightailing it out west.
That’s the same kind of secret fantasy he has for a normal life. He was raised into this. His dad handed off certain responsibilities to him and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t make good on those promises. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t think of it sometimes, though. Forgetting about all those dumb pledges and oaths he made and taking up a 9-5. He’ll never be some sissy in a suit, but he could make a damn good mechanic.
You’ve now made it into the picture he conjures of it. Him cooking you eggs in the morning before you both head out to work. You arriving in wearing some pillowy blouse and a pencil skirt, hair askew and papers spilling out of your arms. He’d chop up some fruit so you don’t get on him about how he’s going to get scurvy. When he gets back from work, you’re already moving around, doing whatever it is that women do in houses. He’d tell you that he has to head out and collect the kids from Sam's house. You’d tell him that it can wait thirty minutes.
It’s nice to him at first. But then that guilt creeps up all over again and it turns unpleasant.
“Yeah,” he says at last, voice gruff. “I’ve thought about it.”
You nod at the road. “You ever kill someone?”
“Yeah.”
“Humans?”
He hesitates. No more lies. “Yeah. Never anyone who wasn’t gonna kill me.”
“Why would any human be trying to kill you?”
“Just like- uh.” He coughs. He’s really taking a leap of faith trying to get you to believe this one. “Demons sometimes take over human bodies. Sometimes we gotta plug the bodies they’re in if they’re gonna get to us. Or there was this blood virus not that long ago. Sent everyone in the town wacky. Had to kill a few people to stop ‘em from cutting us up and infecting us. Just that kinda thing.”
You look faintly nauseous. “Right. Just that kinda thing,” you mumble.
He’s making progress here. You’re still not sold - which he can’t exactly blame you for - but you no longer look like you’re about to throw yourself out the door of the moving vehicle. You’re starting to talk to him like you used to again, too.
You rarely take your eyes off the road for the next couple of hours while you plague him with questions about himself, his job and the supernatural. You stop once for some lunch. You come back with healthy sandwiches again and he stubbornly picks out anything not prepared in a factory.
He tries not to be annoyed by your million and one questions, but his leg is really fucking sore now and he can make out the outline of the box of painkillers in your back pocket when you lean forward to read a faraway road sign.
You catch him at one point, raising an eyebrow at him in disbelief. And Dean would not put it past himself to be checking out your ass during such a critical conversation - in fact, it sounds just like him - but he really isn’t this time.
“Uh- not trying to change the subject here, I know this is important. But it’s just… my leg is still completely fucked.”
You gasp quietly, hand lurching behind you to grab the box. “Jesus Christ, I’m sorry. Here you go.”
You chuck it to him and he catches it with ease. He chews up two of the pills without water, flinching at the bitter taste but already feeling better for having taken them.
You’re giving him a tight, apologetic smile once he’s able to pry the bits of chalky medicine out of his teeth. “Still not any better?”
“Better. Still not good.”
The clouds have thinned and there’s finally a bit of sun to melt the frost. He watches the drops plummet down the car window, over the great slabs of grey concrete of the outside buildings. You fish your sunglasses back out of the holder but only prop them on your head in preparation.
“If you’re making up this supernatural thing, you’ve really thought it through,” you say finally.
He’s not sure how to respond to that. He’s not making it up, but he’s sure anything he might say to stress the point would have the opposite effect. He stays quiet and stretches out his leg, testing the level of pain.
The soft case falls onto his lap unexpectedly. When he looks over at you, you’re staring at the road as if you hadn’t just given him the CD wallet for the first time without him having to ask. It comes across as a sort of apology - maybe for not believing his story, even while you’re still actively claiming that you don’t.
He slots out the 80s pop you have on and slides it back into the plastic covering. He flicks through the pages until he finds something by the Stones. He breathes on the back of the disc, rubs it a little with the bottom of his t-shirt and lets the stereo suck it up.
He regrets his choice as soon as Jagger starts barking roughly through the speakers. He usually likes this record, but it’s giving him a headache right now. Still, a silly sense of pride won’t let him change it. He just turns it down.
He thinks about last night and how it felt to kiss you. He knows he shouldn’t, but he doesn't try to stop himself either. There’s no use. It’s been prodding at his subconscious since it happened - flashes of it jumping into the forefront of his mind at inopportune moments.
The feeling of your soft lips on his, tugging at his upper lip gently, as if you weren’t sure you were allowed. The feeling of your hand carding through the short hairs at the base of his skull, just caressing. Your legs around his waist, your hand on his bare chest. Your sigh against his lips, like you were resigning yourself to him.
He knows he shouldn't have done that. He knew it even at the time, but he hadn’t even tried to stop himself. He briefly considers whether he regrets it, but finds he doesn’t. He supposes he finds it to have been worth it, even with everything that had transpired since.
Maybe he would think differently about it if he couldn’t feel you surrendering to him, even now. You believe him, even if you would never admit it. And you have no evidence to prove it or even to make it seem likely - if anything, all signs point to the opposite - so you probably never will admit it until you see it all for yourself.
But you believe him. Even if you don’t believe him about everything, you believe him about the murders. You wouldn’t be in the car right now if you didn’t.
He thinks he can work you over completely. He can get you to yield to him by continuing to tell you the truth, because you have this weird sensor for when he’s being honest. He just needs a couple of hours.
He knows that thinking about Sam won’t help him reach him any faster, but he still feels guilty for how often he has been slipping his mind.
It hardly helps at all that he’s still checking his location intermittently, nor does it help that you two actually seem to be gaining some ground on him. He still feels it gnawing at him.
He’s not sure how he’s supposed to help it though. When you’re warming up to him, he can’t help but sink into you. He will let you draw him into conversation when he should, by all rights, be sitting in stony silence with his head feeling tender and his chest fuzzy and raw.
He lets you tell him about your family, go through funny stories about you and your sister from when you were kids. He doesn't have to put on a big show of being interested or amused because you don’t stop for his reactions anyway. You just keep talking. About childhood and college and your part-time job last year and the internship your dad had lined up for you this summer that you’d rather die than take. You even tell him about the weird dream you had the other day, but that one is a little beyond him. He loses track of it when the setting switches from a parachuting adventure to a dentist’s office.
That’s another one of those things he likes about you. You know when to talk and when he needs quiet. Sam doesn't have that talent. He will pester and badger him when his head is already full enough, and let him stew in silence even when he’s desperate for distraction.
You falter half-way through some story about a high school ex-boyfriend and prom to bite back a yawn. He watches your face as you do it. Your eyelids are bloated and inflamed from rubbing.
“Y’tired?” he asks.
“Little bit,” you admit, blinking hard.
“You want me to drive for a bit?”
You frown. “But your leg-”
“I can go for maybe forty-five minutes. Enough for you to get a cat nap. You didn’t sleep at all last night, did you?”
It’s like reminding you of last night sends a veil right back over your face. Your lips press together while you shake your head in the negative.
He shrugs, sensing that you’re hesitating. “Up to you. Just sayin’ I don’t mind doing it for a little bit now I’ve taken my meds.”
You consider for a moment. He worries momentarily that he will feel like a complete fool if you say no or, worse, move on as if he hadn’t said anything, but you eventually pull over to the hard shoulder.
His shoulder brushes yours as you pass each other to switch seats and he feels it all the way to his stomach. When he gets into the seat, he spends some time working out the mechanics and tugging with unnecessary force on the plastic handle to adjust it to his height. You watch him struggle and, with practiced ease, launch your seat backwards with one smooth motion. He hadn’t known the seat was able to do that.
He looks around him, frowning at the automatic gear lever. He decides he will work it out as he goes along. He pulls clumsily off the hard shoulder and rolls onto the road.
You’re watching him. Your eyes are droopy and tired, entire body turned over to face him. You don’t turn away shyly when he looks over at you like you usually do when you’re caught staring. He would give anything he owns to know what you’re thinking.
“Wasting precious time here, sweetheart,” he says. He hates the uncertainty in his voice. “Probably got less than an hour in the tank before this sucker seizes up on me again.”
“You look good driving,” you say sleepily, eyes sagging closed. Your breath deepens almost immediately after, lips parting slightly.
His stomach gives one, strong - almost painful - flutter. Like he’s some chick. He’s embarrassed about it, even though nobody is aware of it but him.
He sneaks glances at you, miserable and a bit delirious. Sunlight is kissing you now, reflecting off your lips and cheeks and the stupid sunglasses still sitting on your head. The day has well and truly warmed up by now and a thin sheet of sweat is forming on your bare legs, folded up to your torso on the seat. Someone should paint you.
Yes, he wants to tell you. Stay here. Stay here and stay just like that, forever.
He’s not sure what this is. He might be losing his head, all without even getting you into the sack.
He makes it an hour before his leg truly refuses to cooperate anymore. He sits in the drivers seat for another twenty minutes before he can work up the will to wake you up with a light shake.
“Dean?” you say drowsily, brows scrunched together. You look at him, confused and bleary-eyed, as innocent as a baby deer.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he says gently. “Leg’s given up.”
You nod, blinking three times in rapid succession. You tug on the plastic handle and your seat props itself up to the correct position again. You sit, completely motionless and staring into nothingness for a few minutes. He waits patiently until you throw open the passenger door and the two of you swap again.
“How long was I out?” you croak, starting up the car and beginning to roll out. The sky has darkened considerably with just the faintest orangey yellow tucked beneath a coat of dark navy.
Dean had fought through all the rush hour traffic in the first half of your nap. The roads are now quiet again. He pictures a family sitting down for a dinner of spaghetti and meatballs after a long day at work and school. He pictures a family from an old cartoon he used to watch when he does this, the characters now faceless by virtue of his fading memory. He hadn’t grown up around many real families that did stuff like that.
“Just over an hour, I think.”
You groan. “Why’d you let me sleep that long? Was supposed to be a power nap. Now I’m wiped out.”
He laughs. “You’re too cute to wake up, baby. You try waking yourself up. Bet you couldn’t.”
You go very quiet and he wonders whether he pushed it a bit too far this time. His mind is immediately flooded with images of you in the motel room last night, inching towards the door, and he is convinced that he has screwed up big time. But one look at your face suggests otherwise.
Your lips are parted very slightly, eyebrows tilted up. You seem embarrassed - maybe a bit surprised - but not unhappy.
You clear your throat. “You never answered my question earlier, you know. About Sam.”
“You asked a lot of questions earlier.”
“What’s going on with him? Right now, I mean.”
He sighs, low and deep. “Just what I told you. He’s gone off the rails a bit. Stole my car and ran off to Duluth.”
You face him with a look - one he knows to be a statement that you’re not impressed. “If everything else you’ve told me is true then there’s more to it than that.”
“There is.”
“What is it?”
“I’m not gonna tell you.”
You frown. “Why not? You told me everything else.”
“Because…” He falters. He considers for just a moment, realising that he’s not too sure himself. “I just- I don’t want you to not like him.”
Your face softens into something fawn-like and open. “Why do you care?”
“I don’t know,” he grunts, voice gravelly. He turns away from you and looks out the window again. It’s too dark to see very much but he watches out for the odd street sign signalling turn-offs for restaurants, motels, service stations, and thinly-disguised brothels, all lit up by the headlights.
“I already like Sam,” you say quietly with a small smile. “I can’t help but like him. With everything you’ve told me.”
He smiles. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I liked the story about the rabid Rottweiler and the golf cart. Thought it was kinda cute that he wouldn't run it over even though it was trying to get at him. Shows what kinda person he is.”
He laughs at the memory of it. “Oh, yeah. That was a chupacabra.”
Your smile is frozen on your face. It drops very slowly. “What?”
“That wasn’t a Rottweiler. It was a chupacabra.”
“Like the-”
“The vampiric animal.”
“Oh.”
You seem to really think hard about this and he lets you. Watches your face as you frown at the road, lip caught in your teeth like you’re doing up some sums. He finds that he’s not nervous now, though. Just amused
You hesitate. “All those stories you told me. Were they all-”
“I had to get creative. Change some of the details. But they were real.”
“Even the one about the jet ski?”
He groans. “I regret telling you that one. You gotta let it go, dude.”
Your laugh is bubbling and completely hypnotic. “I can’t. Now c’mon. Tell me about what’s going on with Sam.”
He says nothing, keeping still as if that might influence you to let it go. Seconds pass in silence while you wait on an answer that he has no intention of giving.
“Dean.” Your voice is very earnest all of a sudden and lower than he has ever heard it. “I’m putting a lot of faith in you right now. I know I’m asking a lot of questions, but you’re asking a lot from me too.”
Dean sees something strange and uncomfortable and completely wonderful in that moment, as clearly and comprehensively as if he was looking at it through glass. Your perspective.
He’d seen it before but only in the way he sees the perspective of the pool players he’s hustled or the ditsy housewives he’s banged or the cops he’s evaded. He had seen it only to the extent necessary to get what he wants from you. And it’s not just the ride he wants. No, he wants your conversation, your warmth, your comfort.
He’d answered questions only to get access to you and all that comes with you, monitoring your feelings with an emotional thermostat to figure out the minimum he could give you to keep you happy. He’d driven until his calf gave out just so he could see you comfortable and blithe because that’s how he likes seeing you. It’s nothing criminal, but he’s out for himself in this.
But he realises now how much he owes you and it’s for damn sure that it’s more than six hundred dollars. He thinks about how much it must have taken to throw out all your judgement on just a word of some strange man from the FBI’s Most Wanted that supernatural creatures really do exist. More than that, you had agreed without much more than a waver to drive him to Minnesota so he can get to his little brother. There’s nothing in this for you beyond a few bucks that you could easily get off your rich-ass parents if you turned home right now.
“I don’t really know what’s up with Sam. One moment he was fine and the next he just- I don’t know. He snapped. Just like that.”
You look over at him jerkily, seemingly surprised that he had bothered to answer. “Oh. And you haven’t seen him since?”
“I have. He went missing maybe two weeks ago. He calls me out of the blue after about a week from this random ass motel near where I met you. So I go driving to get him. He tells me he blacked out and doesn't remember a thing from the last week. So we go retracing his steps and- well… yeah. He did some bad shit while he was out. I’m talking real bad. Things that are just so unlike Sammy. You’d know if you met him, it’s just not him. We get back to the motel and he starts begging me to plug him. Put him down so he can’t do any more damage. I react how you’d probably expect. Wake up hours later in the motel. Leg’s busted, ribs are bruised and car is gone. I track his phone and he’s on the I-80 East in some town in bum-fuck nowhere. I know he’s going to Duluth because we have another hunter friend staying there and following the pattern he left while he was blacked out last time, I know he must be going to take her out. That’s it. I met you right after that.”
You’re doing the number-crunching frown again. He almost tells you that there’s no use in it - he’s been over the possibilities a million times in his head and has come up with nothing. You’d probably tell him to be quiet though, so he takes the initiative and does it without instruction.
“That’s bizarre…” you mutter, as if everything you’d heard in the last 24 hours hasn’t been absolutely bat-shit insane.
He has to give it to you. You’ve done a much better job with this whole thing than he had expected. Maybe it’s because you study English Lit and read some crazier stuff or maybe it’s because you still don’t fully believe him, but he’s pretty certain anyone else would have run for the hills by now.
“So he’s possessed? Like those other people you talked about?”
“No,” he says patiently. “Those were demonic possessions. You don’t just snap out of them after a week.”
“Oh.” You say it absently. It’s as if you hardly heard him, still doing the numbers in your head. Dean does them with you. He lets the thought sit there for a moment, churns it over in his head.
He replays last week in his head. Allows himself to picture - for the first time in a long few days - Sam’s clouded face. The way he had begged and pleaded with Dean to put him out of his misery. The immediate turn when he refused.
A breath is struck from him, caught somewhere in his chest. He runs a hand over his exhausted face. “Son of a fucking-”
You jump. “What?”
“You’re right. It’s a goddamned possession.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t for certain. It adds up though. He didn’t snap out of anything, it was just the demon acting as Sam. I just didn’t know it at the time because…”
Because nothing. He should have known. How didn’t he know?
“Okay. It’s a possession. How do you… exorcise it? That’s what it’s called, right - an exorcism?”
It’s so simple that it comes as a shock. He had expected you to be spooked, or to revert back to that wry mocking tone. He had expected to see that smile again - the one that made it seem like you were just screwing with him by pretending to fall for it.
“It’s complicated. I’m gonna need to stop at a Church somewhere tomorrow before we get into Duluth. And I gotta call a friend.” He stops, hesitates. “I wasn’t sure… I mean, you don’t have to-”
You smile. It shuts him up.
“My husband and I have just moved to the area and we’d like to bless our new home. I wonder if you might have a bottle or two of holy water that we could take with us?”
You look obscenely pretty today. You’re dressed in pale blue with a modest neckline, a cute little headband in your hair. You’re smiley and eager, looking up at the priest with perfect innocence. He’s impressed and a little turned on, for reasons he can’t initially identify. On reflection, he finds with more than a little discomfort that the reason is that you referred to him as a husband. Your husband. He puts it out of his mind immediately.
The place smells like dirty coins. Churches always do, but this one stinks particularly bad. The odour of sharp, bitter copper makes his eyes sting. You seem out of place here - too clean, maybe - but the priest you’re speaking to doesn’t. He has dark, cold eyes that are almost black and dirty fingernails to match.
He sizes Dean up, pressing together two pale, thick lips that faintly resemble a couple of worms. He’s trying to figure out if the two of you are old enough to be a married couple, Dean reckons. He can see the slow wheel turning in the man’s brain.
Dean is probably just about old enough to be married, but the priest’s eyes stop on you with suspicion. He can almost hear his thoughts.
“We don’t generally give these things out to strangers…” he says slowly.
That doesn’t seem very Christian to Dean, but he doesn’t call it out to the old bastard. He would prefer to see how you handle it.
“Oh,” you say, faint surprise passing over your face. He can’t tell if it’s real or put-on. “I didn’t realise there were any strangers in the house of God. That’s alright. I think we passed another Church nearby.”
“Of course, you’re right,” he says, the two lip-worms on his face pulling upwards at either end. “You won’t be strangers for long, I hope, if you have just moved nearby. I will come back with a bottle.”
You had asked for a bottle or two, but this priests seems like some dirty crook. Dean doesn’t think that cajoling him for another will work. He meets your eyes in silence while the ageing man disappears into the sacristy and reappears with a clouded white bottle with a blue lid.
You put your hand out to take the bottle and the priests stops short. For a moment, he looks at your hand at then back at you, nothing filling the silence except the old, buzzing bulb from above.
“No wedding ring,” he observes with a forced, polite stare.
“We decided not to do wedding rings,” you say with a shy smile at Dean. “Too performative. And we’re trying to be better Christians every day. We do our best to abide by those biblical principles of modesty and simplicity.”
The priests glances once over to Dean and he can do nothing but give him a nervous, squirmy grin, forcing one chuckle that is more of an exhale, out of pure habit.
He passes over the bottle then with a smile. He makes some vague comment about how very respectable that is and how he hopes to see you in the church this Sunday. You give your promises while Dean shuffles you out the door.
“What a stingy old bastard,” you laugh as you sit back into the car. “Acted like I was asking for all the money in the collection box.”
“Yeah well you charmed it out of him anyway. When did you become such a good liar?”
“I’ve always been a good liar. I just haven’t tried it on you yet.”
He somehow doubts that, but he doesn’t want to probe too far into it. You pull out of the parking spot and onto the main road.
He smirks over at you. “So how come I’m your husband but I’m not allowed sleep in the same bed as you? That another one of your biblical principles?”
Your smile drops. It’s replaced by an embarrassed, wry thinning of your lips. “Put a sock in it.”
He laughs, leaning back into his seat with his arms crossed over his chest. “Ah marital bliss.”
You had asked for two beds at the motel last night. He hadn’t been surprised, exactly. He knows you trust him now, almost as much as you did before. But you’re still claiming not to be sold on the supernatural of it all, even if he knows you’re more convinced than you’re letting on.
He supposes the separate beds was a call from your better judgement to keep some level of distance from him for now, almost like you’re proving that you haven't completely lost your head. He’s not sure who you need to prove it to. Yourself, probably. Maybe him too but that’s no use. He can see right through you.
You had watched him hesitantly from your bed while he spoke low on the phone to Bobby, and he had thought that you might have been about to switch up and ask him to stay with you with the way you were twitching and biting the inside of your cheek.
You had asked him if everything was sorted when he got off the phone and turned over on your side as soon as he said yes. He had felt very grumpy getting into his own bed.
He’s trying not to think about how close you are to Minnesota. Sam has been at a motel in Duluth for a few hours and it won’t take you long to get to him now. You’re not too far off. Four hours if the traffic is light.
He will have to say goodbye to you in four hours. He knows this. He will get out of the car once you get to wherever Sam is and you’ll ask to go with him. He will have to convince you that it’s not a good idea. You’ll put up a fight, most likely, but you’ll come around, just like you did after you asked to travel with him and Sam at that diner.
He’s had one serious relationship and a couple of intense flings. But he had known, even getting into them, that they would eventually come to an end. His few months with Cassie, his week with Lisa - they had seemed doomed. He walked into them with the knowledge that they would eventually come to an end, which made it that bit easier when they inevitably did. Or maybe he had doomed them himself with that thought. He’s not sure.
This thing is different, though. He’s not even sure what to call it, but somehow the past week has seemed endless. He had spent days on end in a car with you. Nothing to do except talk. He never did very much talking with other girls he’s been with - it was never that kind of relationship.
And hope had crawled into the equation somewhere along the way. He can’t say when or where, but at one point it had started to feel like he wouldn't have to say goodbye. And he’s not ready to, but he knows he has to.
He's scared, he realises quite dumbly, but it’s not even that realisation that shakes him. It’s the realisation that he wants to talk to you about it. That, as soon as the though climbs into his head, he wants to share it with you - to cut himself open so you can see.
I’m scared, he wants to tell you. I’m so damn scared of what has started to sprout here. I’m scared of how long it will take me to forget you and how long it will take me to convince myself that I don’t need you. I doubt I ever will.
But he won’t say that to you. So he just won’t think about it.
He’ll think about Sam instead. For the millionth time since last night, he will mull over all the moral quandaries and guilt-laden feelings that spring up from having a little brother who you couldn’t even tell was possessed by a demon. He will make himself sick with thoughts of that instead because that’s familiar ground. He’s used to feeling guilty about Sam.
“We had this lake by our house,” you say at some short interval, before he can get very far into his expedition. “My sister used to take a notion and go out swimming in it, fully clothed. She’d come out completely drenched and covered in muck and my mom would always start wailing afterwards about how wild she was and how she doesn’t know where she got that from. Which was funny because my mom never even met our birth parents. But I remember one time Adam was over and we were playing in the garden-” You catch sight of Dean who has started to frown. “Yeah, Adam is the ex. I told you we were family friends. Anyway, he pushed me. I think it was off a swing or something but maybe it wasn’t. And my sister just comes bounding out of the lake like some sort of sea monster, dripping mud with reeds hanging off her. And she just decked him.”
“Adam’s a pussy,” he says, frowning.
You laugh then. “He was probably six years old.”
“Doesn’t matter. Jackass. If I was there, I woulda beat him up for you.”
You smile at the road. “I would like to have known you back then. I think you might have been the kind of kid to shove a worm down my collar or something to get my attention.”
“Bet it woulda worked too. I was adorable. You would’ve had the fattest crush on me.”
“You wish,” you scoff. “I was really headstrong and had an older sister to fight all my battles. I had higher self esteem than that.”
“I would have won you over eventually.”
You chuckle - one brief exhale. “I can believe that.”
“Yeah? You got a crush on me right now?”
“You know I do.”
He almost wishes he hadn’t asked. Your eyes are relaxed lips turned up at the sides. You’re not teasing, not joking. His heart gives one painful lurch and he turns to look out the window, fists pushing down hard on the oiled leather of his seat.
One hour from Duluth, you go completely silent. Twenty minutes from the edge of the town, you start getting twitchy. Tapping your thumb against the steering wheel, adjusting your seat once and then twice and then a third time. You change the CD twice before the second song ends on both records and Dean doesn’t complain about your choice. He takes the last of his painkillers dry.
He checks your phone for a location on Sam - or whoever is currently inhabiting his body - and finds that he’s in some random honky-tonk bar near a docking bay. Something about that makes his stomach squeeze tight.
It’s likely that Jo has shacked up in that bar, but the fact that Sam is still there is probably a good sign. If she were dead, he would have cleared out quick.
“What’s the plan?” you ask eventually.
“I’ve got the holy water,” he says. “I’ll wing the rest.” He is trying to pull off the nonchalance that usually makes you laugh and call him an idiot, but it’s falling flat. You don’t even crack a smile.
“You can drop me off a block down from the bar,” he amends after one quick look at your face. “And then I want you to drive as far away as you can. I’d tell you to get the hell out of town, but I think you won’t listen to me. So just get a motel on the complete other side of the city. Text me your location, if you want. I’ll come see you when it’s over.”
“I don’t even have your number, Dean.”
That takes him aback momentarily. It reminds him of just how backwards this whole thing has been. He picks up your phone from the centre console and begins to input his number.
“I’m not going away to some motel,” you say, eyes fixed on the dark road in front of you. The city has started to come into view - bright and dreadful in the distance. “I’m coming in with you.”
“Like hell you are.”
“I’ve come this far with you. Why won’t you just let me-”
“You don’t understand.” He can hear the frustration in his own voice, but it doesn’t bother him. He wants you to know about it this time. “This isn’t like sweet talkin’ a priest. This is real. Sam’s possessed and I’m pretty sure he’s doing some real bad shit to another hunter. One who grew up with all this shit and has a bit of experience with it. But she’d never be able to take on Sam because he’s strong and he’s smart and ten times the threat with a demon inside him. So you’re gonna go and drive to the other side of town, just like I said, and text me your location.”
You’re shaking your head before he can even finish. A thin blade of annoyance shoots through him.
“Don’t do that. You can’t just shut me out of this now. I want to help.”
“You have helped and you fucking know it. What the hell do you think you’re doing here with me right now? But you’ve gotta be nuts if you think I’m gonna bring you into that bar. It’s a death trap. There are two possible outcomes of it. One is your death and the other is Sammy’s and I’d much rather neither-”
“Dean.” You’re speaking with increased urgency as you speed into the city. “I’m coming in. You can’t stop me so you may as well just accept it and tell me what the plan is.”
He observes you for a second. He sees the same girl he did in the hours following that vehicle fire. He remembers just how despairing you were that night and the following day - that desperate, overpowering need to be useful. To help. He still doesn’t fully understand it, but he recognises it in some ways. It’s rooted deep. One of those pesky family things, he supposes. He’s not winning this one.
“Okay,” he says and you sigh with a profound relief that surprises him. “You stay behind me. I’m gonna try to talk myself close enough to him to get him with the water which will show for sure whether or not he’s possessed. Might hurt him enough so I can tie him up. If that doesn’t work…” He pauses, sucks on his teeth. “Well, I dunno. Try a fistfight or something. I guess I’ll work it out from there.”
He’s pretty impressed that you look only faintly nervous. You nod solemnly, pulling the car into a dark, gloomy avenue, almost too small for cars. You put the car in park and take a heavy breath.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah, I’m okay. We’re here.”
He nods once. He takes your hand without looking at your face. He traces his thumb along the bumps of your knuckles, pulling the key out of the ignition with his other hand.
“Wait here. I gotta get my gun from the trunk,” he says, squeezing your hand once and letting it go to open the door. When he rises to his feet, he stretches his leg, testing his weight against it. Still some pain, but not so bad with the painkillers.
He unlocks the trunk with the button on the remote, fishes through his duffle for the gun and finds it. He closes the trunk and stares at the remote in his hand for just a second, before pressing the lock button for all doors.
There’s a muffled noise from inside the car and then a whole commotion. The car jerks with the force of you trying to pry the locked door open. He waits, still standing behind the car for just a second to ensure that there’s no way to unlock it from the inside. He considers coming up to the window, telling you he’s sorry.
He walks away, towards the bar.
🏷 series taglist: @juliperezsilveira @logansdollxx @buckfreqky
𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐬 (dean winchester)
Part 4 ✧ Insult and Injury
summary: Dean is not in the habit of accepting help - especially not from rich, pretty college girls - but this time it really can't be helped. Badly injured and without his Baby, he is forced to take a lift from you for one long road trip to try to save Sam. He finds there are worse things than playing passenger princess.
pairing: dean winchester x f!reader
warnings for part 4: mild-ish smut (m masturbation), cursing, anxious dean, pervy dean as ever, minor angst
word count for part 4: 7.1k words
Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist
It’s 8:30am when Dean wakes up, and you’re still asleep. You had moved slightly closer to him in the night, but hadn’t touched him. You’re lying on your side facing him, one leg hitched up and the duvet pushed down below your hips.
Your knee is poking out from under it. He takes the chance to brush his thumb along the skin there, feels the solid bone and the warm skin under his fingertip, and moves his hand away again.
You don’t look any different when you sleep. You just look more yourself.
In the shower, his right hand travels down to his hard cock before he even realises he’s doing it, breath catching at the first bit of friction he’s had in over two weeks. It’s a rare phenomenon for him to go this long without getting his rocks off, whether by his own hand or someone else’s - practically unheard of. And you hadn’t been making it easy either.
What he needs is some goddamn relief to get your face to stop imprinting itself behind his eyes and to stop the blood from running down south the second you flash him one of those pretty smiles.
It’s the smile he pictures while he pumps himself slowly, biting back a groan. He needs to get this over with as quickly as possible and get out of the bathroom before you wake up. It wouldn't be difficult either, with how pent up he’s been, but it feels too good to rush.
Your face is in his mind. He summons the image of you kneeling in front of him while you wrapped up his leg, peering up at him through widened, doe eyes. It sends a rush low through his stomach. He touches the underside of his dick with his unoccupied hand, trailing down to his sac and pictures that it’s you touching him like this. It’s not right, of course - your hands aren’t this big or rough - but he will have to make do.
He tugs harder, entire body convulsing with the pleasure steamrolling through him, hips jerking forward uncontrollably while he fucks his hand. He feels his cock throb violently in his grip as the pleasure overtakes him. The intensity of it all is unfamiliar and almost alarming.
He closes his eyes and sees yours staring back at him. He is almost stunned at how perfectly he can conjure them up in his memory and in what vivid clarity - with all the little crinkles from your smile.
“Ah fuck-” he grunts loudly, shooting five or six thick strings onto the shower wall.
He comes so hard that he sees light burst behind his eyes. He is still picturing you as he rides it out, imagines your eyes plastered in awe as you see him come for you.
When he comes down, he puts his hands under the shower head to clean off the smaller spurts that had dripped down his length and over his fist, before getting to work cleaning the rest of him.
He is shuddering as he dries himself off, astounded and slightly terrified by the intensity of the orgasm he just had, and wary that you might have overheard him.
But you’re still asleep when he gets back to the room at 9. And at 9:30 too. Eventually Dean just gets back into the bed with you and falls into a half-doze. He lets his arm brush against your own, just light enough that it could be an accident.
This wanting is brutal, he thinks, only partially lucid.
You wake up at 10:30, looking like you had retired from the frontlines. “What time is it?” you croak to him, eyes bleary, hair standing up in odd places.
He can’t help but beam at you when he tells you - the complete and utter shock that passes over your face. You shuffle off to the bathroom, stumbling and confused.
In the car, you tell him that you hadn’t gotten that much sleep in years.
“It’s not for any particular reason. It’s not like I have night terrors or anything. But I’m not a great sleeper. Get about five hours on average, maybe.”
“How many d’you get last night?”
“I think, like, ten,” you say, still looking astonished at the development. “Why didn’t you wake me up? I would’ve thought you would want to get on the road quick.”
“Didn’t wanna get chewed out,” he says, mimicking your tone from that first morning.
“You’re a real scream, you know that?”
“Damn right I am.”
You have the top down again. He’s starting to like the feeling of it, though he does miss his Baby. He’s been planning the sucker punch he’s going to give Sam for taking her since he woke up in that dirty motel room. He puts his face against the breeze and feels the warm summer sun tinging his cheeks.
You insist your phone is ‘smart’ and he can check Sam’s location using it and so he does. He asks you whether this isn’t costing you a bomb, but you brush it off by saying your dad pays your phone bill. He checks it every few hours after that.
“So how’d you and your brother get into running credit card scams?” you ask. “Is there some sort of entry programme?”
“Quit it, sweetheart. You’re not gonna squeeze anything more out of me.”
“You can’t expect me not to ask, Dean. You really can’t. You tell me you make your money running credit card scams and hustling people at pool and you think I’m not gonna ask?”
“Why don’t you let it alone?” he asks impatiently.
“Dean-”
“If you want me to speak, I’ll tell you a lie. But I made up my mind not to tell you any more lies a couple days back ‘cause there’s no damn point. So it’s up to you.”
You give him a thin displeased look, but heave a defeated sigh after a second or two.
Even if he decided on a whim to bear his soul about why he got into hunting, he’s not even sure what he could say. There’s no ‘way in’. It has to find you.
In Dean’s mind, there are three kinds of hunters.
The first are the avengers. People who have been brutalised by the supernatural and dedicate their lives to removing that blight from the earth with a missionary-like devotion. These are people like his dad, who have given up on their own life already and would blow up whatever they have left without a second thought so they can convince themselves that they have a purpose beyond what they lost. Every hunter has a bit of an avenger in them - if they don’t when they start out then they develop it pretty quick. But only a certain few let that need consume them the way his dad did.
Then there are people like Bobby. Craftsmen. People who do it simply because because they do it well. They might have little love for the trade by nature, but they treat it with the same strict professionalism with which they would approach a 9-5 office job. They get a certain satisfaction out of a job well-done and maybe a little bit of an adrenaline rush - enough to keep them coming back for more.
The artists do it for the love of the game and nothing else. They can be annoying and high-maintenance, but there’s nobody better to be on a case with. They consider the job to be more than a job. Hunting is a calling and fellow hunters are a tribe to these select few. They’re the kind of people who will give themselves the stickiest tasks just because they get a kick out of it. They’ll run into cases with minimum preparation or research just to prove that they can get away with it, and they wear their injuries like purple hearts. Any case that doesn’t result in a deep black bruise, an infected cut with green pus oozing out, a lip swollen to the size and colour of a plum or some sort of gash wound that requires a tetanus shot isn’t one worth having gone on. They don’t usually last very long in the business without a craftsman by their side.
Dean likes to consider himself an artist, only because he’s not sure what he would be otherwise. Maybe he’s a mix of all three or a special fourth kind - something especially twisted.
“I can’t imagine you being a good enough actor to be a hustler,” you say eventually. Dean wonders if you have been milling this about in your head for the last few minutes - silently stewing on the image of him pretending to be a lousy shot.
“I’ll show you some time,” he says, only registering afterwards that he won’t. Once you reach Duluth, you need to hit the road again on your own. That’s just the way it’s going to have to go. You don’t fit in with all of the shit he has going on.
You open your mouth to speak, but he gets there first - before you can accept or decline his invite. He’s not overly eager to hear you do either. “What does your sister do?”
You pause. Close your mouth and open it again. “For work?”
“Yeah.”
“I- uh, I don’t know, actually. I know she waited tables for a while before she left. But I dunno what she’s been up to since.”
He nods. “What do you think she’s doing?”
You think for a moment. “I think she’s probably doing the same thing. Waiting tables. But she would’ve made a really good park ranger or something like that. She’s one of those people that can tell you what bird is singing just from listening to it. They all just sound the same to me.”
“Maybe you fucked up your eardrums with all the shit music-”
“Watch it.”
You’ve been driving off the highway for a while now, up the gentle slope of a hill road. You drive past a few fields and pass an old railroad track, swallowed by thick brown dirt and jungle-green brambles. He regrets not picking up a Coke at the last stop. There probably isn’t another store for miles.
“You ever regret not going with her when she left?” he asks.
“No,” you answer immediately. He can’t read the expression on your face. “I don’t think we’d do well together now. But I wish she didn’t go when she did. I regret not asking her to stay.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I dunno. I just thought that if she wanted to go then she should go. And I didn’t want her to stick around just for me. We were weird. It was just like- I knew she would die for me but I just wanted her to live with me and she didn't know how to do that. I would’ve liked to be her roommate in college and do laundry and the weekly shopping together. But she couldn't let go of that instinct to fix all my problems and make all my decisions.”
He’s never had this kind of conversation with Sam, but he knows it must be how he feels too. Dean had never really thought about it that way. Sam has always been more open about these things than he had, but this sort of honesty would be pushing it even for him.
He can understand your sister on this, though. He would want to protect you too. You’re the sort of person that anyone would want to fix a problem for.
“When it’s your purpose for so long, it’s hard to just-” he tries, but falters. He looks at you to pick up where he left off, but your eyebrows are pressed together with interest, waiting for him to continue.
“It’s different when you’re a parent, right? Because you’re an adult and you have a kid and you know what’s gonna happen. They’re gonna grow up and they’re gonna go to school and probably do some drugs and sleep around a little, but then they’ll get a job and a wife and everything’s gonna be fine. You know they’ll be fine, because you did the same damn things and you ended up fine. But when you’re a kid trying to protect someone, it’s just fucking different. When you’re just a kid, you don’t know that everything’s gonna be fine. You can’t just turn it off and let them work it out for themselves when you don’t know what’s gonna happen. I’m not sayin’ she was right to do all that. ’S just that some people are raised with their siblings and other people are raised for their siblings. And maybe your sister was just raised for you.”
You look a bit dazed and sick. You didn’t like that at all. He wonders briefly whether you’re about to hurl, but instead you just press your lips tight together and breathe deeply. You drive on, the space between the two of you stained in silence for a few minutes.
Dean’s brains feel like oatmeal in his skull - thick and gooey and useless.
The diner you found is practically empty. The booths are electric blue and there are neon signs everywhere, a glossy jukebox sitting proudly in the corner. It almost looks like someone’s poor attempt at an old American diner theme somewhere in Eastern Europe.
The food isn't bad, though. It’s been a while since he’s had a proper burger rather than that stringy dry stuff you’ve picked up in fast food joints across the country. And the music is decent, too. Finally some good, classic rock. But you’re really doing a number on him.
You’re not conscious of it and he thinks that might make it even worse. You take stupidly small nibbles of your burger between chatting his ear off. And he can’t hear a damn word you’re saying.
Whatever he had been thinking about removing the thought of you from his brain and cock via busting a nut this morning, he had been wrong. Dead fucking wrong. If anything, it’s like he has now given his body the permission it had needed to picture you in all the ways he had been fighting not to. On your knees. Bent over the hood of the car. Up on this table with your knees spread wide open for him.
It’s easier in the car. In the car, he can look ahead and be greeted with the sight of some grimy highway or roadkill or a bright-coloured Toyota Yaris. Real boner-killers. Here, he’s stuck looking at you. He finishes his burger before you’re half-way through yours and has already swallowed his next dose of painkillers, so he has nothing but your face to look at even if he wanted to.
And maybe it’s not just your face he is looking at, but he’s trying hard not to think about the rest of you right now.
You don’t break eye contact when you lean down to to take a drink, casting your eyes up at him while you wrap your lips around the straw. He bites back a groan.
“So what do you think?” you ask suddenly, hope smattered across your face.
He blinks. “Yeah, sounds good.”
“Really?” you ask, smiling wide but a little blankly - like you hadn’t been expecting him to say that. It makes him nervous.
When he doesn't answer, you continue. “I mean, I’d have to work out what to do with my car but maybe I could find somewhere to leave it in Duluth for a little bit. There might be some remote parking lot or a garage I could get away with.”
His whole body goes rigid and cold. “Hold on, wait a sec. You’re talkin’ about coming on the road with me and Sammy?”
You frown. “Have you been listening to any-”
“That’s not gonna be possible.”
“Not for long. Just for a while-”
“Nuh-uh. No. We’re gonna get to Duluth and then you’re gonna drive your pretty ass on to New York or to North Carolina to see your sister or all the way back home.”
“All right Dean,” you say coldly. You’re not looking at him anymore and you’ve stopped eating your burger. You’re staring down at your Coke severely, clasping the glass between both hands like it’s some sort of child’s doll. His stomach churns.
“I- Sweetheart-” he begins, but you’re not listening anymore. Your eyes are empty - devoid of any of the affection that had been swimming there just seconds before. It’s like looking into a cold slab of marble and trying to pull some emotion from it.
“You done? I’ll get the cheque.”
You know he’s done - his plate has been cleared for at least ten minutes - so you don’t wait for his answer before flagging down the waiter.
Dean tries to pay, but you slap your credit card down before he has the chance to even get to his wallet. Once it comes back, you begin to walk to the car without another word. He throws his jacket on hastily, watching you walk briskly out the door without him.
He jogs to catch up. There’s a sudden stab of pain in his calf when he does this even though he’s had his painkillers, but he’s remotely afraid that you will drive off without him if he takes too long to get to you.
You’re back on the highway within a few minutes but not a word passes even an hour later. He keeps thinking of things to say to make it all better, but they all sound too ridiculous or pleading or dumb when he plays them over in his head. He doesn’t even dare to complain when you put on some obscure compilation album.
Damn you, anyway. This is why he doesn’t let chicks hang around for more than a night. This is all you get from it. A headache.
It’s not really a headache that he’s experiencing right now, though. More like a dreadful pit in his stomach, the ballooning of his lungs, wasps swarming around in his chest.
Because you’re not talking to him. You’re not even looking at him. You’re humming along with the low crooning of the lady on the stereo, eyes on the road. You seem almost relaxed. Completely unruffled. Like you’ve forgotten that he’s there - maybe even forgotten who he is. He could be anyone to you now. A complete stranger.
“Are you okay?”
Your voice is dull and dead. You’re still not looking at him and for a second he considers that you might not even be speaking to him. You sound like you’re speaking to some inconvenient animal blocking the road.
“Yeah,” he answers quickly.
“You’re breathing heavy.”
He hadn’t noticed he was. “I’m okay.”
You nod tersely and say nothing further. He wants so badly to find some way to continue the conversation, but he’s stuck. He feels like some sort of kicked dog.
“Y’mad at me?”
Expressionless, you shake your head no, but say nothing. He wishes you would say something. He wishes you knew what it cost him to set aside his pride and ask.
“You are, aren’t you?” he tries again.
This time, you simply don’t react. He might as well have said nothing at all.
He sighs deep. The sky is inky-black now and he can make out a carnival in the distance - a colossal white tent with glossy red vertical stripes. A ferris wheel glows bright purple. Sparks and flames sprinkle into the sky in some firework show. He looks over at you while you watch them burst and smatter into the sky. He can see the bright sparks from the reflection in your pupils.
“Why don’t you want me coming with you?” you ask quietly.
“It’s not that I don’t want you coming with me. I do.”
He’s almost surprised to find that he’s not lying. And it’s not because he’s fooled himself into ignorance about whatever wretched, hungry thing has been building inside him over the last few days. But simply because he doesn’t think he’s ever said that out loud to someone and meant it.
He’s so used to sitting in Sam’s stinking cloud of stifling, choking grief. Even this far on from her death, Dean can tell when the thick lapses of silence mean that Sam is thinking about Jess. And when that happens, nothing feels right for the rest of the day. It’s even worse when he has to contend with his own complex grief over his dad.
And you’re fucking sunlight and you might just be the cure to whatever poison cloud that follows him around, but that doesn’t change a thing.
“Then why? I’m not asking for-” You stop there. He figures you’re not too sure what you’re asking for either.
“Because there’s no place for you,” he says gently. “C’mon, angel. You gotta think this through. You’re gonna come on the road with me and Sammy and do whatever illegal shit we get up to for the summer? And then- what? Go back to school? Go back to normal and not tell anyone you spent your summer interning for a couple of crooks?”
He sees it dawn on you. Watches the cold stoniness in your eyes melt into something twisted and hurt. You purse your lips. But now you’re open to him again and he no longer feels like just anybody else to you. He’s not a stranger.
“You’re right,” you mumble, voice weak. “Sorry. It was stupid.”
“Not stupid. I’d take you with me if I could.”
“Yeah?”
“Sweetheart, you got no idea how bad I want to put you in my pocket and take you on the road with me. Never let those Ivy League meatheads within ten miles of you ever again. I’d steal you away. Wish I could.”
He flicks your nose lightly with his index finger. It’s cold, like always - and you wrinkle it. You giggle lightly, smile breaking through, and he smiles right back.
Despite all he has said, he lets himself picture it for just a moment. He looks out at the damp road, glistening red with the now-distant fireworks, arms folded on his chest. He thinks of being with you and driving wherever he pleases - sometimes with Sam in tow and sometimes not. He pictures not waking up cold and alone in those motel beds, waking up instead to that same warmth he felt this morning. He thinks of being able to touch more than just your knee when you both wake up and being able to do it often.
He would go out to get you coffee and breakfast even when you tell him it’s too early and you have packed cereal bars so it’s not worth it. He would make a ritual of it. He would look after you, make sure you always had a warm coat on cold days and keep you away from anything that could hurt you. He would make an unspoken promise to you the way he had to Sam. He would be needed by you. He wants you to need him.
These images are crushed by his guilt before he can get too far.
He’s tired of guilt. He’s tired of feeling it over every small thing. Just once, he would like to be able to want something without feeling like he’s doing something wrong.
You seem surprised when Dean suggests you get an early one tonight. He’s not sure why because you’re damn near falling asleep at the wheel. He has to explain the concept of oversleeping to you more than once, but you don’t seem to be able to grasp it. The idea of sleeping too much somehow making you more tired seems like a scam, you say.
He asks for the room at the motel reception this time. The manager asks if he needs one bed or two and he says one. He almost expects that you will put up a fight about it now, given where you landed on the conversation earlier, but you don’t and he feels an intense, befuddling relief.
Sleeping alone in a bed would feel like a punishment. He does it all the time - he’s done it since leaving Cassie in Missouri over a year ago now - but he doesn’t want to do it now. Not when you’re warm and soft and you look up at him like you could need him, or even just want him.
The room is comfortable and a little bit flashy. There’s a plush red sofa in the centre of the room with a decently sized television in front. A large window is blanketed by tartan black-out curtains that match the throw over the bed. You collapse into a heap on the sofa as soon as you walk in and Dean heads straight to the bathroom.
The bathroom is a bit crummy. The shower is just a bath with a shower head planted over it. When he steps in, he lands on one of those rubber mats that feel slimy and grubby under his feet, and a pillowy shower curtain with the bottom tinged yellow sticks to him the whole time.
He thinks about you. Your little temper tantrum. He guesses that would grow old quickly if you guys stuck together for a while, but he can’t help but find it a little bit endearing now. Probably something to do with the fact that it means you had wanted to stick around with him.
He’d let you stick around for a while if it were up to him. He’d let you stick to him like glue or this fucking shower curtain. Show you a real good summer before you go back to college. But that’s a stupid idea and he knows it is.
He tries to forget about it while he wipes himself down. He has another few days with you and that’s all there is to it. Maybe he can work up some action in the meantime, but that’s it. It’s going to have to be it.
He puts on his underwear and looks at the lump of clothes in the corner of the room. He hesitates, and bunches them into his arms without putting them back on.
You peer with a sort of puzzlement at his bare torso as he walks out, and turn away again to face the television. He wanders around the room, silent and awkward, folding his clothes and putting them away despite having left them in a pile on the floor every other night. He starts to regret his decision, but if you’re uncomfortable you don’t show it. You continue to watch the television as though you had forgotten he had walked into the room at all.
“What’re you watching the news for?” he laughs, flopping down beside you on the sofa. You take the thick blanket folded over your lap and share it with him, spreading an even half across his lap. It could just be to cover him up a bit more. It feels scratchy on his bare skin but he can feel the warmth of your body imprinted onto it. He tucks it around him.
“I thought there might be some mention of that guy from the highway. We’re in a different state now but I think this is the right channel.”
There’s something like an apology in your voice which he doesn't understand.
In truth, he had forgotten all about that guy once again. He stays quiet until the nine o’clock news ends. He just watches it with you, observes the hope in your face begin to dim until the ads roll around and it dies completely. You watch a soda advert with distaste.
“That really got to you, huh?” he asks gently.
You smile in a small way, hands folded delicately over the blanket on your lap. “Kinda. I mean, it’s not like I’m thinking about it all the time. But I’d like to know he’s ok.”
“I don’t think we’re gonna find out, angel. We don’t even know his name. It’s probably a good sign that there’s no mention of him. Wouldn’t be on the news if he lived.”
“I know.” You shrug. “It’s just that I didn't really do anything to help him. I’d like to know he didn’t die.”
He frowns. “What the hell are you talkin’ about? We stopped. We got him out.”
“You got him out,” you say, with a casual nod of the head. “I just stood there and watched you.”
It looks a lot like you’re pretending not to care, but he can see you do. He could say something to placate you. He could tell you that he might not have even stopped if it had been him on the road himself, too wary of a trap from some demon or other while his leg is busted and too anxious to get to Sam. He could remind you that you dragged the limp, dead weight of an unconscious body away when he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to. He could have reassured you that you had done plenty, and he wouldn’t even be lying.
But he thinks you would just be uncomfortable about it, if he did. You would think he was just saying it all to make you feel better. And anyway, he has the feeling that this might be a deeper wound - something left by your sister and not fixable with petty words. So he says nothing.
He takes your hand instead. He will allow himself this one, simple thing just for now. He doesn’t really expect you to clutch his hand back, but you do. Your hand is warm and soft. He would keep them that way if you were to come with him. He wouldn’t let you do any of the dirty work that has tarnished and disfigured his own. In this imaginary world where you went with him, he wouldn't let anything change the softness or the warmth of your hand.
He tries not to let his want show, even as he touches over your skin. It becomes embarrassing, at a point, to want so deeply and to want to be wanted so deeply in return. It feels like he is doing something terrible, wanting you like this. Something worse than hunting and killing.
Your eyes are glowing and glassy, the television casting light onto your face in the otherwise dark room. Your mouth is open slightly, thumb running over his knuckles, eyes shifting around from his eyes to his chest.
“Dean…” you whisper. Your voice is soft, nervous.
He reaches out a hand to your delicate face, pauses there a moment to see if you’ll stop him, and bends down slowly, your shallow breath meeting his own. Your mouth meets his like an electric current, rooting deep in his stomach.
“I’ll stop if you tell me to,” he mutters against your lips, putting his hand over yours and bringing it up to rest over his chest. Your hand is trembling. “But please, sweetheart, don’t tell me to.”
You take a second to respond, but you do, crushing your lips against his, wet and dreamy. He feels something like a sigh against his mouth, one hand on his bare chest and another in his hair, and he knows he shouldn't be doing this. Especially given what you had asked him earlier. And he knows, he knows, he knows - this will make everything worse. This will be the end to the relative peace of the journey so far. There’s no way that either of you are coming out of this intact, but that somehow matters very little to him right now.
He puts one hand behind your back, dipping under your top to feel the smooth, warm skin there. He presses gently, another hand on your hip, until you’re on his lap, legs wrapped around his waist.
Your lips are soft, just like your hands and the warm skin of your back. He wonders if all of you is this soft - inside and out. He could find out. He had been worried about ruining it - hardening you, somehow - in the process, but now he’s sure he could dive into you without changing a thing. He would make sure you were protected. He would keep you safe. He would kiss any sadness out of you before it had the chance to sprout.
You’re cradling the nape of his neck, the same way you might if you were soothing him. It does something unfamiliar to his stomach. You’re trembling under his steady touch while he kisses you as if intending for it to bruise.
Dean knows desire well, but there’s something about this burning, searing thing coursing through him that terrifies him. This desire feels trapped in his body - like he couldn't claw it out if he wanted to. And it might take a long, long time to recover from this.
His full name startles him.
Spoken loud and firm. He pulls away to look at you for just a second, before catching the confusion on your face and realising it wasn’t said by you.
Dazed and muddled, he looks around to find his face - just an old passport picture - on the television in full, clear technicolour. A woman from America’s Most Wanted is talking about how dangerous he is, the likelihood of his being armed, where he is likely to be, all the disgustingly experimental ways he has gutted people.
In a flash of panic, he turns back to you - almost convinced that he can pick up where you left off before you notice anything is off. But you’re watching the television too, now. Your face is completely expressionless, fingers frozen on his neck and chest.
But the moment your gaze travels from the television back to his face, your eyes fly wide. You get up quickly, pushing at his bare chest with your hands. You are scrambling with the urgency of your movements.
You fight your way off his lap and land clumsily on the floor, backing away as if he is about to reach out and grab you despite the fact that he has shown no signs of doing so. You heave yourself up quickly, just watching him with horror where affection and desire had been just moments before.
Dean stands too, and you take two steps back, as if he’s about to take a lunge.
“I can explain,” he tries, knowing it sounds weak.
“Go on, then,” you say, voice wobbling. You’re inching towards the door, even though you’re only in socks.
He hears the echo of your voice in his ears and tries to gauge what’s likely to happen next.
There are a few different routes this could take. Of course, you could sprint right now without bothering to listen to him, in which case it’s pretty much game over for him. He could spin a long, elaborate lie, but his skin may as well be clear glass to you. He wouldn’t be able to make you believe it and that would also likely result in a game over.
Then again, you wouldn’t believe the truth either. He has had to expose the supernatural to a host of people when in a pinch before, but there’s usually some sort of proof nearby. Here, he has nothing.
He weighs up the option of hightailing it out of the room right now and hot-wiring a car. His leg is reasonably better, but he knows he could probably only make it forty-five minutes - an hour at a push - before he’d have to give it up. And the cops wouldn’t be long behind him if you decide to give them a call right now, so that’s assuming he even makes it that long without getting caught.
He hasn’t thought about Sam in a while but he thinks about him now, with the possibility of a prison cell and probably the chair ahead of him. He wonders what he’s doing and if he’s ok. He wonders whether he’s snapped out of whatever curse or plague he is under. Would he be able to handle it himself? He might have to.
You’re only a few steps from the door now, and he knows that you’re gone for good once you step out. In a blind reach of faith, he puts his hands out in a stop motion. Miraculously, you do.
“You’re not gonna believe me if I tell you. I swear you’re not. But I didn’t do any of those things. Well, except the bank thing, but it’s not as bad as it- I mean, it’s complicated. I didn’t kill anyone.” He hesitates. “Any of those people.”
If possible, you look even more horrified. Your eyes are almost bulging out of your sockets. But he has distracted you enough. You are no longer inching towards the door. A very temporary fix.
“Really,” he says steadily. “It’s not what it looks like. But you’re not gonna believe the truth.”
“Try me,” you say.
Dean would like to think he has patience for this sort of thing, but he fucking hates it when people say that. It’s the same formula every single time. He assures someone they won’t believe him, they say ‘Try me’, in that same goddamned tone you just used, he tells them, and then - to absolutely nobody’s surprise - they don’t believe him.
“I’m not kidding, sweetheart. You really won’t.”
You level him with a stare that tells him immediately that you won’t be moved on this particular subject. His two options are prison or honesty, which may also come with prison.
He rubs a hand over his face slowly. He looks to you once more, trembling and twitching by the door, and sighs a curse under his breath. “I hunt the supernatural. That’s my job. Those murders I’m being pinned for were tied to shapeshifters and ghosts and shit like that. And I was put on the hook for them because I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was working the cases.”
An apoplectic rage begins to wash over your face. He’s not sure whether that’s a positive or not. He supposes it’s better than the fear and horror. Marginally.
“Are you seriously trying to fuck with me right now?” It’s the first time he has heard you raise your voice. Your tone is all anger and disbelief.
“Swear I’m not. I knew you weren’t gonna believe me, angel, but it’s true.”
He watches you size him up. There’s very little he can read in your expression except suspicion.
“You pulled that guy from the burning car. I watched you.”
He tries not to look as confused as he feels by the jarring turn of subject. He just nods.
You continue with narrow eyes, hesitatingly. “I didn’t even have to ask you to do it. You just did it.”
He nods again.
“A serial killer wouldn't do that.”
He shrugs. He doesn’t totally agree. Serial killers work in funny ways. But he’s not about to point that out to you right now.
You watch each other from across the room in complete silence, each watching the other closely for movement. If you go bolting, this could be it for Dean - and by extension, Sam. His chest aches at the thought of it. Sam alone in Duluth - snapping into consciousness amidst huge pools of red blood that he had drained from innocent bodies, all because Dean wasn’t able to get to him in time.
He is mostly worried about what happens after that. Sam’s already been having enough thoughts about self-sacrifice lately. The line of thought makes him feel ill.
“Dean, you can’t expect me to believe that-” you say, choking up with something between a scoff and a sob. You’re inching towards the door again.
“You don’t have to believe it,” he says. He can hear the desperation bleeding through his own tone. “You can take your car and get out of here right now, if you want. Go to the cops and tell them everything. All I’m asking you for is a head start. Just give me ‘till morning and don’t tell them where I’m headed. Please. I need to get to my little brother.”
The suspicion melts. He watches it drip from your eyes. You look at him with a sort of surprised softness.
The room is so quiet that he can hear your shaky breaths even from this distance. He’s not sure how long passes like that. It could be a half hour, for all he knows. His leg is aching horribly from all the standing by the time you break the silence, and he knows that any chance he might have had at escape tonight is futile. He’s getting nowhere on this leg.
“I might be really fucking stupid,” you say, hardly more than a mumble. You’re still looking at him, picking nervously at the threads of your jean shorts.
He could almost cry from relief. He shakes his head urgently. You observe him for just a second longer before walking over to the sofa and pushing. Your face goes tight with exertion, pushing your entire body weight into the exercise. He has no idea what you’re doing. He almost joins in to help you in your pursuit, except he doesn’t think he would be welcome anywhere near you right now. He stays still.
“I’m gonna stay here for tonight,” you say, sitting gingerly on the sofa once it has been successfully spun around to face the bed. “You take the bed.”
You only pull the throw back over your legs once he’s settled into the bed, as if you might have to be prepared for him to make a sudden attack. It puts a rattling twinge of discomfort in his chest.
The lights are already off and he doesn’t feel at ease to get up and close the curtains for fear of spooking you. He lies stiff as a board while you turn off the droning on the television, where the lady has since moved on to someone accused of cyber crimes, and at some very long interval, drifts steadily off into the least pleasant sleep of his life.
🏷 series taglist: @juliperezsilveira @logansdollxx @buckfreqky
𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐬 (dean winchester)
Part 3 ✧ Under the Hood
summary: Dean is not in the habit of accepting help - especially not from rich, pretty college girls - but this time it really can't be helped. Badly injured and without his Baby, he is forced to take a lift from you for one long road trip to try to save Sam. He finds there are worse things than playing passenger princess.
pairing: dean winchester x f!reader
warnings for part 3: cursing, anxious dean, dean being a bit of a perv as usual but also a bit of a sap <3, canon-typical references to unhealthy family dynamics / abuse / food insecurity
word count for part 3: 5.3k words
Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist
You’re mad at him. Dean can feel it in everything you do.
He feels it in your silence. In the way you collapse onto the motel bed without even wishing him goodnight like you did the night before. He feels it in the way you drive the next morning - eyes as stiff and cold as marble on the road.
Not much conversation has passed between the two of you since the night before - only what was strictly necessary.
You had shed your shirt for just the vest underneath and hoped that the motel workers would think that the bitter charred smell of smoke clinging to your skin was from cigarettes. In the room, Dean went straight to the bathroom and vomited up a thick, black mucus. He had known he was going to vomit for at least a half hour beforehand, so he had felt only relief at the evacuation.
You had asked if he was okay through the door and he had told you he was, but the rest of the evening and following morning was passed in silence.
He glances at you every so often while you drive. He can still smell the smoke on his own skin and hair, even though he showered twice. He wishes you would look at him. He’s not sure you have looked at him at all since last night, when he had demanded that you leave that man out on the road.
He feels belligerent at first. Determined not to be the one to break. If you want to sulk, he can let you. It's going to make the rest of this journey a damn torment, but he’s not going to apologise for rushing you out of there. He saved that guy’s skin - at least he hopes he did - and he doesn't have to be ashamed of saving his own too.
But the anxiety builds rapidly in his chest, until he feels sure that his ribcage isn’t strong enough to hold it. He has that awful sensation of having botched a hunt again and he’s sure that when you start speaking it will be with his dad’s voice. His throat is tight.
“Can you, uh-” he scratches out. “Can you talk?”
You look at him properly for the first time in a while and he registers a sort of surprise on your face, as if you have only just remembered that he is there. For an awful moment, he thinks you will turn back to your driving without a word.
“Yeah,” you say quietly. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m just-”
He understands then. Understands that you’re not mad at him. You’re replaying it all over in your head, picturing that man spasming on the hard ground. Your brain is probably showing you pictures of the man dead on the road too, with nobody around him. Dean has been in your position a few times before.
“There’s nothing more we could have done,” Dean says. “We got him help. We got him out.”
“You got him out,” you say. Your voice is weak.
He's not sure what to respond so he doesn’t. He’s happy enough to leave you alone if you want him to, now that he knows you’re not mad at him. Your hand is resting aimlessly on your thigh, your thumb tapping against the soft flesh there without rhythm. He has a strange impulse to grab it. Pictures his thumb stroking over the knuckles, tracing the veins.
“I’m starving,” you sigh. “Stop soon?”
He agrees, feeling good. He’s in a much better mood than he was this morning. He would probably agree to anything you suggested.
You pick up two pre-packaged sandwiches at an old Americana-style truck stop at the side of the road. He grumbles when you hand it to him and fights his way through most of the the tomato and lettuce in the sandwich with a wince but refuses to touch the fruit pots, even when you insist his organs will fail.
“How are you not craving something that isn’t deep fried?” you ask him. “I feel like shit.”
“S’ rabbit food,” he says through a mouthful of chicken. “It’s the enemy of everything decent about food. Pure, fast energy. That’s what you need in a meal.”
“Pure, fast energy? Are you rationing or something?”
You’re joking, but his body stiffens. For one wild, irrational moment, he almost blurts out something too honest, about going into corner stores at the age of fourteen and having twenty seconds to pick out the most calorie-dense food in the shop to rob. He doesn’t have the same stakes anymore - no ten-year-old brother whose stomach he needs to fill without the funds to do so - but he still has the same instincts.
He doesn’t say any of it. He says nothing.
“Didn’t you say you were a line cook before?” you remark absently, frowning at the bit of lettuce he pulled out of the bread.
He raises a brow. “Yeah. So?”
“Nothing.”
He shrugs and turns back to his sandwich. Your eyes are on him but he refuses to look at your expression - he’s afraid to find suspicion there again. Instead, he looks around.
It’s warm again today, but too sticky to drive with the top down. There’s enough cloud cover to make everything look dim, especially the dirty grey truck stop ahead. The cracked brown pavement is faintly dusty. There are a few people milling about, but not many. He sees a few rough-looking drivers asleep behind the wheel.
Two small kids walk out of the shop holding cones with mountainous heaps of paper-white ice cream piled on top. The smaller of the two - a girl - is letting the thick, congealed cream drip down from the cone and stain her dungarees without the slightest consideration. The boy is walking slightly behind her in a beaten-up Red Sox baseball cap and trainers with the sole starting to come loose and flapping.
Dean had a Red Sox cap when he was younger too, despite usually being about as far away from Boston as he is right now. He got it after spending a day outside in the scorching heat, keeping watch for cops. He got sunstroke. His face had blistered and peeled so badly he can still sometimes feel the stretch behind his skin on days when the weather gets too warm. His dad had picked it up in a thrift shop for him afterwards.
The little girl’s white shoe catches in one of the cracks on the pavement and Dean watches as she goes tumbling inelegantly to the floor. For a brief second, she looks around at the scene. She takes stock of her position on the ground, glances once to her bust-up knee, then to her ice cream lying in a lump on the ground. She begins to wail.
The boy rolls his eyes with impatience, but bends over and uses one hand to lift her off the ground. He dusts her clothes off with his right hand and the tissue that had been wrapped around his cone, speaking to her with a face so parental in nature that it looks wrong on a boy who seems to be only nine or ten. She sniffles once, a smile cracking open once again when he hands her his own ice cream.
They shuffle off together - one ice cream between the two.
“You have any siblings?” Dean asks, still watching them, voice thick.
“Yes.”
Your response is given about as quickly as he can get the question out. His head snaps over to find that your eyes are also trained on the two kids.
“One,” you say. “How about you?”
“One.” He watches them until they disappear from view. “Sammy. He’s uh- He’s in Minnesota.”
It occurs to him that he has not thought about Sam or worried about him in quite a long time. He is immediately swallowed by an obscure, incomprehensible guilt.
He knows he’s tripped himself up here somehow - contradicted some thing or other that he said before and cannot now remember. He expects you to give him that same suspicious look that you always direct at him when speaking about his work or something else you don’t believe, but you don’t. You seem pleased.
“That the same Sammy from the story about the shipyard? Maybe I’ll get to meet him when we get there.”
He thinks of Sam and his clouded, hateful eyes and knows that’s not true, but he smiles anyway as if it’s a possibility. “Only don’t call him Sammy when you do. He hates that. Goes by Sam now that he’s all grown up.”
You giggle. “Willing to bet you’re older. My sister gave me all kinds of nicknames growing up. It’s funny but I don’t really mind it from her. I’d kick anyone else’s teeth out for it.”
He smiles to himself. He can see that. Sam reacts the same way. The two of you are similar in some ways. You would probably get along with Sam if he were his normal self right now. You’d have a lot of nerdy shit to discuss and he’d probably understand what the hell you were saying when you talked about the ‘intersection between evolution and environment in modern anthropological studies’. He might have even had a bit of a crush if he had met you first. Dean finds that to be an unpleasant line of thought and packs it up.
“Probably coulda guessed that you were someone’s kid sister,” he says.
You laugh. “You think you have me pretty well figured out, huh.”
“Not at all,” he says honestly.
You meet his eyes for a moment. You might be trying to figure out whether he’s being sarcastic.
“My sister is in North Carolina,” you say. “Haven’t seen her in years. She pretty much raised me.”
“Thought you might’ve had nannies for that,” Dean responds, almost automatically.
A flash of hurt crosses your face for just a split-second, before a wall slams up over the gentle earnestness. Your lips stretch into a tight line. “Nope,” you say, voice cold.
He curses himself out internally, instantly regretting his casual dismissiveness. He’s too used to travelling with Sam, who has been raised from birth to put up with his snarkiness. He’s so sick of putting his foot in it with you, sick of lying to you, sick of putting anything but a smile on your face. It doesn’t feel good.
“I raised Sammy too,” he says. You nod. Your lips are still pursed.
“Our mom died when he was a baby,” he continues. “And our dad just went fuckin’ crazy. Completely nuclear. Sam was such a brat. Always whinin’ about something. It was always so easy to make him mad too. Still is, if you know how to work him.” He laughs then, at a brief flash of a memory. Sam’s face when he realised Dean had put itching powder into his boxers.
You falter, face softening slowly and reluctantly. “You guys stay close?”
“Yeah,” he says. “He went off to college and we didn’t speak for a while. But we’ve been travelling around together since he dropped out.”
“How’d you get back in touch?” you ask. You look nervous. You fingers are pulling nimbly at loose threads on your jean shorts. Some cheesy 70s disco CD is spewing out from the stereo.
“Some drama with our dad,” he says. “You don’t wanna know the details. We’ll be here all day.”
You seem to accept that, even though it’s clear to the both of you that he is the one that wants to avoid that story. He doesn’t want to have to lie to you again.
“I’ve been thinking about reaching out,” you say, dreamily, as if to yourself. “I just dunno if she would wanna hear from me.”
“She would. And if she doesn’t then at least you tried. I regret not reaching out to Sam while he was in college all the damn time. Thought about doin’ it every day. He doesn't say it but I can tell he hates me for it even if it’s just a little bit.”
“That can’t be true. He could have reached out to you too.”
He shakes his head. “It wasn’t like that. Sam - he wanted something that my dad didn’t want for him, so he got cut off and told not to come back. It was on me to do something and I didn’t.”
You sit there with him for a moment, shoulders bunched up, staring straight ahead. He realises this might make his own Stanford story a little unrealistic, but he supposes you have already figured out that was a lie anyway. One of the truck drivers who had been napping wakes up and turns on the engine.
“We were fostered,” you say eventually, slow and considered. “I don’t really remember much about our birth family, because I was so young. And I guess because my sister protected me from it, best she could. She never really got along well with our foster family. Never had a talent for knowing when to keep her trap shut. I think she still had some weird kind of loyalty to our family, even though she always used to say we were born into dirt. So she left a few years ago.”
He lets this wash over him, feeling startled - as he often is in your company - and dimly ashamed, now more than ever, about the nanny comment. And every pigheaded comment before that. And every unkind thought about your privileged upbringing, too.
“She didn’t take you with her?” he asks, voice scratchy.
“I didn’t wanna go,” you say morosely. “I liked our new parents. I found I could fit in, but I only realised later on that that was probably because of her. I used to try calling her but she never used to pick up. And I stopped after a while. I think I resented her a little bit for protecting me so much and taking on all of my shit. You’re gonna say that makes no sense and I know it doesn’t. I just never wanted to feel like I owed her. Even with our new parents, I think a part of her wanted to be such a pain in the ass so I wouldn’t be the problem child. I sure as hell became a problem after she left. She gave up her childhood for mine and that’s not something I can ever give her back. Being around her, it just felt like that was hanging over my fucking head. It was almost a relief when she left, even though I miss her.”
He thinks of Sam when you say this - years of his life flashing through his memory in the matter of a few seconds. He wonder if Sam ever feels this way. He will ask him, if he can ever get to him. Or maybe he won’t. This sort of thing isn’t their forte.
“I can’t speak for your sister,” he says finally, after a long pause. You’re still looking straight ahead. “But I don’t need Sam to give me my childhood back. I don’t think I would’ve had a damned thing to live for if I didn’t have him to look out for.”
You finally look at him, eyes upturned, some complex emotion that he can’t immediately identify spilling out. It makes his stomach twist. You huff a breathy laugh and turn on the engine. “Enough of that. Let’s go.”
“Now what the hell is this.”
You giggle. “It’s Icelandic folk. It’s good, just give it a chance.”
“Nuh-uh. I sat through the bossa nova and the fuckin’ Irish indie band-”
You frown. “You liked the Irish indie band.”
“Not the point. I’ve been a team player. Gimme the case.”
You roll your eyes but fish the case out of the door panel and drop it onto his lap. He flicks through the pages of obscurity. “Remind me to buy you some AC/DC,” he mumbles.
You laugh. “I know AC/DC, you bonehead. I just don’t like them-”
“That’s deeply troubling, sweetheart. When we get to Minnesota I’m gonna make you listen to one of the cassettes in my car. You’ll like it. And if you don’t you can just consider it reparations for what you’re putting me through right now.”
You cock an eyebrow, the corner of your lip twisting up. It’s the smile that means you’ve gotten one up on him, but it takes him a few seconds to identify where he slipped up. He winces, an embarrassed, conciliatory grin finding its way to his lips.
“Was anything you said to me the truth?” you ask. “I really believed the car thing.”
He is amazed by how flustered he is. “It was the truth- I mean, it is. It’s just-” He sighs. “It’s complicated.”
“How complicated can it be? You told me your car was stolen and now you’re saying it’s waiting for you in Minnesota. That seems like a lie to me.”
He speaks slow and intentionally, careful not to let anything further slip. “Complicated like you wouldn’t believe. It was my brother that stole it.”
He’s got you. Nothing else seemed to have the slightest impact on you, but this, you are well and truly surprised by. Your eyebrows shoot up, eyes widening. Still, you’re smiling.
“Sam took your car.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
Dean hesitates. “He’s not himself right now. That’s the real reason I gotta get to Minnesota fast. I’m worried about him.”
You stare at him, grin frozen on your face for just a moment while that sinks in. When it does, you look considerably more somber. “And your leg?”
He nods. “That was Sam.”
You attempt a smile for his sake, but it looks lame and wobbly.
He huffs a breath, continuing. “I’m being serious when I tell you he’s not himself right now. This is the last thing Sammy would ever do. He’s straight as an arrow.”
He’s not very sure why he’s trying to talk you around on Sam. It’s not like you’ll ever meet him, but it feels important in this moment. He needs you to know Sam for who he really is. He needs you to like him, even if you’ll never know him.
You nod and he can’t tell whether you’re convinced or not, but he says nothing further.
Dean would do anything in the world to read your thoughts in this moment. He doesn’t want to know too much - you can keep all the private and personal to yourself. He would much rather you continue to give that to him in the way you have been so far.
He only wants to know what you think of him. It’s not the first time he has experienced this wish - it comes to him every now and again in powerful waves, and is usually accompanied with a dreadful anxiety.
He’s never had cause to feel any bit self-conscious but he wants to know whether you think he’s attractive, because you flirt but you laugh him off when he goes too far. He wants to know if you think he’s funny. He thinks you do. He wonders if you find it boring, spending so long in a car with someone that you can’t talk to about art and science and culture and all the other things you would probably be able to speak about to some wimpy college boy. It’s all very foolish.
“Dean?” you say. His stomach warms at his name. He likes the way you say it.
“Hm?”
“What do you actually do for work?”
He sighs. “Sweetheart, I-”
“Will you tell me if I get it right?”
He frowns. Nods, only out of curiosity.
“Are you some sort of scammer?” you ask, glancing nervously over at him.
He hesitates. He had made up his mind to stop lying to you. It’s useless, anyway. He just gives himself away. But this is probably the only question you could ask that doesn’t have a straight answer for.
“Yeah. That’s how I make my money, yes,” he says slowly, cautiously. Not a lie.
There’s a brief pause. You collapse with laughter, loose, loud and chiming, gripping the steering wheel hard. You lean forward over the wheel, body convulsing with the giggles. He is momentarily inclined to click his fingers in front of your face, but doesn’t.
“But you’re such a terrible liar!” you manage to say.
Dean smiles with you then, a laugh of his own creeping through his chest. “I’m not usually this bad,” he says, smiling. “You make me a bad liar.”
A tear escapes from the corner of your eye and rolls its way down the side of your cheek. He bites down the temptation to wipe it with his thumb.
“Unless, of course, you’re a brilliant liar. Like, a once-in-a-generation kind of talent. And you’re trying to make me think you're a bad liar.”
“If I was a once-in-a-generational talent I would’ve been able to make you believe the lies I told you before.”
You consider this. “A fair point.”
You’re incredibly pleased with yourself and you might look prettier than you ever had before, bottom lip snagged between your teeth to try to stave off a bright grin that is spilling through regardless. He would like to keep that smile on your face if he can. He wants to be the reason for it.
He suddenly feels a bit strange. He knows the world is full of monsters but it feels much friendlier and open now. It feels good to look at you - just to be here with you.
You put the top down just as the sky begins to darken and keep it down for the hours following while you drive through the night. It doesn't make much sense to Dean initially. He wonders if you’re starting to feel a bit claustrophobic being shacked up in a small box with him all day, but if you are then you haven’t given any other indication of it.
But he understands eventually. It strikes him as weird and wonderful to be able to see the stars like this from a car. They look much brighter like this than they do through a window or windshield. He’s a bit taken with them.
“How’s the leg?” you ask.
“Fine,” he answers, looking away from the sky. “Keep forgetting about it. Not bothering me that much ’til I put strain on it.”
“The magic of painkillers.” You say, beaming. You follow his gaze upwards for a second. “I always wanted to know about the constellations. You good at them?”
“No,” he answers. He has the sudden and strange thought that he would like to learn about them so he can teach you. He almost laughs at his own ridiculousness. “I know there’s a Big Dipper somewhere up there. And a Little one. And a Cannabis Major.”
You giggle, sweet and tinkling. “I think it’s called Canis Major.”
He smirks. “Whatever.”
There’s not much of a breeze, but your hair flies back a little bit just from the speed alone. It looks clean and soft. He reaches a hand out, following an inexplicable instinct, and touches it.
You stiffen, but you don’t move away. He twirls a strand around his index finger and lets go again. You look at him gently. He turns his eyes back to the road.
“I’ve spilled my guts,” Dean says, just to talk it away - whatever it was that had happened. “You gotta return the favour. Why’d you get kicked out?”
You laugh, but it sounds a bit choked and breathy. “Broke up with my boyfriend.”
He frowns and pulls out that old Polaroid from the glove compartment. “You mean Freddie Prinze Jr here?”
“Yeah. He’s the son of some family friends. We were together on and off for a couple years. I think I would’ve ended up marrying him if I didn’t break up with him for good when I did. Would’ve just sleep-walked into the whole picket fence and two-point-five kids thing, you know?”
Dean knows no such thing. That had never really been an option for him. He nods anyway, as if he does. “That not what you want?”
“I dunno what I want. What I want is to figure out what I want.”
That makes a lot of sense to him. He can respect that. He sometimes wishes he could figure that out for himself, too.
“Your parents sound like dicks.”
You shrug, unperturbed. “They’re not so bad. They’ve been worried about me since my sister left and I think they just wanted to scare me into reconsidering. It’s worked before, because I usually end up coming home after a few days. They probably think I’m going off the rails.” You laugh abruptly. “They could be right too. But I really did need to break up with Adam. I don’t know what I want but I know I don’t want it with him.”
“They still tryna make you take him back?”
“No. All is forgiven now that they know I’ve driven off with a strange man. They just want me to come home. Getting non-stop texts and calls.”
He looks at you sideways. “I’m no strange man. You mean a handsome stranger.”
You give him a cheeky smile, cheeks rounding. “Yes. A very, very handsome stranger.”
His mouth fills with spit and he’s forced to swallow, body fraught with want. It might just be because he’s gone a few days without cleaning the pipes, but your smile alone is sending all the blood in his body flowing downwards. He’s straining against the zip of his jeans. If he were on his own, he would unzip it for relief, but he’s not - so he simply shifts uncomfortably.
It’s not just your smile, he reasons. You must know at this point that the delicate-looking flesh of your thigh makes things very difficult for him. You must know that he can make out the bumps of your breasts even under the baggy sweatshirt you’re wearing and it makes him sweat with arousal. But yeah, it’s mostly your smile.
He looks away before he starts to do something stupid, like comparing you to the sun or the stars or some other sissy shit.
He realises he’s still holding the picture of you and Adam. He shoves it back into the glove compartment with distaste. He’s glad you dumped him. Adam wouldn’t be any good for you - he can tell that much just by looking at his picture.
He wonders if you’ll end up going back to him once this little road trip is over. If you’ll go running back to the security of your parents and bend to their expectations of the picket fence and two-point-five kids. He somehow hopes you don’t. Really hopes you don’t. Adam wouldn’t know what to do with you.
Dean, though - Dean would know exactly what to do with you. He would take you nice and slow at first. Ease you into it before he fucks you good and proper and rough. He thinks you would like it like that. You probably never let Adam take you like that, but maybe you would allow him.
And he knows he’d treat you good. He isn’t selfish in bed. He likes to know that all parties are happy and satisfied when he sends them home and if that means he has to spend a little bit of time dining at the Y, then so be it. He likes it and he’s damned good at it too.
But with you, he would more than like it. It would be a fucking pleasure. With you, he would savour the taste - try to make it last. He wonders what you would look like from that vantage point. He’d probably get to see those big watery eyes again. He’d feel your delicate thighs twitching and shaking underneath his palms, hear your breath catching and high whines slip through your lips, hands tugging savagely at his hair while he laps you up right here in this stupid, prissy little sports car-
“You good?”
He coughs. “Fine.”
“What are you thinking about? You worrying about Sam?”
He almost laughs. “Nah. M’sure Sam’s fine. Probably out there getting nookie or somethin’.”
Your nose scrunches up. He still finds that cute. “Don’t call it nookie.”
“Why the hell not?”
“It’s just a gross word,” you say daintily.
“What d’you want me to call it? Pussy? Snatch? Cunt-”
“Yes,” you reply with a staccato squeak. Your breath is a little heavier. “Anything but nookie. Makes you sound like a perv.”
He frowns. “I’m not-” He abruptly remembers his train of thought from just a minute before. He leans back in his seat and tries his best not to appear like he’s sulking.
The Fleetwood Mac CD clicks to a stop as the howling guitar of the last song dissolves into silence. He doesn’t mind Rumours, but he had complained when you put it on anyway because it always makes you laugh when he does. It has become a ritual he enjoys. He picks up the fabric case and waits for you to tell him off.
“Don’t bother,” you say, clenching your teeth through a yawn. “I’m gonna take this turn-off. Feel like I’m about to pass out.”
“Sounds good,” he says, but still feeds the Cars debut album to the stereo. He pauses it so he can start the day off with it tomorrow.
The motel you find looks like a very large logger cabin. The reception is small and carpeted. There’s a bright fire crackling across from the desk, despite the summer night heat. You ask the manager for a room for two with a cheery little grin, even though you’re exhausted. He waits for you to add that two beds will be required, but you don’t. His heart thuds jerkily behind his ribs, hot excitement pooling in his stomach.
The room is nicer than what he’s used to. There’s a long, plush couch under two large windows and a stacked bookshelf. He’s sure they’re just for design, but they make the place feel homey. He sees you examining the titles.
One bed, as expected.
You both perform the usual nighttime routine - showers, teeth-brushing, changing into pyjamas (in your case) or underwear (in Dean’s) - with an awkward sort of intimacy. You exchange a few words about the day. He teases you and you give it right back as usual. It all feels pretty domestic to him - not that he really knows what that word means.
He is surprised to find that he is only somewhat disappointed when you climb into the bed next to him and immediately turn your back to him. He can feel the warmth bleeding off you and it lulls him into a comforting state of drowsiness. You are hunched over yourself into a ball, like a child trying to self-soothe.
“Dean?”
He is half-asleep - he barely hears it. Your voice is fragile, still faced away from him.
“Hm?”
“Do you think that guy is okay?”
He knows he has seen too much in his life, because he struggles for a moment to understand who you are talking about. But he remembers eventually. He is startled to realise that you are still thinking about the man from the vehicle fire. He wonders if you have been thinking about it all day.
“I’m sure he’s ok,” he mumbles through the lure of sleep. “We can check the news tomorrow.”
“Okay,” you say sleepily. “Goodnight, Dean.”
He smiles, feeling warm. “Goodnight, sweetheart.”
🏷 series taglist: @juliperezsilveira @logansdollxx @buckfreqky
summary: Dean is not in the habit of accepting help - especially not from rich, pretty college girls - but this time it really can't be helped. Badly injured and without his Baby, he is forced to take a lift from you for one long road trip to try to save Sam. He finds there are worse things than playing passenger princess.
pairing: dean winchester x f!reader
warnings for part 2: cursing, dean being a bit of a perv and jumping to many conclusions about reader's background
word count for part 2: 6.6k words
Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist
Unshaven, sweaty and a little bit crazed, Dean wakes up the next morning to the smell of fatty grease. You’re fully dressed and sitting on an armchair a metre or two from the foot of the bed, flicking through a magazine with disinterest.
You perk up a bit when you realise he’s awake but stay quiet for a while. He stretches out under the covers before he rediscovers the sharp sting in his leg, freezing up.
He coughs a scratch out of his throat. “What time is it?”
“Just after nine. You got a decent sleep.”
“How long have you been up?” He ignores the protest in his calf and swings his legs off the bed, moving to start packing up all the stuff he threw around the place last night. He eyes up a crinkled white paper bag in front of you, heavy with what looks like a sandwich, and is abruptly aware of how hungry he is.
“Couple hours. Can never really sleep past seven most days.” You give him a casual shrug.
“Why the hell didn’t you wake me up?” he grumbles, snatching his t-shirt from the floor. “Coulda been doing well on the road by now.”
“You never told me to wake you up and I don’t wanna get chewed out.” You stare at him blankly, vaguely irritated. “Christ, are you always this fucking bossy?”
His mind goes to Sam, wasted and hysterical in a motel room, labelling him ‘bossy and short’. He’s suddenly quite sheepish.
“Yeah,” he admits.
“Well here.” You toss him the white paper bag which he catches on instinct. He stretches it open with his thumb and pointer. There’s one breakfast burrito inside. “Maybe that’ll make you slightly less unbearable.”
He frowns. “What about you?”
“I’m already perfectly bearable.”
He rolls his eyes. “What are you gonna eat?”
“Already ate at a café a couple blocks away. I’ve been up a while. Just grabbed something quick for you so we could get on the road fast.”
He feels slightly ashamed. Mutters an embarrassed; “Thanks”, to which you nod.
He makes quick work of his shower and doesn’t feel properly clean by the time you hit the road again but he isn’t too concerned about it. He will just take another shower tonight at the next motel. He should probably stop somewhere along the way to get a razor too.
Today is warmer than yesterday. It’s warm enough for you to put the top down and drive in the still air of the day. There’s a rich sort of novelty to being able to see the clouds overhead while moving at this speed. It’s pleasant to feel the sun stinging his face and the soothing of a light breeze. The air is cool and sweet against his face - a welcome change to the faint smell of mildew and old piss from the motel. He gets a bug to the face every now and again but it’s a small price to pay.
You pull out the CD wallet from the net again and pull one out clumsily. You put it up against the radio and let it be sucked up greedily by the jack. Only then does he find out that it’s Springsteen.
“You don’t have Born To Run in this thing?” he asks, taking the fabric case from your lap. He feels the soft skin of your thigh brush against his fingers when he does. He wishes you would stop wearing shorts.
You give him a weary side-glance. “It’s in there somewhere, I think.”
“Then why the hell are we listening to this?” He presses a button to skip Born in the U.S.A., lets Cover Me ring out in the open air.
You frown. “It’s a good album.”
He begins to flick through the pages of the case. “I’ll show you what a real good album is.”
“Don’t be an ass.” You scoff, loud enough for him to hear over the light wind. “You’re not changing the music. This is my car you’re in, buddy.”
You have your eyes straight ahead, as if you just delivered a straight fact rather than a command. It nettles him a little. He’s almost tempted to remind you that he’s paying for this privilege, but he hazily remembers dealing out a similar rule to Sam at one point in time so he says nothing. He watches you tap the beat out on the steering wheel.
You’ve been a bit weird since he snapped at you this morning. Not cold exactly, or unfriendly, but definitely a bit grouchier than you were yesterday. He supposes that’s his fault. He can admit he’s been a little tightly strung - which isn’t his fault, given everything, but he’s starting to see hints of his own disposition in you.
“So what’s your plan after we hit Minnesota?” he tries. “You gonna head on to New York or somethin’?”
“Not sure. Thinking maybe North Carolina,” you answer absently.
“What’s in North Carolina?”
You frown. “There’s a hell of a lot in North Carolina. Lakes and mountains and beaches and all the like.”
“I know. Just seems like a long way to go for a lake or two.”
You’re silent for a minute or two while you seem to ponder this. He thinks you are about to respond, but you pivot instead, voice a bit warmer. “Have you thought about what you’re gonna do once you finish whatever work thing you’re going to? You’re probably never gonna get your car back. I’m sorry to tell you.”
You don’t look very sorry. Just matter-of-fact.
“Why’s that?”
“The cops in my town suck. Bunch of old men who have worked with the force for a thousand years without having to do shit. I hope you have insurance.”
He wonders whether you heard all this from your dad or something. You probably listen to him talk about riffraff, slobs, junkies and jobless and how the cops aren’t doing enough to control them. He swallows that thought uncomfortably.
“I’ll be okay,” he says, slouching back in his seat.
You huff a half-laugh and he looks over.
“What?”
“Nothing,” you say, smiling. He frowns. “It’s just- you’re so damn vague. It’s hard to get anything outta you. We’re gonna be here all week so you might as well keep me amused.”
Dean smiles back, despite himself. “Truth is, sweetheart, I got absolutely no idea how I’m gonna get out of Minnesota. But I can’t say that. Don’t want you worryin’ about me.”
You laugh lightly and that same pride surges in him again. His ego has taken many hits in the last few days. It’s nice to know he can still make a pretty girl laugh.
“I’ll be sick with worry, I’m sure. The six hundred dollars might help soothe the pain.”
He rolls his eyes but the grin doesn’t leave his face. A brief moment of silence passes but it’s much more companionable now. There’s a pleasant feeling in his stomach.
Your phone begins to ring from the centre console for the third time this morning. You take a look at the caller ID and decline without hesitation once again, tossing your phone back in carelessly.
“That your folks?” he guesses.
“Yeah,” you laugh. “Someone must’ve seen me drive off with you because I’ve been getting constant texts since last night. They’re going nuts.”
Dean thinks of all the cops on his tail and shifts uncomfortably. “Oh yeah? What did they say?”
“Just that they know I went off with some guy. They’re trying to play good cop now after kicking me out.”
He relaxes a little, reassured that there won’t be a manhunt to worry about. “They tryna talk it out now?”
“Yeah,” you snort. If you’re upset about the whole thing, you’re doing a great job of hiding it. You seem to find it amusing. “Funny it takes this. They never folded so easy before.”
“You ran off before?”
“Couple times.”
Dean doesn’t like that. It seems fickle and weak-willed to him. He would never let himself do something like that - he would never turn back once he had gone. That’s an aspect of himself that he likes, even though he knows it’s not a virtue. His pride is not a good thing but it’s his own. He has been somehow able to hold onto it, even when Sam slipped away to college, even when his dad slipped away to Hell. Even when he has ten dollars to his name and hasn’t spoken to another human being in days, he still has his pride.
Sam doesn’t have that kind of pride. Sam doesn’t care about being the one to break as long as it’s for the better. He knows how to apologise when he’s wrong and he knows how to stick it out when he’s right.
He wants to ask you why you were kicked out again, but he doesn’t.
“Think you’ll go back again this time?” he asks.
You look at him briefly, before turning your face back to the road. You don’t answer for a long time. Dean is sure he won’t get an answer after about a minute, but you shrug. “Probably. Unless I can find some way to make a living out of giving lifts to desperate strangers.”
“You could always be a bus driver, sweetheart.”
You fight a grin but it breaks. “Shut your ass up.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Dean can’t help it. He grins back.
“Come on, be serious for a second-”
“I’m being serious. I really do work in tax.”
You purse your lips, eyes returning to the road. Your face is set in a determined, sulky pout that Dean has decided he doesn’t like very much.
This has been going on for a while. What had started off as a conversation about your major and your Ivy League education had pivoted to this and you have been refusing to let it go. He’s not sure how long you’ve been grilling him but you have passed the turn-off for at least three large towns.
“Explain to me right now how income tax is calculated.”
Fuck.
“I don’t have all day to sit here and explain how income tax works to you,” he says, bumbling. He has never even paid income tax, let alone calculated it.
“You do. You literally have all day to explain it to me. What else are we gonna do?”
“Fine, but my charge rate is coming out of your six hundred,” he says, crossing his arms. “I’m not cheap.”
You roll your eyes but you’re smiling. A good sign. “I’ll get it out of you eventually.”
“What do you think I do?” he asks. “Out of curiosity.”
“I thought you might be a gigolo or something along those lines up until this morning, but you keep checking me out when you think I can’t see you and I feel like most gigolos are too spent to be that horny. So now I’m thinking it might be drugs. You don’t look like you sell drugs, but I guess you never can tell for sure. Could be anyone.”
Dean chokes on his spit somewhere at the start of your reflections and still hasn’t gotten his breath back by the time you finish. His face burns. He decides not to bring up your observation about him checking you out. “You- what- you think I look like a gigolo?”
You giggle. “Not really. It wasn’t my first thought when I saw you but you’re just so dodgy. And you seem way too eager to get to some top investor tax client, whatever that even means.”
“I’m not a gigolo,” he mutters, trying to prevent a pout from forming on his face.
“Oh, relax,” you say, looking sideways at him and laughing. “It’s just because you’re so pretty.”
Dean stops short, pout giving way to a shit-eating grin. Something inside his stomach lurches. “Oh yeah?”
You hum in agreement. “Oh, sure. If I was fifty years older I would give you a call.”
Maybe he’s closer to some action than he had initially thought.
“M’not sure I’ll still be able to get it up in fifty years, sweetheart. How ‘bout I give you an advance?”
You laugh and it’s full-bodied. You throw your head back, something sweet and contagious spilling out of your mouth. It’s the first real, earnest laugh he’s been able to pull out of you. Up until now has been nothing but giggles and wry smiles.
A laugh wasn’t the response he was going for - he was hoping for something a little more sultry - but he might be happier with this. He finds with some surprise that he’s grinning ear-to-ear.
“There’s no way someone who works in tax is this smooth,” you say. “You can tell me, y’know. I won’t freak out. I’ve considered gigolo and drug-dealer and I haven’t kicked you out.”
He just shakes his head, but out of pure indulgence he imagines for a second how you would react if he did tell you. You would think he was fucking with you, most likely, just like Cassie did. You could also think he was a lunatic and then he would really be in a tight spot for the rest of the week.
He hasn’t given you much but, almost without realising it, he has given it away that you’re right by shaking his head. He’s no damn accountant. You smile, self-satisfied and smug and somehow still incredibly appealing, and you drop the subject at last.
You don’t seem like a college girl to him. Maybe you did at the start of the journey, when all he knew about you was that you were country-club rich and got kicked out by mommy and daddy. But he has to give it to you - you’re hard to rattle. You’ve been peeling him apart. You’re well and truly onto him - you know he’s ‘dodgy’ - and you still haven’t been spooked. There’s time for that yet, he knows, but he’s still surprised.
“What do you wanna do about food?” you ask. You narrow your eyes on a town on the horizon.
“You hungry?”
“Not really, but I am tired. And stiff. I need to walk around a bit.”
He nods. “Pull off here.”
You huff. “There you go again with the commands.”
He wants to argue, but there’s no real agitation in your voice and he’d like to keep it that way. He just frowns.
The sky is now a dark tattered grey. You find some street parking outside a small church with the windows boarded up. While he waits for the roof of the car to fold itself back over the two of you, a small hunched figure speeds past, hands clutching at their coat in odd places.
“Your legs need a stretch too?” you ask.
“No,” he says automatically. In truth, his good leg is cramped and tight. But the bad one has all the authority right now.
“Okay,” you say, unbuckling yourself and unlocking your door. “Sit tight. Be back in a few.”
“Wait,” Dean says, watching another person walk by with erratic jerkiness, head twitching aggressively to the right. “I’ll come.”
You cock a brow at him. “It’s okay. You don’t have to.”
“I’m pretty sure I just saw some wacko walk by with a gun,” he grunts.
“I saw him too, but he didn’t look strong. I think I could probably disarm him,” you say thoughtfully, as if that’s the issue.
“D’you even know how to shoot?”
You seem mildly offended. “Yeah I do.”
He can’t picture someone like you with a gun. You and your little shorts and pretty hair loading up a pistol. He can’t put it together in his head. “How?”
“You’re not gonna like the answer,” you say hesitantly.
He stays silent, raises a brow.
You bite the side of your cheek, almost indignant. “My dad used to take us shooting.”
He feels a stab of resentment. He pictures you at fourteen, with braces and a shotgun, aiming at a dummy or some poor fucking bird. At the same time, he was probably picking off some spirit or digging up someone’s bones. He reminds himself that it’s not anyone’s fault how they were raised. He would have a lot to answer for if it were. He opens the car door.
“I’ll be five minutes,” you insist. “I’ll be fine. This place doesn’t look that bad.”
Dean disagrees. A church doesn’t need to be boarded up to avoid break-ins in a safe neighbourhood. He steps out onto the road. One leg breathes a sigh of relief while the other screeches in agony.
He does what he can. His strides are probably half the length they usually are and you have to consciously adjust your pace to walk alongside him. The path seems almost endless. The muscle in his calf twitches and jerks under his weight as he tries not to limp.
“Are you okay?” you ask.
He doesn’t have the breath to reply anything.
His face is hot with the strain and his stomach is in knots. A cool drip of sweat slips from his forehead all the way down his cheek and falls off the cliff of his chin.
“Okay. Stop.” You create a blockade in front of him, hand on your hip. “What’s wrong with you? Are you hurt?”
He puffs, coming to a stand-still and finally balancing on his left leg. “Yeah. It’s my leg. Fucked it.”
You look at him, puzzled. There is nothing on your face to imply that you are irritated or even distrustful. You just look curious. “Why the hell didn't you say this sooner?”
He checks his cards. Thinks about all the ways he could play them. You’re craning your neck up, staring up at him with complete patience. You’re standing very close to him.
He decides to try the honest route. He hasn’t scared you off yet. He’s curious to see what it would take in a self-sabotaging sort of way.
“I didn’t think it would play very well if I limped up to you and asked for a ride to Minnesota.”
You consider this for a moment. Your eyes look over his face steadily and carefully. “That’s… fair. I probably wouldn't have said yes.”
He huffs with humour. “Exactly.”
You stay like that for a moment - him smiling at you lopsidedly, you just staring back. One strand of your hair has landed across your face.
There is no sound but the rumble of the odd car passing by. The street lights flicker on slowly, one by one, and you look a little different under them. Romantic and intense, like the kind of girls he’s seen in movies.
“My legs are stretched enough,” you say eventually, and begin to walk back the way you came. You walk slowly enough so that he can walk alongside you, finally allowing himself to limp.
“What happened to your leg?” you ask.
“I told you. I got mugged.”
You’re silent for a second and he wonders if you think he’s lying about that too. He isn’t. Technically.
“What is it? A fracture?”
“No, it’s the muscle in my calf.” A flare of pain shoots up his leg once again as he says it. “Think it’s a tear. I guess I must’ve planted it weird when the bastard kicked me. It’ll be fine in a few days.”
You nod but say nothing else until you reach the car again. He makes a joke about how he’s surprised the car hasn’t been stolen but your reaction is mild. Maybe he did scare you off. He feels remarkably stupid and regrets saying anything at all. He regrets leaving the car with you in the first place.
You don’t turn back onto the highway. Instead, you roll on slowly through the town until you find a small, beaten-down strip mall. It’s fully dark out by now, but he can see everything around him clearly with the light of the street-lamps and the neon glow of the storefronts. You mutter something to him about how you’ll be back and hop out of the car.
He closes his eyes and lets his head fall back against the headrest. He slips into a dozy, lethargic stupor until you come back. It’s twenty minutes before you do, carrying a brown paper bag that smells of hamburger meat and deep frying oil. You pass him a small paper bundle and a bag of fries out of the bag wordlessly, putting two water bottles in the centre console. He almost asks you to go back inside for a beer but decides against it.
The burger is no good. It’s dry with a stringy consistency and he has to bite down hard to make the meat tear apart. The fries are dry too, but they’re salty enough to be edible anyway.
He notices you’re not eating. You’re unspooling some white bandage from a neat ball and doing a shoddy job of tearing it with your fingers. “Take off your jeans,” you say, with a glance at Dean.
That is probably one of the last things he had been expecting you to say. His eyebrows shoot up, looking around at the people still milling about close-by. He’s not overly comfortable with anything public - at least not this public - but his dick twitches anyway.
You snort. “Don’t worry, I’m not tryna take advantage of you in a parking lot while you’re laid up. You need to compress your calf.”
He is mildly offended at the implication. He would be able to blow your mind with or without a busted leg. And besides, you don’t have to say it like that - like even the remotest suggestion of you jumping into the sack with him is completely crazy.
Instead of pulling his jeans off, he rolls the fabric up to his knee with only moderate difficulty. Trying to avoid brushing anything onto his bruised and mangled calf is like playing that wire loop game they have at fairs and in waiting rooms. He has probably stretched the fabric of his jeans permanently, but he feels uncharacteristically self-conscious at the idea of taking his pants off in front of you.
He takes the bandage from you and hunches over, but the faint, dull ache that sits there consistently sharpens and he finds that he can’t bring himself to do much more than wrap it around the area as loosely as a scarf might sit around a girl’s shoulders.
You laugh. “I’m sure that’s doing loads for you,” you say, and exit the car once again. He watches you as you cross in front of the car and doesn’t stop when you open the passenger door and drop to sit on your ankles.
It’s when you lean in to untie his poor attempt at bandaging that he’s forced to avert his eyes, lest he do or say something really stupid. He can feel the warm heat of your breath and your flushed face on his lap.
He hisses when you roll the bandage tight around his leg. He puts his hand out to grasp your head out of pure instinct, fingers curling around your soft hair. You freeze abruptly, looking up at him with big, astonished eyes, and he lets go.
“Sorry,” he grunts.
You look back to his leg. Your face is so close to his leg that he sometimes feels the brush of your nose against the skin on his leg. The tip of it is strangely cold.
The moment is almost enough to help him overlook the sharp, hot pain in his leg when you continue your task. His mind swims. Your hands work fast and unflinchingly, but you are affording him a softness that he’s not entirely accustomed to.
He’s been patched up before, sure, but Sam doesn’t care quite as much about being careful - just about making sure he lives through it. He’s experiencing an odd mix of pain and arousal, both of them working together to make his stomach tight and prickly. He is suddenly very glad that he opted not to take off his jeans.
You pull away eventually and examine your handiwork. Nod to yourself in confirmation of a job well-done before pushing up off your thighs and crossing back over to your side of the car.
You go rooting through the brown bag again, burger held up in your right hand. You take a bite and pull out a blue box with a metallic sheen.
“Jesus this burger sucks. You’re done eating right?” you ask. Dean nods and you throw him the box which he catches without a thought. “Take two.”
He looks at the small box in his hands. There’s a long name on it that he doesn’t recognise, but it’s clearly a pharmaceutical. He probably should question you about what it is you just handed him, but he doesn’t. He gratefully claws two out, thinks for a second, and then a third for good measure. He feels the little capsules in his hands for a moment, tilts his head back and pops them all into his mouth in one go. He washes down the bitter taste with one of the water bottles in the centre console.
You reach over and pull a lever at the side of the seat to send it sliding back, leaving vast open space in front of him. It’s too early for the pills to be doing anything for his pain, but he feels a pinch of relief just having taken them, knowing that they’ll do something for him soon. Enough to stretch his leg out and not flinch too hard at the tightness that pulls in his calf.
“Thanks,” he says, and means it. You smile.
You’re fun, Dean has decided.
You can be annoying as shit sometimes, and you’re a bit of a control freak and there is that small thing of him not thinking much of rich people as a general point of principle, but he can’t get past it. He likes you.
He likes that you’re difficult to shake. He imagines that you’d probably have made a damn good hunter in another universe, where you hadn’t been too spoilt to ever consider doing any dirty work.
You’re funny, in a sardonic kind of way. He likes when you poke fun at him - he doesn’t even get mad when you say stuff that would make him sock Sam in the jaw for the same offence - and he likes that you seem to find him funny too. You smile or giggle or laugh at almost everything that comes out of his mouth.
He likes when you use words that he doesn’t understand or when you explain something to him, gesturing wildly with your hands. You’re clearly a little bit of a swot, which is just fine. He’s always had a thing for the egghead types.
One of the things he likes the most - one of the cutest things he’s ever damn seen - is how worked up you get over some of his stories. He embellishes a little here and there, of course. He has to. But the result is no less satisfying.
“You’re lying,” you say, and he can hear your breath stutter.
“Swear I’m not,” he laughs.
“You- you just-” You can hardly get the words out. Your eyebrows are squashed together. “On her wedding day?”
“Damn right,” he says, stretching back on the seat. He notes that the painkillers are wearing off when he feels a sharp twinge in his leg.
In this version of the story, Dean is a line cook for a fancy seafood restaurant, rather than being there to interview one of the waitresses about a murder she had witnessed. But the blushing bride whispering in his ear and leading him out to a back alley - every word of that was the truth.
You look scandalised, which he expected, but you don’t laugh. He had expected you to laugh. Your nose crinkles up.
“That’s… disgusting,” you say.
He shrugs, suddenly feeling a lot less proud of himself. A sickly feeling - something like dejection, maybe - grows in his stomach.
“Not you,” you clarify quickly. “Well, a little bit you, too. But… I just don’t understand that. Why get married in the first place?”
“Maybe he was okay with it,” Dean says, knowing full-well that the lady had made him wait in the alley for five minutes after she left. He had arrived back in to applause from the kitchen staff. He can’t remember the lady’s face anymore, but he remembers that.
You shoot him a look, which he has learned means that you’re calling him on his bullshit. “Yeah, okay. Whatever you say. Shit is gross.”
It is, a little bit. It is mostly just a funny story that he pulls out at bars to impress men and let women know he’s down for a good time. It has always been good for a cheap laugh, but he will probably never tell it again.
His calf twinges again. He holds his thigh tight, as if it would relieve the pressure, and waits for it to pass. When it does, he opens up the glove compartment for the small blue box, feeling around a panel inside where he had set it down.
A small picture falls out courtesy of his fumbling fingers. He takes out the box and picks up the picture to put it back into its right place, but his eye catches on the scene.
It’s a small Polaroid, the white borders now yellow with age. It’s a picture of you, a couple of years younger than you are now. You’re standing with some guy in a big varsity jacket, looking like he’s auditioning for the role of High School Jock Number 4 in some dumb chick flick. You’re beside him in a sweatshirt and tennis skirt, arm wrapped casually around his middle.
“He your boyfriend?” Dean asks.
You’re puzzled for a second when you turn to face him, until you look down to his lap and see the picture in his hand. “Sometimes.”
“How about right now?”
Your lips purse and he can’t tell if you’re irritated or fighting a smile. “No. Not right now.”
He nods. Good. That’s good. Boyfriends aren’t a deadlock, but they do tend to make things more difficult, generally speaking. Especially given your reaction to his bride story.
Your left leg stretches out for relief and he watches it, how the soft skin moves, how the muscles in your thigh flex below your shorts. And Dean truly respects you. He respects you so much - of course he does. What other non-hunting civilian would put up with his shit with such grace? Unfortunately that respect cannot stop him from picturing how that leg would look wrapped around his waist, how those muscles would flex if you were moving on him-
He snaps his eyes shut hard. It must be past midnight by now, and he had expected you to suggest stopping for the night a few hours ago. But you seem to be content to continue driving and listening to his stupid stories. Or maybe you’re just trying to make up the hours that you missed on the road this morning.
You could be the only two people on the road right now. Maybe the world. He hasn’t seen another car for miles - just long, stretching road and bedrock that melts into sand the further you drive. You are playing another one of your CDs - New Order, he thinks. He was pissed at first, but they really don’t sound all that different from Joy Division if you can get past all the electronic shit.
“Dean,” you breathe.
He looks over at you abruptly. Your face is pulled strangely, anxious. He follows your eye-line, registering that this might be the first time he had heard you say his name.
It’s like his body had been waiting for him to see the fire before it lets him smell it. Dark, smoky, choking ash. Coming from a dark green jeep, big like a goddamn tank. The fire - great, crackling and red - becomes harder to see as smoke envelopes the windshield. You roll up to it with speed.
Dean has been taught to be cautious about these situations - to pause and look for a trap. In the few seconds it takes him to asses, you have unbuckled and jumped out of your side of the car, pacing around the burning jeep. He follows you out.
His leg screams. He hasn't had the chance to take the painkillers yet.
You have gone still when he hobbles over to you, but your face is full of alarm, lit up with the blood-red glow of the flames. Your white shirt is being washed black by sheets of flying soot. You’re trying to look collected, but there’s a shake in your hands.
“There’s someone in there,” you say to him. You stand there with each other for just a moment, silently assessing the horror of what you had just said. His heart thuds jerkily in his chest.
He looks over to the jeep again - the flames are at least four meters high now - and begins to move almost mechanically towards it.
“Call 911. Don’t give your name,” he says to you. He doesn’t look to see your reaction, but you don’t stop him. He wouldn’t have let you but he wishes you would have tried, though he’s not sure why.
The flames are guttering down from the back of the vehicle. He can see the man inside, just a vague bump underneath all the smoke. His head is hanging loosely forward and Dean can’t tell whether he is alive or not. He tries to open the door, yanks at the blazing hot metal of the door handle, and finds he can’t.
He sprints to the passenger door, ignoring the searing pain in his leg. He is burnt again by the handle, but he is able to open it. He had been hot before, but the heat spilling out from the inside of the car tinges and sears his skin. Smoke billows out and smacks him square in the face but after a second he’s able to see silhouettes through the fog, lit up by bright glow from the backseat. The flames lick into the front seat every few seconds, as if moved by a nonexistent breeze. It won’t be long until the guy is swallowed.
Dean removes his jacket from his left arm and holds it up as a shield over the right side of his face. He lurches in before he can think too hard about it.
Tears fill his eyes the second he climbs onto his knees in the passenger seat. He fumbles with the man’s safety belt with one hand while the other holds up his jacket against the flickering light from the backseat. He fights the urge to cough and retch. The smoke is reaching so deep into his lungs, he can feel it in his stomach.
The bastard isn’t small. He can hardly make out any distinguishable features through the smoke, but he feels his weight when he wraps an arm across his chest and attempts to pull his body upwards out of the seat. He stops for a second to take a breath, but gags instead because his airways fill with only smog.
He doesn’t think about anything in situations like these. He doesn’t see life or death flash anywhere. He just works.
Moving as little more than a machine, he takes the jacket away from his face, letting it hang off his right arm while he uses both hands to clasp firmly around the limp body in front of him. It’s slow work and his leg is in almost unbearable pain. A lick of flame hits him square on his neck, hissing and growling at him as he tries to pry the man’s legs out of their awkward position, caught under the steering wheel.
He tugs hard. If the guy breaks a bone or two, it’s a small price to pay for his life. His leg yields somehow - Dean wonders if he broke something but doesn’t have long to ponder it. He is able to struggle his way out, dragging the body with him with immense effort, coughing dryly.
The man’s body spills out of the car and onto the road in a heap. Dean knows he needs to move him further away, but his leg requires his immediate attention. He moves to stand on his left leg and waits for the agonising ache to mellow before he can inflict torture on himself once again.
Except you clamber up beside him, almost unnoticeable, and put your arms under the motionless body on the floor so that the man’s head is propped up against your chest. Dean wants to tell you to move away - that there’s every chance this car is about to blow - but his throat is nothing but tar. He tries to speak and almost vomits.
You move backwards, pulling the body with you in what looks like a Herculean show of effort. Dean hobbles along after you. Any further thoughts about the pain in his leg and now his burnt neck feels redundant - he is determined to give up thinking about it altogether. There comes a point where pain is unthinkable.
The man is alive - that much is clear from the way his body spasms and rocks around on the floor. Dean looks at him with a certain detachment from above. He still can’t see his face very clearly even without the smoke - it’s covered in ash. His hair might be black or it could be temporarily dyed with soot. Dean turns him on his side. Vomit immediately begins to pour out of the man’s mouth.
He finds a water bottle is being shoved into his hand. You’re staring at him with huge teary eyes. some leftover terror still lingering and he is momentarily startled by the show of emotion. He stares back at you.
He takes a gulp and the lukewarm water feels like ice in his mouth. He swashes it around, lets it splash against his teeth and gums, and sputters the foul stewy brew out onto the road. He tries to take a drink but ends up repeating the same process. He is able to swallow on the third attempt.
“We need to go,” he says. It comes out as a croak.
You look at him and then at the man on the ground, still floundering like a fish. “He could still die from the smoke inhalation. We should wait until-”
“No.” He’s already limping to the car. “We have to go now.”
He’s not waiting around to see whether the ambulance brings any police cruisers along with them. He’s done what he can. There’s nothing left to do by waiting except signing himself away for a life behind bars and signing Sam’s head up on a silver platter in the process.
You hesitate, wobbling a little bit on your feet before following him. Your eyes don’t move from the man as you stumble back into the car. Your hands are still shaking. Your face is wooden as you drive away to the distant sound of sirens.
🏷 series taglist: @juliperezsilveira @logansdollxx @buckfreqky
summary: Dean is not in the habit of accepting help - especially not from rich, pretty college girls - but this time it really can't be helped. Badly injured and without his Baby, he is forced to take a lift from you for one long road trip to try to save Sam. He finds there are worse things than playing passenger princess.
pairing: dean winchester x f! reader
warnings for part 1: canon-typical violence, light angst, very brief references to suicide
word count for part 1: 6.5k words
Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist
Dean wakes up thinking he might be dead. He’s not aware of much except the erratic thudding in his head and the pain.
Oh god, the pain. He feels it everywhere at first in a distant sort of way - as if it is someone else’s. The thudding stops for just a moment and in the silence he’s able to pinpoint the pain to his ribs and his leg. And then he knows it’s his. It’s all his.
The pain takes hold of him and burns him. He’s very familiar with the feeling of a bruised rib - the familiar needling that makes it hard but not impossible to breathe. That’s okay - he can get past that no problem. But his leg. That’s the real fucking hitch. It might be broken.
The thudding comes back and Dean opens his eyes. Realises he’s on the floor. He has been for some time if the drool on the carpet is any indication. There’s a brown spot on the piece of carpet that his mouth has been touching. He can only hope it’s his own dried blood.
He notes dimly that the thudding is actually a knocking and that someone is banging at the door. He tries to get up but can only spin around on his back in time to see the door open. A balding, heavy-set man with thick-rimmed glasses walks into the room. He pauses for the briefest of seconds upon seeing Dean splayed out on the floor, before fixing him with a collected stare. He has likely seen worse.
“It’s past your check-out,” he says casually, checking to make sure Dean is getting up before turning to walk back towards the door again.
Dean hauls himself up, leaning on his good leg, and only then realises that his head hurts like a motherfucker too. His ears begin to ring badly. He tests his right leg against the floor and it throbs and screams. He hisses. Probably not broken, but fucking excruciating. A muscle thing, maybe.
He follows the man to the door, limping, without so much as a thought of any resistance, as if he has been herded. It’s dim in the room, but whatever yellow light there is makes his eyes burn. He wonders if he might also have a concussion. He rubs a hand against his eyes and feels sticky sweat come off on his palm.
It was Sam. He knows that much, even if he doesn’t know exactly how it happened. He has two distinct pictures in his mind. One picture is of a gun being handed to him. He can’t see who is handing it to him, but he knows instinctively it is Sam. The other is just of Sam’s face - but it’s not quite Sam’s. It’s that same puppy-dog look, but with a dark cloud passed over it. He has never seen anything like that look on Sam’s face before.
Dean stands there on his good foot for a moment, eyes caught on the motel worker’s gaudy yellow cardigan, putting it all together. He remembers that something had happened to Sam - that he had blacked out a week ago and killed some hunter named Wandell. He hadn’t remembered doing any of it afterwards, but they had put it together themselves and then come back to the hotel.
That first picture - Sam handing him a gun and begging him to shoot him. Dean refusing. The second one - Sam attacking him. His brain is working slowly, working through each instant with solid effort. Thinking right now feels like operating heavy machinery.
He takes a second to realise that the motel manager is waiting on a response. His ears are still ringing. “What?”
“It’s past check-out and I have a couple here that needs your room,” he says, pointing over at a bottle blonde in dark pink and a very ashamed-looking older man that he hadn’t noticed standing in the corridor until right now.
“Yeah, I bet they do,” he grumbles. “What time is it?”
“12:30.”
He looks behind him at the room, ignoring the pain caused by twisting. Everything but his own duffle bag is gone.
“The guy that was with me. You seen him?”
“Yeah he left before dawn in your car and you should’ve gone with him because now I’m gonna have to charge you extra.”
“Son of a bitch.” He sighs, head thrumming with pain. Fucking Sammy. Pulling a Jekyll and Hyde act at the worst possible time. Sam could be anywhere by now and in his fucking car. His left temple throbs and only then does he remember Sam ramming the barrel of a gun there. Once he’s back to normal, he’s going to beat his ass for that one. But the mostly for the leg. The pain seems to be seeping upwards from it.
“It’s just policy, sir,” the manager drawls, as if reading off a script.
Dean ignores him. “I need to use your computer.”
Sam is usually on point to spin stories. Dean has absolutely no idea how he managed to convince the phone operator to activate Sam’s phone’s GPS with a story about a diabetic son and a Justin Timberlake concert, but the main thing is that it worked. Maybe he should start giving himself some more credit.
His blood had gone cold, seeing that little dot travelling along the I-80 East. With one hunter down, he figures that Sam is on his way to give Jo a visit in Duluth.
He wanders out of the motel with some urgency after paying an extortionate amount in late fees, bribe money and covering whatever Sam had taken out of the mini fridge. He limps for a little bit, every small step soaking his leg in blinding heat. He hopes that walking a little bit might help loosen it out or something, but that hope fades as he makes his way very slowly through the bleak greyness of whatever fuckass suburb this is. This has to be the shittiest state in all the fifty, he thinks, but he might not be completely impartial right now.
It takes him all afternoon to get to the nice part of town - where sprawling red brick houses are garnished with neatly trimmed shrubbery and tall, iron gates defend small sport cars.
He had been planning on hijacking one of said sports cars - these people can afford a high insurance premium - but when he gets there, he weighs it all up and finds that the gates are too much of an obstacle for his busted leg. And even if he could get past them, his leg is icy fire after the short walk here. There’s no way he can drive five minutes, let alone all the way to Minnesota, without passing out from the pain. He leans against a red brick wall and tries to think.
He’s faced worse odds, but he feels a bit of panic begin to rise up from his chest regardless. He remembers it all now - the look on Sam’s face. How he had begged Dean to do the job and kill him. He doesn’t want to think about what is going through Sam’s head right now.
If he goes out there and kills someone else in another blackout - so be it. It’s an unsavoury thought, but Dean has long accepted that he’s not going to win one of those Nobel peace things any time soon. So he can admit that he would help Sam cover up another hundred murders if needs be. Of course, it would probably haunt him afterwards, but it would have to join a long, long queue.
No - he’s mostly worried that Sam might go and turn the gun against himself. He thinks about how he looked in the motel room. He had never seen him look that dark before. As if he had dug a hole within himself and jumped straight into it. And he’s so stupidly self-sacrificing. A family trait, as it turns out.
Thinking about that does nothing to numb the panic. He needs to do something, but he’s not sure what. Both legs are now aching - one from the injury and the other from being forced to carry the weight where the other has been slacking. He hauls himself to sit up on the red brick wall that he had been resting against, waiting passively for inspiration to strike.
He spends the better part of an hour like that before he spots you walking out of a house from that vantage point. Just behind an oddly decorated tree that, to Dean, looks like a perfectly proportioned ballsack. Crazy what rich people have the time and money to do with their gardens.
He is very worried about his little brother - of course he is - so it is only a deeply ingrained instinct that makes him check you out.
In the fullness of time, he will wish he could say that his first impression of you was more profound. But his first thought upon seeing you is simply this: You’re hot. Smoking hot. He gives you a once-over, eyes drooping lazily over your form. You’re flustered, carrying a brown box with a few books poking out of the top. Your hair is put together messily and you have your phone held up between your ear and shoulder, talking rapidly.
You walk closer, but still don’t notice him as you pack the box into the trunk of a small, red convertible. There are already two other boxes in there. He can hear you from this distance. He likes your voice. It’s small but cool and it sounds like some actress whose name he can’t immediately think of.
“Yeah, I’ll work something out, don’t worry. I don’t really wanna stay here for too much longer anyway. My dad is driving me crazy.”
You pause, leaning slightly into your trunk. He can see your face properly at this angle. Your eyes, the slope of your nose, the soft-looking lips, caught between your teeth with impatience at the person on the other side of the phone. You’re pretty. Pretty enough to make his head spin a little and a hot flood of arousal spill through him, even in his current state.
“I appreciate it but that’s not gonna be happening. Dude, I’ll be fine. I’ve been wanting to go on a road-trip or something like that by myself anyway. If it doesn’t work out for me I’ll just camp out somewhere for a while until term starts back… No, they kinda cut me off so I can’t- Yeah, I’m leaving today.”
You nod to nobody while the other person speaks, as if trying to hurry them up. But Dean has found his inspiration.
He thinks of how he must look right now, limping on a busted leg, worn out from a thirty-minute walk that took him about two hours. He pulls himself off the wall, wincing when his leg hits against the brick. He wipes the sweat from his face and does what he can with his hair, which has somehow matted itself downwards. It will have to do.
His mind is working fast, pulling together all the possibilities and all the best ways to approach this. There are several ways to play it, but all feel like a long shot. He can no longer see you but he straightens the duffle on his shoulder and walks towards the sound of your voice.
You finally see him when he approaches the gate and you straighten up. He raises one hand at you and watches you hesitate, mouth bobbing open and closed for just a few seconds.
“Oh - yeah that sounds great. Listen, let me call you back, okay?”
He’s sure the other person does not have time to reply before you take the phone from your face and hang up. You walk to meet him at the gate with purpose, but he can read uncertainty in your expression. You must not get stragglers very often around here.
He gives you what he knows to be his most upright, trustworthy grin. “Hi,” he says.
“Hi,” you return. You turn your eyes up to him through the gate. He is usually able to tell right off the bat whether a girl is interested in him or if he’s wasting his time. With you, he can’t tell. Maybe he really does have a concussion.
He considers his words. “I- uh, I heard you talking just now. I figure we could help each other out. You’re skipping town right? I need a ride. I can pay.”
Your eyebrows shoot up to your hairline, as if that was the last thing you would ever expect him to say. Dean knows that some of his openers can be a bit out-there, but this one feels pretty tame. He wonders if he looks like some bum to you.
“I’m good,” you say, eyes already swivelling away like he’s some crazy. You’re trying to think of a way to escape the conversation.
It’s another long shot - high-risk and high-reward. He tries it. “S’there any car rental around here then? I don’t know this town.”
You stop, eyes snapping back to his. “How the hell did you end up here?”
“I got mugged. My car was taken.” Not technically a lie. He sighs, running a hand over his face as if deeply troubled and finds he barely needs to put on an act. He looks away from you, trying to appear as if he’s running over the thousand little problems and thinking of a viable solution.
You frown suddenly, still watching him carefully. “And you’ve been to the cops?”
“Yeah, but I can’t stick around. I gotta get to Minnesota yesterday.”
“What for?”
“Work.”
In his peripheral, he sees your eyes flicker over to your car for less than a second and then back to him. He has your interest.
“There’s no car rental in this town,” you say and then hesitate, looking back over to your car again. “Maybe I could take you some of the way.”
“Yeah?” he says, trying to look just the right amount of hopeful. Hopeful enough to seem like it’s his job at risk, rather than his little brother’s life.
You observe him for a few seconds blatantly. No longer trying to hide your weariness or any of your suspicion. “Depends. How much you paying?”
You look mildly uncomfortable about asking - the way most rich people do whenever the topic of money comes up. He almost smiles. He can work with that.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet, bloated with a fresh stack of fifties from an ATM downtown. “Six hundred bucks if we make it to Minnesota. Three hundred now.”
Six hundred would likely not even cover gas for the journey to Minnesota and back in a car like the one behind you. You cock an eyebrow at him, but you don’t say much. You’re still thinking it through.
“You a weirdo?” you ask suddenly, and Dean can’t help the surprised laugh that slips out.
“Yeah,” he replies honestly. “But I’m not a creep or anything. Swear to God.”
That seems to be the right answer, because he’s rewarded with your first smile - wry but real - of the whole interaction. He smiles back and hopes it’s a charming one.
“You don’t look religious enough to swear to God.”
“I’m not religious, but I’m honest.” That’s a lie. He’s not honest, but he’d like to think he’s telling the truth about not being a creep.
You introduce yourself and Dean does the same - only he doesn't give his real surname in case it comes up on the news. And he’s already forgotten his fake name, so he goes with ‘Dean Rochester’ instead. Close enough.
“Rochester," you repeat. “Like in Jane Eyre?”
He blinks. “Yeah, like that,” he says.
You look at him for a few moments longer, still deep in thought. Your nose scrunches a little bit. It’s cute.
“I’ll do it, at least some of the way,” you say eventually. You open the gate with a little button hanging off your car keys and Dean steps inside, biting the inside of his cheek to stop from screaming out when he puts the full weight of his body onto his right foot. He doesn’t want you to see him limping. He follows you up to the door of your house.
“If we’re gonna do this, we gotta be gone before six,” you say, swinging the front door open for him. “I wanna be out of here before anyone gets home.”
“Good with me,” Dean says, teeth clenched. The pain is making him sweat.
Your house was built to look old, but it doesn’t. It’s all white marble columns that don’t support anything and mahogany staircases with a fake shabbiness to them. He can’t tell if the paintings are any good - Sam might say that they’re expressionist or neo-classist or other words he doesn’t understand - but to Dean they just look like a load of lines. He sees a piano in the corner with dust on the keys.
“You want a shower before we go?”
“S’that okay?” he says.
“I’ll need an hour or two. You can take the bedroom through there for a bit. There’s a bathroom and a bed if you want to get some shut-eye. I’ll wake you up when I’m ready.”
He wonders how sweaty and tired he looks to you. He feels immediate relief when you simply point him towards a ground-floor room rather than showing him to it, leaving him to limp his way to a bedroom.
You begin to skip up the stairs, movements erratic and jumpy. You might actually be excited for this, he realises with some level of discomfort.
“I know you’re lowballing me, by the way!” he hears you shout from a distance. He slinks away with a low huff of amusement.
The swelling in his leg goes down significantly in the couple of hours it takes for you to get ready to leave. He feels better having had a shower and a proper sleep.
The car is much smaller than Baby and he feels slightly claustrophobic packed in beside you this tight after so long travelling in the Impala. But he can smell your perfume from here and it’s pleasant. He doesn’t know how to label it - whether it’s jasmine or lily, or whatever - but it’s girly and not too sweet. Nothing like those ones that make him feel like he’s choking.
There’s no music playing and the two of you have hardly spoken since pulling out of the drive, but there’s clearly some song running through your head because you hum the same line of melody every few minutes. Dean figures you’re thinking about your family and the split-second decision you just made. He leaves you to it.
The seats are mildly uncomfortable, but he supposes he has spent too long in Baby to get used to anything else. They’ve been recently varnished so he slides down a little bit every time he adjusts position - which he is forced to do quite regularly on account of his mangled leg.
Regardless, though, he feels good. He feels good enough to admire you properly. Your hair is perfectly styled now, a far cry from the mess of before, although he had kind of liked how that looked too. You have some sort of pinky red lipstick on and sunglasses propped up on your hairline, even though it’s cloudy.
You look like you belong in a car like this. He could see you riding with the top down when it’s sunny, a perfectly-groomed puppy with a pale blue collar sitting upright in the passenger seat.
Dean doesn’t often meet girls like you. He wouldn’t come across you in a dive bar - he knows that much for sure. He wonders if you’re the kind of rich that goes to country clubs or the kind that goes to indie nightclubs to pretend you’re roughing it, even when sticking strictly to the VIP section. He would guess country club.
It’s kind of funny, he thinks, to just watch you. Pretty little you in your pretty little convertible with a pretty little smile on your face. Driving towards a man with a split-personality who may or may not be shanking someone at this very second. He might laugh if not for the sickening pit of guilt in his stomach.
You give him a brief side-glance. “What?”
“I just can’t believe you agreed to this, if I’m gonna be honest,” he says. Your body stiffens for a second and he stumbles nervously on. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you did. I was royally fucked if you didn’t. Just doesn’t really seem like the kinda thing a girl like you should be doin’.”
You relax a little, eyes flitting back to the road. “Girl like me? What kinda girl would that be?”
“Dunno. Y’seem like the straight-and-narrow type,” he says. That’s not the whole truth, but he knows rich people hate to be called rich.
You exhale once, a small laugh, but don’t say anything else. He can’t get enough of a read on you to tell whether he’s offended you.
“Won’t pretend this is a regular Tuesday for me,” you say eventually. “But I was planning on heading cross country anyway. Might as well get six hundred bucks out of it.”
He thinks about this for a second. He blinks then, startled. That’s right. He had heard you say you were going to go on a road trip - it’s why he approached you in the first place. You had accepted his offer of six hundred, not because you felt uncomfortable haggling, but because you were planning on going this way regardless and it was a damn good deal. He feels sick and remotely ashamed of himself. He probably could have offered you half that and you would’ve taken it.
“Who lowballed who?” he mutters. You don’t say anything - you just giggle - but it makes him grin. It’s a nice sound. Makes him feel vaguely proud, even though he knows it’s at his expense, in a very literal sense.
You really are very pretty. There’s something fine and delicate about your facial structure. It looks like something that people should be careful about touching. He thinks about trying to work up some action, and then feels mildly guilty because he has a little brother that could be carving up some poor creature right now.
There’s something about you that tells him it would be a bad idea anyway. He doesn’t think you’d react very well to it, and you both have a long ride ahead of you. Maybe he can convince you to stick around in Minnesota for a bit. Wait somewhere for him while he deals with Sammy. Then he could work you over for a night. Maybe even two, if you’re up for it.
Hopefully his leg will be better by then. He doesn’t want to have to play the part of the chick in bed.
“What do you do for work?” you ask. The sun pokes out for just a few seconds and you pull your sunglasses down over your eyes. Within a matter of seconds, it creeps back into hiding and you pull them back up with a small pout.
“I’m in accounting. Tax.” It’s the standard answer he gives, because it is so incredibly dull that nobody in their right mind would torture themselves by pursuing the subject. But you look interested.
“Some exciting tax stuff happening in Minnesota?” Your tone is dry. You don’t give him one of your side-glances this time - just keep your eyes on the road.
Fuck.
“It’s a big client.”
“Must be very big to make you skip outta the town your car was stolen in.”
He can tell you’re thinking and he doesn’t like it one bit.
“You got no idea. Not the kinda guy you wanna disappoint.”
Dean hadn’t intended for it to sound like he’s working for the mafia, but he understands implicitly that it sounds that way by the change in your expression.
“As in, he’s a top investor,” he hastens to add. He has no idea if that makes any sense. You frown, looking confused.
Fuck shit. Sam is so much better at this.
“What about you?” he asks, before you have much time to think about his answer. “Why’re you skipping town?”
“I can't just go on a road trip for the hell of it?”
Dean’s been on enough ‘road trips’ to know that nobody really goes on road trips. You’re either running towards something or running away, even if you don’t know yourself what it is you’re running away from. Nobody drives to drive.
“Don’t get me wrong but you don’t really seem-”
“If you tell me I’m not the kinda girl to do one more thing I’m gonna kick your ass out right here on the side of the road. Take your three hundred with me too.”
A small, surprised laugh is punched out of him. “Okay. Sorry, sweetheart.”
You give him a look at the pet name. He wonders if you’re about to chew him out over it - admittedly, it came out more condescending than he had intended - but you don’t.
“Got kicked out.”
There it is. He’s prepared to wax poetic on how truly awful that must be for you, offer up his deepest, most earnest-sounding sympathies. But he’s mildly amazed to see you don’t seem to want them. Your eyes are straight forward on the road. You don’t even look at his reaction.
“What’d you do?” he asks instead. His eyes fall to your breasts, your thighs, the white cotton of your shorts. He hopes it’s something really dirty.
“Nothing,” you say. A clear lie, but you’re done talking about it.
He huffs and tries to pass it off as a sigh, slumping back into the car seat, trying to get comfortable. His head still hurts - even more now that his leg is no longer taking up all his focus. He closes his eyes and lets his mind wander back to Sam.
He hopes Sam is comatose. The best case scenario is that he is completely zonked and whatever sickness taking over him has swallowed him whole until Dean can work all of this out. And he will work it out - he always does. But he just needs a bit of time. Because if Sam has the briefest stint of lucidity in between the pillaging and the murdering, he knows exactly what he will do if he sees no other way out. His body jerks unpleasantly at the image in his brain, leg screaming at the sudden movement.
You jump. “You okay?”
He nods, unable to produce more than a grunt. He’s focusing on not keeling over to cradle his leg.
You laugh. “Why do guys always do that jumpy thing when they’re falling asleep?”
He turns his face away, suddenly angry without knowing why. He wishes he was jumpy because he was falling asleep. He wants to snap at you. Sting you just a little. He would say something like, Actually, I was picturing my little brother strung up. Excuse me if I’m a little twitchy. But it’s not your fault. He knows this.
The conversation lulls again. Dean can tell that you’re aware you made a misstep somewhere, but you’re not sure why. He still doesn’t look at you.
The sun is setting but it’s hardly visible behind the clouds. The sky dims slightly and you fumble with the sunglasses on your forehead, reaching across to open a little built-in glasses compartment just behind the rear-view mirror. You stuff them in clumsily and shut it.
“We took off pretty late,” you say, attempting to fix your hair even though nothing was displaced. “I can probably drive for another couple hours before I start to get too tired. Figure you can take over for a bit then? Since you got a sleep-in before we left.”
The pain in his leg seems to get worse in protest at the idea, as if a thin steel rod was pushing its way through the skin and into the bone. He shakes his head vigorously.
“No can do. We drive for a couple more hours and then stop off at a motel along the way.”
“What?” Your eyes fly wide, as if that is the most unbelievable thing he has said all day. “Why? I thought you need to get to Minnesota yesterday.”
“I do,” he says waspishly. “I just can’t fuckin’ drive.”
You look at him cautiously. “Okay,” you say, sounding stiff and offended.
He forces himself to loosen up, rolls his shoulders a bit. “I just mean- I’m still a bit shaken up. With my car being stolen and all. I don’t think I can get behind a wheel right now.”
You nod at him and turn back to the road.
He’s vaguely aware that he should probably start up another conversation unless he wants to end up on the side of the road somewhere but his brain is working slowly. He’s tired.
He clears his throat. “Look, I’m sorry. I’ve been through some pretty shitty days, but this takes the fuckin’ cake. I’ll stay up and talk with you until you can’t stay awake any longer.”
You seem to be able to accept that, because your hard glare at the road in front of you relents.
He can’t think of anything further to say. He considers letting you make the first move, even though the silence is making him shifty. Somehow he feels nervous. You’re not going to say anything. You’re going to pull over at a service station in the next town. Give him back his money. Tell him you’re sorry but you don’t think you can put up with a snarky rat like him for a whole week and he will be left feeling like a fool.
Except the next town comes and goes. You still don’t say anything, but you don’t pull over either.
“You got any music?” he asks, making his voice as friendly as he can muster.
Your right arm moves jerkily down to where he’s sitting. Your hand brushes against his good leg. You pull out a large fabric case with a zipper and drop it in his lap.
He unzips to find a bunch of CDs in plastic film. He flips the pages and does not find much to his personal taste, but he’s not about to make any risky comments in the current climate. He slips Combat Rock out of its sleeve, checks the back of the disk for any deep scratches and slots it into the radio.
It’s probably a poor choice. Joe Strummer’s voice is jarring against the silence. Dean props an elbow up on the door of the car and taps two fingers to the beat self-consciously.
Silence like this has always been poison to Dean. Silence that nibbles and chews at your insides until you’re spilling your guts. It reminds him of long car rides with his dad after he botched a hunt. The kind of silence that you’re afraid to move in, because once it’s broken, it’s broken for good.
“D’you say you’re in college?” he blurts eventually.
You raise an eyebrow at the road. “No.”
“Not to me. Heard you on the phone.”
The corners of your lips twitch. “Yeah, I’m in college.”
“What do you study?”
“I major in English Lit.”
That doesn’t seem right to Dean. To him, rich kids are supposed to study stuff like economics or Law. Not English Lit. But he supposes it’s just like a rich person to go ahead and spend a mortgage on something you can get for free with a library card.
“You wanna be a teacher?”
“No.”
“What’re you doing it for then?”
You smile - your first one in a while. “Who knows?”
Something about that pisses Dean off - the offhandedness. Sam had to work damn hard to get a full-ride to Stanford, while you brush the whole thing off like it’s meaningless. But he’s not going to get on his soapbox about it. Not while he’s riding shotgun in your car. He just stays quiet.
You look over at him, hesitating. “I like it,” you say flatly. “I’m doing it because I like it. You can make whatever comments you want, I’ve already heard them all.”
That’s as good an answer as any, he supposes. He’s doing what he does because he likes it too. And there’s no money in either pursuit, but you’ll still end up with a pension or a fat inheritance and Dean won’t. But he can’t really blame you for that.
“I can respect that,” he says. “Bet it drives your folks wild though.”
You take a quick glance at him. “Yeah, they fought me hard on it.”
“You gotta pack that shit away. People are always gonna fight you on stuff like this. Important to do what you were built for.”
Your brows scrunch together quizzically. “You think you were built for the world of tax?”
Shit.
He shrugs. “Maybe.”
You nod slowly and Dean wonders how much of a loser he looks like to you right now. He regrets that lie more with every passing second. He could have said he was a firefighter. Hell, he could have even made up some story about being a stunt man for the movies. That one might have been harder to sell but he could have done it - he’s seen enough of them to know how it works.
“Where did you go to college for that?” you ask.
The sky has gone from dishwater grey to solid black. You pass a town as you make it onto the highway. It’s just a dim glow sitting distantly on the horizon. Every now and again a mosquito meets its violent end on the windshield.
“Stanford.”
He waits, hoping you’ll ask something about Stanford. He is frequently the reluctant audience to Sam’s endless talk about the college; the lectures, the parties, the manufactured campus controversies, all the different clubs and societies. But you don’t ask him a thing. You just make a vague humming noise without looking over at him. You’re clearly a bit more accustomed to meeting the kind of people that go to Stanford than he is.
The conversation sinks with the daylight. The last track on the album plays out and you don’t let him pick the next one. You return the CD to its sleeve and flick through the pages for the next pick. He’s mildly concerned that you’re not paying attention to the road - he can’t yet tell how decent a driver you are - but you manage to keep her steady even while steering primarily with your forearm.
You throw on some album he’s not familiar with. The guy’s voice is shitty and annoying, but he likes how it sounds when you hum along.
It’s peaceful, and even kind of nice, to have you here with him, though neither of you are talking anymore. Things would get pretty dark if he was doing this drive on his own. He would work himself into knots and probably do something stupid. Having you there in the driver’s seat, humming absently to keep yourself awake and tapping your fingers on the steering wheel, is a light comfort. It’s a reminder that he’s alive. He’s still alive and he still has time to get to Sam.
You almost nod off at one point, chin dropping abruptly to your chest before jerking up again, and Dean decides it’s probably about time to pull in somewhere. He mumbles something unintelligible at the next turn-off, but you understand.
You have to roll through rows of grey warehouses, liquor stores with people stooped on the pavement outside, long station platforms and empty convenience stores for ten minutes but eventually you find a motel.
There is a cluster of rowdy teenagers outside with beer cans clutched possessively in their fists. One of them whistles at you as you walk towards reception. Dean briefly considers saying something - mostly because the little fucker looks to him afterwards as if in challenge - but the pain of trying to walk on his busted leg has taken any fight out of him. He settles for a stern look as he passes by.
You wait patiently for him in the reception, hands clasped together, balancing on the balls of your feet. You smile when he makes his way in and he tries to give you one back through the flashes of pain.
“Need a room just for one night,” he says to the man at the front desk. He sees your head turn towards him in his peripheral. “Two beds,” he adds.
The man - thin and dull-eyed in khakis and a blue shirt - doesn’t even look at Dean when he tells him the price. He goes on tapping on the keyboard, eyes not moving away from the computer in front of him until Dean hands over a credit card. He sighs as if greatly inconvenienced when he runs it through the machine.
Dean sends a prayer up that the guy won’t address him by the name of the poor sucker whose credit card he just used, and for once it’s answered. He sends you both out of the reception and to the last door at the edge of the building with a very unenthusiastic; “Enjoy your stay”.
If you’re nervous about sharing a room with him, you don’t show it. You sit on one bed and Dean throws his duffle on the other. He’s too tired to shower but he brushes his teeth and strips down to his underwear to sleep. He looks over to see if you’re watching and finds with some disappointment that you’re not.
He hasn’t eaten anything since the poorly-made sandwich you shoved into his hands on the way out the door of your house, but his exhaustion outweighs his hunger. He lifts his screaming leg onto the bed and under the cover, ready to recede into blackness with the hope of not seeing Sam’s clouded, hateful expression in his dream.
You speak up, your voice small and childlike from the other bed. “Goodnight.”
His eyes open back up. It sounds so foreign in the stillness of the room. Too soft. He considers ignoring you - pretending he is already asleep.
He grumbles a quiet; “Night”, and turns on his side.
🏷 series taglist: @juliperezsilveira @logansdollxx
