TW. dean x reader! angst and comforting. sad dean. weed usage. smoking. john mention (ew). nicknames. kissing and flirting. short and sweet. title from your so cool - nicole dollanganger.
fingers wrapped around baby’s wheel, windows open fanning in the smell of the dead grass and empty lonesome fields. There’s no other place you’d want to be.
Sam’s ran off to college, the last you heard from him he’s has a girlfriend and doing well for himself, you’re happy but you know dean isn’t. You can see it eating at his soul, the way he left things.
A woman walks on the side of the road, you wonder where she’s going and if she’ll be okay. Deans eyes flicker to her through the mirror as you pass and he looks like he wants to stop and ask her. But he doesn’t. He needs to stay busy, keep going or else he’ll turn baby around and drive back through the five hundred miles you both came from.
Its been days since dean told you he was leaving, since you insisted to come along and keep him in check. He wont say where he’s going, the only clue being a crumpled map shoved behind the backseat covered in scribbled crosses and circles.
You know he’s looking for john, just don’t know why. Everything dean ever said about him has been bad bad bad. He’s lonely without sam- you know that even if he wont admit it, but searching for the ghost that is his father doesn’t seem like a good idea.
Dean doesn’t turn on the radio, thats how you know he’s serious. Stuck in his mind with no way to escape until he’s found what he’s looking for. You begin to miss the sound of white snake, driving through towns with the music blasting and singing until your throat burns, dean hitting baby’s wheel like a professional drummer next to you.
“You ever gonna tell me where we’re headed?” you ask, hoisting your boots onto babys dashboard earning a look from dean.
“Gee, thanks de. real helpful..” You huff, rolling your eyes. West? Theres nothing out there and hasn’t been for miles.
You shift in your seat, glancing back at the crumpled map half spilling from behind you. The ink’s smeared in places, like he’s gone over the same spots again and again. Crosses. Circles. Lines connecting things that are probably nothing at all.
obsession on dean is messy, recently you’ve learned to recognise it.
The sun begins to bleed out slow, creeping behind the clouds waiting for the moon to take over, dean doesn’t slow. He just keeps driving through the sunset, jaw tensed shut so tightly you start to fear it might break.
The headlights carve a narrow path through the orange, illuminating nothing but asphalt and the occasional flicker of road signs that don’t matter.
“we should pull over.. its getting late.” You say, noticing the dark circles under his green coke bottle eyes. He’s not even looking at the map anymore, just driving. He’s given up and that thought sits heavy against your shoulders.
“Im fine. We can find a motel tomorrow.” Dean grunts, shifting around like he’s trying to stay awake behind the wheel.
Your hand instinctively lifts, cracked nail polish fingers wrapping around his sharp jaw averting his eyes from the empty roads to focus on you.
“Cmon, we can pick this up tomorrow.” you mumble and he sighs, shoulders dropping almost in relief.
Wheels coming to a screech dean pulls the car over, avoiding the ditches and potholes in the dry roads and pulling into the dusted over path of a field. The world out here feels empty. no headlights, no houses, no hunting. just you and dean.
You actually feel like you can breathe.
Dean doesn’t move at first. His hands stay on the wheel, knuckles pale, eyes fixed ahead scanning for any signs of danger, just like he does in everyplace he goes.
Smirking to yourself with a great idea, you reach into the back-pocket of your scruffed jeans, the sacred little patch where you keep your blunts.
You tap one loose, crumpled from sitting so long but still good enough. leaning over, you shove the treasure into deans view with a laugh.
“You’re definitely not driving after this.”
the corner of his mouth twitches as he unbuckles, tucking his handgun into his jeans as he opens the door.
“Cmon, i’m not hotboxing baby.”
“LEAVE YOUR MESSAGE AT THE TONE.”
“Sammy- its dean. Call me when you can. it’s about dad. i’m with.. well you know who. she misses you. i-… just.. call me.”
The metal of the bonnet is still warm when you climb up, palms pressing flat as you haul yourself into place, boots dangling before they can reach the dirt listening in on his message.
Dean joins you a second later, thudding against the bumper before he hoists up. He smells like road, gasoline and leather, something intoxicating that helps you sleep during the lonely nights.
He throws his lighter your way, tracing the indents of the metal underneath your fingertips, carved in text you cant decipher and a symbol you don’t recognise on the back.
You spark the joint, the flame flickering between your hands for a second before it catches. You take the first drag, lungs filling deep then pass it over without a word.
Neither of you are smokers but right now it feels like a lifeline, hoping the effects can finally clear your mind- deans too.
Dean takes it next, rolling it between his fingers then takes a drag, exhaling slow, smoke curling past his lips and disappearing into the open air leaving the scent on his leather jacket.
You watch it happen- the way his face loosens just a little. The tension in his jaw easing like the rush pulled him out of wherever he’s been stuck these past few days.
“He’ll be okay, you know.” you say quietly.
“Sam?” he asks, though he already knows.
Another drag, Another slow exhale and its back to you. The taste of dean still lingers on the filter and instead of smoking the rest you want to tuck it into your pocket, keep it safe.
“I keep thinking..” he continues voice rougher now like the words pain him to speak. “if I’d just- I dunno….handled things different he wouldn’t’ve left like that. He left because of me.”
“That’s not true, de.” you mumble, shoulder brushing against his watching as he rubs his jaw, an old habit of his.
“You didn’t see it.” he says. “All those years… me tellin’ him what to do, where to go, how to act. Hell, I sounded just like him.” A bitter huff. John. “Guess that’s the joke, right? Spend your whole life hatin’ the guy, then wake up one day and boom.. you’re him.”
You reach over, leaning your cheek onto his shoulder. The sun’s gone now, darkness filling the sky.
“You’re not him,” you say firmly.
one more hit and your slotting the filter past deans lips feeling as he inhales. cheek so close to his heart you can almost feel the goodness thrumming through him.
“I tried to be good.” he mumbles almost inaudible but you catch it. A part of you wants to scream, to grab him by the face and yell about how much he means to you. to sam. to everyone he knows. That dean winchester is good.
He flicks the rest of the joint away as you sit up straight looking directly at him. soft lips curled into a frown, his hair tossled with a small healing scar underneath his jaw from the last hunt. He’s never looked so
Your hand lifts, Fingers brushing that small scar under his jaw tracing it like something fragile because he is.
He exhales through his nose, gaze dropping to your hand like one touch will make all his bad wash over to you and drag you under.
“You are good, dean winchester. I can see it and i know sam does too.”
You shift closer on the hood with knees turning toward him, closing that last bit of space he always leaves between himself and everything else.
His jaw tightens under your touch. For a second you think he’s going to pull back. Put the walls up again. Crack a joke and deflect, run like he always does when something gets too real.
But he doesn’t, instead his eyes meet yours with a sadness you’ve noticed hundreds of times. Then his hand comes up slow and hesitant brushing your wrist first before curling his hand around your skin, toned cheek leaning further into your palm.
“Say it again.” he murmurs looking so weak and so afraid. You’d reach into his body and fix him if you could, take all the pain and give it to yourself just so dean could finally know happiness.
His hand tightens just slightly before sliding from your wrist to your cheek, rough thumb brushing your soft skin like he’s making sure you’re real.
“Yeah?” he whispers, searching your face like he’s still waiting for the catch. for the punchline that never comes.
“Yeah.” you breathe back.
It’s small at first, the way he leans in. Careful and hesitant Like he’s giving you every chance to stop him, to turn and run like everything else he’s ever known. But you wont. you wont leave him. you refuse to.
Your hand shifts from his jaw to the back of his neck fingers threading into the short hair there as you both hold each other, his eyes flickering down to your lips like it makes no difference who holds back from who.
Then he leans forward, Lips meeting yours softly, softer than you think he’s ever been before. His taste is everything you expected and better. the mix of whiskey, smokes and hunger spilling into you. Your tongue peeks out, fighting with his to take a taste of him with you before you finally part.
When he pulls back its not far, forehead resting against yours as he lets out a sigh.
“Don’t make me soft.” he mutters though there’s no bite to it.
“Too late.” you shoot back gently. “Think I already got you.”