Written for @torn-and-frayed's Songs of Supernatural Season 2 Challenge. The song I chose is Son House’s Downhearted Blues; and the title is from the lyrics. (There’s a snippet of the song in the video above. It’s pure old-school Mississippi Delta blues.) The fic is told more or less from Dean’s perspective; and it’s set between seasons 9 and 10, shortly before 10x01 (Black).
Characters – Dean x Reader
Summary – Demon Dean is not a nice guy. But the girl he’s got his eye on might be prepared to handle that.
Word Count - 2300
Warnings – No redemption arc here. This is Mark of Cain Dean, and he behaves just as badly as you’d expect.
Thank christ for dive bars.
Dean was so freakin’ glad to be back in a cheap, dingy dive – home sweet home with peeling paint, sticky tables and the smell of stale beer. As long as the whiskey wasn’t watered down, what did he care if the floors were mopped?
Ever since he’d taken on the Mark of Cain and started hanging around with Crowley, the two had been battling about how to spend their degenerate nights. Oh, they’d seen eye-to-eye on the need to howl at the moon … but not where that howling was gonna take place.
Crowley wanted to go to swanky, high-class joints, full of idiots that would suck up to him – beg for his money, applaud his power. Dean thought both the pandering and Crowley’s need for it were pathetic.
A few days back Crowley had dragged them up to New York. They ended up in some club with champagne and caviar and stick-thin fashion models, and halfway through the night Dean had said enough. There had been some bottles smashed, some bridges burned, and the next thing Dean knew he was in a truck (– stolen, probably? – the details were a little fuzzy), and he was driving south. He just kept driving south ‘til he ran out of south, and that landed him in Mississippi. (Halfway into the bayou and squarely in the middle of nowhere). But the drinks were strong, the food was fried, the girls were nicely curved, and everyone else just left him the hell alone. Paradise.
The music, too; you couldn’t argue with the music. Genuine Delta blues. For Dean, blues music was all about sex. (Well, most things were.) It wasn’t just the freaky euphemisms in blues lyrics – squeeze my lemon, baby! – but also the rhythm and repetition, the moaning vocals, the smooth pendulous swing from one hard beat to the next.
What was that old saying? Music soothed the savage beast? Yeah, that definitely wasn’t the case here. The tension and the molasses-slow pulse behind a blues song reached right into Dean’s ribcage and heightened every one of his primal needs.
Take the girl singing on the shabby little stage in the corner: he’d had his eye on her before she ever picked up her guitar. Sweet little thing, flitting about the bar like a sparrow, her wide eyes making her look just a little bit spooked by everything around her. The old Dean would’ve wanted to soothe her, protect her.
Mark of Cain Dean wanted to throw her up against a wall, wrap her legs around his hips and show her that all her fears about the world were very, very well grounded.
When the girl had started to sing, her voice was deeper and smokier than he’d expected. (For a moment it even distracted him from the whiskey.) Right now she was singing Son House’s Downhearted Blues, like her heart was broken and never gonna mend.
Mmm, did you ever love, when they didn’t love you?
You know there wasn’t satisfaction, didn’t care what in the world you do.
I said’d you ever love, I said, when they did not love you?
Yeah, didn’t look like there’d be satisfaction, didn’t care what in this old world you do.
The waver of her voice suggested years of pain and heartache. Dean was vaguely impressed by her talent … and badly distracted by how her breasts swelled against her shirt with each breath to start a new lyric. The way her delicate hands decisively plucked the guitar strings left him fantasizing about that hand stroking over his cock.
And he decided that one way or another, that smoky voice would scream out his name later tonight.
But he let her finish the set, and why not, no hardship to listen to and look at her. And Dean could appreciate a little anticipation as much as the next guy.
When she’d finished her last song, and the bar was emptying out, he had the bartender send her a beer. (The bartender clearly thought he was up to no good, but the twenties Dean had been tossing on the bar all night weighed out over the guy’s better judgment. Humans, man, they’re so predictable.)
So the girl accepted the beer, followed the bartender’s pointing gesture towards Dean, and made eye contact with him. She paused (a deer-in-headlights moment), then came slowly over. Her smile was small and her eyes wary. He could smell the fear on her and jesus, that was a turn-on. But Dean’s smart enough to know when to play it cool.
“Thanks for the beer,” she said.
“Thank you,” he replied. “Great set. Love your song choices.”
“Thanks.” She paused like she was stumped about what to say next, and took a swig of beer. “You’re not from around here.”
“Are you? No accent.”
“No. But for what I sing, this is where I can get hired. Most other places don’t care about Son House, or Robert Johnson, or Charlie Patton.”
“Some of my favorites. We traveled a lot when I was a kid, spent lots of time in the south. Never lost my taste for the music.” She smiled, and he knew he was in. “My name’s Dean. Will you join me?”
They talked for close to an hour – about music, the traveling they’d done, her stories from the road. Dean said as little as possible, just bided his time. He let his thigh drift closer to hers, let a finger skate over her hand. And he watched as she slowly gravitated closer to him, ‘til she was close enough he could feel the heat of her body, inches away. Eventually the bartender finished straightening up around the bar, nodded at the girl, and locked the door on his way out. Dean figured that was a good a cue as any.
“Getting late,” he said, draining the last of his whiskey. She nodded, and Dean feigned his best shy, bullshit smile. “Can I give you a ride home?”
“No. Well… I mean, my room’s just out back.”
She paused, like she was expecting him to offer up a proposition. He didn’t give her the satisfaction.
“You, uh, wanna come up? I’ve got some old 78 vinyl that might interest you.”
He nodded, and she led him out the back entrance and up the worn staircase to a small dark room.
The instant the door shut, he gripped her around her waist, spun her to push her back against the door, his whole body pressing against her. He crashed his lips into hers and pulled her hair down to adjust the angle deeper. She flinched, gasped into his mouth. But just as he’d expected her to push against him, to struggle … she just sighed into his mouth and bowed her neck to take his kisses deeper. Her tongue glided over his, her nails scratched over his back. His hands slid up to palm her breasts.
That voice, that breathy, velvet voice that sang the blues, moaned, and Dean was instantly hard as a rock. The tight control he’d kept through the night started to slip away, and he rutted against her. She just moaned again and pulled him closer.
He let his mouth drift away a moment and chuckled close to her ear. “You’re surprising me here, baby.”
“Did you really think I brought you up here for the records?”
“Well it ain’t why I came. So tell me: why bring me up?”
“That mouth. Those shoulders. That fucking voice. Jesus Dean, you make me want.”
He cast a quick look around the dingy room – took in empty grey walls, one tiny table piled high, and a pockmarked iron double bedframe perched atop a brightly colored rug. He started to pull her towards the bed, but she roughly grabbed a fistful of his t-shirt and pulled him back to her.
“Hey, c’mere. Don’t be in a rush. We’ve got all night.”
“Then let’s get started.” He grabbed her wrists roughly and folded her arms back behind her, pulling her hard against him. Then he bent his head to bite at her neck; he could taste the salt and the promise of blood just under the surface. He ran the flat of his tongue over her jugular, felt her pulse accelerating. Her breathing was becoming erratic, which only took him higher and sharpened his need.
Dean tightened his grip on her arms in a way he knew would let him watch the bruises bloom up on her skin even as he fucked her. For the first time he felt her tense up, pull back a bit.
“Hey,” she said. “Give me some room here, and I’ll get some of these clothes off.”
Dean was on board for that. “Okay, sweetheart. Strip for me.”
She slowly unbuttoned her shirt, gave him bedroom eyes and gestured behind him. “Sit down. Make yourself comfortable.” He backed over to the bed, sat right on the edge, never letting his eyes leave her.
And he grabbed a scarf that was draped over the bedframe, started slowly ripping down the length of it.
She scowled. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m gonna tie you to the bedframe,” he said.
She chuckled. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Sweetheart, come on. You don’t know who you’re dealing with here. I don’t have the patience for these kind of games.” He stayed very still, letting his voice alone convey the menace. “I’m going to tie your arms to the headboard, spread-eagle your ankles at the bottom, shred off your clothes with my knife and fuck you into this mattress.” He smirked and cocked an eyebrow … and let his eyes go demon black. And that’s the money shot, he laughed to himself.
He waited for her to freak out. To run. Wanted her to run, so he could test his reaction time, feel the muscle memory of a hunt kick in. So he could let his superior reflexes and strength take her down, drag her under him. Hell, he was gonna tear off her clothes with his teeth at this point.
But she wasn’t moving. At all.
“So that’s how you get your girls, huh?” Her voice mocked.
“I take ‘em however I can get ‘em. Looks like it needs to be this way with you.” The fact she made no move to escape was making him angrier, his last shreds of self-control long gone. “I’m going to tie you up just tight enough to cut off your circulation. I’m going to make you come so hard, and so many times, that you dehydrate and start to hallucinate even as you scream my name.” As he got caught up in his own narrative, he let his right hand press over his cock, stroking into the denim. “Maybe I’ll choke you out while I fuck you. Oh, it might hurt at first, sweetheart … but after a while, it’ll feel so good, you’re gonna learn to love it.”
“Right. Go fuck yourself.”
He snapped, surged toward her, already reaching to grasp her throat –
And he hit a fucking brick wall.
He looked wildly around, trying to figure out why he was so suddenly tethered in place. Slammed himself uselessly against the invisible wall once or twice. It didn’t get him anywhere. Hell, he didn’t even get the satisfaction of seeing her flinch.
Then it dawned on him. How that brightly colored rug had looked out of place, and what was probably under it. “Devil’s trap,” he growled. He fell back onto the mattress. “Shit. You’re a fucking hunter.” He chuckled despite himself. “You – you tracked me?”
She calmly started buttoning her shirt back up. “Well, credit where credit’s due: your brother has been so thorough, reaching out to anyone and everyone to try to figure out where you are. And he was kind enough to tell everyone just what to look for to pick up your trail.”
“Yeah,” he snarled. “Well, I can see now that you’re more Sammy’s type.”
“Probably. I mean, he’s so tall,” she purred.
Dean felt his jaw clench. “Well, come over here on the bed, darlin,’ I can show you a few moves ‘til he gets here.”
“No thanks, the mood’s gone now. Too bad, could’ve ended differently if you been more … polite. But now, something tells me I wouldn’t make it off that mattress alive. Excuse me, I have to make a call.” She stepped out into the hallway, pulling a phone from her pocket.
Dean fumed. Yeah, bitch, he could make a call too. He fished his phone out of his jeans, sent a quick text to Crowley. Mississippi – Crossroads Blues Bar – 911. Crowley’d be pissed, and Dean would have to spit out something like an apology. But Crowley would come to the rescue; if only because the Mark of Cain and the First Blade were too valuable to lose.
Which meant the fun wasn’t quite over. Might even make all this trouble worthwhile. Hell, by the end of the night Crowley might be thanking him.
She came back in, smiled. “And now we wait.”
“I don’t think we’ll have to wait long. You’re in for a surprise, sweetheart.”
“Am I?”
“Yes, I’d say as much,” Crowley growled as he materialized behind her.
Crowley stalked forward deliberately …
… then slid an arm around her waist and pecked her on the cheek. “A very nice surprise in your next paycheck, darling. Thank you for finding him. Fabulous work, as always.”
She never even turned to look at Crowley, but instead locked eyes with Dean, a smoldering look cast under her eyelashes – with eyes that flashed suddenly and brilliantly black.
Crowley continued: “I hope he didn’t give you much trouble.”
“Not too much,” she said, and walked right up the edge of the devil’s trap to look down at Dean with a sly smile. “But I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a head start before you let him out.”
“Of course.”
“And Crowley, if you’re going to keep howling at the moon with this one, you might want to get him a shorter leash.”
“Yes, I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Crowley said, a touch of sadness in his voice.
“A very short leash … maybe a nice, tight rhinestone collar,” she said, winked at Dean, then turned on her heel to head into the hallway. (Dean was pretty sure the extra sway in her hips was there just for him.)
“But Dean, don’t worry, sweetheart –“ she called over her shoulder as she swung the door shut behind her, “Might hurt at first. But then it’ll feel so good; you’re gonna learn to love it.”
Big thanks to the creators of the Girl in Every Port Project … both for creating the project, which is just a super-awesome idea, and for being nice enough to let me jump into the July GIEPP at the last minute by picking up a prompt that someone else wasn’t able to complete.
Prompt: someone at a sports centre/gym/batting cage
Words: ~ 3,200
Warnings: nothing really. some light swearing … otherwise, it’s just fluffy Dean & Sammy nostalgia with (age-appropriate) Dean smut
Pairing: Dean Winchester x OFC
Batting Practice
“But it’s Sammy’s birthday,” the guy in the leather jacket pouted.
A real, actual pout, which should have been ridiculous because he was a grown-ass man. Well, he was seventeen or eighteen maybe, but way too old and broad-shouldered for this sad-little-waif routine. He stuck out his (full, pink, kinda hot) lower lip and cocked an eyebrow at her. As she watched, the pout transitioned into a lopsided grin, then into this huge sunburst of a smile and he winked at her.
And Riley thought she’d seen it all sitting at that counter, but damned if her stomach didn’t do a little flip-flop.
Riley took pride in the fact that she wasn’t an easy mark or a soft touch. It seemed like every kid at her high school had at some point in the last four years dropped by the park and asked her for some kind of a freebie. People who wouldn’t give her the time of day at school were suddenly chummy if they thought it would get them a free round of mini golf or time in the batting cages or a free pretzel.
So she knew how to say no. And she knew in her bones that it wasn’t really Sammy’s birthday, and that Leather Jacket’s flirtation was part of a con job, and anyway it was just a trick of the light that made the guy’s eyes so green.
The problem was that “Sammy” – little kid with floppy hair and big puppy dog eyes – was too short for the batting cages. The kid was hanging back about ten feet behind Leather Jacket, shoulders hunched and hands stuffed deep in his pockets. At that moment he looked like you could knock him over with a wiffle ball, let alone the 70mph fastballs the park equipment pitched. The huge, weather-beaten wooden bat Leather Jacket was carrying looked bigger than the kid was.
“C’mon, can’t you help us out? Make an exception?” Jacket pleaded, leaning further into the window. And Riley could feel her resolve being washed away in a flood of freckles and charm.
The guy had a crumpled ten-dollar bill on the counter, so at least he wasn’t asking for a freebie. And anyways, who was here at eight pm on a Wednesday night to care that the kid was a couple inches too short?
“Look, the cages are fast-pitch, you won’t be able to take the speed down. He has swung a bat before, right?” Riley asked quietly, and Jacket grinned and nodded. “Yeah!” he said, then added loudly enough for the kid to hear, “My brother’s gonna be on the softball team.”
Riley thought Sammy looked almost as skeptical about that as she was.
"Yeah, OK. Need an ID for the helmet and any equipment,” Riley said. Jacket slid a wallet out, took a moment too long to select from a fat stack of cards (that’s not suspicious at all, she thought), and slid it over the counter. Riley looked at it, read the name: Robert Plant. “But you can call me Dean –“ he said, glancing at her name tag – “Riley.”
“Wasn’t planning on calling you anything,” she said tersely; because damn it she was already half-smitten and she resented him for it. She pushed a helmet and a stack of tokens over the counter and pointed them down to the cages. “They’re all open, take whichever one you want.”
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The nice thing about Wednesday nights at the park was that it was quiet, but unfortunately that also meant there wasn’t really much to do. So lacking other entertainment, Riley kept looking down towards the batting cages to glance at the brothers. Dean had shed his jacket and went into the cage first, took a few swings. He didn’t really look like a ballplayer, but he could swing a bat okay.
Sammy – not so much. He’d swing wildly, ineffectually at fastballs that sailed on by. His grip was all over the place, and the bat drifted downward at each swing, probably because the thing must’ve weighed ten pounds.
Dean hovered outside the chain link fence, cheering ridiculously any time the kid clipped a tiny piece of the ball. A couple times he swung the door open, stepped inside to adjust the kid’s grip or slap his shoulder encouragingly. (The kid didn’t look encouraged.)
About five minutes more was all Riley could stand. She grabbed her equipment keys and an aluminum bat and headed down to the cages. Dean turned to watch her when she was ten yards out, and Sammy turned when he noted Dean had gone quiet.
“Can I make a suggestion?” she said to them both.
“Yeah, yeah!” Dean piped in. “Always listen to the pros, Sammy; she knows what she’s doing. Whatcha got for us, Riley?”
Riley wasn’t really known for her tact, but she’d been doing this long enough to avoid saying something like you suck, kid, have you considered tennis? She turned right to Sammy – cause this is about the kid, she thought, not the smarmy older brother. “It’s Sammy, right?”
“Sam.”
“OK, Sam. Now you’re taking some power swings here, good velocity and a nice heavy piece of equipment –“ she gestured at the ridiculous bat – “But you should also work on aim and accuracy or you’ll tire out too quick and your swing’ll suffer. Now is that your bat, or Dean’s?”
“It’s our dad’s actually.”
“Here’s what I’d like to do, if it’s okay with you. I’d like to go in and take the pitch speed down a bit, just a few miles-per-hour, and let you work with an aluminum bat ‘til you get your form perfected. Then you can get back to power swings later. That sound okay?”
Sam smiled big, and for the first time she saw a resemblance between the brothers. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good, thanks.”
She handed him the aluminum bat. “You stand out here for a minute and work on your grip for the new bat, and I’ll adjust the speed.”
Afterwards, Riley stuck around for a few swings, and Sam was definitely doing better. He looked like he was relaxing more, and was connecting with almost every pitch.
Meanwhile Dean was looking at her, steadily enough to make her nervous. “Thanks,” he said when she turned and glared at him. “That was nice of you.” She just shrugged, and he continued. “Uh – can I buy you a soda, to thank you?” he asked.
It sounded so genuine that it actually caught her off guard. “Well, employees get free drinks. But we’re closing down the cages in about a half-hour, so when you and Sammy – uh, Sam – are done, come on up and I’ll get you guys some cokes. Okay?”
Back at the counter, she still kept half an eye on them – Sam’s swing was improving, and Dean’s cheers kept getting louder and more enthusiastic.
After a while Riley gave up the pretense that she wasn’t just looking at Dean. What the hell, he knew it, she knew it, that ship has sailed. Dean was leaning into the fence, fingers threaded through the chain link, watching each pitch. The grey henley he wore fit tight over a broad muscular back, sleeves pushed high over thick arms, his ass in well-worn jeans angled out from the fence. At one point Dean looked back over his shoulder, met her eyes, smiled. How can a guy generate that much heat from twenty yards away, she thought. I’m toast.
They came up almost exactly a half-hour later, Sam charging up the stairs with a big smile, Dean bringing up the rear. She told them to come in for a coke, gestured towards the door into the arcade and concessions area.
“Hey Marie, will you set these two up with a couple drinks on me? Sam – coke, root beer, what?”
“Coke, please.”
“Dean?”
“Same.”
Marie was the plump, older, slightly cranky woman who ran concessions in the evenings, and she gave the boys a scowl (which Riley had pretty much expected). “I’m closing up, y’know,” she growled. “Trying to get cleaned up here –“
“Why don’t you leave the fountain for me, then,” Riley said. I’ll clean and lock it before I close.” She turned to the boys. “Concessions and the cages close up a half-hour before everything else, to give us time to clean up and clear out mini-golf before we lock the gates.”
Marie poured Sam’s coke and handed it to Riley, and Dean said “Hey, you guys get us a seat, I’ll be over in a sec.” Riley walked Sam to a table, leaving Dean behind to get his coke and the cold shoulder from Marie, who kept a scowl on her face and arms crossed tight while Dean chattered on.
Riley talked about baseball with Sam and cast an occasional glance at Dean – at one point she heard him say something about “birthday,” and three minutes more of chatter and flirting, and Marie’s booming laugh started to echo through the arcade. Then Dean was on his way over with two cokes, three hot dogs and a massive pile of fries. (Somehow, it made Riley feel better that she wasn’t the only one who’d been charmed that night.)
They talked while they ate. She didn’t learn much about the boys, except that their dad had come into town to help a buddy with a job, and that they traveled around a lot. The conversation was mostly jokes, bad puns, and good-natured banter between the brothers. The three of them talked a lot about movies and a little about cars (Riley was saving up for a new Mustang, which Dean scoffed at while praising “the real classics” like the ’67 Impala their dad drove).
When Sammy dashed off to go play the Street Fighter machine, Dean’s knee drifted over to rest against Riley’s. A few minutes later his fingers came to rest lightly on her thigh, and he was leaning in very, very close to talk. Riley was having a little trouble breathing, in the most amazing way.
9:30 came, and Riley excused herself to walk out Marie, check the course for stray golfers and lock the main gate. By the time she got back, the fries were gone and Dean was busing their tray. “So, um – do you gotta get home?” he asked. “Should we –“
“Not unless you have to take off … I mean, the arcade games are free after 9:30.” (This was a new policy she’d just invented.)
Sam’s eyes got seriously wide.
Dean asked: “You want to head home Sammy, or play a while?”
“Jeez, Dean,” Sam said, like this was stupidest question he’d ever heard and what had he done to deserve this idiot of a brother?
Riley grabbed a coffee tin full of tokens from the office, and Sam was off like a shot to the Daytona racing games. “C’mon, Riley, I bet there’s a Mustang!” he said, and they all settled in to their stations for the race. Riley beat both the boys’ race times by several seconds, and when Dean looked shellshocked at that, she just said “dude, I practically live here. Trust me, I know the course.”
So they raced some more, and played Street Fighter and Star Wars and House of the Dead. Both boys had deadly aim in the shooting games, but Dean was so appallingly bad at Dance Dance Revolution that halfway through he dragged Riley on the platform to finish it out.
When the tin was almost empty of tokens, Riley checked her watch to see that it was near midnight.
“You guys want any more coke? I should clean the fountain.”
“Nah, we’re set,” Dean said. “But lemme help you. Sammy, you good?” Sam nodded, turned his attention back to his game.
As she walked through the swinging door into the back, Riley sensed Dean moving closer behind her. Then she felt his hand slide to her waist, his fingers slipping through one belt loop of her jeans as he smoothly tugged her around. She turned to face him and he pulled her tight to him, their thighs lightly bumping as he pressed her backwards to the wall. She felt the chilled metal of the walk-in cooler at her back, and then Dean’s warm, solid body flush against her. Before she could say a word he was leaning down to cover her mouth with his.
Almost instantly she was breathless. His kisses were firm and confident, but he left her room enough to sigh and gasp into him. His soft lips would press, then slide away, leaving her chasing after the taste of him. Then he would lean back in and glide the tip of his tongue over the seam of her lips, or nip gently at her bottom lip before kissing her again.
At the same time his hands glided tenderly over her upper body. His fingers stroked over her hip and up her side to tease just below the curve of her breast … then a hand slipped down to the small of her back, fingers sliding just above the waistband of her jeans to find a warm patch of bare skin, leaving goosebumps in their wake. Finally his hand threaded through the hair at the back of her head and he tugged to tip her chin higher, slanting their mouths closer together.
She slid her hands up his chest, delighted by how the muscle felt under her palms. She could feel the coiled strength in his shoulders and arms and it occurred to her that he could trap her, block her in with no effort at all. Instead his every touch was light, teasing, even as she was pressing into him pleading for more.
As their kisses grew more intense, Dean’s hands came to rest on her hips, his thumbs rhythmically stroking over each hipbone as his tongue darted in and out of her mouth. Riley’s hips canted out into his and she heard his breath catch. His mouth drifted down to lick at the heartbeat in the hollow of her throat, and she moaned deeply. He pulled back to look at her with heavy-lidded eyes, pupils blown, freckles standing out against the flush of his cheeks, lips open and wet. She thought it was just about the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
Fascinated by the sight of him, she stroked her fingers over the back of his neck, and after a moment he leaned back into her touch, his eyelids fluttering shut. For just a moment his expression was so innocent, the hairs on his neck so surprisingly soft, and wasn’t this man just an impossible mix of hard and soft?
She breathed deep in an effort to slow her heartbeat and focus… Maybe she’d never made it past third base before, and maybe she was even a little unclear on exactly what her body was crying out for, but she was pretty damn sure she wanted it with this man and she wanted it right now, thankyouverymuch.
Dean bowed his head again and kissed her deeply, and when he finally pulled back they were both breathless. His lips traced over her cheek to whisper softly in her ear: “god, baby, you taste so good. I’ve been wanting to do this for hours.”
“What took you so long,” she said.
He chuckled, a deep, low sound that she could feel ripple through her body. “Thought you might throw us out,” he said. “I couldn’t mess up Sammy’s birthday again.”
She started back, genuinely surprised. “You mean it really is his birthday?”
“Yeah. Well, 2 days ago.” He laughed, rested his forehead against hers. “I kept telling him let’s wait for Dad to celebrate, only Dad hasn’t come back and wouldn’t answer his phone. He finally called to say he’ll be here tomorrow morning, but no time for birthdays ‘cause we’re off to Maine on a job as soon as he gets here.” He sighed, eyes drifting shut like he couldn’t meet her gaze. “All Sammy wanted was a baseball glove and a cake and I can’t even do that.”
Riley couldn’t quite see how Dean had ruined the birthday; it seemed to her that his dad was the one making the dick moves here… but it was easy to see that wasn’t the right thing to say.
Instead she ran her fingers through his hair, traced the edge of his cheekbone, all the while mentally scrolling through nearby available couches, car back seats, the Air Hockey table, any halfway horizontal surface she could get this man to, immediately …
So nobody was more surprised than Riley when she heard herself say: “We have cake. For the weekend birthday parties.”
And then somehow, instead of making out with the hottest guy she’d ever met (like any sane person would do), she was sliding out of his arms to pull open the walk-in and grab a sheet cake. They couldn’t find icing, so Riley wrote Happy Birthday SamMY on it with ketchup (actually Dean added the –MY afterwards). It looked pretty sloppy (and sort of disgusting), but they agreed that at least ketchup was better than mustard. Riley tracked down candles, grabbed a handful of brightly colored fringed cone party hats (Dean wore two, precariously angled over each ear), and then they were parading into the arcade belting out Happy Birthday (waaay out of tune) and slicing out huge slabs of birthday cake onto Toy Story paper plates.
Saying they ate way too much cake was a serious understatement, and twenty minutes later Sam was damn near in a cake coma. He was laid out, arms and legs spread wide on the alley of a SkeeBall machine, moaning happily about how he was never ever ever eating anything, ever again.
And Dean couldn’t stop smiling, couldn’t stop looking at Riley like he’d just won the lottery. He leaned in and kissed her lightly. “This is totally the best birthday party he’s ever had,” he whispered. “For me too.”
And Riley just thought, how weird was it that that was enough for her right now? Christ, at that very moment, looking at the sparkle in Dean’s green eyes, it seemed enough for a very long time.
Sam was half-asleep by the time they locked up the arcade; he was weaving a bit and bumping off Dean’s side, and Dean kept a hand at the back of his neck to keep him steady. Riley walked them out to the gate, unlocked it, propped it wide enough to let them out. She could just see the long black car with out-of-state plates parked across the lot. Dean handed Sam the wooden bat and a set of keys, said, “start up the car, Sammy?” and Sam turned back long enough to say, “Thanks Riley. That was awesome.”
And then it was just her and Dean, and … well. He took her face gently in his hands, leaned in close, their noses brushing against each other. “Thank you.” He kissed her again, the barest whisper of his lips against hers, and exhaled so his warm breath feathered over her skin. Then he stepped away, facing her even as he started to back away into the shadows.
“Thanks, sweetheart. I’ll come see you next time we’re in the neighborhood.”
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Riley was surprised to hear that he did come by the park a few months later, towards the end of January. She was off at college, and got an email from one of the kids she’d trained to replace her at the park. Who exactly is Dean, it said. Because he is incredibly hot and looked very disappointed you weren’t here. I wanted very much to comfort him. Can I keep him?
Riley wrote back immediately, Well, he’s not really mine. But if you can catch him, you can keep him.
