"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
After the stop at Gas-n-Sip and Cas's peek into the porn magazine, the road trip got even more bizarre. While a very traumatized Kevin clutched his tablet with wide eyes and looked more and more emotionally-violated, Cas proceeded to question Dean and Sam on the appeal of anal penetration, and then he pestered Alex for her thoughts on it, too. She turned red and deflected, obviously wanting to disappear into thin air. Meg was more than happy to volunteer her opinions, but no one wanted to hear that. Kevin made a comment about "how can this guy be an angel?!" and Meg laughed loudly. Dean and Sam both basically told Cas after he didn't get the hint to please freaking stop asking about it, and then Cas gave a long spiel about how vaginal penetration was so amazing that he didn't see a need for anything additional (cue Alex getting redder as her brothers got more and more uncomfortable), however, he then proceeded to give a "but I don't do that anymore," speech about sex in which he sounded regretful and even apologized to Alex, saying he was sorry he couldn't fulfill his "husbandly duties" to her anymore because he did know how much she enjoyed "sexual encounters" with him. Dean was fed up and red-faced and told the angel to just shut up or get out.
Cas agreed to shut up... however, he immediately began going on and on about honeybee facts and what kinds of things honey was good for, chattering on and on like a child. Dean lost it and yelled when he couldn't take it anymore, Cas became quiet and cowed, and the car fell into tense silence. In the middle of this silence, Cas turned to Alex and took her hand and proclaimed gently, "I love you more than bees love honey. I love you more than anyone loves anything."
Meg snorted and Alex, tired as crap from a sleepless night, a little humiliated from all the sex talk in front of her brothers, nodded wearily. She wasn't really able to take him seriously or look him in the eye. She was getting more and more depressed. It was settling in that Cas wasn't going to ever be himself again. That she'd really lost him somewhere along the way. She wasn't sure what to do or where to go from there. It was a lot to try and process and handle.
So, Alex withdrew and stared out the window, trying to figure out the future. It was all so overwhelming. After awhile, her eyes began to sag closed and the noises and voices around her faded into a muted, incoherent buzzing sound as exhaustion and depression claimed her then coaxed her into a very-needed sleep. Cas smiled at her and commented aloud on how adorable she was when she was asleep. A few hours passed, and then Cas decided to go join her.
Alex was vaguely aware that she was dreaming, and that was good enough for her. Nothing else concerned her at that moment because the dream was good—pleasant, comforting, a little hot honestly. She was on the attic bed in this dream and wrapped up in Cas, and they had been kissing each other deeply for what seemed like years and years with no intention of stopping. He was naked and clothed at the same time, which wouldn't make sense in the real world, but in the dream world it did. Without being told, Alex knew this was them before everything had fallen apart—this was him when he'd been him. Rolling over languidly, stuck together like magnets, they kissed and kissed and kissed and she sighed contentedly, pulling him closer because he just felt so, so good... so warm, so familiar, so nice...
And then, nearby, someone who sounded very much like Cas spoke up. "Is that really what I look like from behind?"
Disoriented and startled, Alex and dream-Cas broke apart like caught lovers to stare at the source of the voice. And that was when Alex realized this was a very odd dream indeed. Near the bed, Cas was watching himself and Alex in curiosity. Double-checking—yes, there was a Cas on top of her and a Cas a few feet away, too, she frowned. "...Why are there two of you?" she asked slowly. "That's... that's new..." she got a little nervous about what kind of bizarre places this dream might go. "I don't know how I feel about this."
"There's only me," the standing Cas said, and as if on cue, dream-Cas dissolved into nothingness in Alex's arms, leaving her alone and cold in the bed. Disgruntled, Alex tugged a handful of blanket against herself even though she was clothed. Upon closer inspection of the intruder, Alex realized the remaining Castiel wore white pants and a white shirt underneath his trench coat. Oh. Wait. Was this actual-Cas? "Did you know a female ferret will die if she doesn't have sex in a year?" he asked pleasantly.
Oh. With a sigh, Alex realized what was going on. "Cas, what are you doing in my dream?" she asked tiredly, a little upset to be robbed of her nice fantasy.
"I missed you," he answered sweetly, smiling at her in a way that made her feel guilty for not feeling totally the same. He began looking around at the vague, dreamy, glowy scenery surrounding the area. "This is the attic, isn't it?" he asked, his voice soft with pleasant surprise. "Our attic." He paused. "I miss this place." His statement stilled her and saddened her, took her back to a time that was gone now. He walked around the bed, touching the wooden bedposts with interest, his eyes on the knob his finger brushed. "You're very sexually frustrated right now," he said factually.
"Wh—no I'm not," she protested immediately.
"Your tone indicates embarrassment and defensiveness," Cas observed mildly.
Sputtering a little, Alex got more defensive. "No it doesn't!"
Cas gave her a somewhat coy glance. "Now you're just being stubborn," he said flirtatiously, then bent and picked up a volume off the floor. "Look, a book about wraiths!" he exclaimed, opening it only to quizzically frown. "It's empty."
"Hadn't read that one yet," Alex said, sobering a little further as she thought of the burned down house so much of her life had taken place in. The attic that had been a haven for them was now ash and ruin, much like everything else. "Now I never will."
Cas set the book down onto the stack of boxes beside the bed thoughtfully, his eyes on the volume the entire time. "Did you know the amygdala, the part of the human brain triggering fear and anxiety, shuts down when women have an orgasm?" His eyes slid to hers and the way they regarded her was a little unnerving. He seemed almost suggestive, and it was disconcerting especially when paired with what he kept talking about and referencing.
"Oh, that's... you're just full of sex facts, aren't you?" Alex asked, a little flustered. She tried to put the attention onto him. "You sure you're not the sexually frustrated one?" He was, after all, the one who couldn't stop talking about it in the car a little while ago.
"That is of not of import," he said in a tranquil tone, then adopted an overly-helpful tone and facial expression. "I know other things too," he insisted, then spouted yet another strange fact he must have picked up along the way. "Ketchup was used as a medicine in the eighteen hundreds to treat diarrhea, among other things."
Alex's face fell marginally in chagrin as her nose wrinkled slightly. "Maybe you should stick with the sex facts, they're a little less... eugh."
He apparently took that statement as an invitation. Cas sat down on the bed, and turned towards her, his growing nearness making Alex nervous. His voice grew low, husky, suggestive, his eyes looked at her thoroughly. "Did you know a sperm whale isn't actually made out of sperm?" he murmured ever so softly, and the way he asked he could have been trying to seduce her. But the question was outright ridiculous.
Mimicking his murmur helplessly as the moment got more intense, Alex's gaze held his even as a slightly-confused smile spread on her face—was that an actual question? "Yeah, Cas, I did know that."
"I thought so," he said, voice softening even further as he slid into bed with her to lay near beside her. "It's basically common knowledge, and you're very smart."
"Thank... you...?" she managed, and he caught her hand, holding it in his as he settled very close to her. They were facing each other, and Cas was in her personal space. "What are you doing?" Alex with worry. The tone of his voice, the look in his eyes... it all suggested one thing.
Cas's expression softened with regret. "I can't kiss you anymore," he said quietly, sadly. "Not on the mouth." His thumb brushed over her knuckles. "But I can... assist you in other ways."
Alex stiffened. "Assist me? What is this, a doctor's office?" She was shaking her head no. Whatever he was talking about, he wasn't in his right mind and maybe she wasn't either. "Cas, I don't think we should—"
"All I desire is to hold your hand," he said innocently, then moved his hand so their palms pressed and fingers lined up. His eyes affectionately skimmed over the sight of their hands touching like that and Alex's muscles relaxed slowly as she studied his face, trying to find the steadfast angel that must be somewhere beneath this crumbled facade she'd been left with. But Cas was listless and vapid, the lights were on but no one was home.
And then, Cas glanced into her eyes with a surprisingly dark, fiery gaze and curled his fingers through the spaces of hers. The soft touch made endorphins explode and tingles race across her skin—she felt the brush of his fingers there against the sides of her fingers, but she felt his touch somewhere else too, somewhere very surprising, somewhere that made her eyes shoot open wide and her mouth drop open. "What are you t—ah—" he brushed two fingers across the center of her hand then softly pressed inward on the skin of her palm, and Alex inhaled sharply as her eyes widened further. His touches on her hand were translating to much lower on her body, between her legs to be exact. "H-how are you doing that?" she asked, stunned and suddenly very, very at his mercy.
"I'm an angel," he answered in a dark, low voice. "I can do lots of things." His thumb pressed and dragged down across her palm, inspiring another sinful burst of pleasure down low, a burst of pleasure that promised a finish she craved. His voice was softer than soft, his eyes watchful and tender. "Do you like it?"
Blindsided at the sensations he was heightening just with soft little brushes of his fingertips against the palm of her hand, Alex tried to stay composed, but his fingers kept caressing and the English language left her mind as pleasure circuits overloaded. "It's—ah, ha-ha..."
"You do like it," he whispered, eyes brightening, then his thumb circled inward, making her burn in the best of ways—he became intensely earnest as he continued to lightly trace salacious little patterns onto only the skin of her hand. Powerlessly, she waited for what touch would be next as she looked at Cas in a stricken way and tried not to give in to what he was doing. Part of her said no, stop. He doesn't know what he's doing. But it was very, very clear he knew exactly what he was doing. She squeezed her eyes closed and gasped out softly as she became lost in his innocent touches that were making her body do unholy things. "I just want you to be happy, to be satisfied..." he whispered, his free hand sweeping across the hair at the side of her head to cradle her increasingly breathless form. "I just want to do one thing right..." he murmured hopefully. She was half in a daze, clutching onto his trench coat with her free hand as she tried to bite away a moan. "Shh..." Cas murmured, watching her with soft, adoring eyes as his thumb continued to caress a warm circle against the skin of her hand, making her crumble. "Not too loudly."
"W-why?" she asked breathlessly as two fingers swept down the length of her hand and made her shiver.
"They can hear you in the car," he answered, making her pulse pick up even more. "Quietly," he whispered, then pulled her closer to himself, drawing her into a secret only they knew, an encounter only they could share.
And still, Alex tried to protest—it was hard because she was beginning to wonder if this Cas was really Cas at all, or just another dream her mind was coming up with. Whoever he was, he was making her feel incredible. Trying to concentrate, a feeble objection fell from her lips. "I don't think this is a good ide—oh!" his fingers were pressing, stroking, circling the palm her of hand increasingly harder than before—her mouth was open in a silent gasp as her eyebrows slammed together.
Castiel ducked his head down into the crook of her neck, breathing on the sensitive skin there then kissing her there slow and maddening as he got her hotter and hotter, his fingers on her hand making her get closer and closer to the edge of everything. His mouth wandered to her shoulder which was suddenly bare and he pulled her close to him and kissed a sensual trail down her arm and to her hand—and then he kissed the palm of her hand as his fingers remained there; he combined the pressure of lips, fingers, and then a nudge of his tongue. "C—oh...!" It flooded her like a monsoon and she had no say in the matter: he had finished her. His eyes snapped up to look right into hers and she stifled a sound as her body reached the peak, as without even being touched below the belt once she was suddenly shooting skyward, clutching him and forcefully suppressing the loud cries she wanted to give.
Relief, pleasure, and good feelings cradled her as she came down off the high. She stared at Cas breathlessly, who had a crooked, devilish little smile on his face. "I just made you reach orgasm," he whispered, like it was some great secret he couldn't stand to keep to himself. Confused about how to feel towards what had just happened, Alex opened her mouth to reply. And then...
Something invisible hit her in the face and she flailed, sputtering. The attic suddenly became noonday bright and the sound of a car engine hit her ears but had been there all along, and the bed she was on was suddenly not a bed, but the back seat of a car. "Al, yo, Alex! Wake up!" Disoriented, groggy, Alex blinked dumbly, protesting with a groan as her eyes chanced upon an empty fast food cup at her feet. Was that what had hit her in the face...? Dumbstruck by consciousness and fatigue, Alex blearily looked toward the source of the voice. In the driver's seat, Dean was surly. "You having a nightmare or something?" he asked, but it wasn't a caring question. He sounded annoyed. "Loud as hell," he muttered.
"Uh..." Alex looked at Cas, who sat beside her and had this shit-eating smile on his face, this I-just-got-away-with-something look to him that made her wither. "Yeah," she confirmed weakly, mortified that she'd apparently been sitting here moaning in her sleep. "A nightmare."
"Sounded horrific," Meg commented cheekily from the back. She leaned over the back seats and smirked at Alex knowingly. Glowering at the demon, Alex tried to get a handle on herself as Cas giggled and tried to contain his apparent delight.
"What's so funny?" Dean demanded, his tone short.
Cas looked like a child who had gotten away with something sneaky. "I don't think I should say, Dean," he said coyly, looking at Alex coquettishly. Flustered, she looked away and clasped her hands together, pressing them in between her knees. How had he done that to her by just touching her hand?!
Dean gave an aggravated grunt in the front seat, oblivious to reality (thankfully). "You know," he said gruffly to Cas, "anytime you wanna get over your 'joy in the journey' crap and angel-rail us over to the cabin, that'd be grea—shit!" Dean slammed on the brakes to keep from driving straight into the side of the cabin as the scenery abruptly changed from a long, open highway to an old cabin in the middle of nowhere surrounded by woods. The car jerked and jolted as the speed at which they stopped took effect, and Kevin, of course, screamed his fright in a high-pitched, piercing wail. Cas was the only one who didn't go stiff or wide-eyed at the close call. Dean was incredulous, looking at how near he'd been to crashing the SUV into Rufus's old hunting cabin. "Well give me some warning next time!" he exclaimed, looking back at Cas with an upset expression.
Still suppressing his delight over his naughtier actions, Cas was trying to hide a self-pleased smile. "My bad," he said, not seeming to find anything wrong with what had just happened.
Dean did a double take. "'Your bad'?"
"We should set to work warding right away," Cas said, ignoring Dean's question. He turned and looked at Alex, his eyes holding that same secretive quality to them. His voice went a little lower. "Do you need help walking in, Alex?"
She balked, wondering why he was so dead set on embarrassing her. "Why would I need help walking in?!" she asked defensively, then shoved the door open and exited the car, slamming the door behind herself.
Cas smiled after her dreamily, not really seeming to realize she was upset. Sighing like a lovelorn schoolboy, he shook his head lovingly. "She's such a perfect creation, isn't she?" he asked, looking around the car for someone to agree with him.
"God, Cas, you're such a mess," Sam commented, somewhere between sympathetic and fed up.
It was around one in the afternoon that they arrived to Rufus's old hunting cabin. While Cas and Sam warded the house upstairs and Meg dug around for a beer, Alex trailed behind Dean, joining him in carrying some bags down into the basement of the old cabin she'd never been to before. This was where Sam and Dean had been holing up a lot in recent times since Bobby's was gone. Kevin nervously followed Dean and Alex as he'd been told. "Well, I'm sure you're pretty hungry, so once we get settled in upstairs, we'll get some lunch going," Dean said as he plodded down the creaky old wooden stairs into the basement. Right behind him, his sister was wry.
"Hope you like hot pockets and frozen burritos," Alex muttered flatly in Kevin's direction. Five-star dining just wasn't gonna happen in these parts.
"...I'm vegan," Kevin replied weakly behind her.
"Vegan?" Alex turned to him mid-stair, gauging him disbelievingly. "You're kidding."
He looked vaguely ill and a little frightened of what she might say if he told the truth. "Um, no," he said feebly. "I'm not kidding."
Alex felt her face growing doubtful as her tiredness grew. "Well... that might get interesting," she said, then turned and continued down the stairs, her boots loud on the old wooden beams.
She was actively avoiding Cas for the moment, at least until she figured out where she stood with him or how she felt. She was almost at the point of telling him that he was clearly not mentally capable of being in a relationship. That she'd always be in his corner and ready to go to bat for him, but the romance aspect of it was just too problematic for her with him like this. She wondered how he would react to that. She almost imagined he might cry and beg like a child would, and that thought burdened her heavily. She felt vaguely guilty about what had happened in the dream.
Alex reached the floor level of the basement. It was a small, dank space that was half-underground. It had a tiny back door and small, dirty window that let in a little daylight. It was full of things hunters used and needed: weapons, chains, restraints, tools. The wooden table in the center of the tiny space was cluttered with knives of various kinds, salt containers, handcuffs, and a coil of heavy solid-iron chain among other odds and ends. Dean was already clearing a corner of the table off for Kevin to work at. The prophet had stopped at the foot of the stairs as he took in the area. "...This looks like a sex-torture dungeon," he said, and when Dean gave him a weird look as he picked up and moved a scythe, Kevin's distress increased. "Is this a sex-torture dungeon?"
Dean seemed nothing but mildly chagrined and irritated by the question. "No, this is not a sex-torture dungeon."
Unable to help herself, Alex gave Kevin a little mischievous look. "It's the regular kind."
His eyes widened. "W... what?"
She laughed a little despite herself. "I'm kidding, Kevin, relax."
"How am I supposed to relax?" he asked, eyeing the weapons warily and chancing a couple hesitant steps closer to the table as he swallowed noisily. "Do... do you guys kill people?"
"Only when we have to," Dean answered, short on patience and tired of Kevin's questions. "Get over here. Sit down and read, would you?"
Sam stood back and checked over the hiding wards that he and Cas had drawn onto the windows of the cabin. Everything looked right to him, and that was about as good as it would get. He let out a tense sigh. "All right," he said, setting down the little jar of red paint he'd been using. "Done deal." He gave the angel who was nearby a tight smile. "Thanks Cas."
"Any time, Sam," Cas replied, seeming incredibly happy to have helped. The angel had picked up a blown glass deer figurine that sat in the windowsill he was near and was examining it with interest.
Sam watched the guy silently for a couple seconds, then sat down at the kitchen table slowly. Although Cas was sort of amusing this way, it was also deeply disturbing to watch him go from a fierce warrior to a bumbling fool. Alex had said very little about it either way, but Sam could sense the stress she was feeling and could understand. He couldn't imagine loving someone and then having everything happen that had happened with Cas. The Crowley betrayal last year, the god thing and everything that went with that, the 'death' that didn't turn out to be a death after all, Cas's memory loss, then his coma, now the insanity. Sam was honestly wondering how Alex was holding herself together at all at this point. He'd been her listening ear for a change the past month because of Dean's cold shoulder and even though they'd had a lot of long, late night phone conversations in which they both got pretty real with each other, Sam sensed she was still holding some things back.
He had struggled with the idea of Cas and Alex ever since he found out about their little secret marriage. He'd always been wary of them together, but he'd also tried to believe the best. After all, he saw how they loved each other and how happy they were together. In a life like theirs, Sam thought happiness had to count for something. And then, the bomb dropped about their secret. He'd been so angry at Alex for deciding to get married without input from him and Dean. He'd seen nothing but a huge, childish mistake on both of their parts. But now, that was in the past. What was done was done. In present day, he had misgivings about them because of much worse and darker things than an apocalypse-inspired elopement.
It was tragic the way that Cas and Alex couldn't seem to let each other go. Sam was pretty sure they'd be better off separate, but fate kept bringing them back together inescapably. And worse still, Sam wasn't sure how to feel anymore. Now that he and Alex had come to some peace about things, now that she'd explained to him so much more about the relationship and her jumbled up feelings for Cas, Sam found himself similarly confused like she was. It had been easier to harbor ill will toward the angel when he hadn't had insight into what led Cas down the dark road he'd found himself on. The hardest pill to swallow was the truth: Cas wasn't a twisted villain who was easy to hate because of how evil he was. He wasn't evil at all. He was just a naive guy with the best intentions who tried to do right over and over and made everything worse each time. The irony was that Cas's heart was in the right place but his fears about failing had caused him to do just that.
And now, to top it off, Sam felt to blame for Cas's current condition. It wasn't that he'd forgotten Cas was the one who broke the wall in his mind last year. It was the knowledge that Death had implied the wall would break eventually. So the way Sam had been there near what was supposed to have been the end of his life—sleepless and constantly, horrifically assaulted by non-stop hallucinations of Lucifer—that would have someday been Sam's fate. If not for Cas. Sam knew it. Cas had saved his life.
"You seem troubled," Cas said nearby, startling Sam out of his reverie. The angel shuffled over and took a seat across from Sam, the chair groaning woodenly as he sat. However, he was squinting through one eye at the underside of the deer. "Of course, that's a primary aspect of your personality, so I sometimes ignore it."
A little taken aback at the casually stated odd comment, Sam tried to find an answer. "...Okay." There was a small silence and Cas finally looked at Sam, apparently wanting an answer to why Sam was troubled. "Um... I guess right now I'm just wondering about you." To put it mildly.
Cas seemed fascinated. "What about me?" he asked, sounding pleasantly intrigued. And then, getting an idea, his expression began to show a shrewdly fond expression. "If I'm trustworthy?"
Sam was quite honestly surprised at the introspection given Cas's previous conversation attempts about anal sex and honeybees. Maybe Cas wasn't as far gone as he'd thought. "No, it's actually not that," Sam admitted seriously. "Call me crazy, but... I still believe you're on our side. Especially after you fixed me, Cas. No one made you do that, you know?" Cas's expression showed absolute, emotionally affected attentiveness to what Sam was saying. "You knew what it would do to you and you still did it."
The angel tried to brush it off. "Well it was only fair, wasn't it?" he asked, looking around the small, dark cabin interior as if he were distracted. "I dealt the blow that broke your wall. And I did it out of anger and fear." He paused and looked at Sam meaningfully, his eyebrows high for effect, like he was about to share some wisdom. "I don't get angry anymore, Sam, it's bad to get angry."
Sam understood why Cas would think that, especially given his currently-childlike way of approaching things, but he still tried to correct the angel. "Well—no, it's not bad to get angry," he said intently. "It's bad to let anger control you and your life. Everyone's gonna be angry about something sometime, Cas."
A slow, surprised smile was spreading across Cas's face. "Are you worried about me, Sam?" he asked, his tone indicating that he couldn't believe it. He seemed incredibly pleased. "That's so nice of you."
Sam couldn't smile back. "Well, yeah, I mean... I think I was done for there near the end," he said, looking at the only other person alive who knew what it was like to live through the hell he had. "I couldn't take it, you know? And now you've got the hell I was living and... I can tell you're just not the same, Cas, we all can. I know how much it is to carry." He paused, concern tightening his face as the question he dreaded to ask begged to be asked. "Do you see Lucifer?" He waited with baited breath.
Cas was serious and somber. "I did at first, I think," he said, frowning off as he thought about it. "I barely remember. It was confusing. I think it was a projection of yours, sort of an aftertaste. Now I more see... well, everything." He smiled to himself, then at Sam. "It's funny. I was—I was done for, too." He shook his head faintly, looked down at the palms of his hands. "The weight of all my mistakes, all those lives and souls lost, all the damage done." His smile was gone, he looked like a man remembering himself. "I... I couldn't take it, either." The ghost of who Cas used to be flitted across his eyes, then disappeared. A soft smile that didn't seem to belong in the moment began to pull his lips upwards. "I was lost until I took on your pain, Sam. I didn't know what to do or how to continue on at all, then I was given new purpose. Salvation, in a way. It's strange to think that that helped, but..." he shrugged his hands out, a humble gesture that seemed un-Cas-like, "well, here we are."
Sam contemplated Cas sadly. Maybe Cas meant that because his mind was now broken, he didn't have to carry the weight of his own mistakes anymore. Sam could understand that, and he'd felt the same before. But it didn't make any of this easier to take. "It's been a... a really crazy ride, huh?" he asked, a soft, bittersweet little smile on his face through his more conflicted emotions. "I've thought about it a lot and, you know what, I was really mad at you for a long time, Cas. Blamed you for a lot, hated you even." He let out a sharp little huff of air as Cas frowned curiously, tilting his head to the side. "But I've... I've had time to really think it all through, and I've talked to my sister a lot here recently about everything. I guess she's shed some light on some of what happened between you two for me." Sam wet his lips and attempted not to start rambling. He looked at Cas pointedly, meaningfully, and he was empathetic. "The point is, I've made mistakes, too. Big mistakes. Demon blood, lies, secrets, manipulating my family, hurting my brother and sister time and time again. All 'cause I thought I knew better. Sound familiar?" Sam waited for Cas to respond, but all Cas did was squint slightly. Sam took his observations to the next level. "And I almost killed her, remember?"
Castiel looked vaguely chastising. "Oh yes. I remember."
"And I would have if Dean hadn't stopped me," Sam said, remembering standing over Alex with a knife when he was soulless, Cas trapped nearby and unable to help her. Sam had been so close to doing the unthinkable. Cas had done the unthinkable. It didn't really make them even or alike, but it was an example of how some things were just beyond controlling past a certain point.
"It's all right, Sam," Cas said reassuringly. "No one will ever kill her now. She'll never die."
Sam was mildly disheartened. Cas was just not home mentally—half of the things that came out of his mouth were nonsense. "...Right, Cas." He sat back in his chair and wondered if anything he was saying was getting through at all. "Look, what I'm trying to say here is I know you never did anything but try to help us. I realize that, Cas, and I believe it now." He paused grimly, remembering very dark times. "Fact is, you don't deserve a second chance with her. But honestly, I haven't always deserved the forgiveness my family's given me." Cas looked at him silently, and he was listening. But was it getting through? "We're gonna help you get better, okay?" Sam was deadly serious. "No matter what it takes. And then... we'll go from there."
Cas's eyebrows moved in together slightly. "What do you mean, 'better'?" he asked, then grinned, white teeth showing. It was an odd effect. "I like being like this! Nothing is as heavy as it used to be." He smiled serenely and leaned back in his chair, relaxing into a vague slouch as he laced his fingers together and rested his hands across his stomach.
Sam sighed softly, disheartened and giving up for the time being.
"Is there a television here?" Cas asked abruptly, perking up at his sudden idea. "Those Three Stooges are quite the funny guys, aren't they?" Smiling conspiratorially, Cas leaned toward Sam as if he were about to make a clever comment. "Moe reminds me of Dean, always grumpy and yelling about something."
Alex sat on the floor and looked through the protein bars she had in her duffel bag. After searching the big freezer in the basement corner for food options for Kevin, she'd found all of zero vegan options. The beef jerky and protein bar stash she had in her bag was the last resort. Obviously, the jerky didn't make the cut. She finished reading the last ingredient label on the few bars she had in there and then gave a frustrated sound. "Okay, that's not vegan either," she muttered and looked up toward Kevin, who sat at the table hunched over the tablet with a notepad to write the translation on. "Maybe I can get you some grass and twigs from outside...?" she half-joked. Why would anyone choose to be a vegan? She had no clue. Seemed like a slow, miserable way to die. Because bacon. And pepperoni. And of course, her favorite: cheese of any kind. "How's it going, anyway?" she asked Kevin cautiously, noticing how his face was set and terse, how he looked kind of sick, how he wasn't writing anything at all.
Kevin stared at the tablet. He'd only been translating for about ten minutes, but he looked emotionally exhausted and internally despair-riddled. "It's..." he let out a long shaky breath and his pen clattered down as he suddenly began to breath harder and harder. "It's..." he abruptly stood up and pulled at his shirt collar as he began to hyperventilate hardcore.
Half-asleep in a chair with his feet propped onto another one, Dean spoke without even opening his eyes. "Kevin..."
"This is all too much," Kevin panted, clutching the table with both hands. "What's happened to my life?! I'm just a kid from Michigan! I didn't wanna be a Word-keeper!"
Dean reluctantly opened his eyes and tore himself out of his chair. "Looks like we're brown-baggin' it," he said, grabbing an empty liquor-store bag from the table.
"Was it something I said?" Alex asked, still sitting cross-legged on the floor as she held an unwrapped protein bar. Kevin had been fine until she said something.
Kevin was frantic and upset as he leaned over the table. "I'm not prepared to factor the supernatural into my"—Dean stuck the paper bag to Kevin's mouth—"world view!"
Dean looked inconvenienced. "Okay, there we go," he said. He patted Kevin on the back a couple times impatiently. "That's it. That's it. Just breathe. Take it easy." He sounded rehearsed, exhausted, and Alex suddenly wondered when her brother had slept last. He was in a pretty foul mood.
Kevin breathed in and out a few times into the bag, then got control and Dean backed off a few steps, leaned his hands onto the table and watched Kevin in what looked like both annoyance and sympathy. "I—I just wanna be the first Asian-American President of the United States," Kevin said tearfully, looking at Dean like he wanted some kind of answer, some reassurance. Comfort.
But Dean shook his head, jaded and cynical. He looked years older than he actually was. "I don't know, man. What can I say? You've been chosen." He said that sarcastically, like it was a bad thing. And it was. He made sure Kevin knew it too. "Chosen sucks. Believe me. There's no use asking 'why me,'" he said blandly, "'cause the angels—they don't care." He looked at Alex then, still speaking to Kevin, but looking her dead in the eye. "I think maybe they just don't have the equipment to care." It felt like a verbal slap aimed at her. Dean shrugged, looking off with a contemptuous expression before Alex could react. "Seems like when they try, it just breaks them apart into little brain-dead pieces," he said, and Alex bristled as she realized he was talking to her. And then he had the audacity to act like this had all been for Kevin to know, that Alex had nothing to do with what he'd just said. "All the angels end up doing is ruining whatever poor saps lives they touch, Kevin."
Standing up defensively, Alex set her brother with a hard look. "If you have something to say to me, say it to me," she said icily, not appreciating the passive aggressive digs.
Alex's demand seemed to unleash a locked-up vault of opinions Dean had been saving for her. "Look, I got every right to feel the way I feel and to think what I think," he said lowly, leashing his cold anger and measuring himself, coming off sharp and short. "I never wanted you and Cas together. Ever. I had a bad feeling and that bad feeling turned out to be right on every count. But you went against all the warnings I gave you and the way I tried to put an end to it and look what happened to you, to this family!" Dean apparently was holding it all against her, especially the past month. His face twisted as his fury heightened. "And you're still with him? Still think he's a decent guy? He's a nutjob, a dead-end, he's useless! When are you gonna get it?"
Offended, Alex's blood began to boil. "Well Jesus Christ, if you hate him so much, if he's so useless, why's he here with us right now?"
"He's a means to an end!" Dean snapped.
"...He's a person!" Alex insisted with a voice full of insulted disbelief.
"A 'person' who I will never, ever forgive for what he's done to me and mine!" Dean retorted in a thundering tone. "Before he came around, you were totally different, Alex! What's happened to you, huh? I don't even know you anymore, and you know what? I don't think I wanna know you anymore, either!" He said that and the room went utterly silent. The hurt he inflicted with that single sentence was irreparable and Alex stood there in silent, wounded shock as Dean saw the effect of his words. He tried to make it seem like his hurtful words were just what she had coming after her choices. "Look, I have tried my damndest to get on board with him, with you, with all the bullshit you've put me through the past few years but I can't do it anymore," he said. "I am a reasonable guy, but this is just too much for me!"
Although Alex had sensed Dean was bitter with her, she was quite honestly blindsided at the apparent levels. "What are you saying, just drop him off somewhere and forget about him?" she asked, thinking if she phrased it that way surely Dean would realize what a tool he was being.
Apparently not. "Does that really sound so crazy?" he asked defensively.
After a short, stunned silence, Alex's voice rose as she got angrier and angrier. "Are you fucking kidding me? Cas loves you, he loves Sam and me, he loves this family, he's made mistakes but who hasn't?! He needs help right now, have you seen him? We can't just abandon him, even if he's fruitcake express—especially if he's fruitcake express!" She was breathless and so upset she could barely see, and the way Dean was looking at her was making everything worse. Anger she hadn't even known she felt was boiling underneath her surface. "Like, what the fuck, Dean? Is this even about him?" she demanded spitefully. "Because I'm really getting the feeling you're just butthurt at me!"
"Of course it's about him!" Dean snapped. "It's always been about him! Every single problem starts and ends with Cas!"
"No, this is about you!" Alex nearly shouted. "You just want me all to yourself where I can make you feel like the good big brother again, where you'll have a devoted little brain-dead sister who worships the ground you walk on and follows you anywhere, no matter what!" She became stony. "Well I'm sorry but I grew up."
"Oh my god, are you serious?" Dean asked, appearing disgusted. "Don't make this about us, this is about you and the way you are helplessly in love with your murderer like some pathetic, abused woman! It's not normal! It's not healthy!" He stood back and spread his arms, raised his eyebrows. "And now I'm the bad guy?!" His face darkened into a furious glare as he used his finger to point around for emphasis. "It's not bad enough he killed you, dragged you around and hurt you, snuck around and married you behind my back—he turned you against me!"
There was a short, tense silence in which Dean was angry and stormy and Alex was increasingly sad and brokenhearted.
"No," she said quietly. "You did that." His face flickered, like he didn't understand how she could think that. And therein was the tragedy. That he really couldn't see how his actions had done what they had. He couldn't accept any part of the rift between them. He was passively aggressively cruel, he was entitled and overbearing, he was an emotional bully in disguise as a caring big brother... and Alex didn't know if he'd always been like that or if she was just seeing it clearer now because of current circumstances. "Dean—what's going on with you?" she asked, desperate to get back the big brother who cared and who hugged her and meant it, who loved her without a price-tag or selfish expectations. "You're drinking more than I've ever seen you drink before, you give me the silent treatment for a month, you make me feel guilty about everything I do or don't do..." she trailed off, and she wanted to cry because he was so frustrating to her, she couldn't win for losing, nothing she did seemed to work, he seemed ready to fight with her every time they spoke these days, she was exhausted by attempts to reach out. He said she and Cas weren't healthy—well, Dean's attempts at a domineering relationship with her weren't healthy, either. "I'm tired of fighting with you," she said in rising dismay, "I'm tired of you walking all over me!"
His eyebrows rose and she realized she'd said the wrong thing. "I'm walking all over you?" he asked in disbelief, his eyebrows slamming together as he became indignant. "I have been here for you without fail for my entire goddamn life, do you even know the things I gave up so I could protect you and keep you safe?!"
A thought that had been resting inside of her for a very long time came shouting out of her without censorship of any sort. "I never asked you to do that!"
Her words cut him visibly. The silence between them was strained and thick. Dean looked so devastated and hurt at her comment—he shook his head then pulled a tight, humorless little grimacing smile as he nodded and swallowed down her comment. And then he said something he would always, always regret and she would never be able to forget. "You know sometimes, I wish you'd never gotten your voice back at all," he muttered sourly, and it was like a sledgehammer hit her in the stomach. "That's when everything started changing."
It felt like she'd been stabbed in the fucking heart. It was like he had destroyed her entire world with those words, like he had taken a precious trust she'd given to him and smashed it against a wall on purpose and it made her furious, it made her eyes flood with tears, it made her heart sink to her shoes. "How the hell can you say that shit to me?!" She demanded, then anger surged like high tide, making her teeth clench. Propelled forward, Alex marched up to Dean and slapped him in the face hard enough that his head turned to the side from the force of the loud smack. He could have blocked the attempt, but he let her slap him, like he had expected her to. And that made Alex even angrier. The second he turned his face back toward her, she punched him so hard that her hand broke, so hard that he fell back to the ground and stared up aghast at her with a bloody cheek. The levels of adrenaline running through her were too high for her to even really notice the pain in her hand. "What's wrong with you!?" she screeched, betrayed. Brainlessly, she snatched up the pile of chain on the table and threw it at him where he was sprawled on the floor. He curled up defensively, holding hands out to avoid being hit in the face. "I hate you!" Alex screamed, then ran out and up the stairs, distraught.
Kevin stared, traumatized and silent at the table, having bore witness to the entire thing. He said nothing, maybe because he was afraid to get punched eventually, too. On the floor, the left side of Dean's entire face was pounding in pain. He slowly pushed himself up, a little shocked at what had just happened. Just as he found his feet and stared around the room like a guy in a trance, Kevin shrank a little at the table, staring at the place behind Dean. "Uh... who's that?" he asked, clutching the tablet to himself like a safety object.
Dean turned around and his heart jumped. The back door into the basement was open, and standing there was a very familiar person. He had no idea when she'd appeared there, but from the look on her face, she had heard enough of the fight that had just happened. "J-James—what—what are you doing here?" Dean asked, taken aback at her appearance.
Jamie gave him a testy look as she came into the room, shoes clicking on the floor. "You called me to come ward the house, remember?"
A little confounded at the moment, Dean found speaking difficult. "Yeah—no, I—I forgot," he said softly, his mind other places.
"I thought you were still like fifteen hours out," she said, clearly a little confused about why she'd found an already-warded cabin full of people.
"Cas, uh—he zapped us over," Dean supplied faintly. The pain in his cheek was killing him, as was the look on Alex's face and the words from her mouth: I hate you!
"Forget it," Jamie said. "I need to talk to you." She glanced at Kevin. "Alone." She grabbed Dean's wrist and began to pull him toward the back door. Outside was thickly wooded and birds called a midday song. There was a tiny back patio area and a crumbling stone path that wound around to the front of the cabin. Once Jamie had tugged Dean far enough away from the basement door to be out of earshot, she let go of him, turned around with crossed arms, and gave him a very hard to read look. Dean stood there awkwardly, knowing she had just heard him say some pretty foul shit to his sister. It explained the distaste in her expression. "So I put you in a few more wards against all the basic bad guys," she said neutrally. "You're welcome."
Dean couldn't manage much enthusiasm. "Thanks." He eyed her with slight dread. "How, uh, how much of that did you hear?"
Jamie was hard to read still. "Enough."
Slowly, Dean met her gaze, embarrassment and shame making it hard to do so. He still had these moments of disbelief that this woman was giving him the time of day. After all, he viewed himself as garbage more often than not. Today was evidence of how much of a trash person he was, so he figured okay yeah finally, today's the day! The day she loses my number and tells me to screw off. How much I disappointed her, how shit I am. How the only thing I'm good for is a drinking buddy and a mediocre fuck. Even as he thought that stuff, he realized how narrow the perspective was. He knew there was a lot more to them than drinking and sex—something special, as dumb as it might have sounded. Which made him all the more sick about what she was gonna say to him. Jamie was gonna give up on him like every other woman ever had. But he'd rather be given up on outright than pitied like Lisa had done. Still. It sucked. Lower than low, Dean hung his head in shame, ready to accept his fate.
A soft touch near where his cheek was throbbing startled him and he looked questioningly at the woman who was gently touching his face with a surprising amount of gentle, weary compassion resting in her eyes. His heart leapt in confusion and hope, then he realized she was about to cast. "Adlevandis," she murmured, even as Dean tried to protest—and the throbbing faded. The bruise would stay, but the pain was all but gone.
Crestfallen, already knowing what the magic would do to her, Dean mirrored her by putting his hand on her face, thumb ready to catch the little trickle that would come from the nosebleed. "You didn't have to do that," he said softly, already knowing telling her what to do or berating her ended poorly and he shouldn't bother.
A sad, self-conscious little smile was his reward. "I know."
Dean tried to smile back, because goddamn he felt so much. He wiped away the trickle of blood, shaking his head in tender disbelief. Hurting herself to make him feel better... after she'd just seen him show his ass in there with all his ugly words. It said a lot. And not sure what else to do, all he could do was pull her into a gentle hug. She was just the right height that her head tucked under his chin, and the way her arms circled his middle felt trusting. A reminder of how far their relationship had come. Shutting his eyes and breathing in the familiar scent that was only hers, they stayed there for a couple long seconds, in an embrace that calmed and centered Dean, reassuring him. Yet again, he couldn't believe his dumb luck crossing paths with this witch who at first he'd hated on principle. He'd been fighting a losing game since day one with his ruthless attraction to her, and man he was glad he lost that battle. She made him feel protective and protected, a combination he wasn't used to encountering outside of family. She understood him on levels most people just fucking couldn't—she called him on his bullcrap—she made him laugh—she'd earned his respect and then some—she was easy to be around—and she was just as big of a dork as he was, but could fool ninety-nine percent of the population into thinking she was a cold, hard bitch. And he fucking loved her for all that. The word 'love' freaked him out as always. He sat on that word and kept it secret, but he couldn't deny that's what he felt. Son of a bitch, life was fucking bizarre. That's all he knew at this point.
Pulling back softly from the embrace, Jamie studied him with a much gentler gaze than before. "Hey," she said, like she was just now seeing him for the first time that day. The smallest little playful smile was on her face.
He couldn't help but smile back in kind. "Hey," he echoed softly.
"Bad day?" she asked, causing Dean to give a soft, rueful little laugh.
"You could say that," he admitted, then sighed heavily, pulled away, and sank down to sit onto a huge fallen tree nearby. He put his face into his hands. "Jesus, what is wrong with me?"
Jamie stayed light. "I mean, if you want my honest opinion, we'll be here all night."
Another sad laugh from Dean, who shook his head. She gave him a sympathetic little face and sat beside him, growing more serious and thoughtful. She stayed quiet for a long moment, giving him a chance to think. "Such a goddamn mess," Dean finally muttered. He didn't know how to get control over himself or the things he said—he just wanted things to be right again with his brother and sister. Alex's accusations about him wanting her all to himself bothered him. That wasn't it. Was it? He didn't want to be that messed up or that selfish. He needed to blame Cas for everything, he needed to hate the angel for tearing his family apart and stealing his sister away, turning her against him.
"What's going on?" Jamie asked, sensing the things weighing on his chest. "You can tell me."
He knew he could. And he didn't think twice about it either. Dean stared off into space. "Just don't want her with him, Jamie," he confessed brokenly. "I just fucking don't." It felt like all their problems would disappear if Cas was gone. But maybe Dean was being unrealistic. He just didn't know anymore.
There was a long silence. "That's not really your choice though, is it?" she asked, a rhetorical reminder that no, it wasn't. And Dean hated that she was right.
He bowed his head down into a hand again as he tried so, so hard to get himself together and not flat out cry about his frustrations and exhaustion and feelings of abandonment. "I shouldn't have said that shit, what the fuck is wrong with me?" he choked. He was so lost at this point, he had done damage he knew he couldn't take back, and if Alex hadn't wanted to leave the family business before, she probably for sure would now. All because he couldn't control his big, stupid mouth. "She'll never talk to me again now."
A gentle, still hand came to touch Dean's back. A touch he didn't deserve, a touch that triggered more fears in him than anything else. "Of course she will," Jamie counseled, and despite himself, Dean looked to her for hope. A certain degree of sadness rested in her eyes. "From what I've seen, you three are the kind of permanent nothing can undo." He heard the wistfulness for something like that of her own, which made him feel even worse.
"Well I'm damn sure trying, aren't I?" he managed, wondering how long it'd be until he had fucked things up with Jamie, too. How long it would be until she was the one screaming she hated him. It never lasted. Not with Cassie, not with Lisa, not with Jo, who it never had even started with at all. And this, this up-in-the-air thing he and Jamie had stumbled into, he wanted to last more than anything else, to be honest. So he was extra afraid of it ending, he was extra afraid to do the wrong thing and get left yet again the owner of a broken heart. Dean wouldn't look at Jamie, but he felt her studying the side of his face.
"Look," she said softly, her hand still against him. "I know how much you have on your shoulders." Dean let out an uncomfortable exhale through his nose. He told her things he didn't tell other people, and the past month there had been some pretty intense pillow talk. "But... that shit you said to your sister... that was severely fucked up."
Dean looked down and let out a soft laugh of air. "I know it was, okay? And that's... I guess that's why I said it," he confessed as much to himself as to her. He looked into her watchful ice-blue eyes, and he felt like he was already doomed to failure, so why try at all? He was past repair. "I can't control it, this, this anger, this fear, all this stuff eating me alive," he whispered. It was too big. He had no control, no sense of direction, no lasting peace anymore, no love for himself except in small, fleeting moments that didn't last. "I feel alone with it, you know?" And stupid for saying all this shit out loud, too.
"Yeah. I do know." Jamie took her hand off him and contemplated the forest around them for a minute before making eye contact again. "But you're not alone. Not like that." She offered over a bittersweet, understanding smile, and the things they'd shared in private, the deepening bond between them seemed to swell between the two of them for a moment. "I mean, I'm here, aren't I?"
He wanted to smile back. He wanted to nod. He wanted to tell her so much he kept hidden from her. But he felt the ticking clock, and his mood stayed dark. "Yeah. For now." Dean pushed himself up to stand and he walked a few steps off, miserable. "If there is one damn thing I excel at James, it's pushing away every last damn person I care about." It might be better to just remove himself from the equation, to just stop trying. "I don't know how not to."
Dean heard how she stood up behind him. "You're not the only fucked up person in the world, Dean."
He turned around and looked at her. "You're perfect, don't even try and say you're not," he said, halfway joking, halfway serious—because he knew she was inferring that she wasn't perfect either.
She shook her head with fond chagrin. "Now you're just trying to change the subject," she said nearly teasingly as she drifted closer. She was right.
"Maybe I am," Dean admitted. "Doesn't change what I said, though." Yeah, she had flaws. But she was so much better of a person than he was. And she was pretty close to perfect if you asked him. Pretty, smart, hilarious, badass Jamie who was no-nonsense and could hit like a linebacker but had a surprisingly gentle and sensitive side that he was learning about more and more. She cared deeply about things, she wasn't as jaded and cynical as she tried to act, he'd seen her cry and she'd let him wipe her tears away too. She was a tough cookie to crack because she had brick walls surrounding her heart... and so was he. And yet here they were, tiptoeing into deeper and deeper water together.
Jamie studied his face thoroughly for a moment, unaware of his thoughts on her. "You want my advice?" she asked. "As cliché as it is... one day at a time. What else can you do, you know?" She knew him well enough by now to understand the pressure he put on himself. And she spoke to that: "Don't hate yourself because you're just as human as the rest of us." A tenderness he'd never thought he would see was on her face, just for him. And it moved him, deeply.
"Why's a girl like you stick around a guy like me, anyway?" he asked softly, his eyes flickering around her face. He hoped for an honest answer, but he also didn't know if he could take it, either. They'd been through a good bit the past six months or so since the Leviathan thing had become an issue. When their relationship had finally crossed the threshold into physical, Dean had halfway expected things to get weird or for her to disappear. So when they'd forged ahead with an un-labelled thing that felt kind of like high school kids in love for the first time... Dean had let it happen, but not without a million questions or a lot of anxiety. He hadn't felt the way this girl made him feel in possibly ever. It was scary in a way. Scary and wonderful.
"The sex," she joked immediately. "I only want you for your body." He cracked a little grin and looked down, warming pleasantly and enjoying how they could go from being so serious to joshing around.
"Well, who could blame you there," Dean teased back, and their eyes met again with a mutual secretive, elated quality. One thing was for sure, they didn't have problems in that arena.
Even though they had both tried valiantly to resist each other, about a month ago Jamie and Dean had found themselves drunk after the Shojo hunt, in a karaoke bar, singing their hearts out to Tina Turner—then unexpectedly drawn into the most exhilarating first kiss of Dean's life. He'd finally known for sure she felt the same way he did—and man, did it go deep. Not long after, they hadn't even made it to the bed. Instead, they'd ended up together on the floor of a motel room as they frantically gave in to a year or more of mutual sexual tension. Dean would never forget that night or all the hijinks they got up to—how little sleep there'd been. The shift that had taken place between them on so many levels. Since, they hadn't really put a name to what they were doing, and Dean knew if he tried to broach that subject, Jamie would get scared off. So imagine his surprise when after a soft silence, Jamie dropped the joking tone and got vulnerable, came closer to him and looked into his eyes without a guard. "I don't believe in luck, but ever since you... I guess I sometimes wonder if I should," she whispered, inspiring a hopeful, soft feeling in Dean's chest.
His heart leapt. She had this way of saying things he could never forget. Of toeing the line of the unspoken truth hovering between them. "Me too," he returned in a murmur, closing the distance between them even as she was reaching up and grasping the back of his neck, kissing him softly, erasing all of his bad feelings, compelling him to become gentle. He put his arms around her and pulled her close as the kiss got deep, as mouths opened and softly searched the other. Any two people could kiss. Dean had kissed a lot of women. But there was something to kissing this one that was different. He wasn't sure what it was, but he could kiss her forever. He could kiss her and only her the rest of his life and be just fine. His hands started to wander a little of their own accord and Jamie withdrew a little and pressed her lips together as she looked down, trying to squash away a coy little smile.
"Hey!" Dean protested teasingly. "It just just getting good."
Jamie straightened his jacket for him, eyes flirting with him the entire time. "Listen mister, I'd love nothing more than make out with you all day, but I have a schedule to keep," she said in a put-on businesslike tone designed to make him laugh. He loved how she looked so carefree and slightly naughty after he'd kissed her. It was funny. A couple years ago if you'd told him he would be into a witch, he would have laughed in your face. Now... well, he had it bad.
"Ooh, a schedule, how fancy," he joked, tracing a finger down her cheek and then jawline and intending to say something goofy. But instead, the conviction of his feelings sobered him. "...damn I miss you," he confessed soft and earnest. Even if it had just been a few days, he did.
Her face fell slightly. Dean could quite literally see her thought process and predicted she was thinking something like 'you'll miss me a lot more when I'm dead.' He knew because she'd told him in so many words: she was terrified of him feeling too much for her because the day was coming when she'd die. Like she'd put it to him late one night as they had been tangled up breathlessly together, she didn't want anyone to feel the pain of her loss when she died, she didn't want to leave any broken hearts because hers had been so broken in the past. She wouldn't die, and Dean had told her that. As soon as this Leviathan thing was put to bed, Dean was of one mind: hunting down the demon Jake who had tricked Jamie. Then getting her the hell out of the deal she'd been coerced into.
Seeing Jamie get so visibly distressed at his confession, Dean's heart went out to her.
"Hey," he said softly, gently touching her along the jawline with his thumb and forefinger. "Come on now." He looked at her intently. "You remember what I promised?" Jamie's eyes hesitated to meet his. "I'm a man of my word," Dean said seriously. He'd told her point blank she wasn't going to die. Not on his watch. And he planned to follow through.
She visibly pushed her apprehensive feelings away and gave him a cute little smile—she ran a finger down his bicep and her eyes looked into his playfully. "Well, 'man of your word,'" she teased, "they seen your new tattoo yet?"
Typical, her changing the subject. That was his move. "Jesus Christ, no," he said, shaking his head in chagrin at the thought of the tattoo he'd managed to hide for the past month or so from Sam. That night they'd first been together, him and James had both gotten inked thanks to a very booze-addled game of truth or dare. A crooked grin pulled his mouth upwards. "Wouldn't mind seeing yours again though..." he said, tone becoming a little suggestive as his hand slid down over her ass and curved to touch her inner thigh from behind where he knew that little gem was permanently etched into perfect, soft skin...
Jamie was playfully indignant and shoved him away. "Dean." One of her eyebrows was a little higher than the other. "Priorities. Go apologize to your sister before I punch you in the face, too."
He nodded somberly, his playfulness fading. "You gonna stick around?"
Regret showed on her face. "Wish I could stay but I need to get back. Owen and company need me on this job. I shouldn't have even made this detour, but... you know." She hesitated to word herself. "Couldn't leave you hanging."
That thing between them—the ever-growing connection—seemed to reach into Dean and make his chest warm. "Yeah," he said. He would do the same for her, and they both knew it. Suddenly hit with a pang of longing so intense it was painful, Dean's voice got husky. "Seriously. When can I see you again?" he asked, wanting her so bad in that moment. "You're like the only sane thing I got going for me these days."
She looked like she totally understood and was very sad to have to leave at all. "Soon," she murmured, and closed the distance between them with a brief, soft kiss that didn't last long enough. "Sorry I can't stay."
Dean studied her with deep intensity. "That's just how it goes sometimes," he murmured back, leaning in and kissing her again, taking her into his arms as the overtly tender kiss burned them both in the best of ways.
Just when Dean tried to deepen the kiss, Jamie pushed him back, grinning. "Quit stalling," she said, but she didn't seem that concerned about him complying.
"Make me," he replied in a voice just over a whisper, kissing her again—she accepted the kiss with a little chuckle, one of her hands clenching into his hair as he kissed her so sweet and slow.
Then abruptly, she made a sound of frustration and regret and broke the kiss. "I have to go," she groaned, smacking him on the shoulder lightly even as she grinned through an expression of dissatisfaction. Dean just smiled at her with soft eyes and kiss-soft lips. She was something else. Jamie studied him for a couple seconds, her smile fading into a much more intense expression, then she went onto tiptoes, took his face in both hands, and softly kissed his cheek just beside where he'd been hit and the skin was broken. Her hands stayed on his face a couple seconds longer, thumbs stroking across his skin like he was special and meant something to her. Their eyes met, and for whatever reason, he reached up and grasped one of her wrists, his thumb brushing lightly against her hand as their eyes held. "I miss you too," she whispered so soft he could have misheard, then let go and gave him a businesslike nod and no chance to reply. "Now inside, bucko," she said, pointing at the cabin for effect. "Apologize. Make me proud." And then as goodbye, she smacked his ass like football players do.
Dean grinned as she jogged off and hurried up the little pathway back toward the front of the cabin. When she got to the top of the slight hill there, she turned back and gave him a dorky grin, made the phone symbol with her hands, mouthed 'call me', then was gone.
When she disappeared from sight, as usual, his lifted spirits began to come back down to earth and Dean looked at the cabin in dread. He was halfway tempted to just go after Jamie and try to escape the consequences of his actions. But that wasn't who he was.
He took in a huge breath and steeled himself, shut his eyes, breathed out, then made himself start walking back into the cabin.
If Alex never forgave him for what he'd said, he couldn't say he'd be surprised. But he hoped. He hoped so hard.