“Kids Today With Their Texting And Murder”

He talks of forever, of leaving his life and settling down somewhere in the woods by a stream. He wants to spend his days fishing and learning to finally play the guitar for real. He wants to stand in the sunshine and breathe deeply, close his eyes for once and not be worried about something attacking from the shadows. He wants to put down his blade, lock up his gun, put it all behind him. He talks of nights spent by a little fireplace wrapped in her arms, fighting for space beneath a handmade blanket while the wind howls against the old windows. He wants to wake to her sleeping face, to brush the hair back from her cheek and kiss her delicate eyelids. To wake her with love, not an alarm. He wants to take his time, ride out the rest of his life by her side.

She teases him that they’d be bored after a while, that a fantasy like that would never last, but he swears that it would. Says with her, he could never be bored, he’d never want for anything ever again as long as she was there. Her cheeks burn from smiling and she bites her lip to hold it all in, but that only makes him want to kiss her, and they roll under the sheets once more.

Every time with him is the same.

There’s a text, maybe a call if he’s desperate to hear her voice.

‘I’m nearby. Wanna buy me a drink?’

‘Passing through on Tuesday, you around?’

She’s always around it seems, life hitting pause when her phone rings. She would put aside the entire world just to see Dean Winchester walk through her front door. And she does.

It’s a Thursday the last time she sees him darken her front steps. The sky is a deep oily gray with lighter clouds than makes sense. It’s been raining on and off for hours and the midday sun is lost behind the airy cover, lighting the edges of the world but only enough so that he didn’t have to turn the headlights on.

She heard the car anyway, didn’t need to see the familiar sweep of light across her front windows.

She’s at the door before he’s even got the driver’s side door shut and she hears the creak of metal, wonders why he’s never oiled the hinges. Everything else about the car is perfect; from the sheen on the tires to the way the raindrops slick off the hood and slid down the windows in a race to the ground. She can close her eyes and smell the old, worn leather in her dreams. Something comforting and warm even on a chilly day like this. She can feel the springs in the backseat give as Dean lays her down. Remembers the feel of the felted roof beneath her fingertips, the cool chrome pressing into her back. So many nights spent driving out into the middle of nowhere and finding bliss in the backseat together.

Dean looks up as he closes the door and a smile tugs at his pink lips. Realization catches in her stomach and Y/N wonders if he’s ever looked happier. His hair is a bit longer than last time they met, his face a little fuller, features more relaxed. He looks good, content. She dares to think: happy.

Even in his lighter moments, there’s always a darkness in Dean’s eyes. Something nagging at his thoughts, some horror lurking that she can’t get near. She would, if he’d let her. She would dig down deep into his soul and scrape away all the pain, all the scarred bits of him until he could breathe again. But he keeps her just far enough away that it’s always a mystery to her. She knows of his life, of the things that lurk in the night, but he never lets it touch her. Not once has she feared for her life, never have the monsters of the world knocked at her door. She’s his secret. His lifeline to normal. His good dream.

But now, he smiles so easily it almost scares her. Her cheeks twitch and she bites her lip, watching as he gallops up the walkway and takes the steps two at a time until she’s in his arms.

He smells like tacos from the road and is so warm she melts right into him, her face in his chest, her arms sliding around to hold him close.

“Dean.”

She looks up and he beams down at her, green eyes fresh and clear, cheeks rosy with a grin.

“You gonna invite me in or we gonna do this out here?”

She laughs at his assumption and slaps his chest as she backs away. She turns to go inside, but he grabs her arm, spins her back to him. His big hand catches her cheek and his thumb curls beneath her chin, lifting her face gently. His kiss is familiar yet striking, wet and hungry. She breaths him in too deeply and stumbles when he lets her go, dizzy and so in love.

“Won’t you please come in, Mr. Winchester?” she teases, bowing her head to invite him inside.

He chuckles softly and takes her hand, fingers slipping in between hers so easily it’s like they’ve been there forever. He kicks the door shut behind him with one muddy boot and the rain is left to carry on without them.

She shoves the jacket from his shoulders, nips at the tip of his ear. He kicks his boots off, paws at her chest.

They stumble through the living room, desperate for the empty expanse of her bed while they strip the road from his back. Naked and shivering, they fall together onto the blankets with searching hands and warm, hungry lips.

He’s starving for her, but he takes his time. Slowly savoring every inch of delicate flesh, he drinks her in, tastes everything she has to give. Relentless, he doesn’t stop until she’s breathless and begging for him.

His name reaches Heaven, pushed like a prayer from her kiss-swollen lips.

When it’s done, they lay tangled in the sheets, fingers laced, hearts synced.

She stares, counting the flecks of gold in his gorgeous eyes, pondering the changes she feels in him.

“You’re starin’ right through me,” he says, blushing like a fool.

Y/N shakes her head gently and lays her hand on his cheek. The stubble sparks against her palm and she rubs her thumb across his cracked bottom lip.

“Not through you,” she answers honestly, “never through.”

He kisses the pad of her finger and smiles. “Hope you like whatcha see.”

“I do.” She leans in, fingers sliding back to scrape lightly over his scalp. “I really do…”

Their kisses are soft and lingering, lazy. Leading nowhere. There’s no urgency, no push to overtake the other. It’s just peace and love and wanting to be close.

Dean catches her in his big arms, closing his hug around her head and kissing her hair. She laughs against him, captured and terribly, wholly happy.

She can hear his heart beating, feel it ticking beneath her cheek. It’s steady and calm, so different from the hundred times before.

“What’s up with you?” she asks, her words slipping out before she thinks them.

He sighs, relaxed. “What do you mean? I’m good. I’m… really good.”

“That’s… kinda what I mean.” Pushing back, she looks up at him and lets her head rest on his bicep. “You just… You seem different. So happy. There’s no… I don’t know, you’ve always got this dark cloud over you and today… it’s gone.”

Dean’s smile falls but it’s not for sadness. His lips pucker and smooth out, the dimples pop above his lip as he thinks about her words and how to answer. Thick lashes distract her for a moment as they flutter over a constellation of freckles and his deep whisper almost makes her jump.

“Something happened, Y/N. I’m still not sure if it was good, but I think it was. I really do. And… things are different now. There’s… hope. I have hope for the first time. I can see a future for me… for-” He takes a breath and brushes his fingertips across her cheek. “-for us, maybe. A real future. Not random hookups every few months. I mean… a real, honest life together.”

Shock washes over her and bubbles up into tiny laugh. She swallows it down and stares at him, her eyes flickering between his, in awe and surprised.

“Dean, I-”

Suddenly shy, he pulls his hand away, but she grabs it, puts it back against her cheek.

His voice cracks. “I didn’t mean to just assume-”

She kisses his palm. “Dean… I have never wanted anything more than to be with you. I hope you know that.”

The smile that spreads across his face is true and stunning and Y/N can’t help but trace it with her fingertips.

“You are so beautiful, Dean.” Her eyes float across his lips, his crooked nose, the deep seated crease between his eyes. “If you are happy, so am I. I mean that. And if… whatever happened has opened something up for you to be able to be with me… then- I mean- of course, I’m yours, Dean. Of course I am. I always have been.”

He crushes her like he’s afraid she’ll disappear, breathes her in as if she’s the only air in the room.

When the moment settles, he tells her everything. He talks of God and how they defeated the biggest evil in every universe. Of Jack saving them, bringing the world back and setting everything right. Wipes away tears when he tells her about Castiel and how he gave up his soul to save him. He smiles, amazed at how he and Sam finally broke away from fate and their horrid lives. He talks about feeling free for the first time in his life and how he’s thought of nothing else but being with her, of running away and starting their life together.

Y/N clings to him, listening with all of her being. She’s confused but grateful that he’s opening up, nervous to hear some parts, but happy that it all ended well.

Silence holds them close as they drift off to sleep, promises made and minds at ease.

He’s going to take her away for a while, somewhere with sand and sun and little rum drinks with neon umbrellas shoved in their tops. He wants to rub sunblock on her shoulders and run through the waves, feel the world around him, feel alive and safe.

He just has a few things to finish up back home.

One more hunt.

Then he’s out for good.

It should be easy, he says as he kisses her forehead and squeezes her hand. “More like one last road trip with my brother, really. Do what we do best, ya know?”

“Do you have to?” she asks, sad to see him go. “You could just text him. Doesn’t have to be such a dramatic farewell.”

He laughs and sucks his tongue against his front teeth. “Nah. Sammy deserves more than a text. Besides, I want to tell him all about you and that’ll take a while. And I gotta pack up my room, give the car a tune up and then-” He reaches down and wraps an arm around her back, tugging her close. “Then it’s you and me and clear blue waters, baby.”

He grins and she pushes up on her toes, sealing it all with a kiss.

She watches from the door until the brake lights are faded, until the glint from the chrome doesn’t catch her gaze anymore.

Days pass without a word.

There’s no answer when she calls, no reply to a text, nothing.

Worry stirs in her gut and Y/N spends the third night pacing her livingroom, running a trench into the hardwood with her barefeet. There’s an aching fear deep inside and she jumps whenever headlights strike her window.

It’s never him.

Panic wraps itself around her and she grips the phone, calling every number she has for him, listening to every voicemail intro like they’re ripping her soul open.

“Dean, please- whatever is going on, just call me. Please. I just need to know that you’re alright.”

It’s two in the morning when the line picks up. Her heart stops midbeat and pain webs across her chest. She takes a breath and presses the phone to her ear.

“Dean?”

She’s near to fainting waiting to hear his voice, but it’s not Dean who answers.

He clears his voice, takes a breath. “Uh- No, it’s… This is Sam.”

“Sam.” She says his name and her hands start to shake so badly it’s hard to hold the phone. “Um… Hi. I don’t know if you know who I am, I don’t know if Dean ever- well… My name’s Y/N. Dean was- We were-”

Sam exhales quickly and she can hear the tears on his breath. “I know who you are. He… Dean told me about you.”

“Oh. Good.”

This is wrong, she thinks. Something’s wrong.

She closes her eyes, blocking everything but the white noise in the background and Sam’s heavy breath. “Is he there?”

The pause is painful. She holds her breath, ready to scream, to run, to collapse in on herself.

“Sam?”

She can hear his hard swallow, a swipe of fabric across a wet cheek.

She can’t stand it.

“Is he dead?” she whispers. Her eyes are flooded already, jaw clenched so tightly against her trembling that her teeth ache. “Sam-”

“He’s… He’s gone.”

She can feel herself falling, takes the crash of her knees into the floor like it’s nothing. Her limbs go numb, her eyes blur.

She doesn’t want to ask but she has to know, has to understand.

“What happened?”

Sam’s voice is so low she has to strain to hear him.

“It was… it was so stupid. We, uh- It was just a milk run.” He hangs there for a long moment as memory washes over him. “I tried. I wanted to get him to the hospital but it was too late. I couldn’t- I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t save him.” He trailed off, losing against his tears. “I’m so sorry.”

She wasn’t sure how long she’d laid there on the floor but it felt like forever. Her back was aching, body craving water after shedding so many tears.

She crawled to the bedroom, struggled up onto the bed and hid her face in his pillow. He always took the left side when he was there, always nuzzled deep into the down, said he loved her pillows.

The sheets still smelled like him and she pushed her face into them, wondering how long it would be before his scent left her for good. She clawed at the pillow, crushed it to her face, wanting to suffocate, die with him on her last breath.

“Dean…”

It’s the strangest thing. The sand is soft and yielding but rough between her toes. It’s hot too, like the sun has penetrated every tiny grain with heat and its pushing into her with each step.

It feels good.

She walks along the beach, skirting the waves as they breach the shore and threaten to overtake her. She stares out into the waves, squints at the sun. She sees the ocean for the first time and thinks of him. Of how tanned his face would be under the tropical sun, of how silly he’d look slathering lotion on his nose when he started to burn. She dreams about watching the sunset over the water, their asses sinking into the damp sand, the breeze tickling their cheeks.

Her heart aches for him but the tears never come anymore. She hugs her arms over her chest and closes her eyes, imagining his warmth, his love. If she tries really hard, she can feel his lips on her cheek, his firm chest pressing into her back, holding her close.

In some small way, he’s always with her.

And she holds onto that until the day she can see him again.

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