#agent!dean

Making it to her house in record time, he drove through the already-open gate. She had followed his instructions and called in the break in. Local PD was already on the premises and seeing the squad cars let him breathe easier.

“I’m safe.”

It was why he had chosen the job, after all. To keep people safe. It was also the reason he left. He got out of the car, remembering to take his keys with him as an afterthought and pushed through the open door.

He stopped mid stride when he saw her. It had been a long time, a decade, a lifetime. She wore jeans and an oversized flannel, her Pitbull rested protectively at her feet. Her hair laid wet and tangled, pushed behind her ears as she nodded, talking to an uniformed officer.

She looked up, her eyes meeting his in a moment that completely slowed time. “Dean,” she exhaled his name like a sigh of relief.

“Hi Sweetheart.”

The officer turned to look at him, surprised. “The FBI? Agent Winchester, I didn’t realize you’d be here…”

“Have you taken her statement?” The officer nodded to him, his eyes still wide in shock. “Then I’ll take it from here.”

The Officer stepped out of the way, making room for Dean to go to her. Y/N stood as he approached, her hands flexing at her side like she was actively trying not to reach for him. “You came.”

“I told you I would,” he said quietly.

“I can’t believe this is happening.” Her voice broke, her eyes filling with tears.

“Hey, I’ve got you. You’re safe.” He reached for her, capturing her by the waist before she collapsed. He held her steady, lowering her back onto the stool.

“Sorry,” she said breathlessly, holding her head. “Haven’t eaten today.”

Dean crouched slightly to meet her eyes, his hands on either side of her. “Show it to me, then I’ll take you to get something to eat.” He reached up to push a lock of damp hair behind her ear.

“I can’t leave Castiel here.”

“We will take him with us,” he promised, offering a supportive grin. “We will eat on the patio.”

“Okay.”

She took his extended arm and allowed him to support her weight as they walked down the hallway. He didn’t need her to show him where the painting was, he just followed the sounds of crime scene techs talking, photographs being snapped.

“Did you notice anything else out of place?”

“Just the painting.”

One of the officer’s was calling to the prison. It was impossible that he could’ve gotten out, but it didn’t mean that he didn’t have resources to plant the painting. If Dean was sure of anything, he was sure of that.

He felt Y/N tug at his arm at the entrance to the hallway, halting mid-step. He glanced at her. Her pupils were wide and her lips were parted, ragged breaths escaping. “I’ve got it from here,” he told her, his hand lingering on her arm for a beat before releasing her and leaving her standing next to her dog.

Dean made his way down the hallway, officers making room for him like he was Moses splitting the Red Sea. He walked until he saw it, the painting. He settled on her eyes in the painting, delicate, detailed, but expressionless. They were missing the light that made Y/N Y/N, but it captured her likeness well enough.

He’d seen them before, of course. The paintings were famous. He thought back to the twenty-three year old girl who blushed in embarrassment the first time she saw them hanging on a wall. Dean didn’t look at them for her body, he knew it didn’t belong to her. He looked at the painting with the eyes of a detective. It was a piece of the bigger puzzle, just another clue. He leaned in closer to the painting and took a large inhale through his nose. He closed his eyes, trying to hold back any kind of reaction. He knew she was still watching him. They all were.

“Tape off the house,” he instructed, looking back to the techs and officers. I want this entire place looked over. Leave no stone unturned. I mean it. I trust you’ll secure the space, and then leave it to us. My team will be taking over from here out. Johnson,” he said, turning to an officer that he recognized. “Call the FBI field office and let them know the details and that I said I'm taking the case.” His gaze turned from the officers to Y/N. “Let’s get you some clothes. I don’t think you’ll be sleeping here tonight.”

“You read my mind.”

****

They sat at a table on the patio of a coffee shop, Castiel sleeping at Y/N’s feet. She watched Dean blow on his coffee. He looked good if she was paying attention. His strong jaw was speckled with light hairs, his full lips were pursed, blowing on his coffee to cool it enough to drink. He held the mug in large calloused hands. His moss green eyes flickered to her, catching her staring, and she suddenly felt unbelievably vulnerable.

“So, you’re a PI, huh?” He asked, his voice rougher than she remembered it to be.

Y/N shook her head. “Not frequently.”

“Why not?”

She held her own mug between her hands, tapping the lip with her index finger. “There weren’t enough wins. I couldn’t save…” Her voice trailed off and she sighed. “Well, you know what it’s like. So I opened a self defense gym. Preventative measures instead of cleaning up the messes after the fact. I’ll take special cases, and I consult every now and then. They say I have a special eye for it.”

“I suspect you do.”

“What about you, Dean?” She looked back to him, through the steam on her cup. It was the transitional time in Massachusetts when the summer shifted to autumn, and the chill nipped at her ears. “Where have you been the last ten years?” She wasn’t meaning to sound so accusatory, but that’s how it came out - pointed and full of resentment.

Silence settled between them, heavy and pressured. He cleared his throat and placed his mug down. “After everything that happened I was approached to be a part of a tactical team with the military. I didn’t feel I could decline.” Her eyebrow shot up in surprise. “I joined the Marines. I’d always thought about it after high school, it’s what my father did… and after everything that happened... I needed a change.” She watched his fast twist in itself, his lips curl and his eyes drop back to his coffee. He felt guilty for being messed up. She wanted to reach out to him and take his hand in hers to comfort him for that.

“You still answered my call… on the line that you gave me that long ago. Your work line.”

“I never got rid of it.” His eyes flickered up as he gazed at her through long dark eyelashes.

“Why?”

He chuckled low and shook his head. “It sounds insane.”

“I’ve lived insane. Try me.”

“I worried that this would happen… that someday you’d call. Every time I went to cancel it, every year that went by, I just sat in my car in the parking lot and never went in to do it. Couldn’t risk it.”

“This was your case… the one that changed you.”

He grunted, leaning back in his chair. “You sound like you’re saying from experience.”

“Well, it changed me too,” she said with a mischievous grin. His thick eyebrows shot up in surprise. She unsettled people frequently, especially when they knew her past.

“Of course.”

“Are you still in the marines?”

“Once you become one, you’re always a jarhead.” He grinned at her, a dimple pressing into his cheek. “But no, I’ve been out for two years. I got pulled back into the Bureau. They wanted me, begged me to do it.” He sighed.

“You don’t want it?”

Dean’s eyes locked with hers. “It’s been a lot of paper work. Never much wanted a desk job.”

“You’re not at a desk now, agent,” she challenged.

He grinned at her. “When a beautiful woman calls me I’m duty bound to come to her.”

She smiled and peeled her eyes from his. The banter was flirty, light, but it was a Band-Aid taped over a wound that was too close to bursting. “I’m glad you answered,” Y/N said quietly, Castiel nudging her leg with his nose. “It was instinct to call you the second I saw the painting.”

A jolt ran through her as he took her hand in his. He squeezed it gently, cradling it with care. “Y/N…”

She pulled her hand out of his and wrapped it around her mug instead, sipping her coffee. “I can’t.”

“Of course.” He nodded with an understanding that felt unfair, unwarranted.

“Do you think it’s him?” She asked, almost blurting out the question that was sitting on her tongue from the moment she saw Dean again.

Dean sighed heavily and clasped his hands together. “I don’t see how it can be. He’s been in jail for a decade, Y/N.”

“Are you sure?” Her eyes stung as fear pressed insistently against her chest preventing her from taking a full, deep breath. She didn’t think it was possible to live this way anymore, she didn’t think she had to. It was like for the first time she’d thought she could breathe easily again, just to get the breath knocked out of her in one swift kick to her stomach.

“As sure as I can be, but not sure enough to not check into it. Never sure enough to not check into it.” He leaned forward, his green eyes intense. “I’ll figure this out. I can promise you that.”

“I don’t know who else would do this.”

“Has he contacted you?”

“Not in years. He gave up eventually when I wouldn’t take his calls or write him back.”

“He wrote to you?”

“Every day for the first year. He’d send me drawings…” She tightened her grip on her mug, her knuckles whitening as a chill seemed to crawl up her spine. “I stopped opening them after the first week.”

“Do you still have them?” Dean asked slowly, carefully.

Y/N was familiar with people walking on eggshells around her. It was no real surprise that Dean would do the same. He was cautious, calculated, a professional. She wetted her bottom lip with her tongue, a nervous habit to keep her from picking at the dry skin. He made her nervous. The situation made her skin itch beneath her clothes, heat rising up the back of her neck. “Yes. They’re locked in a drawer. I’ve thought about burning them a thousand times but I just…”

“Can’t bring yourself to?”

She nodded. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m punishing myself for not realizing. Or maybe it’s a reminder to never let it happen again.”

“I’d like to see them.”

She sat up a little straighter in her seat, her jaw tightening in an expression that she was sure resembled a grimace. “They’re personal.”

“I suspect they are.”

“What do you think you’ll learn from them?”

“I don’t know, which is why I need to examine them. I need you to trust me…”

“I trust you, Dean. I think you should know that by now.”

10 years ago

“It’s inappropriate, Agent Winchester! I gave you orders to wait. She needed to be evaluated, but you went in anyway and now… ” Captain McLeod was pissed, to put it mildly. Her nostrils flared and her eyebrows furrowed as she looked up at him. For such a small woman she was terrifying, and in any other circumstance he would’ve rolled over and played dead like she obviously wanted him to. But this wasn’t any circumstance.

“She's imprinted. I know that’s what the psychologist said. She trusts me. Only me.”

“You can't be her connection, Dean.”

“I have to be. We can’t take another thing from her. I can’t abandon her after everything she’s been through.”

“You aren’t trained in psychology,” she hissed.

“I’m taking pointers from the hospital psychologist. I‘ll take her lead. I’ll tread lightly. Come on, Rowena. This is the right thing and you know it.”

“She’s having a mental break,” his captain said, her voice low. She grasped his shoulder. “I don’t want you to get too attached to someone so unstable.”

He nodded, trying to keep his expression neutral, because if he was honest with himself he would have to admit that he was already attached. How could he not be? “I’ve got this. You can go, I’ll report on what I find.”

She looked at Dean suspiciously, but finally nodded with a sigh. She had no choice but to trust him, and that fact was to his advantage. He watched her leave, before quickly entering Y/N’s hospital room again.

The hospital room was bright, the blinds raised and the light bleeding in. She looked absolutely exhausted, deep purple half moons rested under her eyes. Her hair was freshly brushed, pushed behind her ears, and down. The monitors beep steadily, showing her heartbeat, blood pressure and a dozen other numbers that he couldn’t begin to decipher. The top of the bed was raised allowing her to sit up a bit, and her bandaged arms rested on her lap.

“Dean,” Y/N said breathlessly as her tired green eyes caught his. He could tell even from where he stood in the doorway that her eyes were more grey than green from her exhaustion.

“Hey, Sweetheart.”

“I thought you left.”

“I told you I wouldn’t.”

Her eyes flickered down to her hands where she picked at her nails. “I know you did.”

“I won’t leave you. You can trust me,” he promised, walking to her. He sat in the chair next to her and pulled it close to her bed. She looked so small and fragile in that bed. Seeing photographs of her before the incident was jarring, she looked like a completely different person.

“Okay,” Y/N said, her voice weak. She nodded and sucked in her breath.

“You can talk to me if you need to.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. Don’t feel pressured to talk.”

“You’re sending mixed signals, Agent.” She smiled then, it was weak but the spark in her eye wasn’t something he could ignore.

“Yeah, most of my dates say that.”

“Is this a date?” Her eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“What? No - of course not. I…”

It sounded better than he could’ve ever imagined, and fuck, he hadn’t expected it to come as soon as it did. She was laughing. “Relax, Agent.” She exhaled, trying to catch her breath. “I was kidding.”

“Sure, of course you were.” His back relaxed again. He felt tightly wound, stressed. He hadn’t been able to truly relax over the last twenty-four hours. Pressure was higher than ever and things hadn’t gotten much better. No one was convinced it was over, himself included. He would have to get some information out of Y/N eventually, but he wanted to tread lightly after all she had been through. Kindness was the least that she deserved.

“It’s over, Dean.” She looked like she was reassuring him. “Right?” Her eyes met him with fear and intensity behind the brave face she was putting up.

“I don’t want to upset you,” he said carefully.

“I’m already upset. Just spit it out already. You look like you’ve sat on a thumbtack.”

Dean wanted to laugh at her image of him, but there wasn’t much to laugh about. He hated this part of his job. Y/N had been smiling a moment before, she felt safe and that wasn’t something that should be squandered or minimalized. It was a big thing. After he told her what he had to say, she wouldn’t feel safe. Not really. “We think there may be more.” ------ Chapter Three Read on A03 Here Tag List:

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