He had a plan. He had it all straight in his mind, knew exactly how all this was supposed to go down. Being in a hotel room at 3 o'clock in the morning fighting the urge to watch her as she changed out of her greasy clothes was not part of the plan.
She had gone on a hunt, a poltergeist a three hour ride from where she was staying. She had called Ash for some info, and not ten minutes later Ellen had been on the phone to Dean. It was a simple enough hunt but this was the first time in months that they had a lead on Jo's location. Dean had been there 22hours later, with a perfect plan in place.
Now here he was so far away from the plan he wasn't even sure what it had been anymore. He had convinced himself he had only got the one room because he wanted to save money. He refused to listen to the voice in his head saying it wasn't his money, he could spend as much as he wanted. Truth was he had been waiting for a lead on her almost as long as her mother had, now he had found her he didn't want to let her out of his sight. Even if she wasn't speaking to him.
She had been pissed when she arrived to the hunt to find Dean waiting for her. "What are you..? Ash. When I get my hands on that scrawny little…"
"Oh let it go, I'm here, get over it." He wasn't in the mood for her anger. He was annoyed that she would put herself in danger with so little regard for her own safety.
"I don't need your help Dean."
"Well you got it anyway. Now lets get this over with so I can hit the road." His plan, such as it was, involved her leaving with him but he wasn't about to tell her that part.
They destroyed the spirit in record time, and though he would never admit it Dean was quite impressed with her skill. That's when things got complicated. Somewhere in his mind he had locked away thoughts of Jo under the little sister heading, she was someone he needed to protect. Watching her hunt had changed that, he realised she was able to take care of herself. Knowing that she didn't need him made him want her in a way he had never expected.
It wasn't that he had never noticed she was attractive, he had eyes and more often than not he led with his downstairs brain. Maybe it was because they met when he was still dealing with his fathers death. There were moments back then when he had considered it, but he wasn't in the right frame of mind and so he had pushed it away. Now it was all coming back to him, she was no longer his surrogate sister, but a woman who he was sharing a room with. Alone.
It was probably a good thing that she was still not speaking to him. After what felt like an eternity she was finally changed, into the shortest nightgown he had ever seen. 'Oh great.' He said nothing, he too could play this game, instead he just climbed into his bed and switched on the tv. She glared at him in response but said nothing. He smirked.
After an hour of watching the television in stilted silence he couldn't take it anymore. "You know you're going to have to speak to me eventually."
"You reckon?" She paused, and then sighed, "I don't see why we have to be here, I would have been half way home by now."
"You're running on adrenaline, it's gonna wear off soon and you're gonna realise that being on the road at 4 o'clock in the morning is not a good idea. Being here stops us from driving into a tree, or another a car, it keeps us alive"
"Fine." She rolled over her back to him and pretended to be going to sleep.
"I don't see what your problem is. I came out here to give you a hand, what is so wrong with that?"
She sat back up angrily, "I thought you of all people understood." He stared at her blankly. "Why I need to do this. Alone. I need to be able to do this, make my father proud."
"I get that. I just don't think putting your life at risk would make him all that happy."
"It's what your dad wanted."
"That was different."
"Oh there you go with your chauvinistic cra.."
"That's not what I meant. God you're a case do you know that?" He took a deep breath. "When my mom died Sam was six months old, I was four. My dad took us on the road because it was the only thing he could do. Our mom was gone and he was pissed, because something had taken her from us and he didn't know how to raise us alone. Instead of dealing with that he went after the thing that took her. This is the only life we've ever known, and by the end it was the only life my dad knew. He wanted us to carry on because it's personal. I don't know a hunter who isn't doing this because it's personal."
The expression on her face had changed from the hardened glare she had been giving him all night to a gentle smile. "You're right, but it's personal for me too. A demon took my dad."
"Yeah but for you it's not about revenge. You want to make your dad proud, you can do that without risking your life."
"I'm good at this Dean, I'm still learning but I'm good. I just wish the people I care about would stop telling me I'm wrong to pursue this."
"You're not wrong but think about what you're risking. You've already stopped talking to your mom, if something were to happen to her you wouldn't even know. You have no home, no friends, and the biggie? This is a job where you are guaranteed to die young, with nothing to show for it."
"I'll have got rid of a few bad guys."
"You know that's not what I mean."
"I never wanted the white picket fence and the 2.4 children."
"Trust me I've come close more than once, when you're at deaths door you're going to wish you had the memories of your loved ones to take with you. Your mom doesn't want you to stop being who you are, but you're all she has left, she's just trying her best to make sure you don't just stop being."
She said nothing for a few moments as she thought over his words, he pretended to be watching the tv, all the time aware of every changing emotion radiating from her body. "I'm gonna go to sleep now." She said rolling back onto her side.
"Sure." Dean turned off the tv and rolled to his side facing her bed. Suddenly he wasn't very tired, instead he just watched over her bed.
Before long she revealed that she wasn't sleeping, turning over to face his bed she spoke softly. "Dean?"
"Yeah?" He spoke equally as softly.
"Why did you come out here?"
For a moment he thought over the question. He could tell her that her mom had asked him to come out and make sure that she was okay, but she would know that was a lie. "I wanted to make sure you were ok."
"You were checking up on me?"
"Something like that."
"But why?" There was a slight hint of something to her voice that he couldn't quite put a name to.
"We hadn't heard from you in a while, I just… I just needed to see you with my own eyes to know that you were safe." He had started to lose the ability to form coherent sentences. He prayed that she would cease her line of questioning and just go back to sleep.
Instead her next move surprised him. He heard her moving before he saw it in the dark motel room. Before he could tell what was happening she had started to climb into his bed. "What are you..?" Suddenly he was all too aware of the very short nightgown she was wearing. "I think maybe you should get back into your own bed." Even as he said it he had to fight the urge to reach out and touch her.
"Do you really find me that repulsive?" She sat up, her legs hanging over the side of the bed, her back to him.
He reached out to lay his hand at her side, "You know that's not true."
"You know ever since puberty I've been fighting off the advances of the dirty old men that drink at my mothers bar, figures the one guy I actually like…" She doesn't get to finish her sentence before she feels his lips on the back of her neck, the softness of his touch surprises her and for a moment she forgets herself. Finally she regains her senses, "Please don't take pity on me." She turns to face him as she says this.
The passion in her eyes makes him gasp, but as well as that there are tears. "I'm not going to give you some fancy speech about how I've wanted you for so long, you want romance you got the wrong brother. But this isn't pity. I don't know what it is, but it definitely isn't that." He reached out to touch her face, cupping her cheek in the palm of his hand, "I'm gonna kiss you now."
She smiles, "Quit wasting time and get on with it." They both laugh as their lips meet, but the humour is lost almost instantly. He would never be able to say what the emotion was that overcame him in that moment, but suddenly he didn't mind that things hadn't gone according to plan.