Wayward Children
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Summary: A series of unrelated drabbles/one-shots – some interconnected - centred around Dean and Elena's sometimes-more-than friendly relationship.
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#1
Eye of the Storm
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"You gotta know there's worse out there than storms, right?" An exasperated Dean was at the end of his tether, a low murmured response smothered by pillows lost on his ears. "Right?"
Elena popped her head from out of the pillow, her glare meant to be frightening, but to a boy who'd seen far worse in the wide world beyond these four walls, it did nothing but amuse him. Her attempts at scaring him were half-hearted, at best, although she declared she was determined to find something that terrified him. He always replied smugly, "Yeah, good luck with that," which always evoked a violent response in return.
"Storms are scary, you dweeb," she declared. "You telling me the thought of being struck by lightning doesn't scare you?"
"Told you, kiddo, I don't scare easily. Neither does Sam. We're made of sterner stuff than what you are," he teased, tapping his chest with his fist as if to prove he was made of tough stuff.
"Ass," she spat.
"Ah, ah, ah... If your mom overhears you using that word, I won't be invited back. You got that? She thinks I'm a bad enough influence as it is."
"I don't care." She gave him a sly smile. "Does my mom scare you?"
"No."
"She so does."
He locked an arm around her neck, dragging her across her own bed before chucking her blankets on top of her, much to her surprise. She shrieked and wrestled them off of her, her lips twisted into this adorable pout he knew would just one day suck all the boys in, if her eyes which dripped with innocence didn't get them first.
Eight years were between them. She was teetering on the edge of thirteen, he was just into his twenty first year, which he'd naturally celebrate with a bar crawl as he and his father, and an ever growing Sam, continued to traipse up and down various states, hunting and killing things that went bump in the night – and more often than not, the things that didn't give any audible sign of their presence. He'd told Elena various bits and pieces, but he'd made them into stories, and she'd never taken them with anything but a pinch of salt – pun reluctantly intended.
"Women don't scare me," he declared, grabbing a scoop of her hair before wrestling it against her face.
"Jerk!" she muttered darkly.
Dean chuckled, biting back the knee jerk response that word triggered. That was an inside joke only he and his brother shared.
"Where are you off to next?" she sighed.
"I told you, 'Lena, I never get to choose. It's wherever the wind takes me."
"Why don't you ever get to choose?" she asked, her eyes widening a fraction, an alternative question bubbling there he would never get used to reading in her eyes.
What she always wanted to ask was why do you even put up with this life when it's abundantly clear you hate it?
He didn't hate this life at all; he hated what it brought out in him, the skills which would gain him no normal job should be careless enough to actually put them down on a resume. He hated the fact that Sam hated this life – always had – and it had never been clearer than these last few years, and it made him feel like he was forcibly dragging his brother along with his dad's plans, but what other option did he have? He needed his brother.
But the road trips, the constant uncertainty of his life, the adventure he lived every day, never knowing which day could be his last?
He loved that part of it. Elena was going to be completely different, he knew that for sure. She would meet a boy, go off to college, get married and have that whole white picket fence life he wanted for her.
Then again, she might have a different approach to her future altogether; Elena Gilbert had always been unpredictable like that. He just hoped wherever she ended up in life, it was where she wanted to be, not what someone else had dictated for her.
A loud rumble of thunder caused Elena to whimper, diving under the covers like she was a six year old. He smirked at her behaviour.
"You know, you're gonna have to get over your fears of thunderstorms sometime."
"Maybe so, but not today," she insisted haughtily. "I'm fine going another day hating th – WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?"
With a sudden movement, Dean had whipped the blanket off of her, grabbed her waist and had flung her over his shoulders before marching downstairs, past a sleepy looking Jeremy who'd come to see what the commotion was. He was greeted by a concerned looking Miranda Gilbert, who eyed the scene with a mixture of concern and wry amusement.
"Dean – "Miranda pinched the ridge of her nose. "Why are you manhandling my daughter?"
"An experiment, ma'am," he reported dutifully, grinning at her. He had always liked her, because despite her stern ways she was a good laugh. "I'm simply proving a point to your daughter. I'm just taking her outside."
"But it's raining."
"My demonstration depends on it."
Miranda sighed.
"Why do I even let you through my door? You're like the third child I never had."
"If you even consider adopting him, I'll move in with Caroline," Elena threatened, still perched on Dean's shoulder, her arms and legs flailing wildly, but it was nothing he couldn't handle.
"I'm a little old for adoption, kiddo," Dean laughed. "But appreciate the sentiment all the same."
"Is this really necessary?" Miranda directed this towards Dean, who visibly softened.
"It'll help her in the long run," he assured her.
She nodded her approval, and he strode towards the front door and launched it open, the rain lashing its way down, and he kept on walking until eventually he found a decent spot to plant a still struggling Elena on her feet.
"What was the point of that?" she yelled over the thunder.
"Can't go your whole life being afraid of something without knowing what it is you're really afraid of," he yelled back.
"What in God's name is that supposed to mean? Why do you talk in riddles all the time? It's SO annoying!"
"It means that you're probably not really afraid of thunderstorms. You're afraid of what they might do to you, which loosely translated means you're not so much scared of the danger, but what the danger can do."
"WHAT?" Elena didn't understand that one bit. "Are you secretly a psychologist or something, or are you just smoking something that makes every word out of your mouth sound insane?"
He grinned at her, the rain causing her hair to cling to her face, and the result equalled a girl he couldn't entirely take seriously because she looked so darn funny. Every time her hand pushed her hair out of her eyes, another would get caught on her hand and replace the bit she'd just pushed away.
"I used to be scared of thunderstorms too," he told her. "But my dad told me that to be scared of the natural is just absurd, so he took me out in one and told me we were going to wait it out."
"No offence, but your dad kinda scares me."
He smiled tightly at that. If you didn't know the guy well enough, of course he would scare you. John Winchester was intense, driven by a grief that had caused him to go to some very dark places – literal and figurative – to try and get some closure out of it all, and he'd dragged his sons with him. Dean could adapt to any situation, but he worried about Sam, but to express those concerns earned him a stern look that had him quickly backing down. Maybe that wasn't the way his dad should've been running things, but hell they were all alive and together weren't they? Most of the time anyway.
His dad made routine trips back to Mystic Falls, because he was interested in the history of the town, how even before the civil war it had attracted a spat of supernatural incidents that other hunters over the years had documented. Somehow in that time he was made a member of the Council, but given a minor role that allowed him to come and go as he pleased, which worked well given the fact his father only returned here once every six months, if they were that lucky. He'd made friends with some of the founding families here, including the Gilberts, and though some of their children were obnoxious – here he was thinking of that little punk Tyler Lockwood, the pampered son of the Mayor – he'd found himself connecting with Elena, whose first remark towards him had centred around one of his (many) scars, to which he'd created this elaborate tale, which had been half true just exaggerated to favour him more, which she'd snorted at, but been fascinated by all the same.
She was going to be a heartbreaker when she was older, and he'd known it the moment he'd first laid eyes on her. Dark hair that cascaded down her shoulders and felt like silk when you ran your hands through it, warm brown eyes that ensnared you at first glance, a slender body that curved in all the right places, she was definitely the definition of a beauty queen. But in his world, girls like her were the first ones demons possessed or killed, and so he aimed to keep her out of his world as much as possible by making the stories he told sound so unbelievable, that even if one slither of the truth ever escaped his lips, the implausibility of the rest would discard any nagging doubts she might had over the authenticity of the whole tale.
Now, in the pouring rain, he realised he was trying to imprint a lesson on her that his father had imprinted on his. Maybe he had to take a step back when it came to her, otherwise without realising it, he would drag her into his world, and there would be no telling how long she would survive. Maybe a day, maybe longer. The women in his world, when they weren't one night stands he hurried away before they could settle in his heart, tended to die, and he really couldn't afford that kind of pain in his life again. Having a blooming young woman, who was sometimes like a sister, other times like that kid your parents made you play with as a child even when you clearly didn't want, on the sidelines was both a blessing and a curse, in that he looked forward to the day when they pulled up in Mystic Falls and she was there, waiting for him with another tale regarding boy trouble falling off her lips, but at the same time knowing with a heart-wrenching certainty that they would come a day when some supernatural creature would use her against him in some shape or form.
A loud rumble of thunder chorused across the bruised skies, and his head instinctively turned towards Elena, but rather than appear frightened, she stood her ground, closing her eyes, her skin slightly pale but her expression one of determination. She was determined to endure, to survive, and as he glanced back at the house, he saw Miranda from the window, slightly bemused but otherwise wearing a smile that told him she knew what he was up to.
The hour couldn't have been more than eight in the evening, but the skies were almost pitch-black, save for the streaks of violet made visible by the lightning. The rain had slowed its pace, reduced to a fine drizzle.
"I'm surprised my mom let you drag me out here," Elena commented suddenly, taking him by surprise. "She doesn't trust me with anybody that she hasn't grown up with, or watched grow up." She smiled teasingly at him. "Maybe you're not as much of a bad influence as you say you are."
"I know how to turn on the charm when I need to," he replied, not really bragging because it was another skill he possessed, only his charm tended to be directed towards figures of authority to convince them of a false identity he and his father had concocted to avoid detection as they moved from city to city saving people, hunting things in the nature known as the family business.
"I'll say," Elena agreed, chuckling. "This isn't so bad you know... once you're in the thick of it."
She closed her eyes out of habit as a flash of lightning speared the night sky. Instinctively, he strode over to her, throwing a rough arm around her, nestling her against his side. He'd done this same trick with Sam; maybe it was just sheer instinct in general just to keep the people he cared about close to him, in case the next time he looked around they were gone.
They stood there for a few moments before his father suddenly surfaced, after having met with Grayson Gilbert to discuss something even Dean wasn't privy to. He recognised the look in his father's eyes to signal that they were off again, and he turned to Elena, her smile slowly fading.
"Not again," she sighed. "You know Caroline still thinks I've made you up, you know? You'll have to stick around one day to actually meet her."
He ruffled her damp hair with a soft chuckle.
"Being an imaginary friend to you kind of works. Why spoil the illusion?"
She shoved him roughly.
"Idiot," she grumbled.
"Gil-brat," he returned just as quickly.
And that was the way they said goodbye.
"Come along, Dean," his father said briskly, walking towards the parked Impala which always drew stares whenever they were here.
"You'll come back in six months?" Elena asked hopefully.
"Yep," he spoke, popping the 'p' humorously. "With any luck."
And he pulled her into a one arm hug before walking away, each goodbye becoming more and more painful for some strange reason.
Once every six months was the schedule he and his father had adopted in regards to coming back to Mystic Falls. Once he'd been nosing around Elena's room and realised she marked her calendar to prepare for his homecoming, or that's the way she saw it – why remind her that he had no home other than the open road and his dad's Impala? – and it oddly touched him, because no one else would bother going to such efforts for him.
A spate of possessions, however, followed by some troubling omens, meant that the next time he rolled into Mystic Falls would be just after her seventeenth birthday, when both their worlds would be changed forever.
A/n: I don't really know what the age gap between Dean and Elena would be, but I'd put it at about eight years. So yeah, whether this gets romantic or not is really up to my twisted mind, but I just adore exploring the potential between them. These one-shots may or may not be in order. I prefer to write them as I dream them up. I'll aim to post up one a week, but knowing me I'll end up posting another one today haha :D