Title: Tangled up in blue
Author: culturegeek76
Rating: T
Summary: angst, romance, Dean reflects on the women he has loved and left.
Warning: This post may use Canadian spellings.
Disclaimer: I am not in anyway affiliated with the show, the network, or the boys. Please don't sue. I have nothing.
Beta Thanks: Don't have a beta yet - but I am looking.
Author's Notes: Inspired by the FanFic100 Challenge, Number 15 – Blue and the Bob Dylan song of the same name. In fact, if you read the lyrics to the whole song, you'll see how I've woven it into Dean's life story. I know Dean can be a little bit of a jerk with the ladies, and I thought that the last stanza of the song especially explains that he's a little sweeter than we give him credit for.
Don't know how it all got started,
I don't know what they're doin' with their lives.
But me, I'm still on the road
Headin' for another joint
We always did feel the same,
We just saw it from a different point of view,
Tangled up in blue.
Bob Dylan
Dean awakens early and lies in bed. The sun shines through crack in the curtains, hinting at the beautiful day outside the door. He tucks his hands behind his head and wonders where they are – the women he has known. Do the look the same? Would he recognize them?
He thinks about some of the girls he dated in his teens, the ones whose parents disapproved from the moment they saw him. That Winchester boy, he's: too wild, bad news, trouble, different, no good for you. If it wasn't that, it was that he was unsupervised, that father of his was never around, poor boy with no mother, no one to watch out for him. So many judgments passed on him, from people who really knew nothing about him. The life he's led. The dues he's paid; the responsibility he's had.
He thinks about some of the women he saved from their situations. Bad relationships, abusive boyfriends, drunken fathers, ghosts. People see his actions as belligerent, but he is all about protecting people, saving them. He knows he can't save them all, but he certainly can try. He'll be the hero for a few moments, but it will always end. He'll have to move on; they'll find someone new, tiring of his distance. It's for the best.
He generally feels a twinge of sadness when he leaves, even if he is just slipping out of their front door in the darkness of night. He wonders what potential he was leaving. Even if he'd taken the time to ask, somehow he knows they both would agree there was no future. He thinks of the times either he or they had said they may cross paths again, but he doesn't' hold his breath. Not even for Cassie.
He thinks of the jobs he's done, the towns he's passed through. The gigs he'd taken to make ends meet, nothing that ever really interested him. He either leaves or gets fired, the axe falling, cutting him loose.
Night after night, week after week, a new face, new name, the story the same. He never really lets himself get close; not that he doesn't want to. He just thinks its better not to complicate things. He pictures his mother, thinks how much it hurt his father to lose her. He thinks about Jess, how crazy it made Sam to lose her. It confirms to him what he's suspected all along; any woman a Winchester loves is a woman at risk. He'd lost the most important things to him already; his mother, his brother, his father. He isn't about to lose his heart. Not completely. He does have a special place for each of the women he's met, a fondness, a happy memory, a smile, a laugh. There have been those he didn't want to let go of. Those he was sure could have been more… but at times like this, when he looks back; he realizes that he is not the same person. He'd have outgrown them, or vice versa.
He'd met most of them in bars, some at school, some on the job, but mostly in roadhouses off the highway. He'd stop in for a beer, and one face would stick out from the crowd. Often it felt like a spotlight shone down on her, and his heart would stop for one second. Dean Winchester, diehard romantic, he smiles sadly to himself.
He's never had to do the work though; they seek him out like a missile. Don't I know you; they smile, studying his face. His calm exterior never betrays the uneasiness he feels. I don't know how to love, how to give a woman what she really needs, he muses. I never really saw how a man treats a woman, how to love her, support her, be there for her.
He thinks about his mother, how beautiful she was. He wishes she could help him, knowing his father is in no position to offer any real advice. Women always find some reason to touch him, brush his arm, rub his back, or tie his shoelace.
He thinks about how it doesn't matter what city he's in, what colour her hair is, how old she is, when he gets to her place, it always unfolds the same way. They share some piece of themselves with him, finding some connection between them. They' express their relief that he's there, a little awed that he would be interested in them. He says little, choosing instead to draw them in for a kiss; saying everything he wants to say without words.
He thinks about the women he'd tried to make it work with. Ones where he'd stayed a few days, a few weeks. Sharing the warmth of their beds, the loneliness of their little apartments. He wishes it could feel like home, but it never does. Papa Winchester always ends up calling him back, sometimes as if he knows that Dean is getting close to feeling like he could do this, stay. After Cassie, the bottom fell out. He tried to freeze out the last flames of romance flickering in his soul. He'd tried to make it work, but it was too complicated.
He wonders to himself, if he really wanted it to happen. The only thing he knows how to do is keep on moving. He understands the lyrics to Freebird better than the man that wrote them.
He remembers the night the demon killed his mother, the night his father thrust Sammy into his arms for protection. He remembers most everything since that moment, but he will never know what really started it all. What sent the demon after them in the first place?
He wonders what those women are up to, what they are doing with their lives. Are they doctors, lawyers, mothers, wives? Do they think about him? Do they smile?
He rolls out of bed, pulls on a pair of jeans. Time to move on to the next job, next town, next joint. He looks at Sam, sleeping in the bed next to him. He knows his brother sees him as a relentless womanizer; an unfeeling sex machine. He knows that's not true, but it's easier than explaining the truth. He always feels something for the woman, as much as they feel for him, sometimes even more. He just knows that they'll never see it from the same point of view; to love them, he has to leave them. He believes that to be true.
He pulls on his shirt and silently slips out the door of the motel room. He looks up and sees the sky, an endless expanse of blue.