Notes: Written for kinkbingo (a challenge for writing fics that incorporate various kinks).
This fic takes place in a post-apocalyptic AU from the storyline where the Harvelles are brought back but don't remember the last events of the "Abandon Hope" ep.
Fic:
It turned out that the Winchester boys didn't end the world as we know it. It was just the regular crap that did the species in.
Non-supernatural causes. That was the source of the semi-post-apocalyptic world, and hunters didn't quite know how to deal. They survived, sure. But that sense of purpose was off. Soon enough, there wasn't enough hiding room for evil, and everyone knew how to line with salt or strike with iron. And hunters were just people who had a little head start for living hardscrabble.
Dean and Sam arrived a few days after they heard about the Harvelle camp. They kept staring at Ellen like they couldn't believe she had survived. She tried not to be too annoyed about it. But she did tell them that if they could do it, them being idiots and all, they shouldn't be surprised that she and Jo could too. Their camp, in fact, had been prospering.
Well, prospering by society-fallen-apart standards anyhow. Jo had even set up a branch-off camp a day's travel north, where there was a patch of still arable land and plenty of people needing a little peace and stability. The Winchesters offered to help as much as they could.
So Ellen set them to work. There was plenty of it, and mostly new people she barely trusted doing it, so Dean and Sam were welcome. Sam adapted quickly, seemed grateful for the distraction.
But Dean. That boy wasn't the same, Ellen knew. He was always... well, he was a bit like his father, and a bit like her own husband. Always alert. But this was some other fixation now. Dean kept staring at people, like he was afraid they might vanish at any second. He stared at his brother like that sometimes. And that she understood, since she had some clue as to what they had been through.
But sometimes she would catch Dean staring at her. With intensity, with nervousness even. And she knew she should take it as a warning, that this boy is not as he should be. Because he stared at her as if he were astounded by her being there. But she wasn't about to make the kid feel unwelcome.
And she would rather not mention that finding herself under his constant eye was beginning to make her think of him as something other than a kid.
The first time she caught him looking in on her in her tent was a night when he had guard duty. He took the night guard a lot, saying he needed the time and the solitude to think. Another thing not like the old Dean, but she was glad to have someone she could count on, in case another camp tried a raid. But she woke up one night to two bright green eyes staring at her in her bed, and they looked frightened, hurt. Or maybe longing.
She couldn't tell.
She knew it would be easiest to just cuss him out. Instead she asked, "What do you keep staring at, boy?"
He shook his head, apologized, left. She wondered how often Dean's night shifts involved looking in on her.
She waited for that infamous temper of hers to boil up. It didn't, though; somehow, she felt something else. Some part of her, something low in her abdomen, stirred at the thought of Dean Winchester peeking in on her for weeks, sneaking looks. Gazing at her as if he just needed to see her and then everything would feel all right. She was reminded briefly of her husband, the way he would watch her get dressed, watch her put on her plain underwear and her practical unsexy bra, and she couldn't see why he stared so intently. Wasn't like he hadn't seen it all. And she didn't get it. But she knew that his watching, his inability to look away, meant something.
She really shouldn't be thinking of the kid like that, though. He was just... looking for something. Not her. Just... something.
Still, she was getting used to the weight of Dean's eyes.
It started when they had to make a supply run. Tools, toiletries, other things that require finding a former store that hadn't been totally gutted or ransacked. When they got word of a rural grocery store that had supplies left, they decided to send a small team to get it. Groups of gun-toting former civilians were guarding the edges of the town, thinking that they could prevent any large force from messing with their little patch of resources.
They had to spend the night sleeping outdoors at the halfway point to the town. There were only four of them, and they split into two pairs so they'd be harder to detect. Dean and Ellen found a little curve behind an old wall to sleep in, and it blocked enough of the sickly-pink night sky that it was almost like shelter. They - everyone these days - were long past the point of personal space, and they did their best to seem like there was nothing awkward about the two of them cramped into that little space. Ellen even convinced Dean that they were hidden enough to both get some sleep instead of taking turns on watch.
Dean agreed. He had been too agreeable lately, especially with her. But as she felt the warmth - no, the heat - of his body pressed up behind her, as she leaned her head back into a solid chest, as their breathing became soft and nearly synchronized she drifted off to sleep. She mumbled, "You get some sleep too, Dean," but she knew he wasn't going to keep watch as long as he could, despite what he supposedly agreed.
She woke before dawn, or at least half woke. There was a man behind her, his breath hot on his neck, just enough growl in his breath to qualify as a soft snore. She thought for a moment before she realized who and why and where. Then she was surprised. Because she thought Dean and the thought was comfortable. Safe, even as it was sort of exciting. Even the press of his erection, the feel of him underneath his jeans growing at the progression of what she imagined was a very explicit dream, didn't bother her. It reminded her of what it was like to sleep by someone so close that you barely even cared about the line separating you.
She was still barely conscious as she thought all these things, not nearly awake enough to feel guilty for thinking them. She rubbed her legs together and moaned and felt that flutter of excitement between her legs. Arousal always came quicker to her first thing in the morning, or else when she was woken in the middle of the night by a returning lover. Half asleep, her body seemed not to care about all the things she would think about in light of day. And even though Dean wasn't yet her lover - and where did that 'yet' come from - she could still feel his body around her and let its scent, its warmth, push her body into a drowsy bliss. It was a good night, when she could fall asleep knowing that she would probably orgasm before she woke, that her dreamworld would be full of satisfying things. And in this new time, this lonely time, this time without beds or certainties, she was surprised that she could still have such good nights.
When she woke up again, for real, she was happy that Dean was still asleep. Meant that he actually got a couple hours. She got up to scout the area while the sun was just starting to shine, and tactfully ignored the spot on the front of Dean's jeans.
They ignored it, whatever it was between them. That worked for a while.
Then Cas visited, just for an afternoon. He spent most of his time with Dean and Sam and they told everyone Cas was a visiting cousin. They didn't say why he was the only one in the room with clean clothes, or why he travelled with no weapons or food, or why he talked like he did, but apparently being a Winchester made you so strange that nobody bothered to ask or wonder.
He talked to her too. She poured him a glass of whiskey, and then another. She knew it was strange to enjoy the sight of him drinking as much as she did.
"Dean is much like you," Cas said, smiling.
"What's that now? Don't think I've ever heard that one."
"He enjoys seeing me do harmlessly corrupt things. He gets that same look when he suggests we view female nudity as you do when you pour another. Like there is something funny about me..."
"Being not like you?" she suggested.
"Precisely," he said, lips' corners upturned.
She poured again with a grin.
Eventually, of course, they talked about Dean.
"I think being here with you has made him much less broken," Cas said at one point. He sounded a little grateful, a little confused. She wanted to say jealous, but she wondered if having that thought was worse than wanting to see Cas drunk.
"Well, a lot of people like the camp. We got law and order, enough food to get by usually, and we didn't throw out human decency just because it's convenient like some folks did."
He stared at her, and she wanted to turn away from it for some reason. "Ellen, I believe it has healed Dean considerably to see you alive."
"What?"
"You died. He blamed himself."
She gaped.
"Your memory was erased when you were returned here. I assume you chose to return to your old lives, for a reward. I have no other explanation."
She stared. Okay, she woke up a year ago not remembering much and with some lost time - so did Jo. They figured it would be best to call it time lost in some unknown battle, and be happy they made it. They decided to just move on. And all this time the Winchesters knew exactly what happened.
"So Dean and Sam got us killed. That's why Dean keeps staring at me."
"No, I believe he stares at you in lust."
She frowned at him. He really wasn't learning this human communication thing any more, now that he had wings.
***
Later that night, when Dean came up to her to ask her about expanding the fenced area that stored his car, she punched him
He rubbed his jaw and said, sounding almost like the old Dean, "Damn, Ellen, if that's what you're into, that's cool, but give a guy some warning."
She glared. "I know that hunters fall sometimes. I can overlook you getting me killed. But you should have been more careful with Jo, you fucker."
He looked crushed for a second. "Cas spilled it, huh?"
She repeated, "Jo." It was a question for Dean and he knew it.
Dean winced but answered. "Jo went down as a badass hunter, fighting a mess of hounds. So did you, and you took them all with you. All of them. And we failed that day, but if we hadn't known what would fail, we never would have found what worked."
He waited then, to see if she would make him provide details, if she would claim her right to make him speak excruciating truth.
She didn't. She looked at him and tried to imagine what he saw when he looked at her. But she couldn't.
Her better sense said to walk away. But she just said, "Don't do it again, or I won't be so nice about it next time."
He smiled, and he didn't try to hide the shine in his eyes. He nodded slowly, "Yes, ma'am."
She went back to work then, and so did he. But things were different between them then. Dean wasn't so skittish, so ashamed, and when he looked at her, it wasn't just fear or guilt. It was relief, and maybe some devotion.
And since it was Dean it was also to get a good look at her ass. But since it was Ellen, he had the sense to look guilty when she caught him.
When he finally stopped looking at her like she'd disappear any second, when she finally stopped telling herself that it was hurt that made the kid look at her with that kind of hunger - when she finally stopped forcing herself to call him 'kid' and acknowledge the fact that he was a man, and one there wasn't anything wrong with wanting - that's when Dean chose to act like an idiot.
He had decided it was worth the risk to take the offense on some jackasses who were roaming the area, making trouble for the camps. Groups of young idiots, travelling in packs, in some fantasy or memory of what rebellion meant when there was a society to rebel against. Yeah, they should be dealt with. Non-lethally if at all possible, since they had so far just stolen and tore things down.
But he and Sam had recruited a few camp residents to set up a trap for them, and it had ended with the Winchester boys tied up and getting worked over, as the others ran back to get reinforcements, full of tales about how nobly the pair had gotten themselves captured to provide distraction for the others to escape.
Ellen grabbed her shotgun and called out some orders as she mobilized a team to retrieve the brothers. She told herself that they had better make it, those idiot boys. And when they did, she'd make them pay.
It turned out the roving thugs were mostly teens. Young, very dangerous, a couple of sadistic bastards among them who had too much fun whaling on the Winchesters, but mostly scared kids who didn't have any place to go. Ellen's team shot the leader in the arm and surrounded the rest quickly. It was an easy win, considering.
Turned out, the only reason they got the jump on the Winchesters is because there was a spirit. While the boys were taking care of the angry spirit, the kids had been thinking about how to take whatever supplies these well-fed looking boys had.
So the supernatural hadn't gone the way of civilization after all. Leave it to the Winchesters to find the first reported hunt in years.
Dean and Sam said that the kids might as well come back to the camp. But Ellen took one look at the bruises on their face and told the kids that if they ever showed up around here again, they'd get worse than a shot to the arm.
The kids left.
The team went back to the camp, Winchesters in tow.
Most of them seemed relieved at Ellen's decision. Even Sam.
Dean didn't. But good soldier that he was, he waited until they were in private to say, "What the fuck? We're in the business of abandoning people now? We're what - exiling those kids? Some of them were 16, 17 years old!"
"They tied you down and beat you, Dean! Sam too!"
"Yeah, luckily they can't throw a punch worth shit!"
"And what happens when they can? They repay your help with violence. They don't know how to be grateful. And you would have helped them if they asked, which means they don't know how to ask! And what kind of person ties someone down and hurts them just because they can, huh? You think I would let some sick fuck like that in my camp?"
"You already have!" Dean shouted.
She waited for an explanation. Instead she got Dean's face, distorted in pain.
"What are you talking about?" she yelled.
"In hell." He looked at her, daring her to say she didn't believe him.
He continued: "After ten years of getting it, I had the chance to dole some out. That's what I did. For decades."
She stared. Disbelief.
He grimaced, almost laughed. "Yeah, time's all sorts of jacked down there. Turns out, all those times you said a kid young as me should find a girl my own age... I'm twice as old as you, Ellen."
"Dean-"
"I know. Your camp, your rules. Kids had to leave. Just saying... if you want to get rid of all the sick fucks, let me know. I will leave and not look back." He looked at her, jaw set. What was he asking her, she wondered. For her to tell him it was all right, for her to comfort - or for her to punish, for her to push him away.
She just said, "Just don't go half-cocked on your own little Winchester missions. You know my history with men who take on jobs without enough backup. I deserve better than that from you." Her voice broke a little on the last part. She didn't know what else to say, didn't have any way to tell him I wish I could take your pain away, and maybe you wish you were dead, but I'm too selfish to let you go. Until she heard they were in danger, she hadn't even realized how much she needed Dean around, and now... all this.
But Dean took it. Good soldier, he nodded, grateful looking. He walked away, and she felt like she had no idea where he was retreating to, what roads his mind would wander.
She stared at the space in the door he walked out of. She stared so long she didn't notice Sam come up behind her.
"Ellen."
"Sam! Scare me twice in the same night?" she yelled, trying to pass off her anger as gentle scolding. She had already left one Winchester half-broken that night.
"Ellen, about tonight. Whatever Dean said, he's just being stubborn."
"That's not exactly how I would put it," she said, wondering if Dean would want Sam to know how broken he looked as he walked away. Actually, no, Ellen knew for a fact that Dean wouldn't her to tell Sam. But...
Sam just continued, "He didn't tell you about the message from Jo, did he?"
"Is she -"
"She's fine. Sent a message saying some kids visited their camp, and she was almost sure they were carrying a spirit with them in their truck. They were scared, but that didn't stop them from stealing a bunch of food and gas before they headed out. She said in a few days, after this round of planting, she would lead a team to track the kids down."
Ellen exhaled. "That's why you boys decided not to tell the rest of the camp. You wanted to do it yourself, so Jo wouldn't risk -"
"Right. Dean's always been protective of her," Sam said cagily.
She peered up at him, said, "I know. About what happened to me and Jo. About you boys blaming yourself."
Sam looked guilty, but also... relieved. "I'm sorry-"
"Knock it off. We didn't give up anything you boys didn't and more. And we have as much right to fight for the world as you two, so we should all move on."
Sam smiled at her, that big easy smile that made her see why he almost always got his way with Dean when he gave the puppy eyes.
She continued, "Look, I see why you'd want to move fast, make sure Jo doesn't need to do it. But she's my daughter. And in her -and my- camps, we make decisions about about going on missions as a group. I don't care how good your intentions are-"
"Next time, we take it to you first," Sam promised.
She hesitated, wanting to ask him something. Wanting to ask about those decades lost for Dean. But somehow she couldn't bring herself to mention something that happened because Dean wanted to bring back Sam. She didn't need to see both brothers' crushing guilt in the same night.
"Go find Dean," she said finally, "Make sure he knows, I'm not gonna kick you kids out just because you fucked up. That's like kicking you out for being you."
Sam grinned again. "You know, Dean hates it when you call him 'kid'."
"That so?"
"Yeah. I think my brother is actually really into you." Sam, gigantic, almost-evil, nobly-and-heroically-saved-everyone, Sam... looking at her with the bratty smile of a younger sibling ratting out the older.
"Maybe you should go now before I kick your sorry ass, Sammy," she snapped.
He grinned again. "That's exactly what he said, Ellen. You two really have a lot in common." He had the good sense to leave then, before she decided whether to smack him.
Dean avoided her for days. Even in the same room, avoided her gaze.
Until she showed up in his tent.
"Why the heck are your bags packed?"
He looked guilty. "I'm not going anywhere."
"Then why-"
"In case," he said. "In case you decide..."
She looked at him, his tough guy attitude he threw at her even as he admitted he spent the last two weeks wondering if she would tell him he's not good enough to stay.
"What I think about you, that hasn't changed," she said, edge in her voice. Like accusation, almost.
"Well, then you're not as smart as I thought, Ellen."
"Don't backtalk to me-"
"I'm not a kid, and I'm not going to let you act like what I told you is- it's not like whoops, I became the moral equivalent of a demon for 50 years, oh well."
"I know what you've done. The best days and the worst days, and the everyday shit you had to wade through to make it to those days."
"You have NO idea what my worst is!" he yelled, getting in her face. He was terrifying like this, this face that creatures and demons saw from him, this dangerous man.
She stood her ground. "I don't! But I know what your best is, I know what you've done to make up for your worst. And I know you, Dean, you're not as fucking mysterious as you think."
"Go to hell, Ellen," he said, bitter, falling back, choking on the words.
"I don't hate Sam for the things he's done," she said.
He rushed back into her face, "Sam MORE than made up for it with -"
"I KNOW! I know he made it right. I know that. And he knows, doesn't he, about what you did? I bet Bobby Singer knows too! Any of them think you're some kind of monster that can't be trusted?"
He stared at her then sat, on the floor, looking so much like a kid again she could barely stand it. "They should."
"And if someone said that about Sam?"
He looked at her in anger, and then unclenched his jaw. "I know what you're doing, Ellen. It's not the same."
"Because your guilt is so fucking special you can't let go of it."
"Fuck you, Ellen!"
"After all this, and you still can't let go of anything."
He sprang up, grabbed her by the arms, his strength holding her still even as they both seemed surprised that he was doing it.
"You don't know -"
"I don't care!" she yelled, cutting him off. "If I can help you, great, if not, you better fucking figure out how to help yourself, Dean, because I'm not having it! Do you hear me! I'm not having you acting like you don't see me, living with one foot out the door! I need you here, and don't you fucking dare think about leaving me because you can't get over something. With what I've had to get over-" She trailed off, and they stood there, his hands a vice around her shoulders, both of them red faced and breathing hard, rage and held back tears pulsing beneath their faces.
He peered into her eyes, discerning. Smart, she remembered. Beneath the macho crap and bad lines, he had always been smart.
He realized. And he let go of her arms and stepped back. "You remember," he said, not really a question.
"The night I found out. I dreamt about it. Me and Jo."
"I'm sorry," he said, and she wanted to reach out and hold him, tell him he wasn't allowed to break, if she wasn't then he wasn't.
"She went before I did," was what came from her lips, instead. Somehow it just escaped.
He nodded. Something flickered behind his eyes, more than guilt or sorrow. A memory. Of Sam, she was sure.
She finished, "Just a minute before I blew the hounds away, she... "
He swallowed. "I would give... anything... to make it so that minute never happened." That minute was worse than the dying, he didn't have to have her explain.
She looked at him. "She's back. So is Sam, and you and me. And maybe you can't let go of your past, but the only thing I can't let go of is people, and fuck you for trying to make me give you up." She said it calm, but her eyes were fired up with demand and need and hate and love and a thousand other things Dean understood well.
He nodded. "I'll unpack," he promised.
She nodded once, walked out. She didn't turn to let him see her start to tear up.
The next time they were in his tent was months later. Dean, another hunting job, another stupid risk, another narrow escape, another night wondering if the next Winchester mistake would be their last.
This time, Dean was closer to being himself. He gave her a cocky grin and told her that he would be more careful next time, but they got the thing and isn't that what really counted in the end?
She slapped him.
He kissed her.
He was too good a kisser for a kid his age. Ridiculously good, actually.
She actually had to catch her breath after. His smirk made her want to slap him again.
Instead she pushed him down, an open palm on his chest with enough force to send him back on the bed. He resisted for a second, out of reflex, then fell at the force of her anger onto the straw bale he used as a bed. Their eyes met, and there was more there than relief. There was need. There were secrets, hurts that others didn't know but the two of them did.
And there was waiting. Months and months of waiting for this moment.
She kissed him, the second time, and his hands came to her hips, moved up her waist. He moaned in her mouth, and it felt like she was lost in him, like he was everything fragile and everything solid all at once.
She pushed his shoulder down so he was lying flat on his back and he looked up at her, licking his lips. She straddled him and put her hands, strong grip, on his shoulders, and when he tried to lean up to kiss her again, her hands were firm. Holding him down.
"You stay there, boy," she said, and smiled. Because the "boy" was finally a joke, not a label.
He grinned. "Whatever you say."
"You stay with me, Dean. You don't so much as move an inch without my say so."
He looked up at her, eyes darkening. "I can do that," he said, voice wavering in anticipation.
"Undo your pants," she ordered, her hands still binding him to his makeshift bed.
He complied, and she felt how aroused he already was as his released prick brushed against her.
She ordered him to hold her hips as she slid down onto him. She was wet already, and she wasn't sure how, but she was, and his body in hers filled her, pushed inside her, large and straining and sweeter than she imagined even. And his face as she squeezed around him, she watched it, holding him down so he couldn't hide a thing, couldn't hide the blur of feelings that his features revealed. She looked and looked, she didn't even want to blink as she saw his visage change, as she saw pleasure and effort and utterly being lost, that moment of forgetting everything, who they were and how they had got here. It was slow and heated and full of moans and low grunts and raspy voices saying each other's names, and then it was a burst, a fast scorch of bliss. And then it was limbs entangled and a kiss that both would later deny initiating, and then just as they fell into a sleep they desperately needed, a murmur of "You stay where I put you, Dean. You don't go anywhere, you hear..."