Disclaimer: I don't own anything or anyone affiliated with Supernatural.
Triggers: For mentions of abuse.
…
Missy Bender didn't understand a lot of things that the upstanding people from town would. She didn't understand the way they walked, talked, or smelled. They were always so clean and they had arrogance in the way they carried themselves.
Some were good-looking, some were average, and absolutely no one looked like this man that is tied to one of their old chairs in their living room at the moment.
When she first caught him snooping around, he looked caught, then when he caught sight of her, really caught sight, there was something in his eyes that lit so quick, that told her that he felt sorry for her.
She hated being pitied.
"Don't worry, I'm not gonna hurt you," he said. As if reassuring her would keep him safe.
She pitied him.
She told him, "I know."
She didn't respect his kindness, because Daddy always said that kindness is a weakness.
Stupid pretty man, so weak and just the right flavor of optimistic. Just the kind of thing Daddy thought fun to make hurt and cry.
Despite her need to make her daddy proud, she didn't want to out the man to him. She didn't want to see anyone hurt, and especially not this one. But she acted as a good little girl for her daddy, because if he found out that she let the man with grass green eyes go, she'd be the one to hurt and cry later.
Daddy knew exactly how to hurt his little Missy where it hurts. He would take away her little pretties that she held so dear to her; the ones he would either buy or steal from town for her on occasion when she was a real good girl and cooperated.
Daddy would bring things home for her because when she finally started to develop a more mature body he wouldn't take her into town anymore. "Ain't gonna tolerate nobody ogling you," he'd say.
Whenever her daddy and brothers would go into town to buy things, to store up things; things like food, batteries for flashlights, rope, and things of the like, her daddy would try to bring home things that she might like; like a pretty necklace or stuffed animal. She begged him for makeup and perfume, or maybe a magazine, but to no avail. "Ain't havin' any daughter of mine lookin' or smellin' like a little tramp," he'd say.
Whenever she used to have the luxury of going into town with her family, she would search the isle in the stores that held all of the magazines that she calls 'pretty people pages' that she enjoyed reading so much; about the famous people that the normals usually got to watch on the box that had people's faces and people talking, but her family doesn't have one of those fancy boxes. Her daddy sure as heck doesn't allow her to read magazines anymore. He said that he didn't want her pretty little head filling up with big ideas of running away and becoming like all the rest of the foul/depraved normals out there.
She wears her mamma's old hand me downs, and only a few things that her daddy takes off of the dead bodies of some of the women they have hunted. Those things have to be approved from her father though, which hardly ever happens. She has managed to steal a few things off of the women they have hunted, which looked to be close to her size. Daddy doesn't mind her stealing those so much. Whatever hid her away, she figured.
She had never had any official schooling. Her folks taught her the basics… reading, writing, and some basic math. She was a fast learner but her folks couldn't teach her anything more because they themselves didn't know anything more.
"Missy, you watch him now!" her daddy barks at her, leaving her alone with this beautiful man who is screaming threats at them at the moment, swearing to kill them all. He's fit to be tied, and it makes her want to laugh. She doesn't though, it's important to make her daddy proud.
There has always been a need for her Daddy's approval. Whenever she can make him happy, he will pet her hair and pay her a compliment. She's starved for attention because all her daddy and brothers ever thought about was the hunting they were doing on all of the people they could capture.
Her daddy never did let her hunt. He said that it was a man's sport and she was left with all of the chores. Despite how filthy they always seemed to live, their house wasn't really that bad looking. What they held inside is what would scare off the upstanding folk of society.
Just like this pretty, pretty man with a boyish face that they had captured. Upstanding folk he is, with a hint of something dangerous, almost like her kin, yet something better. It's the good of people that she can smell, and he reeks of it. It's a foreboding feeling, one she has to shake off, because if this man is capable of doing what she fears he is, her family won't outlive it.
He makes her curious, even if he had delicate looking freckles across his nose and sparkly green eyes, no one had ever got away from her folks so well that they went moseying about inside the house before. But he did, and he startled her whenever she came up on him. He had stealth like one of those wild panthers that she can hear screaming from the woods at night; she'd give him that. She never even heard his footsteps.
Missy feels just a tad of respect for such a powerful person, just as she would a prowling wolf or a belly crawling serpent.
Something about him makes her angry though, just as angry as all the other normals in town do.
No one lived like her and her kin. No one looked like them, acted like them, and she envied people that knew how to be normal. And despite whatever it is that makes this one different, he's clean shaven and underneath the stench of his sweat, she smells his spicy smelling cologne. Just from that alone, they're standing on different ends of what's considered good and what's considered trash.
Whenever she would have to polish the bone-carved furniture or clean up the blood that her family would track in the house after a messy hunt, there would be a strange feeling of sadness aching inside her. She wasn't like other people. But she wasn't stupid either. If her mama were still alive she would not agree to the way that her father and brothers spend their days, living off the pleasure of hunting humans. That's probably why her ma ain't around anymore. She would give anything to have her mamma back.
Sometimes after she gets out of the shower and she's all fresh and clean, she looks into her mirror with the tarnished edges to study herself. She tries her hardest to smile like a normal, brush her hair like a normal. She even has some of her mother's old makeup that she has kept hidden in an old shoebox and under a broken floorboard in her closet. She takes the makeup out when she's sure that no one will barge in on her and she paints her eyes, lips, and cheeks.
She tries her best to make her self look normal, and maybe a little like the people in the magazines. But there are always her surroundings that don't match with her doll like face. Those surroundings serve as a reminder of who she is and who she always will be; trash.
She knows the drill. After she watches her father and her brothers leave to go kill the cop that this man came with and his so called brother, Missy turns around to face him, walks to stand over him and points her knife to his eye.
He's squirming at the close proximity of the blade. He's extremely uncomfortable and what he doesn't know is… so is she.
She has always watched people with strange glares but she was never really cut out to hurt them. She was never cut out to hurt people, period. She has numbed herself over the years of having to deal with the fact that her brothers and father do it, but she couldn't bring herself to actually hurt someone for fun if her life depended on it.
She hates this man for dressing so much better and smelling so much sweeter. She catches the smell of his sweat again and for unknown reasons, she doesn't hate it. She doesn't hate how tight his jeans look on his muscular legs either.
"Little girl… will you please just put that knife away before you trip and fall accidentally plunging that thing into my freakin' eye?" he asks as calmly as possibly, but the shakiness in his voice lets her know he's terribly perturbed.
"I'm not a little girl!" she snaps at him angrily getting even closer with the blade.
He looks at her like she's even crazier than he originally thought, and if he could read her mind, he would know that it hurts her when people look at her in that way, like he's been doing. The look that says, you're crazy, you're dirty, and there is something seriously wrong with you.
It makes her want to scream at him to tell him that she isn't like the rest of her family… that she's better, but she almost feels guilty for feeling that way.
"Don't look at me like that, and don't call me little girl! I'm fifteen and a half," she hisses as she turns around angrily and sits in the chair seated in front of him, and begins to pout.
She hates this beautiful man. He's just like all the rest.
Dean gives the girl a once over and decides for a fifteen year old that she's extremely malnourished. She's way too small for her age, bony even. And he now notices something that he didn't noticed before, bruises. There are purple fingerprint shaped bruises on her neck and he swallows a lump of dread. He skims his eyes to the obvious places to look for signs of abuse, and sure enough, indeed the bruises are on her wrists too.
The places on this girl's body that she's bruised, tells him things he wishes he wasn't smart enough to figure out. Things he really wished wouldn't be the case whenever he thought to himself that he's in a hillbilly horror movie gone wrong.
She didn't quite catch him finding her bruises so she didn't understand why he suddenly slouched and grimaced. Her bruises are but a permanent garment worn and not thought about, just like the grime underneath her nails, and dirt on her skin. She did however, see the look in his eyes darken; his beautiful green orbs took on a dull and contemplative look and he was no doubt searching for something as he looked at her. And suddenly she sees his look soften.
She hates, hates, hates him more than she's hated anyone or anything. For the only time she's ever encountered such a look is from this one's brother. It goes beyond pity, it's a look of compassion.
Dean wonders why people would hurt children. Demons he gets, but humans are just crazy is what he says, but that comment is now taking on a whole different meaning.
Children are innocent, and as far as Dean is concerned, if anyone has the nerve to mess with a child's innocence, they deserve to die whether they are demon possessed or not. He gulps down a lump of sadness, and blinks away his fury for this small girl.
He knows that if he doesn't get his mind back on track that anything could happen. He needs to focus on how to get himself, his brother, and the cop out of this situation. And he doesn't want to even conceive of it, but with a resigned sort of acceptance, he knows he can't leave a child here under these circumstances; crazy or not. Saving people, hunting things, the family business. Yeah, thanks for that, Dad, he thinks. John Winchester never came across this crazy haired child that's holding a knife.
He looks back up to her and she's playing with her knife as he's trying to wrap his mind around a teenager holding him hostage like this. It's not doing much for his ego.
"I had to do it, you know," she says so quietly that it takes him a moment to realize that she actually said anything.
He gives her a sideways grin that doesn't reach his eyes and decides to keep her mind busy by humoring her. "You had to do what?" he asks sarcastically while trying to wiggle his wrists out of the tight knot that the crazies have tied around his wrists.
"I had to call Daddy in here. Y'know… let him know that you were in'ere," she confesses.
She's not sure why she wants his forgiveness.
Dean looks at her taken aback. "I'm tied to a chair and you're watching me with a knife in your hands and you're trying to alleviate your guilt, sweetheart?" he asks incredulously with sarcasm dripping from his voice.
Blush spreads across her face at hearing him call her sweetheart. She's too socially backwards to realize that he's mocking her.
"What does ah-leeve-ee-ate mean?" she asks shyly without making eye contact with him. It makes him laugh insanely to see her trying to change the subject, because it's something he would do. It's all too twisted to him to realize that he has anything in common with a anyone in this family.
"You mean alleviate? What it all boils down to is that you are trying to make yourself feel better by saying that you had to call your daddy in here. You just don't want to feel guilty about it," he says with disgust that makes her hate herself.
Something dawns on him as he tells her that… he realizes if she is trying to alleviate her guilt, that this actually means that this girl has a conscience.
He's now trying to think of the best way to play off of her conscience to get her to untie him and if he plays his cards right, he can get her to give him that knife of her's too.
"Missy… that's a very pretty name. Is it short for something?"
Her eyes pop open. "It's just a name, s'nothing special 'bout it," she answers in a melancholy tone and Dean's eyes widen.
"Aww come on, Missy, don't be that way," he says slowly trying not to act too amused at how she blushes as he tries to get on her good side.
"I don't remember," she answers not wanting to get into trouble with her daddy.
"Oh come on Missy, you can tell me, I won't tell anybody," he says in a tone that definitely says that he's trying too hard to win her over. However, all she can see is his charm laced into his smile and soft green eyes.
She's been taught to believe no one, trust no one, but the man is just so pretty. She wants to talk to him. She wants to trust him.
"M'names short for Melissa," she confesses.
"Well, Melissa… that's a very pretty name, and it's nice to meet you… my name is Dean. Why did your daddy name you that?" he asks.
"He didn't, my mamma did," she trails off sadly and suddenly Dean realizes that he hasn't seen a mother or a wife around here anywhere. And he finds himself feeling something that you should never feel for a person that is holding you hostage… curiosity. You're not supposed to question, you're just supposed to do what's been taught. Get the job done and get out.
He's curious to know exactly how a family ends up this way. He wants to know why fate hands such a cruel hand to a little girl. And he's thinking Sam must be somewhere close because he's obviously channeling his little over emotional and caring little brother.
He feels so bad for the girl though, this girl with dirty skin and oily hair that's sitting in front of him. If he knows women, he knows that this girl doesn't choose bad hygiene. And judging from the way that she asked him what 'alleviate' meant, she would choose to be smart instead of ignorant.
If he were reading her right, this girl would leave this place for something better, if given the chance. But he shakes his head to rid the notion that this girl would choose to leave her family, the only life she's ever known. Because even if she is being abused, abused children usually end up so brainwashed by their family that they would do anything to protect them and love them come hell or high water, doesn't matter at all that the family is hurting them.
But he lets out a long sigh… he knows his conscience won't let him walk out of here without trying.
"Missy? Can I ask you something?" he asks as softly as his voice can go and she stares at him cautiously.
"Do you agree with what your family does? You know, the whole hunting humans thing?" he says so nonchalantly that it's almost like he's casting a joke. Sam would say that with Dean it's hard to tell.
Missy bites her lip to think of a careful answer and she looks around to make sure no one is around and when she sees that the coast is clear, she finally decides to answer with a silent, but slow shake of her head indicating that she doesn't agree with her so called family. She couldn't say the words out loud, no telling where Pa is hiding.
Dean lets out a long deep sigh out of relief. This is good. This is a good thing.
"Okay Missy, do you want your daddy and brothers to kill me?" he asks her softly in hopes to keep her soft towards him.
She doesn't respond. She knows this one's trouble and only trying to sweet talk her; has been the whole time.
"Well Missy, if you don't untie me and let me go then they will kill me. And when they kill me, I won't be here anymore. I'll be gone forever. Will you be okay with the fact that I'm not walking, talking, and breathing anymore?" he says straight into her eyes. As far as she's concerned she could kill him herself. If he don't stop reaching into her heart where it hurts, she just might.
Dean sees her think about it, and to Dean it already feels like a win.
Missy always wondered where the souls ended up when they were killed out in the woods. She imagines them quite often walking, haunting those lonely woods, unable to break free, just as lonely as she. For an inhuman moment, Missy considers that if she lets her family kill this man that his soul just might stay in their woods near her forever.
She really doesn't want him to leave, but Missy thinks of how it would feel knowing that this Dean won't be as he is now if she tries to keep him and he runs into those woods and never comes back out. And it would be a crying shame too, because Missy is pretty sure that Dean is the most beautiful things she's ever seen.
Missy stands up, knife in hand, and Dean's hearts sinks.
And just about the time he has given up on the girl, she comes around and cuts the rope that his hands are tied with and frees him to go.
"Good girl!" he gushes all too happy to have at least something go right today.
As soon as he's free, he stands up quickly, wasting no time. He looks around them to make sure no one is around lurking, and he listens for a moment to make sure no one is coming. As soon as he sees that he can speak freely he places his hands onto her shoulders, which causes her big brown eyes to widen as big as saucers.
"Now Missy, you're just going to have to trust me," he tells her, which causes her to try and take a distrustful step back, but the death grip Dean has on her keeps her from being able to budge, and just about the time she thinks to raise her knife, Dean moves in such a way that she doesn't see it coming and she hits the floor unconscious.
8 years later…
"Missy?"
A woman in boots, jeans, and an off the shoulder top turns around gracefully, causing her large hoop earrings to brush against her wavy locks. The only prospects in the bar were too old, too young, and too much burly-man. He thought she pulled a no-show until he saw one woman at the diner bar sipping something like tea. He couldn't tell much from behind but it was the last shot. Now he has no doubt who's facing him.
"I don't go by that name anymore," she informs the man that hasn't changed a bit since the day they rescued each other.
Dean's normal self assured self snaps back into place, along with the cocky grin that lights up his face.
"My mistake. Melissa, right?"
She squints her eyes. He knows good and well who she is.
"Want to have a seat?" he asks jerking his head, gesturing over to one of the booth tables back in the back of the diner.
Without saying anything she stands and Dean nearly grins, oh he wants to, and he most definitely doesn't pat her head, which is probably an achievement.
She sees the twinkle in his eye as he sizes her up and down and she points her finger in his face, "One short joke out of you and I walk out and you're paying for my drink that I will more than likely throw in your face. Got it?"
Dean holds up his hands. "I wasn't going to," he says with an amused tone and allows her to lead them over.
They get to the table and with a wink, and a small sharp head jerk, gestures to the empty seat across. "Ladies first."
She only gives a tight-lipped smile, refusing to react like the blushing fifteen year old girl he once met. He takes what he can get, seating himself across from her.
"I have to say that I'm surprised that you called me here, Dean. How did you find me?"
"I know a guy."
"Yes I gathered that," she says condescendingly.
"My my, aren't we refined after all these years," he mocks.
And just like that she remembers why she hated him when she met him. "I'm not that freak of a hillbilly anymore."
Just like that the light from Dean's eyes goes out and he unabashedly takes a sip of her tea. "Ughh what is this?"
She laughs now and Dean feels like he just did something right. He smiles, taking another sip, and makes a face setting it back down in front of her.
"Peach tea," she says still chuckling at him. She doesn't understand how one person can make her feel so many positive and negative emotions at the same time.
It gets a little quiet between them and the question still lingers between them.
"How did you find me, Dean?"
"Pshh... please. I've kept tabs on you, kiddo. Each foster home you were in, I knew about. I knew about the nice Christian couple that took you in and actually adopted you. I knew when you went to college. I was even there when you graduated high school."
Mel nearly chokes on her drink. That was probably the most romantic thing she has ever heard but she's inwardly cursing herself for hearing it in that way. Leather wearing, cool car driving, under the radar justice fighting Dean Winchester probably, most definitely does one night hookups, not attachments; which she gets. She can understand the whole uninvolved concept on account her understanding how important it is to not trust people.
As Dean watches her sip her not-tea, he examines her appearance. The woman in front of him still looks young enough to be in her late teens, but that's to be expected since she was so malnourished when he met her in that hellhole. With all of that aside, he can see that she's clearly healthy now and he makes two mental tally marks in his head; one for Sammy and one for Melissa marking that as two individuals in this world that are grown healthy adults and he helped to get them that way.
"You were lurking all of these years, huh?" she asks, trying but failing to sound so warm inside.
"Yeah it's kind of my thing, darlin," she says with a cocky grin.
"Why didn't you ever say anything? A simple 'hi' would have been nice," she says with an eye roll, while placing her hand dangerously close to his on the table.
He looks down at her hand and slowly exhales. He's not good with words and she's not going to just leave it as a nice visit. She needs a reason, because she's not stupid. Of course there's a reason.
"I was just checking on you, you know. I guess I just kind of felt responsible for throwing you into the state's hands like that. And it's not like I was in the dark about how you were doing. Like I said I got a guy, and I keep tabs, so if I would have thought that you were being mistreated, I- well... I did it once, right? I'd relocate you to somewhere safe again. No big deal."
Mel looks at him, mouth slightly open, trying her hardest to let everything Dean just let awkwardly tumble out of his mouth, sink in. Dean thinks she might have gone into shock until she speaks.
"I- I don't know what to say," she breathes out softly. She'd cry if she were the crying type. She doesn't know why but she still kind of wants to splash the tea in his face, but he's taking another drink of it, albeit looking disgusted. And she still doesn't understand anything.
He had stayed away from her all of these years in an effort to not get attached to her. It wouldn't have been good for either one of them. He knew that if he had kept contact on the young girl that she would have just begged him to take her along with them. He needed to give her enough space to let her get settled into a normal life, with a normal family. Normal was definitely NOT something he could have given her.
"Dean, what you did for me… that was the best thing anyone ever did for me," she says with grateful eyes; not overly emotional, but without the guard that she usually has up.
"Yeah, I know," he says sarcastically to avoid the chick flick moment and she kicks his shin underneath the table.
"OW! I see you're still violent!" he complains making her laugh when she's desperately trying to scowl at him.
It was a nice tension breaker, and things quiet for a moment. After an awkward silence he finally gets down to business. "So I heard you became a hunter."
Her eyes widen in surprise and he leans back in his chair crossing his arms, looking smug.
"Well I don't hunt humans if that's what you're wanting to ask," she informs him with a sneer of her lips.
Dean clears his throat with a red face. He knew that she wasn't hunting humans, but her actually bringing that up was something not even he was heartless enough to do… but as long as she's cool about it…
"Yeah, well… it must be in the blood… for you to hunt I mean," Dean jokes making her glare at him. If looks could kill.
"Not funny, Dean," she growls.
"Oh come on, you brought it up! And… it's a little funny," he says with a boyish grin and she still hates him for his looks. They can get him anywhere with anyone, even her.
"So did you call me here to play out a chick flick with bad jokes or what?" she asks leaning back into her chair and crossing her arms, mirroring his body language.
He sighs, rubs a hand over his short hair, and breathes out, "Honestly, I kind of felt like I lurked long enough. I was in the neighborhood so I figured that you are old enough to hold a conversation with… you know… without turning ten shades of red just because I might accidentally call you sweetheart," he says with a smug grin on his face.
Melissa's eyes go wide and she feels her face heat up. She looks down so she won't have to look at him as he chuckles at her.
Dean's sees it coming...
His hand that hers was laying close to on the table is now being held down onto the table! Her other hand is holding her knife just over his palm just daring him to say one more thing! He lets out a bear like grunt as her foot comes up and twists painfully into his groin, making him writhe in pain. He's half in pain and half amused at the sudden feisty-ness in this girl.
Now he's laughing and apologizing. However, before she can forgive him, he turns the tables on her completely.
Her knife is now in his hand and threatening to stab into her open palm that he's holding down and open on the table top. Her foot that was pressing painfully into his groin is now pinned in between the both of his legs.
He pops his neck, making it crack a couple of times on each side, and looks at her with a smirk. "Remind me never to call you sweetheart," he says before letting her go and pocketing her knife.
She stands up as soon as his legs lose the death grip on her leg and she slams her palms down onto the table angrily! "My knife, Dean… hand it over!" she demands angrily.
He's loving how worked up over her knife she's getting and she wishes so bad that she could knock that gorgeous smile right off of his pretty face.
He leans back and crosses his arms over his chest again. "If I recall this right… it's my knife. The knife that you stole from me the day I got you out of that zoo."
The reasons why she hated that guy, Dean Winchester, just keep coming back.
He's too beautiful for one.
Everything he says either sounds like a come on or a burn.
And for the most important one, he's just way too normal.
She doesn't have it in her to win clever arguments, and she sure doesn't have it in her to stop herself from blushing when Dean Winchester calls her out on stealing his knife.
It's not the fact that she stole someone else' possession. It's the fact that Dean knows exactly why she took it. He knew from the get go that she had a crush on him, and that she was just an extremely naive girl who only wanted something to remember him by.
Now he's just playing with her emotions.
This is too complicated.
She'd be an idiot if she let the man she never stopped dreaming about come in and ruin her idea of who he is.
She's a hunter. She hunts, eats, breathes, and sleeps… well sometimes she sleeps. But she tells herself those three things like a mantra when she needs to man-up.
"Keep it," she tells him quietly.
He leans forward. "Excuse me?" he asks and she can swear he looks disappointed.
"I shouldn't have taken it," she says a little too cooperative for his liking.
He allows all playfulness to fall from his face. "I thought we were having fun."
"Well you obviously asked me here to get your precious knife back, so there it is. It's yours again," she says with indifference.
Dean takes the knife out of his pocket and slides it across the table toward her. "You still have a lot to learn, Mel. I didn't come here for the knife," he says to her without a smirk, without a wink, without a pet name. And right now she has no doubt he just came to see her, because he wanted to.
Just now Dean gave her a gesture that was solely to make her feel good and now she wants to make him feel good; do something that is solely Dean Winchester.
She tries to put on the bravest front she can, as she digs deep inside herself to find her inner ability to use what she has seen women use to get what they want out of men.
She flips her long clean hair over her shoulder; leans over the table making Dean freeze where he sits, and she picks up the knife.
"Thanks... sweetheart," she says with a wink, before standing up and exiting the diner, and leaving him with the bill.
She has no doubt that Dean followed her out of the small town diner seeing is how she knows he's never stopped tracking her anyway. At first she thought that he was just making sure that she wasn't going to turn out like her family. But after meeting with him today, she now knows that had nothing to do with it. And just like she found out there is a difference between a good hunter and a bad one, she also now knows that there is a difference between a good stalker and a bad one.
She hates him.
How dare he make her fall in love with him. They don't even know each other because he's always in the shadows.
How dare he stalk her, follow, watch over her; making her feel protected, and safe, and wanted. How dare he make her feel like she's important to him.
After being adopted into a wonderful family that loves her a lot, and after having the real and full experience of high school and college, she knows that he's the reason she won't ever be normal. Not because of how she used to live with human hunting psychos, but because the man she's in love with isn't just any man, or a normal man like she originally thought. He's emotionally detached and damaged, a man with a hero complex.
He's Dean Winchester.