When Dean Met Lucy

Dean Winchester was scared. It wasn't the cold-tinged terror of being pursued by evil, because that would actually focused him, sharpened his senses and strength, so he could get the job done. No, it was the shifting, twisting, irritating fright that he felt when he had to step across that bolded self-imposed line and function in society. "This is stupid, Sam." Dean whined into the phone. He was hunched over the trunk of the Impala, painfully disarming. The kid had planned the whole thing, dressed him too, and somehow wearing a tie and a freakin' sweatervest in the Impala broke few of Dean's cardinal sins.

"You know I'd do it if I could, but…" Sam's voice crackled with disappointment over the line.

Dean placed two 45 mms and his hunting knife in the trunk. His face was hard, but his voice softened at Sam's bruised tone. "I know you would, but your knee is all banged up. And I really don't mind," Dean lied, even though he was grimacing like a child approaching the dentist's chair.

"You're a bad liar," Sam said, but Dean's dishonesty earned him a chuckle from his injured, depressed brother. Dean put all the change he had in the parking meter and entered the florist's shop, cringing at the cloying smell of thousands of roses in the every girly color imaginable.

"What kind of roses should I get?"

"Jess didn't like roses," Sam sighed, "so I don't know. Just not carnations."

Dean browsed the rack, ignoring the sting of the Valentine's Day mark-ups. He winced, knowing that this was just his second Valentine's Day after the death of his girlfriend. "What did she like?" he asked, pushing softly on the wound he knew would never heal.

"Orchids," he whispered. "I always got her potted orchids. She usually killed them, but ya know, practice makes perfect."

Dean scratched his head as he stared at the racks of flowers, and finally caught the attention of an excitable florist, who began plucking and picking and arranging a bulbous bouquet. Dean narrated the entire thing to Sam, who seemed amused that Dean could stand up to evil personified, but was powerless against an overzealous older woman. Dean hung up on his brother's raspy laughter, and left the store with an absolutely enormous arrangement filled with every flower in the store and that cost more than their weekly budget. With apologies to coolness of his car, he nestled it down into the front seat.

He arrived at the office building by late afternoon and parked in the visitor's lot. He shuttered involuntarily at the thought of a life of cubicles and proposals, lattes and lunch meetings. He didn't want to do this, but for her, he would have done anything. Given her in the Impala or an arm. Taken a stroll over molten lava. So Dean figured he could be her valentine. "If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it, my way."

Despite Sam's constant barbs, Dean wasn't vain. He knew that women seemed to like his eyes, his lips, his muscles, and he knew how to make himself look good. The tie and the sweatervest went into the trunk. His collar was loosened. His leather jacket glided on, collar up over his gray dress pants and white button down. He felt cool, and possibly rugged walking into the building that was as unexpectedly luxurious with blown-glass sculptures and slick marble floors. He'd charmed his way through the expansive security (which he couldn't figure out what it was protecting), another boyfriend delivering flowers, and up to the sixth floor.

Dean didn't need his hunter's skills to find her immediately, even with prison-like rows of cubicles and the distracting bustle people in business suits and ties. She was standing in a glass room with a clutch of women, who were talking and laughing. Lucy was smiling, but the laughter, Dean saw, was forced, feigned. She turned her head slightly, hair flowing freely, and her dark eyes locked on his. They flared with such surprise that it lit up her entire face. And there were no signs of the traumatized, bloody girl she was months before. She moved towards him, still the most beautiful thing Dean had ever and would ever see. He rolled his eyes comically to the giant bouquet. She pointed to a desk, and he gratefully set it down.

He smiled and leaned down to chastely kiss her on the mouth. "Happy Valentine's Day," he grinned, pinning in the laughter.

She hugged him, pushing up on her tiptoes and fisting his leather jacket. His arms went around her easily, and he lifted, quite literally sweeping her off her feet. It was cheesy, stupid, and mushy, but it was the least he could do for the woman who'd saved his brother's life.

**

Dean was terrified. But he embraced the fear, knowing it would dull the pain, and hone his strength. When chaos and the mind-scrambling fog of unconsciousness made things fuzzy, blearily, he'd counted on the fear to get the job done. What started as a presumably routine daylight sweep of a warehouse they thought was harboring the poltergeist they thought was slashing up frat boys had turned into an ambush by a corporeal beast. The thing— Dean had only seen its furry flank and knobby claws—had scuttled down from the rickety rafters, waging war with a cry that was pure evil embodied in sound. It was on top of him and under him, smothering and slashing because the evil could never engineer a slow, clumsy killer. It managed to grab him around the waist, and like a mother with a curious toddler, bodily haul him up and away. Dean groped for his knife, since his gun had been swatted away, and viciously stabbed the thing as he started to climb up the wall and before Dean realized he was falling, he'd hit the hard concrete of the warehouse floor. His entire left side exploded, bones and blood bursting like visceral fireworks. Colors dashed in front of him, blinding him with concussed colors before he passed out.

But the good ole fear had him crawling, groping for his gun, ignoring of the blood licking down the side of his face or that his left leg didn't work quite right even before he remembered where he was or why his head hurt so much. Heart clamoring like a freight train, pumping energy and strength through a body Dean knew was broken and weak. He pushed himself up, weaving and limping until he could manage a wobbly but determined run. He had to move. He had to move fast. Because he and Sam had split up.

It took him hours to sweep the building's first and second floors with a swelling face, an uncooperative leg. He'd found the blood on the second, puddled and pooled, and too fresh to convince him it wasn't Sam's, he'd followed the foreboding splashes of crimson to the third floor. He heard garbled whispers, and a muffled sob that was too shrill to be his brother's. He moved towards the noise slowly, trying to hear anything besides his own haggard pants and violent heartbeat. Dean focused on a ragged voice, "pull the…slide bac'…if u have t'shoot…use both hands…don' figh' the recoil…"

It was Sam, and Dean risked peering around the corner. Through garbled vision and half-light, he saw Sam collapsed in a knot of his own limbs. He shook and rocked and fidgeted the way he did when pain crescendoed beyond his disturbingly high tolerance. Dean could make out something compact and small hovering over him, focused his right leg. Dean almost shot. Finger flexing over the trigger, but it jerked, following Sam's line of vision and lifted its head, all dark eyes and face lit up with terror. It was just a girl with matted hair and body trembling with fear. A second later, she had him in the sights of Sam's gun, hand trembling but arm rigid with determination. The other hand was pressed against Sam's thigh, applying pressure.

Sam's hand was gripping her tiny wrist, pushing it down. "No, no…m'brother," Sam whispered. "Dean."

Dean was sprinting now, stubborn leg be damned. If Sam was injured enough to surrender his gun to a novice, he was in awful shape. The gun was immediately dropped and her hand returned to its place on top of the other one, adding more pressure until Sam gurgled through clenched teeth. "God, Sammy," Dean gasped as he saw the puddle of blood under his right leg, the belt looped around in a makeshift tourniquet. He touched him, peeling back his jacket that was tacky with blood, checking his pulse. "I see you can pick up chicks anywhere."

Sam's face was twisted with pain, skin pasty, shoulders trembling as he worked to breathe. "I'll teach ya sometime," he mumbled, peeling his eyes open.

Dean glared him, knowing he was too out of it to realize the ridiculous irony. "That thing...did ya get it?"

"…clipped it…'s too fast…it hurt you?"

"No, I'm okay," Dean said, noticing that his awareness and strength were fading faster now that he knew Dean was okay. "Just take it easy, stop talkin', Sammy."

He eyed the girl, knowing from the dark horror in her eyes that she'd seen a real-life monster and he hated that the that plane of reality had been broken for her. But admired her being able to fight back, fight for his brother. She seemed unable to speak, trying to answer his questions, but only managed strangle grunts and nonsensical sounds. She was shaking so hard, she vibrated. He gave up, focusing on the place where her hand was pressed into the slashes in Sam's leg. The slashes deep into the muscle over the artery. He looked at her then, taking in the blood that covered her face, her clothes, painted her hands, Sam's pants, and the floor, and his chest suddenly ached with the gravity of Sam's injuries. He slipped a hand into Sam's, brushing his sweaty hair back. He lifted his head to those dark eyes, beautifully black, but ebbing nothing but mortal fear. For Sam. She mouthed something he couldn't decipher. So Sam—who was slipping away—couldn't hear, but Dean already knew. If she moved, Sam could bleed to death.

Dean called an ambulance, kept his fingers on Sam's pulse and thought of a thousand different ways to kill that evil son of a bitch who'd nearly killed them all. The girl never moved, never twitched, until the paramedics promised her it was okay. Only then did Dean realize—guiltily—that some of the blood was hers.

**

Lucy Gannon was like no woman Dean had ever met. Just knowing her last name had given him more knowledge about her than half the women he'd been with. She didn't have fake nails or even fake breasts (not that she needed them). She didn't wear too much make-up. She wasn't obviously pretty, but lovely in a way most women weren't. She read Entertainment Weekly and ate candy bars, according to the contents of her desk drawer. She didn't fall for his lines or his pouting. She knew his big secrets, and yet still liked him, anyway. And the weirdest of all—the thing he couldn't wrap his mind around—she wasn't scared of or embarrassed by him.

She wore brightly patterned dress that was pink, black and white. Arms covered with a coordinating pink sweater. She studied him for a moment, eyeing the scruffy hunter in her corporate workplace before she pulled him to a quiet, private conference room, waving off the amazed looks and jeers from her peers. Without a word, she stepped forward, close enough so he could smell her perfume. Her arms encircled him and Dean grunted when she brushed the .45mm he couldn't leave in the trunk. "I can't believe you brought your gun, Dean. You should have left that in the trunk."

"The safety's on," he grinned. He'd felt vulnerable without it even in a soul-sucking place that would probably bore evil to back to Hell.

It was Dean's turn to eclipse boundaries. He peeled the wool of her sweater down her shoulders, fingers sweeping the webbed, darkened skin of her right upper arm that spilled beneath under the cotton of her dress. "I will if you will."

She glared at him, mouth tight.

Dean left with his gun; Lucy wore her sweater.

They went to a trendy restaurant that Sam would actually hustle pool to afford. The kind that spazzed out over Valentine's Day, and filled every inch with roses and pink and red and purple ribboned balloons and made the waiters dress up in heart-patterned shirts and ties. Dean sat, strings of hundreds of balloons tickling his shoulders and ears, and took it as Lucy took pictures of him on her cell phone. "Sending those to Sam?" He scratched his ears.

Dean jerked at the shrill cry and didn't even have to turn his head to know that another couple had gotten engaged. It was the third in an hour. Even his hamburger came defiled with edible flowers.

"Mhmm. He called me right after you left and begged me too."

Dean made a mental note to kick Sam's ass when he got back, but liked that Sam and Lucy were close, always in contact. "He wanted to come, but he's a little banged up. And ya know…with Jess..."

Lucy's face flashed with knowing grief. "Yeah. We talked. It's fine, Dean, when I said 'Man, I'd like a date for Valentine's Day', I didn't mean drive four states over and, like, not save lives for it. It was just a wish."

"It was only three states, and consider me your personal, armed genie." He sipped his beer, swatting the ribbons out of his face. "The real question is why do you need a thug like me for a night on the town?"

She shrugged and picked up her drink. "I trust you."

Dean's heart warmed, but at the same time, he worried for her. He knew that victims struggled with knowledge that the things that actually do go bump in the night. He'd seen the extremes. He was the extreme. The last thing he wanted was for Lucy to retreat from the person she had been, or even worse, become a hunter. "You want to dance?" He heard himself saying. He'd show her what a regular life could be about.

She lifted her eyebrows in surprise, purple and white ribbons pooled on her shoulders, candlelight glittering in her eyes. "You don't dance."

The last time he genuinely slow-danced with a girl was in high school, and only because Melissa Simmons had the biggest boobs in the sophomore class, and a slow dance brought them in tantalizingly close proximity. But it was Valentine's Day, and Lucy was a romantic. He stood up, swaddling his gun in his jacket and left it on the chair. He offered his hand to Lucy and she took it with a dazzling smile that made it worth it. They mixed in with the other couples, rocking and swaying to the music. And for a moment, a fleeting second on a stupid, Hallmark holiday, Dean Winchester pretended that's all they were.

**

Her name was Lucy Gannon.

She was five-two and 110 pounds.

She was born on July 26th.

She was twenty-four years old.

She was African-American.

She lived in Seattle.

She had saved Sam's life.

Dean sorted through the contents of her purse, hoping to discover something about the woman who'd plugged the knick in Sam's femoral artery for almost two hours. The woman who kept him talking. The woman who'd taken his gun and was ready to defend him.

He found a receipt and a wrapper. She liked fancy café hot chocolates and chewed a lot of Winterfresh. He sighed, leaning back in the chair, and dizzily watching the buzz of activity in the blood center. "Your wife's?" A kind nurse asked softly, nodding at the cloth, sequined purse in his lap. She checked the bag that was steadily filled with Dean's blood. A pathetic effort at trying to replace all the blood they'd transfused into his brother.

Dean tucked her license back into the wallet, and cleared his throat. "Uh…yeah, just holdin' on to it for her. Car accident," he said, gesturing to the bruises on his face. The lie slipped off his tongue, and Dean was glad that instinct still worked.

It had been thirty-six hours since they were attacked by the monster that had mauled Sam and Lucy and slashed Dean's pride to bits, and Dean was still reeling, still trying to grab onto to something familiar, so he wouldn't feel like the victim he was. He finished the donation, drank the juice and ate the cookies the nurse gave him, and limped on his sprained hip back to Sam's room.

The kid still looked awful, pale down to the lips and shivering lightly with the infection-induced fever. Dean could remember a dozen times of Sam looking just this side of death, monitors flanking his bed, and he died a little bit with each time. He sat down on the bed, gently sweeping Sam's hair back on his hot forehead. Sam twitched, jerking from the contact of Dean's freezing hands. Dean shushed him, dropping and arm across his body. "The girl is…she's doing a lot better. She's going home tomorrow. Her name's Lucy. Every time I go to her room to return her purse, someone's there. So she's got a lot of family." He relayed, knowing if Sam were awake, he'd call him on his excuses on not seeing Lucy. "Everything went south, huh, Sammy?" He asked rhetorically.

And he was amazed at how quickly it had unraveled. Dean couldn't even finish the hunt, couldn't kill the beast himself, not with Sam still in the hospital, sick and weak after the surgery on his leg. He'd called Bobby who called in grizzled hunters Dean wouldn't even mess with. They swept the building, binding the evil inside, and then blew it up. The hunter was not used to being the hunted. The rescuer was not used to being the victim. The perfectionist wasn't used to the messy hunt without the kill. Dean was in a freefall, hating the feeling of helplessness, hating that he didn't have control. Hating that Sam hadn't been lucid in more than a day.

For the first time in a long time, Dean remembered why victims were so thankful, why after saving their lives or that of their loved ones, they offered him their life savings, wedding rings, even cars to attempt to show their gratitude. Suddenly, the wall that he'd erected between himself and normal had been demolished. By a slight young woman with awful timing and a heart of gold. He looked at Sam, seeing him as an infant and a child and a burgeoning man all at once, and was thankful for every breath he took, every beat of his heart, every unconscious moan and grunt that told him Sam was still fighting. He simultaneously regretted every ignored holiday, those lost years when Sam was at Stanford and Dean was too proud to visit, every stupid fight they'd ever had. Dean sighed, taking his hand, wiping his stubbornly leaking eyes. "This is stupid…" he mumbled before breathing, "I love you." He didn't know the last time he said it, but he had vague memories of diapers and pacifiers. He needed to say it now. "I love you, Sammy."

Sam's sweaty head rolled in towards Dean's voice, tubes and wires almost tangling with the minimal movement. Dean watched as Sam's licked his dry lips, too weak to open his sunken eyes. "…love you, too…"

**

Thanks to the free cocktails a thrilled father-to-be bought for the whole restaurant, one dance turned into five and an otherwise uncomfortable evening for Dean, the misfit, turned into one of the best nights Dean had ever had without Sam. One that ended with them at the movie theater in a freakin' mall watching Matt Damon overcome tragedy to find the love of his life. And Dean didn't mind just watching the movie, Lucy pressed against his side in one of those nifty loveseats the nice movie theaters had. He'd planned to leave that night, but followed Lucy up to her clean, colorful apartment, flopping on the lime green couch out of reach of his gun. They talked for hours about anything, and nothing. They watched bad reality television and ate freshly baked cookies.

It was 4 a.m. when Dean yawned and Lucy was cocooning him in blankets on the couch and digging out an extra toothbrush for him.

The couch was comfortable and long enough where he could almost stretch out completely.

But he didn't stay there long.

Eyes snapping open at the muffled, nonsensical sounds—soft huffs of breaths tinged with wordless, hysterical relief. He was up, gun in hand, without a second thought. The only demons he'd found, however, where the kind that couldn't be killed. Lucy sat on the edge of her bed, looking stricken and tired, rubbing her scarred arm with practiced movements. She looked at him, barely startled by the gun. "Sorry," she mumbled. "Bad dreams."

Dean nodded knowingly. "Got some experience with those."

"It doesn't happen a lot," she promised.

In the half-light and her tank top, he could see almost all of the scars. The jagged gashes on her chest, shoulder, and upper arm to elbow. They weren't from the monster, but being tossed into windows. She'd at least been spared from the infection that nearly killed Sam.

Lucy's head flagged in defeat between her shoulders and Dean set the gun down, sweeping her long hair back over her shoulders. He cupped the back of her head, like she had at the hospital when he couldn't find the words to apologize, to thank her, and just sank against the bed, offering his company.

"Lay down," Dean said.

Lucy climbed into bed, snuggling under the covers. Dean did, too, inching towards her. He wrapped her in his arms, hoping they were secure enough to stave off nightmares.

"You do this for Sam, too?" She teased, soft voice cutting through the twilight.

"Sammy loves a good cuddle," Dean said, grinning at Lucy's amused snort. His arms swept over the unerringly over the puckered skin.

"I don't regret it, Dean. Going to there that night. It's been hard, but I never wished it didn't happen." Lucy confessed drowsily.

Dean didn't know how to take that. He didn't know what to say. He'd never wanted to drag civilians into their life and their knowledge, but Lucy was an extraordinarily good thing in a life that was dominated by evil. So he settled on, "I'm glad we met; hate the way it happened though."

"Me too," Lucy sighed. She sleepily added, "don't think you're getting laid because you're in my bed, dude."

"I'm a complete gentleman," he replied without a straight face.

Dean had never actually just slept with a woman, but Lucy was all soft skin and sweet smell. She held onto him like he was a treasure, and not the man who got her mutilated. It was wonderful in way he'd never admit. He watched her for a while before he drifted off too. Neither of them dreamed. Neither of them moved.

He woke up to the alluring smell of beef and coffee. Remembering he was in mixed company, he rinsed his face and swirled with Scope before he stumbled out into the kitchen. Lucy smiled when she saw him in jeans in a little tee-shirt, scars still uncovered. "Sit, sleepyhead." Dean obediently thumped down onto tone of the stools overlooking the open kitchen and he almost squealed in delight when she served an absolutely beautiful plate of steak and eggs with black coffee. "Thanks for putting up with all that girly stuff yesterday." She said gratefully.

"It's not every day someone drags you into a Meg Ryan movie," he shrugged it off, and then tore into the ribeye. It was cooked to salty perfection. Dean appreciated good food, and this gave him goosebumps. He regarded her earnestly. "Marry me," he gasped, mouth full. "Marry me and come on the road and make me this fantastic steak every morning."

Lucy was amused. "You like it?"

"Like it? I want to be alone with it."

Lucy laughed, proud and sat down next to him. "You'll just have to come back then. Door's always open, Dean. For you and for Sam."

They ate breakfast together. It was nice and simple and painfully easy. He could see what Sam had been searching for when he'd left for Stanford, what he'd found and lost with Jess, what John wanted to build when he married their mother. Dean mocked normal and rejected it, knowing he wasn't built for it. But also because part of him ached to be.

He left, reluctantly, knowing he'd miss Lucy and her sunny attitude and beautiful smile and the break from hunting. They lingered at the doorway, and he couldn't help but bookend the day with another kiss. This one not as chaste as the first. He tapped a fist against the doorway and stared down at this first and probably only valentine. "If things were different, I wouldn't be leaving," Dean said truthfully, lips pressed against her ear before he ventured down the hall.

At a gas station just outside of the city, he changed out of his dress shirt and pants and into a well-worn plaid one with a faded blood stains on the sleeves and a missing pocket and his jeans. He armed himself with both guns, his knives and crossed back over the line, back to being a hunter, and wasn't surprised that it seemed a bit thinner.

He was shockeded, however, to arrive at the motel to see Sam across the street playing a game of full court basketball with neighborhood kids, running and leaping like friggin' Michael Jordan on a knee he'd been limping and whining about less than twenty-four hours ago. "Well, that lying sonofabitch."

Dean flopped back in the seat, smiling a little from the understanding that his freaky, hopeless romantic, emo brother had been playing cupid.