Time for Dean to show Lauren around his hometown in this one, although it's not exactly what you would call the tourist trail!

Mandy, Aww you're welcome, I actually had a lot of fun trying to picture and find inspiration for what his childhood home might have looked like and his bedroom etc. Made my creative juices flow! Plus I love putting Lauren in fish-out-of-water situations. It helps her grow right?!

LunaticxLass, Haha, not to worry, Mama Ambrose is a' coming and she is going to be central to the next couple of chapters as you will hopefully see by the end of this one. But she's going to give them the runaround a bit first which I guess is her prerogative!

LHisawesome4ever, Well, your wish is my command because there is definitely more angst in this one. Sometimes I feel like I should give Lauren a break and then I realize it would be no fun if I did that so I keep on throwing stuff at her! Sorry girl!

Wolfgirl2013, Aww, thank you, I will totally try and keep it up I promise! Lots going on in this chapter coming up so if you like a bit of drama this is the one for you!

xXBalorBabeXx, *Waves* Hey, nice to have you back! Yep, Seth is going to be in this story a little bit more yet (and the next one even more) but couldn't tell you who strangles him or even if they want to! But first we have a Mama Ambrose to try and deal with!

Skovko, There is always a calm before the storm, even with all the storms I throw at these two! Yeah, Mama Ambrose is going to be an interesting character (or at least I hope she is!) let's just say she's not going to be an easy sell on the engagement because where's the fun in that?!

Minnie1015, Aww thanks, little bit of both, needed some pictures to make sure I was being at least vaguely accurate for the neighbourhood etc. but the rest of it was me so let's say 50/50 on that one. I was going for bleak but not totally bleak!

Labinnacslove, Very much a new world for her and it's sink or swim too! Not quite her apple pie hometown! Luckily she's got Dean there to look out for her though...not that he helps too much in this chapter as much as unwittingly makes it worse!

Drama coming...

Hitting The Streets

Dean lasted maybe the next two hours before he let his anxiety for his mother eat him whole and turn him into a pacing swearing person who had then started to wear a little groove into the floor.

Fuck had become his word of the moment,

"I swear she pulls this fuckin' shit the whole time – like – she hops out for maybe a week without tellin' anyone an' then shows up when we're basically outta our minds and staggers in wasted actin' like nothin' has happened or fuckin' pissed at us because we've been tryin' to track her down and like make sure she isn't in a dumpster or whatever – ,"

I had blinked at the sound of a popping noise from outside and had then considered the merits of taking cover from the gunshots before my fiancé had clued in to my suddenly wide eyes.

"Princess,"

"Huh?"

"It was only a car backfirin'."

"Oh."

I had instantly felt pretty stupid after that and had been keen to make amends for my lack of ghetto knowledge by falling back on the one thing that I naturally had and which I offered towards him as he had again paced hotly by me and which had briefly made him stop as I had grabbed up his hand,

"Maybe we should go out and look for her?"

Dean had grumbled,

"Princess, what would be the fuckin' point? I mean, she could be anywhere."

"But it would make you feel better to be out there doing something instead of driving yourself mad, besides if you never chose to tell her we were coming then how does she know she's even supposed to be at home? She could be having a cup of coffee with a neighbor – ,"

Dean had snorted a little at that but had then had evidently seen the logic in my suggestion because his shoulders had slumped and he had grabbed the keys up,

"You stay here."

"What?"

My heart had flipped over since the last thing I had wanted was to be left in that place surrounded by the lengthening sounds of an argument as whoever it was that lived up above them had a pitchy screaming match with their evident no good boyfriend and which was obviously violent since the furniture had been moving as both of them seemingly gave as good as they had got.

Dean hadn't seemed to even much hear it,

"I figure it might be better or whatever if you stayed put 'stead of steppin' out there with me."

"How? I – I mean, two sets are eyes are better than one right? So with both of us we can find her a lot faster than on your own and I can scan while you do the driving."

He had sucked an uncertain breath in,

"It's kinda dangerous out there."

"But – but I thought you were going to protect me?"

I must have sounded either sad or overwhelmed, because in return my fiancé blinked back momentarily and then snorted at me roughly while waving his hand,

"Grab your fuckin' coat."

Whoohoo.

He started out locally by cruising our rental through the streets close to their home which promptly turned up nothing except a few heart stopping moments when people had shouted towards us on noticing our stares. Frankly, if I had ever entertained the vaguest notion that I possessed the life skills to survive the mean streets, then being in the passenger seat as my fiancé took us round them was a pretty good way to let me know that I was wrong. Never in my life had I felt more like an alien and that included my very first time in the ring but which seemed almost easy looking back on it with hindsight and in comparison to being in the place where Dean had lived.

In essence I was simply a small-town country person –

Mean streets were certainly not where I belonged.

Having exhausted the places in their neighborhood where he thought she might be, Dean drove further back into town and once again the buildings and the structures around us shifted into tightly packed businesses and busier streets and I blinked at the names and trades of the store fronts.

"Um – ,"

"You okay Princess?"

"There are a lot of strip joints, oh and pawn shops, there – there are a lot of those here too."

Dean waved a hand like he had long made his peace with it,

"Two things in life that folk are always gonna need, money and sex an' not always in that order, that's the way the world works out here. My mom used to pawn our stuff out so often that I got used to comin' home an' findin' half my things gone. I had to hide shit that I liked or take it with me, that's why the backpack was sittin' on the floor, that thing saved like a bunch of my wrestlin' tapes."

I leaned across to stroke small circles on his arm,

"I'm sorry."

"Why? Not like it's your fault Princess."

He slapped on the blinker and then pulled over to the kerb, landing us right alongside our third dive bar but which was already looking like the worst of the lot. I wasn't even kidding on that point either because the tiny brick building looked like a jail cell, comprising a small brick square of one storey with tiny slit windows that were further reinforced by bars and the door to which was made of thick rusted metal and which had weeds growing up from the sidewalk all around. It was positioned on the corner of a small run of businesses which in themselves were unappealing but which the weird bar made look pretty nice and it was topped by a stained sign that proclaimed to sell udwesier since half of the thing had at some point fallen off. I possibly even recoiled at it a little before bending forward to read the name of the place,

"Joe's Lounge?"

Dean snorted back at me as he switched off the engine and then wrinkled his nose in the direction of the bar, from which I gathered that the inside of the tiny little prison cell was about as impressive as the façade of it was.

Nice.

"Basically a coffin with a lotta bottles in it – like – no fuckin' seats either because there isn't any room, worst fuckin' bar in the whole 'a the city so I figure it's a good place to look for my mom."

He snapped off his seatbelt and then flipped on the child locks which thunked into place and made me nervously jump,

"What are you – ,"

"Princess," Dean peered at me through the doorway as he climbed from his seat and then turned back to make his point, on which he seemed to be totally unflinching with no hint of his usual light hearted cavalier front, "Stay in here and don't move for a second."

"But – ,"

"Stay in here."

He slammed the door and then was gone, leaving me to watch him pull his baseball cap lower and then saunter towards the crappy little bar, but looking so cool and smooth and in control of things that my momentary offence pretty happily shivered off. He was wearing a pair of dark blue ripped denims, that hung too perfectly off his cute ass and were the slightest bit baggy which made the image more tantalizing because it meant I had to picture what the folds were covering up. His biceps were bulging against the sleeves of his white t-shirt but in the natural way of a buff man who worked out and his hat was pulled to a jaunty little angle so that the peak sat mostly over the tip of his right ear.

Never in my life would I get tired of watching him –

Darn.

I huffed out a sigh as he pushed into bar and then took himself from my lusty line of vision which frightened me a little because I felt totally alone and marooned in a neighborhood I was clearly not best suited to and which left me totally clueless as to how to blend in more.

Maybe big heels and a tight leather mini-skirt?

Because the women I could see were totally rocking that look and working it fully with such pure and total confidence that I actually envied them their empowered-female ease.

You go ladies.

Beside me on the sidewalk someone blew out a wolf whistle that was so freaking loud that it actually made me jump against the fabric but which I also assumed was likely aimed at the women strutting their confident little ways about town and so was therefore in the process of blowing a shaky sigh out when a head popped up in front of the windshield.

"Oh, om – ,"

It belonged to a guy who then tried to bellow in to me,

"Hey pretty lady, wanna come out and play?"

Nope.

It was clear from a mile away that the guy was pretty hammered since he was having a hard time trying to keep himself straight and which was also enhanced by the bottle of vodka that he was holding up proudly and which he had almost licked dry. He had a thick black goatee and then an homage to a mohawk but the length of which he had at some point accidentally buzzed off and a scab on his nose that was part of a bruised cheekbone from where he had fallen over or possibly been punched. His shirt collar was askew so that it fell off one shoulder like he was trialling a brand new ladies' fashion style out and when he grinned it displayed a mouth of teeth so sharp and jagged that for a moment I assumed he had filed them that way. It took a second longer to work out the things were all broken at which point I shuddered in a full-bodied response,

"Ick."

He stumbled around to the passenger-side door and then tried the handle.

Eep.

I was so grateful they were locked.

"Damn, you look like a thousand dollars. What? You don't speak when a person is being nice?"

He was pretty much a shambling mess of a person but that didn't make it less weird or frankly any less terrifying since I was sat there alone with his face pressed against the glass blowing condensation onto the window he was so weirdly close. Despite having tried the handle without any success once, my new drunken admirer pulled the latch a few times more while I sat and tried my hardest to pretend he wasn't out there in that hopes that he would potentially get bored and wander off.

I muttered to myself,

"Dean, please hurry up now."

"What was that you're saying in there girl? Come out little lady and I'll show you a good time. Fuck. Don't be a tease mama, open up the door."

I shook my head.

No way.

"Open the door for me."

If I had been some sort of government psychologist or someone studying the ugly effects of too much drink, then I guess that I probably would have found his rapid meltdown far more interesting than I actually did, because really the transition was astonishingly speedy and possibly connected to a questionable mental health. But in the end all I did was squeak in pure horror as he suddenly began to thump his elbow hard against the glass with the aggression of a man who was trying to bust in on me.

I unclipped my belt and tried to scrabble across the seats,

"Go away," I yelled in full-on panic, figuring that if I could escape through the driver's side then I could maybe make it into the bar to find Dean, only my wasted attacker was surprisingly speedy because the next thing I knew, his face was there again.

"Come out bitch – ,"

I shrank back against the fabric trying to work out what the hell to do next, when suddenly a big flash of white burst out of nowhere and propelled the guy away in a two handed shove.

"The fuck you think you're doin' man?"

Dean.

My face light up instantly like a million of those super cute paper lantern things and my cold clammy heart began to pump out warm blood again which washed through my veins in sweet hot relief. Regardless of the fact that I had managed to find trouble yet again without having done a single thing wrong and which a lesser man probably would have been annoyed about, my fiancé was only pissed with our drunken friend, who was still attempting to regain his balance in an inebriated dance by the side of our rental car and who seemed to be losing his sweat pants also since his boxers were rapidly becoming part of the show.

He frowned towards Dean,

"What the hell is your problem? I was just being nice – ,"

"Swearin' at her through the door huh? Yeah real nice you asshole,"

"What are you like her brother or something?"

Ewww.

Dean lifted an eyebrow at that and then stiffened as the guy stumbled back upright and then proceeded to shamble in, puffing himself out and then swaggering forward in a hopeless attempt to match my man's height but still dangerous enough that the tension rose tenfold, which was kind of saying something since it hadn't been low before.

"Actually man, I'm plannin' on marryin' her."

Is it wrong that I kind of shivered at that part? Because hearing him claim me and feeling so hopelessly wanted was still a sensation that had yet to grow old and I bit down on my lip to stop a bubble of belonging from rising up and issuing itself as a misplaced laugh.

"You're tapping that?"

"Hey – ," Dean barked out a warning,

"What you gonna do bro?"

"How about I kick your ass?"

In regular circumstances I would have put good money on my fiancé knocking the guy down in one light punch or possibly even a violent sneezing motion since my wasted pursuer could barely hold himself up, but which changed in a moment when the guy reached into his waistband and whipped a knife out that he extended in a flip and my heart turned over and then ran fully cold again because the chances of Dean winning had suddenly tailed off.

Oh god, oh god.

I flattened against the window in a frantic pounding motion,

"Dean, please – please get in the car."

"It's alright Lauren."

He sounded worryingly even and nor did he even look briefly my way, since the guy brandishing the big knife had his whole focus and rightly so too although that didn't help me much.

I banged on the glass then tried to lift the handle.

Damn baby locks.

"Dean please, I'm okay, get in and we can call the police out and – ,"

I tapered off into a squealing noise as the drunken man lunged in and made a frantic slashing sort of move which he carded through the air in the spot where my man's ribs had been, but catching precisely nothing since Dean had stepped back, with his hands held up ready to try and grab the blade away from him.

No, no, no.

My mind flashed back horribly to the million and one news stories I had read over the years about people being stabbed and how their poor loved ones had sat and held them while they had waited without hope for the ambulance to arrive. I could practically picture the scene being played out with me bawling hysterically and stroking Dean's head and it momentarily took my mind clean off the action which I snapped straight back onto as a fist suddenly flashed out.

It belonged to Dean.

Smack –

It caught the drunk on the cheekbone and propelled him back in a clumsy little slump and Dean used the momentum to move in again closer in an attempt to wrestle the knife from his hand.

"Fuck you man."

It was my admirer who was shouting as he obviously realized that he was on a losing streak and he fuelled the animosity with a last burst of energy as he again made a slashing motion that tried to plant a trench across Dean's chest.

"Shit – ,"

In an instant my fiancé was bent over and with his arms clenched over his ribs in pure shock and trying to clamp whatever horrific internal damage had been caused by the serrated and still wildly swung knife.

"Dean."

My scream of absolute horror burst out so loudly it even floated from the car and seemed to knock the sense back into my attacker who blinked a few times and then rapidly turned and fled, clearly not wanting to be anywhere near us when the ambulance and police and first responders arrived, but which I barely even saw as tears of dread poured down my cheekbones and I grappled relentlessly but uselessly with the locks.

Come on, come on.

"Dean, I – I can't get out of here, please, please – you have to open the door."

My fiancé did what I said in a slow movement but with one arm still wrapped in protectively around his chest and which for all I knew was gushing hot blood out and so which I therefore needed to rapidly try to stem. I practically fell out of the driver's door onto the sidewalk, but was then up on my feet again in a flash and tugging his arm down as I talked ten to the dozen and at the same time began to strip my cardigan off.

"Princess – ,"

"Oh god, okay, it's okay, I – I'm going to use this stop the flow of blood, or maybe I should make a tourniquet out of it or maybe – oh why can't I remember how this is meant to work?"

"Lauren – ,"

"I'm here, I'm here, I'm going to save you."

His arm was still pressed in over his chest and I pawed it down with a grunt of exertion and then began to probe my fingers through his shirt which had sure enough been sliced in a line below his pec muscles but which I was too pumped to realize was still pristinely white.

Maybe it was shock?

Maybe the blood hadn't yet noticed there was a gaping hole carved over his chest but which would likely begin to pump out the red stuff at any moment and so plugging the gap was the crucial next step. Dean's hands fell away and then reached down to seize my wrists up in a firm little action that I tried to squirm from as I pressed my mohair cardigan in closely and generally shook and cried in both panic and action-mode.

I shook my head at him,

"No, I need to stop the bleeding."

"Princess," Dean gave up and planted his hands on my cheeks instead and then forced my head to properly look up at him as he used his thumbs to brush away my tears, "I'm not hurt."

"What?"

He prodded at his middle and then took my fingers to feel for myself, moving them backwards and forwards across his abdominals through the rip in his shirt that I had been convinced was a body cut. I blinked in bewilderment still shaking all over and the continual rattling clearly messing with my mind, since I had been so sure of him bleeding to death in front of me that I couldn't really fathom much of anything else.

He grunted a little,

"See? The asshole didn't get me, he just swiped my favorite white shirt here is all."

"But – but you doubled over and – ,"

"Figured it was the best way to make him move his drunken ass, potential murderers don't tend to hang on the sidewalk and wait for the police to turn up y' know?"

"I – ,"

For a second I simply blinked back towards him like the lights were on but nobody was home until the basics of what had happened managed to settle down over me at which point I let my cardigan tumble onto the floor and instead surged in to wrap my arms around him as my legs began to falter like they would no longer hold me up. In fact I threw myself so hard at him that I actually managed to vaguely knock him back, only unlike the drunk he found his balance pretty quickly and then lowered his head to kiss my hair as I shook.

"Princess? Fuck. I figured you knew what I was doin'."

"I thought I had lost you," I miserably choked out in what was quite possibly the most broken hearted little sentence that had ever managed to splutter its way past my lips but which was also tied in first place for being the most grateful since I was also being swamped with the phrase thank god.

He kissed my head again,

"You okay baby?"

I produced a bizarre sort of noise in response that was partly a hiccup and partly a scoffing thing.

"You m-mean apart f-from the fact I thought he'd stabbed you and h-him screaming at me t-through the window and c-calling me a bitch?"

He held me a little closer and then chuckled back wryly but I could tell he was also pretty furious as well, because he had already been antsy about me being in his hometown and within the first afternoon I had been picked on by a drunk and all thanks to his decision to leave me outside without him, which I could tell he was internally beating himself up for.

"If he had fuckin' bust in through the glass – ,"

I cut him off by lifting my lips for a kiss and then proceeded to chase off both of our anxieties by pressing myself to him like I was never letting go and needing the physical proof that he was healthy by which I meant not sliced up by a knife.

"Did you find her?"

"Who?"

"Your mom?" I reminded him as we broke apart by remained in place on the kerb, tangled together like we had skinny dipped in super glue.

Dean snorted roughly,

"Nope, they haven't seen her ass at all, an' I'm not gonna waste any more of my time on lookin', 'specially not if it's gonna put my girl through a fuckin' world of hurt."

I sniffed,

"I'm okay."

But it was pretty clear I wasn't and nor was I likely to be for a good few hours yet and knowing it Dean pressed me back into the rental carefully and then silently drove us back to his place, letting me keep our fingers tight together and occasionally reaching over to card through my hair. He pulled up outside the apartment block quietly and then led me inside still holding my hand and I stumbled behind him feeling almost inebriated and swirling with relief and fear and a million things. It had been beginning to get dark pretty rapidly around us and so by the time we let ourselves in the apartment the place lay dusky and dark.

Dean flipped the light on to help us and then startled,

"What the fuck?"

Perched on the sofa was a blonde haired woman.

"Mom?"

Poor Lauren (and Dean) out of the frying pan and right into the fire! Next chapter we meet Mama Ambrose proper and find out what she has to say about things...