Chapter 10:-

Sunlight filtered through the shitty curtains and danced across Dean's tightly closed eyes. His body ached liked he'd just taken several full-on body hits from a very nasty poltergeist, and when he breathed in deeply several smells assaulted his senses. Some he knew well, other's he didn't.

Sex. Apple and cinnamon. Sex. Fresh tangy sweat mixed in with not-so-fresh, not-so-repugnant sweat. And sex. And something else that made his mouth water… but what he couldn't quite label until he forced himself to wake up a little more.

Not that he wasn't used to those smells – apart from the apple and cinnamon – it's just that he wasn't used to waking up with them. He wasn't used to waking up with anyone except Sammy – and then not in the same bed thankyouverymuch and that was definitely not Sammy next to him. And that's where the intriguing smell of apple and cinnamon was emanating from. He could so take a bite of that.

Cracking his eyes open a fraction, he saw Tallie's own green eyes watching him, sparkling with a mixture of humor and mirth. Her hair was all over the place making her look like the wild, wanton woman she was and damn it, if he wasn't hard again within seconds.

"Morning," she grinned.

"Morning," he grunted.

"Not a morning person, huh?" she giggled.

"Not until I have two cups of very strong black coffee warming my insides," he growled and tried to bury himself back into the warmth of the bed.

"Aww, such a charmer first thing. Well, as you missed the fact that I'm dressed you will have also noticed that over there are two cups of coffee and two hot bacon, egg and sausage bagels," she chuckled, pulling the covers back off his naked body.

"Fuck," he whined, and tried to grab at them – and failed – before they fell on the floor. His boxer-briefs and t-shirt number one hit him in the chest. Rubbing his hand across his eyes to try and dislodge the sleep, he moved slowly and dressed. "Like what you see?" he twirled for her when he noticed her staring at him.

Tallie laughed, rolled her eyes and pushed a Styrofoam cup of coffee to the other side of the wobbly Formica-covered table. "I think I'll like it better after it's showered." She screwed up her nose.

Dean dropped into the chair and sipped the hot black liquid inside. "So, you've been awake a while then, I take it?"

"A while. And I wasn't quiet about showering and dressing. I even slammed the door on my way out. Dude, you sleep like the freakin' dead."

Dean scrunched his eyes up as he considered what Tallie'd said. "I don't. Not normally."

"I like you, Dean, just in case you hadn't noticed. I kinda like you a lot. That's never really happened to me before. Not this fast anyway. It kinda scares me. I almost took off instead of getting breakfast."

Dean stopped, half way to biting into his breakfast bagel, and looked across at her. Her cheeks were flushed pink.

"It scares me okay? I haven't been like this in a long time. I haven't let anyone in since, well, since what happened happened. And the strength of this between us," she waved her hand between them, "it scares me. I just needed to tell you that."

He nodded slowly. Lowering his breakfast down onto the napkin on the table, he chewed the inside of his cheek as he searched for the right words to say. From the moment he'd set eyes on Tallie, she'd affected him in a way no other woman had even come close to doing. And that was bad, because? It was bad because it didn't seem right for a hunter to try and carrying on a lasting relationship. Somewhere along the way, someone was going to get hurt and self-preservation kicked in.

He couldn't give her the things he would've liked to, in another world – an alternate universe. There'd be no hearts and flowers, no dinner waiting for him when he got home, no 'happy-ever-after'… just endless days of worrying and… and…

Tallie was staring at him open mouthed, and then it clicked. He'd said all that aloud. It had all come tumbling from his mouth like the worst kind of verbal diarrhea. He bit down hard on his lip and did his best to avoid looking at her, but this was Tallie, who hit everything head-on and didn't shirk away from anything.

"Listen to me Dean. I'm going to tell you something. For hunters like us, there is no hearts and flowers, no happy-ever-after. We take what we can get when we can get it, and we have to be satisfied with that because we don't know if we'll have next week, next month or even next year. You got that? So don't be expecting to me to be always waiting here for you, hoping you'll pass by sometime soon again. I will not spend my life pining for you, worrying every time you go on a hunt or whether you'll make it back alive…"

"And what about me? How the fuck do you think I feel about you going out hunting? At least I have Sam…you have who? No fucking one, that's who. I'm telling you Tallie, you get yourself killed and I will bring you back to life so I can kill you myself. I don't expect a happy-fucking-ever-after. I never once thought that was in my future, but then I met you and guess what? I fell, and I fell so fucking hard I hurt my ass on the way down…so don't you give me bullshit about not being here waiting for me, because you will damn well be right beside me no matter where I am. You got that?"

Tallie stared, shocked, unable to form a word even though her mouth hung open. No one, other than her mom, had ever dared speak to her like that. And damn, if it didn't get her as hot as hell. There was something wholly magnificent about Dean when he got all aggressive. Before she could stop herself, or give him hell back for daring to tell what she could or couldn't do, she launched herself bodily at him, their lips sealing their fate.

Maybe they did have a future together, Maybe it'd be kinda fucked up and nowhere near normal, but hey, even hunter's get the right to try.

Don't they?

Finis