Part 37 – The next night…
(November 28, 2009)
"Lillian! Go out with me."
Liz sighed and turned around to face him without letting the fact that it was a chore cross her face. "Billy, you'd only break my heart."
"Come on… I'm the only single guy in the bar."
"You say that like it should entice me." She shook her head and bussed a nearby table. "I don't date customers."
"You dated Stan." He followed her up to the bar.
"I went to high school with Stan. Anyway, that was years ago. Like a decade." She scoffed and pinned Kyle a look across the bar. Kyle just grinned and sipped his beer. "Sorry, Billy."
"Man… Lillian, come on. Give me a chance. I'm a good guy." Good and drunk.
"Billy, you're new. Leave the girl be." Bobby grumbled from his stool at the end of the bar, a pile of newspapers under his elbows.
"Thank you, Bobby." Liz reached over and squeezed his hand.
Dean sat himself down at the bar and tapped it. "Just a beer, if you would."
"Billy, this is Dean. You bother Lillian again and Dean will take your head off." Bobby explained to the new mechanic, gripping Dean's shoulders lightly as he stood. "Dean, this is Billy. He's going to be a gentleman tonight. I'm going to bed."
"Wait, what am I doing?" Dean turned but Bobby was already out the door.
"I see how it is. You've got this town rigged." Billy kept up with Liz as she moved up and down the bar. "Just, come on. One date. I'll show you the time of your life."
"Have you ever been parasailing?" Liz arched an eyebrow as she poured Dean's beer.
"What's that?" The mechanic furrowed his brow.
"Then you can't show me the time of my life, can you?"
"Are you flirting with this guy?" Dean sat up and pointed to the obviously desperate and over-aged punk.
"No." Liz shrugged but couldn't really deny that the thought had crossed her mind.
"Is he bothering you?"
"He's harmless." She shook her head.
"All right, pal. Just leave her alone." Dean stood and turned to the guy.
Too much testosterone in the bar, tonight. She sighed. "Dean, it's okay. He's not hurting anybody."
"Buddy. I'm not looking for trouble and I don't remember inviting you into my private conversation with the lady." Billy stood up.
"No." Liz rushed around the counter. "No. Stop. Right now. This goes no further." She put herself between them. "Now, look. It was some innocent flirting. I said 'no.' Bobby told him to back off. That's all there is to it."
"You heard her. Beat it." Dean cocked his head to the side, gesturing to the door.
"Who the hell are you?" Billy was about to say more but the girl shoved him back into his seat. "Hey."
"You sit. Drink your beer. Then go home." She turned and poked Dean in the chest. "You and me. Outside. Right now."
Obediently, he followed her out the back of the bar but not before rolling his shoulders and glaring at this Billy guy. He was not prepared for the assault on his person once outside the bar. She actually hit him and it actually hurt. "Ow. What was that for?"
"What are you? Some kind of caveman? I told you that it was fine."
"You were seriously attracted to that guy? I think I did you a favor."
"Where do you get off?" Liz shoved Dean against the building.
"Apparently in a shed in the middle of a field." Why did he have to open his mouth? She smacked him again then began pacing the alleyway.
She shook her head. "A moment of weakness."
"Just one moment? Then that other time was a conscious decision?" Dean shoved his hands into his jacket, studying her and trying to figure out what exactly he'd done to piss her off.
"Stop being charming." She made a face at him.
"Without the charm, I'm just rude and rude doesn't get me into your good graces." He managed to flash a smile at her while he leaned on the wall he'd been pushed into.
"Well, I guess it's good that you know your strength." She rubbed at the back of her neck. The night had turned on a dime. One minute she'd been having fun turning down a handsome man's flirting and the next she was breaking up the beginnings of a brawl. She didn't even know where to start in correcting things.
"I do have more than one. Strength, that is."
"You do?"
"I'm charming. Handsome. Athletic… black belt in something or other. I am a master hunter and as you can attest; an animal in the sack." He counted them off on his fingers.
"An animal, you claim." She just blinked at him. His hubris was kind of amusing.
"Come on…" He pushed off the wall and gave her a self-satisfied smirk. "I was good. You can admit it."
Crossing her arms, she stopped pacing and just stared at him. "I don't recall an animal."
He visibly winced. "You're hurting me. I'm wounded."
"How about a little deflated? Girls don't like guys with overblown egos. It's a turn off." She shrugged, shoving her hands into her pockets, quite a feat as she realized they were her tight jeans. "When a girl can make a guy feel good, then she's accomplished something. You wouldn't want to deny a woman the pleasure of stroking your ego for you, would you?"
"So you're doing me a favor, then." He grinned and fell back against the wall.
"Maybe."
"Only… I'm a man of few possessions." He shrugged and spread his arms out but they were still restrained by his hands in his pockets. "I feel like maybe you need a repeat demonstration. So… that you can show me how much of an animal I can be."
"That's a manly directive… but I don't have time." Liz stepped around him to the door. "I'm working."
"I think you need an escort home. You can defend yourself, sure." Dean cleared his throat. "Maybe you let me have the pleasure of thinking that I have the ability to protect you some precious few yards between this dump and your home."
"See, now you know the rules." She bit back a smile and pulled open the door. "Don't come back inside. I get off in two hours." She held up a hand and quickly got the warning out. "Don't ruin the moment we just had by saying what I know you want to say."
"You're the boss." He didn't even try to hide the smirk. They both knew what he had been about to say.
Later that night…
Liz laid her head on her own pillow. She had never figured Dean for a cuddler but he hugged her body to his like a pillow, his head tucked between her chin and shoulder. She swept her hand over his short hair. He shifted slightly onto his back, taking her with him. "Hey."
"Hm?"
"I'm gonna need my body back."
"Uh-uh." Dean didn't want to open his eyes.
"I have to pee."
"Nope."
"I'm coming back."
"Okay." Dean disentangled himself from around her.
Liz returned a short while later, with a long shirt covering all parts of interest and a bowl of ice cream. "Want some?"
"I didn't know you went for the food kink." He sat up, dragging his hand over his face.
"To eat, not to play with… unless you're planning on washing my sheets later."
"You're a tyrant." Taking the spoon, he tasted the ice cream and then looked around to see how the place had changed since he was 14. He had only been inside a few times before and… it was still night time. "Did you wake me up in the middle of the night?"
"Uh-huh."
"Why?"
"You have an iron-grip and I had to pee. It's not my fault you stayed awake."
Put out, he slumped back down and continued his examination. "You don't have a TV."
"Never had need for one."
"What do you do when you get bored?"
"I don't get bored. I have art classes and work and friends. I was looking into some classes at community but I don't know if I want to move to Rutherford."
"What about before?" He motioned around and wiggled his ring finger at her.
Liz shrugged with a smirk. "I had other ways of filling my time."
"So, no TV."
"Enough with the TV." She reached onto her nightstand for her book, which she slammed into his stomach. "There you go."
Dean made a face at the book. "Oprah Winfrey book club. Yeah. Right." He blew out a breath and looked her over. He opted not to comment on her attire for the moment. "So, that Billy guy…"
"Do you really want to go there?" Liz sighed heavily and turned her gaze on him. She had avoided looking directly at him since returning to bed. She didn't know how to play the game. She'd never needed to know how. She had tried to follow his lead but he was infuriating. The more she allowed herself to be around Dean, to let him touch her and make her feel all those sensations in bed… the more and more afraid of him she became. Her visions were never wrong until now. "Why did you get so bent out of shape in the first place?"
"I have seen a million guys like this Billy kid." Dean took the bowl from her. "You don't want to get mixed up with him. You're just a conquest for him. Unattainable and therefore desirable."
"And you're nothing like that." She accused lightly.
"Hey. I have some class."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. I'm still in bed. The opportune time for me to skip out was while you were peeing." Dean let that lay between them for a while. "Okay. Fine, I don't do pillow talk."
"I figured. Give me that." She took her bowl back to finish off the ice cream.
"You want me to leave?" Liz pondered that as the ice cream melted in her mouth; her eyes sliding to glance at him. "You horny little vixen."
"I didn't answer the question.""But I saw that look in your eyes." He nodded to himself with a grin. "I knew it. I still got it."
"Were you afraid you'd lost it?"
"You jumped me first."
"That was the other night. Tonight, it was all you… putting on charm, spreading around the testosterone. Making innuendos. I was just trying to have a good time turning down Billy."
"That's your idea of a good time?"
"It doesn't have to lead anywhere."
"Oh, so you've had experience messing around with a guy's hopes for a lay?"
"Maybe."
"How? You were married since birth."
"No, no. I had several opportunities to lose it before I got married and not all of them to Max. Putting a guy off and keeping him interested is a very delicate balance because the male ego is so very fragile."
"Okay. I'll buy that." Dean clasped his hands over his stomach. "So, let me ask you this… couple of months back, you came to me and reminded me that we had met before. Why?"
"It was cathartic for me."
"What's that mean?"
"It was cleansing, emotionally."
"I know what cathartic means." He rolled his eyes. "Let me rephrase. Why was it cathartic?"
"I kind of already told some of it to Sam. Kyle and I have been working on it." She set the bowl down on the night stand. "I had a vision a long time ago that you and I would be sleeping together. Scared the shit out of me." She stopped him from leaping in to defend his honor. "This was before we had met. I was married. The vision was very detailed. I didn't want it to come to pass. It still hasn't… which says to me that something changed. Something happened to prevent it from happening the way I saw it. I don't know if it's good and I don't know if it's bad. I just know that what we've been doing is not what I predicted we'd be doing. When we met that night in Racine, I rushed out of there. I was scared out of my mind because I saw you and you were lying there, laughing it up. Looking just like my…"
"What's that?" Dean sat up.
She stared at him. At the scars she knew that he had accumulated since they had met. Burns from the fire that had nearly taken Sam. Cuts from the car accident that had caused her so much grief. She laid her fingers on his arm, tracing them. "You didn't have these in my vision. Either that… day wasn't supposed to happen or we were supposed to be together before that."
"Alright. I get that I'm not a bright guy. Sammy tells me all the time but… right now… you're the one that's not making sense."
"Unless it's a ripple effect. Everything that we change affects other events and so on and so forth."
"Aw, crap. You're not going to get into that metaphysical shit right now are you? That shit takes all night to get through. I can handle getting busy til I pass out or just passing out right now."
"Then go to sleep." Liz waved him off as she rose to find a notebook.
He grabbed the back of her shirt and yanked her back onto the bed. "How about you start over? Tell me exactly what you're talking about."
TBC