Content Warning: Description of mental and physical torture
"
And the Ripped Ones say goodbye
While the others meet
Attached somewhere
At least they're shared
"
Warm rivulets trail from Dawn's scalp down the bridge of her nose and line her lip. She is staring at her wrist, tracing the uneven bumps of scar tissue.
Each smooth glide down the lines of the III twists horror in her stomach, the kind that demands no sound or facial expression. That steals focus from the present moment and distorts concentration.
Six hours…
She drops her wrist and hugs herself, squatting on the floor of the motel shower. She touches the indent of missing skin from her left shoulder blade. She tucks her chin into her chest, the sound of water drowning out any other noise, feeling, or concern.
It collects in the crook of her elbows, flowing down her thighs. It spirals down the drain coloured a weak red by blood and stray hairs.
The reality of her impending imprisonment begins to paralyse her with indecision, weighing her knees like an anchor in the water feature she has created with her curled body. It feels impossible to move, let alone stand. It feels too exhausting to process a deep well of sadness lurking underneath the overwhelming sound of splashing and trickle. It feels… To feel does not feel like a good option.
Dawn grits her teeth. She lifts her head, sending a wave through her body pond. She turns her face up to the showerhead, closing her eyes as the water smooths her hair down. It saturates it, pulling it off her shoulders and down her back. It is heavy on her neck, stretching her scalp.
Stretched, weighed, curled, overwhelmed. Her body is bulky, soaking up the water like a towel needing to be wrung. Wrung and hung.
Half an hour after Castiel's departure, Dawn confirms his assumption. The Impala is indeed parked opposite the Winchester's room.
She is thankful she took the time to blow dry her hair, the chill making her nose pink. The curls sit unusually soft and shiny after the aggressive detangling before the mission, blanketing her shoulders, cushioning her face. She had even fished out a fresh set of clothes to truly mark the night as celebratory. She dared to think herself 'pretty' before she left, although minimal TLC could not improve her haggard face and severe eye bags. She tried not to think about why she was even worried about something so superficial…
She knocks softly on their door.
"Hey, guys?" She calls, recalling the Winchester protocol of unannounced strangers at the door. That is, pointing a concealed gun with a finger over the trigger before opening.
Predictably, Dean slowly pulls the door only as far as its chain will allow. He waggles an eyebrow through the chink.
"Room service?" He asks, shutting the door to unlock it properly.
Dawn smiles despite herself, trying to disguise it as a frown when she can walk in.
"To protect and serve you, apparently."
"Sure," Dean smirks at her. "If you count us getting you backup as protection and you serving yourself on a platter to your demon pal."
She rolls her eyes.
Sam smiles at her, distracted, fiddling with his phone. He sits at the table, the piles of books and papers replaced by packs of beer.
The maps and string have been taken from the walls, revealing the grey slate paint underneath that only accentuates the depressing aura of the motel room.
"Having a party?" She wonders, taking a seat.
"There's no bars open this late in town." Dean shrugs. "So, I loaded up on booze instead."
He takes a swig of his own bottle, gesturing for her to help herself. She does, noticing Sam has barely touched his own.
His leg shakes and he has a sheen of sweat on his brow. His eyes dart around the room.
Dawn gulps down a mouthful, before clearing her throat. "Hey, Sam, are you doing okay after everything?"
"What?" He turns his attention to her, as if he had forgotten she was in the room. "Yeah, I'm fine."
He speaks quickly and irritably. Dawn frowns at him.
"Sure." She is unconvinced.
"Why do you both keep asking me that?" His tone is measured, but there is a sharpness to it.
"You seem pretty wigged out right now is all." She takes another long swig.
He opens his mouth as if to speak, but then looks down at his phone. When he looks up again, both Dean and Dawn are staring at him expectantly.
"You know what? I think I just need some air." He stands abruptly. "I'm just gonna go for a walk."
"Right, because that's not suspicious at all." Dean is deadpan.
His brother looks at him, huffs, then walks out the door with a slam.
Dean glares at it, his face grimacing as he tries to suppress his anger.
Dawn looks at him with sympathy. "Should I ask?"
"No." It comes like a reflex, short and sharp.
"I thought so." She tips her beer back.
Dean sighs, then takes a seat next to her. "I know you wanna help, and I know you care about Sammy, but the thing is… It's just better off that you don't know. You're not involved in this shit, and you should keep it that way as long as you can."
"It's fine, I've been forced onto you guys. I get it. It's not like you chose to have me on board like this…" She stares at her bottle.
"Don't get me wrong," he urges. "It's great having you around. But you can't be around all the time. And-"
He stops himself, opening and shutting his mouth a few times before finishing his beer instead. As he pops open another one, Dawn raises an eyebrow at him.
"You were saying?"
"Was I?" He takes a swig.
"Dean, come on."
He clears his throat. "Sam's made some bad decisions. I don't even know the half of 'em. I don't want you to get the wrong idea about him if we're not gonna see you 'round, you know what I mean?"
She shrugs. "Not really."
"I guess I don't even know what's going on with him. What I don't know about my own brother could fill a book." He laughs without joy. "But you remember Sammy five years ago, and that's good enough for me."
She continues to look at his face that is turned at a right angle to hers, staring straight ahead. When he does not elaborate, she leans back a little in her chair.
"Okay." She accepts the tidbit. "How are you doing, though?"
He smirks. "Just peachy. You know me."
She sighs angrily. "No, I don't actually! That's kind of the problem."
"Sure you do," he grins. "I'm fine."
She shakes her head at him but takes his cue and finishes her bottle. The alcohol sits uneasily in her stomach, warm and seedy.
They are quiet, staring at the table, drinking, for a few minutes. The light outside the motel door buzzes distantly, and the usual atmosphere of trucks driving on the main road behind them serenades.
Dawn eyes the clock on the wall.
"I leave in just over five hours." The emptiness in her voice shocks her.
"Really? Shit."
"Yeah…" She cannot help the sadness the creeps into her tone. "Castiel negotiated some extra time, otherwise I'd be gone right now."
"What an angel." Dean says sarcastically.
"I think he does the best he can," she admits. "Could be worse."
"The best he can my ass."
"You don't agree?"
"No way. I don't trust any of 'em – fuckin' angels. We've been their puppets from the get-go." He slams his bottle onto the table and looks at Dawn. "What actually would be the best he could do would be busting you out of the mountains. Nah, Dawn, Cas is God's bitch. He listens to Heaven first and asks questions later."
She purses her lip. "You're right." He's right.
"Damn straight." Another swig.
"So – I reckon we can have that talk now." Dawn looks at Dean expectantly. "I don't think Sam will be back for a while."
"What talk?"
"Remember I told you that we owed each other a chat about Hell?"
A shadow passes over Dean's face. "I don't-"
"Dean." Her voice is no longer joking and light. She leans forward as he looks away, placing her elbows on the table. "Have you spoken to anyone about it yet?"
"What are you, a shrink?" His own tone is defensive, unable to hide his discomfort.
"All it's going to do is eat away at you if you don't tell someone about it, if you keep lying to people about not remembering. Denying it to yourself. I should know." A gulp of beer. A warmth is creeping up her face now, softening the weight she has been carrying since she woke with the scar on her wrist.
Dean stares at the table, impassive.
"The longer you keep it in, the worse it seems – the more unreal it feels. The only way you can move on is by getting it out somehow." She leans further forward, trying to get his attention. "Dean, it's not gonna hurt to talk about it. And, hey, I'm leaving soon, so it's a low stake kinda deal. You may never see me again, so…"
She swallows the end of the of the sentence.
He clenches his jaw, but his voice loses its edge as he relents. "What was it like for you?"
She blinks, rolling her upper lip into her mouth and chewing on it.
Thinking back, it is hard for her to pinpoint one memory to focus on. They mix in flashes of blackness, or in sparks of red like the underside of an eyelid. The feeling of them is the same, the fear and unrelenting dread and isolation and loneliness. It exists under every fold.
She bites harder on her lip, letting it roll back with a red ring from her teeth.
It feels so far away, so long ago, but it is written in her body and chemical makeup. Once one trauma comes back to her, more stick to it and roll and build, until she is ready to speak.
"There were a few different tortures they used on me," she can feel her voice catching in her throat as her body tenses, remembering the pain. She folds her hands together in front of her, staring at her entangled fingers. They are a reminder of where she is, a physical thing instead of the psychological beast she is poking in her mind. If she can focus on that, she can speak without waking it.
"They all involved being locked up in my head somehow. There was one, the one they used the most. It was like I was in a pitch-black room. I couldn't tell if my eyes were open or closed, it was so dark. And then, it gets disorientating. I couldn't tell up from down. I couldn't tell if I was standing, sitting, sinking, floating, or falling. And then I would panic…"
Dawn takes a breath, realising she is squeezing her hands together, her fingertips going white.
"It would be like lucid dreaming. As I tumbled and tried to make sense of this… nonsensical nothingness, and I wondered if I was falling, I would actually start to feel like I was. Same if I felt like I was floating. But it wouldn't be pleasant floating. It would be like… If you were drowning. And you had given up trying to get to the surface, knowing it's too far away. But I was blind! I didn't know how close or how far from the surface I was. I could have been one more kick away, I could have been at the very bottom of the Mariana fucking Trench. I could have been the wrong way up, kicking away from the surface, going deeper… It didn't matter, I was stuck. And the falling was like, being at the top of a rollercoaster and just. Dropping. Not knowing when I would hit the bottom."
She squeezes her eyes shut, digging her nails into her hand.
"Fuck…" Is all Dean manages as he listens. "How did you wind up in Hell anyway? I mean. I know officially why it happened, but-"
"Well, that's just it, I killed myself." She flicks her eyes up to meet his nervously. "Sin of the body, to take God's creation and dash it away. That's the thinking behind it anyway."
He huffs. "I'm starting to think that no one really knows what the big man wants. Not even friggin' angels."
"No shit." She lifts her bottle to her mouth and drains its contents, chugging in the hopes it will diffuse the anxiety and fear pumping through her.
"Hell, I knew what I was getting into. I made a deal with a cross-"
Dawn chokes, liquid spurting out her mouth and running down her chin. She gulps, wiping away the spit as she splutters. "You made a fucking deal? Are you insane?"
Dean shrugs, amused by the messy display. "I'd do it again."
She is in disbelief, foam still clinging to her lip. "What was it for?"
"Sammy's life."
She swallows her astonishment, nodding. "Yep, that sounds on brand."
He glares at her. "Excuse me?"
"You guys would do anything for each other." She shrugs. "It's admirable, if a little co-dependent. I don't know anyone that would do that for me…"
Her eyes glaze a little, reflecting on the sentiment. She relaxes her hold on the empty bottle, letting it roll onto the table with a clatter.
He frowns. "Dawn?"
"I killed myself to save someone else, so it's not as if I can talk."
His mouth falls open on its own accord. "You – you what?"
She looks at him, meeting his eye. The alcohol is seeping through her blood stream, her face flushed.
She thinks about the green of his eyes, the freckles on his face, the curve of his chin, the stubble poking along his jawline, the shape of his lips that she imagines would feel –
"Quid pro quo, Dr Lector." She says, reaching forward and poking his arm clumsily. "I shared my experience, you share yours."
"Come on, I didn't agree to that."
She should not feel as disappointed as she does when he looks away. "It's only fair."
He sighs heavily. He closes his eyes, rubbing his hands together.
He looks as if he is weighing up his options.
When he opens his eyes again, he stares hard ahead, not looking at Dawn next to him.
"They put me on the rack. That meant physical pain, mainly – the whole nine yards. Nail ripping. Teeth removal. Hair being pulled out. Cutting slits into my nostrils, pouring salt water over them. Then they'd move onto cutting off fingers, toes. Cutting into my skin – removing my eyelids. Pushing my eyes out or squishing them in their sockets. Kneecap removal. Cutting off my ears. Cutting off my balls. Flaying."
He lists them matter-of-factly, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
"Then they would pour salt water, boiling water, acid, or whatever on the muscle. They would poke at it, stick nails and pins in. Then… when there was nothing left, they'd put me back together and do it all over again."
He breathes, looking at his hands that sit clasped in front of him.
"Sometimes they'd bring in Sammy, or dad. Or mum. Hallucinations of them. They'd make me watch while they did the same to them. To Mary, sometimes they'd –" There is a lump in his throat that he tries to swallow.
Dawn looks on with a consoling eye, resting her hand on his shoulder. It is warm against her cold hand, trembling with the tension his body holds. His eyes flick to the gesture and then away.
"Anyway. Mainly physical pain. It was worse when they did it to my family. Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore."
He blinks, and a tear escapes. He wipes it away immediately, annoyed.
"We made a deal – I would start torturing in exchange for mine to stop."
Dawn squeezes his shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Dean."
He cannot look at her, rubbing his face with his hands, dragging them across his eyes so he can delay opening them.
"I had to make a deal, too," she admits. "But, not quite the same as yours. I had to offer up my service to the cause – the cause of closing the rift to Purgatory. Strenuous, relentless training, then a month on the surface killing hundreds, maybe thousands, of monsters."
He looks at her now, interested. "In exchange for what?"
"I was supposed to go to Heaven." She sounds bitter. "But I woke up in a hospital bed instead."
"Tough break," despite himself, he smiles at her.
"Yeah, gotta deal with your sorry ass all over again." She lets her hand slip off his shoulder, giving it a playful punch.
Dean watches her fingers leave his arm. He meets her eye again, but there is a gentle glimmer in it. The same look he had given her earlier that day, a sort of loving softness that made her stomach squirm and quickened her heart rate.
She was suddenly very aware that Dean was leaning towards her now, turning his body in her direction so he could speak without twisting his head. She angles herself towards him in return.
"What ever happened after me and Sam left?" His voice is quiet. "Back in Washington."
"Life was normal, then my parents died. I went back to England for the funeral. And then I died."
Dean smirks. "No, I mean, what happened with that guy you were with? What was his name… Started with a 'p' – Percy? Patrick? Paul?"
"Oh, Peter? We broke up, duh." Dawn laughs a little, buoyed by the beer swilling in her stomach, welcoming the thought of trivial memories. "When we worked out he was responsible for one of the deaths with the rogue spirits, that was it. It didn't help that none of my friends liked him."
He guffaws sarcastically. "What? They didn't like that preppy, 10-pounds-soaking-wet SOB?"
She rolls her eyes. "Shut up. I can't believe there was a time in my life when my biggest concern was whether or not the guy I brought to meet my friends was 'boyfriend material' or not."
"I reckon normal lives are overrated anyway," he winks at her.
"Well, when I say that life was 'normal', it wasn't really. It was just – I wasn't dead. Bit of a low bar, really." She props her head on her hand leaning on the table, reminiscing. "After you guys left, there was so much I wanted to know about what you did. My eyes were opened to this whole other side of life. It made my studies feel so meaningless… I was pretty lost.
I'd been trying to run away from my life back in the UK when I moved, and that was sort of it – my purpose. Study, get a job, never go back again. Hide at the college or in America or anywhere else. Leave my shitty parents in the dust like it all meant nothing to me – and if I believed that, that it didn't affect me, I figured I'd win. I'd undo all the shit my mother had tried to convince me about –"
She blinks and shakes her head a little.
"Sorry, I donno where that came from," she tries to laugh off how tense she has become.
Dean hands her a beer he has just opened. "What was it you were saying to me about getting stuff out in the open?"
"Only when it benefits me," she smiles wide to overcompensate for her vulnerability. "This stuff… I'm not really ready yet."
He raises his bottle, tilting it suggestively. "Here's to shitty parents and shittier lives."
"Here, here," she laughs, rapping the glass against his.
Their eye contact does not break as they drink.
It is another half an hour before Sam re-enters the motel room.
Dean and Dawn swap anecdotes about hunting and fighting, laughing at all the appropriate (and inappropriate) moments. The alcohol, although it affects her more than Dean, loosens the tension from their previous gloomier discussions. It is too easy for them to smile at each other, and when the staring gets too long, as it often does, to look away bashfully.
Dawn passes off the warmth in her cheeks and the discomfort in her belly as the beer working its way through her bloodstream. She starts to sway a little as she picks up and puts down her bottle. Her face starts to feel tight and sore from grinning too hard and too much.
She finds herself reaching across the table more and more to punch, kick, or poke Dean as the opportunities arise.
He finds himself leaning further forward towards his friend to receive the teasing abuse.
At some point, their knees knock against each other under the table, and there is a moment of instinctive pulling away and apology. Until it happens again, and this time, they stay resting on each other.
At some point, instead of punching or poking his shoulder, Dawn starts to slap at his hand or tap it as the opportunity arises to tease. Dean, for his part, encourages her by leaving it resting on the table after the second or third joke.
Then it is just easier for Dawn to keep her hand resting next to it, maybe even to rest her fingers tentatively on his.
The rattle of the room key in the door abruptly separated the two, but there was a burning in her chest now sustained. All she had to do was flick her eye to Dean, and for him to greet her with his own and a smile, and it fluttered and gleamed.
With the hand she had resting on his hand, she picks up her beer, draining the last of it as Sam enters the space. He frowns at the accumulation of empty bottles but otherwise seems far more well-adjusted than he had when he had left.
He nods and forces a smile at Dawn.
"I'm gonna hit the hay, guys," he walks over to one of the beds behind the table. "Keep it down, would ya?"
"Pussy." Dean teases, his voice thick from beer and laughter.
Sam ignores him, falling onto the mattress and kicking his shoes off.
Dawn looks on sadly. "I guess that's my cue."
Dean shifts forward immediately. "Nah, don't worry about him. You should stay. Have one more beer."
"I've got, what, three possible hours of sleep before I have to pack up all my shit and go?" Her mouth is lazy, slurring a couple of 's' sounds together and deadening her 't's. The regret in her tone is clear.
She looks to the door, but Dean's hand reaching over to rest on her arm stops her from standing.
"I'd like it if you stayed." He speaks quietly, the sincere rumble in his voice betraying a whisper.
She looks from the hand on her arm, warm and comforting, to him – a pleading, affectionate gaze. She smiles softly, placing her own hand on his.
The fluttering in her stomach spreads in a wash of heat up and down her body. Her chest feels tight as her breathing becomes shallow, giddiness twitching her smile wider as she recalls a detail from earlier in the night.
"Come with me," she nods towards the door. "I've got an idea."
The temperature in Dawn's face is a barrier to the cold outside, the alcohol and a shy blush insulating her. She can feel the air tickle her cheeks and the tip of her ears and nose, can feel it rush in and out of her as she breaths deliberately, but it does not penetrate the glee emanating through her.
Dean has followed her from their motel room to the outskirts of the carpark, in the direction of the training warehouse before he speaks:
"Where are we going?"
"I wasn't supposed to tell you where I was staying, for security and confidentiality, blah blah blah," she admits, walking beside a gravel path in the middle of the industrial park. "Since I'm dangerous, and I have to be contained and supervised – whatever. Doesn't mean I can't show you…"
"So, you're taking me to your room?" The smirk on his face is audible.
"Yeah?" Her foot slips on a bigger chunk of rock.
"Bit forward of you, Dawn," he teases.
"What are you talking about? I just want to piss off some angels."
Up until this moment, Dawn had been leading the way. Dean runs ahead now, facing her and walking backwards. He is lit by the flood lights around them, framing her as a silhouette.
"Well, you do only have three hours left here," he shrugs. "If I were you, I would use it wisely."
"Is this the 'last night on earth' speech?" She stuffs her hands into her pockets. "That shit won't work on me."
"No, of course not!" He kicks some gravel at her. "It's the 'you only have three hours left here' speech. Totally different."
"My mistake." She tilts her head so half of her face is lit, tinted amber through her hair. She smiles. "I've been away from sleazebags like you for so long, I can't tell the difference between your flirting approaches."
"For someone as supposedly clueless as you are, you're pretty good at flirting," he shrugs. "Just saying."
She stifles a laugh as he unknowingly steps into a pole behind him.
Dawn crouches low as they near her room, motioning Dean to follow her behind a hedge circling the block. There are two men in suits stationed outside her door. So far, they have remained undetected.
"Wow, you got a nice motel." He murmurs as they follow the line of leaves. It borders the busy road behind the building. Every now and then, a truck flies by, sending a chill wind under their jackets.
"They're all the same to me…" She replies, concentrating on stepping silently, searching for something in the hedge.
"If you're so fixed on pissing off angels, why are you being so careful?" He was clearly irritated by the sneaking, but he did not want to admit it was because his thighs were sore from the squatting.
"It would take all the fun out of it if we were caught…" Her tone is still distant.
"Yeah, I guess they'd just send me straight back to dodge…" He grimaces as his legs burn.
He sees Dawn raise her hand to stop, peering through a hole in the hedge. She edges around, and he joins her looking through.
There is a window directly opposite them on the back wall of the block, a kitchenette visible. In a line of identical windows along four other rooms, it is the only one open and still lit.
She leans over to him, whispering in his ear.
"They have sentries that do a walk around every now and then, but I can't see them. Seems like the coast is clear."
"You want me to climb through the window?"
She smiles. "Is that a problem?"
He can feel a blush creeping up. "No – but, won't it make noise?"
She purses her lips. "The only one who would know I'd gone to see you is Castiel… I don't think the others saw me leave. Maybe they will think I've been inside the whole time."
"Don't get me wrong," he nudges her playfully. "I'm in. Just don't want you getting into too much trouble with these douchebags."
"Sweet of you," she nudges him back. "Come on."
She steps over the bottom of the hole, staying low as she lunges towards the window.
Its ledge is level with her forehead. She pushes the glass up as far as she can. It is stiff, making a creaking noise as she forces it.
She freezes, pressing herself against the wall, waiting for an angel to come around and inspect the disturbance.
When, after five seconds, no one rounds the corner, she pulls herself up effortlessly and over the ledge, her back straight and her chest banging on the sink as her legs stick out the window. She edges herself forward.
Her hand slips on the lip of the sink where the tap has been dripping, and she slides over the faucet, toppling to the floor. A burning pain emanates from her pelvis, and from her cheeks at the inelegance of her fall.
Groaning, she gets herself upright again, and peers through the window.
Dean is looking up from the sill, shaking his head disbelievingly.
"There's no fucking way, Red," he whispers. "I don't have your twinkle toes."
"If you get yourself most of the way up, I'll pull you in."
"No way, I'm taking my chances through the front."
"They won't let you through."
Dean sighs, a little too loudly. Dawn hears shuffling coming from her front door.
"Hurry up!"
The urgency in her voice gives him a burst of energy, attempting to lift himself onto the ledge as she had managed before. He barely gets his chin over before she realises he is going to give up.
She grabs the back of his jacket and yanks him in. He smacks his chin on the tap and topples over the sink in the same awkward and painful fashion as Dawn, tumbling onto the floor and bringing her down with him.
They lie there on the kitchenette, propped up on an elbow, as they listen to the angels make their rounds.
Straining her ear for the sound of footsteps outside, Dawn becomes aware of her heartbeat, pronounced and thudding. She becomes aware of Dean's hand where it landed on her arm, and the proximity of his face, turned in the direction of the window now but if he just turned his head…
The thought of his hand on hers earlier and his willingness to follow her and tease her is too much for her to push away her desires.
The thought of another human, warm and affectionate, right there within reach, when she has so little time left, when she trusts him…
She stares at his face. It relaxes as the footsteps retreat, and he smiles a little. He turns his head with boyish excitement.
"That was close."
She flicks her eye to his lips then back to his eyes. Under the warm white light of the kitchenette, they glimmer as they too move from her mouth to her eyes.
It is the smallest motion to close the distance between their lips, delicately, warm and soft. A few stray whiskers on Dean's upper lip tickle Dawn's.
After one kiss, a hungry need overcomes her, and the next is clumsy and open-mouthed with a wet, hot slide of the tongue and the taste of stale alcohol. He squeezes her arm, and she balls his shirt in her hand, pulling him closer.
He smiles into her mouth, pulling away. "How much time do you have?"
Her eyes flick to the wall clock. "Two hours and a bit."
"Better make the most of it."
For Dean, the unzipping of Dawn's hoodie and the yanking of her tracksuit is driven by excitement, and the defiance of time pressure.
For Dawn, undressing Dean and pulling him onto her motel bed is an act of desperation, exasperated by the limited time.
There are the usual insecurities, uncertainty from the amount of time since her last hook up – a lifetime ago – and embarrassment at the unruly nature of her body. These dissipate as all is laid bare, Dean's own scars on show, the uncertainty giving way to primal memory and instinct.
The focus becomes the memorisation of her lips on his, on his body, his on hers. His tongue tracing her scarring, her teeth on his – up his neck, sucking hollows into his jaw, teasing out as many sounds as she can.
Hearing her own moans of pleasure, hiding her face in his chest or a pillow to muffle shocks of desire as Dean licks, touches, bucks against her, physical radiations she has forgotten she is capable of.
Little red marks from teeth and mouths pulsate rhythmically, blossoming purple and green with time. The sheets crumple and twist around them, eventually rolling forgotten to the floor.
She runs her fingers through his hair, dragging her nails down his back, crying out into his mouth, demanding more, the insatiable starvation of pleasure building to a foreseeable, frantic end. Sweat presses into their bodies, the sheets, goosebumps rippling under fingertips that become tangled and pinned to the headboard or the mattress.
Guttural cries, utter bliss, the likes of which Dawn had forgotten. Then the heaviness of another's body on top of hers, sliding beside her. A weight in the bed, sticky with sweat, breathing heavily. Alive, well and truly, pulling on her and folding her against him. She pulls back – something visceral to cling to, press her face into, breathe into.
It is one of the greatest luxuries to settle into the steamy embrace, relax into another's arms.
A cold pit weighs Dawn's stomach, growing steadily, sucking in and consuming the anxieties she had suppressed through beer and sex. In the dark, her eyes are open on Dean's chest that rises and falls in the consistency of sleep.
The memory of her house on the mountain, the cold bed, the empty rooms, the quiet grounds. Nothing but her and her thoughts and occasionally an angel captor.
The pit tries to swallow her heart, the chill it brings squeezing her rib cage.
She breathes deeply, the reminder of a person in her bed a strange, alienating buoy to tie herself to as she floats out of consciousness.
End Note: I struggle to write romance (esp. sex scenes) - I hope I did okay! We're almost halfway through now, which is crazy to me. I would love to hear your thoughts on the series so far. Thank you for reading to this point x