Chapter 6 Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman
To really love a woman, to understand her
You gotta know her deep inside
Dean rubbed a hand over his face, looking out the kitchen window absently, fingers curled around a cup of coffee. The goddamned song had been on the radio when the alarm went off this morning, and he hadn't been able to get it out of his head. Maybe he didn't want to. He couldn't think about it too deeply, it cut too close to other things he was trying not to think about.
Hear every thought, see every dream
An' give her wings when she wants to fly
He'd woken to the song and had twisted around, hand already raised to smack the button that would turn it off, then he'd hesitated as the lyrics filtered in through his sleep-softened defences. Pain and longing and shame had flooded him, and he'd rolled over, letting the song play on, listening to it as if it had been some kind of penance.
When she'd stirred on the other side of the bed, the song had been more than halfway through. She'd turned toward him and every cell, every nerve and muscle and tendon had been thrumming with his desire to hold her close to him, to let his hands smooth over her skin, knowing that she would open her eyes and smile at him and open herself unconditionally to him. He'd frozen there, for countless seconds, listening to the song, wanting so much to follow that desire he hadn't been able to take a breath, finally turning away, closing his eyes, steadying his breathing, pretending that he hadn't seen, hadn't felt, hadn't wanted.
The song had been long finished when she'd woken, but it had been playing in his head as he'd watched her get up, pull on the pale green robe and walk out of the bedroom, the early morning sun catching the colour of her hair and turning it to fire as she'd passed out of his line of vision.
Then when you find yourself lyin' helpless in her arms
you know you really love a woman
He looked down at the cup on the table. He loved her. He really loved her. He couldn't live without her, not for a day, for an hour, or a minute. Everything they'd been through, all their history together had proved that over and over again, undeniable, irrefutable, immutable. He couldn't make that fit with what had happened, what he'd done, but he loved her.
"What a great picture, John!" Ellie leaned over the table, looking at the drawing John was holding up.
Dean sat across the table from them, and watched her smile, knowing precisely how the dimples deepened to either side of her mouth, as the smile widened, how it would light up her eyes, and crinkle up the corners, how it would fade away incrementally, not just disappear.
Rosie climbed onto his lap, and he looked down at her, one arm curling right around her small body as she squirmed to get the best position.
"John, I draw too." She pulled a crumpled piece of paper from the pocket on the bib of her overalls, throwing it across the table at her brother. John snatched it up before it could hit the jammy toast on his plate and opened it up, smoothing it out on the table, looking over it with the critical eye of an older brother.
"Look, Mom, Dad, Rosie's is really good." He held it up and both Ellie and Dean leaned forward to look at the picture. Rosie had drawn a picture of the car, in three-quarter view. Ellie looked at Dean, one brow rising.
He reached out for it. "John, pass that over?"
John held it out to his father, Dean's fingers closing around the edge. The car was proportionate, and in perspective. The entire body was a solid black, but the headlights were unmistakably the Impala's. He set the drawing down on the table, tucking his cheek against his daughter's.
"That's an awesome picture, Rosie. Do you have any more?"
Forty minutes later, he leaned against the edge of the long table, now cleaned up and covered in drawings, both John and Rosie's, spread from one end to the other. Ellie had laid them out in the closest she could come to their chronological order.
From the oldest to the most recent, they looked at the drawings, seeing the jumps in development, from flat, primary-coloured two-dimensional, to the attempts by both children to draw in perspective, sometimes showing the pieces that would normally be hidden, sometimes not. The colours had changed, John used shading to show colour variation and light and shadow; Rosie used different colours and colour mixes to achieve the same thing.
"Are these … normal?" Dean looked at Ellie, not sure if he should be worried or proud.
"Not in line with standard development, but they're not abnormal in terms of what they're drawing. They're just seeing things clearly." Ellie looked at a drawing of Trish. The face was barely sketched in but the wind in her hair was alive, as if the lines on the paper might start moving at any time. She glanced at him.
"I don't know what that means, in terms of our life, what's happening here."
He nodded slowly, his eyes drawn again to one drawing. John had drawn a picture of his mother, sitting at the kitchen table looking down into a cup. The background had been barely suggested, a few lines here and there to indicate the counter and the cupboards, but the room was undeniably their kitchen. He'd caught her exact shade of hair, using several different reds and yellows and almost blending them to make the distinctive bright copper colour. A few strands had escaped from her braid, and hung forward of her face. And his son had captured a moment of … contemplation, perhaps, or sorrow, in his mother's face.
"John, when did you draw this?" He turned around and lifted the little boy into his arms, pointing at the drawing.
"Um … don't remember." John wriggled, impatient to be put down. He wasn't so keen on being cuddled any more. Dean let him down and looked at the picture for a moment longer, aware of Ellie's gaze on him.
"Should we, uh, take these and show someone?" he asked eventually, straightening up and glancing at her.
"Probably." Ellie nodded. "Sometime. Not yet."
He frowned, seeing the small crease between her brows. "What?"
"I don't know." She didn't look at him, her eyes moving over the pictures, studying them one by one. "Just a feeling that it's not the right time yet."
"Huh." He looked from her profile to the pictures and back. Children who seemed to be art prodigies and Ellie having feelings about it. He wasn't sure which was more disturbing, and he wasn't comfortable with either.
When you love a woman
You tell her that she's really wanted
The dojo wasn't a proper one. The smooth floors were timber, not matted. They gave relief to the joints with their spring, but if you came down on the boards hard, you got bruised. The building was quite large, set in between the garage and the boundary wall to Baraquiel's house, surrounded by trees, cool and private in the summer, ice cold and uncomfortable in the winter.
Dean watched Ellie and Sam on the floor critically. Despite the eleven-inch height advantage and at least a hundred and forty pound weight advantage his brother had over the woman he faced, Sam wasn't winning. Two scrapes along his ribs showed where Ellie's feet had landed, and he would have a nice shiner in a few hours, courtesy of misjudging her reach and coming in too close.
Up until a few weeks ago, he'd been training with her himself. He couldn't, now. Couldn't make himself hit out. Couldn't make himself attack her in any way. He'd attacked her once, and that had short-circuited everything else.
He hadn't explained– to either Ellie or Sam – just made up excuses until they'd stopped expecting him to join in. He'd spar with Sam in the afternoon, or Baraquiel or Chaz or one of the nephilim.
"Sam, if you don't watch your guard, she's going to get in under it again and you'll have a matching set of bruises on both sides of your ribs," he called out.
Sam's response was a fleeting grin. Ellie didn't respond at all, her eyes on Sam's chest, her body as fluid as a cat's. Sam shifted to one side and then stepped in, blindingly fast, his fist half-closed and snapping out at her, but she'd already faded back, moving as fast backwards as he could forwards, so well balanced that it appeared that she floated away from him. It was one of the more aggravating moves she had, and one that Dean'd been trying to duplicate for years now. He watched as Sam over-extended his reach, losing the ability to move away, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly, knowing what would happen next. She was on his little brother in an instant, her elbow paralysing his arm, the heel of her hand slamming into his jaw. Dean heard the snap of Sam's teeth from where he was sitting.
Sam stumbled forward, his right arm hanging limply by his side, and Ellie shifted sideways, leg snapping out, her momentum and full body weight behind the outside curve of her bare foot, hitting the back of Sam's shoulder with a dull thwap and sending him crashing to the hardwood floorboards. He rolled a couple of times to get out of her reach, and got to his feet, rubbing his arm, trying to get some feeling back into it.
Dean saw the concentration vanish from her face, as if it hadn't existed. She straightened up and walked over to Sam, taking his arm in her hands, and massaging around the nerve centre she'd struck, until he could wiggle his own fingers again.
"You have a late one last night, Sam?"
Sam grinned. "No. You're just sneaky as all hell."
She smiled. "And still alive. Go figure."
"Well, coach?" She turned, the smile aimed directly at him, and his heart contracted sharply.
"Not bad," he said, only a little unsteadily. Ellie snorted.
"Not bad," she repeated mockingly. "Come here and show me what you got."
"After wiping the floor with Sam, I'd hate to cut you down to size."
Sam's hooting laugh was clearly audible in the bare room, despite the fact that he was standing on the other side.
Ellie picked up her towel from bench next to Dean and slung it around her neck. She turned away from him, and he leaned forward, his hand flashing out and catching hers. She looked at him, surprised.
"What?"
"I'm sorry." He kept trying to say it. It was never enough, not in his mind.
"For what?" She turned back toward him.
"For everything." He looked down at her hand, still held in his. The bruising along her wrists had gone, like the ones around her throat. He could still see it, though.
"Everything?" Ellie looked down at him, he could hear the frown in her voice. "That's a lot."
He looked up at her. "You know what I mean."
She stepped closer to him, settling herself across his legs. He pulled in a deep breath and let his hands rest lightly against her hips, looking into her eyes. The flash of anxiety that filled him whenever she got near came and went. He was afraid, but that didn't stop him wanting that closeness. She leaned forward and brushed her lips over his, feeling his fingers tighten slightly around her, watching his eyes close. He kissed her back as her tongue traced the shape of his lips, his arms curving around her and pulling her closer. This time, it was seconds after she'd deepened the kiss that the images flashed into his head, and he lightened his touch, shying away from the passion that had always been overflowing between them. Ellie leaned back slightly, looking into his eyes.
"I'm not made of glass, Dean. I can take a bit more pressure."
He looked at her, his eyes wide and lips still parted, feeling his pulse slamming away at the base of his throat.
She sighed. "It wasn't your fault. It was just an over-reaction, Dean."
He wet his lips, eyes dark as he looked at her. "I know what it was, Ellie. I know you say that it … doesn't matter, doesn't change us, but I know what it was." He shook his head, looking down. It hadn't been just an over-reaction. It had been more than that, a lot more than that. "I don't do that. Have never done it. Not like that."
"I know." She slipped her arms around his neck, sliding her cheek along his. "I know that. But it wasn't what you think it was, either."
His lips compressed. He knew what had happened. Calling it something else didn't change it.
When you love a woman you tell her that she's the one
'Cos she needs somebody
To tell her that it's gonna last forever
So tell me have you ever really
Really, really ever loved a woman?
Dean stood on the open hill, feeling the string humming against the edges of his fingers. He looked up at the kite flying high above him, shifting his gaze to the second kite, swooping and fluttering a few yards from his, and down the string to his son, whose face was enraptured by the sight of his eagle-shaped kite flying in the strong wind.
How normal was this? The thought brought a wry smile to his face. A high-pitched squeal drew his attention to Rosie, wobbling from side to side on her tiny bicycle, riding around the playground at the bottom of the hill. He watched Ellie running beside the little girl, talking and laughing as they went slowly around in a big loop.
Could there ever have been anyone else? Could he have had this with any other woman? It was possible, he guessed. But he didn't think so. Everything about her, everything that made her the person she was, was unique and unrepeatable, and all of it was necessary to him, meshing with who he was in ways he sometimes found impossible to believe. A woman who knew him, knew his life, who held his secrets in the deepest trust. A woman who loved him, every flaw and every scar and every stupid mistake even, who'd never given up on him, who'd given him everything he'd ever wanted, even when he hadn't known he'd wanted it.
And what'd he done with that?
He looked back up at the kite, flying against the wind, sunshine scattering from the shiny foil wings.
He understood how it had happened. Understood even, a part of the why; she'd told him that he'd been on the verge of self-destruction, a peculiar combination brought about by the raw and bloody physical action of the case in Billings and the fear he'd gone through on the way home, and he knew that to be true. The name of the man who'd been her first teacher, her first hunting partner, her first lover, that had set it all off.
He could recall his thoughts when she'd said it. Tangled, painful, chaotic, underlaid by a furious howl of mine, mine, this woman is mine. He hadn't known that part of himself. There'd been a lot of times when he'd thought he'd lost her, thought she'd gone, but he'd never felt that possessiveness, that thick streak of mine. It had scared him. He didn't feel like that—it wasn't him. He didn't think he owned her, didn't try to control her. Yet it still stabbed him slightly, the thought that she'd risked her life to give release to that first man, to let him escape from an eternity of Hell.
At the time, he hadn't considered her lack of action. Thinking had been in flashes, incoherent, mostly primal. He thought he should've realised at some point what he was doing, should've wondered why she wasn't fighting him, stopping him. Afterward, she'd said that if she'd really thought he was going to hurt her, she'd have put him down. And he knew, with a dry inward smile, she would've. It didn't explain why she hadn't.
Their history, their past…every time they'd made love, it had been different, sometimes wild and rough, sometimes so gentle it could take hours to reach a climax. It hadn't been dependent on anything, just the way they'd felt at the time. They had no routine, no fixed set of things that they did. It was an endless exploration, a wandering journey that mimicked their emotional path.
He couldn't get past the memories burned into his mind. Couldn't touch her unless he was only barely touching her. Couldn't let the passion, once so overwhelming that every glance, every caress, every meeting of their skin was explosive, out anymore, afraid that he'd lose control, that he would hurt her, take only his own pleasure in her body.
He was so fucking scared of that.
A spatter of raindrops hit his cheek, and he blinked, looking around. The kites were polka-dotted now, and the cloud passing over them was big enough to soak them if they kept them up.
"John." He started winding in his string. "Wind it up."
"But Dad—" John looked up at the kite, soaring in the gusts that were running ahead of the cloud.
Dean shook his head. "If they get wet, they won't fly. Bring it in."
He took the eagle kite when John had wound it in close enough to catch. The kite was bigger than his son was and the wind was starting to back and eddy, catching the wide terylene spans and shaking them. Another spatter of raindrops hit them, and they walked down the hill faster.
Ellie had Rosie's bike tucked into the back of the truck and Rosie sitting inside eating a banana when they reached the parking lot. Dean disassembled the kites quickly as Ellie settled John inside, the random spatters settling into a steady drizzle, getting stronger.
By the time he made the turn onto the road that led up to the house, the rain was drumming steadily on the roof, Rosie was asleep in her car seat, and even John was leaning against the window, eyes half-closed as the steady noise lulled him.
He glanced over at Ellie, leaning back against the passenger door, her attention half on the road in front of them, half on the sleeping children in the back seat, and reached his hand out to hers, feeling the familiar jolt as he touched her, the strength he sometimes thought he could see coming from her when he needed it.
The song played on in his head and he desperately wanted to tell her that she was the only one for him, that he loved her more than anything else, that he couldn't live without her, and that what they had, together, would last forever.
None of those words would come out.
She closed her fingers a little more firmly around his, and released his hand when he needed it to change down a gear, turning her head to look at the rain, her mouth curved into a small smile. Seeing that smile, he knew she already knew those things. Not being able to say them, the voice in his mind deriding his feelings, was a reminder of what he'd done and that hurt too.
The living room was brightly lit against the darkness that had drawn down with the storm, the fire blazing in the wide hearth, filling the room with warmth. Dean sat on the sofa, chin cupped in his hands as he took in the latest data Frank had found. In the scattering of armchairs, Frank, Marcus and Sam sat, variously reading through files, sipping hot black coffee, watching the flames dance over the burning logs. On the long sofa next to Dean, Baraquiel was also reading the files, a frown marring the near-perfect features, the firelight adding a deep red glow to the Watcher's long hair.
Twist and Garth had taken Chaz and Oman to Michigan to meet up with Laney's group a week ago. Twist had called yesterday to confirm that they'd taken down three wendigo, in a hundred mile area, and all the bodies had been atypical of the creatures, deformed in one way or another.
Dean lifted his head, glancing around the room. In the corner of the second sofa, Ellie curled up, looking at the satellite data Frank had pulled from the Department of Defence, the transparent overlay showing the location of two gates that were not sealed.
"And Cas said that the angels didn't know about the open gates?" Dean asked again, uncertain in his own mind about the angel. He'd lied to them before. The price had been very high, and Dean thought that Cas had learned that lesson, but it was possible that they were being lied to now.
Baraquiel nodded. "He was adamant about it." The Watcher looked past Dean to Ellie. "We didn't know what the demon had said, when we saw him, but he was maintaining that Heaven has been putting its affairs in order, not pursuing any kind of outside actions."
Sam leaned forward in his chair. "What about the nephilim?"
"The firstborn are the most powerful." Baraquiel nodded at Sam. "But only when they're all together. On their own, they have similar powers to a full blood angel. There's no reason for them to be manipulating these populations, though. They are as susceptible to the effects of the monsters as humans are, with far worse consequences."
Marcus snorted. "Vamp nephilim, there's a charming thought."
"The rugaru, Marcus. How old were they when they began to metamorphise?" Ellie looked at the older man.
"Two of them were in their thirties; early thirties," Marcus said. "But the last one was a teenager. Why?"
"The normal progression is mid-to-late thirties, isn't it?"
"Always has been."
"Then someone has been speeding the genetic processes up, as well as introducing a breeding program." Ellie made a face as she closed the file on her lap and picked up her coffee.
Sam's brow furrowed. "Or they've found something like a growth hormone, to speed things up."
"Or that," she agreed, looking at him from over the rim of her cup. "Why?"
"Got me." Adrienne's distinctive wail came from the kitchen and Sam glanced through the room's double doors, getting to his feet. "Back in a minute."
"Who could possibly benefit from the manipulations?" Ellie looked around at the men in the room.
"Who's powerful enough to get rid of them once they've achieved whatever purpose this is for?" Dean asked, one brow raised. "Because if this is just some kind of way to get rid of people…?"
She shook her head, the small crease appearing as she marshalled her arguments. "It's slow. And inefficient. If you can manipulate the genes or growth patterns of a species, building a really efficient virus would be much easier, much faster and much more reliable." She looked at him. "I could be wrong, of course, but this seems more like a power balance thing to me, not a wipe-out scheme."
He leaned against the sofa back. "Alright. Are we talking some kind of entity like Eve? Another mother who just wants her kids to have a fair shake on the playground?"
Frank looked at Ellie. "You know, we should really get that library of yours into a database. We could search the whole lot in a fraction of the time. With the OCR software now, we could even get the manuscripts translated and uploaded."
She nodded slowly. "Yeah, you're right. How many processors can we spare for it?"
"At least ten." Frank made a note. "We'll need a slightly better class of scanner."
Dean watched her face, feeling that little fillip of astonishment he always felt when she crossed into a different field of expertise, as comfortable in Frank's world as she was in theirs.
"Get what you need, Frank." She turned to look at Baraquiel. "We'll need some help."
Baraquiel nodded. "I'll bring everyone around in the morning. Where do you want to start?"
Ellie bit her lip. "Given the priorities of the situation, with the oldest."
Dean sat at the kitchen table, half his attention on the game he was playing with John and Rosie; the other half on Ellie, watching her move around and get ingredients for their dinner from the refrigerator, pick up a knife, chop and stir. The smell of frying onions and garlic filled the room.
Her face was smooth with concentration, her movements graceful, economical, the vegetables peeled and sliced in a short time, the knife blade flashing up and down rhythmically. He watched her crack eggs into a bowl filled with lean ground beef; tip the translucent, pale gold onions and garlic in, work the mixture through with her hands, a row of meatballs forming on the greased paper beside her. He liked watching her move, watching her do things. He sighed inwardly. He liked watching her, period.
They split the cooking usually, but Ellie had been reading about growth hormones and food additives and a range of horror stories of what was added to food in China, and had decided that they needed to go biodynamic. Dean wasn't sure what he thought of that, given what he'd spent most of his life eating. He wasn't quite ready to make fun of it. Goddamned food cost ten times as much as the regular kind. It tasted different, though. The tomatoes had tasted like tomatoes, the sort you could imagine going into a home-made spaghetti sauce. So he'd held back his comments, the jury still out on a final verdict.
"Dad! Your go!" John was staring at him in annoyance. He looked at the board and rolled the dice, tap-tapping his marker along the squares.
"Okay?" He looked down at his son, whose blond hair was beginning to darken. In the few photos they had left of Lawrence, his had begun to darken around this age too.
"Yeah, but stop staring at Mommy," John said, as he rolled a number for himself, and moved.
Dean's eyes flashed guiltily up to Ellie's. Her mouth curled into a half-smile as she looked at him, one brow arched.
"You want to come help?" she asked.
He hesitated, but a glance at Rosie's face, creased up with worry that he would go and she might definitely lose if she was just playing with her brother changed his mind. He shook his head.
"No, I'll keep an eye on John, make sure he plays by the rules." He grinned at the boy's indignant outcry.
"Hmm…now there's the pot calling the kettle black," she said, putting the bowl into the sink and pulling out a big pot.
"No one asked you," he retorted, brows drawing together in a mock-scowl as he stared at the board.
"What's that mean, Mom?" John turned around to look at her. Dean heard her laugh.
"Nothing. It doesn't mean anything other than your mother is too big for her boots," he answered quickly.
"Mommy's boots fit okay. What's that mean?" Rosie contradicted, her eyes wide. Letting out a gusty exhale, he waved a hand at the board.
"Don't you guys want to finish this game before dinner?"
Rosie's bedroom was Wedgewood blue and white, her choice of colours. The nightlight spilled a soft, pale glow over the dresser, but left the rest of the room in shadow. Dean drew the curtains shut, automatically checking the sigils drawn in wax over the glass, as Ellie tucked their daughter into bed. Outside, the sky was clear, the moon half-full and riding high already. Inside, it was warm and as he looked around, he felt a flash of old familiarity, a deep sense of safety. The room didn't look anything like what he remembered of his bedroom in Kansas, but it had the same feel to it.
"'Night, Rosie." He leaned over the bed and kissed her, smoothing the curls from her forehead.
"'Night, Daddy," she said, her eyes already closing. He backed away to the door, and closed it softly, turning after Ellie as she walked to John's room.
John was sitting up in his bed, a frown drawing his brows together as he turned over the small car in his hands. He looked up as they came in, and set it back on the nightstand.
"What's wrong?" Dean glanced at the car curiously.
"It doesn't have the same back lights as ours." John wriggled down under the covers, lifting his face for his mother's kiss. "An' it's 'posed to be the same."
Dean picked it up, turning it over in his hand. It was a Matchbox car, a '67 Impala, but John was right, they'd gotten the taillights wrong. He returned it to the nightstand and sat on the edge of the bed as Ellie moved quietly around the room, picking up clothes and toys and putting them away.
"Guess they didn't have ours to compare it with when they made it," he suggested.
"Even Rosie drawed it right, and she's only three!"
Dean smiled and nodded. "Yeah, well, not everyone is as smart as you and Rosie."
"Drew it, John," Ellie said softly from the door. "'Night to your Dad, it's time for sleep."
Dean glanced at her and looked back at John. "See you in the morning, kiddo."
"Are you and Mommy going away again?"
"Just for a couple of days, baby, then we'll be home," Ellie said.
Dean pulled the covers up, tucking them around John. "Just a little job."
"Okay, but can I stay at Tommy's house the next time you go somewhere?"
Dean felt his brows rise, and he turned and looked at Ellie. "Who's Tommy?"
"My best friend at school," John yawned widely. "Can I?"
"We'll see, John. We have to talk to Tommy's folks before we make any arrangements, okay?"
"Okay." His eyes dropped shut, then rose slowly again. "'Night, Dad."
Dean leaned forward and kissed his forehead. "'Night, John."
He got up quietly and turned off the lamp, walking to the door. When he'd shut it quietly behind him, he looked at Ellie.
"Tommy?"
She smiled at him. "New friend at school. Actually, one of many. Last week his best friend was Lucas."
"Glad you're keeping up," he said, looking down at her.
To really love a woman, let her hold you
Til' you know how she needs to be touched
She was warm against him, and her skin whispered like silk as she slid her leg over his. He looked down at her face, softly lit and golden-tinted from the candle light on the nightstands. When she moved up his body, he felt as if time had slowed down; the seconds drawing out to minutes, the minutes to hours. Her lips were so soft, her teeth grazing him, sending deep-seated shudders through him. His breath came in short little gasps, no time or strength to take a deeper lungful as her fingers and mouth and tongue played him expertly and he abandoned himself to the waves of depthless pleasure she drew from his nerves, his body heavy and helpless. When she moved, he opened his eyes, hands sliding along her thighs as she settled herself over him, his back arching up under her as she took him in. He was so deep, he couldn't feel anything else but her, swallowing him, squeezing him. Heat. A tightness that defied explanation, enclosing him and rippling up him, the sensations so far beyond definition that they existed on a separate plane altogether. Softness. And above all, connection. So intimate. Inside of her.
Her hips rocked and he matched her rhythm, automatically, unthinkingly, the ache of withdrawal shocked away when she plunged down on him again, the muscles of his legs and back and stomach trembling with every deep thrust, every low moan, every half-heard gasping exhale. He hadn't been able to breathe for minutes now, his mind focussed solely on what was happening in his body, each plateau reached and there was no rest, he was climbing again to the next. He felt a deep shudder, in her, and he sucked in a fast breath, and another, as she started to flex around him, moving faster, slamming down onto him as he rammed up into her, and a million little muscles hummed inside, taking him over that line, that line where he could keep it from happening, that line where the other side was a chaos of pleasure spreading out in a blast radius through every nerve, making his fingertips tingle, his toes curl, his eyes roll back while his skin and muscles and tendons twitched in helpless overload.
His heart was booming in his ears, ribcage rising and falling as he pulled in huge lungfuls of air, sweat sheening every inch of his skin, gleaming in the candlelight. Sound came back, and smell, then sight, his brain making the reconnections to the world haphazardly and intermittently. Touch had never left, and he registered the softness of the strands of her hair, spilled over his chest, the smooth curve of her thighs where his hands rested along them. He looked down his body, half of her face visible beneath the curtain of bright copper.
"That wasn't fair," he said hoarsely, his throat still dry. He was okay if she was in control, they'd found. He could do anything then. And she led him through and lit him up and it felt so fucking good.
Ellie tilted her head to one side, looking up at him from one open eye. "How's that?"
"What happened to my turn?"
She shifted her hips slightly, and he couldn't stifle the moan at the feeling it created, his hips lifting hopefully as if he had anything left in him after that. He could feel the lift of her cheek against his stomach as she smiled.
"Next time, I guess." The eye closed.
And when you find yourself lyin' helpless in her arms
You know you really love a woman
The house was quiet and still and he should've been able to sleep, should've found it easy with his body all heavy and relaxed. They had a fourteen hour drive tomorrow, and he really needed to sleep. But he couldn't. The song kept playing and it wouldn't let him go.
When you love a woman
You tell her that she's really wanted
In his twenties, he'd never said the words out loud. Hadn't really even thought of them, except maybe with Cassie, and that had been because he hadn't known what else to call it. After Ohio, he'd been careful to stick to one-night stands, girls who'd been around, who had few illusions, girls he could leave without a backward glance.
For a long time he'd thought that he'd kept them to himself because admitting something like that was a weakness, a hole in the armour he'd built. He'd thought that if he let anyone know that he needed someone, wanted someone, they'd be able to run right over him. And Cassie sure had.
He remembered telling Sam that he had to cut his friends out of his life. And he'd told Lisa that it wasn't his life, when she'd offered him a home and a family. He couldn't remember who he'd been back then, not really. Some insecure and terrified dude who'd done his best to hide everything under a veneer of cocky, self-confidence, who'd made jokes and mouthed off because he couldn't talk about himself, couldn't admit to his weaknesses, not to his brother, not to his father, and sure as shit not to some chick. He'd smart-mouthed his way into Hell, and he'd come out a different man. And still, even more so, he'd hidden himself as deep as he could, so that no one would know about the cracks and the fissures and the outright missing pieces. He'd thought he could trust Sam. And that had backfired in the worst kind of way. And then he'd had a hard time trusting anyone.
Ellie had been around, through a lot of those years. He hadn't thought of her that way, not after she'd left them that first time. She'd been a colleague, of sorts, another hunter. Then she'd been a friend. Someone he'd talked to, often about the things that he couldn't talk about with anyone else. He'd learned to trust her. Learned that he could trust her. It had taken him three years to catch up to where she'd been at. And in memory, he could still feel the shock and disorientation of hearing her say that she loved him. Those three words, hanging in the silence of the motel room. In the silence of his mind.
When you love a woman you tell her that she's the one
He hadn't been able to say them back to her, not then. Hadn't known if it was true for him then. He'd been filled with emotions that he didn't recognise, didn't understand, couldn't even keep straight in his head, let alone his heart. He had known that hearing her say it had healed a hell of a lot of the pain inside of him, pain that had riddled his heart, and his soul. And he'd known that she'd told him without needing him to love her in return, had told him because she'd wanted him to start healing. And that had shown him what love looked like, when it was real.
'Cos she needs somebody
To tell her that it's going to last together
He shifted more onto his side, arms tightening around her, ducking his head to breathe in her scent, to brush his lips over her forehead. She murmured something sleepily, her arm sliding across his stomach and curling around him.
So tell me have you ever really
Really, really ever loved a woman?
Now, he knew. Knew without a doubt. He thought he'd probably changed the most over the year he'd spent with Lisa and Ben. Grown up. Had put aside the smart mouth and the last remnants of the cocky dude, and had buckled down, trying to make himself live a normal life. A lot of those changes had come from losing Sam to the cage. The rest when he'd acknowledged to himself that Ellie wasn't coming back either, that what he had in Cicero was all he was ever going to get.
He'd thought that all that pain would have cauterised his feelings, would have deadened him to anything else. But it hadn't. That same caring that had both crucified him and resurrected him in the pits of Hell had been intact, and he'd realised when he'd seen her again that nothing he'd done, nothing he'd told himself or believed, had changed how he felt about her. What had happened, in fact, was that he'd finally recognised those feelings and understood them.
And he'd told her, saying it for the first time, knowing it was the truth. Those three little words.
You've got to give her some faith, hold her tight
He didn't say them much. Only when he couldn't not say them because the feeling filled him up way too much to be able to hide it. And sometimes, even now, he couldn't say them at all, even when his chest was aching with it, when he wanted to, more than anything. It had taken him a while to figure it out why. The witch had been nearly right.
He didn't doubt her feelings for him—marrying him, having his children, that kind of spoke for itself—but there was a still a lot he didn't know. Still pieces he hadn't seen, that she hadn't told him about. And those missing pieces…anything could be in those missing pieces. The witch had been one. Her need for him, that she'd hidden away, had been another. Michael had been a big piece.
A little tenderness, you gotta treat her right
The lyrics wound their way through his thoughts, and his chest tightened abruptly, the breath he'd been drawing in stopping halfway down, sticking there.
Rape.
It was a fucking ugly word. His teeth ground together as he forced himself to let it sit in his mind. There wasn't another word to describe what had happened. What he'd done to her. The word glowed against the blackness of his closed eyelids and cut at him.
She will be there for you, takin' good care of you
His whole life had been about protecting those who couldn't protect themselves, trying to save them, trying to keep them safe. John Winchester had driven that lesson into their souls, him and Sam. He'd been contemptuous of men who used their strength to hurt those weaker than themselves. Particularly men who hurt the women and children under their protection. It was the antithesis of who he was, who he'd thought he was. He'd killed for that. Put them down like mad dogs, stone-cold sober.
He didn't know how he could have done it to her. He would have sworn that it was impossible for him. He would have bet his life on it. He'd been strung out, the fight with the skinwalkers, the nightmarish drive from Montana, the way his trouble sense had flared, shrieking at him with ice-pick pain that he had to be there, had to stop it, no idea what was wrong or why, unable to think of anything, just the pain of the warning, just the fear flooding him. Finding her inside the trap, the bruises on her neck. And he'd asked why.
He understood why she'd had to do it … now. He knew she couldn't have left the demon, the demon who'd been her friend, to face more of Hell's torment. Couldn't have sent him back down to the pit. She'd told him, years ago, it had been her fault Michael'd been down there, that she'd let him down. And her sense of responsibility sometimes exceeded his own.
But…when it had hit him, that she'd risked her life, their life, because of her past with Michael…he didn't know exactly what had driven that rage, only that it had filled him in a microsecond, and he'd reacted.
The memory of it was eating him, eating through him. And every time he just wanted to hold her, every time he ached to tell her how much he loved her, the words lodged behind his teeth, crammed down his throat, that memory stopping them cold. When you loved someone, you didn't hold them down, didn't force yourself into them, didn't take them and leave them lying there, bruises rising along their skin.
You really gotta love your woman
I-5 S, California
The traffic had been flowing well and they'd made good time, Dean thought as they passed the exits for Bakersfield. His eyes felt grainy and sore, the lack of sleep the previous night grinding into him despite the fact that Ellie had done the driving to Stockton.
California was too bright; he thought sourly, too much sunshine, especially for the tail end of winter.
"Do you want to find a motel in Pasadena or somewhere further out and drive in tomorrow morning?" He glanced at Ellie.
She made a face. "Somewhere outside. Anywhere from here'll do."
He nodded. He had no particular love for the city, for the almost palpable press of people it contained.
To really love a woman, to understand her
You gotta know her deep inside
He rubbed a hand over his face, wondering when the goddamned tune would leave him alone. Three days of Adams' scratchy tenor in his head was bad enough, the words were worse.
She could've stopped him. Could've fought him. She'd done neither. She'd said that he needed to let those feelings out, that he'd been holding them too tight for too long. That was crap. He'd spent years hanging onto all kinds of destructive emotions and while he could admit it hadn't been a great idea to do that, a day or two longer wouldn't have killed him.
His eyes cut to the side, looking at her. She was reading through Jim's journal, again, looking for a way to close the gate.
"Why didn't you stop me?" The question came out abruptly, and his hands tightened on the wheel.
He felt her eyes turn to him, saw her close the journal from the corner of his eye. The closer they got to LA, the more traffic joined the road, and he kept his eyes fixed to the cars ahead.
He heard her soft exhale. "This is where you want to talk about it, Dean?"
"Why not?" He shrugged. "There's no good place to talk about it."
"Alright," she said quietly. "You were wound up so tight and I didn't know why. I was trying to think of some way to get you to let go, to talk about it." She curled up into the corner, between the door and the seat, looking at him. "I didn't know that you were going to snap over the demon being Michael. And I still don't know why you did. But when it all came out, I didn't want to stop it, didn't want you to have to pull it all back and hold it inside again. And I didn't know if you could even hear me then, or if you had enough control to stop yourself if I'd fought back."
He shook his head impatiently, not believing that. "You could have talked me down, Ellie. You've done it before." He flicked a glance at her. "Hell, you could've put me down, and that would've stopped it."
She nodded. "Maybe I could've. Maybe not. I don't think you realise how much you were holding in, or how little control you had by that time."
"You thought it was a better option for me to—" He stuttered over the word, still unable to say it out loud. "—to—take you like that?"
Couldn't even think it right now.
"I thought it was the quickest way you could get the release you needed," she corrected him, her voice mild.
He stared at the road, fingers flexing around the leather grip on the wheel, as memory and emotion crashed together in his mind. She'd made the decision for him, and it was killing him by inches. "Didn't you think of how it was going to make me feel – after?"
"Of course I did!" The edge in her voice was unexpected, razor sharp. "I hoped you'd listen to me. I hoped you'd understand."
He saw the Vacancy sign and changed lanes, lips thinned as he put the conversation on hold to deal with the road. Slowing down for the exit, he found the right road at the bottom of the ramp and turned onto it. The motel was a few hundred yards down and he pulled in, stopping the car outside of the office.
Ellie got out. The door clunked softly as she shut it behind her, walking up the two steps and disappearing through the glass door.
Dean leaned his forehead against the wheel. Understand? Understand what? Did she understand that he'd gone from being one of the good guys, to being a …a … monster in that moment? That he couldn't make sense of the anger, how it'd taken him over? That he couldn't see himself the way he had?
"Why were you so angry when I said it was Michael?" Ellie put the empty canister in the trash can and moved her duffel to the bed.
Dean turned away, his chest constricting, hands closing into fists involuntarily, his muscles tightening. He walked to the other end of the room, not going anywhere, moving because he couldn't stay still. It was a bad idea to talk about now, he realised. To talk about here, on a job. To talk about it before he understood what the hell had gone on with him.
"Dean?" Ellie stopped him mid-way across the room, her hands settling against his chest. "Why?"
"Don't come near me." He backed away from her. He felt as if he were standing on a high wire, balanced over the abyss, and one wrong step and he'd lose everything, he'd fall and she wouldn't be there to catch him because she was on the wire too.
"Tell me," she whispered and he closed his eyes, his jaw muscle leaping out.
"Because I'm scared, okay? That what you want to fucking hear? The hunter you married is scared to hell of wanting—"
The words came out like a fusillade, from somewhere deep inside, and he stopped when he heard them echoing around the room, the raw fear in them shocking him. He couldn't look at her, couldn't look at anything. He was taking short fast breaths, his pulse was rocketing and he could feel how close he was coming to coming undone.
"There are things I don't know about you, Ellie, so many fucking things, and every time I find out something, it's something bad, something that makes me…" He twisted away, pacing to the end of the room. "I've told you fucking everything—about everyone and everything—I—this—not knowing—I don't even know how you felt about that guy—did you love him?"
She took a step toward him and stopped when he took a step back. "I cared about him. But I didn't love him, didn't even know what love was when I was with him. I told you it was you made me feel—" He turned away, his face screwing up.
He swung back toward her, hand running over his hair. "Why the hell did you risk yourself—us—our family—for him? You could've killed him from outside the trap…why'd you go into it?"
"Because it had to be self-defence, he didn't want me to go to Hell," she said. "I couldn't send him back, Dean. He was my teacher, my friend, and I put him—Dean, listen to me—"
"I am fucking listening to you!" It was hurting, it was hurting so much inside he knew he wasn't. Talking wasn't getting him anywhere.
"No, you're not!" Her expression hardened. "You're listening to the voice in your head that's telling you you're gonna get hurt if you keep caring so much!" She walked closer to him, and he backed up against the wall.
"I love you. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to leave you. I'm not going to turn into something else or someone else." She slammed a hand against his chest. "This is us, together, because of the way we feel, because of who we are!"
"You can say that, and you can even mean it, Ellie," he said, looking down at her, "but it doesn't change anything. It doesn't make me know you better, doesn't help."
"Then tell me how we get through it, Dean." She pressed against him and he froze. "Tell me what you need."
"I don't know, I don't fucking know!" He was so goddamned confused; he couldn't even work out it had seemed clearer before, how he'd felt like he could get closer to understanding before.
"What are you afraid of?" She stepped back, away from him. "Are you afraid of me? Are you afraid of hurting me? What is it?"
"I don't know!" He twisted away, shaking his head. He didn't know how to fix this, or why everything he didn't know had been bearable two days ago, and wasn't now. "I-I don't know how much I don't know—I don't know if one day there'll be another piece I didn't know about it and everything I wanted, everything I have, everything we have, will be gone." He rubbed a hand over his face. It was true, but it wasn't. All the things he hadn't known had never affected him this way before. "I'm scared of all the things I don't know about you."
"Then ask!" Her brows were drawn together. "Ask me anything you want to know."
"I don't know what to ask! I don't know what's missing!" That was one of the problems, but it'd never felt like this. He wanted to put a fist through something. Wanted—needed—something to concentrate his thoughts.
"All I know is I'm going along, thinking everything is fucking fine, and then I get hit with something you haven't told me about and it feels like—I feel like I'm gonna lose it all."
"I can't write you a memoir—there must be something you're clear on," she said, her tone acerbic.
He felt the bite and lashed back without thinking. "Your past is fucking littered with monsters you've slept with, Ellie—don't tell me I'm not fucking clear."
"You want to get into this?" Her jaw tightened. "They weren't monsters when I was with them."
"No," he agreed readily. "One became a demon after you gave a demon access; the other turned into a shapeshifter after you dumped him."
He didn't know why the words had come out like that, didn't know why they'd come out at all. He was angry with her; angry for hurting her, angry at the way her past could fuck up everything he thought was safe, angry he couldn't protect her if he didn't even know what was out there, waiting for her. But he didn't want to hurt her. Or maybe he did. He didn't know that either.
"Fuck you," she said, so quietly he almost didn't hear her, then she stepped in close. The slap wasn't hard, barely stinging along his cheek.
"I'll pass."
The second he said it, heard the contempt that laced the words, the answers coalesced in his mind and he knew. Knew what he was afraid of, knew why he was so fucking angry with her, knew what had driven him that night, knew it all, and knew that he'd found out too late.
The blood drained from her face, leaving it white and pinched-looking, jade-green eyes vividly bright against the pallor. She turned away and he stepped forward, arms wrapping tightly around her before she could move further, his face against her hair.
She struggled, her foot slamming down on his, her elbow driving into his ribs, and this time, she was fighting. He got as close as he could, keeping her arms pinned to her sides, not giving her room to move, hearing the harsh rasp of her breaths against his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said against her cheek, holding her tightly as she tried to find a move, a wedge against him. "Don't—just wait—Ellie—I'm sorry."
Her nails drove into his side and he grunted with the flash of pain, staggering sideways and sending them both crashing onto the bed. He freed one arm to catch her hands and hold them tightly together in front of her. "Wait, okay? I can—"
Her knee lifted and he barely turned fast enough to take the impact in his thigh, instead of his balls, swinging his leg over hers, rolling on top of her, one hand gripping both of her wrists, his face inches from hers. He saw the flex of the tendons in her neck and snapped his head to one side, her forehead hitting his cheekbone, instead of the bridge of his nose.
"Stop—will you just—" he growled, yanking his arm out from under her, pressing his forearm against her chin. She stared up at him, her breath huffing against his jaw, as his shivered the strands of hair against her cheek, her eyes as cold and hard as stone.
"I'm sorry." He shifted again as he felt her muscles tighten under him. "Hear me out, okay? Let me explain. Please."
She kept staring into his eyes, hers still cold and filled with fury. "Give me one good reason."
"I'll give you a few," he said, his voice softening. "Because I love you, so much that I can't get my head straight if I think that anything's happened to you. Because you love me, I know you do, I know it, and because that's how it's supposed to be, this is where we're supposed to be, you and me, together."
She didn't move, the glare hadn't changed at all, but he felt something shift, somewhere inside of her. Something soften, just a little. He took a deep breath.
"I was scared, Ellie." He ducked his head. "I have been since Raphael tried to kill you."
He felt her twitch and shook his head. "I was scared that I was going too deep, falling too fast, with you. I told myself I wasn't. Told myself all kinds of shit. It didn't matter. I kept fucking it up, no matter what I did, or how hard I tried, I kept fucking it up and I nearly lost you too many times, and all of it made me think that sooner or later, there would come a time when I finally did."
He pulled in a breath, trying to do it shallowly so that his ribs didn't dig into hers, looking down at her. "On the way back from Billings, that…prickling…warning thing I get…it hit me like a fucking sledgehammer. It wasn't prickling anymore; it was burning, like someone tipped acid down my neck."
Her eyes widened, and he lifted a shoulder. "I knew you were in danger, knew it like Sam used to know things when he had his visions. I don't think I'm turning into Psychic Boy…I think the more the fear built up, the stronger my feelings got, the connection, well, that got stronger too."
"So when I got home, and saw you—" He stopped, closing his eyes against the rush of emotion the memory brought back, letting it wash through him, trying desperately to let it go, knowing he had to let it go because held in it would just keep on poisoning him. "—you were right. I could hardly walk. Couldn't think. I was just an emo thickshake, straight from the blender."
He heard the shakiness of his voice and dragged in another breath. "I got a nice kick in the nuts, when I recognised the teacher, knowing that John had been right about him, got his dad's spidey sense and I'd ignored it, left you both in danger. But that was just a little sweetener compared to everything else that was going on."
He opened his eyes, and saw hers were closed tightly. "When you said you'd gone into the trap because it was Michael, I didn't know who you meant, at first. When I remembered…I don't know. It was like the house fell on me, or something. I couldn't breathe and whatever I'd been thinking just went. The only thing I could remember going through my head then was this one thought, over and over, that you were mine, and I was going to prove it. I didn't even know what it meant. I didn't see what I was doing."
He felt her shuddering breath against his neck and lifted his head to look down at her, seeing the glistening tracks across her face. He lifted his arm, letting go of her wrists and moving to one side, taking his weight off her, his arms curling around and pulling her close to him. "I didn't want to hurt you. I didn't mean to hurt you."
She shook her head against his shoulder, her chest hitching. He could feel dampness, seeping through his shirt to his skin and he closed his eyes. Over the years, they'd hurt each other…a lot, a helluva lot. Would it always be like this? Was this the price for the way they felt, how deeply they felt, this ability to wound each other to the core?
"If I didn't feel so deeply, Dean, it wouldn't hurt nearly as much," Ellie whispered, as if she'd heard his thoughts clearly, as if he'd said it out loud. He looked down at her, feeling the ache in his chest.
"You know, I can convince myself of something so well, I don't even take it into consideration any more." He exhaled softly, letting his forehead rest against her shoulder.
"I didn't see it coming. I didn't even know I felt anything at all about it. And it wasn't just because of what he was to you—" He closed his eyes. "—it was anyone—everyone—in your past, who had something with you I didn't know about, didn't understand. I wanted to kill them all. I wanted you to be free of them, so that I could be free of them, and not so fucking scared the next time would be the end."
"Are you still afraid?"
"I don't know." He sucked in a deep breath. "I don't figure out this crap that quick, you know that." It was an attempt to get her to smile, just a little.
"I didn't see you—not as you, when I—that night, Ellie. At the same time I kind of did, and I didn't really feel like me…it was some other me, some fucker I don't know." He grimaced slightly, hearing how incoherent that had sounded. "I mean…fuck, I don't know how to describe it."
He felt the movement of her face, looking down to see her brows draw together.
"Oh god, Dean, that's what you've been thinking?" She twisted in his arms, looking up at him, pushing herself up until she was sitting. "That it was rape?"
He made a sound in his throat, turning his head away. He couldn't look at her. "There some fancy new word for it I don't know? What else do you call it when a guy holds a woman down and—and—and—hurts her and forces himself on her?"
"That wasn't…" Her hand was gentle against his cheek, forcing him to look at her. "That's not how it was. That's not how I saw it. That might be a slippery line, but it wasn't, not what you did, not with me."
He closed his eyes. "I hurt you, Ellie."
"I didn't tell you to stop. I didn't say no, don't do it."
"You thought I wouldn't hear you." He shook his head. "Maybe I wouldn't have."
"Maybe, but I didn't give you that choice anyway. Don't, please; don't think of it that way." She put her arms around him, ignoring his flinch. "I'm so sorry, Dean. I should've told you that straight away."
"Christ, Ellie, don't apologise to me." He tried to move away, and her arms tightened around him.
"I have to—I didn't—I thought it was because of the bruises," she said. "I had no idea you thought of it as an attack."
His face screwed up. "We ever had sex like that? Wanted it like that?"
"No," she said slowly, "but…"
He opened his eyes as she trailed off, suddenly realising why she hadn't finished the sentence. "Don't tell me."
"No." She leaned over him. "I'm sorry."
He rolled onto his side, his arm over his face. "Can we just not talk for a while? Please?"
He couldn't take any more right now. Not thinking about himself, not thinking about her, what she'd done, what had happened to her in the past. He didn't know if anything had changed, didn't know if he felt differently about what he'd done. He couldn't feel the anger anymore, it was buried, drowned under a suffocating wave of pain and sorrow that was making it hard to breathe, hard to think.
He'd been afraid of how he'd felt about her from the moment he'd admitted to himself that he wanted more than friendship. Afraid that it was a weakness. Afraid that he would end up smashed into little pieces with no hope of recovery. He'd already felt broken. He'd spent a long time trying to find a way out of those feelings, trying to pretend that they weren't real. It wasn't until Seattle, when he'd used someone else to try and prove to himself he didn't need Ellie, didn't need love…that he'd found out that those feelings had become integral to who he was.
He felt her hand move slowly up his back, coming to rest on the back of his neck and draw him closer to her as she lay beside him, the gentle touch sending a shudder through him, and breaking through the dammed up feelings that filled his chest and throat, releasing the pressure that made his head pound and ache.
And when you find yourself lyin' helpless in her arms
You know you really love a woman
The song played softly in his head. He was lying there, in her arms, as helpless and hurting as he'd ever felt, his pain and guilt at what had happened to them, between them, seeping out slowly with the tears that were soaking her shirt, soaking the bedspread under them. He didn't know how much later it was when he finally felt tired and empty and emotionless, her arms still around him. He barely heard her breathing change as he drifted into sleep.
Devil's Gate Reservoir, Pasadena, California
The arroyo was dry and dusty and empty, the buildings lined above it, buttressed by the high concrete walls, reflecting the pale sunshine back down onto them. The small rivulet, which swelled to a river when it rained, trickled past them, barely making a sound as it wound through the soft, sandy soil.
The EMF gauge showed the gate, and if he turned his head and looked at something else, he could see the flicker of it in the corner of his eye, like a sheer curtain in a breeze. Looking directly at where he thought it was showed nothing, but after a while it produced a headache that worsened rapidly.
Ellie stood close to it, and finished marking out the trap, straightening and stepping back as she replaced the bags of salt in the duffle over her shoulder. She pulled out a small book, glancing at him, one brow raised. He nodded.
"In nomine Patris, Dominus totius creaturæ, praecipio portae obicerent cogunt—"
The sound of wings filled the canyon, echoing from the hard walls. Dean looked at Castiel without surprise.
"Cas, long time no see."
"Dean." The angel turned to nod at Ellie. "Ellie."
"Come to see us finishing Heaven's undone work?" Dean asked.
"Not exactly." Castiel looked down at the devil's trap around the gate. "Baraquiel advised me that several gates were still standing open. I'm here because I'm supposed to make sure they're sealed."
"Make sure?" Dean glanced at Ellie. "You mean the way Michael made sure when he told us that all the gates were sealed?"
Castiel sighed. "I can understand your reluctance to trust in Heaven, Dean. I would ask, as a small favour, that you give me the benefit of the doubt."
"Oh, you've got that, Cas, trust me."
The angel looked at him sharply. "How did you find out that this gate was open?"
"A demon told us. A demon that came through it." Ellie walked to Dean's side.
"A demon came through here?"
"Yeah." Dean slid his arm around Ellie's shoulders, his brows drawing together as he studied the angel. "Chatty demon. Told us that me and Sam are still of interest to a lot of folks. Told us that our kids are too."
He saw the slight hitch in the angel's chest and felt his heart sink. Cas had known, had known and hadn't given him a warning. He felt Ellie tense beside him.
"Why didn't you warn us, Cas?" she asked, her voice low and uneven.
Castiel turned to them, his eyes going from Dean to Ellie and returning to Dean.
"I didn't find out about that until recently," he said, his expression apologetic. "I was going to—"
Dean shrugged. "Too little, too late, man."
"What about the nephilim, Cas?" Ellie asked, her voice fractionally harder. "Are they manipulating the genetics of the monsters? Is that a part of Michael's planning?"
He looked genuinely shocked. "The nephilim? Most are dead—the Others were wiped out."
"The firstborns," Ellie clarified, and Dean saw the small crease appear between her brows. "Are they gathering?"
"No. At least, not that I know of." Castiel looked at her, his dark blue eyes wide. "Michael has nothing to do with them. You know how he feels about them, Ellie, how most of them feel—even about the Watcher's children. They believe they're abominations." He shook his head, looking at the ground. "I didn't even know…what do you mean—manipulating the monsters?"
"We're seeing increases in every population of Eve's kids, Cas." Dean's eyes narrowed as he watched the angel's face. "And something's helping them along."
"I don't know. I haven't heard anything about that." Castiel looked at them. "I understand you can't take my word on this, but believe me, I would tell you if there were any plans in Heaven that had to do with the firstborn nephilim."
Dean didn't know if Castiel was telling the truth. They didn't spend that much time together any more.
"Can you seal the gate, Castiel?" Ellie asked.
"Yes, that's what I came here to do." He turned to the gate, glancing over his shoulder. "If you can both step back?"
They retreated a few yards and watched as the angel began to glow softly, hearing his murmur like a song on the still air.
Castiel reached out, his fingers spread out wide. The air thickened, gleaming like nacre as it was outlined by the light of the seraphim. The gauge in Dean's hand shrieked once, making him jump, then the needle fell and lay limp. He looked up and the doorway had gone.
"I will find out more about these things and come to you in Oregon." Castiel turned back to them. "I'm not lying to you. I am still your friend."
The beat of wings echoed off the hard concrete walls. Dean looked down at Ellie. "What do you think?"
"I think Cas was surprised." She bent to pick up the duffle, and he took it from her, slinging it over his shoulder.
"You don't think he was lying?"
"No." She shook her head. "He already knew about you, and Sam and the children. But he wasn't lying about the rest."
Dean looked back at where the gate had been. "One down anyway."
She nodded. "That was always a bad one, opening and closing on its own."
"If it was that easy, why didn't one of the angels shut it centuries ago?" Dean frowned.
"I would guess that salvation looks better if there's an actual demon or two roaming around, than if people believe it's just a fairy tale to scare people into better behaviour."
"Cynical."
She smiled. "Realistic."
Redding, California
The room was lit by the lamp on the nightstand, throwing their shadows over the other side of the bed, gilding her skin to pale gold, and making her hair shimmer as she moved her head over the white sheets, her hands reaching up above her.
You've gotta breathe her, really taste her
He lifted his head, looking up her body as she moaned so deeply he could feel the vibration through the mattress. She was close, and he didn't know how long he was going to be able to hold himself together, the last hour a torment in self-control, taking his time in a way he hadn't done for a while, exploring her, remembering all the little things, more aroused every time she came, around his fingers, against his mouth, and the song distant, but still there, humming in the back of his mind.
They'd pulled in after dark, neither wanting to push on until morning. They'd be home well before dark tomorrow. And there was still a lot to get through.
They'd talked a little on the drive up the I-5, not as much as he'd thought they would. The silences that had stretched out for miles had been filled with their thoughts, not the barren silences of nothing to say, or too much to say.
He'd finally recognised that mindless fury, understanding that it wasn't a new thing inside of him, but an old one. It was the thing that could kill without thought or remorse when his family was in danger. The thing that shot first and never asked questions. It had pulled out the Colt and shot the demon when it had attacked Sam. It had pushed at Meg Masters, through her broken body when she was dying, determined to get the location of his father. It had taken over and killed Crowley when they'd gotten out of Hell, and he'd thought Ellie was dying at his feet, and it had pushed away his exhaustion and killed an arch-demon without fear or hesitation when he'd seen her lying on a stone table in a cavern of the damned. He'd never felt it in conjunction with any other emotion.
He hadn't realised he still wondered about her feelings for Michael Furente, until it had come howling up through him, insisting that she belonged to him, and him alone, triggered by the combination of fear and anger he'd felt when she'd told him what she'd done and why. It didn't make it easier exactly, to accept what he'd done, but it made it possible to understand what had happened. And it was no longer scaring the hell out of him that it might happen again.
When she'd suggested stopping overnight, he'd known what she wanted, and he'd felt that familiar heat, low down inside of himself.
He'd had an idea that she might want to do something that would push him, but so far, she'd given herself up to him, not asking for anything, sensuously revelling in his attention.
He moved up her slowly, his mouth trailing over her skin, his hand following, and she opened her eyes, the pupils huge and black, looking at him.
"Come here." Her voice was barely audible, the two words on an exhaled breath, and he covered her mouth with his, spreading her legs, lifting himself between them as her arms curved around his neck.
He hesitated and felt her hips nudge at him, then he pushed in slowly, feeling her stretch and open around him, his eyelids fluttering shut as sensation swamped his mind, every nerve feeding his brain as the blood flow quickened. Deep and hot, and he could never work out why he didn't spend more time, most of his time right here, where pleasure spread through him in lazy spirals and he was completely himself, loved and accepted and on fire.
He moved slowly, going deep and pulling out almost the whole way, then pushing in again. He could feel that tell-tale subsonic humming around him as he drove into her, and it sent shivery jolts through him, making his legs and stomach and back tremble in anticipation.
When she lifted her hips sharply, he felt himself slam deeper, and his eyes opened in surprise, looking into her face. She looked back at him, pupils huge, her lips parted as her hips bucked again. He lost his breath on the second thrust, understanding coming in tiny flashes.
"Wait…" He ducked his head, feeling the muscles up his back contract sharply. "Uh…Ellie…"
Her arms slipped under his, curving around his hips and holding him tightly as she slammed up again and he went deeper still, every movement a detonation. She found a rhythm, and his back bowed again, fingers curling into the sheet under them.
"Uh…god, wait a minute…"
"Not glass, Dean," she panted, and her muscles rippled around him. "Won't break."
Tricked him again, and he felt the rush of his blood, thundering through his veins as her hips lifted and a wave of pleasure exploded in his groin and fluxed outward through him.
"I want to feel you, deep and hard and losing your mind in me," she whispered, and he groaned as the words ran along his nerves like a lit fuse.
Til' you can feel her in your blood
"Goddammit," his voice was barely audible and he pulled in a deep breath. He looked down at her for a second, and matched her thrust with one of his own, seeing her eyes fly open, hearing the rush of breath of her exhale.
"Ladies choice," he whispered into her ear. He found the tattered remnants of control from somewhere, and pulled himself back from the brink, lifting his head and watching her face as he sped up, feeling her grip slip from his hips as she shook helplessly at every hard thrust, her thighs clenched tight against his hips.
Fire raced along every nerve, through every blood vessel, and he hadn't felt it quite like that before, consumed and energised at the same time, a conviction of invincibility, a depth of love, burning through him and searing the image of her face into his brain. She was making little gasping moans, each one catching in his flesh, driving him harder, and he couldn't hear the noises he was making, only feel the vibrations, in his chest, in his throat, against his lips. When she opened her eyes again and looked at him, he knew she was looking into him, in past the skin and flesh and bone, past the blood and muscle and nerve, so deep into him that for an endless second, he felt a brush of her, the real her, the essence of her, touch his soul.
An' when you see your unborn children in her eyes
Her body convulsed around him, everywhere, tightening and squeezing him, and he exploded inside of her, no warning, he didn't even have time to get another breath before thought was wiped and he was just shaking, his fingers curled around her shoulders, forgetting who he was, every connection between body and brain dissolved and burned away.
You know you really love a woman
He felt raw and exposed and open to everything. His thoughts and feelings. His memories. The deepest secrets and the most trivial musings all laid bare, floating around in the cheap room. He could see them all in her eyes, everything about him, as plainly transparent as a glass filled with water.
He didn't have to say it. She knew it, he could see that knowledge in the softness of her eyes, feel it in the warmth of her hand resting against his chest. He didn't have to say it, but he wanted to, to tell her, wanted to keep telling her, because it was true, because it was his truth.
"I love you."
Three little words, hanging in the silence between them, in the space that they shared.
He looked at her, feeling a fizz of excitement, of embarrassment, of hope and longing and a strange, breathless anxiety that he barely remembered from his teenage years, a cocktail of effervescence, filling up his airways, looking for a way to explain what was banging against the walls of his heart, trying to get out.
"I…I do not know what it is about you that closes and opens; only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses. Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands."
The fragment of the poem came out on its own, not even in his voice. He didn't know where it came from…some distant, vague memory of an open book on Sam's motel bed, the passage underlined and the page edges grubby. Her eyes opened wide, staring into his, and he ducked his head, feeling a lifting, incandescent joy at her surprise.
He leaned toward her and kissed her, feeling the slam of her pulse in her wrist as it rested against his neck. When she pulled back a little from him, he opened his eyes.
"You know that, don't you? Know who wrote it, know all about it?"
Her eyes crinkled slightly as she nodded.
"I don't. Don't know anything about it—except it's you, inside of me." He looked at her, wanting her to say something, anything, wanting to know, for sure, that it was the right thing to say, that she knew how he felt, that she knew everything that bound him to her. He licked his lips, knowing that he was far out over the abyss and falling.
"You tell anyone I quoted poetry, and I'll deny it," he warned her softly. The laugh burst out of her, surprised and soft and warming.
"I love you," she said, her eyes still filled with laughter, fingers curling a little more closely around his neck as she caught him.
You've got to tell me have you ever really loved a woman?
