- Hi. We could have gone with plot today, but considering everything Pipes and Dean have been through, not to mention what I, myself, have been through the last few days, I wanted some aimless fluff.
The next morning, Piper woke slowly, enveloped in warm limbs, with early morning sunshine draped over the bed. Dean was curled tight behind her, his arm around her waist keeping her close. She smiled into her pillow, a little giddy for a moment despite the dire situation they were in. Again.
Things just always seemed better when she woke up next to her husband.
She slowly turned in his arms, careful not to wake him up. Once she was facing him, she just stared at his handsome face relaxed in sleep. Lucked out there, Piper, she thought, using one gentle finger to trace the freckles peppering his cheekbone. He twitched a little, but stayed dead asleep through her ministrations. The fight with Cass, getting Sam home, and the argument between the two of them (and subsequent making up) had wiped him out. He'd probably sleep until late morning again.
Still moving slowly, she extracted herself from his embrace. She decided to let him get his rest while they had the chance. There was another big fight coming their way, with Cass juiced up and the angels still fighting. Her poor husband needed the respite.
After she'd showered, braided her hair, and dressed (quite gleefully in one of Dean's much bigger flannels over her leggings this time), she went downstairs to start coffee. They'd wasted the day before with fighting and sex, so very little had gotten done, and she needed to check on a few things.
With the coffee starting to brew, the first thing she did was take a wet washcloth and go into Sam's room.
She felt a pang of guilt when she saw him lying there, but she pushed through it. She loved Sam, she really did, but the day before she'd been too preoccupied to check on him. She tried not to feel too bad about it.
She made up for it now by rolling her eyes at the sight of him. Unconscious though he was, he was also still fully dressed on top of the bedding in his room. Dean had been too angry when they'd deposited him, and Bobby would never have thought anything of it.
She put the cloth aside with a sigh and went around the bed to untie and tug off his boots. She gently pulled off his coat, flannel, jeans, and socks, leaving with his briefs and undershirt on. With some effort, she maneuvered him under the blankets on the bed, laid out on his back, like he preferred.
Once all of that was done, she was finally able to sit next to him on the bed and wipe his face gently with the cool cloth. She finger-combed his hair and hummed softly to him, anything she could think of to try to provide him with some comfort.
"Oh, Sammy," she said softly, "How could he do this to you?"
Piper usually tried to be a forgiving person, but she wasn't sure how much she'd be able to forgive Castiel for what he'd done to Sam. She wanted so badly to be able to welcome her friend back with open arms, but this, along with what he'd done to Steve and Brandy? She had her doubts.
Once he was as comfortable as she could possibly make him, Piper left Sam in his bedroom, shutting the door gingerly behind her. She tossed the cloth into the hamper and went back downstairs to make herself a cup of coffee.
While she was stirring creamer into her mug, she heard the rumble of a car coming up through the salvage yard. She looked down at her attire and shrugged. If it was a customer for the yard, it wasn't like they were projecting an air of professionalism, anyway. She didn't really feel the need to change, but she did grab one of the grimy Singer Salvage trucker caps and put it on before she went out to the front porch.
She also grabbed one of the shotguns and her cup of coffee, because she wasn't willing to be caught unawares.
It was insanely early, so she held the gun loosely at her side and sipped her coffee as she waited for whoever it was to drive into view. She was in no hurry to face whatever it was the day was bringing, so she was content to stand there.
A beat to shit pickup truck slowly came up the drive, which told her precisely nothing. The only hunter she knew who drove a car that wasn't a beat up truck was her husband. Hunting wasn't easy on cars, so hunters drove them until they disintegrated under them and stole a new one. It was a way of the life.
So it wasn't until the truck got relatively close that she was able to catch a glimpse of who was behind the steering wheel. When she did, she grinned and waved him up, setting the rifle on one of the rocking chairs (with the safety firmly on) and walking out into the yard, coffee cup still in hand.
The truck parked, and a grizzled older man jumped down. He graced her with a rare smile. "Heya, Piper."
She grinned brilliantly and went up on tiptoe to hug him. "Hi, Irv."
Irv Franklin was another of Bobby's hunting friends who had rubbed off onto Piper as a teenager. She wasn't as close to him as she was with Mara, or Bobby himself, of course, but she liked Irv just fine, and he liked her back.
He indicated the trailer his truck was pulling with a thumb over his shoulder. "Got your man's car right here for ya, pretty lady."
She beamed. "Irv! I had no idea it was you bringing Baby back! Let me make breakfast to make it up to you."
She thought she could detect a blush on the hunter's already ruddy cheeks. "Aw, Piper, you don't need to-"
"Ain't no use arguing with her, Irv," Bobby's voice came from behind her. "She's in a good mood today."
Piper turned to cock an eyebrow at him. "And what, pray tell, does that mean?"
Bobby was giving her a death glare, which may have scared the Winchester brothers, but had never frightened Piper one bit. "Girl, I heard exactly how good a mood you'd be in today last night, if you catch my drift."
Oh, fuck. Oh, god. Piper felt her face heat even as Irv started to chuckle behind her. She hid her face behind her coffee cup. "Sorry, Bobby," she mumbled, willing herself to stop blushing.
"All I'm saying is," Bobby said, a knowing twinkle in his eye when she managed to meet his gaze to give him a death glare of her own, "I think you owe more than just Irv here breakfast."
"Oh, god," she groaned. "Yes, yes, okay, I'll make breakfast. Message received."
She fled into the house to cook, leaving both men behind her to laugh and catch up.
Dean woke up to the lingering smell of bacon in the air and the lack of woman in his arms.
Suspecting that the first explained the second, he kept his grumbling to a minimum as he pulled his (admittedly less) sore body out of bed and pulled on a pair of old sweatpants. He forwent a shirt, because what else was being at home for, and went in search of Piper.
Before he found her, he made a detour to Sam's room to check on his brother. He smirked when he saw that the kid had been cleaned up and tucked in. It told him about how long Piper had been awake. If she'd had time to come in and take care of Sam, she'd woken up pretty early. Considering the athletic night they'd had, he was surprised.
When he got downstairs, the kitchen was empty of both food and people. Through the window, as he poured a cup of lukewarm coffee he saw Irv's truck, and his eyebrows rose up. The hell is Irv doing here?
Before he could get too involved in finding out what was going on, he caught sight of Piper opening the door of the trailer hitched to Irv's truck and stepping up inside.
He put his coffee down. What do we have here?
After running upstairs and grabbing a shirt, he made his way out to meet her on bare feet. As he got closer, he heard her murmuring. He grinned when he realized just what she was murmuring at.
"Oh, Baby," he heard her coo. "Look at you, sweetheart. Don't you worry, Dean's going to fix you right up, okay? Oh, you poor thing."
He crept up to the door of the trailer before she turned to see him. She flushed bright red, and Dean chuckled even as he had to stem his libido. "Hey, kitten," he said with a smile.
"Uh…"
"Don't worry, I talk to her, too, baby."
She made a face at him as she came to the door of the trailer. "I like to think I'm not quite as close to the car as you are, thank you very much."
Dean automatically lifted his hands to her hips, waited until her hands were on his shoulders, and gently helped her out of the trailer, placing her on her feet just in front of him. "Tell yourself what you gotta, kitten, sounds like you girls are pretty close to me."
She rolled her eyes but leaned into him. "Hungry?"
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Always."
She hummed. "Well, I left a burrito in the oven for you to keep it warm."
"Irv still here?"
"Yeah, he's somewhere in the house with Bobby, talking shop."
"Talking shop about what?"
Piper sighed and pressed her face into his chest. "Cass," she whispered. "They're talking about Cass."
Later, Dean was walking around Baby, taking stock of the damage done.
Windows need replacing. Lights, too. Dash is cracked. Roof is gonna have to be bent back into place.
Baby had been, since the day his father had handed over the keys, Dean's way of dealing with whatever was out of his control. When his father died, when he and Piper fought, when he and Sam fought. Maybe he couldn't do everything to help his family that he wanted to, but by god, he could get the car running like a dream again. He'd been depending on Baby to keep him sane for almost a decade now.
"Hey, you." Piper's soft voice drew him from his thoughts. He turned to see her smiling at him, a beer in her hand as she leaned on the railing. "Doing okay?"
He shrugged. "Been better, but I've been worse, too."
She nodded and came down the steps to meet him. They were silent for a while, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders to pull her close.
"Anything I can do to help?" she asked finally, looking up at him with understanding in her pretty eyes.
And Piper. Been depending on Piper, too.
The next day, the news stories started rolling in.
- Feedback gets my motor running.
- Come see me on tumblr at kbeautimous!
- Sorry about the short chapter. We should be back to regular length next time. 3
