Ellis could hear the voices of the Winchester men on the porch. John's deep and gruff, Dean's lighter and apologetic. She felt terrible. She couldn't hear the details but from the tone of it, Dean was getting his ass chewed out by his father.
It was just as much her fault as his. More so actually. She was older than him by far. She should have the experience and control to put on the brakes. But she didn't. She was completely taking advantage of his youth and eagerness. And now... God... now she knew things she shouldn't. Things she'd be haunted by for a long time to come. And what could she do about it? She certainly couldn't TELL him. Couldn't lay that on him. She didn't know how to stop any of it. Alter any of it. Didn't even know what it was...just a jumbled tapestry of pain and blood.
Ellis felt anxiety knot her stomach and her heart beat triple time in her chest. She started to cry. Curled in on herself on her soft mattress and cried. Cried for the young man she'd held in her arms. For all the pain and emotion she felt in his older self. It took her quite a while to bring herself back to center and foray back downstairs.
Dean was looking small and ashamed at the kitchen table, sitting with a bottle of beer. He looked up at her and she smiled.
Look at that soul-all young and shining and selfless. Clouded a little by something. She hesitated at his shoulder and put a hand under his jaw, tilted his head up to look at her. "Hi, sweetheart."
"Hi," he said back, uncertainly.
She sat down next to him.
"You feelin' better?" he asked.
No, she thought, but instead she nodded. "I'm sorry Dean, that had to be so terrible for you."
"Hey, I'm not the one cryin' and dry heaving so it's all okay."
"No, it's not." She tried to snare him with her eyes. Impress upon him that this wasn't his fault. "You're wonderful. You're so wonderful it was too hard to say no even though I should have. I took advantage of you."
"You took advantage of me?" Dean was incredulous. "Ellis, I was all over you."
"Yeah, but I should have known better. You're a young man, you don't have the experience I do."
He smirked. "I think I may have a lot more experience than you'd think."
She brushed a hand through his dark hair. "Be careful with that."
"With what?" He arched an eyebrow.
"With women. "
"I always use protection," he quipped. When he saw that the joke fell flat he pressed her further."This have anything to do with your vision?"
"No. It has to do with my heart."
"Well, I ain't gonna fall for a girl and have it break my heart," he said confidently.
"I believe you..." Oh God, he was going to have so much heartbreak and so much loss; it still took her breath away.
"So," he took a swig of beer and set both arms on the table. "You gonna tell me what you saw?"
"No, I don't think I will. Some visions are best kept to themselves."
He looked are little frightened. "Am I gonna die? Dad? ... Sammy?" He breathed the name with an almost reverence.
Sammy. A flash of the young man in Dean's arms. She knew who that was instinctively. She hoped her cultivated poker face kept that from showing. "Dean, I don't know. It was a jumble of images that made no sense. Sometimes I just see quick flashes of something. And I don't even know what they are."
"So it was about me. I knew it." He stared into his beer.
"Keep control on that alcohol, okay?"
"Gonna end up like dear old Dad, huh?"
Worse, she thought. "Just keep an eye on it."
"Okay." His tone was non-committal.
"Be kind with yourself. You're doing the best you can... the absolute best at all times. You're a good man Dean."
He shied away from that. Visibly.
"You are. If you could see what a bright light you are."
He shrugged.
She laid her hand over the top of his closed fist on the table and opened herself up to whatever impressions wanted to come to her. "Sam will come back to you."
"Huh?" Dean lifted his head and stared at her. "We haven't even talked in months. Why would he do that?"
"Shh. I'm not sure. But he'll be back. Your time with your brother isn't done. Do not fear that it is. You'll have a very long journey together." She moved her thumb across the back of Dean's hand. "You know," she said, "part of me is awfully sorry we didn't get the chance to go any farther."
He flushed, recovered himself. "You get get a vision of how awesome I am in bed?"
She let her eyes trace his body. "Oh several," she replied flirtatiously.
He gave her a genuine smile, the kind that lit their surroundings like like a slant of sunlight.
"Where's your father?"
"He went out."
"He did?"
"Yeah. He's mad at me. He does that."
She touched his arm through the plaid shirt he'd put on. "He's mad at himself... Dean, why don't you call your brother?" She could sense Sam's absence like wound inside of him. She wondered if he even knew it was there.
"He disconnected his cell."
"Oh come on, hunter like you can't track him down?"
She felt his defenses rise.
"Look if he wanted to talk he'd have found a way to call me." He moved his arm away from her touch. "He wants a normal life and I can't be a part of that because I'm not normal."
"Love will find a way. It always does."
He rolled his eyes at the platitude and she saw just a trace of the broken man in her vision lingering there.
"You're mad at him right now but you miss Sam. I can feel it off you."
Dean shrugged. He seemed seemed a bit sad. She watched him toy with the ring he wore on his right hand. "Don't think he misses me that much."
"How can you say that?"
"Don't see him exactly seeking me out."
Dean parted his lips around the neck of the bottle and she wished they were on her skin instead. She pushed the thought aside. "That goes both ways maybe he won't call you because he thinks you don't care about him either."
"He's the one who left me and Dad to twist, Ellis. That's on him."
She reached up to brush the back of her hand across his temple. Dean jerked away, surprised at the tenderness of the gesture and perhaps a bit defensive as well. "Something happens to Sam, doesn't it?" He pried. "Somethin' bad?"
"Something bad happens to everyone eventually."
"Ellis, you're killing me here. What did you see?"
"Please. I told you, Dean. Disjointed images." She watched a hint of anxiety suffuse his features. She was going to have to give him something to calm him down. "I saw you smashing a classic black car with a tire iron."
"What? My Baby?" he asked incredulously. "That'll never happen."
"I told you not everything comes to pass."
"That's not why you yelled. The destruction of classic cars doesn't horrify you. Me, on the other hand... "He grinned. "Come on, sweetheart. I'm not dumb."
"I saw jumbled flashes of monsters you fight. I'm not a hunter. That is frightening to me." The lie felt right to tell him. He looked appeased.
"They scare me sometimes," he said honestly. "I've been seeing this stuff since I was a kid and every now and then one still spooks me. Just a little," he added in an attempt to keep his machismo. "You know, I thought maybe things would smooth out after Sam left. Because Dad and Sam...they were just no good together." She could read the stress in his posture as he peeled absently at the label on the beer bottle with his thumb. "That was just a wreck waiting to happen."
"Hard to be the buffer, huh?"
Dean snorted. "Hard doesn't quite describe it. Sometimes it felt like my job was to keep them from killing each other."
"You two still fighting now that he's gone?"
Dean shrugged, contemplating his beer. "Not so much. I know when to shut up. Sam would just fucking push and push. I'd be 'drop it, Sam' and he couldn't... he just could never let anything go." Dean's hand was trembling. He put it in his lap and acted like nothing was wrong. "I'm not sure why I'm dumping all this on you," he said apologetically.
"I don't mind one bit. Your father's always used me as a sounding board too. I must have a way about me."
He looked shocked. "Dad? I didn't think Dad told anyone anything."
"You get him relaxed with enough alcohol in him and he'll let me in just a little. He worries about you boys a lot."
"Yeah well, he worries me too."
"Dean," she put her arm around his broad shoulders and leaned her head against his. He startled a moment, then angled his head into her and melted into it. "It will be okay."
He closed his eyes. She saw his jaw twitch. He turned his head and locked gazes with her. She watched his eyes dilate and all that vulnerability turn to lust. "Wanna finish what we started?" he asked playfully.
God yes, she thought. "No. John's mad enough at me."
"I think he thinks we got all the way. Might as well make that assumption true. I mean that's where it was headed right?" His forehead was against hers. He put an arm around her and drew her body closer.
"Dean," her hands were on his shoulders, pushing him away. "No."
"I'm real good value for your money, I promise," he said, the playfulness still there.
"Oh God, I'm sure you are."
"So come on." A smile played across his lips. He dropped his gaze shyly and raised it again, all green eyes and long dark lashes.
Her hand moved to his face and she suddenly understood something about John's eldest. He didn't know how to have physical touch or intimacy without sex. He craved them both and probably didn't know it. She wasn't going to be able to be the one to teach him that either. That would fall upon the shoulders of whatever girl was unlucky enough to be swept into that package of sexuality and emotional wreckage. That poor soul would have her work cut out for her.
"I can't. I want to," she said, "but I can't." She saw a disappointed light of rejection his eyes.
"Are you friend-zoning me?" he joked.
Something told Ellis that Dean had never ended up in the friend-zone before. "Let's just keep this platonic."
"Maybe Plato slept with his friends," he rejoined.
Ellis burst into laughter.
Next Chapter up soon. The action picks up from here, I promise! Drop me a review! I love you guys!