"You're a wonderful girl, Lory… You can have any man you want."

She smiled.

"Even if that were true, the only man I want is him."

Dean's hands trembled on the wheel. This had little to do with the ungodly speed with which he was moving. It could mainly be attributed his newfound desire to stay alive long enough to reach Lory-

I'm a changed man, baby, take me back. Baby, please, baby, baby, PPPLLLEEEAAASSSEEE!

-However, this desire clashed with his heavy intoxication and the fact that he was going ten over the speed limit. And thus his hands shook.

"Tunes," he concluded.

Sam recoiled from the sting after roughly a quarter of a minute, and rebounded, much without thinking.

"You have no idea what he could be doing right now. He could be having drunken spite-sex with some two-bit hooker in the next motel up the road!"

She emitted an amused laugh.

" 'Drunken spite-sex'? Sam, do you hear yourself? Did you two lick the lead paint on the walls when you were babies?"

"I'm serious."

"I know! And that's the sad part."

He poked a blind finger at the radio until he figured it out.

"Nothing like some tunes to sober ya up and calm ya down."

Of course, this was drunken logic, which is undoubtedly undependable, and the distraction caused him to drift in and out of foreboding zigzags on the road. The one clear station he received droned Bonnie Tyler through a stream of static. He furrowed his brow and twisted his mouth as though he caught an unpleasant whiff of something. Then, a memory.

It was the blue-yellow-orange-pink-purple hour before the moon was fully visible. Dean and Lory sat in the Impala, their heads back on the head rests as he clicked through yet another CD he plucked from the pile in the glove compartment.

"This has got to be Sam's…"

"Ooh, leave it!"

Lory's hand fell atop his and gently pulled it back. Their eyes met.

"…I… I love this one…" she uttered tentatively.

He smiled.

And he knew for sure.

"You're right, Lory. It's terrible. It's ridiculous that I would say something like that about poor, innocent Dean and I'm a bad person. I'm sorry."

"Sam-"

He shrugged.

"A few months ago, I would never have said a harsh word against him. But seeing the way he treats you, Lory…"

"I get it, Sam, but it's really not that bad. Sure, he's a little abrasive-"

"Lory-" earnestly, he grasped her hands. "you don't deserve 'a little abrasive'. You are the sweetest, most gentle woman I have ever met… And…that's what you deserve to get back…"

His hand brushed her cheek bone, and she shrank slightly at the inappropriateness of the situation, however, Sam would not relent.

"…So…" he looked down at the small line of bedspread between them and then back up into her eyes. "Let me give it to you."

He blinked away the stinging in his eyes, which left him with just enough clarity of vision to see the post with which he was mere feet from colliding.

"What was that?"

Lory's head whipped away toward the window, just in time to dodge the necessity of response.

"It's probably some drunken jerk doing donuts in the parking lot. Hey…" He grasped her round chin between his thumb and forefinger and guided her face toward his. "Don't worry about it."

"Sam-"

"Shhhh…"

She narrowly escaped his lips.

"What are you doing?"

"What I should have done months ago, Lory," Sam growled wildly, "before I let him get his hands on you."

Lory's wide face nearly disappeared in his cupped hands as he pulled her soft mouth into his.

Smoke rose from the bottom of the Impala. It smelled something awful of burnt rubber. Dean's forehead throbbed and his left eye stung as he blinked them open. He ran his fingers over the ran of blood that ran into it from the searing gash above his eyebrow.

"Ah, fuck."

He stared down at his pants, which were soaked through with a pungent liquid.

"Aw, shit! Uh!"

But a rush of relief and regained self-respect washed over him when he caught the shimmer of broken glass on the floor of the car. And then a singe of pain in his thigh , from which a shard protruded. After performing a damage-check on himself, his next instinct was to hop out and expect the car with a fine-toothed comb. But he fought it.

"No. No, that can wait…"

Dean wrenched open the car door, blinking through blood and sweat to scan for the right room.

"Sam!" Lory exclaimed through his tender but persistent assailment on her lips. She would have gotten out more if either Sam or her shock had taken a break to permit her.

"It's ok," he panted between sloppy kisses, "I won't rush you. I just want to kiss you. God, your lips taste good."

She loosed her hands from his and pushed defiantly back on his shoulders.

"Jesus Christ, Sam!"

His brawn still kept her pinned to the bed, but he eased upward slightly.

"Lory, I'm sorry! But, I love you!"

Her eyes softened slightly, not out of requite, but melancholy sympathy.

"Oh, Sam…"

"It's killing me, Lory…" he whispered, bringing his lips to her ear. He kissed it. "It's eating me. I need you…"

"Sam-"

"I wanna feel you, Lory."

His tongue slid up her neck just a brief moment before he recoiled at the clicking of the door. Lory looked over her head. Dean's bloody, enraged figure was almost doubly frightening upside-down. But his eyes looked softly upon her for a moment, sadly… And then up at Sam.

"Dean-"

He bellowed, "You son of a bitch…"