Previously on Supernatural...

"Where are you going?" "I'm going after Baby before she does something stupid."

Dean found her later that night in a dive bar.

It wasn't hard to pick her out in the crowd. The only girl in the place, her hair was pulled up in a sloppy pile of curls that made her look like a hot mess, tendrils dripping around her face and into alcohol-hazed silver eyes as she matched a burly trucker shot for shot. The crowd gathered around them egged both participants on, filling shot glass after shot glass.

"Dean!" she exclaimed cheerfully, giving him a lopsided smile. "Hi Dean! Look, these nice guys keep buying me alcohol as long as I don't keel over!"

The guy nearest Dean nudged the hunter with a grin. "You're one lucky bastard, man. She's a keeper."

"Yeah, don't I know it," Dean absently replied. He spotted the line of empty whiskey bottles on the bar and grimaced. If he had to guess, Baby had drunk almost half her body weight in liquor. The fact that she hadn't passed out or thrown up was something incredible. Then again, it's just another kind of alcohol coursing through her body. Another type of gasoline. "Okay Baby, I think you've had enough. Let's go."

"Nawwwww, not yeeeeeeet."

Oh Christ Almighty, she's plastered. "Why?"

"Becaaaaauuuuuusssssse, tha's whyyyyyyyy!" whined Baby. She pointed to the trucker sitting opposite her who was red-faced and swaying in his seat like a pendulum. "If I drink him under the table, I'll get a hundred bucks. I wan' tha' hund'ed bucks, Deeeeeeeeaaaaan." Reaching for a full shot glass, she knocked it back in one fluid motion and slammed the glass back onto the table upside down. The remaining four met with the same fate, emptied and overturned in rapid succession. Leveling a finger at the trucker, she said, "And you, big boy! Drink up!"

The trucker groped for the shot glass in front of him, missed it twice, then overbalanced on his stool and dropped like a stone to the ground. The surrounding men let out shouts of surprise and started exchanging money. Bills were stacked in front of Baby, who collected them with a dopey smile. "Pleasure drinkin' with you guys!" she chirped as she hopped off her stool.

She managed to stumble out the door before her legs gave out from under her. Dean gave a shocked "oomph!" as she collided with his side. It felt like he'd been slammed into a barrel. One arm wrapped around her waist as the other hand sought out hers. "You all right?"

"Tha's some goooooood gas, Dean," she hummed, rubbing her cheek against his T-shirt like a cat. "Made me all warm and happy and calm."

"Alcohol has a tendency to do that. You probably shouldn't have drunk so much."

Faster than an eye-blink the Impala had a look of pure anguish on her face that was breaking Dean's heart. "Why shouldn't I? Madeline's dead." A long ragged breath was dragged from her lips as she tried to regain her senses. "I said I could help her, that we could protect her, and she ended up dead because I kept asking questions."

"That isn't your fault."

"Course it is." She coughed and wheezed a couple times, her rattling cough more pronounced. "Why are you here? Sammy needs you."

"Sam's a big boy, he can play FBI without me. I'm here because I was worried about you," Dean said firmly. He stopped walking to lean Baby up against the nearest steady surface, which was the brick wall of a building that ran along a side street. His hands pressed flat on either side of Baby so as to catch her if she fell. "Catch your breath a bit. Sometimes drinking leaves people a little winded."

She turned to rest her back against the wall, looking up at Dean with glazed, half-lidded eyes. "But I'm not people." Baby's tongue darted out to wet her lips, and he was powerless to look away. "I'm not real people. I'm an ugly freak."

The word made him tense up instinctively, remembering how Sam used to flinch when people called him that. "You're not a freak, Baby," he said harshly before forcing his voice to be more gentle. "You're just under a spell. And you're pretty sloshed, which isn't helping much."

"But I'm still ugly," Baby said, her voice cracking. "Is that why you don't love me anymore?"

"Huh?"

"You didn't say I wasn't ugly. That's gotta be why." Her hands had somehow managed to slip his coat open, one gripping the hem of his T-shirt while the other fisted over his racing heart. "You don't love me cuz I'm an ugly, fake person."

"Baby, you're beautiful." Stop there, his common sense was practically screaming, but the need to fix what was hurting his Baby ran almost as deeply as his need to protect his brother. "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever known."

Imagine his surprise when instead of calming down, her lust-filled eyes were suddenly swimming with tears. "But not the most beautiful woman," she said, stressing the last word. Tears dripped down her cheeks as she started to sob. "I'm not even a woman to you."

"Aw, c'mon Baby, don't cry." Now Dean was really floundering. Exterminating fugly monsters and fighting demons came easily enough to the elder Winchester; calming crying women did not. He reached up to wipe away Baby's tears with the pad of his thumb. They scalded his skin like hot water, and when he popped the digit into his mouth to lessen the pain, he could taste the salt from her tears and the spice from her skin. This was not my best idea...

"I feel really hot," she whimpered, squirming against the wall as she tried to pull off her jacket. "Dean, I think my engine's overheating."

"Don't worry, it'll pass." He gently pried her fumbling fingers from the clasps of her jacket and undid them himself. The leather was sliding down her shoulders and arms when Dean actually processed the scene. He and Baby were practically flush with each other, her back against the wall behind her as her sweat-slicked skin glowing in the dim light from the streetlight shining just twelve feet away. Her reddened face was only a foot from his as she looked up with chrome-colored eyes that were drowning in desire.

Desire that hadn't been aimed his way in quite some time, and from the way his body was responding to it, Dean knew this would get very uncomfortable very quickly. "I-It's just the alcohol," he stammered, backing away from her.

He didn't get far at all. Her lower hand grabbed a good fistful of his jacket while the one over his heart moved to slide behind his neck. Somehow Baby managed to sway forward and push herself up on her tiptoes, brushing noses and bringing her lips centimeters from Dean's. "No, it's just you and me," she whispered in a husky voice before closing the distance.

A wave of pure desire swamped Dean's brain and shorted out every thinking fuse, leaving his instincts to guide him. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her flush with his body as he backed them both into the solid brick wall. Her curves mashed against the planes of his chest, making her gasp and giving Dean the opening he needed to deepen the kiss.

SON of a BITCH. She tasted like frickin' apple pie. Apples, and cinnamon, and spice, and sweet Mother of God, she was kissing him like he was the only thing keeping her alive.

Tongues dueled for control as Baby moaned against his mouth, tilting her head for better access. She released her grip on his jacket and speared her fingers into his short hair, tugging to bring his mouth even closer. He hauled her higher up the wall and groaned as her legs locked around his hips.

"Dean," she whispered hoarsely against his lips. "Dean, please. Take me home."

Those words were ultimately what broke through his hormone-clogged brain, like ice-cold water had just been dumped over his head. With enormous difficulty and reluctance (how the hell was she this good a kisser for a first-timer?) Dean broke contact with an audible pop. They were both panting heavy, her breath smelling of whiskey and her eyes foggy with desire and lust. Dean tried to regain his bearings as he gently lowered her to the ground, prying her off his body like he was removing a koala.

She didn't make it easy. In fact, even after her boots touched sidewalk again, she was right back up on her tiptoes to feather kisses along the side of his jaw. If she was any other woman, Dean would've had them at her place and halfway out of their clothes. But this was Baby, and she was drunk and under a spell and not herself at all. That was the only reason she was acting this way, kissing him this way, saying these words as if they were the only truth in the world. All because of a damn spell.

He took a shaky breath and stuttered, "B-Baby, y-you gotta, we gotta s-stop."

"Why?" she whispered, her throaty alto dropping a few notes with her arousal. "I want this, and so do you. Why should we stop?"

"Because it's not right, what we're doing." She was still pressed up against him, and the contact was damaging his ability to form a coherent argument. Damn, it really has been a long time since I've gotten laid. "Baby, no. This can't - we can't - " She moved to kiss him again, and Dean had to grab her shoulders to push her back. "Stop it. This isn't going to happen, Baby."

Sobriety struck her hard and fast, clearing the fog from her eyes and revealing the tumble of emotions that filled them. Betrayal. Heartbreak. Rejection. All that passed through her eyes in a matter of seconds, and Dean silently cursed at his clumsiness. The horrified expression that finally settled on Baby's face was as if he'd stuck Ruby's knife in her heart.

But before he could speak, Baby ducked out of his grasp, grabbed her jacket, and took off into the night like she was in the Daytona 500. "Baby!" he yelled after her, but it was too late.

Great going, idiot, his conscience screamed. You were supposed to be keeping her from doing something stupid. You weren't supposed to be participating in the stupid. And making out with your drunk, sexy Impala is definitely stupid with a capital S.

His inner scolding was interrupted by the sound of his cell phone going off. He flipped it open and snapped, "Sam, please tell me you've got a lead."

I tried, really I did. Smexy makeout sessions are really hard for me to write.

Review? Please? Pretty please?