It was still dark outside. Dean had no idea what time it was, but he was sure that Renee would be sleeping. What he wanted to do was to silently sneak into the room without waking her. His eyes were trying to persuade him that he was indeed tired, but he knew if he lay in bed he wouldn't fall asleep. His mind wouldn't let him. Everything was coming back to him. These feelings were stirring up and causing his desire to be gone, to be far away from all the problems. He had a lot of time to think about it all, though. Now he realized what was really going on and to what a disaster he was heading. Could it be averted or was it too late? In the previous few hours he came to some conclusions, but his mind, or maybe conscience, he laughed, wouldn't be satisfied. There was one certain thing he could do, that he probably should do, but he didn't like it. He had to come with up something else. Not now, though. He needed a rest; he had thought about what he had done for too long. Yet still something was forcing him to keep thinking about what was happening around him, with him being the one whose finger was on the trigger, while he walked through the hallway. He was quickly approaching his room. The halls were silent. Everything was strangely quiet. It was scary. He wished to hear some music or people talking instead of those voices inside his head. He knew he screwed up; he didn't need to be reminded of that.
The tour was over. He was standing in front of the door, holding the card in his hand. He held the handle and slowly opened the door, as silently as possible. Renee kept sleeping. Dean smiled when he saw her lying in bed, covered with a blanket, her hair spread over the pillow. The curtains were closed but there was enough light for him to not trip over something. He went across the room. When he stood beside the bed, he took off his clothes and put it on the chair in the corner. He yawned; finally the signs of weariness came. Dean lay down in bed next to Renee. It wasn't cold for him, not really, but in order to feel Renee close to him, as close as possible, he got under the blanket. Being close to her was something he really needed right now. He had to feel her. He put his arm over hers and stroked it. He was really gentle but she woke up anyway. She turned around to look at him. Her eyes were protesting; they kept closing down.
"Where have you been?"
"I went for a walk." He didn't feel like explaining. Even if he tried to explain it to her, she wouldn't understand.
There was something unusual about the way he said it. Renee was tired, but that was unimportant to her now, she could still notice something strange about him. She took a good look at Dean. He looked exhausted, but in a different way. It wasn't that it was night, or early morning, and that he was naturally tired. He seemed upset. She usually couldn't see this emotion on his face; whenever he felt sad or something, he hid it from her. Now he seemed to be tired of hiding. He could no longer keep it to himself. Renee worried about him. He really did look hopeless.
"What's the matter?" she asked. She looked at the clock. It was almost five in the morning. Why would he get up in the middle of the night to go for a walk? He never did that. Or . . . could it be that he just arrived and that he spent the night somewhere else? Renee couldn't tell; she went to bed after midnight. At that time, Dean wasn't in the room. She slept through the night. She woke just now; she had no idea if Dean was there with her the whole time or not. But she didn't want to ask him; he wasn't in the mood.
"Nothing. Go back to sleep." He smiled at her to let her know it wasn't a lie, but it was clear to her that he was frowning inside.
Renee stroked his cheek. She couldn't watch him being so sad and not do anything about it. The sadness was transferring onto her. "Dean," she begged her to open up to her. "What happened?"
"Everything's fine," he lied. He kissed her softly on the lips to show he meant it. He felt bad lying to her again, but this was a white lie; most of them were. He didn't want to hurt her. What would happen if he told her the truth? Everything that he had kept from her? His mind was coming up with various scenarios; none of them was positive; all were unacceptable. Dean insisted that there had to be a good ending to it; at least that possibility had to exist. But his idiotic brain refused that option. No, this is not going to end well for you, Dean.
Renee hated seeing Dean upset. She made herself a promise to cheer him up; otherwise she couldn't return to sleeping. Usually smiling at him helped. But not now. Most of the time when she smiled, he had to smile too. In that case, for every action there really was an equal and opposite reaction. That was how it worked for them. Now that rule failed. She smiled; but he couldn't. If it wasn't him, Renee would swear that the person she was looking at would start crying; that's how desperate he looked. But Dean would never show that emotion in front of her. He kept strong on the surface, even when he was broken inside. Renee tried the opposite strategy. She frowned. Sometimes when you frown and you're not really sad or anything, the person seeing you starts smiling; he or she cannot help it. Dean could resist this, too. He seemed to be immune to anything his girlfriend tried in order to make him smile.
"Why don't you tell me what's bothering you?"
At one point, it almost looked like Dean would tell Renee what was wrong with him. But he didn't. Renee could continue trying, but once Dean made a decision he wouldn't change it. At least not because of something she would do. She surrendered. "All right. You don't have to say anything." She meant it, too. But although she accepted his oath of silence, she had to cheer him up. She simply had to. It wasn't something she was obliged to do just because she was his girlfriend. Or maybe it was one of the reasons; but this wasn't the main reason why she couldn't let it go and go back to sleeping. She couldn't accept his sadness. When he was hurt, she was hurt too. And she couldn't physically stand seeing him in pain. She felt cold, shivering, surrounded, and lonesome. She imagined that was how Dean felt. She took his hand and held it. She made him look at her. The little lamp on the nightstand was on, so it wasn't too dark for them to see each other. She stared into his eyes; it was difficult to look away despite the hurt in his eyes. Maybe that was the reason. That hurt was attractive; not in a usual way, though. Maybe hypnotic would be a better word to explain what effect it had on her. But she didn't let that distract her from what she ought to do.
She pressed his hand, then suddenly let go. Her hand moved alongside his waist up until it found its place in his hair. It was messy, somewhat wet; was it raining outside? The rest of his head was dry. She played with his ear for a while and then she got more interested in his lips. He accepted her finger and let it little bit inside his mouth; she wanted him to be playful. She could feel his tongue, but it was passive. She wanted to kiss him, but she bit his lip instead. Not too harshly. He probably wouldn't mind if she hurt him a little; he was never against some physical pain. But that was never an option for her. She knew she could, but she never would. She closed his eyes. It wasn't time for sleep, though. He wasn't that tired anyway. In fact, he was, but he wouldn't allow himself lose his consciousness. Suddenly he felt a trace of her saliva on his eye lids. His ears received more of it. Then it was over. He felt nothing. For few seconds he thought the game was over and that she maybe decided to leave it. It was late, or early, and the time would be probably better spent with sleeping. Was that what she had realized? Probably not. Certainly not. The pause was over and it became more intense now. Renee seemed to let go of no-pain policy because now she was biting Dean's nipples. He couldn't ignore that. Without separating her lips from his skin, Renee reached for the light switch and turned it off. Dean took her hair into his hands and passively tried to show her she didn't have to do this. It was clear to him that she wanted to cheer him up, but it wasn't necessary. Still, even though Dean held her head, he couldn't control its movement. His head kept telling him it would be better to stop her but his body protested. It liked what she was doing. How she was licking his torso, how she marked his bellybutton with her wet tongue. That look that she gave him to let him know what would come next. She didn't ask for permission. She wetted her lips and targeted the object that was about to receive her kindness.
"Do you want me to stop?" she asked teasingly.
"No," Dean gasped. He liked what she was doing there. He liked it so much that for a moment he forgot about his feeling of guilt and all the confusion that kept him awake earlier. Now all of that was secondary. He even guided Renee as to what to do. She could do well even without his assistance, though. She knew what she was doing down there.