5 Habits of Her He Accepts 1 He Doesn't
1. Music:
Dean Winchester absolutely hated pop songs. They were always too mellow, too repetitive, and the voices put him to sleep. And the autotune got on his nerves. If they couldn't sing without a machine editing their voice, then why were they producing music?
He loved rock though. The insane guitar riffs, the raw vocals, the energy, the complex rhythm that changed every moment… That was what he loved. It made him feel alive. Not to mention his Dad liked it. If Dad liked it, then it must be good, right?
He always thought the woman he loved would also be a fan of Led Zeppelin. They would lay on Baby's hood and listen to their greatest hits under the stars. Maybe she would even be a guitarist and play his favorite songs for him. Little had he expected the woman he fell for to be a die hard fan of all things pop, especially Asian pop. With English pop songs he could at least make out the words, but he couldn't even figure out the lyrics to whatever she listened to.
But he'd decided to give her a chance. To show him that she liked rock too. Maybe it wasn't her favourite genre but she appreciated it?
To his horror, she'd fallen asleep when he'd turned up the volume on the stereo when a Metallica song had come on. She'd actually had the audacity to fall asleep on the couch when they got to the chorus.
Okay, so maybe she was just sleepy that day and she needed her beauty sleep.
He tried again the next day. Bob Seger. She would like that right? Even Sammy who openly hated Dean's taste in music could sit through a Bob Seger album! How wrong he was. She'd fallen asleep again by the time the song ended.
It was a bad habit of hers to fall asleep when his favorite songs played. But no matter how much he wanted to wake her up and force her to listen to them until she liked it, he couldn't make himself jerk her shoulder and wake her up from that peaceful dream she was having.
He vowed to find a rock singer, band – hell even one song that he liked – that she liked. But nothing seemed to work. Instead, day in and day out, she would jam her 'AirPods' into her ears and plug her 'iPhone' into the wall, and make mini practiced dance moves along the duration of the song.
Then came the fateful day he played Eye of the Tiger. She'd blinked in his direction before moving her small hands in well learned motions as if they were playing a guitar. Finally! He turned the volume up and yelled that there could only be one guitarist in the house, and that was him. She pouted but then let her hair down from the low ponytail. She made loose fists with her hands and started air drumming along to the beat, her hair wilding around as she copied the movements of the drummer from a rock band.
He'd never been happier. He was willing to accept her habit of falling asleep to his favourite songs if it meant that she would continue to jam and geek out with him for the few she didn't fall asleep for.
2. Crocheting:
Dean Winchester was never really a creative person.
To the people around him, creativity was an escape. But to him creativity felt stifling. Like he was being forced to be unique. He wasn't trying to be unique, to be different. His life was already as different as could be. He craved normalcy. Drinking. Sex. All those one night stands he could pretend like things were normal. Normal people had sex when they came home from work, right? And when he was drunk, he could almost forget the craziness of his life. He could push it back to the edges of his mind and just indulge in the warmth that came with being in a woman's arms.
Yet her hobby was crocheting. She was the definition of a normal person. Yes, she was hotter than the average person. Yes, she knew about the monsters under the bed and the darkness in the closet. And yes, she was probably a better shot than he and Sam ever would be. But she was surprisingly normal. She cooked, she cleaned, she worked. And she liked crocheting. That was as grandma as you could get, and as creative as a person could get. She crocheted anything and everything. Dinosaurs, dragons, dolls, bears, hell he'd found a life sized dog poking its head out from under her bed and dolls that looked like him, Sam, Dad, and Bobby precariously balanced on Baby's dashboard one day. Dad had thrown the dolls in the backseat until he bought double sided tape to stick them temporarily on the dashboard, but this wasn't about Dad. Surely her skills couldn't be considered normal.
Every time he, Sam, Bobby, and his Dad would grab beers for themselves, flop onto the couch, and turn on a game, she would perch on her window seat and start crocheting something. Her creativity knew no bounds. The colour schemes seemed to just flow from her hands and she changed up the designs if she ever made the same creature twice with awe inspiring ease. It was a strange habit of hers. If she was stressed, she would crochet. 'Coping mechanism' she'd told him. 'Repetitive as hell. Helps me feel normal'.
He couldn't wrap his mind around it. How was her fussing over the next colour and crying over the slightest mistake in the project a coping mechanism? It took him a while to learn. But he did.
Slowly, he found peace in the clicking of her slightly too long nails against the metal of the hook and the soft calming patterns she wove so skillfully. Something about the softness of the colours and the repetitiveness of the patterns put his mind at ease. Maybe it was because they were made by her in her pastel green nightgown while she lay flopped on her window seat surrounded by lavender lace curtains humming some song he didn't know. Maybe it was because they resembled the normal toys he saw normal kids playing around with under the normal watchful eyes of their normal parents.
It wasn't like he would ever get used to finding balls of bright colourful yarn in Baby's trunk or grunting when he accidentally squished a half finished project on the couch. But as long as she kept that careless smile on her small adorable face, he would accept her screaming at him over buying the wrong shade of yarn again.
3. 3:00 AM:
Every morning at 3:00 AM he would wake up from the soft padding of bare feet on the floor. They were too soft and light to be any of the men, but they were solid enough that he knew it wasn't some ghost sneaking into their room. Besides, he had salted every door and window before he went to bed. He would crack an eye open to make sure it was who he thought it was, and that the person would get back to bed safely.
It wasn't like he wanted to wake up at 3:00 AM. He was almost always exhausted and he could use every second of shut eye he could get. But she seemed to wake up every night like clockwork, no matter how late they went to bed or how early they had to wake up.
He would listen carefully for the flush of the toilet and the splashing of water in the sink as she washed her hands. And then would come the soft pattering again and the small squeak of the cap of the water bottle turning as she took a sip of water before flopping back into bed.
When he shared a motel room with her, Sam, and Dad, he wondered if the others noticed her 3:00 AM routine. Obviously, they did. It was in the Winchester blood to be cautious even when asleep. He could hear Dad's snoring pause the second her soft footsteps started heading for the bathroom. And he could make out Sam's figure loosening the cap of the water bottle on the nightstand so she wouldn't cut her hand trying to open it again. The whole room stayed awake till the bed creaked once more under the weight of the woman they'd accepted into their family. And only then would they all close their eyes and start snoring again.
It was a similar situation at Bobby's. He would be sprawled on the couch, Sam would be sleeping on her top bunk, and Bobby and Dad would be passed out on the table either out of exhaustion or too many drinks. No matter what it was though, they would stop snoring at the sound of the bathroom door being gently pushed open to listen. He could hear Sam climbing down the squeaky ladder of the bed to loosen the bottle cap once more and then scrambling back up to duck back under the covers. And he himself would keep his eyes on the stairs. She tended to come a little too close to the edge in her sleep-ridden mind, and he would be damned if he let that small fragile looking woman fall down the stairs.
It was a strange constant in their lives. No matter where they were, what they did, they could always count on her waking them up from their sleep at 3:00 AM. And if it meant that she would wake up in the morning greeting him with her annoyed because it was morning glare and a ghostly mess of her hair, they would all accept her strange 3:00 AM routine.
4. Shorts
All the women he had ever been with, rarely or never wore shorts under their skirts. Then there was her. The woman he'd fallen head over heels for. She had a whole collection of shorts to wear under her skirts. And they were all ridiculous.
They weren't solid black like most safety shorts he'd seen. They weren't even the occasional pink or red ones he'd seen under his hookups' miniskirts. No, they didn't have some weird 'Juicy' written across the butt either. Hers were just childish. Unicorns, rainbows, mermaids with bows on the front. Literally. Those were the shorts she wore under her ruffled miniskirts. It was a habit she'd apparently built since she was a child. She refused to leave the house without shorts no matter how long her skirt was. She'd almost thrown a fit one day because Bobby had been too lazy to do the laundry and she didn't have any fresh ones. To his disappointment, she'd come back out in loose jeans, hiding those lovely pale legs from his sight.
It bothered the hell out of him. The mature woman in front of him wearing a bright red skin tight turtleneck and a black sequined miniskirt that rested a little higher than it was meant to, had yellow shorts bought from the kids section poking out from under her inviting outfit. The worst part was, she didn't even realise the number of eyes on her. She had one goal, and one goal only. Order popcorn, steal a drink from the self-serve drink station, and get the hell out of the food section, because there was a Western romance movie airing in the town they were in, and they were already running ten minutes late.
It wasn't like he minded what she wore. He had no right to after all. Hell he'd accepted her style. Did he prefer that she would keep those beautiful legs and those beautiful breasts hidden unless in front of him? Absolutely. But he didn't have the right to dictate that. The most he could do was keep the creeps away. So he kept her back covered. Anything to keep the men's eyes from realising that under her mature looking appearance was an insecure woman who didn't even think that men would try to take peeks up her skirt. If she knew, then she would never expose those lovely legs ever again. And he didn't want that. He wanted her to be comfortable.
He wanted him to be the only one to know what she wore under her skirts. It didn't matter if the men couldn't see the blue seashell underwear she was wearing that day. He didn't want them catching a glimpse of even her rainbow shorts.
He settled for wrapping the jacket hanging on her arm around her waist, successfully covering the slightest hint of the rainbow under her skirt. She fixed him with a confused frown but grabbed her popcorn and drink and made her way to the theater without a complaint. He sighed when he spotted the way her jacket had slid down her waist to frame her hips. He would have to tie that thing tighter next time.
5. Burger Fillings:
Onions in burgers were life. Dean Winchester loved them. He also loved mayo and cheese in his. He would order extra of all three in his burgers whenever he could. Sam would give him wide eyed stares at the amount of mayo he squirted into his burger before every bite. But who cared? It was his burger.
Until it wasn't the only one he would end up eating. The woman he'd fallen in love with had a small stomach. She could only eat half a burger after a serving of fries, she refused to not eat the fries, and soon Dean had become her trash can. But he was a picky trash can. He wanted mayo and cheese and onions. She hated all three. They made her feel sick, she'd said.
It physically hurt him to see her pulling the burger apart and picking the onions out. And then wiping, she wiped, the mayo off her burger. That should be labelled as a crime, punishable by law, a death sentence. And once she was done with half of it, she would pass the butchered burger to him because he never said no to more food. He was seriously considering saying no though. The burger didn't even have meat in it! How could she do that to the poor burger? What had it done to her? But he did love food too much to say no, and he would chow down on her burger every time. The burger deserved a proper death by being eaten.
He could deal with half a mutilated burger, but he couldn't deal with home cooked burgers not having their insides. And what was with that ridiculous amount of lettuce? She'd replaced the heart of the burger with some cheap filling. He wasn't a rabbit! Sam enjoyed her cooking though, and with each compliment, her happy grin would grow wider. His heart skipped a beat when he saw her smiling, and he gave the burger another look. At least it had chicken. He supposed he could give it a try.
He blinked in surprise at the taste. It tasted like cheese. He looked at the inside of the burger and his heart felt like it was going to burst. It was cheese bread, and there were extra onions tucked inside the lettuce. And then a bottle of mayo was plopped down in front of him. He looked up at the angel that had blessed him with flavour. But she turned around to continue her conversation with Bobby– something about taxes.
Realisation hit him. All the places he'd taken her to only served beef and pork. He'd forgotten about her diet restrictions. Not to mention he finally realised why she ate half a burger. The only option that had been available to her was cheeseburgers, and she was lactose intolerant. And she was too hesitant to tell the waitresses her situation.
He wiped his mouth of the mayo guiltily. It wasn't that she mutilated the burgers just because she was being picky. She was trying to conserve what little connection she had left to her culture in a country that didn't think too much of the minority cultures.
He found himself falling even more in love. He promised to himself that next time, he would personally request changes to the fillings in her burger, that he would make sure she felt accepted even with their differences.
1. Tears
It was her again. She was crying once again.
He had a general idea why. She'd been ripped away from her world where they were taught to think before they leapt, and thrown into one where she was told to shoot first and ask questions later. She'd been made to leave her whole family behind with a few thousand photos on her phone as a reminder of her previous life– and most of them weren't even of the family she begged to see. The fading lavender of her purse-like phone case almost reminded him of his own wallet. He had a couple of photos of him and his mom, and they were the most precious things he owned.
He didn't like hearing those faint sobs coming from the bathroom. He would much rather hear her singing those god awful pop songs she liked. But he couldn't tell her that. If he did then she would stop letting out those emotions altogether, and he knew exactly how that ended. He stared at the beer bottle in his hand. He had screwed up his life by bottling everything up. He wouldn't be able to handle it if she went down that path too.
He let out a sad sigh, leaning against the door of the bathroom, listening to her cry until he could only hear her dry heaves.
He sat there for quite a while. He frowned. He looked up at the wall where she had mounted clocks. She loved clocks. There was a clock in every single room and even in the hallways now. The clock he was looking at indicated that she'd been in there for almost an hour. She never took this long unless she was washing her hair. But it wasn't her 'shampoo day'. Had something gone wrong? He decided to take the risk.
"Takin' too long, sweetheart!" he said loudly.
No response.
He tried again. "Sammy has to pee! And Bobby's hogging the one downstairs!"
"What the hell, Dean?" Bobby stomped up the stairs. He looked at Dean staring at the door and then at the clock. "Is she not responding?"
"No." He was starting to get worried. Usually he would get yelled at before he even finished his sentences.
"Is she not out yet?" Sam had come out of her room too. "It's almost been an hour."
The three men looked at each other.
"We're breaking down this door–"
"Hang on, kid. I've got a master key." Bobby ran down to grab it.
"Hey!" Sam yelled. "Are you okay?"
When no response came, they only grew more worried.
"Bobby! Keys!" He yelled.
Bobby threw the keys to him and he jammed it into the lock. He twisted and pushed the doorknob at the same time.
There she was, passed out in the tub. Steam from the hot shower fogged up the hallway. It made even him dizzy, and he loved his steam showers.
He quickly knelt over her. Bobby was prying open the small window in the bathroom to let out the steam, while Sam rushed to grab a towel to wrap around her. He took note of her skin. It was red from the hot scalding water and her breathing was shaky. But she hadn't drowned. She hadn't drowned in the tub. She was alive.
Sam passed him the towel, eyes wide with worry as he wrapped her up in them.
"Get another one, for her hair." Bobby instructed. And Sam left once again to get another one. "Dean, get her to her bed. Open up the window. I'll get her clothes."
He nodded and picked her up. She was so small. She fit easily in his arms and her head lolled right into the crook of his neck. "You listenin' sweetheart?" he muttered as he carried her to her room. "Wake up. You gotta wake up." He lowered her to the bed, taking care to not hit the bunk above.
"Towel?" Sam handed him a towel with a purple Ariel on it. It was her favorite towel since Dadhad gifted it to her for her 19th birthday.
"Thanks Sammy." He lifted her head off the pillow and started rubbing the strands in between the dark purple folds.
"Dean," He turned around when Bobby said his name. "Step out for a moment." Bobby had one of her pastel nightgowns in hand and a pair of shorts with Barbie emblazoned on it.
He nodded and pushed a worried Sammy out the door. He shut it behind him and closed his eyes. She would be okay. Surely, she would be okay.
A few moments later, Bobby stepped out with a sigh. "She passed out from the heat I'm assumin'. Along with her little crying session." The three men looked at the woman tucked under floral sheets. "She can't continue like this. We need to talk about what's going on."
"I can talk to her." He surprised even himself with that statement. He was the worst person at communicating. So what was he doing, offering himself up as a resident therapist?
"Make sure you do a good job." Bobby grabbed Sammy's shoulder and guided the youngest Winchester out the room.
Dean stayed in her room until she woke up. Her room was the definition of girly. Pink walls, blue ceiling. Purple chair, red mahogany table. Bedsheets with too many flowers and definitely too many stuffed animals on her bunks. How did Sammy sleep in that room without throwing up? Even the curtains were lavender lace!
But he held onto her hand, rubbing circles into her small palm and brushing the hair away from her face every time she shifted. He wanted her to wake up, to look at him with those dark brown eyes of hers. He wanted her to wake up and scream at him for seeing her naked, like he'd taken her virginity while she was out or something. But none of that happened.
"Wake up, sweetheart…" he pressed his lips to the back of her hand.
As if on cue, her eyes scrunched up before blinking open. They immediately closed again when the light from the lotus lamp in her room hit her eyes. He couldn't help but snicker. Like she'd just noticed him in her room, her squinting eyes landed on him and her bushy brows furrowed.
"Why're you here?" she grunted.
"You passed out," he answered. "Bobby wanted me to keep an eye on you."
"Oh," realisation finally hit her. She sat up straight and lowered her head slightly so her hair covered her face. "Sorry. The steam was a little too much I guess."
"Don't lie." He reached up to her black hair and moved them so he could see her guilty face. "You passed out from exhaustion." She tried to pry his hands away from her hair, but he refused to let go. "Because you were crying."
Her bottom lip quivered. "I wasn't."
"You were." He tucked her hair behind her ear. "Talk to me. Talk to Bobby. Or Sammy. Or someone. I don't know. But you can't keep doing this." She didn't say anything. But he could see it in her eyes that she knew what he meant. "Wanna talk…?" he lowered his hands and moved to sit on her chair instead.
When she opened her mouth. All the feelings she'd been holding back spilled out. She sobbed about her family, shrieked about the horrors and the things that damned his world. She laughed through tears at memories she refused to let go of, and she told him that she was scared of so many things. She might forget her dad's face and deep gentle voice, the arguments in the backseat of the car with her brother, the way her mom felt when she cuddled with her even after she became an adult. She was scared that she wouldn't be able to fulfill whatever purpose she had for being here with him.
Everything she spilled to him while gripping onto the sheets that were now wet from her tears. He just sat and listened. He couldn't say anything to comfort her. He didn't know her previous life. He didn't know anything about the person she used to be. All he knew was that there was a scared but strong woman in front of him, who was reaching out to him for a hug. She hated hugs, she'd made that clear on day one.
So he did the only thing he could. He wrapped his arms around her thin shoulders and let her get her snot all over him. He rubbed her back up and down like he remembered his mom doing for him when he was a kid, while she held onto his shoulders with her nails digging into them through the fabric of his flannel. Slowly, but surely, her grip loosened and her breathing grew less shaky. He pulled back slightly and swept away her hair that clung onto the sweat and tears on her face.
"Don't you ever cry alone again."
Dean Winchester was willing to accept a lot of her habits, but this wasn't one of them.
