May 19th-25th, 2005
"There's a garage up in Murfreesboro," Dean told her the next morning between kisses, his hands on her hips while he leaned back against the dresser, "I want to follow up with. You spending the day with George and Katie?"
Lorelai shrugged, knowing she needed Dean to leave to come up with a real game plan.
"Probably. Call you later about dinner?" Dean nodded, dipping his head to brush his lips against hers one last time before lightly pushing her towards the bathroom, where she'd been headed, and taking a step away himself.
"Perfect."
By the time Lorelai got out of her shower, Dean was gone, the Impala noticeably missing from the front of the cabin, a fresh pot of coffee was sitting on the counter, Katie was curled up in an armchair - nose in a book, headphones on, and oblivious to the world - and George was sitting out on the back porch, the Prophet in one hand and a mug in the other. Quietly, Lorelai prepared her own cup and slipped out the back door to join him, earning herself an aggravatingly bright smile from the prankster when he spotted her.
"You've been holding out on me!" George accused, tossing the paper aside and settling back into his chair while Lorelai dropped into its twin next to him. She rolled her eyes, bringing her coffee to her lips.
"Here we go," she muttered.
"When I saw you three weeks ago all you told me about was work, how much you missed Katie, and more work. Imagine my surprise when I drop in for your birthday, thinking I've got this brilliant plan to brighten your dismal spirits -"
"Make me sound more pathetic, why don't you?"
"Only to find out that you're shacking up with some bloke and your spirits aren't all that dismal after all."
"Oh honestly. I'm not shacking up with anyone, and three weeks ago there was nothing to tell because I hadn't even met Dean!" she huffed. "There's still nothing to tell, he's just… Dean."
George let out a bark of laughter that let Lorelai know he was entirely unconvinced, and she very much wished she could have turned herself invisible in that moment.
"Oh, this is too good," George wheezed. "I've seen you dig your heels in, Lorelai, but this is a whole new level. Not shacking up with him? What else do you call sharing this place with him? I haven't seen you this smitten since… well… since -"
"Don't," Lorelai cut across him in warning when his voice started to turn serious, and George's playful grin fell away, leaving a somber, sympathetic expression on his face.
"Hey, c'mon Lorelai, he was my twin. You think I'd say it lightly?"
"It's not the same," she insisted, her gaze moving skyward in time to watch a bird swoop down into the treetops above.
"I'm not saying it is," George amended gently. "Just pointing out that I haven't seen you so genuinely taken by someone since you met Fred. He seems like a good bloke, Dean. Katie liked him too."
"Don't go getting attached," Lorelai told him. "We're both just passing through."
"Hmmm," George hummed. "Right. I'll make sure to remember this moment when I give a toast at your wedding."
George was laughing uproariously, even when she used her wand to conjure a ball she immediately sent in the direction of his head. There was a part of her that wanted to let go and join in on George's excitement and amusement at the latest development in her life, but as funny as George thought he was, Lorelai found his words only served to further ratchet up her anxiety.
The rest of her week passed in a blur. George, it turned out, had more than one surprise up his sleeve, and despite the bubble of domesticity she'd stumbled into with Dean in Tullahoma, Lorelai found herself lying to him, once again, over dinner. It was a white lie, like all the others, but a lie nonetheless. George had wrangled Angelina, Lee, Olivia, and Ian into a weekend in Nashville to celebrate. After he told her, they'd discussed inviting Dean, but they'd both agreed it would probably be too suspicious to a Muggle. Nashville may have been within driving distance of Tullahoma, but it was quite a trek from New York City and London respectively for a spur-of-the-moment trip. She told Dean she was taking Katie for a girls weekend to Chattanooga before George took her back with him to New York on Sunday. The ease with which Dean accepted the story made her stomach churn with guilt, and she reminded herself that she only had more of the same to expect if she entertained the idea of letting things go any further.
The weekend had been a pleasant distraction. She'd actually taken Katie to Chattanooga for the day on Friday, deciding it would be easier to lie if she had some first-hand experience, before they'd gone back to New York for the night. There they'd bumped into Nick and Julia in the hall, and despite the persisting frostiness between her and Nick, he'd still wished her a happy birthday and Julia had been ecstatic to see her and Katie. Julia's enthusiasm had worn Nick down quickly, and the four of them set plans to have lunch the next day before Lorelai planned to leave for Nashville.
Nashville itself had been a blast. There was a part of her, which she desperately tried to ignore, that wished Dean were there, but it was overshadowed by the excitement of seeing her friends. It was George and Angelina's first weekend away since Roxy had been born, and they were clearly excited for the opportunity to let loose. Lee was quick to step in as her surrogate date for the evening since they were both on their own, making sure to keep a drink in her hand and spinning her around the dance floor when there was a lull. Olivia had made her promise they could do breakfast the two of them before her and Ian went back to New York the next morning, and Ian had been happy to help her hunt down the best bands as they all drifted from bar to bar.
By the time she made it back to Tullahoma on Sunday afternoon Lorelai was completely exhausted, and unnerved when she realized how relieved she'd felt to return to her temporary "home." She was even more disturbed two days later when she finally had a break tracking down the werewolf, and her first thought was to be disappointed instead of excited.
"Definitely a Muggle," Lorelai confirmed over lunch the following day. She was sitting in the cafeteria at the local MACUSA office, Nick across from her with her file opened on the table between them.
"Damn. Guess we sort of knew that though, huh?" Lorelai shrugged, taking the chance to sip her coffee, her gaze sliding to the window.
"Yeah." She liked closing cases, but this time her heart just wasn't in it.
"What's up with you?" Nick asked after a beat, catching onto her lack of energy. Lorelai shrugged again, sinking down further in her chair.
"Just tired." It should have been believable, given the fact that the break in the case was the result of a stakeout that had stretched into the early hours of the morning. With the lunar cycle coming back around it had been the prime opportunity to test out her theory that the small apartment building she'd tracked the wolf back to was correct. Of course, the stakeout had required lying to Dean again, telling him she was going on another ride along two towns over while she'd really been disillusioned and hiding in the trees outside the building on the other side of town. It had been around 2am when she'd caught and stunned the perp, drawing blood samples before heading home. He was a man named Cody Montgomery, recently relocated from California. "And it's not like signing this guy's death warrant's exactly rainbows and sunshine."
Nick scoffed, studying her for a moment, and Lorelai cursed the fact that he'd known her so damn long.
"When was the last time something like that bothered you?"
In a true show of how on edge she was, Lorelai felt her nostrils flare and she glared at Nick, even though she knew he was right.
"Hey, screw you. It's not like I'm some cold, hard killer," she snapped. Her insides twisted when she saw the mix of sympathy, concern, and patience Nick looked back at her with.
"C'mon, you know that's not what I meant, and you know that's not what I think. You just don't seem yourself."
"I'm just tired," she repeated. Nick didn't seem to believe her, but he did let it drop and put his hands up in a surrender motion.
"Alright. I've gotta get back to New York and submit this. You'll be back in the office Monday?" Lorelai sighed but nodded, finally pulling her attention away from the window and back to Nick.
"Yeah, I should have this wrapped up tonight. You've got my calendar blocked off?"
"Local cases and lab work only unless you request otherwise through August," he confirmed. "Wait till you see the backlog of paperwork waiting for you."
Lorelai stifled a groan but followed Nick out of the room, parting ways with him in the lobby. She was genuinely happy to be going home, she'd missed Katie a lot since she'd started school… but she wasn't looking forward to the fact that decisions were going to have to be made with Dean. The werewolf she could handle. Dean Winchester and her stupid heart were another story entirely.
As the month drew to a close, Dean found himself staked out behind an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town, begrudgingly choking down a fast-food burger, gun loaded with silver bullets by his side. The full moon shone bright above, and Dean was keeping his ears peeled for the telltale signs that it was time to spring into action.
On one hand, this had been one of the most frustrating hunts he'd taken - he could count on one hand the number of times it had taken him this damn long to get to the bottom of what evil bastard was causing the problems in town. On the other, Tullahoma had come with some pretty significant unexpected perks, and Dean knew that part of him had probably been subconsciously dragging his feet. Now that he was on the brink of putting the situation to bed, it was weighing on him heavily that he was overdue for an unpleasant conversation with a certain brunette that had been occupying his thoughts… the same one he'd lied to a few hours before and told he was running late meeting with a garage owner in Manchester.
He washed the last bite of the burger down with a gulp of soda, trying to ignore the way it sat in his stomach while he peered out the window. It was pretty still outside, but he felt good about the spot he'd chosen. Not only was it in the pathway of where all the bodies had turned up a few weeks ago, but when he'd been out while Lor was on her ride-along the other night, he'd come across some tracks heading in this direction. The trail had stopped when it hit the gravel lot, and even in the daylight, Dean hadn't been able to figure out where it picked back up.
In the distance he thought he heard some type of rustling, but a fox ran out of the brush a few minutes later, and Dean deflated back into the Impala's well-worn bench seat, grabbing for the soda again. He fucking hated stakeouts. Especially solo, they were mind-numbingly boring.
It was at least another hour or two before anything started to happen. He heard the howl first, and slipped out of the car, gun in hand and extra bullets in his pocket. He may not have been eager to leave town, but he was certainly ready to gank the fucker that had brought him there in the first place.
The next thing he heard was the commotion inside the building. It sounded like a distant side door had been broken through, but the cacophony of sounds that followed told him the action was inside, and he rushed in himself, busting the rest of the way through a mostly broken window, and moving as stealthily through the dark interior as he could.
It was quick enough work, and he didn't meet much trouble, aside from the absolute filth inside the place. That, of course, was expected with the job, and Dean made a mental note that he should probably stop at the gas station before going home for the night. He'd have a hard time explaining how he'd gotten so disgusting meeting with a garage owner.
That mental note, however, was rendered completely moot moments later. He was about halfway through the building when he heard more movement in the next room. It was too much to be just the werewolf, and worried that it had another victim in its grasp, Dean picked up the pace, rushing to turn the corner. He was only a few steps in when he was forced to skid to a stop, a slender, overly familiar figure, almost barreling into him as she rushed in the same direction.
"What the fuck? Lor?"
He'd caught her in his arms when they'd almost collided, and Lorelai Baudelaire's dark blue eyes widened and found his green ones while the pair of them swayed on the spot, her jaw dropping in shock as she took him in. She looked unharmed, and shocked only at his presence, and Dean's head started spinning.
"Dean? What the -"
Before she could finish her own question, another howl rent the air, and they both dove just in time to avoid the werewolf as it leapt out from a ledge hidden in the shadows above. Confirming Lorelai was alright with a quick glance, Dean quickly shook himself out of his shock and raised his gun, scrambling back to his feet to chase after the beast. The fact that she was holding her own weapon let him know that they would probably be having a very different conversation than the one he had originally anticipated, but it was going to have to wait.
As Dean regained his footing, the werewolf snarled viciously, its yellow eyes glowing ominously in the dim light of the warehouse. He was an ugly son of a bitch, but the large creature was more cunning than it looked, using the shadows to its advantage as it darted behind a stack of crates. Lorelai was right beside him, her posture alert and ready for the next move. She gave him a nod, silently communicating to split up and flank the beast. He hoped to hell he was right in taking her cool composure to mean she knew what she was doing, and that she wasn't just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Dean veered right, keeping his eyes peeled for any movement, while Lorelai continued working the left where they'd entered the room. She was quiet… stealthy… but Dean could feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins, sharpening his senses to their peak. He was hyper aware of her presence now, and he knew he needed to focus elsewhere.
Suddenly, a loud crash echoed through the warehouse as the werewolf emerged from its hiding spot, throwing a chair straight at him. Dean barely had time to react, ducking just a fraction too late. It clipped his cheek, leaving a stinging cut that soon felt warm and left blood trickling down the side of his face. He cursed under his breath but kept moving; there was no time to worry about the wound now.
On the other side, Lorelai wasn't faring much better. The werewolf charged at her with frightening speed from a distance he expected was shorter than she'd thought. She tried to sidestep but wasn't quite quick enough, and the creature's sharp claws grazed her shoulder, ripping through her jacket and drawing blood. Dean was sure it was painful, but she pirouetted with astonishing grace and landed a solid kick that sent the werewolf reeling backward into a pile of wooden pallets.
Seeing an opportunity, Dean aimed his gun and shot. He fired twice, the sound of gunfire reverberating off the walls. The werewolf howled in rage and pain, but Dean had hit his mark, and he watched with much more relief and satisfaction than he'd anticipated as the monster finally went down, signaling an end to the hunt.
Breathing hard and gripping her gun tightly, Lorelai approached the prone form slowly from where she'd taken cover behind a barrel. Adrenaline was still flooding her system, her brain whirring like mad – but it had little to do with the werewolf lying dead on the floor and everything to do with 6'1" hunter approaching from the opposite side of the room.
How fucking stupid can you be? the voice in her head nagged. Winchester! You should have put it together the moment he told you his name!
But she hadn't put it together. She'd seen a hot guy, with a cool vintage car and good taste in music, and she'd bought without a second thought that he was a mechanic and had let her own need for vagueness convince her his was normal. She was so royally and completely fucked.
Dean for his part seemed more concerned with the werewolf than her – at least for the moment. He approached, gun still drawn as well, his eyes never leaving the body on the ground, even as it morphed back into Cody Montgomery, Tullahoma's not-so-friendly resident monster. Dean's shot had hit its mark, and by the time both of them reached him, Cody had passed on, his blank eyes staring lifelessly at the ceiling while blood pooled beneath him. Lorelai clicked the safety back on and let the gun drop to her side, and she watched Dean do the same, tension visibly leaving his body before he turned to look at her, incredulity taking over his features.
"You're a hunter?" he asked, his voice slightly higher in octave than normal.
"Hey, I could be asking you the same thing, Mr.-Traveling-Mechanic," she pointed out, evading what would inevitably be her first lie of this new chapter they'd just started. She'd already been feeling guilty enough, but the situation had just gotten worse. They were on completely unequal footing. Lorelai knew full well who Dean was now… and she also knew she had no choice but to keep lying, while Dean would likely trust her more than before, thinking they were one-and-the same. Dean scratched the back of his neck, giving her a somewhat sheepish smile and shrugged.
"My dad was a mechanic," he clarified, "and he did teach me everything I know about cars, which is a lot. But yeah, that was just a cover. This is actually what I do, but it doesn't exactly land well with chicks." Lorelai nodded dumbly, understanding all too well the sentiment he was trying to convey.
"Yeah… quick way to find a strait jacket though," she joked, and Dean cracked a real smile, a snort of laughter falling from his lips. There was a cut on the side of his face where a chair leg had hit him, a gash on his arm from Cody, and patches of dirt on his skin and clothes alike where he'd made contact with the filth of the warehouse. Lorelai assumed she wasn't much better off – her ankle was throbbing from when she'd tripped and rolled it, her shoulder was openly bleeding, and she was pretty sure she'd jammed her finger when she hastily switched from her wand to the gun.
"What about your journalist thing?" he prodded. Lorelai shrugged, biting her bottom lip while she glanced down towards the werewolf. It wasn't even close to the first time she'd had to have this conversation – there was a reason she had a routine cover story, and it was because she needed to use it with Muggles so often – but it was different with Dean. She'd never let herself get involved like this with any of the Muggles before.
"Not total bullshit. It's how I bring in money for me and Katie… but yeah, this is mostly what I do. The writing is more of the side thing." Dean grinned, excitement clear in his eyes.
"That's awesome. This is awesome. I knew I liked you." Lorelai snorted and holstered her gun, quickly reaching up to pull her hair into a bun.
"C'mon, hot stuff," she teased. "We gotta ditch the stiff and get out of here." Dean waggled his eyebrows but followed suit, and soon enough they were wrapping the body in a tarp and hauling it out to the Impala.
"Trunk?" she asked while the door fell shut behind them and the warm night air hit her skin. Dean grunted a yes, and they dropped the body on the ground, while he reached for his keys. Once he had it open Lorelai bent to grab for Cody again, but Dean signaled for her to wait, glancing over his shoulder towards her, hesitation playing across his features for half a moment before he turned back to the trunk. Straightening back up, she watched him lift the bottom, under which normally would have housed a spare tire but instead revealed an arsenal appropriate for a hunter. He propped it open with a shotgun and reached back into his jacket – pulling out extra bullets and then his gun.
"Clever," she commented, and Dean smirked at her.
"Just another reason it beats that plastic piece of shit you're renting. How the hell do you cart everything you need around if you fly places?" Lorelai shrugged, banking on the fact that Dean didn't fly much.
"I'm resourceful, and they don't care much what you put in your checked baggage." Dean shook his head and dropped the bottom back into its place.
"Sounds like more trouble than it's worth," he pointed out before waving her off and hoisting the wrapped body into the air. "I was gonna burn him down by the embankment a ways off Pross Lane just outside of town, unless you've got a better suggestion."
Lorelai, who had been planning on incinerating the remains with her wand, shrugged. Cody's body landed with a thud and Dean slammed the trunk shut.
"Works for me."
"Let's drop your car off, then I'll drive us out there."
"Yeah, alright." She was ready to turn and head towards where she parked around the corner, but Dean pulled her back, his arm slipping around her waist as he kissed her. As thrown as she was, it wasn't enough to put her off and Lorelai didn't hesitate to kiss him back, although that irritating voice in the back of her head did wonder how many more times she'd get to do it.
"Your shoulder gonna be okay until we get out of dodge? I can take a look at it," he asked gently. Lorelai raised her eyebrows at him questioningly, but Dean didn't so much as flinch and continued holding her close.
"Do I strike you as the kind of girl that can't take care of herself?" she asked. Dean snorted, and quickly kissed her again, taking the time to brush a few stray hairs back from her face.
"Believe me, sweetheart, if I didn't already know it, you certainly just showed me you're perfectly capable on your own. Some things are just easier with an extra pair of hands."
"You can take a look at my shoulder if you let me clean up your face," she proposed, and Dean gave her a lopsided grin.
"Deal. C'mon, let's go."
They exchanged one last kiss before Lorelai trudged back to her car and she heard Dean getting into his behind her. With the physical distance, her head began to clear a bit again, and she wanted to groan. If Dean Winchester was one of those Winchesters that meant his father was John, and John - although an excellent hunter - had a reputation. Shoot first, ask questions later, and anything supernatural be damned regardless of how friendly it may have been. MACUSA Aurors had so far done a good job of avoiding him as a result. Lorelai had no reason to expect John to have not passed those prejudices down to his oldest son, especially given that she knew he'd trained both of his boys to hunt from a young age. This was bad. This was very, very bad.
Forty-five minutes later, Cody Montgomery's remains were a fiery blaze on a hastily made pyre by the shoreline. Lorelai had discreetly put up warding when Dean's back had been turned, to ensure they weren't interrupted, and once the fire had caught, Dean had pulled a med kit out of the arsenal she'd seen earlier.
True to his word, he'd looked at her shoulder and had stitched it up with a surprising amount of skill, though the whiskey he'd poured over it as a means of sanitizing the wound had stung like a bitch. Lorelai swallowed her frustration that if he weren't there, she could have healed it herself in seconds.
The cut on his cheek had been shallow, despite how much it had bled, and had been easy enough to clean up. It had taken some convincing after that, but Dean had eventually wheedled her into letting him take a look at her ankle, pointing out that they had time to kill anyway.
"So…" he began from his crouched position in front of the trunk, which she was still sitting atop with her leg dangling off. Dean had just finished assessing how swollen it was and had begun digging for something to wrap it with.
"So," she parroted.
"How long you been at this?" he asked.
Coming from someone else, she could have taken it the wrong way, but they were close enough by then. She knew he didn't mean anything by it, and she tucked some stray hair behind her ear, looking down to meet his eye with a sad smile.
"A while," she answered with a shrug. "Long enough to accept this is the life I've chosen." Dean nodded, lips pursed, the understanding clear in his expression.
"Yeah," he agreed. "Normal was never in the cards for me either."
"Normal's overrated," she pointed out, and Dean cracked a smile, pausing in his movements to catch her eye.
"Damn right it is." Lorelai smiled back, and he shook his head before gripping her ankle gently and refocusing his attention on what he was doing. "Still can't believe you're a fucking hunter. What are the chances?"
"Oh, I don't know," she theorized. "I'm sure some dumbass psychologist would have something to say about homophily or some bullshit like that." By the light of the fire, she saw Dean's brow furrow, though the smile remained fixed on his face.
"Homophily?" She shrugged, and leaned back, placing her palms flat on the trunk to support her weight.
"Theory that individuals tend to bond and associate with people similar to them. Basically the same thing as the Similarity-Attraction Hypothesis. I got a friend who majored in psych. Thank god he started making something with his music, because I think if he kept trying to diagnose me I would have killed him."
Dean laughed and Lorelai smiled. It wasn't fair, how easy it was with him. She wasn't ready for this. She hadn't been ready for the alternative either, the voice reminded her, because even if Dean wasn't one of those Winchesters, she'd have been due to say goodbye to him anyway.
"Hey man, I'll take it. Makes this so much easier, not having to hide all this crap. I've been so twisted up over what to do after I tracked this thing down."
"C'mon, isn't that the best part? You finish a case and blow town, no explanations needed," she teased, and Dean huffed and shook his head almost incredulously. He wound the bandage once more around her ankle and paused before turning to face her. The fire danced off his chiseled features, and Lorelai felt frozen, stunned by the intensity of his gaze.
"Most of the time? Yeah, I'll give you that. But you look me in the eye and tell me that's how you felt this go 'round – because I sure as hell didn't. And I think if you did, you would have had a much easier time calling whatever we've got going here casual than you did after your birthday."
She knew the easiest thing to do, what she needed to do, was find a way to convince him he was wrong. Make a joke, or act confused and insist she thought they'd just been having fun… but Lorelai found herself faltering. It was unnerving, really, the effect he had on her.
"I've still gotta go back to New York," she reminded him quietly. Dean seemed to take her answer as an admission – which, in a way, it was – and nodded, returning to wrapping her ankle.
"I know," he acknowledged. "I didn't say I had the answers. Just that not having to hide what we do has gotta at least make the conversation easier. Right?"
The fire crackled in the distance, and Lorelai wondered how fucked up she was that it was easy to forget for a moment what they were burning. She tried not to ponder how many other people she knew that had the stomach to handle it. Even the other Aurors didn't live in it the way she did.
"I guess. So… the scar on your shoulder – actually from a bicycle accident, or –" Dean seemed to sense her objective, and grinned up at her.
"Oh yeah, are we doing this?" Lorelai laughed as he carefully finished off the wrapping and released her.
"You're not curious?" she asked. Dean pushed himself to his feet and braced himself against the trunk, one hand on either side of her as he leaned in and invaded her every sense.
"Oh, I'm very curious," he agreed. "Especially if I get to see all yours up close again." Lorelai laughed and pretended to try and push him away, but Dean only grinned wolfishly and captured her lips in a deep kiss, the kind that ignited a fire in her soul.
"I don't even have that many, jackass," she complained when they broke apart. Dean grinned salaciously at her while he hopped up to sit next to her.
"Nah," he agreed. "But yours are in fun places. It's like a hunter's sick version of learning about someone's tattoos." Lorelai snorted, although she couldn't help but see the truth in his statement.
"So the shoulder…" she prodded and Dean nodded.
"Ghoul attack last year. Didn't realize they were tag teaming, bastard got me from behind. The one on your stomach?"
"Cursed dagger when I was eighteen. Back of your knee?"
"Wrong side of a fight with some Acheri. Behind your left ear?"
"Wraith. Kicked out its legs at the last second. Small of your back?"
"Kitsune in '98. Left side of your ribcage?" Lorelai realized, belatedly, how stupid going down this path had been. Her scars were largely non-work related.
"My dad," she admitted, biting her lip. Dean's eyebrows shot up and he tried to mask it, but Lorelai shook her head. There was plenty she couldn't tell him; she wasn't going to use up extra dishonesty on a years-old hurt. "He was a nasty drunk after my mom died." Anger flashed through Dean's eyes, but he pushed it down quickly. She was relieved when he wordlessly threaded his fingers through hers and leaned back against the back windshield.
"That's fucked up," he said, knowing her well enough by then to know she didn't want the apology. "I, uh… my dad had some problems too, but he never took it there."
"I'm just glad I got Katie out." He nodded, a look on his face she couldn't quite read, but she suspected had little to do with her, and it made her wonder if he was thinking of his own brother.
"Yeah, I get it. What about that one on your hip? That, really a car accident, or…"
Lorelai felt her cheeks flush and hoped that the dim lighting would hide it. It was, by all rights, the dumbest scar she had – not only for how she'd gotten it, but for the fact that she could have opted to get rid of it at any time and still could.
"Yeah, it was," she admitted. Dean turned his head, interest obviously piqued at the sudden shift in her tone. "I, uh… went through a bit of a dark stretch. Hopped in a car with this asshole that was higher than Ozzy on his worst day. He ran a redlight, another car t boned him… passenger side… we ended up wrapped around a tree. Doctors couldn't believe that scar was the worst thing I walked away with, they said the crash should have killed me."
Dean let out a low whistle, but reached out and pulled her against him, pressing a kiss to the top of her head as she instinctively relaxed into the embrace.
"What happened to the guy?"
"He survived too. Did some jail time. Last I heard he's up to the same old shit he was back then. Still lives in the same town as Nick's parents. Thankfully, the driver that hit us walked away alright too."
Lorelai felt Dean's fingers dip below the waistband of her jeans, absentmindedly tracing the scar in question as he'd taken to doing sometimes when they were in bed. It was her most distinctive one, so she hadn't been surprised when it had caught his attention. This time was different though, and she tried not to let her mind wander too far back to how she'd gotten it. Instead she let herself feel Dean's presence beside her, torn over how comforting it had become to her and the fact that she knew they had a shelf life.
"All of that sucks, Lor," Dean remarked after a moment, his voice low and steady, "and you deserved better." Lorelai shrugged in an attempt to be dismissive.
"Life we lead? Par for the course. You've got your own demons," she pointed out, subtly slipping her own hand up under his t-shirt, her fingers easily finding the raised skin under his right collar bone. Dean nodded, his eyes closing in pleasure at her touch before his head rolled down to kiss her again.
"Yeah, but it ain't all bad. This right here is pretty good." And despite her reservations, and despite the truths she was holding close to her chest, Lorelai couldn't help but agree. She reasoned with herself that the goodbyes could wait, either until they were back at her rented cabin or until the morning. There wasn't anything to be done right then, except to wait for the body to burn away. Allowing herself a few final moments of peace wasn't going to cause any more damage than what had already been done.
As they sat in comfortable silence, the crackling of the fire nearby and the distant howl of a wolf filled the night air. Lorelai leaned into Dean's embrace, finding solace in his strength and the unspoken promise of protection he offered.
And for a moment, beneath the canopy of stars and shadows, Lorelai felt a dangerous flicker of hope burning bright within her that she'd kept smothered longer than she cared to admit. And when Dean's hand brushed against hers, she couldn't help but think once again, how absolutely fucked she was.