Chapter Text
“A chair is still a chair—even if there is no one sitting there”
Abbie smiles softly, the curve her lips make matching the candle light and the warm, sudsy water in the bath tub. She is at ease, for once, and it is almost new, like the way snow feels every winter after three seasons without: you know what it feels like, but that does not temper your excitement or your delight. That’s what this bath is like. “But a room is not a house”, Abbie sings low, like she’s telling herself a secret as she lathers a bar of soap into her skin, taking care to keep her hair from the water as she leans back against the tub. The words and the water wash over her and she finds herself thinking about home.
The memories aren’t fond; her mother was unwell, her father was infuriating, and her sister was so young. Home was a couple of plaster walls, a dreaded thought in her fourteen year old mind that pooled in her chest that kept her going the other direction, until she didn’t have a home to even go back to. Her foster homes were never homes; they were places she could keep her things, maybe, and sleep safely, sometimes. Corbin became, and would forever be, family, but he had his own home and no matter how hard he tried, that was never Abbie’s. And then she grew up, and even the four walls that she paid for didn’t really feel like home.
She is still singing along when the door cracks open, and she sees Dean’s hands around the door knob. He raps against the frame, his face softening when he sees her and she smiles back, “hey”, he rumbles low, trying to not disturb the peace, “you enjoying this?”
“Oh, a little too much”, she grins, noticing the sotto nature of her own voice, “we should let me pick the motels more often.”
“Okay, you got lucky”, he comes to sit on the edge beside her legs, “who knew this Motel 6 would have a clawfoot bathtub?”
She arched an eyebrow, “google.”
His laugh is warm and it leaves the same easy feeling in her chest that the candle light and bubbles leave in the room. She looks at him, the usual hard lines of his shoulders, relaxed beneath his flannel, and the frown lines interrupted by his smile. She looks at him, and with the accompanying harp and croon of Mr. Luther Vandross charging the air, she starts thinking of home again.
This time, it’s different.
She thinks of the first time they met, after the dust during a gun fight had settled. She had never intended to be his friend, but one night, under a black sky and the influence of far too much whiskey, she asked him why he always had a faraway look in his eye. He told her about Castiel. She, in turn, told him about Ichabod. They bonded on accident. They fell in love on purpose. They fought this good fight, together, with their loved ones and for their loved ones and for the first time in a very long time, Abby felt something like permanence when she looked at Dean Winchester.
“Hey”, his smile stretches into something sly, his fingertips treading lightly along the line of her calf and cupping her calf, “don’t use all the hot water.”
“You know”, she dips her back a little lower, legs pushing further up into his grasp, “we could conserve water…right now.”
His eyes sparkle a little and he pulls at the shoulder of his flannel when they hear the tell-tale clink of beer bottles in a six pack and his brother’s loud laughter and her sister’s sardonic voice.
Both of them sigh, deep and loud and he leans over to kiss her pouting lips, “rain check?”
Abbie smirks, answering with a tug at his collar.
~*~
Jenny and Sam had already claimed the bed nearest the window. He was on his back, one arm around Jenny’s waist, the other thrown over his eyes and Jenny was sitting up like a mother would, waiting for her teenage delinquent to come home; arms crossed and all, “Its rude to have a quickie when your guests are in the other room.”
Dean, cheeky, wrapped the towel he was carrying, around his head, “wasn’t that quick.”
Jenny’s lip curled, “gross.”
“You’re late anyway”, Abbie came out of the bathroom after Dean, scoring the table for whatever the other two had brought in, “we told yall 8; I was in the tub at like, 9:30 and you still weren’t here. What were you doing all this time?”
Sam chuckled and Jenny tried not to look caught, “Mind your business.”
“Please tell me you put a towel down”, Dean said, pulling a chosen bottle of Guinness from his lips, grimacing, “I don’t wanna think about you defiling Baby—“
“Oh shut up, Dean”, Sam said. He leaned up, his face coming to rest where Jenny’s hip met her thigh. He looked completely content, and it made Abbie smile. When they first met, a dark cloud seemed to hang over his head, and Abbie could not blame him. It was hard for Jenny, too, when Abbie went to purgatory with no promise of coming back. In that time, though, they’d found something real in one another. Something that even spurred Abbie and Dean on, inspired them to try.
As Abbie settled into Dean side on the other bed, surrounded by their easy laugher, the warmth of his arms and the comfort of their presence, for the third time that evening, Abbie began to think of home.
And finally figured it out.
Home wasn’t a house; it wasn’t a set of walls, the places you were or the places you’d been. Home was deeper than that. Home was late nights and long talks and big fights and quiet nights in the back of old muscle cars when the nightmares were too much. Home was the embrace of Jenny’s hand. Home was Sam’s brilliant smile. Home was Dean, like this; free and unburdened.
Home was where your heart was.
Abbie nuzzled closer into Dean’s chest, and smiled.
It was good to be home.