Chapter Text
The two, a young redheaded girl and a sturdy brown-haired guy, were sitting on a small balcony, quietly talking to each other. Right below them, in the street, an Impala gleamed, its perfectly polished black surface scaring away the unfortunate souls that inhabited the slums. The bloodstained rag on the dashboard by the windshield and the strange long knife beside it gave the car a haunting and mysterious look, warding off the nosy like a witch’s spell.
The girl stuck a band-aid on the man's elbow, scratched her own forehead at the fresh abrasion, and, with a sense of fulfillment, leaned back on the pile of boxes that stood by the wall and took a sip from a half-empty bottle of cheap whiskey.
"Good as new," she said to the guy, who had thrown his jacket back across the room, leaving only his shirt on. It stretched over his muscular frame, but it only made the girl think about how that very chest had barely budged after the ghoul’s hard kick just a couple of hours ago.
"Still as handsome as ever?" He flashed a cheeky smile and slouched down a little, ignoring the slight cold.
The girl snorted, getting a few drops of alcohol on her sweater, and rolled her eyes.
"Still a pain in the ass, Dean Winchester," she muttered, handing over the whiskey.
Dean grabbed the weighty bottle and took a good, warming sip, leaning his head against the brick wall, resting too.
"Likewise, Parker."
The young hunters were silent for a while, just watching the sun, surprisingly bright for January, carefully sheltering the city. The successful sortie was behind them, all their enemies had been defeated and their wounds filled. Poured over, instantly complicating and simplifying life, filling the silence with their unspoken words.
When you are on the verge of death, everything becomes incredibly simple. All your priorities become clear at once, a forgotten iron at home becomes incredibly important, and a huge pile of money debts or a leaky roof becomes a mere nothing. But as soon as you pound some silver bullets directly into the supernatural bitch, fall out of its clutches and hear it writhing in agony, along with the gurgling abomination that its corpse turns into, everything else comes back into your life. She wants to drown herself in alcohol and fall into the arms of the first guy in the bar (he must be a similar type - Parker only looks for guys with green eyes), but Mary knows she can't go on like this, so she speak up. Only to him.
Only to Dean Winchester, the one who had pulled her ass out of a hellish mess, patching her up, stitching her wounds, pouring burning alcohol down her throat, forcing a stiff leather strap between her teeth. Dean Winchester, who personally punched her ex-boyfriend in the face after she called him in tears at the prom, rambling something about punch, the quarterback team, knuckles left at home, and an empty stadium at night with no one there... she doesn't want to go there at all, but Alex... that-that-fucking-asshole-Alex-who's-just-using-you-Mary-wake-up-he's-a-bitch--that-even-worse-than-those-hiding-in-the-night... but Alex keeps getting her drunk on sneaked alcohol, and Ben won't call her back even that day. But there's Dean, who, by some miracle, is nearby again.
With him, even America doesn't feel like endless tangled roads but like the street you grew up on, where you know every crack in the pavement. It's been a few years since then, but Dean... dear and distant Dean, now and always, seems closer than her own brother.
So... Only to him. No one else.
She takes a deep breath and begins to speak, as if diving into the deep end of a school swimming pool. Mary can't swim, but she takes a step forward, and the water rushes over her red head, swallowing her whole.
"I..." A short, shallow sigh, as if this were the last thing she had to fight to the death. "I've decided to walk away from… this. Werewolves, rugaru, vampires… I want a simple life. Not like my parents—always watching, always fearing death. I'm tired of looking into the shadows, thinking someone might jump out at me. I want to finish my biology degree, get a job at some company, help the world beyond just killing creatures… I'm meant for something more, you know?"
Dean, who had been watching her plump pink lips move, shifted his gaze upward and met the deep brown eyes staring back at him. Her small, freckled nose wrinkled in a displeased, almost childlike grimace. Afraid. Trusting. Waiting.
Winchester smiled and, for the first time that day, let all of his masks drop.
"I do," he said simply, honestly, watching Parker’s impish face stretch in surprise. Even she had always seen him differently, but at this moment, only to her was he willing to open a piece of his heart.
Because sitting on the balcony of the rusty New York apartment she rented and paid for through a scheme not exactly legal in the eyes of the law (but perfectly legal in their hunting circles…), she reminded him impossibly of Sammy. With his deep eyes, which even during his fights with his father glowed with intelligence and stubbornness, with his curved lips, which were about to burst out with another clever phrase, with this, unbroken by any monster, by any grief, desire to live a simple human life, to out spite all creatures.
Dean could never do that.
Trained by his father, he never saw another life, and he never saw the point in looking for one—he was fine with this. The monsters, the guts, the blood. Because every dead creature meant someone’s mother was coming home, someone’s childhood laughter would never be replaced with fiery terror and pain.
Winchester had long ago made peace with his buried dream of an "ordinary life," watering its dry, cracked grave with cans of cheap roadside beer, leaving behind his father’s blank stare and his brother’s venomous words. The highway stretched before him like silk, the Impala’s engine roared, humming its lullaby, and there was always a road ahead.
Empty. Free. Lonely.
"I honestly do, Mary."
Perhaps he let out more in his voice than he intended (he just couldn't control himself. That name had replaced all the Amen and the Lord's Prayer), but the girl suddenly threw herself at him, covering his lips with hers. Dean hesitated for a second, then responded with equal passion. Now all the bridges between them were burned. Mary burned her own and Dean just threw matches into the river without really thinking about it. There was no past or future for them. Just now, in the touch of this redheaded girl.
"You're... Dean..." the girl pulled away from him for a moment, running her fingers down his neck. She froze, tasting the words as he stared into the burning amber of her eyes, and then finally said them "Thank you."
For never rejecting me. For never pushing me away. For hearing and understanding.
Winchester pressed forward with his whole body, kissing harder, deeper, pressing into himself, consuming... Mary, who had also opened her fears to Dean, sharing what hurt, what burned her soul, tearing it apart, along with the last breath that the man stole with his kiss, said goodbye to her past life as well. The same one that had taken her parents away. The same one that destroyed her family. The one that had separated her with brother, throwing them to different sides of life... Now she was saying goodbye for sure, letting Dean Winchester be the seal and keeper of her words and unspoken vows.
"Be with me tonight... Dean..."
And the man, not daring to refuse her any longer, bowed his head, catching every freckle and tempestuous whisper with his lips until dawn. Take everything from this cursed life and burn it in your flame. And then, with the sunrise, he was gone, leaving a solid ashes and a short note in the place of the bridge that bound them together.
"Stay true to yourself, Mary. - Your D."
Not knowing at all that five years later he would return to her again. For the last time.