Work Text:
Four AM and you’re freezing your tits off. Miserable. Cramping. You give Dean a petulant pout as he waits patiently on the sidewalk for you. Instant regret when you remember he’s currently the sweetest man on earth, navigating through your wrath in his stride, and doesn’t deserve whatever this is.
It’s not his fault your ovaries are punishing you for another successful thwart at reproduction. Not his fault your body is replicating a thousand knives, stabbing you at once in the same spot, even though you’ve had a dose of tylenol.
Except it is.
He’s half to blame because he wanted the sex, too. There’s an IUD shoved up in there because you decided long ago that taking the pill was far too risky in this business, and he gets to go in without suiting up thanks to past you.
You cannot have a kid right now. Not only are you both too young and this is far, far too new, but there’s the little detail about him being sentenced to hell to top things off. And you, stopping at nothing to stop it, when you’re not a whimpering puddle of hormones.
You’re quite the pair.
“C’mon, sweetheart.” He pries your bundle of soiled clothes from your tight grip and offers out his other hand.
“I can manage from here,” you say, but he shakes his head. Pulls you out Baby’s door and through the one belonging to the laundromat, setting you down on the row of chairs in the middle without another word.
He drapes his leather jacket over your shoulders, wrapping you in warmth and whiskey. Sweats, also his, that had hung off your hips, now balloon at your sides.
He’s wearing what he went to sleep in. His hair, still road worn at the back as he feeds your laundry into the machine.
Your cheeks are warmer. You were all for throwing a tonne of salt on your pjs and lighting them up, but his superhuman powers of simply existing had him rapping on the bathroom door before you’d so much as rinsed the evidence away under the faucet.
He saunters back over to you and sits down with a groan. Makes a spectacle when he throws his arm over yours and kisses your temple. “You good?” he says, and all you can do is nod. “Nothing to be embarrassed about. S’only natural.”
You lean into him. Let his body further warm yours and your nostrils with the added fruity smell of Tide. “You didn’t bleed all over the place.”
“Not this time.” He shrugs.
But you’re still not convinced. The blood on the motel sheets didn’t come from your arm or your leg. It came from your hoo-ha, and while he’s right, it’s nothing to be ashamed of because it is perfectly natural. It happened in the same motel room you were sharing with Sam. In the bed you were sharing with Dean. And it happened even though you’d been prepared.
Worst of all, he’d put his hand in it, and while he insisted it wasn’t an issue, you’ve only been sleeping with him for three weeks. Came about after a drunken confession that he was scared shitless ‘bout going to hell, and it kind of stuck. You don’t even know if he is that to you, which makes this ten times worse.
“Hey.” He nudges you with his hip, squeezes his arm tighter. “We’re busting out of this place today. It’s not like they’ll even remember you if we stay here again.” He tries like that’s the problem.
You know it’s to make you smile, and you appreciate it, you do, but, “That’s not what I’m worried about,” you say.
“Then what is?”
He releases his hold on you. Leans forward and back at the same time. Finds the angle that works for him and narrows his gaze at you.
Green eyes pierce your mortified ones, because now you have to tell him, ask him, and you’re licking over your lips, trying to moisten them so the words have something to slip on.
You’re an adult. You got this. Asking what you are to him should be the easiest thing in the world, but there’s that stigma that you’re not worthy. Just a little girl who messes up her bed. Drags her guy friend out in the middle of the night to clean up said mess and watches on as he cleans it up.
“This.” You splay your arm out in front of you. Wave it around the general expanse of the room you’re in.
“What? The laundromat?”
“No.” It’s not the place you’re pointing out. Not the wall of washing machines ahead, thirteen of them empty, bar that one, top centre, tumbling your clothes through its big barrel. Not the driers on the other wall, just as big.
It’s the being here with him. Him sitting here with you waiting. Him acting like boyfriend material, when you don’t know where you stand.
“This,” you say. “Us.”
“Me and you?” His brow furrows. Voice normal, because he still doesn’t get it.
“Yeah. Us.” You exemplify the you-and-him part with your still flailing arm.
“Me helping you with your clothes is the problem?” He sits up, though you still feel his eyes on you.
“Yes.”
Thank god he gets it now. Only, “How?” he’s asking next, and you could shake him. Why do guys have to be so dumb?
Your hand is moving back and forth between you. You’re stretching to sit up and match him, but it’s cramping your cramping and you’re trying desperately to calm yourself down before saying, “We’re just fooling around. But you’re helping me with my period? It’s a little—”
“You think I’m fooling around?” Dean stands, and though he doesn’t turn around, you don’t need to see his face to know he’s angry. His bowed legs are twitching like they do when he gets mad.
“It’s not like you’ve asked me out,” you say, defensive. His hot-temper and the pain are a little too much to handle together, but it’s also a little too late to back off now. “We haven’t sat down and talked about this.”
“About us?” He turns, jaw cutting the air. Sharp lines cross his whole face, actually. His brows, the crease between them, his lips, and god those are perfect, and you’re about to lose whatever this was that allowed you to touch them. Taste them, and all you can do is nod.
“What were you expecting me to do? Take you out to some fancy five-star restaurant and buy you lobster?”
Your head rocks to the side. Cheeks rising to squish your lashes as you stare back at him and blink through it. If they were warm before, they’re as hot as the heat pack you’d used earlier during the night before all this occurred.
“Why—”
“Saw it in a movie once,” he says, words coming out the quickest you’ve heard him speak. The usual gruffness dissipated like he’s de-aged a couple of years by simply standing there. “Snails look gross.”
“Another movie?”
He nods.
You wanna ask what the hell he’s been watching, but you’re more concerned by his unusual demeanor. His hands are fidgeting, smoothing his sides. His eyes have dropped to the floor and there’s the whole eating shell…fish thing?
“Look at me,” he says next, but you are.
You’re seeing his tentative step forward. His arms splayed out like he’s showing you something more than what’s there, and that’s when you realise you’re the one that’s dumb. You’re the one that’s not getting it.
He didn’t fuss once. Didn’t screw up his nose at you when he realised you weren’t hurt from the hunt like he originally thought. And you’re not saying all the men that have ever been in your life have been grossed out by periods and bodily functions, but Dean exceeded whatever expectation and stereotype you had.
He’d insisted you stay at the motel while he came here for you, but you were too embarrassed to allow that. Too prudish to let the guy who’s seen all of you up close and personal do something even more intimate than even you’d prefer and now he’s standing there suggesting he’s not good enough?
“I am looking at you,” you say. “Guess I wasn’t before, but I am now.”
And even though it still cramps your cramps, you’re standing up and walking over to him. Feeling his jacket clip your sides where his sweats have fallen. You’re clinging to his shirt and pulling him in close so you can kiss those lips of his and taste.
You’d put your all into it, but his hands are hovering at your waist and you know his eyes are wide open, watching. So you lean back, chew on your cheek, smooth the fabric of his shirt back from where your grip scrunched it up, and, “Sorry,” you whisper. You’re not sure what else to do, but what you’re apologising for is lost on you, too.
It’s not like it’s the first time. He’s kissed you plenty, and not just the peck on your forehead minutes earlier. His mouth has touched every inch of your body, and every inch of him has touched yours, so why is this so damn hard now?
Your chin drops like a scolded child. May as well have with the silence between you. Can’t say the same for the room, but the tumbling of the drum is only making things worse because the clicking of your clothes is acting like a countdown for the timer on the machine and whatever he’s going to do next.
Do you say something? Do you wait for him? Your cheek is going to have a hole in it soon if someone doesn’t say something and thank god, or not, his mouth opens to, but, “Forget I said anything,” you cut in. Shake your head and step away from his space. “I should’ve—”
“Would you just shut up?” His voice booms, and great, there’s that gruffness you were missing.
Your nose tingles from his stare, and you’re opening your mouth again, but the look he gives you? Eyebrows to the heavens, green eyes looking more amber, like they’ve been lit by a flame? Yeah. You close it, chest heaving as you wait and listen.
“I just,” he says, and it’s quieter. “I thought we were on the same page.”
His fingers reach for yours and he pulls you back. If you were on a boat, you’d be dealing with motion sickness right about now, and truly, it’s how your stomach’s fairing. Just adding more to the discomfort of your middle, and why not? You’ve already given Dean a conniption. What’s one more grievance between the two of you?
“I’m no good, sweetheart. I’m going to hell.”
You want to interject with why that is. That it was a selfless act, but his thumb rubbing over the back of your hand, teed with the softness in his voice and the continual ‘I’m talking here’ glare keeps your lips tight.
“Can’t say I’d be happy if I saw you picking up some other douchebag at the bar. Like to think I’m the only guy that gets to do your laundry. Least until,” he shrugs. Gives you a rueful smile, “y’know?”
And you do know. You’re swallowing the ache in your throat, waiting just a little longer to make sure he’s finished before you try again.
You nod, and it’s solemn, slow. You don’t want to think about it, but the truth is there, hanging over both your heads. An elephant in the room who’s laughing at you and your complaints. Where Dean’s going, he’s going to be feeling a lot more than any tylenol could alleviate, and it really puts things in perspective.
So, “Yeah,” you say, and though you want to add you don’t want to pick up anyone else but him, ever, it’s a little too real, too involved than whatever this thing is now. You’d rather be trying that kiss again, but first you add, “As long as you’re not doing the same.”
“Cross my heart.” His mouth opens wide as he tugs your arm. Pulls you in and plants his mouth over yours.
It steals your breath away. The way he holds you. Wrapping his arms around your torso and squeezing, gentle enough to not cause you anymore discomfort, but present enough to soak in his warmth and solid form.
His tongue clips your teeth, spreads his morning breath and a taste that you know only from him over your lips.
Your gut calms. The cramps overpowered by the tingles from his nose, his fingers, chin and arms surrounding you, touching you, and you don’t want it to end.
But Dean lets go, only by a little. His face stays hovering inches from yours as he stares into your eyes.
“So have I made myself clear?” he asks. Chuckles when you rap his shoulder. His hand lets go and swipes at a strand of hair that’s probably been sticking out since you woke. Tucks it behind your ear.
You’re a bigger mess than you’ve been letting on, but the gesture returns his grin.
“Not fooling around?” you say, and he repeats it. Places a kiss on your forehead again, and drags you back to the seats.
His arm wraps around your shoulders once more and your head leans into his.
Four AM, and you’re no longer freezing your tits off. Cramping? A little, but the pouts, no longer there. There’s a warmth in your cheeks and one in your heart, though, and you’re sitting with the sweetest guy in the world.
You won’t label it. There’s no need. You know he’s hanging around, at least as long as he can. You just gotta find that loophole. Keep him here with you and Sam, and then who knows?
Maybe one day you’ll leave this life of visiting laundromats at odd hours because you’ll have a place of your own.
And then, the only red you’ll see will be the one you’re dealing with now, and the shade that crosses Dean’s nose when he says something real and important.