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This was one of the best feelings in the world. Journey was blasting. The Impala’s engine was rumbling. The wind rushing through the open windows was making your hair whip around your face. You’d long since given up trying to contain and just let it go. Besides, that’s how Dean liked it best anyways. Wild and free.
Right on cue his big hand squeezed yours. You looked over at him and squeezed back. His gaze was on the road right now, but you kept seeing him stealing glances at you out of the corner of your eye. Your own gaze went back to the window to watch the scenery rolling by.
Right now it was miles of endless prairie with the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop. You both just finished up a case and since you were close, Dean decided to take you on a joyride to Colorado Springs to go see the sights.
These road trips always gave your mind time to wander, to think about things you didn’t normally have time for.
Dean glanced over at you again and saw you smiling. “Whatcha thinking about?”
You met his emerald eyes and tightened your grip around his fingers. “The day we met.”
—
You were one of many nurses working the late shift that night. The halls were bustling with people and staff because it was flu season and patients were coming in left and right.
After working non stop all day, you’d finally caught a tiny break by helping a little boy of five into his coat. “There you go, big man,” you smiled, carefully zipping the warm coat up to his chin. He sniffled and gave you a half smile in return. While he was on the mend, he was still feeling pretty miserable with a bad cough and stuffy nose.
A bright blue cap peeked out from one of his pockets. You caught it between two fingers and gently pulled it over his curly black hair down to his ears.
“All ready, Marcus?” The question came from the boy’s father who finished speaking to the doctor in the hall and came to stand beside his son. The shadows under his eyes spoke of worry and little sleep.
Marcus nodded up at his father and lifted his arms to be picked up. You smiled as he settled and tucked his head against his father’s neck. “What do you say, Marcus?” his father asked.
“Thank you,” Marcus said softly, blinking his big blue eyes at you.
“You’re welcome. Now you get better, all right?” you smiled as you rose to your feet.
The boy nodded and closed his eyes, looking ready to fall asleep right there. His father held him a little closer, the worry lines across his forehead easing away.
You held the door open for the man and followed him down the hall, stopping to point the way to the exit.
“Thank you again,” he said sincerely. “I couldn’t relax him and you calmed him down in ten minutes.”
You smile, fiddling with the pen in the pocket of your scrubs. “It was no trouble, he’s a sweet kid.”
Your friend calls suddenly, her voice drifting around the corner. “Hey, Y/n, can you come help me?”
“I’ll let you get back to work then,” the father says, shooting you a small smile.
You nod in return, watching him for a second as he walked away then turned to head for Monica. “What do you need help wi–”
What you saw when you rounded the corner stopped you dead in your tracks. It was a man covered in blood. All over his face, matted in his hair, soaking his shirt which was torn to shreds. Hell, there was blood dripping down his left leg to splat on the floor. How was he even still standing?
You rushed over and took his weight from around Monica’s shoulders. “What happened?”
“Bar fight,” the man worked out, licking his split lip.
You hard to work pretty hard to help him along to an empty room, him being significantly taller than you. He was trying not to lean too heavily on you, but his leg wasn’t working correctly so he wasn’t succeeding as much as he’d like.
“Bar fight?” you echoed. You’d seen the aftermath of bar fights before, but nothing like this. “What, against five guys?”
The man let out a chuckle that turned into a groan. “Something like that.”
You felt him jump as a loud crashing rang out from behind you.
“Oh, shit, Y/n, I gotta go help, can you handle him?” Monica asked, already taking a step over to where a cart that had just been piled with supplies was now on the floor, bandages, towels, and gauze strewn out across the hall.
“Yeah, I got him.”
“Busy tonight, huh?” the man asked.
“Oh, yeah. And we’re short staffed so, I’m all you got,” you grunted as he tried to take a step on his bad leg and it buckled.
“That’s all right.”
You got him into the room and stand before to the examining table, pausing as you think of a way to get him on it. The man seems to sense that and saves you the trouble by unslinging his arm from your shoulder and unceremoniously dragged himself onto it before you could say a word.
“It’s all right, I’ve been through worse,” he says when he sees the grimace on your face.
You let out a breath. Not counting all the superficial scrapes, you knew the one of his leg was pretty serious, and judging by the way he was sitting and breathing, you could add a couple cracked ribs to the growing list of injuries.
“Well, I’ll clean you up, stitch some of these and get you down to x-ray those ribs,” you start.
“Don’t need an x-ray, miss, uh…” he squints to read your nametag that was smeared by his blood. His eyes flick back up to yours and you notice for the first time how green they are. “Y/n. Just wrap ‘em, I got somewhere I need to be.”
You raised a brow. “You sure? You really should rest, not go running around.”
The man nods, wincing as the motion cracks open the dried blood of a slice on his neck.
“Okay…” You sure as hell know you can’t stop him so you get to work on patching him up, going to the sink to wash your hands and forearms before setting out sterile gauze and butterfly bandages. At the last second you take needle and thread too, unsure of what other wounds were hiding under his clothes. “Alright, tough guy, you got a name?” you ask, pulling on some gloves.
He chuckled from deep within his chest. “Dean.”
“Alright, Dean.” You take a penlight and shined it into first one eye, then the other. His pupils dilated just as they were supposed to. That, plus he was talking normally and seemed alert gave a good chance that he didn’t have a concussion. You set to work on clearing the dried blood from his face with alcohol soaked gauze. He hissed the first time it made contact with an open cut, then he remained stoically silent, only twitching his lips from time to time.
Ten minutes later you found that once clear of blood, he was even more handsome than he appeared, his green eyes even more striking. You mentally shook yourself when you realized you were staring. Here he was in serious pain and you were getting distracted by his looks.
After finishing up with the butterfly bandages, you stepped back to survey his jacket and shirt. “Can you take those off or should I cut them?”
“Uhh…” Dean managed to wriggle one arm out of the jacket so you could pull it
off the other, but he took one look at his flannel and tee and shook his head. They were both torn at such strange places, it would be more trouble than it was worth. “You can cut these.”
“Okay.” You went around to his back and cut the flannel off first, sliding the halves down his arms then set to work on the front of his brown tee.
Dean didn’t have a problem with being distracted by your looks. He watched your face as you worked, seeing how you bite your lip when you had to peel the blood soaked material off his skin, the little gasp when you saw his black and blue ribs. He shrugged off the ruined tee, a low groan escaping his lips when you gently pressed them.
“Sorry,” you winced on his behalf. “You’ve got at least four cracked and what is this?” you stared at what seemed like a very bizarre bite mark. “I thought you said you were in a bar fight?”
Dean glanced down at his side and saw where one of the six vampires he’d been fighting had bitten him. “They had a dog.” He said it quickly, too quickly in fact and mentally hit himself at how believable that lie was.
“Hmm…” you gave him a look that said you didn’t believe him, but didn’t press it. You didn’t know what the hell that bite was from, but it sure wasn’t a dog.
Twenty minutes later, he was patched up as he was going to be. “Anybody tell you you have good hands?” he asked, a tiny smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
You glanced up from disposing the pile of bloody bandages and flushed when his eyes met yours. “One or two.”
You found it hard to not stare at his chest as he stood, carefully pulling his jacket on. “Just one or two?” he asked innocently.
Your face flushed even more as you realized what he was doing. “Are you flirting with me, Dean?”
“Maybe.” Dean grinned sheepishly with just the left side of his mouth and took a step toward you. “Normally I could turn it on like,” he snaps his fingers.
“Normally?” you ask, your turn to grin.
That stopped him dead in his tracks. “Uh. I didn’t mean… No. Not normally. I just…”
You interrupted his stream of half thoughts with a laugh. “Are you trying to ask me out?”
Little crows feet appeared around his eyes as one corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. “If you’d like.”
This had been a hell of a first impression and he blamed blood loss and sleep deprivation for his off game, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t gonna keep trying. There was something about you. The way you tucked that strand of hair behind your ear. Your hands that had been so careful caring for him. The way he could make you blush.
You walked up to him and surprised him by zipping up his jacket, just up to his chin like you’d done for little Marcus. “I might. You got a last name, Dean?”
He hesitated, finding that he didn’t want to lie to you and the truth just slipped out.
“Winchester.”