Chapter Text
Dean was asked so many times ‘what’s wrong?’ by Eileen, that he’d learned how to sign ‘I’m fine’ back to her without even speaking. Not only did he not trust himself to say it without a wobble in his voice for his own sake, but he didn’t trust his chin not to crumple or his eyes not to water, for her to see that he was not fine in his face.
Eileen didn’t think it was cute, and she fixed him with a scowl each time. Sometimes she raised a skeptical brow at him and said, “You’re going to tell me, or I’ll tell Sam.”
As if she needed to tell Sam. Sam had only asked him if he was all right about forty times in the last two weeks, and that wasn’t including the texts sent from across the library or kitchen table or the other side of Dean’s bedroom door.
Dean just wanted everyone to leave him alone.
He wanted to sleep all day without annoying knocks at his door and food brought to him. He wanted to be able to eat a meal at four in the morning in peace without Sam padding his way into the room ‘coincidentally’ awake at the same time. He wanted Eileen to stop giving him pity-eyes as she set a cup of coffee down in front of him while saying, “You look tired.”
You okay?
Wanna talk?
Listen, we’re worried.
Open up, man.
I’m here if you wanna—
Blah, blah, blah.
Was it any surprise that he ended up staring at two fat teardrops soaking into his toast one morning, when they’d needled him for the hundredth time and he just couldn’t take it anymore? It must’ve been a surprise to Sam and Eileen because they faded into silence, staring at him when he raised his elbows onto the table and pressed his palms into his eyes, his stupid-fucking-chin scrunching as he tried-and-failed to hold himself together.
For all the fucking pressure they’d put on him to talk, they sure as fuck didn’t have much to say when he finally broke. Maybe they—especially Sam—expected him to explode, to yell, or throw things off the table, or lash out. Usually he did, of course. That was his modus operandi, typically.
But usually he had somebody to be mad at. This time, he wasn’t really mad at anybody, he was just grieving with no one to point fingers at. Not other than himself, of course.
He’d let this happen again. First Cas, now Donna.
To their credit, while they didn’t have much to say as the story poured from Dean’s mouth like word vomit, like the tale had been compounding and building at the back of his throat for weeks, they were kind when he was done. Sam didn’t tease him or smirk, and Eileen didn’t point out that he was an idiot, or that he’d obviously made a huge mistake by offering to go to Donna’s family gathering. If either of Sam or Eileen had done any of those things, Dean wouldn’t have blamed them. He deserved to be teased and mocked and reminded that he was a dumbass.
But Eileen just pushed a napkin into his hands, urging him to wipe at his tears, and she told him how sorry she was that it hadn’t worked out. And she knew to give Sam a minute with Dean, excusing herself to go make ‘a call’, which he knew meant she was going to scroll through Facebook in the library.
“Dude,” Sam murmured, half of his face pinching into a wince, “you could’ve told me. We were worried about you, thought the worst, you know?”
“Like an apocalypse?” Dean offered, his eyes now dry but his nose running. He sniffled, and picked at his toast, turning it in the air in front of his face like it was fascinating.
“No,” Sam said with a little huff, “you would’ve told us about another apocalypse. I thought...I thought you were sick or something. With...with something bad and you didn’t wanna tell us. It didn’t even cross my mind that you’d...been broken up with.”
Dean chewed on some toast and sniffed sharply. “I’d rather take another apocalypse. And,” he added gruffly, dropping the toast onto his place, rubbing the crumbs onto the plate from between his fingers, “there was no breakup because there was no relationship. It was all fuckin’ fake. Months of telling myself it was nothing and falling face first into emotional bullshit without knee pads on. Who was I fuckin’ kidding, Sam?”
Sam’s lips pursed and his brows knitted softly over sympathetic eyes; the expression he reserved for victims and grieving widows.
“I always knew this stuff—” Love? “—wasn’t meant for people like me. Hunters don’t have the luxury of relationships.”
Glancing over his shoulders to where Eileen had retreated, Sam raised a brow at Dean. “Really, dude?”
“Well,” Dean amended roughly, poking himself in the chest, “not me, Sam. I’ve tried the apple pie B.S. and it didn’t pan out, remember? Everything I touch turns to dust. I’m… I’m… emotionally unavailable,” Dean trailed off in a murmur, his heart sinking as he finally accepted his fate.
“No, you’re not,” Sam said with an amused huff. “You’re emotionally burnt out, that’s all. But I would never, of all the things, call you emotionally unavailable. Sorry, dude. You’re pretty available to every emotion.”
“Cool, good talk,” Dean replied bluntly, turning and throwing his leg over the bench, grabbing his plate of half-eaten food off the table.
With an aborted sigh, Sam added, flustered, “Dean, don’t shut down again, man, come on! Look, Eileen and I know now so let us help. Don’t go shut yourself up in your room again and hibernate like a bear—”
“I’ll hibernate all I want, thank you,” Dean snapped, tilting his toast into the open garbage bin with a jerk of his wrist. “Who do I have to punch around here to get a little room to mope, huh?”
“Deep depression is not moping, Dean,” Sam scolded, turning in his seat to follow Dean’s stride around the kitchen. “When was the last time you showered? Changed out of those pyjamas? We’re gonna talk about this.”
“We’re not gonna talk about this,” Dean countered, climbing up the steps to retire to his bed, feeling the weight of social exhaustion snaking back into his muscles. He was fatigued just being in the room with Sam.
After him, Sam barked, “I’ll call in reinforcements!”
Dean raised a middle finger over his shoulder and grumbled, “Be my guest, jackass.”
Except, maybe Dean didn’t give Sam enough credit. Because not only did he force Dean to shower and get out of his pyjamas, but he did it by bringing in the big guns.
Castiel and Jody stood at the end of his bed, Jody with her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face, and Cas with his hands in his pockets and a look of uneasiness on his face.
Both were scary for totally different reasons.
“I drove five hours, Dean,” Jody warned, tilting her chin down a bit, fixing him with the strictest mom-eyes Dean had been the target of in years. “I drove five hours here because your brother and Eileen are worried about you. So change out of those pants, and wash your hair, and meet us in the kitchen.”
Castiel nodded, shifting on his feet with an air of discomfort. “Your hair does look dirty, Dean.”
Under the disapproving glare from Jody and the awkward glances from Cas, Dean was sufficiently shamed into showering. He scrubbed himself clean, dried off, put on deodorant—okay, maybe he shouldn’t have skimped out on deodorant, it did feel good to smell better—and walked into the kitchen with his tail between his legs.
“Great to see you, Jodes,” Dean began, sliding onto the bench in front of her and Cas. “How was the drive?”
Cas’ dry lips pursed over the rim of coffee he definitely didn’t need to drink. “Long. Cramped.”
“What, d’you make him sit in the back of the cruiser?” Dean asked Jody, smirking at Cas.
“Hilarious,” Jody muttered mid-sip, and then gestured to Dean with her cup. “That’s enough with the small talk, Dean. Sam called me sounding panicked.” She leaned over and Dean almost leaned away at the flash in her eyes. “What did you and Donna do?”
Oh… So maybe Donna had told her already. Maybe she’d told Jody about how Dean had gone all soft and lovey-dovey on her, and pretty much made a fool of himself.
“I... I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Dean grumbled defensively, shuffling in his seat and scowling down at the dark wood of the table.
“Of course you didn’t,” Jody scolded, narrowing her eyes. “You both thought that you’d just have sex and it wouldn’t complicate anything.”
Cas’ eyes immediately snapped up to the ceiling, getting that awkward look on his face like he did whenever anyone brought up sex. The angel didn’t need coffee anyway and at this point, it was just a conduit of unnecessary heat between his palms on the table, so Dean reached forward and took it from Cas without asking.
He raised the cup to his lips to avoid answering. But Jody was a cop; she knew how to interrogate. She stared at him until the silence grew too awkward for him to stand.
After swallowing Castiel’s coffee—fuck, it was hot, damn the angel for not warning him—Dean set down the mug with a clack. Raising his hands at his sides, Dean shrugged and asked in a snap, “What do you want me to say, Jody? I thought it would work out. I didn’t think feelings would happen! Me and feelings don’t mix!”
Cas’ mouth twisted to the side and he lowered his gaze to the table, while Jody pointed her finger at him. “That’s it, isn’t it? You didn’t ‘think’.” Her finger bopped her temple. “And now look, you’re moping around because you feel bad and Donna is so sad that I caught her crying in her cruiser in the damn parking lot at work—”
Dean went still, staring at Jody. “What’s she crying about?”
Jody’s mouth dropped. “Excuse me?”
Blinking at her, Dean barked, half-confused, half-angry. “What’s she crying about? What does she possibly have to be upset about? I’m the idiot who...who...you know—and she’s the one who got all weird, ‘cause she wanted a no-strings attached thing. And, yeah, okay, that’s how it started, so I’m the one in the wrong here, gettin’ all-all-I don’t know! Fallin’ in...um…”
Castiel’s blue eyes looked like tropical water and shone like it too, looking up at him from the table. “In love.”
While Dean gestured to him like ‘yeah—that!’, Jody’s eyes widened with her mouth and she yelped, “What?!”
“Dean’s fallen in love with Donna,” Castiel said quietly, watching Dean’s face, while Jody looked perplexed.
“No, you didn’t,” she argued, but he wasn’t sure who she was trying to argue with—him or Cas or herself. “No, no. You had casual sex with Donna and then rejected her when it was obvious she was more into you than you were into her.”
“What?!” Dean exclaimed, while Castiel just said flatly, “No.”
“No, no, no,” Jody said under her breath. “You rejected her at her parents’ place.”
“No, I didn’t!” Dean said, feeling aghast, forgetting he had Cas’ cup in his hand and waved it, getting scalding coffee all down his arm. “Ow—fuck!”
Jody just stared while Castiel handed Dean a napkin from the retro holder against the wall. Accepting the tissue and wiping at his arm, Dean bared his teeth and ground out from behind them, “She had us pretend to be, like, together and then I fucked up. I forgot it was fake and well, stuff happened in her room and then she got weird. We hardly talked the next day and after we said bye to her parents, the whole fucking trip back was awkward. We hardly talked and...and then when we were back in South Dakota, she just said—” Dean did air quotes, stained napkins fluttering in his hands. “‘Don’t think we should see each other for a while’.”
Just thinking about that awkward exchange over the hood of the Impala made Dean want to throw up. Or maybe cry again.
“Oh no,” Jody groaned, her elbows thumping down onto the table, her palms covering her eyes. “What a mess.”
Castiel licked at his lips—Dean watched his tongue wet the chapped skin—and he offered in a low rumble, “I believe there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“No shit, Cas,” Dean replied harshly, looking between them and hating the tightness in his chest of confusion. “What the hell is going on?”
Cas glanced at Jody, and after getting an exasperated sigh from her, he looked back over at Dean, the lines around his eyes in a wince. “I believe both you and Donna are under the impression that the other holds no interest—”
“Donna’s ass over tits in love with you and thinks you wanted nothing but ass and tits,” Jody interrupted, her voice clipped, her hands thumping down onto the table. Her eyes narrowed and she ranted, “I knew this was a bad idea. You both get attached to people. Neither of you were made for friends-with-benefits, not with someone you already knew and cared for! You both fall too damn hard, you both care too damn much, Dean—”
“Wha—”
“Do not interrupt me, young man!” Jody said with another finger pointed in his face from across the table, her shoulders stiff. “You both lied to each other’s faces, saying this would be nothing but casual sex, and you both fell in love and now I’ve got Donna snivelling all over my house, thinking she’s been used and rejected again, and I’ve got you blubbering because you think she used and rejected you, too. What a goddamn mess, Dean Winchester. Only you two could have screwed this up this badly!”
Jody got to her feet and began to walk out of the room, reaching into her coat pocket. Dean picked his jaw up off the table and formulated words around his heart in his throat, choking out, “What the… Where are you going?”
Jody’s hand flapped over her shoulder, the other already tapping at her phone screen, and she yelled, “I have to make a call!”
What the hell was happening?
The inside of his chest was a warzone of emotions; his heart ached in pain, still, but it beat hard, overworked with confusion, and hope of all things, though he was sure this was some kind of mistake—
With a groan, Dean’s elbows slid onto the table and rubbed at his face. “I’m awful at this. This is why I don’t let people close, let ‘em in, you know? It always crashes and burns. I-I don’t know how to do this love stuff.”
Except for Jody talking to Sam and Eileen in the library—or perhaps ranting loudly into her phone, the room itself was rather quiet.
“I know,” Castiel murmured. When Dean lowered his hands to the table and met Cas’ eye, a look of understanding passed between them.
Perhaps because Dean’s emotions were at their peak, or he thought, fuck it, what else did he have to lose, Dean nodded and admitted meekly, “I had a real thing for you, once. Years ago.”
He’d...said it. Acknowledged it. Finally.
A small, somewhat resigned smile curled one corner of Cas’ lips, and his blue eyes dropped to the table. His stubby fingernails tugged at the corner of Dean’s discarded napkin in a show of uncharacteristic fidgeting.
“I know,” Cas repeated fondly.
Dean rubbed at his forehead, watching Cas, his heart sinking. “So...you knew.”
“I knew.” Cas’ eyes were warm when they lifted from the napkin and faced Dean’s gaze.
“Everyone knew, didn’t they?”
“Every single person we know, I imagine,” Cas admitted, shrugging.
“Did you feel—”
“Yes.”
Wow. They stared at each other across the table, the air heavy with the very distinct feeling of loss.
“You never acted on it,” Dean whispered, feeling a bit choked up.
Castiel—the bastard—smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Neither did you.”
Fuck the lump in his throat. Dean croaked, “It wasn’t good timing.”
“No,” Castiel conceded, his chin dropping in a resigned nod. “It wasn’t.”
Fuck. This had not been a good time to bring all this grief back, not when Dean was balls deep in a new heartache. This old wound felt fresh for a moment, and Dean had the immediate impulse to blame Cas, to get angry about this all over again because what never happened between them hurt so badly, still and…
Instead, Dean matched Cas’ smile. “What we might’ve had between us...it was too big for this world, you know?”
A solemn nod.
Swallowing the lump in his throat, both feeling weighed down and a bit freer now that they were communicating about their old feelings, Dean chuckled. “You know, I’m sure there’s an alternate universe out there where we decided to go for it.”
With that, Cas chuckled too, pulling his hands back from the napkin and sliding under the table. “That...makes me very happy. I’m sure that’s true, Dean.”
But despite their mirrored chuckles, the moment slid back into regret and in sync, the smiles faded. Maybe the feelings were in the past for Dean, but there was something about the way Cas’ eyes searched Dean’s face...
“I’m sorry, Cas,” Dean murmured.
Wrinkles deepened around soft blue eyes. “Me too… Now don't make the same mistake twice, Dean Winchester.”
Dean’s palms pressed into his eyes again, and moaned, “Love isn’t for me, I think. Cas, just look how I managed to fuck everything up. With… With you, with Donna. I think it hurts more than it’s worth.”
“We both know that’s not true,” Cas said firmly, but kindly. “I know you, Dean. I know if you do not try to make amends with Donna, it will eat away at you. Don’t let this be another regret, or path untravelled.”
Of course Cas knew that. Cas probably knew it more than anyone else.
Suddenly, Dean felt entirely exhausted. Dropping his palms to the table, he raised himself from the bench with a sigh. “I’m exhausted. Gonna go back to my all-day nap, but I should probably make sure Jody isn’t calling everyone I know to tell them how stupid I am. You comin’ to the library?”
He clapped Cas on the shoulder, but the angel shook his head, his gaze still on the place across the table where Dean had been sitting. “I’m going to sit here for a while.”
Not wanting to pry, and also knowing it might hurt to pry, Dean simply nodded and walked out of the kitchen, his stomach hurting for some reason. Half-way across the war room, he didn’t need to go talk to Jody because she walked towards him, a whiskey bottle in her hand.
“No, thanks, I’m gonna nap—” Dean started, but Jody’s scowl stopped him.
“This isn’t for you, Eeore. I’m having a well deserved drink, after the mess you and Donna’ve been putting me through,” Jody muttered, nodding into the kitchen. “Is Castiel in there?”
“Yeah.” Dean slid his hands into his pockets. “Was talkin’ to him about, uh...Donna. And stuff.”
“Stuff?” Jody’s brows curled and her eyes narrowed.
Watching a dust bunny clung to his sock, Dean rocked on his heels and muttered, “Stuff. He’s, uh...basically telling me I should talk to Donna or something.”
When he looked up at Jody, her lips were pursed and she was gazing over Dean’s shoulder into the kitchen. Slowly, she sighed, “I’m gonna need another glass, then.”
Quickly, Dean raised his hand and chuckled, “No, really, I’m good—”
“It’s not for you. I’m sensing that Cas probably needs a drink more than anyone.”
Confused, Dean narrowed his eyes. “Cas doesn’t need to drink, he’s an angel.”
With a groan, Jody walked past him and headed toward the kitchen. “I think he’s probably needing this one. Go spend time with your brother and Eileen, you’ve napped enough. And after that, you’d better take Cas’ advice and call Donna, or I’m going to drag you five hours north to clean up this goddamn mess.”
***
Despite the weird intervention-thing orchestrated by his loved ones, gathering his courage to talk to Donna was a hardship Dean wasn’t ready to face yet. Doubts plagued him in the moments when he was alone; what if they were wrong? What if they had the details twisted and Donna was simply upset because they’d lied to her parents, or because she felt guilty for having to reject Dean’s feelings? What if she was just stressed about how their friendship was essentially deteriorated, on the brink of being unfixable. They’d ruined their relationship and, really, how could they go back to how they’d been before?
What if Jody was totally confused, and really, Donna was just upset at work because Jeremy wasn’t there anymore?
What if she’d had to call her family and admit the entire thing with Dean had been a lie? Ugh, his heart hurt for her; Nadeen would never let her live it down, and fuck...Roger and Bessie must’ve been so disappointed. Her family’s approval meant everything to her...
The mope-fest continued, although this time instead of eyeing him with worry, Sam and Eileen scowled at him and accused him often of being the puppeteer of his own mopey-ness. How dare they.
So for a week, Dean watched TV in his room, showed his face only marginally more frequently than before, and probably gained five pounds on take-out Chinese food alone. If Sam and Eileen weren’t harping on him so much, he might’ve tried to simply eat in the kitchen.
After a week of everyone giving up on him—Eileen had stopped asking ‘are you okay’ and instead moved onto saying, ‘you’re an idiot’ with increasing frequency—Dean was surprised to hear from Cas, who’d been hanging out with Jody more lately, finally making an effort to visit Claire now that the semester was over.
As Dean’s phone rang, he brushed chip crumbs off his chest, cursing himself for the stains on the fresh shirt he’d put on after today’s mandated shower. He reached over to get his phone from his bedside table, clicking ‘mute’ on his remote as he looked at his flashing phone screen.
As usual, his throat closed a bit and his chest felt tight, all in hopes—and in fear—that it might be Donna. But instead, Castiel’s dumb face rippled across the screen, all squinting and confused from a seat at the war table, his face clearly saying ‘why are you taking a picture of me, human?’
“Sup?” Dean muttered into the phone, adjusting himself on the bed, deciding his circulatory system might benefit from moving an inch in the last few hours. “How’s it going, Ca—”
“Dean,” Castiel breathed into the phone, sounding urgent. “Are Sam and Eileen around?”
Scowling at the fact that Cas had called him to ask about Sam and Eileen, but with his spidey-senses tingling at Cas’ tone, Dean sat up and replied with, “No, they left for a case this morning. Shot me a text, and didn’t even ask if I wanted to come, which sucks. I’m a third wheel but I’m a good wheel—”
“Damn it,” Cas swore, the cuss word sounding equally concerning and amusing as it clung to his harsh rasp. “You’ll have to do—”
Um, ouch?
“—Dean, I need your help. Or rather, Donna does.”
Immediately, Dean was on his feet, yanking open his drawers in search of something that wasn’t sweatpants. “Say no more, what’s up?”
“She called Jody and I,” Castiel explained, rushed. “She says she needs help, that she’s been captured. Something about a vampire nest, but the message was unclear. I suspect issues with reception.”
“When was this?”
“Minute ago. She’s in Lansing, just outside of Kansas City, Dean. Much closer to you than to us. I can send you the coordinates Jody retrieved from a GPS device.”
Dean nearly cracked his head on the corner of the sink as he struggled to jam his pants through the leg holes of some old jeans, tripping and wobbling. His phone cracked a bit in his hand as he squeezed it, and growled, “Why the fuck is she in Kansas hunting vampires on her god-damn-own, Cas?!”
He could hear Cas struggling on the other end, then the angel’s low rasp growled, “I’m not her babysitter, Dean. And I—”
There was a kerfuffle, and then Jody’s voice snapped through the receiver. “Listen, Winchester, Donna found a case and went on it, okay? She didn’t exactly ask, she just left a note and headed out. We’re lucky as pigs in shit—”
Was that the saying? Dean was pretty sure that wasn’t the saying.
“—that we even know where she is at all, okay? We’re lucky she’s alive enough to have left a message at all, now get in your damn overly-compensating-car and drive your ass to Lansing before I reach through this phone and—”
Another kerfuffle.
After a few scratching sounds, Castiel was back on the line. In a grunt, he said, “I’ll text you the exact address.”
“Cas—” Dean started, but the angel was as garbage as ever at goodbyes, and the line went dead.
With his jeans over his thighs and the phone freeing up his hand, Dean tripped his way into some socks and his jacket. He’d have to make some time later to sit with Jody and talk about how Baby was not an overly-compensating-car, but at the moment, he’d forgive her because he was just as concerned about Donna as she was.
Cas’ text was in his inbox by the time Dean threw himself into the driver’s seat of the Impala, his duffle packed haphazardly with every vampire-slaying tool he could get his hands on. Lansing was an hour away, but he planned on adhering to exactly zero traffic laws.
By doing so, Dean arrived at the address exactly twenty-three minutes later, his shirt sticking to his back by virtue of a generous amount of nervous sweat, and exactly three minutes after that, he was tiptoeing through the grimy hallways of an abandoned factory. It smelled a bit like mould and was suspiciously quiet for a vampire hangout. Usually, vampire nests were loud and reeked of alcohol and bad hair-gel, cheap perfume and, obviously, blood, but…
Dean ducked and gripped the silver knife he’d dipped in dead man’s blood as a noise like a lead pipe being dropped on the floor sent him nearly jumping out of his skin. He pressed himself against the wall just outside of a dark room, meaning to keep himself hidden, when he heard an all too familiar—
“Oofda! Oh, crap-sticks—”
Donna.
Dean launched himself into the room, his duffle swinging, his arm reeling back to start hacking and slashing, when Donna shrieked and Dean had to clap his hands over his ears to avoid going deaf after Donna just barely missed shooting him right in the shoulder.
“Ow, fuck!” Dean yelped, rubbing at his ears.
Donna’s hand clapped to her mouth, and she stood pin straight, his eyes wide. “Dean?! Dean, are you okay? Oh, jeepers, whadda mess—”
She rushed towards him, looking pale and startled, but overall, kinda totally okay and not held captive by hungry vampires. Actually, she looked pretty damn good, with her ringlets around her face, loose from a messy bun atop her head, and were those new earrings? A new makeup colour on her lips, maybe—
They both jumped a foot in the air when the door behind Dean closed with a BANG, sending them both stumbling back away from it, their weapons raised.
“What the…” Dean whispered, while Donna hissed, “Stupid vampires!”
Dean and Donna exchanged looks and then rushed to the door, peering out through a broken grate in the metal. After a few useless attempts at trying to unlock the thing, they crammed their heads together, peering out into the otherwise empty corridor.
“What the H-E-double-hockey-sticks is goin’ on?” Donna whispered, her eyes wide. “They lock us in here?”
Dean, however, was more concerned with her rather than the locked door. He could deal with that later, if they weren’t turned into blood pudding first.
“You okay?” Dean asked, hushed, eyes sweeping over her for injuries. “Did they hurt you?”
Donna gulped, her eyes surveying him thoroughly as well, “They mighta if I even saw one, but I ain’t seen none yet. Was only here for ‘bout fifteen minute before you rushed in. Are you alright?” she asked, patting at him like she was going to find vampires in his shirt. “How’d you escape?”
Dean stared at her.
“What?” he asked dumbly.
Donna blinked and leaned away, her eyes narrowing. “Did they letcha go?”
“‘They’?” Dean asked, raising his eyebrows at her. “You mean...vampires?”
Donna glanced around the room, as if a vampire was going to come out of the shadows and say ‘hey, yes, me! I’m a vampire!’ With an adorable scowl—no, Dean, bad time to notice how cute she is—Donna huffed and said, “Jodes said you left her a message? She and Castiel said you were in deep doo-doo with some vamps and needin’ saving but—”
“—you were closer than they were?” Dean finished, realization settling over him. He made a mental reminder to not only talk to Jody about insulting his car, but to also mention she was a lying, scheming butthead. Her and Cas.
“Yes,” Donna said with a nod. “That’s exactly what they said. They were off somewhere north with Claire, takin’ her to see some show in Rapid City. Said you were captured and needed help? Said that Sam and Eileen were off in Nebraska somewhere and couldn’t get to ya...”
Dean groaned and paced into the room, looking around the grimy, dirty walls and abandoned lockers. It might’ve been a staff room at some point, but now looked like a horror movie set. Or a vampire nest.
Jody, Cas, Claire, Sam and Eileen missed their callings as location scouts for the film industry. The meddling, scheming motherfu—
“I am not captured by vampires,” Dean pointed out, turning on his heel and poking himself in the chest. “I am not in need of saving, and, as it turns out, neither are you.”
Donna looked down at herself, as if checking to see if she was a prisoner, and then she glanced up at him. “Uh, nope. Not captured either… Oh…”
As it clicked in Donna’s head, her mouth dropped open. “Those big ol’ liars!”
“Our friend suck,” Dean said flatly, shaking his head, dropping his knife to his side. “They freakin’ plotted to get us in a room together and—” Dean stomped past Donna and pounded at the door. “LET US OUT, YOU DICKHEADS. CASTIEL, JODY; YOU GUYS ARE TOAST!”
“They tricked us,” Donna said, looking a bit shell-shocked.
Dean looked over his shoulder at her and nodded, “Yeah. They did. I bet Sam and Eileen aren’t even hunting in Nebraska. I bet all five of ‘em are sitting on the tailgate of Jody’s truck somewhere around here and congratulating each other on a prank well played.”
“Why would they do that?” Donna asked, exasperated. Dean watched her click on the safety of her gun and slide it responsibly onto the holder attached to her hip at the band of her jeans.
‘Cause they want us to talk.
“‘Cause they’re meddlers,” Dean muttered, jerking the duffle off his shoulder onto the floor and ducking down to wipe off his blade. Perfectly good dead man’s blood wasted…
The silence that followed was awkward.
Donna’s boots shuffled on the gross floor. From above his head, he heard her sniff, and then; “So we gotta break out.”
Dean folded the bloody handkerchief into a near square and sighed, “This isn’t an escape room, D-train. Honestly, if Cas is using his mojo to keep us locked in here, no amount of lock picking is gonna get us out.”
“Well, how are we gonna get out?” she asked, and when he looked up, her saw her cheeks were pink as she watched him. “What do they want us to do?”
Dean didn’t answer right away. Because if he had to say ‘they want us to talk about our feelings’, he’d probably cry like a fucking toddler, and honestly, he did not need this shit right now. He didn’t need to see Donna reject him again, his imagination had done a good enough job over the last few weeks as it was.
Instead, he just murmured as he sat back on his ass, back thumping against the door, “They want us to talk, I guess. How, uh… How you been? Haven’t talked to you in a while.”
Donna hesitated, glancing up at the door. “Uh…been fine. Workin’. I, uh, painted my bathroom.”
“Nice. What colour?”
“Purple,” Donna admitted, shrugging a bit and smiling. “Ya know how I am.”
“Better than that weird yellow,” Dean pointed out, raising his brows. “That was a weird yellow.”
“Sure was,” Donna nodded, putting her hands on her hips and blowing out a stream of air from puffy cheeks. “Um...how about you? How ya been?”
Sleeping, crying, watching documentaries about pollution, and getting lectured by everyone in my contact list about being a sad sack of shit.
“Researching,” Dean supplied, watching his fingers meet between his knees, his nails picking at his skin. “Sam and Eileen have been hunting a lot, so I stay behind and hit the books.”
“Oh,” Donna said, her swallow visibly over the collar of her t-shirt. “Yeah…right. I, uh, it’s just… Castiel said you hadn’t been doin’ so hot, so…”
Castiel. The fucking snitch.
“What’s Cas doin’ telling people about my business anyway?” Dean asked, scowling.
Donna shrugged, licking at her lips. “He’s been spendin’ a lot of time with Jodes. Co-parenting Claire and all that jazz, y’know?”
“How much co-parenting does a twenty year old need?” Dean asked, raising a brow.
“Not sure,” Donna chuckled, scratching at the back of her neck and flicking a curl away from her cheek. “But it always involve a lot of wine on the porch—”
“They drink with Claire?” Dean asked, perplexed. He couldn’t imagine Jody being okay with giving Claire wine. It had been a hassle just to sneak the kid a beer on her birthday this year…
“Oh no,” Donna laughed, flapping her hand through the air. “Just the two of them. For an angel, the guy really throws ‘em back, y’know? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the two of ‘em...” Donna paused, eyeing Dean, and then she diverted the topic, clearing her throat and murmuring, “Anyway...I hope you’re okay, Dean. Really. I...just heard you haven’t been doin’ so good, so…”
The amusement of picturing Jody and Cas wasted on the steps of Jody’s cabin faded quickly, and Dean found himself staring at Donna’s boots, too humiliated to look her in the eye. Everyone had told her he’d been depressed, hadn’t they?
Might as well face the music...or they’d never get out of there.
“Just havin’ a rough patch, that’s all,” he murmured, yanking at the skin around his nails. “Not a big deal, honestly. Just a regular Tuesday or whatever.”
Another silence followed. This one seemed infinitely more awkward, as Donna had seemingly nothing to say to Dean’s confession.
He didn’t look up when she sighed and walked over to him, dropping down beside him, her back also thumping against the steel door. She was warm at his side, but he felt nothing but nerves at her closeness. Every instinct he had was to rest his head on her shoulder, but they couldn’t behave like that anymore. They weren’t close like that anymore, he supposed. She’d said they shouldn’t talk for a while, they shouldn’t see each other—
“I haven’t been a very good friend,” Donna whispered, nudging him with her shoulder.
When Dean looked over at her, forcing himself to meet her chocolate brown eyes, she smiled tightly at him. “Been dealing with my own stuff,” she admitted quietly, her eyes pinched at the corners.
Dean smiled back. “Yeah, I heard. Jody kinda told me.”
“That snitch,” Donna teased, wrinkling her nose.
“We should boycott Jodstiel,” Dean joked. “Lock ‘em in a room together until they can’t stand each other. Then our secrets will be safe.”
To his relief, they both laughed, though it was still a bit uncomfortable.
In attempts to take advantage of this time to talk with her, Dean admitted, “I haven’t been such a great friend either, D-Train. I’m sorry. Really, I should’ve called or texted, just…y’know, to see how you’ve been.”
“Don’t say that,” Donna pleaded softly. “I…I was the one who said we should have some space from each other, y’know? I was embarrassed.”
It was Dean’s turn to nudge her when Donna looked down at her lap, blinking hard. “Hey, call the cops on this pity party, girl. You…had to do what you had to do. I made stuff awkward, I fucked up.”
“How did y’fuck up?” Donna demanded, raising her head and looking over with a tinge of anger. “Y’were nothin’ but sweet and real nice to do that for me—come to my folks’ place, that is. You were doing me a favor and I got weird. A-And…” Donna raised a hand to her face, rubbing at her forehead. “And I just really miss ya, Dean. Every day, I miss ya.”
Ow. Ow, it hurt.
Dean reached between them and linked their pinkies. Maybe holding hands was too couple-y, but she was his friend. They could hold pinkies.
“I miss you, too, D-Train.”
Dean stared forward, too petrified to see her reaction, but his shoulders sagged as she slid sideways a bit and rested her head on his shoulder, her wild, curly hair tucked under his chin and tickling his cheekbones.
Dean sat perfectly still as her cool fingers extended and brushed the back of his softly.
“Sorry I ruined our friendship,” Donna whispered. “I didn’t mean for everything to happen like it did.”
“Sorry I ruined our friendship, too,” Dean replied, even more hushed. “I thought casual sex was a thing I knew how to do.”
“I thought it’d be easier with someone I already cared about,” Donna added, sniffling. God, he hoped she wasn’t crying. Not because he felt uncomfortable, but because he’d start up, too.
“Same,” he agreed. “I’d done it with people before. I thought I had it down pat. I’d been told that I was emotionally unavailable and allergic to commitment, and I had myself convinced feelings and stuff wasn’t for me—for any hunters, really—but I was wrong.”
Donna raised her head and Dean felt his face get cold, the blood draining from it. There he’d gone and made it awkward. He’d reminded her why she’d wanted to put distance between them in the first place. Jody was out of her mind if she thought Donna would’ve been into him, she’d been tossing too many tumblers of whiskey with Cas. He was a dumpster fire of an emotional mess—
“What’d you mean?” Donna breathed.
He felt her gaze on the side of his face.
Their friends and family wanted them to talk, and he and Donna were already not talking outside of this set up, so...why the hell not confess? Cas was right; he’d regret it if he didn’t speak up. He’d made the mistake with Cas those years ago, and while Dean was the king of making the same mistakes over and over, this mistake felt like one that he didn’t have to make again.
So he confessed to the dilapidated locker on the other side of the room.
“Look,” he said with an exhale, his cheeks puffed for a moment, “that...weekend at your parents place. I...feel like a con man, to be honest. I offered to go because I wanted to be supportive, because I knew you were hurting after that Jeremy guy and—”
“I know,” Donna groaned, causing him to look over with a jerk of his head. She was rubbing at her face, looking pained. “Fudge, I know, Dean. You were being so nice and I repaid ya by making it weird—”
“No!” Dean interrupted, shaking his head, his eyes a bit wide. “No, Donna. You told me to take a hike because I deserved it.”
“But I slept with you!” Donna cried.
“And I slept with you!” Dean rebutted, laughing incredulously, flailing his free hand through the air. “You totally said ‘no sex’ when we got there, but I still made a move. And...fuck, I...I fell in love with your family, even your mean sister—dude, she is like a viper—”
Donna winced, but nodded.
“—They’re all just so fucking nice, and I think they really liked me. T-That didn’t help matters at all, Donna, because I knew how I felt about you going into it. And when we had sex, I just let it happen. I knew I was getting more out of it than you—”
Dean felt the hot flash of panic when Donna’s hand fell away from his, his pinkie left cold. It curled into his hand, his fingers forming a fist. With his teeth gritted, he powered on, furious with himself as his lashes grew a bit wet.
“I-I feel like a fuckin’ fraud,” Dean confessed, his voice tight. “I told you I wanted this no-strings attached, friends-with-benefits thing but I ended up falling for you and making it all fucking weird. I got all jealous when you decided to go for work-guy, and I offered to go with you to your parents place because I missed you so fucking bad, I just wanted to be close to you again—”
“What?” Donna asked in a breath.
Dean blinked, pissed off when a single tear escaped down the side of his face. He reached up quickly to brush it away and then turned to look at Donna, even though every bundle of nerves in his stomach coiled like barbed wire and begged him not to.
She was staring at him, her eyes shining, her face red, and her body turned towards him, breaking the contact between their arms. God, she was probably so embarrassed and disgusted.
“I’m so sorry, Donna,” Dean whispered, wincing. “I really messed up.”
“You had feelings for me?” Donna asked, her voice high. He saw tears gathering on her lashes and his stomach squeezed. Her eyes scanned his face quickly, darting from eye-to-eye and down to his lips. “This whole time?”
“Since my birthday,” Dean breathed. “Probably before that, but I’m an idiot so what do I know?”
“You are an idiot,” Donna agreed, her hands gripping at the loose denim of her jeans into a fist. “You had feelings for me this whole time and you didn’t tell me?”
“I know,” Dean moaned, pulling his hands up to his eyes, kneading the meaty part of his palm against his brows. “I’m a fuckin’ liar a-and a fraud. I pretended to be all chill, but it ate me up when you started dating that Jeremy guy, and then I just offered to go with you to your parents place like it was this innocent thing—”
To his surprise, Donna thwapped him in the arm with her hand, causing him to jump a bit in alarm. When he looked over, her mouth was pursed into an angry pout and her eyes were definitely wet.
“You big ol’ idiot!” Donna cried, a tear leaking out of her eyes onto her patchy cheeks. Her finger jutted at him. “When you said ‘this was a mistake’ after we boinked, I...I thought you meant you didn’t have feelings for me. I thought you’d seen that I had feelings for you!”
Dean’s mouth dropped open and he audibly choked. “I beg your—what?”
Donna looked like she could lay an egg, her neck and cheeks a patchy red. Flustered, she said tightly, “I’ve been spendin’ the last few weeks cryin’ my eyes out because I thought I’d embarrassed you or that I’d broken the rules to our arrangement. I thought I was gettin’ more outta all these shenanigans because you said you wanted no-strings attached, and you said you were emotionally unavailable and that hunters didn’t get nice things! Y-You… You fuckin’ idiot, Dean!”
She punched him in the arm, and ow, yes, he deserved that. Jody had told him Donna had been crying over him and he’d refused to believe it. Now Donna had punched it right into his skin, and was crying about it right to his face, and this was probably the most humiliated and mortified Dean had ever been in his life.
“Oh my God,” Dean breathed, staring at her. “I’m an idiot.”
“And me, too,” Donna said with a little borderline-weepy inhale. “I’m an idiot, too.”
Dean swallowed, shaking his head. “Bunch of fudgin’ knuckleheads.”
“Been practically datin’ for months and fallin’ in love with each other and we wasted time pretending we were just fudge buddies,” Donna said, now definitely a little weepy, her voice wobbling and her chin crumpling.
Love.
Well.
She’d gone and said it, hadn’t she?
She seemed to realise what she’d said at the same time he did. With wide eyes, they shared a look of slight panic.
Then Dean’s tongue darted out and wet his lips. In a croak, he admitted, “I think I’m in love with you, D-Train.”
A fat droplet of water hit the ground hard from a leaky pipe in the middle of the room, causing them both to jump in the thick tension. But after a shared nervous laugh, Donna swallowed loudly and said in a squeak, “Right back atcha, D. Been fallin’ for you since I met’cha, I think.”
For the first time in weeks, Dean’s lips spread into a smile. A big one. A big, dumb grin, even.
And when Donna leaned in, he felt her smile on her lips, too. They hovered like that, the tips of their noses bumping. It wasn’t a kiss, not really. Not at first, but with what seemed like a surge of confidence, Donna leaned forward and their lips pressed together.
Dean sighed, sounding stupidly content—no, happy. It was the dopiest sound to escape him in quite some time, but the explosion in his chest of pure joy was so cliche that it deserved nothing less than the sappiest sound he could create. Every bit of pain that’d settled inside him since their trip to Minnesota seemed to shatter like glass, the shards blowing up into happy shit like rainbows, and puppies, and nurse outfits and cowboy boots—
Dean pulled away, just a bit, and he breathed out a tiny, “Oh.”
Donna’s eyes slid open and she asked in a gasp, “What? Did I do something—”
“No,” Dean whispered, shaking his head. “I just realised my wish came true.”
“Your wish?”
Raising a hand to her jawline, he brushed his fingers over her skin. “Yeah, from my birthday.”
“Oh, you big sap,” Donna chuckled, reaching forward to fist her hand into his shirt, tugging him close. “I love you, y’know.”
Dean laughed—like a big love-sick idiot—and yelped a bit when Donna used the leverage of his t-shirt to swing herself onto his lap, straddling his hips. If he thought his biggest fantasy was to have sex with a nurse in cowboy boots, he’d been wrong. Turned out, his fantasy was to be straddled by a hunter with big brown eyes, curly blonde hair, curves for days, a gun strapped to her thigh, and who was as hopelessly in love with him as he was with her.
“So,” Donna whispered against his lips, “are we still friends with benefits?”
“No.” Dean shook his head, nudging his nose against hers. “How about something as sappy as we are? Lovers with benefits? Or is that too cheesy?”
Donna looked thoughtful, then she asked, “Well, if we’re already lovers, then what’s the ‘benefit’ part?”
With one hand on her hip and the other sliding into her hair, Dean leaned forward and murmured, “The benefit is that we’re best friends, D-Train.”
“Oh,” she breathed, and whispered against his mouth, “you betcha.”
THE END