Fic: Wild By Skye (17/27)
Sam stayed on the floor all night with Dean. The hug-fest didn't last much longer than two or three minutes, but the brothers sat a long time, side by side, listening to the ticking second hand on the nightstand clock.
Sam nodded off propped against the closed motel room door, and when he woke Dean was himself again, tucking a comforter he'd pulled off one of the beds around Sam's shoulders. It made Sam remember the days when he'd been small enough that Dean would have carried him to bed, ever the caring and attentive big brother.
When Dean realized Sam was awake, he froze.
"Dean?" Sam looked up blearily at his brother. "You okay?"
Dean didn't answer right away. He thought about it. Then he nodded. "I'm okay."
Sam chased away the fog of sleep and studied Dean's expression long and hard. He had to know Dean was telling the truth.
Sam knew he was when, at last, Dean smiled.
"Come on, Sasquatch, now that you're awake, let's move this slumber party over to a bed."
Sam rose stiffly from his place on the floor and let Dean lead him toward one of the rumpled beds. He plopped down and gratefully collapsed into the pillow. Dean sat down on the opposite bed, watching his younger brother with quiet intensity.
Even sleep-mused, Sam felt it. He opened his eyes and looked across at Dean. He looked healthier. The wolf had that effect on him.
"Let's go camping tomorrow night," Sam suggested on a whim. At a more reasonable hour, the sudden suggestion might have been laughable. At the brink of dawn, it was poignant.
Dean stared. They both knew what Sam meant by 'camping'.
Finally, Dean nodded. "Okay, Sammy."
Sam smiled. A year ago, he would not have been able to fathom his older brother becoming a wolf at will. Now, the world was not right until Dean had relented to becoming one.
Sam wouldn't look forward to stiff muscles and aching joints from another night spent on the ground, but he did look forward to seeing Dean run.
*****
He smelled her first. That unique and earthy scent of pine and fresh air that was her surrounded him softly as she crept up on him from behind while he sat poring over a local newspaper.
Then her body heat pressed gently against his back, sending a reciprocal rush of heat through his own body. His nostrils flared to catch her smell. His pupils dilated, reacting to her nearness.
He didn't let on he knew she was stalking him.
Next her hair, dark locks brushing feather-light against the back of his neck. They made him shiver. He had no idea what he was pretending to look at anymore. There was only her.
Her breath, warm and enchanting, brushing at the nape of his neck. The soft sound of her breathing so close to his ear, driving him beyond the ability to reason.
Then it was her lips pressing against the nape of his neck, silky and intoxicating, stamping him as hers.
Then her teeth lightly scraping against the skin of the back of his neck. The smallest touch of the tip of her tongue on his skin.
His body jolted. It surged. It felt like liquid lightning, like the wolf on the hunt.
He was on the hunt for her.
He reached for Skye.
In one smooth motion, he turned in his seat, slipped out of the chair, and captured her around the waist with a possessive arm. They were backing up, crossing the room blindly, then the motel bed rose up behind them. They fell in a tangle of limbs, Dean's body trapping hers beneath him.
She laughed against him, pleased and happy just where she was. Just where he was.
The feeling was definitely mutual.
Dean braced himself on one elbow to draw back and look down at her. Her dark eyes were shining up at him, her mouth curved in a sultry smile. The feel of her alive under him was a drug. Heady and perfect.
"I could have killed you," she said playfully.
Dean smirked. "I smelled you coming from across the room."
Skye lifted an eyebrow at him. "You only changed two days ago… can you have been so quick to bond with the wolf?"
"I think it has more to do with you," he answered honestly.
"You bonded that quickly with me?" she asked, dubious but content to play along. She thought he was exaggerating.
"You have no idea," he said. Because she didn't. She didn't realize that Dean Winchester didn't fall for them. He made love to them, but he didn't love them. So rarely did he let them in, let them become more than a night passing through town.
It had been different with Skye, from the first moment she tackled him to the ground to save her pack mate.
"Mmmm," Skye purred and shifted below him. Her body moved against his and Dean lost his mind for half a heartbeat. He was only an animal with a need, with a mate to fill it, a perfect moment in time that he meant to grab by the throat.
His eyes flashed gold.
Skye gazed up affectionately at him. She freed a hand and touched his face softly. "You know… I think you're right."
"I'm always right," he quipped.
Skye shook her head, her smile turning lopsided. "You are so full of yourself."
"I know, I know… do you want to be full of me, too?"
She laughed, quick and surprised. He loved that about her. She didn't ask herself if she should laugh or love or hate or fear. She just did. She listened to her heart. She did not question or doubt.
That was for men, and she was wolf.
Her hand went to his shoulder and slipped past the collar of his shirt to touch his skin. "Should we? So soon after you almost…" she frowned. Her eyes became sad and scared for what had almost happened to him. She bit her lip and looked up into his eyes again.
Dean's heart was pounding. He knew he should be weak. He knew he should be hurting after what he had gone through only two days ago.
But he didn't feel weak. He didn't feel pain. He felt strong and unstoppable.
He felt the wolf, this amazing new life she had opened up for him. With her blood and his, the taste of copper they had shared.
"I want you," Dean stated in a gravelly voice. He stared into her eyes. Let her see his world in his gaze. The world he offered to her.
Skye blinked heavily. Her hand left his shoulder to rake through the hair at the back of his head. "Can I tell you what I think?"
Dean quirked an eyebrow at her. "Could I stop you?" His free hand was moving, unfastening the buttons down the front of her shirt.
Skye curled a leg to frame his hips and tugged at the bottom of his shirt. "I think…" she lifted the shirt up his body, "that this is what you were always meant to be."
Dean gently pushed the unbuttoned shirt off her shoulder. He dipped to kiss her bared throat. Skye titled her chin back to give it to him. Dean's body trembled at the gesture. He knew how much it meant to her. To him now, too. His body thrummed with what the bared throat meant to the wolf.
Skye forced him to pull away from her so she could take his shirt off. It was tossed aside, lost to nothingness, and Skye curled up to return the shoulder kiss. Dean canted his head to the side, offering her his throat.
Skye growled softly and her teeth closed, gentle and perfect, against the soft skin of his neck. The intimacy and trust in it was a beast unto itself. It ruled and owned and set free. Dean's eyes rolled back and he groaned.
Skye's teeth left him and then her hands were tracing over his bare back. "This is who you are supposed to be," she whispered into his ear. "I know it," she emphasized her point with reaching for the fly of his jeans.
"I don't believe in destiny," he grunted while working on her jeans in retaliation.
Skye lay back on the mattress and met his eyes. Dean paused because she wanted him to. He would do so much for her, do it all gladly because she wanted him to. The world filtered through her desires was an all-together different universe, and Dean was happy there. He never thought a world existed where he could be. That unexpected Eden was bathed not by the sun, but in moonlight. Moonlight and Skye.
Skye curled her hands up under his arms, holding him as though he might leave her. "I do… your soul was always the wolf. It was a spirit waiting for form. You were always meant to be one of us."
It did feel like the wolf was the missing piece of a puzzle. Like his life had become complete.
But could he say if it was the wolf or Skye? No. Maybe they were one and the same. She was wolf and Skye. His single answer to a question he'd never known he had.
It didn't matter to him. There was only the two of them.
Dean leaned down and kissed her. Their lips met and slanted open, tongues touching and caressing.
Skye whimpered and Dean drew back to look at her. The eyes he met were gold. Her lips were parted, her body so alive. If he was liquid lightning, she was, too. They would make the heavens crack and light up when their bodies joined.
Skye reached for him again. She traced her thumb over his bottom lip. She looked into his very soul, to the wolf she had awakened in him. Her mate.
"I think I've been waiting for you for a very long time," she whispered almost reverently.
Dean curled his arm possessively around her waist and held her close to him by the small of her back. "I'm here," he said lowly. He dropped his head to the crook of her shoulder and breathed against her neck, "I'm here." Then he kissed her, devoured her, was consumed by her.
Skye grasped at him, hands pressed into his shoulders, his back, his chest.
They rolled, a blur of skin and her long, dark hair. Their hands quested blindly to discard the last of their clothes. To make their spirits one. To split the heavens with unleashed lightning.
A shrill sound made Dean start and the dream vanished, replaced by a dark motel room in a town Dean couldn't remember.
He blinked a moment, disoriented and flushed with arousal. He could not fathom for a second why Skye was not wrapped around him, pressed tightly to his body. The cold of his empty bed was bone-chilling and he didn't understand.
Then it rushed back at him in a second.
It had only been a dream, then. Or nearly a memory. But in either case, it was gone. Skye was gone.
And that noise again that had stolen her ghost from him, screaming in the night. His phone.
Dean groaned grumpily and untangled himself from his sheets. Sam was still in his bed, sleeping hard and not even shifting at the sound of the phone.
Dean passed the room's mirror on his way to find the screaming phone. He caught a glimpse of his reflection. Of a sweaty brow, golden eyes, and unruly hair. Skye's memory was still achingly fresh, so real it seemed her touch still lingered on his skin.
Dean didn't know if he liked the dreams of her or not. They were so vivid, like she was really there, but waking to find her gone made that pain sharp and new again each time.
He remembered the days right after the Stanford fire, how Sam had started awake gasping Jessica's name. He imagined this was one agony his little brother would understand all too well.
Dean found his phone and cold dread swept through him when he recognized his father's number.
"No," he whispered miserably to himself. He knew. Somehow, he knew what his father would say.
Dean opened his phone anyway and brought it to his ear. "Yeah."
"Dean… hey, son. I know it's late, but I couldn't wait to tell you. I've found it."
Dean closed his eyes as the sound of his father's voice seemed like a vice around his chest, squeezing tighter with every passing second. "Really?"
John sounded triumphant. "Yeah… you wouldn't believe how many people I had to talk to, or the kind of 'people' I had to talk to for that matter, but it paid off. There's a way to get it out of you, Dean. It's pretty complex - and it's going to hurt, I won't lie to you - but this is it."
Dean's heart was in his throat. No. No, no, no, no. "I… don't know what to say."
"I know… I'd almost lost hope, too. But I told you I would take care of it, son."
It felt like a death sentence, and Dean bowed his head for the axe to strike off his head.
The silence of the room seemed to scream at him. Deafening and dangerous. Time was to be feared now. Every second a countdown to death. Death for the wolf, but in so many ways it felt like a death for him, too.
"Dean?"
Dean swallowed. "Yeah?"
"Where are you boys now? I'm in California. I'd like us to meet up and get this done."
Dean froze for a moment. "Well… Sam and I are… kind of in the middle of something." They weren't, but Dean had panicked at the idea of setting a date. The idea of actually going forward with the execution of the wolf, of hitting the road as early as tomorrow morning and driving toward it, put his stomach in a cold knot.
"Dean… you know how important I think the hunt is, but sometimes there are things that come before everything else."
Dean's free hand was clamped in a desperately tight grip on the back of the chair at the motel room table. "Yeah… but… Sam's asleep right now, and… I'll get back to you on that, okay?"
There was a pause that radiated disapproval. "Dean…"
"Later, Dad." Never. But he couldn't put it off forever. He just wanted a few more days… he needed more time before he was cleaved in two.
John sighed. "All right. I guess I have to admire your tenacity for never giving up on a hunt. I can't really fault you for being true to how I raised you. You make me proud, Dean."
'You wouldn't say that if you knew how much you're killing me,' Dean thought miserably. "Chick flick, Dad," Dean grunted.
John chuckled. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go get some sleep, and talk to Sam in the morning."
"This job might take a few days to finish," Dean interjected.
John didn't like that, either, but he accepted it. "Okay. You've been stuck with it three years; I guess a few more days won't make much difference."
A few more days would make all the difference. A few more days was all Dean needed right then. He couldn't do this without a few more days feeling whole.
"Good night, Dad," Dean breathed hollowly.
"Good night, Dean." Then the line went dead.
Dean dropped the phone numbly and backed up until the back of his legs hit the mattress. He dropped down heavily and stared, unblinking, into the darkness. He felt raw and empty.
John could be delayed only so long. Within a matter of days, his wolf would die.
Dean didn't want to think about the person that would be left behind.
Defeated, back bowed and arms limp in his lap, Dean dropped his chin to his chest. The darkness swallowed him. The only sounds were the faint whispers of traffic outside and Sam's deep breathing of sleep.
He thought he should probably move, should probably at least get back in bed, but he couldn't make his muscles obey. The night dragged on and Dean sat, unmoving, trying to come to grips with knowing he would lose the very thing that had given him happiness he had never thought he'd be entitled to.
He told himself he shouldn't be surprised. Shouldn't grieve. Winchesters weren't supposed to be happy, anyway. But still, to lose it was so much harder than to never have had it at all.
Wolf and Skye were alike in that respect. And soon, they would both share the honor of being things Dean loved dearly that were torn from him.
A few days hardly seemed enough. Dean would cry for the injustice of it all, but the universe cared little for the grief of a Winchester.
Eighteen
Sam nodded off propped against the closed motel room door, and when he woke Dean was himself again, tucking a comforter he'd pulled off one of the beds around Sam's shoulders. It made Sam remember the days when he'd been small enough that Dean would have carried him to bed, ever the caring and attentive big brother.
When Dean realized Sam was awake, he froze.
"Dean?" Sam looked up blearily at his brother. "You okay?"
Dean didn't answer right away. He thought about it. Then he nodded. "I'm okay."
Sam chased away the fog of sleep and studied Dean's expression long and hard. He had to know Dean was telling the truth.
Sam knew he was when, at last, Dean smiled.
"Come on, Sasquatch, now that you're awake, let's move this slumber party over to a bed."
Sam rose stiffly from his place on the floor and let Dean lead him toward one of the rumpled beds. He plopped down and gratefully collapsed into the pillow. Dean sat down on the opposite bed, watching his younger brother with quiet intensity.
Even sleep-mused, Sam felt it. He opened his eyes and looked across at Dean. He looked healthier. The wolf had that effect on him.
"Let's go camping tomorrow night," Sam suggested on a whim. At a more reasonable hour, the sudden suggestion might have been laughable. At the brink of dawn, it was poignant.
Dean stared. They both knew what Sam meant by 'camping'.
Finally, Dean nodded. "Okay, Sammy."
Sam smiled. A year ago, he would not have been able to fathom his older brother becoming a wolf at will. Now, the world was not right until Dean had relented to becoming one.
Sam wouldn't look forward to stiff muscles and aching joints from another night spent on the ground, but he did look forward to seeing Dean run.
*****
He smelled her first. That unique and earthy scent of pine and fresh air that was her surrounded him softly as she crept up on him from behind while he sat poring over a local newspaper.
Then her body heat pressed gently against his back, sending a reciprocal rush of heat through his own body. His nostrils flared to catch her smell. His pupils dilated, reacting to her nearness.
He didn't let on he knew she was stalking him.
Next her hair, dark locks brushing feather-light against the back of his neck. They made him shiver. He had no idea what he was pretending to look at anymore. There was only her.
Her breath, warm and enchanting, brushing at the nape of his neck. The soft sound of her breathing so close to his ear, driving him beyond the ability to reason.
Then it was her lips pressing against the nape of his neck, silky and intoxicating, stamping him as hers.
Then her teeth lightly scraping against the skin of the back of his neck. The smallest touch of the tip of her tongue on his skin.
His body jolted. It surged. It felt like liquid lightning, like the wolf on the hunt.
He was on the hunt for her.
He reached for Skye.
In one smooth motion, he turned in his seat, slipped out of the chair, and captured her around the waist with a possessive arm. They were backing up, crossing the room blindly, then the motel bed rose up behind them. They fell in a tangle of limbs, Dean's body trapping hers beneath him.
She laughed against him, pleased and happy just where she was. Just where he was.
The feeling was definitely mutual.
Dean braced himself on one elbow to draw back and look down at her. Her dark eyes were shining up at him, her mouth curved in a sultry smile. The feel of her alive under him was a drug. Heady and perfect.
"I could have killed you," she said playfully.
Dean smirked. "I smelled you coming from across the room."
Skye lifted an eyebrow at him. "You only changed two days ago… can you have been so quick to bond with the wolf?"
"I think it has more to do with you," he answered honestly.
"You bonded that quickly with me?" she asked, dubious but content to play along. She thought he was exaggerating.
"You have no idea," he said. Because she didn't. She didn't realize that Dean Winchester didn't fall for them. He made love to them, but he didn't love them. So rarely did he let them in, let them become more than a night passing through town.
It had been different with Skye, from the first moment she tackled him to the ground to save her pack mate.
"Mmmm," Skye purred and shifted below him. Her body moved against his and Dean lost his mind for half a heartbeat. He was only an animal with a need, with a mate to fill it, a perfect moment in time that he meant to grab by the throat.
His eyes flashed gold.
Skye gazed up affectionately at him. She freed a hand and touched his face softly. "You know… I think you're right."
"I'm always right," he quipped.
Skye shook her head, her smile turning lopsided. "You are so full of yourself."
"I know, I know… do you want to be full of me, too?"
She laughed, quick and surprised. He loved that about her. She didn't ask herself if she should laugh or love or hate or fear. She just did. She listened to her heart. She did not question or doubt.
That was for men, and she was wolf.
Her hand went to his shoulder and slipped past the collar of his shirt to touch his skin. "Should we? So soon after you almost…" she frowned. Her eyes became sad and scared for what had almost happened to him. She bit her lip and looked up into his eyes again.
Dean's heart was pounding. He knew he should be weak. He knew he should be hurting after what he had gone through only two days ago.
But he didn't feel weak. He didn't feel pain. He felt strong and unstoppable.
He felt the wolf, this amazing new life she had opened up for him. With her blood and his, the taste of copper they had shared.
"I want you," Dean stated in a gravelly voice. He stared into her eyes. Let her see his world in his gaze. The world he offered to her.
Skye blinked heavily. Her hand left his shoulder to rake through the hair at the back of his head. "Can I tell you what I think?"
Dean quirked an eyebrow at her. "Could I stop you?" His free hand was moving, unfastening the buttons down the front of her shirt.
Skye curled a leg to frame his hips and tugged at the bottom of his shirt. "I think…" she lifted the shirt up his body, "that this is what you were always meant to be."
Dean gently pushed the unbuttoned shirt off her shoulder. He dipped to kiss her bared throat. Skye titled her chin back to give it to him. Dean's body trembled at the gesture. He knew how much it meant to her. To him now, too. His body thrummed with what the bared throat meant to the wolf.
Skye forced him to pull away from her so she could take his shirt off. It was tossed aside, lost to nothingness, and Skye curled up to return the shoulder kiss. Dean canted his head to the side, offering her his throat.
Skye growled softly and her teeth closed, gentle and perfect, against the soft skin of his neck. The intimacy and trust in it was a beast unto itself. It ruled and owned and set free. Dean's eyes rolled back and he groaned.
Skye's teeth left him and then her hands were tracing over his bare back. "This is who you are supposed to be," she whispered into his ear. "I know it," she emphasized her point with reaching for the fly of his jeans.
"I don't believe in destiny," he grunted while working on her jeans in retaliation.
Skye lay back on the mattress and met his eyes. Dean paused because she wanted him to. He would do so much for her, do it all gladly because she wanted him to. The world filtered through her desires was an all-together different universe, and Dean was happy there. He never thought a world existed where he could be. That unexpected Eden was bathed not by the sun, but in moonlight. Moonlight and Skye.
Skye curled her hands up under his arms, holding him as though he might leave her. "I do… your soul was always the wolf. It was a spirit waiting for form. You were always meant to be one of us."
It did feel like the wolf was the missing piece of a puzzle. Like his life had become complete.
But could he say if it was the wolf or Skye? No. Maybe they were one and the same. She was wolf and Skye. His single answer to a question he'd never known he had.
It didn't matter to him. There was only the two of them.
Dean leaned down and kissed her. Their lips met and slanted open, tongues touching and caressing.
Skye whimpered and Dean drew back to look at her. The eyes he met were gold. Her lips were parted, her body so alive. If he was liquid lightning, she was, too. They would make the heavens crack and light up when their bodies joined.
Skye reached for him again. She traced her thumb over his bottom lip. She looked into his very soul, to the wolf she had awakened in him. Her mate.
"I think I've been waiting for you for a very long time," she whispered almost reverently.
Dean curled his arm possessively around her waist and held her close to him by the small of her back. "I'm here," he said lowly. He dropped his head to the crook of her shoulder and breathed against her neck, "I'm here." Then he kissed her, devoured her, was consumed by her.
Skye grasped at him, hands pressed into his shoulders, his back, his chest.
They rolled, a blur of skin and her long, dark hair. Their hands quested blindly to discard the last of their clothes. To make their spirits one. To split the heavens with unleashed lightning.
A shrill sound made Dean start and the dream vanished, replaced by a dark motel room in a town Dean couldn't remember.
He blinked a moment, disoriented and flushed with arousal. He could not fathom for a second why Skye was not wrapped around him, pressed tightly to his body. The cold of his empty bed was bone-chilling and he didn't understand.
Then it rushed back at him in a second.
It had only been a dream, then. Or nearly a memory. But in either case, it was gone. Skye was gone.
And that noise again that had stolen her ghost from him, screaming in the night. His phone.
Dean groaned grumpily and untangled himself from his sheets. Sam was still in his bed, sleeping hard and not even shifting at the sound of the phone.
Dean passed the room's mirror on his way to find the screaming phone. He caught a glimpse of his reflection. Of a sweaty brow, golden eyes, and unruly hair. Skye's memory was still achingly fresh, so real it seemed her touch still lingered on his skin.
Dean didn't know if he liked the dreams of her or not. They were so vivid, like she was really there, but waking to find her gone made that pain sharp and new again each time.
He remembered the days right after the Stanford fire, how Sam had started awake gasping Jessica's name. He imagined this was one agony his little brother would understand all too well.
Dean found his phone and cold dread swept through him when he recognized his father's number.
"No," he whispered miserably to himself. He knew. Somehow, he knew what his father would say.
Dean opened his phone anyway and brought it to his ear. "Yeah."
"Dean… hey, son. I know it's late, but I couldn't wait to tell you. I've found it."
Dean closed his eyes as the sound of his father's voice seemed like a vice around his chest, squeezing tighter with every passing second. "Really?"
John sounded triumphant. "Yeah… you wouldn't believe how many people I had to talk to, or the kind of 'people' I had to talk to for that matter, but it paid off. There's a way to get it out of you, Dean. It's pretty complex - and it's going to hurt, I won't lie to you - but this is it."
Dean's heart was in his throat. No. No, no, no, no. "I… don't know what to say."
"I know… I'd almost lost hope, too. But I told you I would take care of it, son."
It felt like a death sentence, and Dean bowed his head for the axe to strike off his head.
The silence of the room seemed to scream at him. Deafening and dangerous. Time was to be feared now. Every second a countdown to death. Death for the wolf, but in so many ways it felt like a death for him, too.
"Dean?"
Dean swallowed. "Yeah?"
"Where are you boys now? I'm in California. I'd like us to meet up and get this done."
Dean froze for a moment. "Well… Sam and I are… kind of in the middle of something." They weren't, but Dean had panicked at the idea of setting a date. The idea of actually going forward with the execution of the wolf, of hitting the road as early as tomorrow morning and driving toward it, put his stomach in a cold knot.
"Dean… you know how important I think the hunt is, but sometimes there are things that come before everything else."
Dean's free hand was clamped in a desperately tight grip on the back of the chair at the motel room table. "Yeah… but… Sam's asleep right now, and… I'll get back to you on that, okay?"
There was a pause that radiated disapproval. "Dean…"
"Later, Dad." Never. But he couldn't put it off forever. He just wanted a few more days… he needed more time before he was cleaved in two.
John sighed. "All right. I guess I have to admire your tenacity for never giving up on a hunt. I can't really fault you for being true to how I raised you. You make me proud, Dean."
'You wouldn't say that if you knew how much you're killing me,' Dean thought miserably. "Chick flick, Dad," Dean grunted.
John chuckled. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go get some sleep, and talk to Sam in the morning."
"This job might take a few days to finish," Dean interjected.
John didn't like that, either, but he accepted it. "Okay. You've been stuck with it three years; I guess a few more days won't make much difference."
A few more days would make all the difference. A few more days was all Dean needed right then. He couldn't do this without a few more days feeling whole.
"Good night, Dad," Dean breathed hollowly.
"Good night, Dean." Then the line went dead.
Dean dropped the phone numbly and backed up until the back of his legs hit the mattress. He dropped down heavily and stared, unblinking, into the darkness. He felt raw and empty.
John could be delayed only so long. Within a matter of days, his wolf would die.
Dean didn't want to think about the person that would be left behind.
Defeated, back bowed and arms limp in his lap, Dean dropped his chin to his chest. The darkness swallowed him. The only sounds were the faint whispers of traffic outside and Sam's deep breathing of sleep.
He thought he should probably move, should probably at least get back in bed, but he couldn't make his muscles obey. The night dragged on and Dean sat, unmoving, trying to come to grips with knowing he would lose the very thing that had given him happiness he had never thought he'd be entitled to.
He told himself he shouldn't be surprised. Shouldn't grieve. Winchesters weren't supposed to be happy, anyway. But still, to lose it was so much harder than to never have had it at all.
Wolf and Skye were alike in that respect. And soon, they would both share the honor of being things Dean loved dearly that were torn from him.
A few days hardly seemed enough. Dean would cry for the injustice of it all, but the universe cared little for the grief of a Winchester.
Eighteen