Knight in Cracked Leather Armor (Part One)
Title: Knight in Cracked Leather Armor
By: Swanseajill
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Dean, Sam. OFC
Pairings: Dean/OFC
Warnings/Spoilers: Set between Hunted and Playthings.
Disclaimer: Don’t own them, making no money from them.
Summary: After days of keeping one eye fixed surreptitiously on the door, Caitlin almost missed the moment the Winchester brothers finally walked through it.
Author's Notes: This is the second in a planned series about Dean’s relationship with an original character, Caitlin Connor. It’s a sequel to Uncharted Waters so some references won’t make sense if you haven’t read the first story.
Massive thanks to my beta iamstealthyone who has patiently nursed me and this story through several traumatic drafts.
Knight in Cracked Leather Armor
By Swanseajill
After days of keeping one eye fixed surreptitiously on the door, Caitlin almost missed the moment the Winchester brothers finally walked through it.
Harvelle’s Roadhouse was host to more than its usual quota of patrons this particular Saturday evening, and Caitlin was busy behind the bar serving demanding customers. Her eyes strayed to the door at that moment only because she noticed several people at a nearby table looking in that direction.
A new arrival had pushed the door wide open and now stood effectively blocking the entrance. He was unusually tall, a giant clad in worn jeans, a striped shirt and a blue denim jacket.
Sam Winchester.
It had been just over two weeks. Two weeks since she had spent twenty-four hours with Sam, sitting vigil at his seriously ill brother’s bedside.
Two weeks since she had come face to face with the potentially fatal cost of being a hunter.
Of course, she’d already known that monsters and the supernatural existed. She had discovered that at eighteen, when her aunt had finally told her the truth about her and Jo’s unorthodox lifestyle. But it wasn’t her life, and it had all seemed a little unreal - until she’d helplessly watched Dean fight a deadly venom coursing through his body, worrying alongside his brother and then rejoicing when he was finally out of danger.
As a result, she felt a connection to these people, these “hunters,” that she had never really experienced before.
Sam paused, unruly brown hair falling into his eyes as they scanned the room, alert and wary. They softened as they lit on her, and his lips quirked into a welcoming smile.
Caitlin smiled back, inordinately glad to see him. She had spent only a short time with Sam, but looking at him now, he felt more like a friend of long standing than a guy she’d just recently met. She chalked this familiarity up to the traumatic experience they’d shared.
It was good to see him smiling. He hadn’t done much of that back at the motel.
Caitlin moved from behind the bar and took several steps toward him, then stopped dead as Sam moved, leaving room for his companion to enter the room.
Dean.
He too paused in the threshold, body tense, eyes sharply scanning the crowd of faces, and she wondered if this shared cautious vigilance was for some specific reason or simply a way of life.
When no one showed more than cursory interest in the newcomers, Dean’s stance relaxed.
It occurred to her, irrelevantly, that this was the first time she’d seen him fully clothed and on his feet. Memories flooded back. Dean, curled up on the bed, jaw clenched, grasping her hand in a bone-crushing grip as he rode out a spasm of intense pain. Dean, lying weak in his brother’s arms, begging Sam to make the pain stop. Dean, out of danger, blushing in embarrassment as he realized he was practically naked under the thin sheet.
Caitlin scanned him, starting at the heavy, scuffed steel-toed boots, and moving up to jeans with a hole in one knee that she knew was from wear and not a fashion statement. His black T-shirt clung to a torso that she’d seen was hard with muscle and scattered with scars, and nestled against it sat the familiar gold amulet that had hung around his neck throughout his whole ordeal. Over the tee, a green shirt hung unbuttoned, the exact shade that would bring out the green in his eyes when he stepped into the light. A weathered brown leather jacket with the look of a much-loved friend topped the outfit.
The whole effect was damned sexy.
And that was so not good.
The instant attraction she’d felt when they’d first met was a natural physical reaction to an attractive guy. Scrap that. A drop-dead gorgeous guy. But that didn’t explain the strong feeling of connection, the “something” she had not allowed herself to feel for a long time. She was drawn to him, and that scared her because the last thing she needed right now was a man to complicate her life. Consequently, every time Dean Winchester’s face had appeared in her daydreams during the past few weeks, she’d ruthlessly pushed it away.
Unfortunately, she had no control over her sleeping dreams.
Caitlin did a quick, discreet mental check of her appearance and grimaced. Hair a disheveled mop of tangles, make-up in severe need of replenishment and a prominent beer stain on her cream T-shirt. Not one of her better days.
She was running a hand quickly through her hair in an attempt to push it into some kind of shape when Dean met her eyes, then quickly looked away.
In stark contrast, Sam covered the ground between them in a few long strides and enveloped her in a warm hug.
“Good to see you, Caitlin.”
“You too, Sam,” she said, smiling as he released her.
Sam turned and looked pointedly at Dean, who stood in the same spot, hands jammed in his pockets, studiously ignoring his brother’s frown.
Close up, she could see that Dean was still pale and drawn, shoulders drooping a little in a posture of fatigue. Concerned, she took a step toward him. “Hey, Dean.”
Once again, his eyes flicked in her direction. He nodded shortly, then looked away, clearly uncomfortable, and literally shuffled his feet.
She tried to sound casual. “How are you feeling? You look-”
“I’m fine.” His tone was curt to the point of rudeness, and she stopped speaking, confused at this unexpected coldness. Then Dean spotted Ash at the far end of the bar, working at his laptop. “Dr. Badass, my man!” This time, there was warmth and a note of relief in his voice.
Ash raised a hand in greeting as Dean took off across the room without another glance in her direction, leaving her standing there feeling a little stupid, a little hurt and vaguely angry.
She felt Sam’s hand on her shoulder.
“In all that stuff I told you about Dean,” he said softly, “did I mention he can be a real jerk sometimes?”
She turned to face him, forcing a smile, angry with herself for letting her feelings show. “I think you forgot to mention that.”
Sam’s eyes flicked to Dean, who was now greeting Ash with a high five and a great deal more enthusiasm than he had shown her.
Sam sighed. “Dean doesn’t do weak too well. And you saw him at what he thinks is his weakest.”
And Dean couldn’t handle it. It made sense. When she’d left the motel, Dean had still been very fragile, asleep more than he was awake and barely able to make the journey to the bathroom even with Sam’s help. He had been cranky and irritable, and it occurred to her now that having her around to witness his so-called weakness was part of the reason.
Typical immature male reaction, worrying about his macho image when he should have been worrying about his health.
“That’s just stupid, Sam. He was dying - actually, he fought death and won. What’s weak about that?” She blushed scarlet. He fought death and won? She sounded like some kind of lovesick poet.
Sam’s lip quirked. “Yeah, I know. But that’s not how Dean sees it.”
“Well, you’re right then. Your brother’s a jerk.”
“He’ll come around.”
Caitlin shrugged in what she hoped was a convincing gesture of nonchalance. “It doesn’t matter to me either way.”
Spotting Ellen returning from the cellar, she waved her over. “Ellen will be really glad to see you guys. She was worried sick about Dean.”
Leaving her aunt to greet Sam and deliberately refusing to look Dean’s direction, Caitlin returned to the bar. She caught sight of herself in the small mirror on the wall and frowned. She needn’t have worried about her appearance - he’d barely looked at her. Still, she’d told herself that seeing him again would dispel the romantic image she’d built up in her mind, and sure enough, despite the effect he’d had on her when he first walked in, looking so handsome and sexy, he’d certainly achieved that goal.
Jerk.
Dean Winchester was no romantic hero with a tragic past. Well, sure, he did have a tragic past, and he probably was a hero, but still… the connection she had felt between them had obviously been a figment of her overactive imagination.
“Hey, sweetheart, you’ve got customers dying of thirst over here!”
She turned toward the group of hunters crowded around the bar and rolled her eyes. “Coming right up.”
Go to Part Two