Home
Title: Home
Fandom: Supernatural/Buffyverse
Characters: Dean, Siobhan
Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke. The Buffyverse is the creation of Joss Whedon. Siobhan and Aimee are my characters and were created specifically for this fic. Do not use them without talking to me first.
Rating: G
Word count: 2733
Prompt: 090 - Home
Claim: Dean Winchester
Archive: Anywhere, just give credit where credit is due
Feedback: Yes, please! Send all comments to purenightshade@gmail.com
Summary: If there’s time for music and laughter, then everything is alright.
Author’s notes:
Well, this is an odd situation, he mused. Hot chick asleep in the other room and she’s still dressed. She has no interest in me, yet I continue to hang out here. Why? Normally, I would have lost interest by now and gone on to something else. He looked towards the hallway. I don’t know why I’m bothering with her. It’s like…like I want to be here. He shook his head. Sam can’t know about this. Not ever. I’ll never live it down.
He leaned his head back on the couch and looked at the ceiling. There has to be more to this than just wanting to bang her, though I can’t deny that’s part of this. All of these Slayers are hot. I’ve seen some of the looks they give me when they think I’m not looking. Well, except Aimee. She’s just…adorable. Cute, really, and besides, she seems to have a thing for Sam. But Siobhan…for some reason that story Aimee told us about her didn’t really get to me. Sure, it’s sad, more so if it’s actually true, but it’s not that big of a deal to me.
The sound of soft footsteps on the hardwood floor of the hallway interrupted his train of thought.
“You should be asleep, Siobhan.”
The girl jumped. “Geez, Dean! Don’t do that!”
“Sorry. What are you doing out of bed?”
“It bugs me when I fall asleep somewhere and get moved to somewhere else. It wakes me up.”
“Now that you know where you are, you should go back to sleep.”
“I’m not really tired.”
“I find that hard to believe given that you passed out on a table and then on my car window.”
“I cat nap very well.”
Something clicked in Dean’s head. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to be the girl my dad called ‘Alley Cat’, would you?”
Her lips twitched in a brief smile. “It took you long enough to figure that out.”
“Why did he call you that?”
“He never talked about any of us, did he?” Seeing Dean’s head shake, she went over and sat down on the couch. “You see, it’s for two reasons. The most obvious being that I’m a cat person and in possession of come obvious catty traits. The second is my last name: O’Malley.”
“You’re going to have to explain that.”
“I take it that you and your brother didn’t watch a lot of Disney movies as children. It’s a reference to a character from ‘The Aristocats’, specifically to the character of Thomas O’Malley, an alley cat.”
Dean chuckled. “I see.”
“It’s a long story, but that’s the gist of it.”
“How well did you know my dad?”
“Well enough,” she replied cautiously.
“Tell me.” As an afterthought, he added, “Please?”
“You really want to know?”
“I want to know how you knew him. He never said anything to either of us about you.”
“He didn’t tell you about a lot of things. I don’t understand or agree with his reasons for a lot of them, but in this case I do, but that’s because he was asked to not say anything. I met him when my Watcher took me on a trip to Los Angeles six years ago.”
“We were in the area tracking down a Masani demon.”
“While he was doing some investigating as to the Masani’s whereabouts, he ran into some friends of mine. They took him to the Hyperion Hotel, where their home base is. I’d been staying there, helping Angel and his team to take down the same demon. The information your dad had helped us and vice versa. To keep ourselves unknown, we figured that it would be best if we just let the three of you do all the work.”
“I remember that being one of our easier jobs.”
“The next time I saw your dad was almost a year later just after Sam had gone off to Stanford.”
“You know a lot about my family.”
“More than I really want to know, really. He couldn’t talk to you about how upset he really was after Sam left, but he needed to talk, so he called me. I wasn’t doing anything, so I came down. He didn’t say much about you, so I’m not sure what you were doing at the time. We pretty much just spent a few days sitting around and talking and a few nights of just hunting whatever came across our paths. He felt better after dusting a few vamps.” A thoughtful look crossed her face. “He really cared about you boys, you know. More than anything. He wanted to find that demon and kill it so that you could have some kind of a normal life. You know, without all your weapons training and the constant wandering.”
“I guess it just got to him first.”
“Pardon?”
“He made a deal with it,” Dean explained quietly. “We were all in the Impala and it got hit by a semi. Sam and dad weren’t too badly hurt, but I wound up in a coma. Things weren’t getting better, so he made a deal. He traded his life for mine.”
Siobhan’s brown eyes widened in surprise. “So that’s how it happened? I’m so sorry.”
He turned away. “It’s ok.”
“No, it’s not. He was a good man, a good hunter. I can’t say he was like a second father to me, but he was kind of like the eccentric uncle you rarely see. The world is a poorer place.”
“I don’t want your sympathy,” he snapped.
“I’m not giving you any. Look, I know that it’s considered manly to bottle things up, but it’s not healthy.”
“Oh, and you’re some kind of expert on this?”
“Most of my old friends are men,” she pointed out. “It’s only because of the fight with Caleb and the First that I have so many female friends. Also, most of my family members are male, so yeah. I’m quite familiar with men and their emotional constipation.”
Dean looked at her. “You ever had someone close to you die like that?”
“Not the same way, but yeah. Lots of potentials died before Willow cast that spell and lots of them died in the fight inside the Hellmouth. One of my best friends killed himself. One of my grandpa’s died when I was fifteen. In high school and college, quite a few of my schoolmates died. Freak accidents, murder, suicide, car accidents, that sort of thing. There are others, but I’d rather not talk about those.”
“Sorry I asked.”
She shrugged. “I’m a Slayer. Death is our gift.”
“That’s an odd thing to say.”
“I’m not in the mood to explain it right now.”
“What are you in the mood for?”
“Not sleep if that’s what you’re getting at. What I want…I can’t have, so there’s no point.”
“Ok, then.” He eyed her carefully. “Hey, there’s some stuff I have to ask you. The problem is, I’m not really sure how to ask any of it. I’m also reasonably sure that you’re not going to want me to ask these questions.”
“So don’t ask,” she suggested.
“I have to know.”
She leaned back and folded her arms. “Fine. If you’ll leave me alone afterwards, you can ask.”
“First of all, why do you think you’re so plain?”
Siobhan rolled her eyes. “Saw that coming.” She got up and walked over to the small shelf beside the balcony door. She grabbed a slim binder off the top shelf and brought it back to the couch. She sat down and flipped to a page and showed it to Dean. “This is the last family portrait we had taken. That’s my mom, dad, two older sisters and two brothers.”
He stared at the image. “I think I see what your problem is. It’s just that you have a different hair color than everyone else.”
“Apparently, I get it from my dad’s side of the family. Colin’s hair used to have a reddish tint, but that was when he was really little. It got dark. Mom says that when I was born with red hair, they figured it would fade out to a medium or dark brown, but no. It stayed red. I used to dye my hair to fit in. I used to get a lot of teasing about it. Bullies at school used to tease me, saying that my mom had an affair or something. The meanest ones said I was probably adopted.” She blushed. “I, uh…spent a lot of time crying back then.”
“I don’t really understand, as we never stayed in one place long enough, but that really bites.”
She closed the book and set it down. “Do you understand now? I’m the plain one.”
“No, you’re not. You’re just different.”
“In my family, that’s the same thing. It’s not really good to be different.”
“Your mom is pretty, so are your sisters, but I really like your hair color. You don’t see a lot of red heads anymore, especially not attractive ones.”
“How many times do I have to tell you-“
“It’s my opinion, Siobhan,” he interrupted her. “You think what you want about your looks, but I have a completely different opinion on it. Deal with it.”
“I could always choose to deal with it by beating the crap out of you.”
“And I could always jab you with this needle here.”
“I’d never forgive you if you did.”
He shrugged. “When this is all over with, it’s unlikely that I’ll ever see you again, so I can live with that.”
She yawned. “If you have anything else to ask, this would be the time.”
He took a deep breath. “Earlier, I went out to dinner with Aimee, Sam, and Andrew. She told us something about you that’s been kind of bugging me.”
“And that would be?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.
“About you and relationships.”
Siobhan recoiled as if he’d struck her. “That’s not possible. She promised!”
“She’s worried about you. She told us because she doesn’t want to sit back and watch you, her best friend, destroy yourself.”
“She has no right!”
“Is your taste in men that bad?” he asked, ignoring her outrage.
She turned away. “Yes.”
“She told us about Jeremy and some guy named-”
“Don’t!” she shouted, turning around and pinning Dean to the couch with both hands. “Don’t you dare say his name!” Tears welled up in her eyes, but whether they were tears of rage or sadness, Dean couldn’t tell.
“I promise.” She let him go and sat up. “You’re really strong.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s kind of a thing with Slayers.”
“Look, Siobhan, it’s not a big deal to me. I know it sounds callous, but your past history with men…it doesn’t change how I feel at all. Well, I do kind of want to hit the last one until he breaks, but I don’t feel any different otherwise. I haven’t known you very long at all, so I have no right to even be talking to you like this.”
“You’re right, you don’t.”
“I’m not like those guys you’ve dated in the past.”
“Really? You don’t know anything about them, so how do you know that you aren’t?”
“I’d never hurt you.”
“Funny. They all said the same thing. All men do.”
“Aimee mentioned that the men you’ve been attracted to in the past were bad boys, though they didn’t look it. She also said that the pictures all showed attractive men.”
“They were, actually. Truthfully, much, much prettier than you.”
“I’d prefer to not be referred to as ‘pretty’ if you don’t mind,” he said, sounding a little hurt. “I work really hard to look this good.”
“You have an over inflated sense of self worth,” she said, rubbing her eyes.
“Someone here has to since you have one that’s way, way too low.”
“My sense of self worth is just fine, thanks.”
“Not from where I’m sitting,” he countered. “I don’t know what Aimee meant by saying that you’re destroying yourself, but I’m sure she had a reason for saying it.”
“I’m not destroying myself. I don’t where that came from.”
“It had to have come form somewhere. I don’t think Aimee’s the type to make that kind of thing up.”
“Unless she’s trying to set me up,” Siobhan explained. “It wouldn’t be the first time that she’s told a guy some story about me that tugs their heart strings just so.”
Dean shook his head. “Did you miss the part where I mentioned that it doesn’t matter to me? I was interested before I found out.”
“She’s playing you.”
“You’re not listening are you?”
“No, you’re the one that isn’t listening.”
“Fuck this,” he growled, lunging forward. He grabbed her face and kissed her. To his immense surprise, she didn’t resist or push him away. He broke it off and looked at her. “I really like you, Siobhan, despite this whole tortured routine you’ve got going. You’re strong and beautiful, but your past is holding you back, keeping you from feeling things. I know I’m hardly one to talk about this stuff, but I at least feel even though I choose not to show a lot of it. You, on the other hand, don’t seem to feel anything.” He bit his lip. “Ok, I lied earlier, your past does mean something to me in that I want to pummel all of those guys that hurt you. I wish dad had told us about you. Maybe things would have been different for you if you’d had friends outside of the Slayers.”
“I do have friends outside of the Slayers.”
“Friends that understand about hunting and stuff,” he corrected himself, stroking her cheeks.
“Admit it, Dean. You’re just wishing that you’d met me back then because you think you might have had a chance.”
“I won’t lie to you on that. It’s a part of it. I can’t deny that I wouldn’t sleep with you if the opportunity presented itself, but since that’s not ever likely to happen, I’d settle for just being your friend.”
She pulled her face out of his hands. “Oh please! Since when do men settle for just being friends in situations like this?”
“Since now,” he insisted. “I can’t seem to figure out why I’m still hanging around you with your clearly expressed disinterest in me. Perhaps it’s just fascination with what you are and what you can do. Perhaps it’s hope. Or perhaps it’s just me wanting to prove to you that not all men are the scum of the Earth, just a large number of them.”
“You’re not really proving your case with that kiss.”
He thought about that. “It was the only way I could think of to get you to pay attention to what I was trying to tell you.” He shrugged. “Man logic.”
“Man logic is a contradiction in terms.”
“You do know that we say the same thing about women, right?”
“Most of my friends are male, remember?”
“Just checking. So anyways, we’re not all bad.”
She sniffed. “You’ll pardon me for not believing any of this. Even the nice ones turn bad eventually.”
“You’re in luck, then. I’m not a nice guy. I’ve never pretended to be. There’s a little more to me than what you see, but this is basically it for me. You know about my past, my background.” He thought about it. “Come to think of it, the only things I know about yours are the composition of your family and some of your history with men.”
“You don’t need to know anything more than that.”
He nodded. “You’re right, I don’t. Don’t really care if I ever do. Anything I pick up by accident is fine by me.”
Siobhan looked at him, clearly puzzled. “You’re either too dumb to understand what I’ve been trying to tell you or too stubborn to care.”
“Little bit of column a, a little bit of column b,” he replied with a wide grin. She just stared. As she stared, more tears leaked from her eyes. “Oh no. I didn’t mean to make you cry.” He gathered her up in his arms.
The floodgates burst. She buried her face into Dean’s shoulder and sobbed. Unsure what else e should do, he just held her, leaning back on the couch. It wasn’t long before she was sound asleep.
Fandom: Supernatural/Buffyverse
Characters: Dean, Siobhan
Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke. The Buffyverse is the creation of Joss Whedon. Siobhan and Aimee are my characters and were created specifically for this fic. Do not use them without talking to me first.
Rating: G
Word count: 2733
Prompt: 090 - Home
Claim: Dean Winchester
Archive: Anywhere, just give credit where credit is due
Feedback: Yes, please! Send all comments to purenightshade@gmail.com
Summary: If there’s time for music and laughter, then everything is alright.
Author’s notes:
Well, this is an odd situation, he mused. Hot chick asleep in the other room and she’s still dressed. She has no interest in me, yet I continue to hang out here. Why? Normally, I would have lost interest by now and gone on to something else. He looked towards the hallway. I don’t know why I’m bothering with her. It’s like…like I want to be here. He shook his head. Sam can’t know about this. Not ever. I’ll never live it down.
He leaned his head back on the couch and looked at the ceiling. There has to be more to this than just wanting to bang her, though I can’t deny that’s part of this. All of these Slayers are hot. I’ve seen some of the looks they give me when they think I’m not looking. Well, except Aimee. She’s just…adorable. Cute, really, and besides, she seems to have a thing for Sam. But Siobhan…for some reason that story Aimee told us about her didn’t really get to me. Sure, it’s sad, more so if it’s actually true, but it’s not that big of a deal to me.
The sound of soft footsteps on the hardwood floor of the hallway interrupted his train of thought.
“You should be asleep, Siobhan.”
The girl jumped. “Geez, Dean! Don’t do that!”
“Sorry. What are you doing out of bed?”
“It bugs me when I fall asleep somewhere and get moved to somewhere else. It wakes me up.”
“Now that you know where you are, you should go back to sleep.”
“I’m not really tired.”
“I find that hard to believe given that you passed out on a table and then on my car window.”
“I cat nap very well.”
Something clicked in Dean’s head. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to be the girl my dad called ‘Alley Cat’, would you?”
Her lips twitched in a brief smile. “It took you long enough to figure that out.”
“Why did he call you that?”
“He never talked about any of us, did he?” Seeing Dean’s head shake, she went over and sat down on the couch. “You see, it’s for two reasons. The most obvious being that I’m a cat person and in possession of come obvious catty traits. The second is my last name: O’Malley.”
“You’re going to have to explain that.”
“I take it that you and your brother didn’t watch a lot of Disney movies as children. It’s a reference to a character from ‘The Aristocats’, specifically to the character of Thomas O’Malley, an alley cat.”
Dean chuckled. “I see.”
“It’s a long story, but that’s the gist of it.”
“How well did you know my dad?”
“Well enough,” she replied cautiously.
“Tell me.” As an afterthought, he added, “Please?”
“You really want to know?”
“I want to know how you knew him. He never said anything to either of us about you.”
“He didn’t tell you about a lot of things. I don’t understand or agree with his reasons for a lot of them, but in this case I do, but that’s because he was asked to not say anything. I met him when my Watcher took me on a trip to Los Angeles six years ago.”
“We were in the area tracking down a Masani demon.”
“While he was doing some investigating as to the Masani’s whereabouts, he ran into some friends of mine. They took him to the Hyperion Hotel, where their home base is. I’d been staying there, helping Angel and his team to take down the same demon. The information your dad had helped us and vice versa. To keep ourselves unknown, we figured that it would be best if we just let the three of you do all the work.”
“I remember that being one of our easier jobs.”
“The next time I saw your dad was almost a year later just after Sam had gone off to Stanford.”
“You know a lot about my family.”
“More than I really want to know, really. He couldn’t talk to you about how upset he really was after Sam left, but he needed to talk, so he called me. I wasn’t doing anything, so I came down. He didn’t say much about you, so I’m not sure what you were doing at the time. We pretty much just spent a few days sitting around and talking and a few nights of just hunting whatever came across our paths. He felt better after dusting a few vamps.” A thoughtful look crossed her face. “He really cared about you boys, you know. More than anything. He wanted to find that demon and kill it so that you could have some kind of a normal life. You know, without all your weapons training and the constant wandering.”
“I guess it just got to him first.”
“Pardon?”
“He made a deal with it,” Dean explained quietly. “We were all in the Impala and it got hit by a semi. Sam and dad weren’t too badly hurt, but I wound up in a coma. Things weren’t getting better, so he made a deal. He traded his life for mine.”
Siobhan’s brown eyes widened in surprise. “So that’s how it happened? I’m so sorry.”
He turned away. “It’s ok.”
“No, it’s not. He was a good man, a good hunter. I can’t say he was like a second father to me, but he was kind of like the eccentric uncle you rarely see. The world is a poorer place.”
“I don’t want your sympathy,” he snapped.
“I’m not giving you any. Look, I know that it’s considered manly to bottle things up, but it’s not healthy.”
“Oh, and you’re some kind of expert on this?”
“Most of my old friends are men,” she pointed out. “It’s only because of the fight with Caleb and the First that I have so many female friends. Also, most of my family members are male, so yeah. I’m quite familiar with men and their emotional constipation.”
Dean looked at her. “You ever had someone close to you die like that?”
“Not the same way, but yeah. Lots of potentials died before Willow cast that spell and lots of them died in the fight inside the Hellmouth. One of my best friends killed himself. One of my grandpa’s died when I was fifteen. In high school and college, quite a few of my schoolmates died. Freak accidents, murder, suicide, car accidents, that sort of thing. There are others, but I’d rather not talk about those.”
“Sorry I asked.”
She shrugged. “I’m a Slayer. Death is our gift.”
“That’s an odd thing to say.”
“I’m not in the mood to explain it right now.”
“What are you in the mood for?”
“Not sleep if that’s what you’re getting at. What I want…I can’t have, so there’s no point.”
“Ok, then.” He eyed her carefully. “Hey, there’s some stuff I have to ask you. The problem is, I’m not really sure how to ask any of it. I’m also reasonably sure that you’re not going to want me to ask these questions.”
“So don’t ask,” she suggested.
“I have to know.”
She leaned back and folded her arms. “Fine. If you’ll leave me alone afterwards, you can ask.”
“First of all, why do you think you’re so plain?”
Siobhan rolled her eyes. “Saw that coming.” She got up and walked over to the small shelf beside the balcony door. She grabbed a slim binder off the top shelf and brought it back to the couch. She sat down and flipped to a page and showed it to Dean. “This is the last family portrait we had taken. That’s my mom, dad, two older sisters and two brothers.”
He stared at the image. “I think I see what your problem is. It’s just that you have a different hair color than everyone else.”
“Apparently, I get it from my dad’s side of the family. Colin’s hair used to have a reddish tint, but that was when he was really little. It got dark. Mom says that when I was born with red hair, they figured it would fade out to a medium or dark brown, but no. It stayed red. I used to dye my hair to fit in. I used to get a lot of teasing about it. Bullies at school used to tease me, saying that my mom had an affair or something. The meanest ones said I was probably adopted.” She blushed. “I, uh…spent a lot of time crying back then.”
“I don’t really understand, as we never stayed in one place long enough, but that really bites.”
She closed the book and set it down. “Do you understand now? I’m the plain one.”
“No, you’re not. You’re just different.”
“In my family, that’s the same thing. It’s not really good to be different.”
“Your mom is pretty, so are your sisters, but I really like your hair color. You don’t see a lot of red heads anymore, especially not attractive ones.”
“How many times do I have to tell you-“
“It’s my opinion, Siobhan,” he interrupted her. “You think what you want about your looks, but I have a completely different opinion on it. Deal with it.”
“I could always choose to deal with it by beating the crap out of you.”
“And I could always jab you with this needle here.”
“I’d never forgive you if you did.”
He shrugged. “When this is all over with, it’s unlikely that I’ll ever see you again, so I can live with that.”
She yawned. “If you have anything else to ask, this would be the time.”
He took a deep breath. “Earlier, I went out to dinner with Aimee, Sam, and Andrew. She told us something about you that’s been kind of bugging me.”
“And that would be?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.
“About you and relationships.”
Siobhan recoiled as if he’d struck her. “That’s not possible. She promised!”
“She’s worried about you. She told us because she doesn’t want to sit back and watch you, her best friend, destroy yourself.”
“She has no right!”
“Is your taste in men that bad?” he asked, ignoring her outrage.
She turned away. “Yes.”
“She told us about Jeremy and some guy named-”
“Don’t!” she shouted, turning around and pinning Dean to the couch with both hands. “Don’t you dare say his name!” Tears welled up in her eyes, but whether they were tears of rage or sadness, Dean couldn’t tell.
“I promise.” She let him go and sat up. “You’re really strong.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s kind of a thing with Slayers.”
“Look, Siobhan, it’s not a big deal to me. I know it sounds callous, but your past history with men…it doesn’t change how I feel at all. Well, I do kind of want to hit the last one until he breaks, but I don’t feel any different otherwise. I haven’t known you very long at all, so I have no right to even be talking to you like this.”
“You’re right, you don’t.”
“I’m not like those guys you’ve dated in the past.”
“Really? You don’t know anything about them, so how do you know that you aren’t?”
“I’d never hurt you.”
“Funny. They all said the same thing. All men do.”
“Aimee mentioned that the men you’ve been attracted to in the past were bad boys, though they didn’t look it. She also said that the pictures all showed attractive men.”
“They were, actually. Truthfully, much, much prettier than you.”
“I’d prefer to not be referred to as ‘pretty’ if you don’t mind,” he said, sounding a little hurt. “I work really hard to look this good.”
“You have an over inflated sense of self worth,” she said, rubbing her eyes.
“Someone here has to since you have one that’s way, way too low.”
“My sense of self worth is just fine, thanks.”
“Not from where I’m sitting,” he countered. “I don’t know what Aimee meant by saying that you’re destroying yourself, but I’m sure she had a reason for saying it.”
“I’m not destroying myself. I don’t where that came from.”
“It had to have come form somewhere. I don’t think Aimee’s the type to make that kind of thing up.”
“Unless she’s trying to set me up,” Siobhan explained. “It wouldn’t be the first time that she’s told a guy some story about me that tugs their heart strings just so.”
Dean shook his head. “Did you miss the part where I mentioned that it doesn’t matter to me? I was interested before I found out.”
“She’s playing you.”
“You’re not listening are you?”
“No, you’re the one that isn’t listening.”
“Fuck this,” he growled, lunging forward. He grabbed her face and kissed her. To his immense surprise, she didn’t resist or push him away. He broke it off and looked at her. “I really like you, Siobhan, despite this whole tortured routine you’ve got going. You’re strong and beautiful, but your past is holding you back, keeping you from feeling things. I know I’m hardly one to talk about this stuff, but I at least feel even though I choose not to show a lot of it. You, on the other hand, don’t seem to feel anything.” He bit his lip. “Ok, I lied earlier, your past does mean something to me in that I want to pummel all of those guys that hurt you. I wish dad had told us about you. Maybe things would have been different for you if you’d had friends outside of the Slayers.”
“I do have friends outside of the Slayers.”
“Friends that understand about hunting and stuff,” he corrected himself, stroking her cheeks.
“Admit it, Dean. You’re just wishing that you’d met me back then because you think you might have had a chance.”
“I won’t lie to you on that. It’s a part of it. I can’t deny that I wouldn’t sleep with you if the opportunity presented itself, but since that’s not ever likely to happen, I’d settle for just being your friend.”
She pulled her face out of his hands. “Oh please! Since when do men settle for just being friends in situations like this?”
“Since now,” he insisted. “I can’t seem to figure out why I’m still hanging around you with your clearly expressed disinterest in me. Perhaps it’s just fascination with what you are and what you can do. Perhaps it’s hope. Or perhaps it’s just me wanting to prove to you that not all men are the scum of the Earth, just a large number of them.”
“You’re not really proving your case with that kiss.”
He thought about that. “It was the only way I could think of to get you to pay attention to what I was trying to tell you.” He shrugged. “Man logic.”
“Man logic is a contradiction in terms.”
“You do know that we say the same thing about women, right?”
“Most of my friends are male, remember?”
“Just checking. So anyways, we’re not all bad.”
She sniffed. “You’ll pardon me for not believing any of this. Even the nice ones turn bad eventually.”
“You’re in luck, then. I’m not a nice guy. I’ve never pretended to be. There’s a little more to me than what you see, but this is basically it for me. You know about my past, my background.” He thought about it. “Come to think of it, the only things I know about yours are the composition of your family and some of your history with men.”
“You don’t need to know anything more than that.”
He nodded. “You’re right, I don’t. Don’t really care if I ever do. Anything I pick up by accident is fine by me.”
Siobhan looked at him, clearly puzzled. “You’re either too dumb to understand what I’ve been trying to tell you or too stubborn to care.”
“Little bit of column a, a little bit of column b,” he replied with a wide grin. She just stared. As she stared, more tears leaked from her eyes. “Oh no. I didn’t mean to make you cry.” He gathered her up in his arms.
The floodgates burst. She buried her face into Dean’s shoulder and sobbed. Unsure what else e should do, he just held her, leaning back on the couch. It wasn’t long before she was sound asleep.