Talisman SN-Part Three 11/30/07 ~complete~

[Ellie]

Banner made by my awesome beta and friend, RoswellOracle. You're the bestest baby!

AN:Hey all! It's been a whole year since I posted the last part of RTG and I'm still not ready to put Handful of Ashes out there but my muse took me hostage after watching some Dean Winchester. Hope you like.

Title:Talisman (Supernatural)
Author:Ellie
Rated:Adult
Disclaimer: I don't own it, if I did Dean would never see the light of day outside my place. Somebody else owns the show and the characters..lucky bastards. I just take them and gently use them.
Summary: Where did Dean get that ring? Here's my take, hope it's not lame.

***
Talisman

All he wanted to do was have a beer in peace, maybe watch a little boob tube and zone out since finding an accommodating woman on a night like this was a dicey thing at best. In his experience only the truly desperate or the desperately employed were out on a stormy night with high winds.

Maybe it had to do with the rain melting their makeup or the wind wrecking their "do". Whatever. Point was he'd rather be just about anywhere as long as it didn’t involve a musty hotel room with game shows blaring on the one channel they were getting on the rabbit eared TV and the corn chips reek of his brother's feet.

It was one thing to ignore the ripeness of your own body; it was the reality of the unending road trip that was his life. Besides a lot of chicks dig that man-musk smell. That could be hot. But it was another thing going when it involved the forced proximity of your killjoy kid brother and his girly "let's reconnect" sessions during the commercials. So not hot.

"So where did you get that ring Dean?" The question had him looking at the wide silver band on his right hand. He never took it off and apparently the boredom of their evening in and nothing on the motel TV had exhausted all other methods of distracting his brother from the quality family time that normal people took care of around the dinner table.

Dean looked up for a stray lightening bolt to strike him down. Nothing fatal but he could really go for a mild electrical injury...ah no, on second though his heart probably couldn't take another of those. But a tree falling into the room would be fine with him...as long as there were no injuries that would prevent him from getting some female attention at the next hopefully storm-free stop.

"Dean?"

*I'm so cold.*

"It's nothing Sammy." He muttered pulled from his memories back to their room with take out and game shows. Same weather outside though...

"Come on Dean it's not really your kind of thing, it's not a family heirloom or a talisman against rabid dust bunnies under the bed but you never take it off. Why're you so attached to it?"

*I want you to have this...*

"Seriously Sammy, it's just a ring. Leave it alone."

"Dean...” The rest of what he was going to say was drowned out by a deafening roll of thunder. It brought back memories of a girl, a hunt and another stormy night five years ago, things he didn't let himself think about too often.

***

It wasn't the first time his dad had sent him out alone, but there was a whole lot more distance between them this time than ever before. There'd be no source of backup on this job, he was really flying solo now.

With Sam at university the Winchesters were stretched to the max trying to keep the supernatural bad guys thinned out. He thought necessity had more to do with this lone wolf assignment than a higher level of trust from his dad. Whatever the old man's reasoning Dean was determined not to disappoint him.

John was sending him out after a killer who'd already taken out two grown men. They were being taken from jogs, evening's out with the guys or late night drives home and then left on the beach without a mark on them. His dad had noticed a pattern up and down the coast of men going missing every thirty years or so. So when this came up it had rung a few bells and Dean was dispatched to check into the most recent outbreak.

One drowning in a beach town isn't unusual, but three in the space of a week, the last washing up the morning he'd arrived, raised more than a few eyebrows. All the guys were locals, in good shape but had no reason to be in the water. And one was last seen with a "sweet curvy blonde" as the friend of the last victim had said. The place was crawling with local police and there was talk of the Feds showing up the next day.

It took him all day talking to the victims families and a solid hour charming the receptionist at the morgue into drinking enough Mr.Pibbs to make a restroom run so he could get a look at the ME's reports. Finally he'd gotten as much as he could from the reports and felt like a drink to unwind, maybe find some company to shake the sheets with.

He asked the front desk clerk about a bar nearby and the guy was decent enough to point him to one called the Slippery Mermaid. Scored a look at a cute red headed waitress as soon as he walked in but kept his appreciation to a flirty smile and quick look until he'd got a good look at the available distractions to be had. Never hurt to keep your options open and scope out all the exits in case of an emergency.

Waitress, coed, coed..a married woman with her ring off looking for some action...hell no. She might be a lonely divorcee, huge plus on her side. But he'd be better off passing if the white strip of flesh from long wear of a wedding band wasn't a lot more faded than being visible from all the way down the bar. An encounter with an enraged husband was definitely not on the agenda tonight. Nope, give him a soul sucking monster any time.

Then he saw her. Quiet little thing sitting at the end of the bar just taking in the room with her head in her hand. She set herself apart from the other girls in the room by not trying to be sexy though her curves showed up fine in her wispy light blue dress. Her long hair and sweet smile said she was a romantic but her clear gaze and slow stroking of the beveled surfaces of her wine glass said she was a bit of a sensualist. Well he could work with that.

Dean put on his best "I think you're sexy" smile and ambled over to the flavor of the night. Tonight he'll be a writer. He could say he's looking for a little inspiration for a love scene with a beautiful witness for his main character while the guy's on the hunt for a serial killer. The ladies loved the artistic type and he wouldn't be tripped up by lack of technical knowledge.

Like that girl in Oklahoma who caught him out with his lack of knowledge about the racing circuit when he claimed to be a pit mechanic. Freakin' Texas Motor Speedway, who the hell thought there'd be a major race track outside Denton? Good thing she was more interested in his ability to get her engine running rather than being the genuine racing article. Damn he was good.

Back to the lady at hand he opened his mouth to deliver an opening line only to be cut off by the lead character in tonight's bedroom scene.

"I hope you're coming over here to invite me somewhere else." She had a great sexy voice, a little husky like she was a screamer. Please Lord let her be a screamer. Wait a sec…

"Uh, sorry?"

"Well the wine's not that good and I have no interest in a long game of chess to pass the evening. I'd rather we spent the night trying to keep the chill off. Preferably naked in your bed."

Dean blinked at her directness and looked around for the candid camera crew. He wasn’t coyote ugly material but most girls made him work a little harder to get them horizontal. There she was though holding out her hand and steadily at him with solemn grey-green eyes. Well different as this might be he wasn’t the kind of guy to leave a pretty girl out in the cold.

***TBC
I know it's just a teaser..but I'll write the end more quickly if my muse is bribed with cookies..or reviews. See ya soon!

[Ellie]

AN: Okey dokie...so sorry things got away from me and I neglected to post the second part way before now. I just wanted the nookie to be perfect..and then I just had to add more, so here we are weeks after the promised update. I hope you'll forgive me. Oooh, are those cookies?! Sweet.

Wanna thank those who reviewed, real quick. Every little post by you guys makes me squee. I do it real quiet-like though. Wanna be discreet and all that.

RoswellOracle-can't do it without you. Really. Sorry you have to be the one to light the fire under me every time. But thanks all the same. You've still got those matches, right?
alizaleven-Glad you like the way I've written Dean. I hope this next chapter is also worth the wait.
lyra-A compliment from you means a lot. I love the way you write Alec, or any other version of JA. Hope this meets with your approval.
Temptress-Thanks for all the encouragement. Tag! You're it, you get to post a chapter next and then I'll post another one. Deal?

Ok, so with all that out of the way..here's the good stuff. I don't own anyone except Lys, Dean would be a lot more tired if I did. And Sam would be mute.

Part 2**

“ Hi, I’m Dean.” He shook the hand she held out to him and waited for her to return the favor.

“I’m Lys.”

“Now that we’ve got the stranger thing taken care of let’s see about warming you up.” Dean pulled her up and ushered her out the door.

They walked in companionable silence back to his room. He held her cool hand in his own and used it to pull her into the shelter of his arm when a sprinkle from the coming storm made her flinch. It took a few extra seconds to get the door open without letting her go, but the feel of her pressed from head to hips against him was worth it.

Once inside Dean pressed Lys back against the door of his room and nudged her face up for a kiss. Their lips met in a slick duel of need, breaths mingling as his tongue swept into her mouth for a long taste. There was something there, something Other but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

She tasted different from all the other girls before her. There was nothing of mint or bubblegum, no spice or berry either, just salt like the ocean air that chilled them both. It was a comforting reminder of his childhood, warding the doors and windows to keep the bad things out, and it soothed some of the lust that was clouding his mind.

A crack of lightening outside drew his attention away from Lys and offered the answer to the mystery in his arms. She tasted like the storm, all mineral electricity and salt. Their kiss left his lips tingling like a sweet static shock. He licked them to draw the taste of her back into his mouth and allowed her to pull him toward the bed where they removed each others clothes and tasted the skin they revealed to the light that filtered through the blinds.

It took only a few minutes even with their hands tangling trying to undress each other, but it felt like forever to Dean. Judging from the similar desperate gasps from Lys she was thinking the same thing. She stood in the weak amber light coming through the window but still her bare skin held a silvery glow where it wasn’t obscured by thick dark ropes of hair.

Together they reached for each other and tumbled to the bed next to them. Dean shivered at the coolness of her smooth skin and bent his head to kiss her again. Lys whimpered into his mouth at the feel of their legs sliding together as he settled over her in a wash of heat. Her nipples drew tight at the sweet sensation and she dragged them against his chest and pressed her fingers into the dense muscle along his spine trying to draw him inside her.

A sudden shh from outside announced the sudden downpour seconds before the fat drops hit the window of Dean’s room. The rush of noise seemed to put the two of them in a quiet cocoon where only the slide of skin and greedy gasps for breath were heard by the other.

Finally pulling away from her kiss stung lips Dean forced himself to explore the rest of her for more addictive flavors. She moaned her disappointment in his ear as he slid down her body instead of moving inside her.

“I’m cold, come inside me now. I want to be warm.”

He laughed teasingly and nipped her collarbone before continuing his downward journey.

“Trust me, in a minute you’ll forget what cold feels like darlin’.”

His hands hinted at the destination of his mouth as they skirted along ahead and cupped her small breasts in his callused hands and pressed her nipples in firm circles that she echoed with her hips against his. He tugged teasingly at the wide ring she wore on a twisted cord letting it bite softly into the back of her neck before brushing it aside to nuzzle between her soft mounds. Next he nipped his way in quick stinging kisses to one nipple where he sucked the hardened nub into the warm cavern of his mouth and rolled it against his teeth before sucking it deep to ease the ache.

The cool air of the room was a cruel shock to her breast when he abandoned it for its twin treating it to the same torment as his hands coasted south to slide around her waist to her back then continue onward until he had her butt cupped in his warm hands. He used his grasp to grind her damp center into his muscled thigh and rotate her on him.

The wash of slickness against his leg told him she was as ready. He moved both legs between her thighs and nudged them to splay wide. The sight of her so open to him had his cock pulsing with a rush of want so strong his entire skin felt one size too small. A yearning heat rose in him as he slid against her from shoulder to knees and he felt his skin prickle with sweat. The chill of her body meeting his drove him crazy at the contrasting sensations drove him crazy, he felt like something molten rushing to meet the sea only to hiss and boil at the point of contact.

Their eyes met as he rolled his hips into hers and entered the mouth of her vagina. He was held there as tightly as her arms grasped his back and shoulders as he finally shared his warmth with her both inside and out. Her expression was one of exalted bliss and the purity of her features lent her an angelic cast that made him uncomfortable considering his current position. Dean ducked his head into the crook of her neck and enjoyed the scent of the ocean brine in her hair as he drove into her as deep as he could get.

He heard the moans and whimpers Lys made to accompany each slick caress of his body into hers and the musical sounds of her appreciation urged him on. The friction between the two of them increased with every rough slap of his hips. The waves of pleasure rose higher to break at the borders of his consciousness as he found a particular spot that gave her moans a new edge and he screwed his cock against it in hard, ruthless circles.

Lys writhed in his arms and raked his back from nape to small causing Dean to buck out of his piston-like motion and pound against her like the tide on the rocky beach outside. She dug her heels into his buttocks for any purchase she could get and Dean fought against her bid for control while he rode her frantically seeking the same completion she was.

Finally they achieved their climax, cresting a wave of sensation that invigorated them rather than exhaust. It seemed like they only paused to catch their breath before they started the dance again, this time to a different rhythm. Slower and softer, but the end just as wrenching. When that encounter had ended Dean extracted himself from her soft grasp and soothed her murmured protest with a stroke to her hair before he went to the bathroom for some water to ease his parched throat.

Squinting at the bright fluorescent lights he grinned at himself as he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror above the dingy sink where he filled a paper cup with water. He had marks all over him and he ventured a guess his partner didn’t look much different. It wasn’t often he met a girl who could keep up with his sometimes voracious appetite between the sheets but Lys had done that and then some.

Whatever instinct had led him to choose her tonight he was glad of it. At times it was this was the only thing that made him feel alive, it was good to share it with someone who was on the same page and just wanted to enjoy each other without demands or judgment.

With his thirst satisfied he wandered back to the bed where Lys lay quietly, watching his approach as he sauntered back toward her. He could see she was tempted to initiate the next romp but wanted to see what he had planned that brought such a wicked smirk to his face.

Never one to make a lady wait he reached down and touched himself under her watchful eyes. His cock hardened even more in his tight grasp, his hand moving up and down his shaft while she looked on with her hot unblinking eyes not missing a thing.

He’d never spanked the monkey when he had a girl with him but if it was gonna draw the pleasure out like this so his balls ached and his spine tingled then he’d make sure did it with every girl from now on.

After a few good tugs and another knowing smirk he leaned over slowly noting how she held her breath while she waited for his next move. He knelt on one knee on the bed and held himself over her as he dropped teasing kisses on her lips. She tried to rise up to deepen the contact but he backed off and made his way down her body dropping stinging bites and wet kisses trying to ignore her attempts to pull him down to cover her. He stroked along her sides and down her legs as he tormented her by circling around the spots where she wanted extra attention until he got to her mound. Then with a teasing look he pulled away from her greedy fingers and plaintive moan and stood up, sliding her to the foot of the bed with him by his grasp on her ankle.

Once he had her where he wanted her he lifted her hips and allowed her legs to envelop him eagerly as he nudged his penis into her wet pussy. He worked himself into her in small increments and languid rolls of his pelvis, pressing his pubic bone into her clit when he rooted himself to the balls. All the while he looked her right in the eye. The prolonged focus heightened the sensations until he found the hair stand up all over his body and his skin tingled.
Lys moaned at having him fully inside of her gave up trying to bring him down on top of her. Instead she concentrated on increasing her own pleasure by rubbing her breasts and tugging at her nipples. Dean let her know how much he liked the show by tightening his grasp on her buttocks as he held them higher in his hands and ended each thrust with a twist that had her keening every time he knocked her g-spot with the head of his dick.

After that it quickly fell into a contest to see who could make the other moan the loudest. She leaned up tightening herself on him with fierce precision while she raked his chest with her short nails. He grunted and responded with a few deep, hard thrusts that drove the head of his penis past her cervix. She squeezed him with all the muscles in her lower body and reached down to finger herself and by “accident” him as well. He grimaced at the feel of her bearing down on him and gracefully conceded defeat by setting his attention to getting them both where they wanted to be. The game was abandoned for the wet carnal slaps of intercourse and the soft thud of the headboard against the wall. Together they moaned their way to a viciously wrenching climax.

Hours passed by in a blur. Dean took her every way he could think of, front to back and pressed against the headboard where they made enough noise to drown out the storm outside. The serious lack of occupancy was the only thing that kept them from getting an irate call from the night manager as they moaned an accompaniment to the howling wind outside.

Hands grasped slick skin to hold a desperate position as they tried to prolong the agonized pleasure of them each finding a sweet spot. Next she straddled him and undulated them both to ecstasy with her silky hair caressing him, tickling the crease of his thigh and kissing his navel and everywhere in between. It was sensual and maddening and they took the pleasure from each other like it was water to quench the thirst of a dying man.

Until finally it saturated them.

It was almost dawn when Dean realized he was freezing to death. His body wasn’t just refusing to cooperate in rebellion for his sex Olympics. He was actually going into hypothermic shock. Weak and trapped inside his trembling body he finally put the pieces together that had been nagging at him all night.

He looked at Lys with rising comprehension but she was lost in herself, basking in the warmth she’d taken from him. She glowed now with the heat of it and hugged it to her with a sweet little smile on her face. She didn’t notice the accusation in his eyes, something he was surprised to be feeling himself now that he knew what she was.
**TBC

Please review. I wanna know your thoughts and what you think is happening/will happen next.

[Ellie]

Here it is! I appreciate all the pokes Raychel, Randi and Liz you guys are the bestest and most persistent.

I'd like to thank the Academy..ok not really but I would like to give a shout out to those who took a chance read and let me know what they thought. In no particular order..

Temptress-the sky is falling and Hell has frozen over. I have posted yet another chapter ahead of you. You're rocking the very foundations of my world babe, please come back and make it right.
Queen Fee-miss you too. Even if you don't read this I hope you're somewhere working on the next part of your Ros/SN fic.
DMartinez-just the fact you're reading this means a lot to me. When I first was enthralled by your fics I never thought one day you'd be reading one of mine. Awesome.
lyra-same to you sweetie, you write a mean Alec and I love your work. I hope you'll post more soon!
alizaleven-I always worry that I've screwed up your name. Thanks for supporting the fic and leaving your thoughts to encourage me to write the next part.
RoswellOracle-Couldn't, wouldn't have done it without you. You're the best and most patient and I thank you for it.
littlebit-you too babe. Thanks for lending a hand and an ear and never letting me give up.
Raychelxluscious-thanks for all the pokes. I'm content now, though bruised but I appreciate each and every one of them and the interest that prompted them. Hope you'll update Absence soon.

So here goes nothing!

Part Three~
It was silly to feel betrayed by a monster, she’d done what came naturally to them and he knew the score. But still it disappointed him. His instincts normally didn’t let him down like this. His dad would be disappointed too when his body turned up next, grey and bloated. Just like those men before him, fed on by the creatures of the ocean.

He moaned at the cold burn in his extremities and Lys broke out of her reverie and drew a sharp breath at his condition. He tried to fight her as she went to drag him off the bed blankets and all. She merely crooned to him gently and just like that he meekly went along with her urging despite his inner cursing at his susceptibility.

But to his surprise she led him into the bathroom and put him into the tub while she filled it with hot water, careful not to scald him. When she made no move to drown him he grabbed a handful of her long hair so she couldn’t leave him there. He had some questions for the lady and she was gonna satisfy his curiosity.

Lys tenderly brushed a bit of his dark blond hair away from his face and softly sang to him the story about a chance encounter between a fisherman and a sea nymph. Not exactly the lullaby Mom used to sing. Sounded a bit like Andersen’s Little Mermaid, but not as fluffy. Even more sex, blood and black magic to create a new breed of underwater creature that needed to take warmth from a man on land to perpetuate itself.

“How do I know this isn’t how the other guys bought the farm?”

“You don’t. You can either kill me or believe that I was sent here to find the one who’s become addicted to the warmth we find in your arms and killing her suitors. It happens sometimes when one of us surfaces too young. The temptation to be this warm all the time is too great for them and they get greedy. They take more than they need, more than they can hold until they kill the child inside them and they can’t feel the warmth at all anymore. In the end you’ll never really know if it was me or another that took all those lives, you just have to decide whether the risk that you might be wrong is worth the price to be paid.”

Lys took off her ring and held it out to Dean.

“I want you to have this. It’s traditional to give the father of your child something in exchange for the gift he’s given you. My mother said it’s very old, from the first man of our line. There’s some simple magic attached to it but I’ve never known it to do anything for me, maybe it will be more helpful to you.”

Her gaze was steady and unflinching in the face of his silence. Most people felt the need to fill a silence like this, trying to guess the other person’s thoughts so they could get a step ahead. But she just sat there holding out the ring and waiting for him to accept it.

Dean gazed at her for a moment thinking over what she’d told him and then he sighed. It was stranger than fiction and in his experience people stuck to the basics when lying. Which was why he didn’t. The pieces clicked into place in his mind and went on to acknowledge the exception that proves the rule about the supernatural when they weren’t eating people’s..strike that thought. Or when they were trying to suck..he squirmed at his wayward thoughts and gave up trying to rein in ideas involving questionable verbs.

For the first time since puberty he was a little uncomfortable with the way his body was responding in front of a woman. But it felt odd to get a hard on after having one of the basic tenets of his life hunting things that went bump…ah shit! He blew out an exasperated breath at the lack of blood flow to his brain when he needed it most. Dammit one of the few times where thinking with his dick was not gonna help him with a woman and it seemed impossible not to.

Bottom line maybe she wasn’t evil, and he was maybe gonna be a daddy to a little girl he’d never see, who would only remember him in bits and pieces through her mother. And problem solved, he suddenly found his persistent erection subsiding at thoughts of imminent offspring with his eyes or mouth.

Shit. He reached out for the ring she’d patiently held for him throughout his struggles to keep his upstairs brain on track. For such a light thing it sure felt like a pretty hefty weight had settled on him by taking it. Like he was accepting more than just a piece of jewelry. But introspection made him uncomfortable so he pushed the feeling aside to deal with at a better time. Like never.

“Well I guess if you were gonna let me freeze to death you wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of thawing me out. I’ll just have to accept that you couldn’t help yourself when faced with my hot body.”

Lys rolled her eyes but whatever she might have said was interrupted by the sound of a distant scream. Choked off and muffled by the storm but sure sounded human from where Dean was sitting.

Just like that the discussion was over and Lys sprang for the door like her hair was on fire. A moment later he heard the door to his room open and bang shut. He cursed and tried to get his rubbery legs to cooperate as he struggled out of the water and went for his clothes and gun.

Dean soon found that jeans were a bitch to try and get on while you were wet. The delay had him stumbling out the door having forgone a shirt as he tried to guess which way Lys had gone before she was out of his life for good.

Another hoarse scream from down the beach had him running to catch up. His heart pounding hard after the strain of his recent deep chill and the frantic pace he set, gun down at his side in an attempt to save the mother of his child from..a drowning man?

Dean nearly fell at his sudden stop as he tried to make sense of the new development. Lys was fighting with a blonde chick who was trying to hold a man’s head under water.
He didn’t see her at first with only the top of her head breaking the surface of the water next to Lys but as soon as the guy looked like he was in the clear she shot up like a cork from the bottom of the pool to yank at the man’s shoulders from the other side. His arms flailed out as he desperately grabbed hold of whatever he could reach while he fought for air.

“Hey!” Dean tried to get a clear shot at the strange woman but Lys kept getting jerked into the line of fire as she fought to raise the guy’s head above the water so he could breathe. The poor bastard’s struggles were clearly getting weaker the longer he went without air.

“Let him go Nyssa, he can’t give you any more. You’re killing him.”, Lys shouted at her.

Cursing the cold he waded out to do the Baywatch thing and rescue some guy from something worse than a cramp. A lot worse, even if the homicidal blonde was hot. The whole fuckin’ ocean seemed to be trying to make his life difficult today as the freezing cold water leached what little warmth he’d managed to regain away like warm breath fogging the air, the sand sucked at his feet and bogged down the cuffs of his jeans and rocks stabbed at his soles with every step. Aside from the babes in bikinis there wasn’t a damn thing he liked about the beach and since you could get that at the pool he’d just as soon never do this again.

Once he got the guy free and handed him over to Lys to drag ashore he found out just how right he was when Nyssa latched onto his left arm. Dammit her hands felt like she had hellfire burning inside her and just barely contained by her skin, how the hell could the bitch be complaining about the cold?!

“Please help me, I’m freezing. You’ll come keep me warm won’t you?”, it was creepy the way the same words that got him all hot and bothered a few hours before made his skin crawl now.

“Lady, I bet you say that to all the guys but I’m so much more than a heating pad. Besides, anybody ever tell you the interesting parts get smaller in the cold? Not the kind reputation I’m looking to leave behind.”, he lurched to the side as she knocked him off balance and nearly sent him under.

“Fuck!”, he swore when he couldn’t get his gun free as Nyssa pushed his head under. A hand yanked at his and then he heard a loud roar muffled by the water as the grey that reflected the sky above them turned red in ribbons and billows.

“Dean!”, he shook the water out of his ears as he came back up to confront what was left of the blonde siren’s face. Backing up as fast as he could in the shifting sand he tried not to fall on his ass. He didn’t want another dunking when the shallows were now contaminated with bits of brain and skull. He’d never be able to take a bath again.

Lys grabbed him under the elbow and steadied him ‘til he could get his footing and turn back to the beech where they worked on performing CPR for the guy who barely survived his night with a mermaid from hell. Doing chest compressions while Lys gave him mouth to mouth at least got him warmed up as much as he could be with his jeans soaking wet and sitting shirtless on a beech while the sun came up. Freakin’ ocean breezes were killing him.

“Think he’ll be ok?” she finally asked when it was no longer necessary to do his breathing for him and Dean had gotten the stranger whom he mentally dubbed Bob ‘cause the poor bastard had barely been able to do that in the water back to his room and into a warm tub. He decided not to share that with the class, sure it sounded funny in his head and all but he felt sure neither Lys nor Bob if he was conscious would be too appreciative of his wit.

Lys set his gun on the counter next to him and went to stand on the other side of him. He put it back in his waistband, it wasn’t much but sometimes all you had was the illusion of safety ‘cause when the chips were down you did your best and hoped your time wasn’t up. Giving up was a luxury that only normal people could afford.

“Hard to say for sure. He’ll have a helluva story to tell if he does make it. Not every day a woman takes you to bed and does her level best to suck the life outta you. You only get that lucky once.”, he smirked at her.

“Is that what he is, lucky?”, her eyes searched his.

He let the smirk fade and said, “He’s still here, probably better than he expected when he found out he’d spent the night with a monster.”

Her lips quirked for a fraction of a second in what might have been a smile if this was the time and place for that kind of thing.

“Now what?”

* * * *

Damn he hated that question. Always had, and hearing it from Sammy just about ever freakin’ day for the past three years didn’t make it any easier to figure out the next step. It was one thing to worry about the future when you had one in the first place, when there was a question on how it was gonna play and the outcome mattered to you.

Guess that’s why Sam still wondered and he had no answer for him. He didn’t have a future, not the kind that had room for the kind of life he’d wanted for himself

After helping Lys save that man’s life he wasn’t about to shoot her in the head, monster or not. The one time he made an exception and he wondered if it had to do only with her actions or with the baby she said would remember him. Growing up a hunter living the “normal apple life” wasn’t something he was cut out for and most women wouldn’t be able to meet him half way so that one chance she talked about, the one daughter he might have out there was it. His shot at the immortality of the flesh that most men took for granted.

Not that he considered himself a real father anyway. Dads taught you to drive and use your own judgment to make decisions you could live with. Dads were there to teach you to protect yourself from the things that were out there in the dark. They held your hand when you crossed the street and showed you by example how to be an adult. He wouldn’t be doing any of those things for this kid. The only connection he had to her was the ring her mother had given him.

Either way he refused to regret it. And he sure as hell wasn’t gonna rehash the whole thing and put his choices under the microscope of his brother’s intuitive questioning. Didn’t want to have to face the what-ifs he’d already asked himself years ago. Sam might understand, but he didn’t want to take the chance. Part of why he kept this to himself all these years. He did what he thought was right at the time, and he never heard of another drowning along the coast that fit the description that brought him out there hunting sirens so he guessed he’d made the right call.

“Dean you fall asleep over there or what?”

He looked over at Sam whose mouth was pinched in impatience. “Tell you what Sam, I won’t act like this trip downstairs is a done deal if you’ll leave the past where it belongs. Now pick a movie and shut up or I’m writing “Emo” on your forehead tonight after you fall asleep.” Dean quirked his eyebrows at Sam with a “take it or leave it” expression and let his brother pick while he mentally located the Sharpie he was pretty sure had slid under the seat in the Impala. Either way he sure as hell wasn’t spending his night talking.

His brother looked like he was gonna argue then sighed. “Fine, we just missed a Jaws marathon but there’s a Godzilla double feature on next.”

“The original, not the remake?” he asked, inwardly shuddering at the near miss of having to sit through hours of watching people get torn to pieces by that killing machine that looked like a shark.

“Dude, shut up.”

Note to self, deep thoughts around your nosy kid brother got you a face full of musty smelling pillow. He tucked the makeshift missile behind his back and settled down to enjoy the classic and ignored Sam’s squawk of protest.

Life was pretty sweet.

**End

Man I'm exhausted. I wonder if I have cookies?*toddles off to find out*