Selfless // Dean Winchester

23. Saying Goodbye

The plan went smoothly. The waiter reacted to silver- they tested it before they stabbed it in the heart, just to be sure they weren't killing some random servant- and died with Dean's knife in its heart. Blake was distressed, as was to be expected, and he went to Y/N for comfort. Dean didn't bother with the envy anymore. He was still trying to process the conversation he and Y/N had while dancing.

Dean hadn't meant to be so open and honest with her. He never expected to tell a girl he was jealous of her and another man, but it just slipped out. He wasn't himself around her. Too sincere, too nice. And he couldn't help it.

But you can't have her, said a voice in his head. You'll be dead this time next year.

They lugged the shifter's body to the Impala. It was parked around the back. They could still hear the sound of music and laughter coming from inside the brightly lit building. After closing the trunk, Dean turned to the others. "We should get going," he announced. "We'll probably leave town tomorrow morning. Unless...there's a reason we should stay." He eyed Y/N. He wanted her to know that if she truly wanted to spend more time with Blake, he was fine with that. It was her choice.

"Yeah, we need to get out of here. Stick around too long and people get suspicious, y'know?" she said to Blake. She was holding her heels; helping carry a dead body in the things would have only bred catastrophe.

"I understand," Blake said. "I actually don't understand at all. You're the first monster hunters I've met." He took a deep breath. "Thank you for everything, Courtney."

"About that," she answered, "my name is actually Y/N."

"Of course it is," muttered Blake, but not in a disdainful way. "Thank you. All of you."

Sam and Dean nodded. Blake turned back to the pavilion but Y/N stopped him. Standing on her tiptoes, she planted a quick kiss on his cheek. "Stay safe, okay?"

"Okay."

Dean knew the look on Blake's face all too well.

____________________________________________________________

"Hey, did we ever find out why the shifter wanted to get him in the first place?" asked Sam when they were nearly back to the motel.

"I never really thought about it," said Y/N from the back seat. She was already pulling pins from her hair. All night she'd felt like they were sticking into her skull.

Of course she was lying. She'd wondered about it many times.

Dean didn't answer his brother. They drove all the way back in silence. Y/N didn't even bother thinking over her conversation with Dean during their dance- she just wanted to get out of that dress, take a nice, hot shower, and jump into bed, where she would likely spend hours thinking over the fact that Dean Winchester, the Dean Winchester, confessed he was jealous. She was going to hold this over his head for the rest of his life.

Which, unfortunately, wouldn't be very long, unless she and Sam got a move on and made contact with the coven of witches.

Their motel rooms were side by side as usual, this time on the second floor of the inn. The stairs were cold beneath Y/N's bare feet as she trudged up. Georgia nights in June were hot and humid, and she could tell her hair was a complete mess.

Sam made it upstairs first and disappeared into the boys' room. Dean hesitated, watching Y/N fumble with her room key. "Need some help?" he asked, leaning against the door jam.

"No, I...got it." The lock finally turned and the door opened so abruptly, she almost fell in. "Gotta hate these things." She gave a forced laugh, hoping he would just go away. She was exhausted, annoyed, and didn't look pretty right then. The worst part was he did. He'd taken off his tie and already undone the top two buttons on his white shirt. His hair was great, as always, and-

Crap, I'm getting distracted.

"Y/N," Dean said in a tone that meant trouble.

"Don't," she pleaded, her voice whinier than she wanted. "Not unless you found a way to get out of your deal. I don't want to discuss it."

He closed his mouth.

"It's just...it's too hard. I can't. I can't start this- us- back up, knowing what's gonna happen. You understand that," she looked earnestly at him, "don't you?"

"Yeah," Dean said ruefully.

She smiled sadly and closed the door. Letting out a long breath, she quickly went to the bathroom and turned on the water to let it heat up. In the middle of the shower- people think of the most random things at that time- she came to a conclusion.

She was wrong.

I thought starting up the thing Dean and I had on the side would cause me to fall for him, but I may be falling anyway. And he's dying. He's dying, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I've been holding onto the hope the witches will have an answer, but I'm sure it's a dead end. Sam knows it too. We just want to feel like we're trying. It's a coping mechanism to distract us from the truth.

Tears rolled down her cheeks. Two months she'd been tagging along with the Winchesters, and during that time, she changed. She started to care. The Y/N from the past, who helped Bela score dishonest deals and didn't feel concern for anyone's life but her own, would have seen that nothing could be done for Dean and would have been long gone, moving on with her life.

So why was she staying?