The Devil You Know - SPN

Chapter Twenty-Three

The One That Begins Very Slow

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Somehow I'd managed to fall asleep in the Impala despite the tension that crackled like electricity in the air. When I awoke I didn't move, parting my eyelids ever so slightly in order to see where we were but not to alert the boys to my consciousness. Dean kept throwing worried glances at me in the rear view mirror and I watched him through my eyelashes; my eyes roaming over his tired features.

We were in a larger town that I didn't recognize, the storefronts rushing by the window that my head was pressed against. A glaringly bright neon sign signaled a motel nearby with vacancies, Dean turned onto the road the sign indicated and in the blink of an eye, we were there.

I slowly stretched, sitting upright and smiling softly at Sam who twisted in his seat when he heard me moving. I slid out of the warm car into the chill of the outside, folding my arms tight against my chest I marched behind Sam who began walking toward the motel door.

I practically leapt onto my mattress when I swung open the door to my motel room, somewhat impressed at the state it was in—although I had stayed in some awful places recently. The springs groaned in protest under my weight but I ignored them sighing heavily and brushing my hair out of my face.

I had planned to go straight to bed but I hadn't eaten since morning and my entire body seemed to rumble in hunger. Reluctantly I pushed myself off the mattress and trudged over to the door—my feet dragging across the dirty carpet. The cold outside air engulfed me as I pushed open the door to my room and huffed, my breath hitching when I noticed Dean and Sam headed toward my room.

Straightening I shouted to them, "Fancy seeing you here," a fake smile turning the corners of my mouth upward.

Dean shook his head whilst Sam chuckled, "We're on our way to the bar—you hungry?" Sam asked, coming to a halt once he was in front of me.

"For what? Bar nuts?" I furrowed my eyebrows; shaking my head, "I think I'll pass."

"C'mon where else are you gonna go?" He replied, the corner of his mouth turning upward as he noticed the small—near imperceptible—nod of my head.

"Fine," I replied, crossing my arms across my chest and stepping out onto the cold footpath.

—

Liquor trickled down my throat, lighting a fire in my belly that warmed me from my core to the tips of my toes.

"Better slow down, Car, or you'll drink the whole bar," Dean jested as he sipped from the beer bottle in his hand.

I nodded at the bottle, "You're one to talk, Winchester."

Sam had long since left leaving in his wake tension in the air thick enough to cut with a knife. Dean leant on his elbows, his eyes as glassy as the beer bottle in his hand. The millions of thoughts flicking through my mind slowed down as my body numbed with the slow burn of the alcohol, their constant tugging at my conscious was so weak I'd almost forgotten it.

The most prominent, the one whose hands were the tightest around my hem was shouting at me—begging, almost—to apologise, profess my love, anything to stop this tension between Dean and I. Being inebriated as I was I listened to it, it was almost as if I were far away listening to the words tumbling out of my wine stained lips but not being able to stop them:

"I'm sorry about what happened the other night."

They almost hung in front of my eyes, the words seeming to scream a million other thoughts but Dean seemed oblivious to them all.

"Me too."

It was almost as if—in that moment—I realized something that would've taken years if it weren't for the way alcohol allowed the doors to the deepest recess of my mind to swing right open at the slightest push.

I hadn't wanted him to say the same.

I'd wanted him to disagree, to tell me he was glad it had happened and that he'd do it again in a heartbeat. But he wasn't and he wouldn't, I forced him to do it all and now my mouth fell open spewing words I wished I could've kept to myself in a drunken blur, the syllables slurring together.

"To be honest—I'm not sorry it happened. I'm sorry that it's so strange between us now. I'm glad it happened actually," I was surprisingly literate for a person as drunk as I was.

Dean's expression faltered, his hard features softening and glassy eyes sharpening—moving to my mortified face.

It was a blur, and he was drunk—I was drunk. It shouldn't have happened, but the next thing I knew I had my tongue down his throat and my hands in his hair and I was pushed against the wood of my closed door, his hands on my ribs and then they were on my hips and then—

Wow.