Coming Home (Standalone/Part I)

[madimpossibledreamer]

This is a great bit more non-fluffy than the previous one in the series, but I guess that's what happens when you add a pinch of Supernatural to a mix.  Also, the boys kind of wanted to date other people for a bit, so this happened.
Does it count as a drabble if it's really short but it's part of a multi-part thing?  I guess you could kind of have a series of drabbles but...it's just a weird situation, okay?  I'm posting it without the rest this time because it kind of feels like it could stand on its own.  It's fairly complicated.
Okay, so, the main thing is, this is a continuation of the Lucky Strike 'verse, but this particular part could also be read as a standalone.  The only obvious part here is the part about being abandoned and the bitterness that this 'verse Dean carries about that, but it's not huge.  So could be read as very vague.  A character study with your favorite 'ship in the background past.  It's multi-talented.

Main Points:
Universe optional, though part two will be written in the Supernatural/Shadowed Suspicions (Buffy/Jojo's Bizarre Adventure fanfic) Crossover AU.
Summary: Dean's heart has always been elsewhere.
Word Count: 540
Notes: Dean being Dean, making out is included.  Unlike previous, very not!fluff (i.e. this part is angsty).
Rating: T

            “What’s she like?” Sophia asks, and she sounds teary eyed.

            That’s never a response Dean’s had before, and he pulls himself away from her shoulder to stare, incredulously, into brown eyes.  She is definitely teary-eyed, and she’s biting her lip like she doesn’t want to completely fall apart.  She’s not into it at all.  “’Scuse me?” he finally manages.

            “The woman you’re always thinking about, when you’re with me?  Is she pretty?  Is she nice?”  To his shock, along with the heartbreak, there’s something else—sympathy?

            “I’m never thinking of anyone else, Sophie.  Just you.”  He tries to lean in and kiss her again, but she pushes him away.

            There’s a first time for everything.  “Please, none of this cutesy nickname stuff.  Not now.  I kept lying to myself, telling myself it was a bad breakup, that you really care about me, that it’d stop, but it never will, will it?”  She wipes at her eyes.  “You love her.  You’ll never stop.  And it’s not fair to me, or her, or even you, to pretend it’ll change.  So, please.  Dean.  Go.”  She grabs her shirt and starts pulling it on, and it’s definitely a dismissal.

            “But…”  He’s hit in the face with his own shirt.

            “No buts, no arguing.  You’re a good man, Dean.  You’re miserable.  Stop telling yourself that you’re not allowed to be happy.  I’ll miss you, but I want you to actually smile and mean it.  And no, you’re not the greatest man to ever walk the earth.  I’ll get over you.”  The way she smiles, she’s going to start laughing in a minute, and that’d just be weird.  Weirder.

            As he grabs his jacket, he’s calmer now.  He’s actually thinking about what she said, and he doesn’t want to admit it’s true, because it’s too scary.  Stability is a thing he doesn’t have, even after being abandoned by his dad.  Even after the rag-tag family he’s formed in this supernatural dump of a town.  To get that close to someone terrifies him, because he’ll just lose them too.

            But holding everyone at arm’s length.  Yeah, that hurts.  A lot.  Maybe it’d been too late to run.  Maybe he’d already let someone in, without even realizing it.

            “It was really that obvious?” he asks finally, because once he leaves he has a decision to make, and he doesn’t want to do that.

            “You’re a man in love,” she answers, smiling through the drying up well of tears, “and not with me.”

            “I was trying to move on.  Guess it didn’t work.”  Not this, nor the half a dozen times he’d tried before, but it hadn’t stopped him from trying again and again and somehow hard-headedly thinking that this time, it’d be different.  This time, it’d work.  “Thanks for everything, Sophia.  I mean it.  Especially for this.”

            She jumps up from the bed to hug him tightly, but, eventually, she lets go.  “You’re welcome.  Thank you.  For trying, I guess.”

            Somehow, he finds it in himself to smile as he opens the door and waves before heading to his precious Impala.  Together, he and Baby have a decision to make, and they have to own up to the consequences no matter what the choice is, in the end.